Iran...

[j-6]

I'm not nearly as well-versed politically as most of you hairy triangles, but I wanted to throw an item out for discussion.

Assuming the common flag-waving Marriott owns a globe, why would the US even think about leaving Iraq and Afghanistan when the real threat is sitting right square between those two countries flipping the Western world the bird?

If Iran gets big-boy war capability and the US pulls out of the region, we're truly fucked. The Brits won't even come back to the ME unless Damascus goes up in flames, and they're our stauchest ally. And Syria's not even on the grid right now.

At least to me, leaving at this point is the worst thing the US can do. Do we want to pull out, make the Iranian hardliners and all the Iraqi insurgents heroes, and then go back in 2011 to this mess on our own; or pray that the GOP and their favorite generals can figure this mess out?

I dunno. This is why I can't back the elephant or the donkey blindly.

[01Snake]

Agree with you. There is A LOT at stake here!

[mookie2001]

I think we're going to war with Iran no matter what, its looking bleak

[LaMarcus Bryant]

The commont marriott does not own a globe though. Its very hard to say whether we should stay the course or pull out when our objectives and goals that I know of are unreasonable. I dont keep up with this stuff well enough either so I'm not sure.

Its like, you want to go back in time, punch everyone who voted for neocons in the stomach, but you can't. No matter who is in office this problem is getting horrible and we need a solid goal or solution. :dizzy

[mookie2001]

common marriott has funds set aside for Iran War assorted SUV magnets and ribbons

[midgetonadonkey]

It's always good to pull out.

[gtownspur]

Conservative state linebackers own globes.

Do trophy wife globes count?

[boutons_]

January 29, 2007

Iranian Reveals Plan to Expand Role in Iraq

By JAMES GLANZ

BAGHDAD, Jan. 28 — Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital — that will almost certainly bring Iran into further conflict with American forces who have detained a number of Iranian operatives here in recent weeks.

The ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, said Iran was prepared to offer Iraqi forces training, equipment and advisers for what he called “the security fight.” In the economic area, Mr. Qumi said, Iran was ready to assume major responsibility for the reconstruction of Iraq, an area of notable failure on the part of the United States since American-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein in the invasion nearly four years ago.

Mr. Qumi also acknowledged, for the first time, that two Iranians seized and later released by American forces last month were security officials, as the United States had claimed. But he said that they were engaged in legitimate discussions with the Iraqi government and should not have been detained.

Mr. Qumi’s remarks, in a 90-minute interview over tea and large Iranian pistachio nuts at the Iranian Embassy here, amounted to the most authoritative and substantive response the Iranians have made yet to increasingly belligerent accusations by the Bush administration that Iran is acting against American interests in Iraq. President Bush has said the American military is authorized to take whatever action necessary against Iranians in Iraq found to be engaged in actions deemed hostile.

The Iranian ambassador abruptly agreed to a longstanding request for the interview — made repeatedly after the first American seizure of Iranians here on Dec. 21 — and seemed eager to rebut the accusations and assert Iran’s legitimate interests in its neighbor. How much direction, if any, he was taking from his government was unclear.

The political and diplomatic standoff that followed the Dec. 21 raid until the Iranians were released nine days later has contributed, along with a dispute over the Iranian nuclear program, to greatly increased tensions between the United States and Iran. This month, American forces detained five more Iranians in a raid on a diplomatic office in the northern city of Erbil.

While providing few details, the United States has said that evidence gleaned in the Baghdad raid, made on an Iraqi Shiite leader’s residential compound, proves the Iranians were involved in planning attacks on American and Iraqi forces.

With a look of restrained sarcasm, Mr. Qumi ridiculed the evidence that the American military has said it collected, including maps of Baghdad delineating Sunni, Shiite and mixed neighborhoods — the kind of maps, some American officials have said, that would be useful for militias engaged in ethnic slaughter. Mr. Qumi said the maps were so common and easily obtainable that they proved nothing.

He did not say whether he believed the maps bore sectarian markings or address other pieces of evidence the Americans said that they had found, like manifests of weapons and material relating to the technology of sophisticated roadside bombs. But that is not why the Iranians were in the compound, he said.

“They worked in the security sector in the Islamic Republic, that’s clear,” Mr. Qumi said, referring to Iran.

But he said that the Iranians were in Iraq because “the two countries agreed to solve the security problems.” The Iranians “went to meet with the Iraqi side,” he said.

In a surprise announcement, Mr. Qumi said Iran would soon open a national bank in Iraq, in effect creating a new Iranian financial institution right under the Americans’ noses. A senior Iraqi banking official, Hussein al-Uzri, confirmed that Iran had received a license to open the new bank, which Mr. Uzri said would apparently be the first “wholly owned subsidiary bank” of a foreign country in Iraq.

“This will enhance trade between the two countries,” Mr. Uzri said.

A number of American and Iraqi officials said on Sunday that it was difficult to respond to Mr. Qumi’s statements until they had been communicated through official routes.

Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, said on Sunday that the United States had a significant body of evidence tying Iran to sectarian attacks inside Iraq.

“There is a high degree of confidence in the information that we already have, and we are constantly accumulating more,” Mr. McCormack said.

He did not address any of the specifics of Mr. Qumi’s comments about plans for stronger economic and security ties, but said that Iran currently plays “a negative role in many respects” in the country.

Iraqi officials also said that they could not comment on specific programs until they had seen the details, but expressed a range of views on the wisdom of expanding ties with Iran.

“We are welcoming all the initiatives to participate in the process of reconstruction,” said Qasim Daoud, a former national security adviser who is now a secular Shiite member of Parliament.

“My belief is that our strategic alliance is with the Americans, but at the same time we are looking for the participation of any country that would like to participate,” Mr. Daoud said.

Barham Salih, a deputy prime minister who is Kurdish and whose duties include economic matters, took sharper issue with Mr. Qumi’s criticism of the American presence.

“Iraqi national interest requires seeking good neighborly relations with Iran as with other neighbors, but that requires respect for Iraqi sovereignty,” Mr. Salih said.

Mr. Qumi spoke largely in Persian during the interview, but he occasionally broke into English when he wanted to be certain that a point had been conveyed forcefully.

Although Mr. Qumi was not given specific questions ahead of the interview, he was made aware of the general topics that would be covered and seemed prepared with detailed answers in many cases. He seemed particularly keen to give his government’s view of what occurred in the early morning hours of Dec. 21, when American forces raided the Baghdad compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders, who had traveled to Washington only three weeks before to meet President Bush.

Within the compound, the Iranians were seized in the house of Hadi al-Ameri, who holds two powerful positions in Iraq: he is the chairman of the Iraqi Parliament’s security committee and also the leader of the Badr Organization, the armed wing of Mr. Hakim’s political party, which spent years in exile in Iran.

Although the Americans have suggested that the Iranians were providing support for militias like the Badr Organization, Mr. Qumi said that his countrymen were dealing with Mr. Ameri only in his official governmental capacity.

The Iranians would not even have stayed the night in the compound except, in a situation faced by many Baghdad residents, their business lasted beyond the early-evening curfew and they were forced to spend the night, Mr. Qumi said, dismissing the evidence, like the maps, that the Americans said linked the group to sectarian and other attacks.

“They said that they have seen maps on walls,” Mr. Qumi said. “Hundreds of these maps you can find on the Internet.”

A senior Iraqi official expressed irritation that, even if Mr. Qumi’s account of the meeting was correct, the Iraqi government was not fully aware that Iran was making quasi-official contacts with Mr. Ameri.

“Iranians are still dealing with the Iraqi political parties as if they are still in the opposition,” the official said, referring to the parties’ years in exile Iran and elsewhere.

