should the West invade and/or bomb the fuck out of Iran?

Iran is currently under a serious amount of threat - a lot of it is actually from the US. I'm not pro-nuclear weapons but if the US are allowed them then why the fuck aren't Iran?

IMHO, the next two decades are going to be a time of rapid growth and progression in the middle east, similar to what we've seen in Japan and more recently India. The US cannot go around being surprised by this.

are they under a nuclear threat from the US?

are you serious?

you may be alarmed but a lot of people out there do seem to be asking this question.

So, which countries have nuclear warheads & delivery methods?

..And which countries have ever used one? .. (That's rhetorical.)

and i'll form the head!

fair enough, but can a sense of boredom prevail against the horror of seeing Iran invaded / seeing Iran drop a nuclear bomb on Baku?

In addition to other effects, a nuclear weapon detonated in or above the earth’s atmosphere can create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), a high-density electrical field. An EMP acts like a stroke of lightning but is stronger, faster, and shorter. An EMP can seriously damage electronic devices connected to power sources or antennas. This includes communication systems, computers, electrical appliances, and automobile or aircraft ignition systems. The damage could range from a minor interruption to actual burnout of components. Most electronic equipment within 1,000 miles of a high-altitude nuclear detonation could be affected. Battery-powered radios with short antennas generally would not be affected. Although an EMP is unlikely to harm most people, it could harm those with pacemakers or other implanted electronic devices.

like the infrastructure-crippler list above, it wouldn't kill too many people directly, but it would cripple the hell out of the north america.

to use the words of some americans... "bomb them back to the stone age!"

military equipment is supposed to survive such an attack, but... the last EMP test was in the early 60s.

i'm not saying that's a good case. hardly. does iran even have the missle capability for a high altitude detonation over kansas or thereabouts?
m.

huh?

xpost

it's not boredom just depression.

or china.

it's nice to have beijing owning that nice big stack of american cash and bonds, i guess. way to go, dubya.

The electric field caused by the blast would be strong enough to reverse the flow of current through a transistor, thereby destroying all transistor-based electronic equipment, i.e. computers.

I believe the reason they don't do EMP tests anymore is because the military had vacuum-tube backups of all their computational equipment. Transitors built using vacuum tubes instead of semiconductors are more robust wrt voltage breakdown and would be expected to survive a nuclear attack. But by the 1960's, computers became too complicated -- building vacuum tube backups became impractical and therefore, there was no need to continue with EMP tests.

Now, they probably store important computer equipment in huge metal cages (and/or way underground) to keep out EM radiation.

"probably"

:)

they just base all their computer equipment in Windows so that staff are well drilled on downtime procedures.

Yeah but I'm seriously wondering whether these people really exist!

well, yes. having nuclear capability to shit up your neighbour is not the same as having it with the intention of using it. it's the same as carrying a knife.

that said: as every wee ned up in court for murder knows only too well, "it just got out of hand" isn't much of an excuse when you've just stabbed someone to death.

Not to be too much a of a pedant, but vacuum tubes are not transistors.

OK.

xpost

Yes. It wouldn't matter if the equipment was turned on because the induced current from the explosion would be strong enough to ruin everything.

infrastructural nightmare, looting, etc.

"farm living is the life for me"?? the paranoid truth behind Green Acres.
m.

DDP also reported that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan have been informed in recent weeks of Washington's military plans. The countries, apparently, were told that air strikes were a "possible option," but they were given no specific timeframe for the operations.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,392783,00.html

* * *

Iran's Redefined Strategy

By George Friedman

The Iranians have broken the International Atomic Energy Agency seals on some of their nuclear facilities. They did this very deliberately and publicly to make certain that everyone knew that Tehran was proceeding with its nuclear program. Prior to this, and in parallel, the Iranians began to -- among other things -- systematically bait the Israelis, threatening to wipe them from the face of the earth.

The question, of course, is what exactly the Iranians are up to. They do not yet have nuclear weapons. The Israelis do. The Iranians have now hinted that (a) they plan to build nuclear weapons and have implied, as clearly as possible without saying it, that (b) they plan to use them against Israel. On the surface, these statements appear to be begging for a pre-emptive strike by Israel. There are many things one might hope for, but a surprise visit from the Israeli air force is not usually one of them. Nevertheless, that is exactly what the Iranians seem to be doing, so we need to sort this out.

There are four possibilities:

1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, is insane and wants to be attacked because of a bad childhood.
2. The Iranians are engaged in a complex diplomatic maneuver, and this is part of it.
3. The Iranians think they can get nuclear weapons -- and a deterrent to Israel -- before the Israelis attack.
4. The Iranians, actually and rationally, would welcome an Israeli -- or for that matter, American -- air strike.

Let's begin with the insanity issue, just to get it out of the way. One of the ways to avoid thinking seriously about foreign policy is to dismiss as a nutcase anyone who does not behave as you yourself would. As such, he is unpredictable and, while scary, cannot be controlled. You are therefore relieved of the burden of doing anything about him. In foreign policy, it is sometimes useful to appear to be insane, as it is in poker: The less predictable you are, the more power you have -- and insanity is a great tool of unpredictability. Some leaders cultivate an aura of insanity.

However, people who climb to the leadership of nations containing many millions of people must be highly disciplined, with insight into others and the ability to plan carefully. Lunatics rarely have those characteristics. Certainly, there have been sociopaths -- like Hitler -- but at the same time, he was a very able, insightful, meticulous man. He might have been crazy, but dismissing him because he was crazy -- as many did -- was a massive mistake. Moreover, leaders do not rise alone. They are surrounded by other ambitious people. In the case of Ahmadinejad, he is answerable to others above him (in this case, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), alongside him and below him. He did not get to where he is by being nuts -- and even if we think what he says is insane, it clearly doesn't strike the rest of his audience as insane. Thinking of him as insane is neither helpful nor clarifying.

The Three-Player Game

So what is happening?

