War in Iran

[BlueGene]

There has been some coverage about Iran recently. I wonder if anyone else thinks that there might be another war, especially if there is evidence of nuclear weapons in development. Is the Bush administration capable of another war?

I think we find out through legitimate sources that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. The UN will quickly jump the gun and support military invasion.

[jester!]

There will be a war, it wont be UN backed though.

Go go Team America!! If they cant find proof of a nuclear weapon they will make some, bleh, cant even be fucked to rant on the hypocracy of the US...

[Hannibal]

The UN will quickly jump the gun and support military invasion.

Who will do the 'invading'? The Salvation Army? In the short-run, it is a logistical impossibility for the US military, and it's highly doubtful that a Euro or Russian led force is in the offing. It's diplomacy or nothing.

[tnf]

No offense to jester!, but his position is pretty naive. This won't be a "Team America" war - if there was a war. I'm betting there won't be (in the traditional sense.) the logistics of an Iran war are even worse than Iraq turned out to be.


It's not going to be Iraq part 2.
And jester! - we aren't looking for proof of a nuclear weapon.

[Dave]

If we tried anything Iran, it would probably be clandestine, and/or Radio Free Iran type of shit aimed at undermining the government... not all out war. In Iraq there was no chance for a popular internal uprising--we guaranteed that in 91. Plus, we're stretched too thin militarially and have an unpopular government. Even Karl Rove can figure that out. As long as Iran has a working political system (it seems and unlike Iraq), war is unnecessary unless they decided to nuke Israel or something stupid like that.

[Freakaloin]

if we bomb just one of their plants...they will respond massively...

[S@M]

The French and British are on side with a UN Security resolution - Russia is not as they have a number of deals with Iran, the UN will fight it out to get a resolution for the next eon. At least France is agreeing with this, so the UN is the most likely place of action.

[Tormentius]

so the UN is the most likely place of action.

Russia has veto power, so there probably won't be much action.

[[xeno]Julios]

... the logistics of an Iran war are even worse than Iraq turned out to be.

yea:

Everybody's asking me what'll happen if we attack Iran. To get a quick preview, just do what this guy in my eighth-grade class did: put a firecracker in your mouth, hold it between your front teeth, and light the fuse.


Your friends won't believe you'll go through with it. So when it blows up in your face, you'll expect them to be impressed. And you'll be surprised, just like this guy in junior high was surprised, when all you get is a perforated eardrum and a reputation as the biggest dumbass in the school.

Right now, Bush is standing there with a lit match and a big firecracker labeled "Iran" in his mouth. Except it's more like an M-80 or a whole stick of dynamite than a firecracker. Nobody believes he'll be dumb enough to light it, to actually attack Iran. Even the Iranians don't believe it; Khameini, their head Mullah, said last week "America is in no position to invade Iran."

He's right about that. Even the US Army brass admits we're "overstretched." We don't even have enough troops to control Iraq; a war with Iran would mean calling up every National Guard unit we have. Even then, it would take years to get them combat-ready.

And this time the Brits won't come with us. They've been making that clear, on the quiet. If we go in, it'll be as a coalition of one.

So Khameini's right; we can't attack Iran. But that doesn't mean we won't. Khameini was making the same mistake everybody's been making: assuming Bush and his cronies have a lick of sense.

The best way of guessing what Bush will do is asking, what's the worst thing he could do to America? Whatever it is, that's what he'll do. I think he's been possessed by bin Laden, because everything he's done has been exactly what Al Quaeda hoped for. Right now, bin Laden is praying to Allah that we'll be stupid enough to attack Iran. That would be the cherry on his halal sundae, the one thing that could actually finish us off as a Superpower.

In my "Quagmire Bowl" article I said the Iraq war probably wouldn't be fatal. It's definitely hurt us, but it won't mean the downfall of America. Well, if we invade Iran, that bet is off. All bets are off. People don't realize how fast a Superpower can fall. It only takes one invasion too many.

Napoleon was unstoppable before he invaded Russia. So was Hitler. Now France and Germany are "Old Europe."

Invading the wrong country can age you faster than driving a Long Beach bus on the night shift. Invading Iran helped end the win-streak of the best, biggest Empire of all, the Romans. It was in 260 AD, when emperor Valerius headed east to deal with the Persians who were kickin' up a fuss on the eastern border of the Empire. This Valerian would've risen high in Dubya's administration, because he was a real hard charger, a go-getter...and dumb as a half brick. He charged right into Iraq -- they called it Mesopotamia back then -- even though his troops were dying of plague all around him. The Persians sat back, watched Roman troops keeling over, and had a good laugh, eating pistachios in the shade while Valerian tried to figure out what to do.

