Round 1. Ihatescifi vs. ConfederacyOfUnity: Occupied Tehran

The topic for this debate is "Within three years maximum, there will be or will have been US troops occupying Iran".

Ihatescifi will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
ConfederacyOfUnity will argue the con position.

Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.

No post will be longer than 800 words and in the case of the closing statement no longer than 500 words.

Credits or references at the bottom do not count towards the word total.

Editing is strictly forbidden. This means any editing, for any reason. Any edited posts will be completely deleted.

Opening and closing statements must not contain any images, and must have no more than 3 references. Excluding both the opening and closing statements, only one image and no more than 5 references can be included for each post.

Responses should be made within 24 hours, if people are late with their replies, they run the risk of forfeiting their reply and possibly the debate.

Judging will be done by a panel of anonymous judges. After each debate is completed it will be locked and the judges will begin making their decision. One of the debate forum moderators will then make a final post announcing the winner.

This debate is now open, good luck to both of you


[edit on 27-3-2006 by Nygdan]

[edit on 27-3-2006 by Nygdan]

Thanks Nygdan Nice choice of topic , good luck to you ConfederacyOfUnity (Although you probably wont need it ). Here goes:


Opening Statement


Preemptive War is, as you most likely already know, when a country attacks another country if it has good reason to believe that it may be attacked by them in the near future.

So my first focus in this will be to show that the USA do or are beginning to believe Iran is a threat to the nations security. This will inevitably leads me to refer to the USA – Iraq war, where the USA believed Iraq to have long range, deployable weapons which, according to them, could be used against the USA and it's citizens.

Then I intend draw focus as to why the USA may believe a preemptive war in Iran is needed by looking at what reason Iran may giving to the USA which are causing so much concern. Reasons such as the apparent need for uranium enrichment despite other sources of energy being both available and offered to them, and their unwillingness to have proper talks with US negotiators about their use of uranium.

My opponent will most likely dismiss some of the nuclear weapons claims as both being wrongs and verging on paranoia. He may also try to justify Iran's enrichment of uranium, a smart way for him to do would be to argue the major costs another war would impose. But then again trying to second guess him all the time will get me nowhere, and I'll see what he has to say first before I begin the main bulk of the argument.

But simply put: The USA has done it before, and they will do it again.

Opening statement:

Bush has no intention of occupying Iran. Rather, the goal is to destroy major weapons-sites, destabilize the regime, and occupy a sliver of land on the Iraqi border that contains 90% of Iran's oil wealth. The bottom line this; the dollar is underwritten by a national debt that now exceeds $8 trillion dollars and trade deficits that surpass $600 billion per year. That means that the greenback is the greatest swindle in the history of mankind. It's utterly worthless. The only thing that keeps the dollar afloat is that oil is traded exclusively in greenbacks rather than some other currency. If Iran is able to smash that monopoly by trading in petro-euros then the world's central banks will dump the greenback overnight, sending markets crashing and the US economy into a downward spiral.

The Bush administration has no intention of allowing that to take place. In fact, as the tax-cuts and the budget deficits indicate, the Bush cabal fully intends to perpetuate the system that trades worthless dollars for valuable commodities, labor, and resources. As long as the oil market is married to the dollar, this system of global indentured servitude will continue, but in no way would we ever be able to finance an army to occupy Iran. Iran will be referred to the UN. Diplomacy is more a key here then ever occupation would be.

My opponent talks about how the US will only invade a thin strip of land. What he does not discuss is what Iran's reaction to this would be. Its rather inconceivable that a country would just sit back and allow another country to take it's oil without lifting a military finger in order to stop them. But lets leave that to one side for the time being.

In 2003 the US attacked Iraq, claiming it had military capabilities that could possibly be used against America and it's citizens, this began a preemptive war. Iraq had made no threats to use these weapons, the sheer fact that it they were reported to have had them was enough for the iron fist of the US military to hammer down upon it. 3 years later and no evidence of these weapons have been discovered. The point I'm trying to hint at here is that the US attacked a country because it believed, based on weak evidence and pure suspicions, that it had weapons.

Now we cut back to 2006, we have a similar picture painting itself. Iran is developing uranium enrichment facilities, uranium being known for its use in nuclear weaponry has began to worry the US. Iran claims these uranium enrichment schemes are in place in order to fuel it's country... But this will not stop the US' suspicions from growing, least of all when Iran refuse to allow UN inspectors into it's facilities.

My opponent writes that the US will simply refer Iran to the UN, but is this really likely? And if so it is very unlikely that Iran will take much notice of any sanctions put in place. They have made it abundantly clear that their plans for uranium enrichment will go ahead whether they are given blessing or not.

This, looking at the reasons behind the US – Iraq war seems to be more than enough evidence to the US to attack on grounds that Iran may be developing nuclear weapons, as they have never had a good history with needing real facts to backup their actions.

To use a quote from another debate here:

“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
Yeah, that’s it.

*looks at watch...

Very Nice. This next response my seem kinda weak..sorry im not feeling to good today(not really in a challenging mood), but here we go.

My challenger states that perhaps that we would have to go to war with Iran. That maybe true, and if we do we would strike stratigic area's and disarm our enemy all at the cost of billions of dollars we dont have. Iran is disabled, we take 70% of their oil, and we never even have to set foot in their capital.

My challenger also uses the idea of the occupation of iraq as in example. See the occupation of Iraq again has cost us billions and billions of dollars that we should be spending here in the US and spent addressing all the rising issues here. New gangs and new terrorists have evolved here on our soil, more money should be spent on homeland security that some back water desert on the other side of the world. Iran will pay the price no matter what they do, yet US cannot occupy that country, we already occupy 2 others.

Next i bring up how Russia(mainly), China(mainly), and the rest of the world would feel if we occupied Iran, they simply would not allow it. Russia may not support some of Irans ideas, but they do have close ties to Iran. They are not gonna sit back and let us occupy their ally. Also China would get nervous with the US getting closer and closer to their boarders each day. The rest of the world imports alot of oil from Iran, they dont want the US to control it for the fact that it give the US alot more power than it should have.

ihatescifi has missed the deadline and forfeits his response. CoU, please prepare and post a response.

Next, the Iranian people do not want us there. It would be mass insurgents all over the place. Our children and future children would be paying for our blood of our mistakes. Iran is a very diffrent culture and unlike some societies, they do not want Western influence in that region. They would resist to the fullest extent and many innocent people would die.

Ihatescifi has missed the deadline and forfeits their response. ConfederacyOfUnity, the floor is yours.

Earlier my challenger had state that i would use the situation about Iran have nukes as a subject. Well yes, i am going to. Iran is enriching uranium to have a nuclear powerplant, not for nuclear weapons. The type of nuclear materials they have aquired is not the same chemicals and elements used to build nuclear weapons. This is also a reason why Iran should not be occupied. America is simply not ready to take on the world yet

Ihatescifi has missed the deadline and forfeits the debate. ConfederacyOfUnity moves to Round 2.