First, the Iranians obviously are responding to the Americans. Tehran's position in Iraq is not what the Iranians had hoped it would be. U.S. maneuvers with the Sunnis in Iraq and the behavior of Iraqi Shiite leaders clearly have created a situation in which the outcome will not be the creation of an Iranian satellite state. At best, Iraq will be influenced by Iran or neutral. At worst, it will drift back into opposition to Iran -- which has been Iraq's traditional geopolitical position. This is not satisfactory. Iran's Iraq policy has not failed, but it is not the outcome Tehran dreamt of in 2003.

There is a much larger issue. The United States has managed its position in Iraq -- to the extent that it has been managed -- by manipulating the Sunni-Shiite fault line in the Muslim world. In the same way that Richard Nixon manipulated the Sino-Soviet split, the fundamental fault line in the Communist world, to keep the Soviets contained and off-balance late in the Vietnam War, so the Bush administration has used the primordial fault line in the Islamic world, the Sunni-Shiite split, to manipulate the situation in Iraq.

Washington did this on a broader scale as well. Having enticed Iran with new opportunities -- both for Iran as a nation and as the leading Shiite power in a post-Saddam world -- the administration turned to Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia and enticed them into accommodation with the United States by allowing them to consider the consequences of an ascended Iran under canopy of a relationship with the United States. Washington used that vision of Iran to gain leverage in Saudi Arabia. The United States has been moving back and forth between Sunnis and Shia since the invasion of Afghanistan, when it obtained Iranian support for operations in Afghanistan's Shiite regions. Each side was using the other. The United States, however, attained the strategic goal of any three-player game: It became the swing player between Sunnis and Shia.

This was not what the Iranians had hoped for.

Reclaiming the Banner

There is yet another dimension to this. In 1979, when the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini deposed the Shah of Iran, Iran was the center of revolutionary Islamism. It both stood against the United States and positioned itself as the standard-bearer for radical Islamist youth. It was Iran, through its creation, Hezbollah, that pioneered suicide bombings. It championed the principle of revolutionary Islamism against both collaborationist states like Saudi Arabia and secular revolutionaries like Yasser Arafat. It positioned Shi'ism as the protector of the faith and the hope of the future.

In having to defend against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s, and the resulting containment battle, Iran became ensnared in a range of necessary but compromising relationships. Recall, if you will, that the Iran-Contra affair revealed not only that the United States used Israel to send weapons to Iran, but also that Iran accepted weapons from Israel. Iran did what it had to in order to survive, but the complexity of its operations led to serious compromises. By the late 1990s, Iran had lost any pretense of revolutionary primacy in the Islamic world. It had been flanked by the Sunni Wahhabi movement, al Qaeda.

The Iranians always saw al Qaeda as an outgrowth of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and therefore, through Shiite and Iranian eyes, never trusted it. Iran certainly didn't want al Qaeda to usurp the position of primary challenger to the West. Under any circumstances, it did not want al Qaeda to flourish. It was caught in a challenge. First, it had to reduce al Qaeda's influence, or concede that the Sunnis had taken the banner from Khomeini's revolution. Second, Iran had to reclaim its place. Third, it had to do this without undermining its geopolitical interests.

Tehran spent the time from 2003 through 2005 maximizing what it could from the Iraq situation. It also quietly participated in the reduction of al Qaeda's network and global reach. In doing so, it appeared to much of the Islamic world as clever and capable, but not particularly principled. Tehran's clear willingness to collaborate on some level with the United States in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in the war on al Qaeda made it appear as collaborationist as it had accused the Kuwaitis or Saudis of being in the past. By the end of 2005, Iran had secured its western frontier as well as it could, had achieved what influence it could in Baghdad, had seen al Qaeda weakened. It was time for the next phase. It had to reclaim its position as the leader of the Islamic revolutionary movement for itself and for Shi'ism.

Thus, the selection of the new president was, in retrospect, carefully engineered. After President Mohammed Khatami's term, all moderates were excluded from the electoral process by decree, and the election came down to a struggle between former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- an heir to Khomeini's tradition, but also an heir to the tactical pragmatism of the 1980s and 1990s -- and Ahmadinejad, the clearest descendent of the Khomeini revolution that there was in Iran, and someone who in many ways had avoided the worst taints of compromise.

Ahmadinejad was set loose to reclaim Iran's position in the Muslim world. Since Iran had collaborated with Israel during the 1980s, and since Iranian money in Lebanon had mingled with Israeli money, the first thing he had to do was to reassert Iran's anti-Zionist credentials. He did that by threatening Israel's existence and denying the Holocaust. Whether he believed what he was saying is immaterial. Ahmadinejad used the Holocaust issue to do two things: First, he established himself as intellectually both anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish, taking the far flank among Islamic leaders; and second, he signaled a massive breach with Khatami's approach.

Khatami was focused on splitting the Western world by dividing the Americans from the Europeans. In carrying out this policy, he had to manipulate the Europeans. The Europeans were always open to the claim that the Americans were being rigid and were delighted to serve the role of sophisticated mediator. Khatami used the Europeans' vanity brilliantly, sucking them into endless discussions and turning the Iran situation into a problem the Europeans were having with the United States.

But Tehran paid a price for this in the Muslim world. In drawing close to the Europeans, the Iranians simply appeared to be up to their old game of unprincipled realpolitik with people -- Europeans -- who were no better than the Americans. The Europeans were simply Americans who were weaker. Ahmadinejad could not carry out his strategy of flanking the Wahhabis and still continue the minuet with Europe. So he ended Khatami's game with a bang, with a massive diatribe on the Holocaust and by arguing that if there had been one, the Europeans bore the blame. That froze Germany out of any further dealings with Tehran, and even the French had to back off. Iran's stock in the Islamic world started to rise.

