Am I the only one that has been watching developments with Iran who has started to think that Iran wants to provoke a war with the United States? Seriously. I can’t understand actually wanting to start a war with the United States, but it really does seem to be the path that Iran has taken.

So, in the spirit of diplomacy and wanting to avoid the bloodshed that would come, I offer a few bits of advice to the citizens of Iran in hopes of avoiding what seems to be nearly inevitable.

1. You may have heard that America’s military forces are stretched thin and that America would be unable to respond to aggression from Iran’s military. Don’t believe it. In discussing the capacity of one country to project power on another, America has no peer. Not even close. Our capacity to project power around the globe within hours is unmatched and the range of options that we have in response is shockingly broad. We can deploy everything from a small group of covert operatives to help destroy a single enemy military installation all the way up to a nuclear strike that would instantly decapitate an enemy nation.
   
   While it is true that our ground forces have been pushed, our capability to send naval and air components around the world seems to be mostly unengaged right now. If Iran strikes, the US won’t be looking at an opportunity to rebuild an enemy nation; the US will be looking at an opportunity to destroy the military, economic, and industrial capacity of an aggressor nation. Iran would fall hard.
2. But Americans don’t want war. In general, Americans do not want to see cruise missiles raining down on Iran, but the constant provocation is getting hard to ignore. The nuclear issue is a big one, of course, but so is the funding of our enemies in Iraq and Israel’s enemies in Lebanon along with increasingly aggressive behavior in the region. Iran’s leadership is doing its best to encourage an American military response--or that leadership is so blindly stupid as to believe that they can act with impunity while America is otherwise occupied.
3. You Have the Ability to Stop the Coming War. If America is drawn into a conflict with Iran, the results will be devastating. For Iranians, that is. It will be no picnic for the rest of the world when gas prices spike, but the damage to Iran will be brutal. The destruction of the economy, the political structure, and the industrial capacity of your country will be complete; recovery will be hard fought and the cost in blood will be terrifying. Don’t let this happen.
   
   The best way for Iranian citizens to stop this coming war is by no way simple or without danger, but it would leave the future of Iran in the hands of Iranians--it would court the support of the international community instead of the bombs of an angry United States.
   
   Iran: rise up and bring down your leaders. Bring down the people who will bring blood and ruin to your cities. Bring down the tyrants who have defined your country’s existence, ensnaring it in bloody plots and the pursuit of evil. This is the path to safety in Iran.

Update: More about Iran.

And Kevin Drum’s take is predictably different. While I have a bad feeling about the next pair of elections (at least in reference to national security issues), the left’s continued inability to face up to the very real threats of the world continues to encourage the belief that they will find a way to destroy their opportunity to play a little catch up. Let’s be honest, it’s what they do.

To clarify: I’m not kidding about not wanting to see bombs falling on Iran. The world will be (as Dorkafork points out in the comments) a much more dangerous place, though, if Iran manages to produce nuclear weapons. Anyone who believes that American security interests in the Middle East will be well served by an aggressive, arrogant Iran has a distinctly different view or our interests than I do. Anyone who fails to understand that a nuclear Iran will be even more open and vicious in destabilizing neighboring Iraq is simply blind.

People like Kevin Drum, though, really don’t seem to think there’s any urgency to the issue.