An interview with a respected U.S. Col. Douglas A. MacGregor, that gives an interesting counter-perspective on the downside of invading Iran.



He says that neither President Obama(we already knew that) nor the officers in the Pentagon want an invasion of Iran. That even most of the Senate and Congress do not, but play for the cameras and the contributing lobbyists to their campaigns, who would turn on them if they did not have a pro-Israel aggressive stance toward Iran.
MacGregor predicts domestic attacks on the U.S. if Iran is invaded (and I guess Europe too) such as the mall attack we saw a week ago in Kenya, because they are incapable of doing more than minimal damage to U.S. air and naval forces if we invade Iran. So they would retaliate against "soft targets" that could not resist attack.

And even says that if Iran is attacked, they wouldn't need to bild nukes, in that situation "their allies" (presumably the Russians) would give them nukes.

In the concluding minutes, he also touches on similar issues of invading Syria. That they have one of the strongest and most disciplined militaries in the Middle East, and air defense that would be costly to bring down.

And he envisions, if left alone, Iran will naturally become more peaceful, more pro-Western and less extremist, in accordance with the will of its people, and the islamists will gradually lose power, just as he says the Chinese have become more capitalist and open to the West.




Although... that really doesn't address the thousands of centrifuges spinning all over Iran, generating weapons-grade plutonium.
Or Iranian missiles capable of delivering them.
Or Iran's rhetoric to "wipe Israel off the map" and vow to use nuclear weapons "in the cause of Islam".
Or Iran's test of a nuclear EMP that could black out North America.

As interesting as I found this interview, I'm aware that it is from RT (Russia Today, a 100% state-owned Russian media) that certainly wouldn't air views that undermine Russian interests, or those of their regional allies, Iran and Syria.