Mr. Qumi also warned the United States against playing out tensions in what he called “the nuclear file” in Iraq.

“We don’t need Iraq to pay the cost of our animosity with the Americans,” Mr. Qumi said.

Finally, as the interview was breaking up, Mr. Qumi called upon a bit of humor to make one last stab at the Americans. If Iran is allowed to undertake reconstruction activities in Iraq, he said, all international construction companies would be welcome. “Urge the American companies to come here,” he said before his advisers swept him out of the room.

Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.


============

My guess is the Iranians waited for dubya/dickhead to make the post-electon move, which turned out to be escalation rather than retreat, with dubya ignoring the US electorate as sovereign.

The Iranians may be figuring that the escalation is their queue to start helping the Iraqis make the US staying in Iraq so bloody that dubya will retreat.

[boutons_]

"massive reconstruction"

There are no more US funds for reconstruction. dickhead's profiteers took their $Bs and really didn't do shit with it. The rest of the $$$ disappeared in stealing and corruption by the Iraqis (I'm sure lots of Iraqi power players have $Ms stashed away in Switzerland, Caymans, Singapore, etc) and in paying mercenaries for protection against the pervasive violence.

Even if the US funds were there, the violence precludes reconstruction, as it has for 3 years.

[DarkReign]

Invading Iran is nearing unavoidable. While I understand comepletely if the US does in fact invade, it will just be seen as another Zionist mission.

There is no winning in the Middle East. Being non-Muslim and from the West precludes such an end.

There is only subjugation (sp?). I think the entire strategy of invasion with intent to rebuild the government in our image is flawed from the outset. Go into the fray with one intention, and one intention only....the complete and utter dominance and destruction of military personnel, structure and ability to produce arms.

That means temporarily securing key sites of infrastructure for demolition. The ability to manufacture true war weapons needs to be removed utterly, the current regime responsible removed utterly, and any standing army removed utterly.

Afterword, leave immediately. Leave rebuilding to whomever wants the job (say, hell I dont know, maybe Iranians?). Make it clear in no uncertain terms that no aid will be given to a government seen as theocratic. The people will decide what government suits them. If it is theocratic, so what? It will wax and wane on its own, if it becomes a threat, we go back in and remove it again.

I know that sounds....stupid, really. But the American military is un-fucking-matched against any standing army in the world. You could throw a dart at the globe and know with confidence that the US has every capability of wiping said government and corresponding military from the face of the Earth without the use of nuclear arms.

There does not exist (yet) one army, or even a coalition of armies that can stand the American military might for longer than 100 days. Where we stumble is the aftermath. Leave the aftermath to the people who have interest in such things (ahem...the people, per chance). Once we adopt said philosophy, I think our concept of "winning" will be much more attainable and not so abstract.

In. Out. Fuck up again, and we are coming back. Simple Shit.

[spurster]

If you think invading Iraq has been a disaster, invading Iran would be far worse. At least in Iraq, we had the fantasy that we could get rid of Saddam and everyone would live happily ever after. If we invade Iran, all of Iran would be unified against us.

A more coherent option is whether you bomb Iran's nuclear facilities or not.

[clambake]

Attacking Iran would make our benefactor (China) rather unhappy, but at this point, I don't think the WH cares. If the Saudis are going to arm the sunnis and Iran is going to arm the shite, why not leave? Support for both will never end.

[2centsworth]

Invading Iran is nearing unavoidable. While I understand comepletely if the US does in fact invade, it will just be seen as another Zionist mission.

There is no winning in the Middle East. Being non-Muslim and from the West precludes such an end.

There is only subjugation (sp?). I think the entire strategy of invasion with intent to rebuild the government in our image is flawed from the outset. Go into the fray with one intention, and one intention only....the complete and utter dominance and destruction of military personnel, structure and ability to produce arms.

That means temporarily securing key sites of infrastructure for demolition. The ability to manufacture true war weapons needs to be removed utterly, the current regime responsible removed utterly, and any standing army removed utterly.

Afterword, leave immediately. Leave rebuilding to whomever wants the job (say, hell I dont know, maybe Iranians?). Make it clear in no uncertain terms that no aid will be given to a government seen as theocratic. The people will decide what government suits them. If it is theocratic, so what? It will wax and wane on its own, if it becomes a threat, we go back in and remove it again.

I know that sounds....stupid, really. But the American military is un-fucking-matched against any standing army in the world. You could throw a dart at the globe and know with confidence that the US has every capability of wiping said government and corresponding military from the face of the Earth without the use of nuclear arms.

There does not exist (yet) one army, or even a coalition of armies that can stand the American military might for longer than 100 days. Where we stumble is the aftermath. Leave the aftermath to the people who have interest in such things (ahem...the people, per chance). Once we adopt said philosophy, I think our concept of "winning" will be much more attainable and not so abstract.

In. Out. Fuck up again, and we are coming back. Simple Shit.
How about a Nuke?

[boutons_]

"wiping said government and corresponding military from the face of the Earth"

so fucking what? That didn't deter Saddam from bluffing dubya,
and it apparently isn't scaring Iran. Iran already lost several 100K, including kids, when Saddam attacked. One has to assume they are ready to throw 100Ks more at the US, with an Army much more professional and better equipped that Saddams' bogus Army that didn't put a fight.

The problem is not busting up a country like Iraq or Iran, but rather what's going to happen in that country afterwards.

Shock-and-awe entrance strategy is always great TV enteratinment, to make the Macho Men fakers feel like their dicks are 18" long, but what's the exit strategy?

Incompetent, irresponsible fucktards, dubya and dickhead had NO plan for post-invasion Iraq. They probably don't have any plan for post-attack/invasion Iran, either. And even if they had a plan, it's probably the wrong one, will be incompetently-as-fuck executed. The US military is already over-extended in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I'm sure the US military occupying Iran would be bled to death in nasty urban warfare just like in Bagdad now, but with millions more Iranians, with tons more munitions and firepower than Saddam, ready to martyr themselves in anti-US jihad.

That's right, Iran is too fucking tough for the depleted, under-equipped, worn-out US military now.

[DarkReign]

"wiping said government and corresponding military from the face of the Earth"

so fucking what? That didn't deter Saddam from bluffing dubya,
and it apparently isn't scaring Iran. Iran already lost several 100K, including kids, when Saddam attacked. One has to assume they are ready to throw 100Ks more at the US, with an Army much more professional and better equipped that Saddams' bogus Army that didn't put a fight.

Where Bush Co. fucked up was the occupation of Iraq. I am not really talking about Iraq at the moment because the reasons behind invasion where....exaggerated, to say the least.

If GWB just said "Hey, Iraq is violating the terms of surrender from 1991, we have the right, the duty to enforce said agreement....we are going in." He would catch flack sure, but at least he never......exaggerated. He would have just been enforcing policy laid out by his predecessors.

Onto Iran...

Occupation and rebuilding....the very ideas need to be ditched completely. Invade, dismantle, capture government officials, hamstring and leave. The people of said country have a vested interest in the rebuilding. Remove the leaders of said country from power and let the vaccum be filled by whomever. Provide no monetary aid to a government seen as theocratic, business as usual afterword, unless new government starts tripping....show them CNN footage from last government to not mind its place, a reminder of sorts, if it cotinues, 20 days later they arent in power either.

Keep doing it until the people get it right. If they dont, then they will continually be reminded about what happens when theyre wrong.

I know it isnt diplomatic, but at his point, who cares? The rest of the world despises us beyond any measure previously known, might as well embrace it.

[Bob Lanier]

:lmao

It's shit like this that keeps me paying attention to U.S. politics.