Naturally, he decided it was time for bold action. That's the only trick these go-getters know. It reminds me of what one of MacArthur's aides said about him: "When it paid to be aggressive, he was aggressive. And when it didn't pay to be aggressive...he was aggressive."

Valerian figured a little proactive salesmanship would settle things, so he demanded a meeting with the Persian emperor, Sapor--who couldn't believe his luck. Sapor ordered the slaves to cook a big banquet, bring out the best silverware -- and had his troops hide in the banquet hall till he gave the signal. Valerian stomped in, Sapor snapped his fingers and Valerian ended up a live trophy, dragged around in chains through every city in the Persian empire till his purple robes were shreds.

There's a moral to this story: Persians are tricky, clever people. They've always had that reputation. You don't want people like that for enemies. Unfortunately, Bush won't be leading the charge the way Valerian did, so we probably won't get to see him dragged through Tehran in chains. But we'll see worse things: casualty lists that will make Iraq look like a beach volleyball game, American armies losing conventional battles, and after a few years, a humiliating exit.

Iran is scarier than Iraq in every way you can name. First of all, it's physically way bigger, three times the size of Iraq. The population is 65 million, nearly three times as many as Iraq. The Iranians are young, too. Their birthrate is way down now, around 2 kids per woman, but back in the Khomeini years it was one of the highest in the world. So right now, the Iranian population has a demographic profile that's a military planner's dream: not too many little kids to take care of, but a huge pool of fighting-age men -- about 18 million.

Read the rest - it's an excellent read - here:

http://www.exile.ru/2005-January-27/war_nerd.html

[ajerara]

They'll have to start up the draft if they want to invade Iran, otherwise they're stretched too thin. They're reactivating sixty year old ex soldiers as it is.

[Freakaloin]

heres how its done...we attack their plants...they respond by sinking some of our ships in the gulf with their sunburn missiles...the president has full public support for a draft and war...then the pipeline gets built...

[BlueGene]

http://www.exile.ru/2005-January-27/war_nerd.html

Good read.

[Canis]

It will start out covert, with a few strikes here and there, and if things escalate it will turn into an invasion.

In that article quoted by Julios, they say this:

Napoleon was unstoppable before he invaded Russia. So was Hitler. Now France and Germany are "Old Europe."

Invading the wrong country can age you faster than driving a Long Beach bus on the night shift. Invading Iran helped end the win-streak of the best, biggest Empire of all, the Romans. It was in 260 AD, when emperor Valerius headed east to deal with the Persians who were kickin' up a fuss on the eastern border of the Empire. This Valerian would've risen high in Dubya's administration, because he was a real hard charger, a go-getter...and dumb as a half brick. He charged right into Iraq -- they called it Mesopotamia back then -- even though his troops were dying of plague all around him. The Persians sat back, watched Roman troops keeling over, and had a good laugh, eating pistachios in the shade while Valerian tried to figure out what to do.

Although I cannot predict the future, this trend mentioned revolves around dictatorial regimes as opposed to a cyclical government that will change policy after a few years. Those regimes were empowered from the top down, meaning the guys with the guns had the power. The US's form of government is different (despite the metaphorical claim of an "American Empire").

Still, I agree with the premise of his argument, and believe an attack on Iran will be much harder to both justify as well as uphold, than Iraq.

[Ryoki]

Although I cannot predict the future, this trend mentioned revolves around dictatorial regimes as opposed to a cyclical government that will change policy after a few years. Those regimes were empowered from the top down, meaning the guys with the guns had the power. The US's form of government is different (despite the metaphorical claim of an "American Empire").

Ancient Rome was a republic, it was run by a senate - not to say it was entirely democratic in a modern sense, but calling it a dictatorship is probably not correct.

[Hannibal]

Sure...that is until Caesar and Augustus established the Principate.


Valerian was a bit of a dumbass...he actually waltzed into the Persian camp with a light escort to call for a truce and was taken prisoner. The fag.

[Canis]

Yeah, I guess I meant "less democratic" rather than strictly dictatorial.

[busetibi]

so the UN is the most likely place of action.

Russia has veto power, so there probably won't be much action.

Lavrov has said Russia will abstain from a vote, but seeing as how China also has veto power and they get most of their oil from Iran, we can see where Chinas vote will go.
so yer, no action @ the U.N.
one can only hope that a :cough: 'accident' happens at Natanz

[seremtan]

There has been some coverage about Iran recently. I wonder if anyone else thinks that there might be another war, especially if there is evidence of nuclear weapons in development. Is the Bush administration capable of another war?