The Nuclear Gambit

The second phase was for Iran to very publicly resume -- or very publicly claim to be resuming -- development of a nuclear weapon. This signaled three things:

1. Iran's policy of accommodation with the West was over.
2. Iran intended to get a nuclear weapon in order to become the only real challenge to Israel and, not incidentally, a regional power that Sunni states would have to deal with.
3. Iran was prepared to take risks that no other Muslim actor was prepared to take. Al Qaeda was a piker.

The fundamental fact is that Ahmadinejad knows that, except in the case of extreme luck, Iran will not be able to get nuclear weapons. First, building a nuclear device is not the same thing as building a nuclear weapon. A nuclear weapon must be sufficiently small, robust and reliable to deliver to a target. A nuclear device has to sit there and go boom. The key technologies here are not the ones that build a device but the ones that turn a device into a weapon -- and then there is the delivery system to worry about: range, reliability, payload, accuracy. Iran has a way to go.

A lot of countries don't want an Iranian bomb. Israel is one. The United States is another. Throw Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and most of the 'Stans into this, and there are not a lot of supporters for an Iranian bomb. However, there are only two countries that can do something about it. The Israelis don't want to get the grief, but they are the ones who cannot avoid action because they are the most vulnerable if Iran should develop a weapon. The United States doesn't want Israel to strike at Iran, as that would massively complicate the U.S. situation in the region, but it doesn't want to carry out the strike itself either.

This, by the way, is a good place to pause and explain to readers who will write in wondering why the United States will tolerate an Israeli nuclear force but not an Iranian one. The answer is simple. Israel will probably not blow up New York. That's why the United States doesn't mind Israel having nukes and does mind Iran having them. Is that fair? This is power politics, not sharing time in preschool. End of digression.

Intra-Islamic Diplomacy

If the Iranians are seen as getting too close to a weapon, either the United States or Israel will take them out, and there is an outside chance that the facilities could not be taken out with a high degree of assurance unless nukes are used. In the past, our view was that the Iranians would move carefully in using the nukes to gain leverage against the United States. That is no longer clear. Their focus now seems to be not on their traditional diplomacy, but on a more radical, intra-Islamic diplomacy. That means that they might welcome a (survivable) attack by Israel or the United States. It would burnish Iran's credentials as the true martyr and fighter of Islam.

Meanwhile, the Iranians appear to be reaching out to the Sunnis on a number of levels. Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of a radical Shiite group in Iraq with ties to Iran, visited Saudi Arabia recently. There are contacts between radical Shia and Sunnis in Lebanon as well. The Iranians appear to be engaged in an attempt to create the kind of coalition in the Muslim world that al Qaeda failed to create. From Tehran's point of view, if they get a deliverable nuclear device, that's great -- but if they are attacked by Israel or the United States, that's not a bad outcome either.

In short, the diplomacy that Iran practiced from the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war until after the U.S. invasion of Iraq appears to be ended. Iran is making a play for ownership of revolutionary Islamism on behalf of itself and the Shia. Thus, Tehran will continue to make provocative moves, while hoping to avoid counterstrikes. On the other hand, if there are counterstrikes, the Iranians will probably be able to live with that as well.

though i am not averse to the idea of bombing the fuck out of ahmadnejad, the security services offices in tehran, and parts of the city of qom.

oh, and hi blount.

by cruise missile? where will they get one from? north korea? how will the north koreans actually get it to iran? by train through china?

by tactical bomber? oh wait, the iranians don't have one, just a fleet of outmoded fighters from the late 70s.

i suppose they could load it into their WWII-era diesel submarine (aka the iranian submarine fleet) and putt-putt their way around cape horn into the mediterranean, then blow up off the coast of haifa or something ... just kidding.

dirty bomb? i suppose, but wouldn't it be cheaper and easier for terrorists to buy warhead material from disaffected chechens or something?

North Korea has longer range missile technology, including ICBMs in development. I don't think North Korea would sell a whole missile, but rather the know-how and complex parts. That could be smuggled by ship.

But the real issue is the destabilizing effect a nuclear Iran would have on the region. Israel would be desperate. Saudi Arabia would feel highly uneasy. Iraq would be further divided. Etc. etc.

http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/Missile/3367_3395.html

It's pretty clear that Iran has the missile technology to hit Israel.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40144000/gif/_40144948_iran_missile2_map203.gif

But saying that doesn't mean you think the country should be invaded. (Anyway, Israel will do it no matter what you think, if someone else doesn't.)

what, not even in a post-holocaust agrarian society peopled by adults with the minds of children?

hum. never heards of that film. seems interesting. too bad it's unavailable (except for those ready to pay 150$ for a vhs !).

Iran can't build the engines themselves, but North Korea is perfectly willing to sell them.

Clearly Iran is at least a few years away from being able to nuke Israel , and it's hard to imagine why they would. But everything I've read indicates that a nuclear Iran with advanced missile technology is just a matter of time, Iran's desire, and continued help from China, Russia, and North Korea.

it is the single bleakest thing i have ever seen. absolutely fucking astonishing.

and continued help from China, Russia

this seems to be key at the moment: the "talks" this week seem to have been very much about putting pressure on those two ... although from what i understand russia isn't exactly enamoured by the latest nuclear developments either.

behavior, it would have no incentive for restraint.

What about a pre-emptive strike of our own, like the Osirak raid? The problem is that Iran's nuclear program is now much more advanced than Iraq's was at the time of the raid. Already the U.S. government has no way of knowing exactly how many sites Iran has, or how many it would be able to destroy, or how much time it would buy in doing so. Worse, it would have no way of predicting the long-term strategic impact of such a strike. A strike might delay by three years Iran's attainment of its goal—but at the cost of further embittering the regime and its people. Iran's intentions when it did get the bomb would be all the more hostile.