[xrayzebra]

I laugh at the absolute ignorance of world affairs of some people
on this board and in the U.S and elsewhere.

If we lose this world war, which is what we are in, it will be because
of politics. You know the guys who claim to be experts in ever
faucet of life, except knowing when to listen and pay attention
to someone who really knows what they are talking about.

I see people who are so absolutely involved in the political
process that they still hold an election that happened in 2000,
and they lost, as a reason to lose their country. Now you just
got to call that brilliance.

We cannot afford to "pull out" or lose this war. In no way, shape
or fashion. If we do. God help us all. And God help those in
the ME. Everyone seems to forget and forgive those that
had us pull out of Viet Nam and standby while hundred of
thousands died or was imprisoned and watch Cambodia fall
into the enemies hands.

Live in ignorance, live in ignorance.

You got Hanoi Jane back, so be happy!

[Bob Lanier]

I'm a big fan of the ever faucet myself.

[Nbadan]

We won the war. We accomplished our original objective - remove Saddam and destroy Iraq's WMD capability. That's what the people wanted when they told their congressperson to vote for the Iraq war resolution. They didn't vote for occupation.

So what the hell are we still doing there?

[xrayzebra]

^^You get the point.

[xrayzebra]

We won the war. We accomplished our original objective - remove Saddam and destroy Iraq's WMD capability. That's what the people wanted when they told their congressperson to vote for the Iraq war resolution. They didn't vote for occupation.

Just to make you mad(er).

So what the hell are we still doing there? :madrun

[Nbadan]

The point is we should be going after the evit bastards who financed and planned 911, and those evil bastards are in Pakistan, not Iraq, and certainly not Iran.

[boutons_]

"We won the war"

As with the Gulf War, there was no war. The Iraqi Army didn't even show up, either time.

"We accomplished our original objective"

yes, the Repug party political objective of getting dubya got re-elected in Nov 03 as "the wart-time president" was achieved. The Repugs had to switch, but they didn't care, from "victorious warrior/Mission Accomplished" to "war-time president" when the insurgency started in summer 03. But the Repugs didn't care. Whatever lies and lives required to get dubya re-elected are OK.

Removing Saddam was not the primary objective or justification, it was by-product of going-after hyped/misrepresented/dissembled WMDs, which in fact didn't exist.

[mookie2001]

^Listen to this guy Rufus, he knows what hes talking about

[scott]

I'm going to wait until I get my RNC or DNC newsletters (whichever comes first) before I weigh in on this issue.

[temujin]

Invading Iran is nearing unavoidable. While I understand comepletely if the US does in fact invade, it will just be seen as another Zionist mission.

There is no winning in the Middle East. Being non-Muslim and from the West precludes such an end.

There is only subjugation (sp?). I think the entire strategy of invasion with intent to rebuild the government in our image is flawed from the outset. Go into the fray with one intention, and one intention only....the complete and utter dominance and destruction of military personnel, structure and ability to produce arms.

That means temporarily securing key sites of infrastructure for demolition. The ability to manufacture true war weapons needs to be removed utterly, the current regime responsible removed utterly, and any standing army removed utterly.

Afterword, leave immediately. Leave rebuilding to whomever wants the job (say, hell I dont know, maybe Iranians?). Make it clear in no uncertain terms that no aid will be given to a government seen as theocratic. The people will decide what government suits them. If it is theocratic, so what? It will wax and wane on its own, if it becomes a threat, we go back in and remove it again.

I know that sounds....stupid, really.

I totally agree with you.

But the American military is un-fucking-matched against any standing army in the world. You could throw a dart at the globe and know with confidence that the US has every capability of wiping said government and corresponding military from the face of the Earth without the use of nuclear arms.

There does not exist (yet) one army, or even a coalition of armies that can stand the American military might for longer than 100 days. Where we stumble is the aftermath. Leave the aftermath to the people who have interest in such things (ahem...the people, per chance). Once we adopt said philosophy, I think our concept of "winning" will be much more attainable and not so abstract.

In. Out. Fuck up again, and we are coming back. Simple Shit.

Destroy everything and leave.
As they build it back, go back, destroy everything and leave.
Interesting experiment, nobody has ever tried.
Maybe because it is costly and it has preciously little sense.

[temujin]

Occupation and rebuilding....the very ideas need to be ditched completely. Invade, dismantle, capture government officials, hamstring and leave. The people of said country have a vested interest in the rebuilding. Remove the leaders of said country from power and let the vaccum be filled by whomever.


You know, actually this WAS tried before.
Remove "islamist" Ahmad Shah Massoud in Afganistan -true winner of the liberation war against russians- in the early 90s and the vacuum filled with the "friends of the dear friends, sure allied Pakistanis".
These nice folks "rebuild" the country. They reshaped it.
The US don't like it, and go back to destroy.
Brilliant outcome.

Provide no monetary aid to a government seen as theocratic, business as usual afterword, unless new government starts tripping....show them CNN footage from last government to not mind its place, a reminder of sorts, if it cotinues, 20 days later they arent in power either.

Keep doing it until the people get it right. If they dont, then they will continually be reminded about what happens when theyre wrong.

You incidentally forgot about re-education camps. But never mind. Details.

I know it isnt diplomatic, but at his point, who cares? The rest of the world despises us beyond any measure previously known, might as well embrace it.


It's just that the US previously enjoyed relatively high ratings, so the drop seems worse than it is actually. But with your "strategy", it could easily become irreversible.
Quickly irreversible.

[boutons_]

Here's Friedman's take. Of course, dubya and dickhead would never try diplomacy or anything truly radical or creative or showing true leadership and statesmanship. They just bomb the fuck out of them and then not think about tomorrow until tomorrow

======================

January 31, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Not-So-Strange Bedfellow

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Here’s a little foreign policy test. I am going to describe two countries — “Country A” and “Country B” — and you tell me which one is America’s ally and which one is not.

Let’s start: Country A actively helped the U.S. defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and replace it with a pro-U.S. elected alliance of moderate Muslims. Country A regularly holds sort-of-free elections. Country A’s women vote, hold office, are the majority of its university students and are fully integrated into the work force.

On 9/11, residents of Country A were among the very few in the Muslim world to hold spontaneous pro-U.S. demonstrations. Country A’s radical president recently held a conference about why the Holocaust never happened — to try to gain popularity. A month later, Country A held nationwide elections for local councils, and that same president saw his candidates get wiped out by voters who preferred more moderate conservatives. Country A has a strategic interest in the success of the pro-U.S., Shiite-led, elected Iraqi government. Although it’s a Muslim country right next to Iraq, Country A has never sent any suicide bombers to Iraq, and has long protected its Christians and Jews. Country A has more bloggers per capita than any country in the Muslim Middle East.

The brand of Islam practiced by Country A respects women, is open to reinterpretation in light of modernity and rejects Al Qaeda’s nihilism.

Now Country B: Country B gave us 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11. Country B does not allow its women to drive, vote or run for office. It is illegal in Country B to build a church, synagogue or Hindu temple. Country B helped finance the Taliban.

Country B’s private charities help sustain Al Qaeda. Young men from Country B’s mosques have been regularly recruited to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq. Mosques and charities in Country B raise funds to support the insurgency in Iraq. Country B does not want the elected, Shiite-led government in Iraq to succeed. While Country B’s leaders are pro-U.S., polls show many of its people are hostile to America — some of them celebrated on 9/11. The brand of Islam supported by Country B and exported by it to mosques around the world is the most hostile to modernity and other faiths.

Question: Which country is America’s natural ally: A or B?

Country A is, of course. Country A is Iran. Country B is Saudi Arabia.