I think we find out through legitimate sources that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. The UN will quickly jump the gun and support military invasion.

there are basically two 'real' reasons for attack iran in some way: they are an independent energy source (independent from the west, that is), and they are selling oil in euros instead of dollars. the first reason matters if you're trying to control the bulk of world's remaining oil reserves in order to veto the rise of any potential rivals to your global dominance, as the US is currently trying to do; the second matters because petrodollars are keeping the US economy afloat, and iran selling oil in euros is bolstering the european economy at the expense of the US economy, i.e. bolstering the economy of one of those potential rivals

it is, as the matt damon character in syriana says, a 'fight to the death'

the so-called and unproven nuke program is just another pretext. when iran recently broke the seals on its research facilities it was ending a *self-imposed* moratorium - and a moratorium it was not legally-bound to observe (see here for the full details). el-baradei already said that all iran's known nuclear material has been accounted for. knowing the neocon mindset, the emphasis will now shift to imaginary *unknown* material, accompanied by a demand that iran prove it has no unknown nuclear material, a demand that is deliberately impossible to meet to the satisfaction of the west, for reasons i would think were obvious

[busetibi]

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said he was unable to confirm whether Iran's controversial nuclear program was peaceful.

"For the last three years we have been doing intensive verification in Iran, and even after three years I am not yet in a position to make a judgment on the peaceful nature of the (nuclear) program," he told Newsweek.

"If they have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponisation program along the way, they are really not very far -- a few months -- from a weapon," he warned.
Iran removed seals preventing use of its Natanz uranium enrichment facility. The seals were placed by the 35-member IAEA.




Ahmadinejad believes he is destined to bring about the "End Times" -- the end of the world -- by paving the way for the return of the Shia Muslim messiah.
a leader with messianic visions is worrying, a leader with messianic visions and a nuke is very worrying.

[losCHUNK]

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said he was unable to confirm whether Iran's controversial nuclear program was peaceful.

"For the last three years we have been doing intensive verification in Iran, and even after three years I am not yet in a position to make a judgment on the peaceful nature of the (nuclear) program," he told Newsweek.

"If they have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponisation program along the way, they are really not very far -- a few months -- from a weapon," he warned.
Iran removed seals preventing use of its Natanz uranium enrichment facility. The seals were placed by the 35-member IAEA.

Ahmadinejad believes he is destined to bring about the "End Times" -- the end of the world -- by paving the way for the return of the Shia Muslim messiah.
a leader with messianic visions is worrying, a leader with messianic visions and a nuke is very worrying.

reading that makes me want to invade and INVADE NOW, nuke am all, burn the fuckers

the bastards, fucking cunts, trying to kill us

this is why i never watch the news

[Freakaloin]

and thats why ppl who don't watch the news go along on these types of issues with morons like bush...

[MKJ]

The UN will quickly jump the gun and support military invasion.

Who will do the 'invading'? The Salvation Army? In the short-run, it is a logistical impossibility for the US military, and it's highly doubtful that a Euro or Russian led force is in the offing. It's diplomacy or nothing.

( a large chunk of russia is european )

[MKJ]

dont know why i posted that btw

[seremtan]

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said he was unable to confirm whether Iran's controversial nuclear program was peaceful.

"For the last three years we have been doing intensive verification in Iran, and even after three years I am not yet in a position to make a judgment on the peaceful nature of the (nuclear) program," he told Newsweek.

"If they have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponisation program along the way, they are really not very far -- a few months -- from a weapon," he warned.
Iran removed seals preventing use of its Natanz uranium enrichment facility. The seals were placed by the 35-member IAEA.

a lot of 'ifs' in that statement, which puts his claim that he cannot confirm the peaceful intent of iran's nuclear program in perspective. he could claim that he cannot confirm or deny the existence of a teapot orbiting mars with equal accuracy

Ahmadinejad believes he is destined to bring about the "End Times" -- the end of the world -- by paving the way for the return of the Shia Muslim messiah.
a leader with messianic visions is worrying, a leader with messianic visions and a nuke is very worrying.

lol, sound familiar? bush invades iraq because 'god told him to', and israel denies national rights to the palestinians because only by establishing 'greater israel' will god's will be done and the true messiah appear

the difference is, iran - whether as democracy, dictatorship or islamic republic - has no history of aggressing against other nations. the same can't be said for the other religious wingnuts mentioned above

[Freakaloin]

everyone knows iran does not have a nuclear weapons program...this is just silliness...