Here the United States faces what the military refers to as a "branches and sequels" decision—that is, an assessment of best and second-best outcomes. It would prefer that Iran never obtain nuclear weapons. But if Iran does, America would like Iran to see itself more or less as India does—as a regional power whose nuclear status symbolizes its strength relative to regional rivals, but whose very attainment of this position makes it more committed to defending the status quo. The United States would prefer, of course, that Iran not reach a new level of power with a vendetta against America. One of our panelists thought that a strike would help the United States, simply by buying time. The rest disagreed. Iran would rebuild after a strike, and from that point on it would be much more reluctant to be talked or bargained out of pursuing its goals—and it would have far more reason, once armed, to use nuclear weapons to America's detriment.

Most of our panelists felt that the case against a U.S. strike was all the more powerful against an Israeli strike. With its much smaller air force and much more limited freedom to use airspace, Israel would probably do even less "helpful" damage to Iranian sites. The hostile reaction—against both Israel and the United States—would be potentially more lethal to both Israel and its strongest backer.

A realistic awareness of these constraints will put the next President in an awkward position. In the end, according to our panelists, he should understand that he cannot prudently order an attack on Iran. But his chances of negotiating his way out of the situation will be greater if the Iranians don't know that. He will have to brandish the threat of a possible attack while offering the incentive of economic and diplomatic favors should Iran abandon its plans. "If you say there is no acceptable military option, then you end any possibility that there will be a non-nuclear Iran," David Kay said after the war game. "If the Iranians believe they will not suffer any harm, they will go right ahead." Hammes agreed: "The threat is always an important part of the negotiating process. But you want to fool the enemy, not fool yourself. You can't delude yourself into thinking you can do something you can't." Is it therefore irresponsible to say in public, as our participants did and we do here, that the United States has no military solution to the Iran problem? Hammes said no. Iran could not be sure that an American President, seeing what he considered to be clear provocation, would not strike. "You can never assume that just because a government knows something is unviable, it won't go ahead and do it. The Iraqis knew it was not viable to invade Iran, but they still did it. History shows that countries make very serious mistakes."

So this is how the war game turned out: with a finding that the next American President must, through bluff and patience, change the actions of a government whose motives he does not understand well, and over which his influence is limited. "After all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers," Sam Gardiner said of his exercise. "You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work."

But for the purposes most likely to interest the next American President—that is, as a tool to slow or stop Iran's progress toward nuclear weaponry—the available military options are likely to fail in the long term. A full-scale "regime change" operation has both obvious and hidden risks. The obvious ones are that the United States lacks enough manpower and equipment to take on Iran while still tied down in Iraq, and that domestic and international objections would be enormous. The most important hidden problem, exposed in the war-game discussions, was that a full assault would require such drawn-out preparations that the Iranian government would know months in advance what was coming. Its leaders would have every incentive to strike pre-emptively in their own defense. Unlike Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a threatened Iran would have many ways to harm America and its interests. Apart from cross-border disruptions in Iraq, it might form an outright alliance with al-Qaeda to support major new attacks within the United States. It could work with other oil producers to punish America economically. It could, as Hammes warned, apply the logic of "asymmetric," or "fourth-generation," warfare, in which a superficially weak adversary avoids a direct challenge to U.S. military power and instead strikes the most vulnerable points in American civilian society, as al-Qaeda did on 9/11. If it thought that the U.S. goal was to install a wholly new regime rather than to change the current regime's behavior, it would have no incentive for restraint.

oh great. thanx for the link ! i'm gonna order it right now... (should be good to watch it with some junk food !).

Turkey is kind of an Israeli ally, so they might turn a blind eye to Israeli overflights, though that would mean their reaping the hurricane of Iranian vengeance.

and anyway, is israel that apocalyptic? i would think not.
m.

israel wouldn't have to use nukes.

Clearly Iran is at least a few years away from being able to nuke Israel , and it's hard to imagine why they would. But everything I've read indicates that a nuclear Iran with advanced missile technology is just a matter of time, Iran's desire, and continued help from China, Russia, and North Korea.

They've certainly tested it, but the success of those tests is an entirely different story. There's been six tests, with only half of them attaining any degree of success. Still, I think it gives enough reason for Israel to bomb all the bomb plants and probably a few missle facilities too. I've said many times that I don't see the US doing it (and we certainly won't invade anytime in the next 10-20 years, if ever), but Israel is different.

well... what other routes could they take? Through Turkey or through Saudi Arabia, I reckon. Again, depends on range. I've lost track, do either of these American allies have US fighter planes based in them? Would either of their own air forces have the capability of taking down any Israeli bomber planes en route to Iran?

I wouldn't be surprised to see them fly over Saudi Arabia. They're not going to fly in a straight line anyhow.

They have a pretty good idea where all the facilities are. Even if they miss just one, destroying 4 or 5 others is gonna put a huge dent in the Iranian plan to build nuclear weapons. That alone will probably delay it about 3-4 years. Were Iran to respond with a nuclear weapon (I can't imagine them building a big stockpile in the next 12-18 months), what's left of Israel would flatten Iran within an hour.

Its not like Israel is the size of Rhode Island. Again, it comes down to whether or not Israel would feel comfortable that Iran has no nuclear weapons and lacks the capability to use those weapons against Israel, and right now, I think most folks feel pretty strongly that they do not (unless they've stolen them from Russia).

Invasion is insane. The gains from doing so just aren't worth it, even if there's some mild (and its just that, mild) justification. Bombing nuclear facilities? I'm a little less opposed to that. Basically only if all the diplomatic means have been exhausted. I can certainly understand why people might ask, "how come the Iranians can't have nuclear missles and we can?," but by the same token, I don't think its bright to allow them to develop a nuclear program just to follow a personal philosophy in that way. Its not an easy question to answer, and realistically, no one should try to reduce geopolitics to yes/no or true/false questions.

The article Ned posted up top is pretty damn good, though I'm not sure how we can automatically infer that the Iranians have lost any hope of making Iraq a sister state.

Iran's acquiring an atomic weapon is not a threat to the lives or safety of westerners. It is really nothing more than the Iranian's buying some insurance against an invasion of its territory or a direct military threat from the outside.