Don’t worry. I know that Iran has also engaged in terrorism against the U.S. and that the Saudis have supported America at key times in some areas. The point I’m trying to make, though, is that the hostility between Iran and the U.S. since the overthrow of the shah in 1979 is not organic. By dint of culture, history and geography, we actually have a lot of interests in common with Iran’s people. And I am not the only one to notice that.

Because the U.S. has destroyed Iran’s two biggest enemies — the Taliban and Saddam — “there is now a debate in Iran as to whether we should continue to act so harshly against the Americans,” Mohammad Hossein Adeli, Iran’s former ambassador to London, told me at Davos. “There is now more readiness for dialogue with the United States.”

More important, when people say, “The most important thing America could do today to stabilize the Middle East is solve the Israel-Palestine conflict,” they are wrong. It’s second. The most important thing would be to resolve the Iran-U.S. conflict.

That would change the whole Middle East and open up the way to solving the Israel-Palestine conflict, because Iran is the key backer of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Syria. Iran’s active help could also be critical for stabilizing Iraq.

This is why I oppose war with Iran. I favor negotiations. Isolating Iran like Castro’s Cuba has produced only the same result as in Cuba: strengthening Iran’s Castros. But for talks with Iran to bear fruit, we have to negotiate with Iran with leverage.

How do we get leverage? Make it clear that Iran can’t push us out of the gulf militarily; bring down the price of oil, which is key to the cockiness of Iran’s hard-line leadership; squeeze the hard-liners financially. But all this has to be accompanied with a clear declaration that the U.S. is not seeking regime change in Iran, but a change of behavior, that the U.S. wants to immediately restore its embassy in Tehran and that the first thing it will do is grant 50,000 student visas for young Iranians to study at U.S. universities.

Just do that — and then sit back and watch the most amazing debate explode inside Iran. You can bet the farm on it.

=================

There is some rumbling of dissent within Iran. dubya did make a little move a while back to address himself "in peace" and directly "to the people of Iraq", but we haven't heard any serious follow-up or repetition.

[temujin]

How do we get leverage? Make it clear that Iran can’t push us out of the gulf militarily; bring down the price of oil, which is key to the cockiness of Iran’s hard-line leadership; squeeze the hard-liners financially.

The ELECTED hard-liners will be there as long as the US military will be in Irak. This war is an absolute blessing for them.

But all this has to be accompanied with a clear declaration that the U.S. is not seeking regime change in Iran, but a change of behavior,

Thank you, Master!

that the U.S. wants to immediately restore its embassy in Tehran and that the first thing it will do is grant 50,000 student visas for young Iranians to study at U.S. universities.

Well, I know "valuable" iranians quite eager to GET OUT of the US. ASAP.
I can't blame them by reading here.

Just do that — and then sit back and watch the most amazing debate explode inside Iran. You can bet the farm on it.


In general, excellent ideas. Anybody should rationally acknowledge that Iran should be the US best "friend" in the ME.
Too bad it just won't happen.

[temujin]

The point is we should be going after the evit bastards who financed and planned 911, and those evil bastards are in Pakistan, not Iraq, and certainly not Iran.

I thought most were Saudis.
Fat, greasy, oily cats.
Pakistanis are leaner, skinnier.
Pakistan, then.

[mikejones99]

He already decided long ago to attack Iran. Ships are moving in and more troops will be there soon.

[Bob Lanier]

One wonders just how much more of his wife's money Tom Friedman will waste on his pretensions toward being a public intellectual.

[boutons_]

IIRC, I think Dowd's and Krugman's salaries are about $300K.

Friedman may not be that high but why do you say he's wasting his wife's money?

And why do care what their financial arrangement are in the first place?

And of course, you have no response to his call for diplomatic moves,
just the automatic ad hominem.

To quote our so eloquont AHF "You're so fucking stupid"

[Bob Lanier]

Because Friedman is a semimoronic dilettante who's built a career as a hack journalist on name recognition and connections resulting from the billions of dollars his wife inherited.

I agree with his argument in this case that it serves the interests of the United States for it to negotiate more freely with Iran. I don't agree with your implicit name-checking of a two-bit liberal interventionist (i.e., neoconservative) who would be overjoyed to join in Mr. DarkReign's fetishism of American air power and hop on the Bomb Iran Express if he hadn't been so thoroughly embarrassed himself during his tenure as a cheerleader for the Iraq invasion.

[DarkReign]

I just dont care about the middle east or the people in it anymore. Maybe at one point I did, but the damn people are so fucking helpless, it makes me sick. I would pity them if they werent prone to so much extremism. And its not like its only a small minority are supportive of terrorism as a form of warfare, its commonplace.

Whole religious sects with an increasing number of members who actually believe blowing yourself up in public is a service to your God and it will be rewarded. You dont re-educate a people like that, you exterminate them. They hang gays and family members perform honor-killings because their daughter was raped. You have judges saying what I would deem prepostorous things like "Well, looking like she did, can you blame the men involved? If you leave meat out in the street, the dogs will eat it." WTF is that? And we're supposed to treat these savages as equals?!

Fuck that and fuck them. Pick a fight, keep talking shit. Youll get yours soon enough. I just dont care about their welfare anymore, at all. Sorry if that offends you.

[Bob Lanier]

You seem to care enough to spend billions of your fellow citizens' tax dollars on a bombing campaign.

It was a pretty rant, though. Somewhat lacking in coherence, informed by some laughable bigotry, and with perhaps a limited correspondence to reality, but pretty nonetheless.

[DarkReign]

You seem to care enough to spend billions of your fellow citizens' tax dollars on a bombing campaign.

It was a pretty rant, though. Somewhat lacking in coherence, informed by some laughable bigotry, and with perhaps a limited correspondence to reality, but pretty nonetheless.

What, pray tell, do you think those billions of dollars were going to spent on otherwise?

Laughable bigotry? Honor killings? Hanging homosexuals? Rape victims becoming the perpetrator? Point out where I am wrong, please.

[clambake]

All cultures should examine their failures before acting on the failures of others.

[temujin]

All cultures should examine their failures before acting on the failures of others.

Perfect.

[boutons_]

Iran Clock Is Ticking

By Robert Parry
Consortium News

Wednesday 31 January 2007

While congressional Democrats test how far they should go in challenging George W. Bush's war powers, the time may be running out to stop Bush from ordering a major escalation of the Middle East conflict by attacking Iran.

Military and intelligence sources continue to tell me that preparations are advancing for a war with Iran starting possibly as early as mid-to-late February. The sources offer some differences of opinion over whether Bush might cite a provocation from Iran or whether Israel will take the lead in launching air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.

But there is growing alarm among military and intelligence experts that Bush already has decided to attack and simply is waiting for a second aircraft carrier strike force to arrive in the region - and for a propaganda blitz to stir up some pro-war sentiment at home.

One well-informed U.S. military source called me in a fury after consulting with Pentagon associates and discovering how far along the war preparations are. He said the plans call for extensive aerial attacks on Iran, including use of powerful bunker-busting ordnance.

Another source with a pipeline into Israeli thinking said the Iran war plan has expanded over the past several weeks. Earlier thinking had been that Israeli warplanes would hit Iranian nuclear targets with U.S. forces in reserve in case of Iranian retaliation, but now the strategy anticipates a major U.S. military follow-up to an Israeli attack, the source said.

Both sources used the same word "crazy" in describing the plan to expand the war to Iran. The two sources, like others I have interviewed, said that attacking Iran could touch off a regional - and possibly global - conflagration.

"It will be like the TV show '24'," the American military source said, citing the likelihood of Islamic retaliation reaching directly into the United States.

Though Bush insists that no decision has been made on attacking Iran, he offered similar assurances of his commitment to peace in the months before invading Iraq in 2003. Yet leaked documents from London made clear that he had set a course for war nine months to a year before the Iraq invasion.

