Phoenix said:
Yes and Iran has been weakened by the Iran-Iraq war. Both are in sad shape militarily. Even after the Gulf War, Iraq could easily still hold its own against the Iranian military - and we'd just finished bombing the crap out of it. Iraq had the largest military in the region at the beginning of both wars.
Buddy. The Iran-Iraq war was nearly 20 years ago and it was a stalemate, despite American help.
After the first Gulf War, Iraq was under sanctions, with its revenues limited and ability to get new weapons.
Iran is no friend of the US and it did do its best to undermine it, but they have no revenue problem. The US could still take on the country with its full might, but as they found out with Iraq, occupying it would be problematic, probably more so considering the size differences.
We've fought militarily with Iran before, we have a tense relationship with them, we actually have evidence that they sponsor/support terrorist organizations (and possibly harbor some), we know the people there are fighting for freedom, etc. etc. etc. Either case could be made given the manor that we built a case against Iraq.
The last time the US militarily engaged Iran was during the hostage crisis that resulted in two downed US helicopters. Failure, in other words. I'm sure they could a better job next time, but it blows your argument out of the water.
The case for Iraq was easier and it was the target they had chosen first. Iran might actually be developing nuclear weapons, but there's not much they can do about it now. Same with North Korea but they already have the weapons hence negotiations is the only option.
Depends on what you mean by occupy. Unless you have a violent overthrow by the people you are 'freeing', then the situation in Iran would likely be the same as that of Iraq.
As if they didn't try that before. How's overthrowing Castro going, BTW? It's a fricking 100 miles from US shores.
You're saying it without saying it. Its not about the oil - its about having a stable friendly government who will keep the region stable. The oil isn't the end - the regime change was. The goal was to repolarize the government of Iraq, not seize the oilfields.
Regime change is the mean, not the goal. With no oil, Iraq becomes a Rwanda. There's no reason to intervene. Regime change doesn't make Iraq stable, it makes it friendly to US presence so that it can police the region and hopefully get those Iraqi oil fields working at full capacity.