The united states should declare war on Iran

I'll go NC, then AC Overview Arguments: 1. (As will be evident in my AC) My opponent's case has to do with automatically going to war, and she ignores the wording of the resolution which states "should" 2. She ignores the evaluative term "declare" 1. "War should be the politics of last resort and when we go to war we should have the understanding and support of our people."- Colin powell. That quote shows a big part of my position, the US people would not stand behind another war and that is enough of a reason not to do it. --> Ok this argument can be broken down into the following premises (and then I'll mark down a response): a. Last Resort --> The resolution never specifies when we would declare war, therefore it could be the last resort. b. Popular Support --> This is the logical fallacy known as an ad populum fallacy. I.e. just because the majority agree or disagree with something does not make it automatically right or wrong. For example, the majority of people in ancient times believed execution by stoning was right, but it obviously is not. Also, the majority of people thought slavery was right. 2. Iran is a militarial nation. They have as of 6 months ago a 350,000 man standing army. They are not a bunch of farmers with pitchforks over there. Iraq had no where near this man power when we invaded. This will not be an easy war and there is no real reason to do it --> I have 4 responses: First, the size of an army does =/= the strength of that military. For example a corp of Marines could easily destroy an ancient Greek army, even if numbers were on the Greek side. Second, Iran does not have the greatest military technology (compared to the US) Third, war is not simply man vs. man. It is bomb blows up men and buildings. Iran would be totally defenseless if the US launched an air-offensive and navy-offensive. Fourth, if you extend my oppponents logic it comes to the conclusion that that Britain should not have fought Naxi Germany because they had a bigger army. 3. We don't have the troops or the money to fight this war! We wanted to up the number of troops in Iraq from 160,000 to 180,000 and several members of congress proved that just by increaseing the number of soliders by 20,000 we would no longer be able to defend ourselves. Think about how many troops it would take to start another war! I have 3 responses: First, troops are not an issue. Extend my above reasoning. Second, this point is comparing apples to oranges. If the US wanted to go into Iran, they would use a pinch method. I.e. use the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan to pinch in Iran, and come in from both sides. Third, money is not really an issue. [AC] I affirm: The united states should declare war on Iran For analysis of the resolution I offer the following observations: 1. Linguistic Analysis: The word should has 3 impacts: a. It is a possibility not a categorical. b. It implies some type of positive impact. c. It changes the burden of proof from a categorical burden to an "on balance" burden for the affirmative. The negative still needs to disprove on a categorical basis however. 2. Word "declare" simply means to state. It does not mean military action is definite. We are simply debating the declaration of war. Contention I: Nuclear Weapon Proliferation Simply enough, we need to declare war on Iran to stop nuclear weapon proliferation. To do so does not require the advancement of troops. All that is needed is to knock out the generators/plants. To do this, we need air support and navy support and a certain amount of missiles. Both of these could launch medium ranged missiles to destroy the plants. For this reason you can affirm.