This fact would change the diplomacy of the middle east, tilting greater power and influence in the direction of the mullahs, but it would be a hell of a long way from decisive. Iran already has a fair amount of power, based on its oil income. A handful of crude nuclear bombs (kiloton, not megaton, range) mostly puts an umbrella over the real source of their power and protects it.

There is no real danger of Iran detonating one of its bombs as a first strike against the west, even if they were to use a proxy group like Hamas to conceal their responsibility. A much bigger fear would be that they leverage their ability to make bombs by signing treaties or secret agreements with other middle east oil powers that tend to weaken USA power and influence in the region.

Again, good people, this all about oil, not bombs. Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil. Black gold. Texas tea. And ultimately about the power to control the world's resources. The US military and all those grunts in Humvees are just pawns in that game.

There's other issues like the article, like its claim that the IAEA has been consistent in finding Iran to be in compliance with their rules. This, of course, is ridiculously false. The IAEA found Iran to be in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which they happened to sign, several months prior to this article's publishing. In fact, that's why Iran is going through the process of tearing those IAEA seals off and restarting their reactors, which is why this is such a big story right now.

http://www.rense.com/general59/theSunburniransawesome.htm

That Russia has even better ship-killers is not a surprise, either. Nor that they would sell them to generate cash. Our current navy is an expensive bauble that would die quickly against any especially well-equipped foe. But, just how many of these Russian missiles the Iranians own is a secret the author of that article didn't know and couldn't say. So he guesses they own gobs and gobs of them. Right.

His imaginative scenario for a decisive American military defeat by Iran in the Persian Gulf seemed like a lot of hand waving to me. If we lost that many lives and that much treasure in that short a time, the pressure to obliterate Iran would be overwhelming. Only the assurance that the USA would suffer equally in the exchange would deter a massive, explosive response.

The idea that Putin would underwrite the mullahs' adventure and put Russia's nuclear umbrella over Iran makes no sense at all. None. Zero. The scenario's picture of Putin sipping cocktails and deciding to teach the USA a lesson is, well, utter silliness from a crappy James Bond script.

In fact, come to think of it, its as if nowhere in the article is it mentioned that the US owns submarines. There's also the fact that if the US feels the carriers are so threatened, they don't need to drive them into the Persian Gulf. What, the commanders aren't going to think of that beforehand?

Israel Says It Has Proof That Iran Financed Tel Aviv Bombing, and That Syria Carried It Out

http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/4701/17_Year_Old_Girl_Sentenced_To_Death_By_Hanging

Islamic/Sharia law rules!

As an American I don't think we should have a death penalty at all, but the fact that we do doesn't mean we can't point out pure injustice when we see it.

I question this story as a pretext for "bombing" anyone. And I especially question it in light of the US's ramping-up of propaganda intended to soften up public opinion for a possibly imminent invasion. Ask yourself how many women were killed by state or quasi-state machinery LAST WEEK alone. Why is it this one we're hearing about?

Well, clearly not, at least not according to Amnesty, who tends to get this sort of thing right.

Yup. And Saddam Hussein was a bloodthirsty tyrant who killed his opponents, his detractors, or just about any old person he happened to find irritating. But look how wonderfully our invasion of Iraq has gone. Up for another experiment in occupation?

That has a lot to do with the fact that the drug traffic in the eastern parts of Iran aren't really regulated and because of Iran's rather arcane system of punishment. I'd guess that there's a lot more people in the Iranian system who don't serve time, but happen to be missing substantial portions of their body.

Lemme also repeat this for the thousanth time: there will not be a invasion of Iran in the forseeable future. Maybe bombing, and if so, probably by Israel, since they have the most to lose to a nuke empowered Iran. But no invasion.

is our unjust system of law an excuse for theirs? no.

that was my ONLY point above.

iraq is a better example. pointing out our hypocrisy tends to only get your point ignored. as much as we need a nationwide intervention ... for all these people that don't mind being spied on or think torture is okay... or who believe in religious freedom for themselves but not anybody else... or free speech as long as it's what they want to hear... etc etc... DENIAL is too everpresent.

it let's them focus on your negativity, not on OUR problem.
m.

It is difficult to solve other people's problems, msp. One can offer aid and assistance, but without a desire in the people you aid and assist to solve their own problems, the assistance is unavailing.

If, however, Iran wishes to cause problems for us, then they become our problems to solve and an invitation is not needed.

How would we know whether or not we're invited? Do remember, the fairly liberal reform parties in Iran were shut out of the election and the country ended up getting run by a guy some think was a terrorist/kidnapper. There were a lot of gains in Iran in the last decade and we may be on the edge of losing all of them.

but hopefully they'll just all rattle a lot of sabers, iran will keep slowly trying to get a bomb, the u.s. and europe will keep squeezing it to try to stop it, russia and china will keep playing both sides...i mean, the current situation, as unsatisfactory as it is all the way around, might be the best option for the near future.

I think the biggest difference between this and, say, Iraq (with which this episode is inexorably linked) is that Iran really does have a nuclear program that no one doubts (and that they admit) and really does have very close ties to terrorism. A stall tactic probably would work, given that most observers think that their production capability is currently near zero with no likelihood it'll progress much in the immediate future.

please to place bets as to when the airstrikes will start.

i would say ... june at the latest.

There's no proof that this is true -- the only source of info seems to be the Iranian govt and it wouldn't shock me if they're greatly exaggerating the capabilities of their weaponry.

This is nothing but a power play by Iran to get the UN off its back. You think it's a coincidence that Iran released this information the day after the UNSC passed a resolution giving them 30 days to suspend uranium enrichment and cooperate with the IAEA? Screw the earthquake, this took precedence.

The biggest potential losers here are the UN. They gave a similarly meaningless ultimatum to Sudan and choked that time too but a lot more people are paying attention this time. Be prepared to say goodbye to whatever little credibility the Security Council has left.