In other words, Bush's statements that he has no plans to "invade" Iran and that he's still committed to settle differences with Iran over its nuclear program diplomatically should be taken with a grain of salt.

There is, of course, the possibility that the war preparations are a game of chicken to pressure Iran to accept outside controls on its nuclear program and to trim back its regional ambitions. But sometimes such high-stakes gambles lead to miscalculations or set in motion dynamics that can't be controlled.

============

"You Will Die"

The rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq is seen as another factor pressing on Bush to act quickly against Iran.

Other sources with first-hand knowledge of conditions in Iraq have told me that the U.S. position is even more precarious than generally understood. Westerners can't even move around Baghdad and many other Iraqi cities except in armed convoys.

"In some countries, if you want to get out of the car and go to the market, they'll tell you that it might be dangerous," one experienced American cameraman told me. "In Iraq, you will be killed. Not that you might be killed, but you will be killed. The first Iraqi with a gun will shoot you, and if no one has a gun, they'll stone you."

While U.S. war correspondents in most countries travel around in taxis with "TV" taped to their windows, Western journalists in Iraq move only in armed convoys to and from specific destinations. They operate from heavily guarded Baghdad hotels sometimes with single families responsible for security since outsiders can't be trusted.

The American cameraman said one European journalist rebelled at the confinement, took off on her own in a cab - and was never seen again.

Depression also is spreading among U.S. intelligence officials who monitor covert operations in Iraq from listening stations sometimes thousands of miles away. The results of these Special Forces operations have been so horrendous that morale in the intelligence community has suffered.

The futility of the Iraq War also is contributing to professional cynicism. Some intelligence support personnel are volunteering for Iraq duty not because they think they can help win the war but because the hazard pay is high and life in the protected Green Zone is relatively safe and easy.

Once getting past the risks of the Baghdad airport and the dangerous road into the city, U.S. civilian government personnel ensconce themselves in the Green Zone, which amounts to a bubble of U.S. creature comforts - from hamburgers to lounging by the pool - separate from the world of average Iraqis who are mostly barred.

Cooks are brought in from other countries out of the unstated concern that Iraqis might poison the food.

That American officials have come to view a posting in Iraq as a pleasant career enhancer - rather than a vital national security mission for the United States - is another sign that the war is almost certainly beyond recovery.

Another experienced observer of conflicts around the world told me that Bush's new idea of putting small numbers of U.S. troops among Iraqi government forces inside police stations represents an act of idiocy that is sure to get Americans killed.

Conditions in Iraq have so deteriorated - and animosity toward Americans has so metastasized - that traditional counterinsurgency strategies are hard to envision, too.

Normally, winning the hearts and minds of a target population requires a commitment to move among the people and work on public action projects, from building roads to improving the judicial system. But all that requires some measure of political goodwill and personal trust.

Given the nearly four years of U.S. occupation and the devastation that Iraq has suffered, not even the most talented American counterinsurgency specialists can expect to overcome the hatred swelling among large segments of Iraqi society.

Bush's "surge" strategy of conducting more military sweeps through more Iraqi neighborhoods - knocking down doors, gunning down hostile Iraqis and dragging off others to detention camps - is not likely to assuage hard feelings.

Wider War

So, facing slim odds in Iraq, Bush is tempted by the allure of escalation, a chance to blame the Iranians for his Iraq failure and to punish them with air strikes. He might see that as a way to buy time, a chance to rally his pro-war supporters and a strategy for enhancing his presidential legacy.

But the consequences both internationally and domestically - from possible disruption of oil supplies to potential retaliation from Islamic terrorists - could be devastating.

Yet, there is a sense of futility among many in Washington who doubt they can do anything to stop Bush. So far, the Democratic-controlled Congress has lagged behind the curve, debating how to phrase a non-binding resolution of disapproval about Bush's "surge" of 21,500 troops in Iraq, while Bush may be opening an entirely new front in Iran.

According to intelligence sources, Bush's Iran strategy is expected to let the Israelis take a lead role in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities in order to defuse Democratic opposition and let the U.S. intervention be sold as defensive, a case of a vulnerable ally protecting itself from a future nuclear threat.

Once American air and naval forces are committed to a new conflict, the Democrats will find it politically difficult to interfere at least in the near future, the thinking goes. A violent reaction from the Islamic world would further polarize the American population and let Bush paint war critics as cowardly, disloyal or pro-terrorist.

( we can bet on that paint from the Exec and from all the hard right knee-jerk nutter in this forum :) )

As risky as a wider war might be, Bush's end game would dominate the final two years of his presidency as he forces both Republican and Democratic candidates to address issues of war and peace on his terms.

On Jan. 10, the night of Bush's national address on the Iraq War, NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert made a striking observation about a pre-speech briefing that Bush and other senior administration officials gave to news executives.

"There's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue in the country and the world in a very acute way - and a prediction that in 2008 candidates of both parties will have as a fundamental campaign promise or premise a policy to deal with Iran and not let it go nuclear," Russert said. "That's how significant Iran was today."

So, Bush and his top advisers not only signaled their expectation of a "very acute" development with Iran but that the Iranian issue would come to dominate Campaign 2008 with candidates forced to spell out plans for containing this enemy state.

What to Do?

The immediate question, however, is what, if anything, can Congress and the American people do to head off Bush's expanded war strategy.

Some in Congress have called on Bush to seek prior congressional approval before entering a war with Iran. Others, such as Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, have asked Bush to spell out how expansive he thinks his war powers are.

"I would suggest respectfully to the President that he is not the sole decider," Specter said during a Senate hearing on war powers on Jan. 30. "The decider is a shared and joint responsibility."

But Bush and his neoconservative legal advisers have made clear that they see virtually no limits to Bush's "plenary" powers as Commander in Chief at a time of war. In their view, Bush is free to take military actions abroad and to waive legal and constitutional constraints at home because the United States has been deemed part of the "battlefield."

Nothing short of a direct congressional prohibition on war with Iran and a serious threat of impeachment would seem likely to give Bush more than a moment's pause. But congressional Republicans would surely obstruct such measures and Bush might well veto any law that was passed.

Still, unless Congress escalates the confrontation with the President - and does so quickly - it may be too late to stop what could become a very dangerous escalation.

---------

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com's "Logic of a Wider Mideast War."]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/013107.html

===============

wow, some pretty wild stuff in there.

Y'all will surely attack Parry for writing it and attack me for posting it, but can y'all refute it?

I get the impression that the insane, blood thirsty, hate/war-mongering hard right nutters would love to bomb the shit out of Iran, just as long as they and their families are untouched by violence or any incovenience whatsoever.

[Nbadan]

Even some of the talking-head, chicken-hawks are having trouble swallowing some of the Iran War group's media accusations against Iran...

Take your quarrels elsewhere, Bush told
Bob Deans in Washington
February 2, 2007


THE Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has told the United States and Iran to take their quarrels elsewhere, saying he will not permit his country to be caught in the crossfire.

"Solve your problems outside of Iraq. We do not want the American forces to take Iraq as a field to attack Iran or Syria, and we will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces," Mr Maliki told CNN.

The US Under Secretary of State, Nicholas Burns, sent another warning to Iran against interfering in Iraq, saying US officials had "picked up individuals who we believe are giving very sophisticated explosives technology to Shia insurgent groups who then use that technology to target and kill American soldiers".

However, the Bush Administration has postponed plans to publish a "dossier" of Iranian interference in Iraq, with some officials divided over the strength of the US evidence.

