For the first report of the Middle Eastern Affairs Desk, I present a rather thorny situation: Iran and it's nuclear program, whose intentions are, according to the Iranian government, for the manufacturing of nuclear reactors to produce nuclear energy. According to the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Israel however, the Iranian government is engaged in nuclear weapons research and the refining of uranium into weapons-grade plutonium.
In 1981, the former government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein was also conducting nuclear weapons research at a site called Osiraq (coincidentally, the technical assistance given to the Iraqis came from the French). On June 7th of that year, Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers flew from Etzion Airbase (now Taba International Airport in the Sinai) to Osiraq and, laser-guided bombs, smashed the reactor complex (also coincidentally, one of the pilots on the mission was Ilan Ramon, who would later die in the breakup of the Columbia Space Shuttle). Operation Opera was later repeated in September of 2007 when fighter-bombers of the Israeli Air Force bombed a nuclear reactor complex in Syria during Operation Orchard.
Point of Discussion: Under what conditions, if any, is it justifiable to undertake military action against another country, whether large scale (as in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan) or small (the bombing of the Osiraq reactor)?
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I cannot claim to be knowledgeable on most politcal topics, but as a general rule, I believe that leaders must weigh all options. If a decision to bomb will ultimately save lives, then it is almost immoral not to bomb
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