(Phantom's 99th Percent) Intervention in Iran

C1 – Iranian Threat Firstly, the assassination. I’ll refer back to my previous argument: the argument in favour of the assassination being conducted by Iran is flimsy at best. My opponent has added as a source to his policeman a neoconservative, 20 years out-of-touch counsel. The evidence he gives is hardly compelling: Sadeghnia’s crime’s major similarity to Ababsiar is that Sadeghnia’s crime was not credibly linked to Iran’s government. And this precedence of, at best, one, hardly shows that the highly trained Qud Force is now suddenly useless: the reasoning behind this is terribly faulty precedence and absurd extrapolation. In Contrast, I provided four Iran experts on the subject, but I shall provide one more: Prof. Kahl states “[war]’s a recipe for accelerating Iran's drive for a nuclear deterrent and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of military confrontation”[2]. Regarding foreign countries, I am committing a turn. The fact that other nations are doing nothing to stop Assad’s administration has clear connotations that show Assad may flex his muscles. He is not the focus, Iran is, and so has a lot more leverage. In fact, one may rationally speculate, if war sparks between Syria and Iran – for which they have feasible motive as previously demonstrated – America and other nations are more likely to side with Syria. And regarding Turkey, my opponent still needs to demonstrate nuclear warheads are being created in Iran for this to hold any weight as a riposte. Moreover, the turn by my opponent suffers from this problem: Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons. I agree, if Iran gains nuclear weapons, the other nations will want to follow suit, and have said as much. The major restriction against nuclear weapons, though, as previously demonstrated, is motivated by a desire to remain strong diplomacy. Now, if this coalition wages war, then the desire for diplomacy disintegrates, and in its place nuclear weapon development. However, without nuclear weapons, Iran, by attempting to develop high-grade uranium for weapons, justifies other nation’s invasions, followed by an American invasion. However, they are not doing so, nor should, nor would. And regarding the failure of the Green Movement showing revolt is over: this is simply not true. We know of many protests staged[6]. We know of reviews in government have occurred. The only problem is the disorganisation[7], which is analysts agree is something that is fixed in the long term. Nations being overturned by revolution are rare: they change by gradual effect. My opponent needs to state the social, political and economic barriers stopping this transition, or it is simply an empty argument. Now, my opponent claims I drop AEI’s and Silber’s arguments. The truth is, there is none: it was a plea to an authority for an argument rebutted by a larger number of more valuable experts criticising them. C2 – Terrorism My opponent essentially says ‘We should invade Iran, because they’d give nuclear weapons to Lebanese terrorists’. There are numerous problems with this, the largest of which this is pure speculation! There is no evidence: this is irrational conjecture. Further, as a turn again, Invading Iran means they have no reason not to use nuclear warheads – or give them to others to use in a proxy attack – seeing as they are equally under threat. In fact, if they have nuclear warheads, it would be many times more likely they would simply fire nuclear warheads. My opponent has just contrived a reason. Further, my opponent seems to now be throwing around “concede” as if they were candy: concession happens on clashes, not random statements. Let’s say, for arguments sake, that Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda are close. This doesn’t affect any of the criticisms I brought up, nor is it even of any relevance to the argument. An accurate point would be pointing out my opponent conceded Hezbollah is no threat and the opportunity cost is heavily against war, and conceded that chasing after Hezbollah in the desert would not stop the threat they pose. This, in effect, nullifies the argument. C3 -Scale of War Further, war in Iran simply by firing rockets will not work, as experts agree. Libya was a nation that was in civil war, and long range warfare only barely helped them. Libya’s army (AFLAJ) numbered less than 80,000 and still was a terribly slow war, with ground troops. Iran’s army consists of over half a million active duty soldiers, with another 11 million able to be mobilised [2]. War with Iran would be on the ground, and bloody. C4 – Nuclear threat This argument is a series of disappointments: he drops all threat of Iran as a government, and moves it to claims of Iran as hosting terrorists with nuclear capacities. Now my opponent has to cite some motive for Iran not just developing nuclear weaponry (which requires 90% enriched uranium, which Iran does not have[3]), then make it in a weaponised form (as this cannot be done simply by common terrorists, only specialists) then give the country-destroying weapon away to be smuggled abroad to nations with astounding border protection, and essentially secure utter self-destruction when inevitably linked back to them[3]. Further, Iran gaining nuclear weapons will, again, spark war with all the countries in its borders, as provided by my opponent’s source, creating a turn against his argument. And moreover, the claims that the sanctions aren’t working are completely false: Iran’s uranium is enriched to less than 20%: not a serious threat to anyone. Further, he claims that the West won’t take action because nuclear terrorism negates the resolution. I don’t think my opponent understands: if they negate the resolution, then the situation changes. But that is not the situation. This may be evidence for a war in the future, but not in the present. The fact is, they are members of the treaty, and give no inclination of leaving it soon. Thus, there is no nuclear threat posed. C5 – Economics The oil prices rise with war, not arms races. My opponent is again throwing conjecture unsupported by fact, and thus I cannot refute the justification, but simply claim my opponent is being non-factual. The argument for military action still has massive costs. My opponent can play this down as much as he wants, but facts are facts: Iran in a war is a larger power than Iraq by a large margin. Iran's the 12th most powerful nation on earth[4], three times more powerful than Iraq. Think about this: three times the power of Iraq, with no political instability if the war goes ahead. The cost'd be astronomical. And the regime would surely take action if attacked, as would all rational nations. Iran, with such home power, as well as with the geographic placing of the bases protecting the nuclear test sites[5] means that Iran could very feasibly defend the region. Further, war would strengthen the regime: it would bring truth to the propaganda of the Revolutionary Guard, if war was declared[5]. But this doesn’t stop the fact that American war on Iran in this clash point still isn’t economically viable. C6 – Politics I’d like to start off by stating a definition from the Princeton Dictionary: U.S – “the executive and legislative and judicial branches of the federal government of the United States”. The key section is executive. The executive government in America is ruled by the Democrat Party and Obama. Ruling out Obama from the government is ruling out a third– and probably the most important third – of the government. This is, of course, foolish. If the Republicans take over, then there is a new government. So, should America wage war with Iran? In its current state, with a government whose mandate includes pulling out of wars, no, it should not. Finally, currently the majority of Americans do not support the war with Iran[8]. With this in account, it would be severely undemocratic, and further politically a bad move for the U.S. Government. As such, a war would be a terrible move for the government to make.