SMH (http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/take-your-quarrels-elsewhere-bush-told/2007/02/01/1169919474255.html)

[clambake]

Pretty wild stuff, indeed. That would be diabolical. His interviews have a mirror image to that of Iraq, already. You must be this tall to take this ride.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Can anyone even imagine how easy it would be to cut and run if we did not have to depend on foreign oil? To get the fuck out of there and let these peices of shit kill themselves for another 3000 years?

I can't. But man it would be awesome to know americans weren't dying for this.
Fucking muslims.

[ChumpDumper]

The article is a little too biased, but there are certainly signs that Bushy is cranking up the war machine the same way he did before invading Iraq.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

This country is seriously going to end up "Staying the course" just long enough to force us to "cut and run" at the worst possible moment in the history of this war.

[Nbadan]

A political bombshell from Zbigniew Brzezinski
Ex-national security adviser warns that Bush is seeking a pretext to attack Iran
By Barry Grey in Washington DC
2 February 2007


Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration, delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the Bush administration’s policy was leading inevitably to a war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for US imperialism in the Middle East and internationally.

Brzezinski, who opposed the March 2003 invasion and has publicly denounced the war as a colossal foreign policy blunder, began his remarks on what he called the “war of choice” in Iraq by characterizing it as “a historic, strategic and moral calamity.”

“Undertaken under false assumptions,” he continued, “it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.”

Brzezinski derided Bush’s talk of a “decisive ideological struggle” against radical Islam as “simplistic and demagogic,” and called it a “mythical historical narrative” employed to justify a “protracted and potentially expanding war.”

“To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said.

Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran.” It would, he suggested, involve “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

WSWS (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/brze-f02_prn.shtml)

10 out of 10 for Zbigniew Brzezinski.

[boutons_]

"undermining America’s global legitimacy"

WTF is "America’s global legitimacy"?

dickhead is certifiably insane, straight out of Dr. Strangelove


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/10/Slim-pickens_riding-the-bomb.jpg

...

[temujin]

Impressive.
Absolutely impressive and unprecedented in mankind history.

You loose a war to country A?
Try another one with its neighbour country B.

IF America's worst possible enemy had to imagine, configurate, design, engineer and finally construct a robot with human-like resemblance taking on the most influential position world-wide, to end America's dominance of world affairs,
well,
this fellow couln't possibly DREAM of anyone better than this Bush chap.
Or whoever is actually calling the shots in Washington.

[ChumpDumper]

Bushy has a pathological need to act in ways he considers bold. I have no doubt he is doubling-down on his mideast gamble and will be attacking before his term is up.

[temujin]

Suicide.
Collective suicide.

[gtownspur]

Suicide.
Collective suicide.


Suicide?

Seriously?

Refrain from using extremes to prove a point.

We are kicking ass militarily in Iraq and are losing only politically.

We can win any war if the american people are put to mind.


You could say that this war is a waste of time.

But to say it's suicide as if the enemy we fight in Iraq is wiping out 100 of thousand troops in one battle and are poised at a land invasion is idiocy.

Go read a book, or watch the history channel. It may be watered down to look at war through those mediums but they can present you a clearer picture of what constitutes victory and what doesn't.

[sabar]

Chirac muses on Iran, and then retreats
If Iran were to try to use a nuclear weapon against Israel, "It would not have gone off 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground."

By Elaine Sciolino and Katrin Bennhold
Published: January 31, 2007

PARIS: President Jacques Chirac said in an interview that an Iran that possessed one or two nuclear weapons would not pose much of a danger, adding that if Iran were ever to launch a nuclear weapon against a country like Israel, it would lead to the immediate destruction of Tehran.

The remarks, made in an interview Monday with the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times and the weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, were vastly different from stated French policy and from what Chirac repeatedly has said.

So in a remarkable turnaround, Chirac summoned the journalists involved to the Élysée Palace again Tuesday to retract many of the things he had said.

Chirac said repeatedly during the second interview that he had spoken casually and quickly the day before because he had believed he was talking about Iran off the record. Finally, he admitted that he had made a mistake.

"It is I who was wrong and I do not want to contest it," he said. "I should have paid better attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record."

The interview was conducted under an agreement that it would not be published until Thursday, when Nouvel Observateur prints.

On Monday, Chirac began by describing as "very dangerous" Iran's refusal to stop producing enriched uranium, which can be used to produce electricity or to make nuclear weapons.

Then he made his remarks about a nuclear-armed Iran.

"I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb," he said. "Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous. But what is very dangerous is proliferation. This means that if Iran continues in the direction it has taken and totally mastering nuclear-generated electricity, the danger does not lie in the bomb it will have, and which will be of no use to it."

Chirac explained that it would be an act of self-destruction for Iran to use a nuclear weapon against another country. "Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?" Chirac asked. "It would not have gone off 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground."

It was unclear whether Chirac's initial remarks reflected what he truly believed about Iran or whether he had misspoken. In the past year and a half, he is said by some French officials to have become much less precise in diplomatic conversations and to have even expressed the view that a nuclear- armed Iran might be inevitable.

Further confusing the issue, on Monday evening, the Élysée prepared a heavily edited 19-page transcript of the interview that did not include Chirac's assessment of a nuclear-armed Iran or his prediction of what would happen if it ever tried to use it.

Instead, the transcript added a line that Chirac had not said; it read, "I do not see what type of scenario could justify Iran's recourse to an atomic bomb."

The attempt by the Élysée to change the president's remarks in a formal text is not unusual. It is a long-held tradition in French journalism for interview subjects, from the president to business and cultural figures, to be given the opportunity to edit the texts of question-and- answer interviews before publication.

During the Monday interview, Chirac made clear that a more profound problem than Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon was that a nuclear-armed Iran might encourage other regional players to follow suit.

"It is really very tempting for other countries in the region with large financial resources to say: 'Well, we too are going to do that; we're going to help others do it,'" he said. "Why wouldn't Saudi Arabia do it? Why wouldn't it help Egypt to do so as well? That is the real danger."

In the second interview, Chirac retracted his comment that Tehran would be destroyed if Iran launched a nuclear weapon.

"I take it back of course when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,'" he said. "It was of course a manner of speaking."

He added that any number of third countries would stop an Iranian bomb from ever reaching its target.

"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," Chirac said. "We have the means, several countries have the means to destroy a bomb."

Chirac also retracted his prediction that a nuclear Iran could lead Saudi Arabia and Egypt to follow suit.

"I drifted — because I thought we were off the record — to say that, for example, Saudi Arabia or Egypt could be tempted to follow this example," he said. "I retract it, of course, since neither Saudi Arabia nor Egypt has made any declaration on these subjects, so it is not up to me to make them."

As for his musing in the first interview that Israel could be a hypothetical target of an Iranian attack, Chirac said, "I don't think I spoke about Israel yesterday. Maybe I have done so but I don't think so. I have no recollection of that."

There were other clarifications. In the initial interview, for example, Chirac referred to Iran's Islamic Republic as "a bit fragile." In the subsequent interview, he called Iran "a great country" with a "very old culture" that "has an important role to play in the region" as a force for stability.

Chirac's initial comments contradicted long-held official French policy, which holds that Iran must not go nuclear. The thinking is that a nuclear- armed Iran would give Iran the ability to project power throughout the region, threaten its neighbors and encourage other regional players to seek the bomb.

Under Chirac's presidency, France has joined the United States and other countries in moving to sanction Iran for refusing to stop enriching uranium, as demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council.

Just a few weeks ago, Chirac wanted to send his foreign minister to Iran to help resolve the crisis in Lebanon, an inititative that collapsed when members of his own government said that it not only would fail, but would send a wrong signal to Iran at a time of sanctions against it.

