What can be done with Iran?

Question

Most Iranians want a democratic revolution and want nothing to do with the Ayatollah or their wacked President Ahmadinejad. I hope we don't have to go to war with them, but their interest in nuclear power concerns me. If we never installed the puppet for British petroleum the Shah, who used his SAVAK police to opress innocent people, and left the democratically elected Mossadeq alone, Iran would be doing fine. Mossadeq was a Western ally and most Iranians loved the guy and they held American hostages because we installed the evil Shah.

Answer 1

Didn't John McCain sing the song

bomb, bomb, bomb.... bomb bomb iran

Answer 2

Good point. I don't think we can rationally argue that it's okay for us to have nuclear power but they can't. Until they do have a rational government though, I think we should use our satellites to keep tabs on them and if they build even one nuclear bomb, we blow it up along with the factory where it was produced.

This may sound silly, but there's one tool that can be very effective in creating change in the Iran. It was instrumental in bringing down the USSR:

Television!

If Hollywood were to produce a TV series or film set in Iran about Iranian rebels and tell a (fictional) story about the overthrow of their oppressive religious government, it could inspire democratically inclined Iranians to do the same. Would such a program be banned in Tehran? Sure, but that would actually work AGAINST the Ayatollah!

Sadly, I don't think anyone has a clear plan guaranteed to work.

Answer 3

And THAT is what happens when you annoy people, mess around with their lives and try to decide what's good for them. They come back and bite you. If Iran had been left to its own devices it would probably be a powerful friend in the region, with a secular government like Turkey. Oil would probably be quite a bit more expensive, but I think that's a fair price to pay for stability in the region.

However the CIA didn't seem to share in that opinion.

As for what can be done with Iran I really have no idea. There's not enough troops to invade (not that I support an invasion) bombing won't achieve much considering most of the nuclear facilities are WAY underground for precisely that reason. Perhaps getting spies/special agents to infiltrate is the best way, I don't know.

Answer 4

Invade Iran ,either by using allied troops or the opposition Iranian militia.In order to overthrow this anti-God regime its very important that the Iranian people rise against the mullahs when an invasion takes place.Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons under any circumstances,they can really be the ones who would use it.I wish the situation in Iraq improves so that the west can concentrate on throwing out this islamic fanatics who by the way r not IRANIANS BUT DESCENDANTS OF ARAB INVADERS,they should be sent back dead to arabia

Answer 5

Your information is WAY-yyyyyyyyy out of date. Consider:

The European diplomat said that he was skeptical that Iran, given its record, had admitted to everything it was doing, but "to the best of our knowledge the Iranian capability is not at the point where they could successfully run centrifuges" to enrich uranium in quantity. One reason for pursuing diplomacy was, he said, Iran's essential pragmatism. "The regime acts in its best interests," he said. Iran's leaders "take a hard-line approach on the nuclear issue and they want to call the American bluff," believing that "the tougher they are the more likely the West will fold." But, he said, "From what we've seen with Iran, they will appear superconfident until the moment they back off."

...Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of an American bombing campaign. "The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically," the European intelligence official told me. "He will benefit politically from American bombing. You can do it, but the results will be worse." An American attack, he said, would alienate ordinary Iranians, including those who might be sympathetic to the US. "Iran is no longer living in the Stone Age, and the young people there have access to US movies and books, and they love it," he said. "If there was a charm offensive with Iran, the mullahs would be in trouble in the long run." (emphasis added) (- p. 36)

and from Smithsonian magazine, also recent:

It’s increasingly apparent that Iran’s young are tuning out a preachy government for an alternative world of personal Web logs (Persian is the third most commonly used language on the Internet, after English and Chinese), private parties, movies, study, and dreams of emigrating to the West. These disenchanted “children of the revolution” make up the bulk of Iran’s population, 70 percent of which is under 30. Too young to remember the anti-American sentiment of the ’70s, they share little of their parents’ ideology. While young Iranians of an earlier generation once revered Che Guevara and romanticized guerrilla movements, students on today’s college campuses tend to shun politics and embrace practical goals such as getting a job or admission into a foreign graduate school. Some 150,000 Iranian professionals leave the country each year—one of the highest rates of brain drain in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Iranian intellectuals are quietly rediscovering American authors and embracing values familiar to any American civics student—separation of church and state, an independent judiciary and a strong presidency. (From p. 2 of the online version)

See link below.