By Lee Cole–

There’s a country in the Middle East that is threatening American interests. It begins with an “I,” is primarily Islamic, ruled by a tyrant and there are oceans of oil in the deserts. Sound familiar? It should, but I’m not talking about Iraq, rather its neighbor to the east: Iran.

Recent rhetoric in Israel and in the Republican Presidential race will have many Americans experiencing an intense case of déjà vu. Less than a decade ago, President Bush made the case, along with Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld, that Iraq and Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States. As we now know, these turned out to be lies; Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, Al Qaeda wasn’t there until well after we arrived and Saddam Hussein posed no threat to American citizens. One would think that over 100,000 deaths, including 4,408 deaths of U.S. armed forces, would make us weary about engaging in another Middle Eastern conflict. But statements and actions by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several GOP leaders have increased tensions in recent weeks and made the possibility of another war in the Middle East all the more real.

Netanyahu has communicated a sense of urgency on the Iran issue, saying “none of us can afford to wait much longer,” after comparing the Iran threat to Auschwitz and the Holocaust. Mitt Romney recently boasted that if he were elected, he would “station multiple carriers and warships at Iran’s door.” Republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina suggests that military intervention is the best option as well, saying that we should “sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard; in other words, neuter that regime.” Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, not one to be outdone, has suggested that the U.S. should bomb Iranian nuclear facilities if the Iranians fail to open them to international inspectors.

This kind of rhetoric is worrying, and sounds uncannily like the Iraq war rhetoric we heard a few years ago. As long as Americans and Israelis can be convinced that Iran presents a real danger, the war hawks can get away with pulling the fleece over our eyes once more and invading another country for oil. This is simply unacceptable, and while President Obama has tried to tone down what he’s called “loose talk” about war, if Israel preemptively attacked Iran, we would have no choice but to become involved, possibly along with several other nations. America cannot afford another foreign conflict, either economically or in terms of human life. We’ve asked too much of America’s servicemen and women in the past few years and we’re spread far too thin already.

There are more personal reasons, however, for why we should avoid war with Iran at all costs, reasons that affect college age students. President Obama recently implemented an executive order that, among other things, gives him the power to re-enable the draft at a moment’s notice. With our current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, a war with Iran, especially if the rest of the Middle East and other nations became involved in a WWI-Entangling-Alliances type of situation, would require more manpower than we currently have.

War with Iran is something nobody wants save Netanyahu and a handful of American politicians. The results would be catastrophic for all involved, in terms of loss of life and economically (Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, which would cut us off from 40 percent of the world’s seaborne oil). Unfortunately, many Americans know little to none about the geography of the Middle East, much less the political situation. “They’re all like the same country anyway” is not an appropriate response to what’s going on.

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Photo courtesy mapsnworld.com