But there also are divisions within the French government about how far Iran should be punished for behavior that the outside world might not be able to change. There are also concerns whether the more aggressive course of action toward Iran is reminiscent of the prelude to the American-led war in Iraq which France opposed.

Indeed, in noting the sanctions that were imposed by the Security Council against Iran last month, Chirac warned that escalation of the conflict by both sides was unwise. "Of course we can go further and further, or higher and higher up the scale in the reactions from both sides," he said. "But this is certainly not what he had in mind nor what we intend to do."

Chirac, who is 74 and about ready to end his second term as president, also had a different demeanor during the two encounters.

In the first interview, which took place in the morning, he appeared distracted at times, grasping for names and dates and relying on advisers to fill in the blanks. His hands shook slightly. When he spoke about climate change, he read from prepared talking points printed in large letters and highlighted in yellow and pink.

By contrast, in the second interview, which came just after lunch, he appeared both confident and completely comfortable with the subject matter.

The exclusive purpose of the initial interview was for Chirac to talk about climate change and an international conference for which he will be host in Paris later this week. The conference parallels a United Nations conference that will unveil a long-awaited report on the global environmental crisis.

The question about Iran followed a comment by Chirac on the importance of developing nuclear energy programs that are transparent, safe and secure.

Iran insists that the purpose of its uranium enrichment program is to produce peaceful nuclear energy; France, along with many other countries including the United States, is convinced that the program is part of a nuclear weapons program.

In the midst of his initial remarks on Iran, Chirac's spokesman passed him a handwritten note, which Chirac read aloud. "Yes, he's telling me that we have to go back to the environment," Chirac said. He then continued a discussion of Shiite Muslims, who are by far the majority in Iran but a minority in the Muslim world.

"Shiites do not have the reaction of the Sunnis or of Europeans," he said.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/31/news/france.php?page=1

[temujin]

Suicide?

Seriously?

Refrain from using extremes to prove a point.

It's been a while since I obeyed to anything.

We are kicking ass militarily in Iraq

Really?

and are losing only politically.

And economically.


We can win any war if the american people are put to mind.

Yes, for the time being, the US can win any war MILITARILY.
And yes, the US can even blow up the whole planet. In that, though, other countries join the club.

You could say that this war is a waste of time.

Which one? IraQ? Or IraN?
They are actually different places.
We are talking IraN, here. A war on IraN.
This is the title of the discussion.

But to say it's suicide as if the enemy we fight in Iraq is wiping out 100 of thousand troops in one battle and are poised at a land invasion is idiocy.

Unacceptable insult.
I reinstate that.
Invading IraN would be a political AND economic suicide.

Go read a book, or watch the history channel. It may be watered down to look at war through those mediums but they can present you a clearer picture of what constitutes victory and what doesn't.

Halmark of "kicking ass militarily" is sending more troops to win a war that has been won militarily already. It's typical.
Another classic is invade a country that is 4 times the size, with 4 times the people of the country just militarily "defeated", while celebrating victory.
In both cases, without the foggiest idea of what to do AFTER.
All books and history channels (!!!!!!) agree on that.

[Nbadan]

Brezinski strikes again...

Laststeamtrain posted this statement by Zbigniew Brzezinski, prepared for the Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing Feb 1. It has gone largely unnoticed as have the hearings by the media. His statement is worth a second look because he is predicting a wider war based upon current regime propaganda:


...If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD's in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the "decisive ideological struggle" of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America's involvement in World War II.

This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine. In contrast, most Muslims are not embracing Islamic fundamentalism; al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist Islamist aberration; most Iraqis are engaged in strife because the American occupation of Iraq destroyed the Iraqi state; while Iran -- though gaining in regional influence -- is itself politically divided, economically and militarily weak. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Deplorably, the Administration's foreign policy in the Middle East region has lately relied almost entirely on such sloganeering. Vague and inflammatory talk about "a new strategic context" which is based on "clarity" and which prompts "the birth pangs of a new Middle East" is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world. Those in charge of U.S. diplomacy have also adopted a posture of moralistic self-ostracism toward Iran strongly reminiscent of John Foster Dulles's attitude of the early 1950's toward Chinese Communist leaders (resulting among other things in the well-known episode of the refused handshake). It took some two decades and a half before another Republican president was finally able to undo that legacy...

Zbig notes that, "...that practically no country in the world shares the Manichean delusions that the Administration so passionately articulates."

Zbig's recommendations include a firm timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and a rational that supports it, among other things. He finally recommends that Congress assert itself.

Whatever else this unprincipled gentleman may be, he is a foreign policy expert. He is predicting a much wider war based upon the direction of this adminstration's demagoguery and unfounded mythology.

Is Congress listening? Does the media report it? Why is the administration's "sloganeering" treated as a viable basis foreign policy discussion in Congress and the media?

Washington Note (ttp://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001916.php)

[Nbadan]

Despite the WH rhetoric, war preparations with Iran complete..

US forces almost ready for Iran air strike, say sources
THE GUARDIAN, WASHINGTON
Sunday, Feb 11, 2007, Page 1


US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the administration of US President George W. Bush, informed sources in Washington said.

- snip -

"We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous," he added. Cannistraro, who worked for the CIA and the National Security Council, stressed that no decision had been made.

Last month Bush ordered a second battle group, led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis, to the Gulf in support of the USS Eisenhower. The Stennis is due to arrive within the next 10 days. Extra US Patriot missiles have been sent to the region, as well as more minesweepers, in anticipation of Iranian retaliatory action.

In another sign that preparations are under way, Bush has ordered oil reserves to be stockpiled.

- snip -

Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target, supported the view that planning for an air strike was underway.

Taipei times (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/02/11/2003348506)

These crazy lunatics are gonna do it.

[gtownspur]

Halmark of "kicking ass militarily" is sending more troops to win a war that has been won militarily already. It's typical.
Another classic is invade a country that is 4 times the size, with 4 times the people of the country just militarily "defeated", while celebrating victory.
In both cases, without the foggiest idea of what to do AFTER.
All books and history channels (!!!!!!) agree on that.



what history dumbass?

Alexander conquered landmasses 100x's more than greece. Iran does not hold a candle to the US in any regard.

And about the economy, creating jobs, dropping unemployment rates, you need to lay off the bohemian LaRouche the Douche PAC packets you read at the Lilth fair, to notice that our country is doing fine economically.

THe only reason we seem at unease is because you assclowns will swear to bring any type of fear into the american phsyche while a republican is in office.

THe economy is doing great.

What do you sick fucks trumpet to beat it?

"Duh, trade imbalance, deficit."--as if the national debt was a new phenomena.

"Duh, gap between rich and poor." as if the middle class was spending money on luxury items like ipods, cell phones, plasmas, notebooks, tahoes in the 90's
-oh wait, thats today. THey didn't do that in the 90's

seriously what new class warfare regurgitated neo socialist statist crap will you bring up?

[gtownspur]

Halmark of "kicking ass militarily" is sending more troops to win a war that has been won militarily already. It's typical.
Another classic is invade a country that is 4 times the size, with 4 times the people of the country just militarily "defeated", while celebrating victory.
In both cases, without the foggiest idea of what to do AFTER.
All books and history channels (!!!!!!) agree on that.


what are you comparing that to?

Vietnam?

Algiers?

