Military intervention vs. Iran.. justified?

Whilst there is plenty of proof that North Korea do possess nuclear weapons, they haven't been attacked. There was talk of a preemptive strike against North Korea, but to no avail. In the case of Iran, we don't even know for sure whether they're attempting to build nuclear weapons or not. The Obama administration don't even condone Iran enriching uranium. Any country that has a nuclear power programme must enrich uranium for it to generate nuclear power (forget thorium and fusion as they are still far from becoming viable) so how is it fair that Iran shouldn't be allowed to do so? If they do enrich uranium, it's still very difficult to create a nuclear weapon. Seems quite hypocritical of the US.

As others have already mentioned it seems that an ulterior motive is at play, be it maintaining a nuclear monopoly via Israel, securing oil or whatever.

Like you I am against nuclear proliferation, but we aren't dead certain that Iran want to build nuclear weapons. Indeed the US are very unlikely to attack Iran first, but they will unequivocally back Israel should the Israelis mount an attack. What I really disagree with is a preemptive strike without sufficient evidence that the opposition intends to use its nuclear weapons for malicious means. Firstly you need to have proof that the state has nuclear weapons in the first place. Next, how do you know said country will necessarily deploy its weapons? Why should one country have nuclear weapons but the other can't. I'm sure it's in the best interests of either country to not have to ever use its nuclear weapons.

Remember one of the supposed reasons of the Iraqi invasion was that Saddam Hussein was believed to possess nuclear weapons. Turns out he didn't have any. Now we have an Iran that is 'possibly' attempting to enrich uranium. This is made to sound like Iran is attempting to build an atomic weapon, when really the enrichment of Uranium is necessary to generate nuclear power.

I accept that enriched uranium is also needed to build a nuclear weapon seeing as weapons grade plutonium is a byproduct, but how do we know that this is the Iranian motive?

You don't have to attack to be seen as aggressive. I'm sure you would agree that the Soviet Union were aggressive when they never attacked the US during the cold war and vice versa. Surely Mitt Romney's endorsement of a preemptive Israeli attack against Iraq is aggressive?

I doubt its better than Iran's, yet there are massive long-term talks about invading iran, but not Syria. I smell a fish

Interesting theory. Do you have a source for this? It's certainly something I wouldn't rule out, seeing as Iran has one of the world's largest reserves of oil.

You were comparing Iraq and Syria, where does Iran come into that?

Even if you meant Iraq then it still has nothing to do with oil. Iraq showed how difficult an intervention is. Iraq cost trillions of dollars and is not something the west wants to repeat. The US is supporting the FSA so they are attempting to do something in Syria, just not expensively and directly. There is no pattern here. You just want to explain vastly complex events with one overly simplistic theory

My post was to point out that western intervention only occured or is debated when an oil rich country is involved. You implied that we didnt invade syria, because their military is too sophisticated but im pointing out that iran's military is probably much more sophisticated than Syria's, yet there have been regular talks about invading for some time and iran is very oil rich.

Its really not that vastly complex. Its really more simple than you think, wherever theres oil, theres the opportunity to make money. Thats why they invaded iraq. Thats why during the arab spring they invaded libya, but none of the other arab states that had mass demonstrations, thats why theres warmongering towards iran. You'd be naive to genuinely believe oil does not play a major part in this. Its such a key economical resource.

Didn't Iran make public threats of nuclear annihilation?

I don't think any religious or dictatorship state should have any nuclear weapons, including israel and north korea. You have to admit though, israel and north Korea are MUCH smarter than Iran in terms of their secretiveness. No one wanted israel to have nukes, and no one knows how many nukes Israel has or where.

I think bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, if they're found, would be completely justified. They're a dangerous state.

Another point to make:

Libya holds 3% of the world's oil and Iraq much more - The west intervened
Syria has almost no oil - The west did not intervene

I can see a pattern here..

The prospects of nuclear proliferation in the middle east is very far-fetched.

There have been regular talks of invading North Korea and Syria under George Bush. Talk means nothing, countries talk about invading others all the time.

So why did the invasion of Iraq cost the Americans trillions of dollars and why did the US invade Afghanistan? Of course it plays a part. But to say its the key motivator of all Western foreign policy in the Middle East is overly simplistic. Syria is an ally of Iran a key ally of Russia, these factors explain why the West is interested in removing Assad, they are trying to bring about his removal just not by direct force. Yes direct intervention is not going on but plenty of behind the scenes stuff is going on.

Read this post by MxSK and you'll see why.

You're saying that the US will invade Iran? That's not likely to happen. It's undesirable for them, the amount of oil they will get is nothing compared to the trillion dollar+ bill they will get. It's a completely different situation to Iraq. In Iraq, the US where looking for WMDs and wanted to topple Saadam and they had the backing of Iraqis because Saadam was one of the biggest human rights abusers. In Iran, the US are only concerned with the weaponization of it's nuclear program. If they suspect Iran is weaponzing it's program, all they need to do is bomb it. A regime change won't be possible because the majority of Iranians would not support US in it's decision and the US more than anyone know what can happen when a regime happens without the support of the people considering what happened the last time they tried a regime change in Iran.

Plus, it's doubtful we will follow suit considering Cameron has publicly stated he would not back a Israeli strike on Iran.

The talks about invading Syria were not regular lol. NKorea is different because they actually had a genuine reason to invade, whether its valid or not is another issue, but NKorea's threats towards SKorea and their anti-democratic, communist nature made them naturally unpopular within the American administration. Talks about afghanistan, iraq and iran were big and were regularly discussed and assessed. There werent that much talks over libya, we just stepped in. Afghanistan is completely out of context. They invaded because their regime committed the biggest act of terror probably in american history. But we were told Iraq had WMDs. There were none, yet thousands of gallons of oil is being pumped out of Iraq to west. We are being told iran is making a nuke, even though there is no evidence to suggest so. Even when we stepped into Libya we started pumping oil. You are right about syria's allegiance with russia, but then again iran is as close to russia as syria is, yet for the past 7 years there has been massive repeated talks about intervention. Ofc oil is not the only factor, but it certainly is major. We live in a world where there is the weak and the strong. The strong take what they can from the weak. We do not live in the Utopian society many people think we do. Oil is a major resource that almost everything runs on. Its expensive and getting more expensive all the time. It will soon deplete. It only makes sense that the strong take the most they can whilst its still there.

Didn't Iran make public threats of nuclear annihilation?

I don't think any religious or dictatorship state should have any nuclear weapons, including israel and north korea. You have to admit though, israel and north Korea are MUCH smarter than Iran in terms of their secretiveness. No one wanted israel to have nukes, and no one knows how many nukes Israel has or where.

I think bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, if they're found, would be completely justified. They're a dangerous state.

Yes; we have to protect Israel.

Israel is not governmentally religious, and it's not a dictatorship. It's a modern democracy, with a secular constitution. They only have nukes as a deterrent; it's obvious that Iran want them for offensive purposes.

Let Israel worry about Israel.