We're just being primed and primed, and then there's going to be some trigger event, perhaps staged, perhaps provoked, and then boom, draft. My brother had better stay in college if he knows what's good for him.

xpost

a draft is not that likely, I do not think the USA will ever fight another meatgrinder war again. Or at least, not one where it's meat is being ground.

as to war with Iran... I don't really see it. Iraq is such a fuck up, and the Iran dress rehearsal in Lebanon did not go that well, so it is hard to see bombing Iran accomplishing anything and hard to see the USA invading.

I wonder will the world just have to learn to live with Iranian nuclear weapons, like it has had to live with those of the USA, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel?

Ha ha ha! Don't worry about anything, leave it all to the security council. THAT'S a proven strategy, alright.

Political feasibility is not the issue. Military feasibility is the issue. America doesn't have the resources to invade Iran. Bomb Iran, maybe. Invade, no way.

This is a non-starter. America is not going to invade Iran.

The problem being, the Iranian leadership's worldview is even MORE apocalyptic then Bush's. They're like, the Pat Robertsons of Islam.

Iran and the Us are much alike. big democracies, both with faults in their democratic process. Both with a history of state sponsorship of terror (Iran with hezbollah and in Iraq now, the US all over south america in the past, in afghanistan in the 80s the hot wars could be called terror as well). Both have a strong religious leaning, both are naturally conservative with a very dynamic youth culture.

Think about it. No matter how you can point to how the Iranians gerrymandered their last election, a hell of a lot of people voted for Amedinhejad. They made a choice.

*tho i don't think the latter is likely to happen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/iran/

-- Ed (dal...), September 21st, 2006.

Sure, and I guess the Constitution isn't that different from the Koran either.

We're stretching things a little though, aren't we?

If a certain elite holds the ultimate veto power on anything and everything, how could their system be described as democracy? it would be oligrachy.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/lindorff

1. America sending warships to the Middle East (shocking)
2. Partisan hacks denouncing Bush

I'm not convinced.

Strained, Army Looks to Guard for More Relief

By THOM SHANKER and MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — Strains on the Army from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become so severe that Army officials say they may be forced to make greater use of the National Guard to provide enough troops for overseas deployments.

is it too much to ask generals not to obey their orders? is that a remote possibility?

is it too much to ask generals not to obey their orders? is that a remote possibility?

i have long felt as though, through its actions, the bush administration have effectively been waging a kind of proxy war against americans, because they've made us all considerably *less* safe for generations. if they do anything to iran you can be sure this will get much worse.

wow.

SP is maybe learning a lesson from the Iraq was that is not fully transferrable. In Iraq, the invasion went well, but attempts to build a new friendly Iraq have been a disaster, but the Iraqi state was undoubtedly destroyed by the invasion. So, maybe when he talks of a "raid", SP means a big invasion, aimed at sending a panzer legion to Teheran, to decapitate the Iranian regime, and then to pull the fuck out, leaving the country to collapse into chaos.

I don't think the Iranian regime would be as easy to decapitate as that of Iran - it is more broadly based, the ideological underpinnings behind it touch more nerves, and by virtue of its being more politically open it is less likely to be the case that exterminating Khamenei and Ahmadinejad would see Iran tip into chaos. So I reckon that the kind of smash and grab raid that I suggest SP is advocating would just make the Iranians very pissed off and make them more inclined to develop nuclear weapons as a way of deterring any future US adventurism.

Today, the USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group leaves port in Norfolk for the Persian Gulf. The group includes the USS Anzio, the guided-missile destroyers USS Ramage and USS Mason and the attack sub USS Newport News. Time and The Nation are among the mainstream mags saying this is the beginning of the war.

Put Options Accumulating for October (Surprise)? :.

WARNING: The following is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.

With my recent commentary on oil in mind, add this to the mix:

"Do you like October suprises? Is there a big bang coming to hit the markets? If you believe that those in the know use insider information before major events then you might be interested on the HUGE number of October 6th put options for the big indexes.

Dow near record highs. The consumer going broke on stupid real estate deals. If I was a gambling man, which I'm not, I'd be taking puts on the major indexes too.

But is there more to it? We'll find out in a few days.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NAZ20061001&articleId=3361

If a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear problem is to be found, it is time for Washington to plan for war. Diplomats cannot break the current impasse simply by trying more aggressive diplomacy. Tehran will only change course if it believes it faces a credible threat for defying the will of the world.

...

Indeed, the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East may be underestimation of Western resolve. On Aug. 27, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said of kidnapping Israeli soldiers that, had his militia known how fierce Israel's retaliation would be, "we would definitely not have done it."

You see, the main problem with diplomatic efforts these days is that America and Israel are not militaristic enough.

This, however, is not quite the picture of a profoundly capable Iranian military:

Video of Iran's test missile called fake
Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times

Sunday, September 10, 2006

(09-10) 04:00 PDT Washington -- U.S. military intelligence has determined that a video released by the Iranian government purporting to show a test of a new submarine missile is bogus, three Pentagon officials confirmed.

The Iranians released the video Aug. 27, one of a series of steps the Tehran government has taken in recent months to display its military potency in the midst of a confrontation with the United States and other Western nations over its nuclear ambitions.

The test apparently was designed to intimidate Iran's neighbors in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which are U.S. allies and important oil-producing countries, regional experts said. The video showed what appeared to be a successful test of a submarine-fired missile that flies above the water's surface to attack ships.

But U.S. intelligence officers analyzed the plume of smoke from the missile and determined it matched a video of an earlier Chinese test.

"It's the identical launch," a Pentagon official said. "The plume, everything, is the same."

U.S. officials have been unable to confirm whether any test took place during the Iranian exercise. They say they are certain, however, that the video of the purported test is not of an Iranian sub in the Persian Gulf.

U.S. intelligence agencies have been closely tracking developments in Iran in an attempt to monitor Tehran's efforts to build up its nuclear capabilities as well as its conventional military capacity. The surveillance efforts are part of what experts see as a strategic contest of increasing complexity, with the two nations working to decipher each other's motivations and intentions.