[gtownspur]

In Arabic there exists no particular term for the secular meaning of la nation, as defined in the historical context of the French Revolution. In classical Arabic and in the formative years of Islam there was a clear distinction between a qawm, that is, the particular tribe to which an Arab belonged, and the umma/community, which is the supreme frame of reference of identity for all Muslims. In modern times la nation has been translated into Arabic as the very term umma, thus confusing the religious meaning of the political community established by the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century with the secular meaning that had unfotded in Europe in the course of the eighteenth century. "Nationalism" has been translated into Arabic as the neo-Arabic term al-qawmiyya, which is based on the classical Arabic term qawm meaning tribe, people. This translation opened the way for the polemical cry of Islamic fundamentalists that secular Arab nationalists are reverting to the pre-Islamic jahiliyya/age of heedlessness of tribes. Truly, the Islamic umma historically aimed at replacing the qawm/tribe in uniting all Arab tribes in one community.
In the secular literature of pan-Arab nationalism we confront chiefly projections of modern European meaning, such as that of la nation, into the classical Arab history and lexicon. Most of the authors of this literature trace the Arab nation back even into pre-Islamic times.[26] The ethnic conflict between Arabs and the mawali (non-Arab Muslims) is being translated into a national conflict between those who want to maintain the Arab purity of

Islam and those who want to welcome non-Arab elements into it. Enmity and confusion—-between tribes, ethnosectarian communities, and the modern nation-—have been at work among Islamists and secularists alike.

Political thought always reflects a worldview. In interpreting Islam as a cultural system along the lines of the anthropology of Clifford Geertz (see note 3), I want to advance the hypothesis that Islam has always been the underlying cultural basis of the particular worldview of Muslims, and even of pan-Arab secularists. In the Middle East there has never been a process of structural and cultural changes underlying an orderly shift of the world-view from a religious to a secular one, as happened in the historical process that once unfolded in Europe. In this sense, there has never been a real societal process of secularization underpinning secular ideologies in the Middle East, not even in secular Turkey. In Turkey the state claims to be secular, but the society is not; and it cannot be described as secular in the sociological meaning of the term. We can argue, in fact, that the continuity of the Islamic worldview, persisting even in the midst of social change, has facilitated the recent shift from secular ideologies to those of political Islam and to the worldview it reflects.[27] In examining Islam's function as a cultural system underlying a worldview, one cannot escape the fact that secular ideologies were never able to put down strong structural roots in Islam, or to affeet the prevailing worldview. Thus, secularization as a separation of religion and politics has remained a surface function.

Long before the rise of Islamic fundamentalism a former sheikh of al-Azhar who received his academic education as well as his doctorate from a German university (Hamburg, 1936)[28] defined the worldview of Muslims as one based on a separation of the world into "the West" and the "abode of Islam." To him, the West has intruded upon the World of Islam, and in the process has provoked a deviation from Islam.[29] The concern of Muslims should ultimately be to return their people and their ideas and institutions to Islam. It follows, then, that the desire "to rebuild Islamic social life on the very principles of Islam"[30] has always been a salient feature of Muslim thinking.




source;


http://middleeastinfo.org/article4453.html

[boutons_]

dubya beating another war drum:


BBC NEWS

US accuses Iran over Iraq bombs

The US military has accused the "highest levels" of Iran's government of supplying increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs to Iraq's insurgents.

Senior defence officials told reporters in Baghdad that the bombs were being used to deadly effect, killing more than 170 US troops since June 2004.

The weapons known as "explosively formed projectiles" (EFPs) are capable of destroying an Abrams tank.

US claims the bombs were smuggled from Iran cannot be independently verified.

The US officials, speaking off camera on condition of anonymity, said that EFPs had also injured more than 620 US personnel since June 2004.

They said US intelligence analysts believed the bombs were manufactured in Iran and secretly sent into Iraq on the orders of senior officials in Tehran.

The US has claimed in the past that Iranian weapons were being used in Iraq, but have never before accused Iranian government officials of being directly involved.

Truck bomb

In the latest violence in Iraq , at least 15 people were killed when a suicide bomber drove a vehicle laden with explosives into a police station near the town of Tikrit.

At least 25 people were injured in the attack on the station in Adwar, about 175km (110 miles) north of Baghdad.

The casualties are reported to include prisoners held in cells at the police station, as well as civilian visitors.

Elsewhere, the US military said it was checking a report that an Apache helicopter had come down near the town of near Taji, about 20km (12 miles) north of Baghdad.

The blast at the police station happened at about 0800 (1100GMT) as police were arriving for work, Capt Abdel-Samad Mohammed was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

The bomber drove a small truck that was packed with explosives covered by hay, and the force of the blast caused the building to collapse, the officer said.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6351257.stm

Published: 2007/02/11 14:07:51 GMT

© BBC MMVII

[01Snake]

^^ So you have no problem with Iran helping kill our troops in Iraq? Thats what I figured.

[Bob Lanier]

Obviously no more than you do in blindly trusting the word of "senior defense officials".

You know, because the American military has done such a great job with intelligence gathering over the past 50 years.

[01Snake]

Obviously no more than you do in blindly trusting the word of "senior defense officials".

You know, because the American military has done such a great job with intelligence gathering over the past 50 years.


Blindy trusting. :rolleyes

[Bob Lanier]

:elephant

[01Snake]

:donkey

[Bob Lanier]

:oink

[01Snake]

:monkey

[Bob Lanier]

Racist.

[01Snake]

Racist.


http://www.websmileys.com/sm/sad/014.gif

[temujin]

what history dumbass?

To some, a specific one.
To you, any.

Alexander conquered landmasses 100x's more than greece. Iran does not hold a candle to the US in any regard.

1) There might be a couple of additional certainties, other than "the sun will be rising tomorrow". One is that the current commander will NOT be regarded in the same class with Alexander.
2) Precisely because Alexander had no plans whatsover for an after-war, could you remind to the -hopefully few- chaps reading your "messages" what happened to the 100X landmasses, when He prematurely passed away?

And about the economy, creating jobs, dropping unemployment rates, you need to lay off the bohemian LaRouche the Douche PAC packets you read at the Lilth fair, to notice that our country is doing fine economically.

Admittedly, 11 words showing some type of interest.

THe only reason we seem at unease is because you assclowns will swear to bring any type of fear into the american phsyche while a republican is in office.

There are three groups of people interested in politics.
1) Those with an immediate vested interest. It has to be immediate, though.
2) Those with a lot of time to waste. Not just a bit.
3) Mere idiots.
I don't belong to any of these conspicuous categories.

THe economy is doing great.

What do you sick fucks trumpet to beat it?

"Duh, trade imbalance, deficit."--as if the national debt was a new phenomena.

"Duh, gap between rich and poor." as if the middle class was spending money on luxury items like ipods, cell phones, plasmas, notebooks, tahoes in the 90's
-oh wait, thats today. THey didn't do that in the 90's

:lmao
But that doen't really explain the reaction.

seriously what new class warfare regurgitated neo socialist statist crap will you bring up?

It's actually called common sense.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

here we go again... not done with one war, and on with the next huh?

[boutons_]

BBC NEWS

Israeli missile test 'successful'

Israel has carried out a successful test of its Arrow missile, the defence ministry has said.

One of the missiles was fired at night and destroyed what Israeli media said was a target similar to Iran's long-range Shahab-3 missile.

The test took place as Iran celebrated the 28th anniversary of its Islamic revolution.

Israel considers Iran its greatest threat since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003, analysts say.

'Message to Iran'

"This evening's successful test reinforces Israel's readiness... against external threats at the extremes of its operational envelope," said Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz.

The Arrow missile was fired from a base south of Tel Aviv at a missile launched from an aircraft over the eastern Mediterranean at a high altitude.

This was the first test of the Arrow missile to be conducted at night.

Israeli public television called the test a "message to Iran".

The anti-ballistic missile system was developed jointly with the United States after Israel came under attack by Iraqi Scud missiles during the first Gulf War.

Some Western nations, including Israel, fear Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6352659.stm

Published: 2007/02/11 23:11:03 GMT

© BBC MMVII