> Well, Washington is not gonna nuke Iran, so that's a moot question,
> but I would not even count on people pouring into the streets against
> even that, if that happened.
============================
I'm confused. I thought you were on a campaign for the US left to urgently
"switch focus" from Iraq to Iran because you viewed efforts to "save" the
former as hopeless, and were convinced that the US was preparing for
imminent war against the latter. While I wasn't persuaded this was practical
or desirable, your alarm didn't seem completely unreasonable to me because
there has been a lot of open speculation about an attack on Iran's nuclear
facilities involving the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The nuke talk
seems to have subsided lately, but that is probably because it is now seen
as something which is hardening rather than softening Iranian resistance to
European and other efforts to limit its nuclear ambitions.
But it's still too early, IMO, to now jump to the opposite conclusion and declare this option "moot". I've suggested before that it's unlikely the Bush administration or the Iranians really know at this stage how far they will have to go. Wars, labour conflicts, and other confrontations only materialize when crucial differences finally prove to be irreconcilable, and each side is driven to the conclusion that its interests can only be defended in a decisive showdown. I still think, in the end, the US will rely on economic pressure to try and win some concessions from Iran and, even if this proves ineffective, it will settle for containment rather than a very risky attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear capacity. That's what seems to be happening in North Korea. But then again we're accustomed to stability as the normal condition, and no one expected things would so quickly spiral out of control after the archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo.
I can't agree either that people would sit on their hands if there were war with Iran - even in the US. Perhaps if there were terrorist attacks on American or European soil preceding such air strikes, where the public is conditioned to think of them as "retaliatory" (as in the case of Afghanistan), that would be a different story. Short of that, I don't think there is a constituency for war against Iran, especially a war which violates the nuclear taboo. A majority of Americans are already aggrieved by the war in Iraq which they believe has made the world a more dangerous place and America's place in it more uncertain, so I would instead expect to see massive new demonstrations and other forms of protest if there were a major escalation of the Mideast fighting.
In any event, it's important to avoid mood swings in either direction, and to respond to events as they happen. There's not much else we can do since it's been demonstrated repeatedly that our ability to forecast outcomes is very limited..