The purported missile test, which was announced by Iran's official news agency a day before the video was released, was made public days before an Aug. 31 deadline set by the United Nations for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment.

The test video was broadcast on Iranian state television and picked up around the world, including by CNN and Fox News.

What has American military officers scratching their heads is why the Iranians would see the need to release a bogus video.

"They have enough things they can do to frighten people, I don't know why they would have to fake something," a senior defense official said. "They are frightening enough as it is without faking things."

Iran said it was conducting the missile test as part of a summer war games exercise in the Persian Gulf that began Aug. 19. U.S. military officials believe such exercises are aimed primarily at intimidating gulf countries.

"It is like when the missiles went through Red Square in front of the Politburo," a military official said. "Their MO is to put on a media blitz."

The officials asked that their names not be used because the Defense Department had decided not to publicize the discovery of the bogus test. Taking on the role of superpower tattletale could exacerbate already tense relations, or potentially provoke more, real tests.

Pentagon officials said Iran possessed several Russian Kilo-class submarines, the kind of sub shown in the Chinese video. Iran's growing naval capability is real, said the senior official, which is what made the use of bogus video seem particularly "clumsy."

"They do have a serious military capability," the official said. "They are a growing military problem
===
Years ago, it was often said you could tell operations were imminent when lots of orders for pizza came out of the Pentagon late at night.

I wouldn't bet the Iranian navy or air force could survive much beyond a few days, if that, against an activated Global Strike plan which, it's my understanding, doesn't particularly require forward deployments. The idea is to be able to hit anyone very hard anywhere on the globe within hours of receiving the order.

However, what comes after that is pretty unknowable.

Reminds me of the parts of Dr Strangelove where George C. Scott as the Pentagon general in the warroom is advising the president to launch a full scale attack. "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed," he says, or something to that effect.

Then there's dialog later in the movie to the effect that the enemy talks big but doesn't have the know-how of our boys flyin' the B-52's.

I like this one.

However, what comes after that is pretty unknowable. "

this strategy sure worked wonders in Iraq didn't it. fucking people.

uh don't american ships deploy to the persian gulf all the damn time? big deal.
-- hstencil (hstenc!...), October 3rd, 2006 2:05 PM. (hstencil) (link)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

otm -- wonkette ain't going to break anything this big anyway.
-- the classic sounds of the seventh of january 1998 (miltonpinsk...), October 3rd, 2006 2:07 PM. (Enrique) (link)

I think there's more to this than Wonkette ruminating over a deployment to the middle east.

Wasn't it Richard Armitage who told Musharraf we would bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age? Now there was a country that even had atomic bombs. And there's Musharaff on "60 Minutes" -- an entertaining fellow -- saying "one does what one has to do for the nation . . . " Which is smile, make nice, and wait a few years to go back to business as usual.

that was jon. way to beef it on his birthday, dude.

As much as I'm inclined to agree with you, I don't. What we have not done well for 40 years is use principled geopolitical reasoning in concert with our allies to achieve discreet and reasonable goals with a mixture of military might, moral and economic leverage, and long-term planning. 'We' have also been notoriously bad at selling our foreign policy at home and abroad, so, of course, the executive branch tends to lie about what they're up to a good deal which now has an incontrovertibly proven record.

The naval build-up seems like a total strawman. Haven't we had a major naval presence in the Persian Gulf since the '80s?

I would think the build-up (if it is actually a build-up) is a move to put diplomatic pressure on Iran.

xpost

http://www.radioblogger.com/images/serpentegg.jpg

If the Republicans want to continue playing the 'party of national defense', they'll do well to re-think their positions on the politicization of the military. It's analagous to their mistake on the separation of church and state. The military need to be accorded the respect and the leeway to explain how military means can be used to achieve foregn policy goals nad when they're coerced into playing too much of a role in the formation of said goals, we end up with disasters.

The US military should be viewed as good at destroying things. It's what it's designed for and it can perform the duty mercilessly, as we've all seen. Achieving geopolitical ends, sometimes, yes. The first Iraq war. Serbia.

It can be assumed the Pentagon has a number of flavors of plans to demolish Iran's conventional military, its heavy weapons, its command structure, and its ability to wage war with that instrument.

Then Iran can foster terrorism or engage in asymmetrical efforts, guerilla war. Ship Katyushas here and there. Contribute to the bad publicity and rep we already have. Try to sabotage oil production in regional neighbors.

I'm skeptical that Iran could do much initially against the continental United States. While the US playbook certainly has nothing in it beyond destruction of the enemy's ability to do anything with its conventional military, I would tend to not be as generous as others in describing the options open to Iran after that. They would have a thin set of realistic plans, too.

Nothing fancy in this. Many here could figure out the basics scribbling on the back of envelopes.

No rational leader would look forward to or welcome their country being hit by a US strategic air assault. But stupidity, on both sides, gets its way a lot with regards to history.

I agree. The synchronistic and complementary use of hard and soft power for 'diplomacy by other means' is not an exact science. For example, I always felt that the U.S. was justified in going into Afghanistan to extirpate the Taliban government. I also felt that with the approval of the U.S., the involvement of Nato forces and a generous and committed policy of aid and development at a level we have not seen, we could have shown the world and much of the Muslim world that we were not self-centered, ADD-afflicted, 'crusaders'. If we had adequate troop strength to allow major U.S. and foreign aid to rebuild roads, schools, electrical grids, water-treatment plants, etc... and our outreach to the Pashtuns was flavored by more considerable redevelopment efforts, our whole standing in the world might have changed and the salafists might not have the same amount of suasive traction that they have in the Muslim world. I could be wrong about all that and none of that is to say that Hussein's constant disregard for the U.N. and the murderous intent of terrorists wouldn't have been very much on the national agenda but our intent and behavior would have been seen as measured, more ethical, and more of a steady long term one than the thrashing frenzy of a wounded beast.

