Monday, September 27, 2010

Some things that make a war in Iran not seem that silly

I'm not advocating war with Iran. I don't particularly love Iran - I think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a nut. I think the people of Iran seem quite repressed and they don't seem to have any rights. Iran poses a constant threat to Israel, they execute more people than any country other than China, despite being the 17th most populous country, and evidence points to them supplying insurgents in Iraq.

Often times when you hear the possibility of war with Iran raised you'll hear pundits and commentators criticize the thought of getting into a third war. That might be true, but in some ways it's like saying you're eating two slices of bread and you might have some peanut butter when you're having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The reason I say this is, as you'll see from this cute map I found, Iran is right in the middle of Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, Iraq and Afghanistan are less than 900 miles apart, all through Iran. So if you wanted to move troups and supplies between Iraq and Afghanistan, instead of having to go through Pakistan, across the ocean and land, you could go across Iran. In case you're thinking Iran might be a rugged frontier like Afghanistan I'd like to inform you that according to what I learned in college from writing a paper on the train system of Iran in a Persian history class, their infrastructure is quite good, at least in places.

Aside from supply line logistics, there's the issue of where terrorists and insurgents are getting supplied from. Any talk of fighters in Afghanistan, Iraq or Israel will at some point make mention of Iran.

Just to clarify, I'm not advocating war with Iran, or saying I'm in favor of it. I just want to point out that it's less like deciding to fight another country in a far off land and more like consolidating lines and removing sources of unrest in the areas we're already in. Of course, the fact that they are an Islamacists government and their country has oil and they can't seem to stop trying to make nukes doesn't help their case.

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