Posts
There are many distinct populations at risk in Iran under the present regime of Ahmadinjad and the Mullahs. While 90% of Iran's population are Shia, 8% are Sunni; of the remaining 2%, some 300,000 are of the Bahai faith, some 40,000 are Jews, there are some thousands of Christians, and others. All of these minorities are persecuted, and all of these minority populations have shrunk due to emigration in the face of persecution (the Jewish population numbered more than 100,000 only a few decades ago). As well, within the majority Shia population there are westernized and secularized populations that are not at all secure under the present regime.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps has effectively muzzled up internal efforts at regime change against Ahmadinijad and the Mullahs.
The world probably has no accurate picture of the scale of persecutions in Iran nor of the sufferings endemic there.
What kind of pressures can be employed against the current regime that will create opportunity for internal resistance, minimize persecutions against minorities, protect minority and resistance populations, and terminate Iran's potential nuclear threat?
Under the present regime Iran has steadily built up it's military (especially it's missile and naval capabilities), and it's intelligence services terrify not only Iran itself, but, operate internationally, having a sphere of influence well beyond Iran's borders, notably and obviously in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Iraq.
Therefore the question must be, "Is a well-informed, well-planned, well-coordinated strike against Iranian nuclear facilities both necessary and sufficient in order to bring about change in Iran and in order to de-fang Iran's nuclear threat?"
The world must keep in mind that Israel has none of the luxuries of time, distance, and tolerance that other nations may have. The world must also keep in mind that it's own perceptions of luxuries of time, distance, and tolerance may be dangerously false and even delusional.
Hostage populations make for deterrence against attack on at least two counts: as objects of sympathy and as objects of bait for traps. These populations may also exist on the surface of subterranean enemy facilities, such that attack on those enemy facilities requires attack on sympathetic populations.
There is no simple solution, only a best effort at damage control in the face of inevitable war.