I've said before that being in Iraq and Afghanistan puts Iran in the position of being squeezed in between two fronts making them less tractable. We need to decide if our opposition to their obtaining nuclear weapons is more because of the erosion of IAEA (in which case our attitude toward India was counter-productive) or because of the nature of their regime (in which case, maybe it wasn't). All I can say, is that if we play this like we played it against Iraq, we're admitting to an immense impotence and lack of finesse.

http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2008/07/irans-fake-miss.html

LOOOL SONNED

and if you don't click the link it is about more than their shitty photoshop. Also has funny photo.

Is there anything that can't be improved by photoshopping in a humorous picture of a cat? I think not.

Pizza Hut is like that ultra-hardcore gagging porn -- once in a long while you think you want it but then you remember again how repulsive it is

-- Hurting 2, Monday, July 14, 2008 10:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/missiletest.jpg

lol i heard ppl were doing their own

UK military steps up plans for Iran attack amid fresh nuclear fears

Iran is crazy right now because of the power struggle between Khamenei and Ahmedinejad

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137038/jamie-m-fly-and-gary-schmitt/the-case-for-regime-change-in-iran

The Case For Regime Change in Iran
Go Big -- Then Go Home
By Jamie M. Fly and Gary Schmitt
January 17, 2012

smh

can't even bear to read that, or really even talk to anyone who would think that invading iran is a good idea

Schmitt's bio says he works at that right-wing thinktank, the American Enterprise Institute.

Ayatollah Khamenei said that Iran “had its own tools” to respond to such threats and that it would use them “if necessary,” the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported.

“The threat of war would disfavor the United States itself,” he said, adding that war with Iran “would be 10 times worse for the interests of the United States” than it would be for Iran, he said.

“Americans say all options are on the table, even the option of military strike,” he said, according to a Reuters translation of his televised remarks. “Such threats show that they have no sufficient discourse against Iran’s logic and discourse.”

No sufficient discourse against Iran's logic and discourse.

in slavish imitation:

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/03/iran_is_the_root_of_all_evil/singleton/

is this a good time for a patriotic, non-islamic iranian-american to apply for a job with the us intelligence community? would that be a power move?

Zoroastrian?

Yeah the "Iran Al-Qaeda Terror Plot" headlines of late have been giving me the queasy feeling of becoming aware that I'm old enough to have heard this one before and yet it will probably work again.

baha'i

i'm going to answer my own q by saying i'm pretty sure getting a job w/ in the intelligence community would require moving to some godawful place (ie outside california) but maybe somebody (tombot?) knows more about this than i do?

How's your Farsi?

getting a job w/ in the intelligence community would require moving to some godawful place

Virginia?

farsi is fluent but i am illiterate

I'd rather see better translations in the news media. In the intelligence community your work will likely be ignored if you don't provide the politically approved translation.

is this a good time for a patriotic, non-islamic iranian-american to apply for a job with the us intelligence community? would that be a power move?

oh hell yeah. how are you with battery cables?

battery cables??

ABC News was particularly disgusting yesterday: Martha Raddatz on a warship in the Strait of Hormuz aiming for that warmonger verite.

CNN drumbeat by Pentagon 'reporter' Chris Lawrence:

"Iran already has a missile that could reach the U.S. if it could put it on a ship and move it to within 600 miles of the American coastline."

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/16/cnn_on_the_iran_threat/

and move it to within 600 miles of the American coastline.

Still more afraid of a suitcase bomb than this scenario.

It's amazing how the range of Iran's missiles adjusts according to how badly we want to attack them.

THE MISSILES ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE.

Oh wait I didn't even read that link, shit is pretty lol

i'm in the UK & i have a rock that could burrow a metre deep down into antarctic snow so long as someone rows me to the edge of antarctic water so i can throw it

Anyone know what Bulgaria is? A friend of mine is there and was close to being blown to shreds in a tour bus. Netanyahu blames Iran. Is this serious or just SOP for the area?

Bulgaria is a country in central europe iirc

Yes, yes. It appears to be near Albania, ffs. It sounds so old-timey.

it seems like a pretty random place to stage a terrorist attack, I'm not sure what to make of it. Netty blames Iran for everything fwiw.

This kind of thing is completely unheard of in Bulgaria, as far as i know. The Black Sea resorts are super-popular with Israeli tourists.

suspect sure doesn't look Iranian to me but what do I know

http://img2.wpdigital.net/rf/image_358w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/07/19/Foreign/Images/APTOPIX_Bulgaria_Israelis_Attacked-04fad.jpg

YES

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386809/Eye-eye-Woman-blinded-scorned-lover-given-permission-throw-acid-eyes-Iran-court.html

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday he was ready to be the first human sent into orbit by Iran's fledgling space program, Iranian media reported.

The launch added to Western concerns about Iran's space program because the same rocket technology could potentially be used to deliver a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile. "I am ready to be the first human to be sent to space by Iranian scientists," Ahmadinejad said on Monday, on the sidelines of an exhibition of space achievements in Tehran, according to the Mehr news agency. "Sending living things into space is the result of Iranian efforts and the dedication of thousands of Iranian scientists."

I think we should encourage this.

rocket manejad

Statement from Iranian commies on the current situation:

http://www.solidnet.org/iran-tudeh-party-of-iran/tudeh-party-of-iran-statement-of-the-tudeh-party-of-iran-on-the-popular-protest-movement-in-the-country-29-december-2017-en

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/01/02/women-are-leading-in-iran-where-is-their-voice-support-from-left.html

^^ lol

israel to iran, today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz3Vfme-2qg

look at all that secret shit

https://i.imgur.com/nP4j1m8.jpg

bibi's presentation style is ... interesting

red black and green binders a nice touch

actually should have been red white and green now that i think about it

my brain is off today

https://i.imgur.com/XkEeFfV.png

thought this thread might be useful for non-UK politics takes on this, apologies if i've missed another revive

Most talk has been over here.

ah thank you