1) It is not a crime to have a nuclear program. And it's not worth going to war over. And going to war because you think someone might have a capacity at some time in the future to start a nuclear weapons program is an extremely bad and immoral idea. You don't kill people because of what they might do.

2) Cheney, Rumsfeld, Kristol and others most certainly did want war. Post 9-11 the first thing they were trying to do is bend the US outrage towards an attack on Iraq. They created their own intelligence office to feed the President and others what they wanted to hear. Factual. You write as if Iran is blockading US ports or murdering US scientists and I am counseling no response. I have been clear that I believe the only justification for war and any other killing is self-defense. I am not willing to countenance the deaths of between another 100,000 to one million humans just so some neo-colonialists can play tough guy with other people's lives. That is the fundamental difference between me and people of that ilk.

3) Again, I don't think I or for that matter anyone else here wrote that war is never warranted. The quote references the initiation of aggressive war as a crime, which it is. Attacking a country which has not attacked you is criminal. Iran can't even protect its scientists from being murdered or its ships from being hijacked by a bunch of ragtag Somalis and some people are speaking of Iran as if it's the Third Reich. Ridiculous.