I was born in Tehran, Iran: a great city where the majority of my family still lives. I gave four years of my life serving in the United States Marines, to thank the USA for the freedoms and privileges I never would have received in Iran. Obama, the president I voted for and despite my criticisms I still greatly admire, is pledging that we must prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons: a stance that I grudgingly accept. But Iran is a country that has been abused for decades from internal and external forces, and I cannot blame it for acting aggressively to establish itself. From the day I joined the Marines, I always knew this would be a possibility, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling sick about the whole thing.
This is also interesting: “When it comes to the use of force, [the Obama doctrine] seems to boil down to this: Mr. Obama is willing to use unilateral force when America’s direct national interests are threatened — the bin Laden raid is the most vivid example. But when the threat is more diffuse, more a matter of preserving global order, his record shows that he insists on United Nations resolutions and the participation of many allies.”
Natural Causes 
I know what you mean, I feel the same way about Venezuela, I don’t think the US will ever take any military action in either place unless it is imminently the only choice. But still, it is something to think about.
I agree, these are frustrating dilemmas, and I sympathize with your position.
I wonder about a couple of points thought. Why do you “grudgingly accept” that “we must prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.” Iran has been shown again and again by UN weapons inspectors to thus far only to have pursued legal research and development of nuclear technology. As a signatory to the IAEA, Iran is legally permitted to this research and, like Brazil and other countries, to develop peaceful nuclear technology. No one in US intelligence has asserted that Iran is building more than what it is legally entitled to build.
But this is even besides the point. The real point is whether the US is being consistent here when it makes pronouncements on Iran. Iran is worried about its defense, and it is being given every reason to be–there is an ongoing covert war taking place, with Israel and the US acting as belligerents. Surely this is worth denouncing, since wars of aggression are flatly illegal under the Geneva Convention and were starkly denounced at the 1945 Nuremburg Tribunals by, among others, the leading US prosecutor Justice Robert Jackson. But most importantly is how to judge the assertion by US statesmen that Iran must abandon the development of nuclear technology a) because the US says so; and b) because it is contributing to a regional arms race.
But where then is the same declaration extended to Israel, who doesn’t even permit a single inspection of its nuclear facilities, refuses to sign any treaties regarding nuclear technology, has a history of consistent belligerent aggression in the region, has been pointedly harassing Iran in recent months (such as the Israeli participation in Stuxnet, or the alleged Israeli assassination of Iranian civilian nuclear scientists), and has an enormous nuclear arsenal?
So Israel can violate all international treaties, act as a belligerent, harbor nuclear weapons technology and hoard tons of nuclear missiles–while Iran is to be prevented from developing even peaceful uses of the technology? And this, while the US has just this week agreed to hand over a 60 million dollar arms package to Israel? Who is really stoking a regional arms race here?