When the Bush administration first began to beat the war drum, I remember how hard it was for me, a life-long human rights activist, to withhold my support for removing Saddam. His abuse of power, including despicable acts torture and even genocide, made him a desirable target. After all, who could possibly be against removing such an evil person? Even though I didn't buy all the incredibly deceptive arguments made by the Bush Administration about weapons of mass destruction, I thought that I might be able to support the war because of the brutal nature of Saddam's dictatorship.

Of course, after I took a deep breath, stepped back and looked at the bigger pictured, I realized that if we were to justify the invasion by championing the removal of a brutal dictator, then there were worse regimes around the globe that should go first. We only have to look at the bloodbaths in the Congo, Zimbabwe, or even to the southern nations of the former Soviet Union, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. There is no shortage of dictators who rule nations where their people cry out for international help.

With Iraq, the results have been far worse than any of us who originally opposed the war expected. We knew it would kill thousands, destabilize the region, increase terrorism and bog us down in a never ending war. However, we never imagined that it would become the horror it has become in the region, killing scores of Americans and Iraqi civilians and creating dramatic long-term damage to our strategic national interest.

Now, the Bush administration is starting to beat war drum for Iran. We must pause and have a serious national debate on the consequences of any military action against Iran. Once again, we have the specter of nuclear weapons in the hands of an incredibly repressive theocracy led by a mad man, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His rule has become increasingly oppressive, having jailed and tortured dissenters, sentenced homosexuals to death, imprisoned secular women and restricted the activities of students. Ahmadinejad and his government do not generate much sympathy.

There may be a case to be made for intervention by noting the development of nuclear weapons, the repression of Iran's populace and the nation’s destabilizing actions in Iraq. Meanwhile, Bush is escalating the rhetoric almost daily, building the case for war by creating a sense of inevitability. I wouldn't be shocked if I woke up one morning to hear that we had launched a surprise attack.

Nevertheless, I still strongly believe that the greatest nuclear threat lies in Pakistan, which has already demonstrated its nuclear capability and is increasingly unstable. There are still worse dictators than Ahmadinejad, whose shaky regime may eventually fail without much external pressure. It is questionable how much Iranian arms and support is being supplied to the insurgents in Iraq and it appears that just as much of our own weapons were stolen or illegally sold on the black market for use against our troops.

In this week's London Times, reporter Sarah Baxter writes that we are moving towards military confrontation with Iran:

"The Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive air strikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus.”

Before we find ourselves in another impossible situation in Iran like, let’s have a serous national debate about the consequences of such an action.

This debate should not take place behind closed doors, as Congress was duped quicker than we were when contemplating war with Iraq. There are some very serious issues that lead me to be very skeptical, if not outright opposed, to intervention in Iran.

How would military action against Iran affect or expose our 160,000 troops in Iraq? Would intervention further destabilize the region or embolden radical Islamists, particularly in Pakistan? Would our action motivate more peaceful yet disaffected Muslims to join the ranks of radical terrorists, thereby increasing the global terrorist threat?

Right now, it is hard to get our government to do the right thing in Iraq, let alone discuss Iran without the strident nationalistic rhetoric that can only take us to war instead of reasoned thought.