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Israel readies forces for strike on nuclear Iran

    ISRAEL’S armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed.

    The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations.

    Iran’s stand-off with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over nuclear inspections and aggressive rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who said last week that Israel should be moved to Europe, are causing mounting concern.

    The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was “losing patience” with Iran.

    A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: “What next?” That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said.

    Defence sources in Israel believe the end of March to be the “point of no return” after which Iran will have the technical expertise to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities to build a nuclear warhead in two to four years.

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05.12.13.NakedAggress-X.gif


From FoxNews: Iranian President Again Questions Holocaust.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reiterated his doubt about the Holocaust and called on Muslim nations to take a proactive stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, state media reported Tuesday.

The president's comments, published on Iranian state television's Web site, were the second time in a week he has expressed doubt about the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II. In October, Ahmadinejad also said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

"If the killing of Jews in Europe is true," the Web site quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a speech at an Islamic conference in Tehran, "and the Zionists are being supported because of this excuse, why should the Palestinian nation pay the price?" ...

Ahmadinejad has been unapologetic about taking Iran on a more openly defiant course, insisting on Iran's right to develop its nuclear program and often using rhetoric reminiscent of the 1980s heyday of the Islamic Revolution.

But he has alienated even some conservative allies in Iran, who fear he is hurting the country's image. Moderate Iranians have called on the ruling Islamic establishment to rein in the president.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate say on all matters, has backed Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel's elimination.

From Mark Steyn :But seriously folks, this clown is dangerous (via Little Green Footballs).

So let's see: We have a Holocaust denier who wants to relocate an entire nation to another continent, and he happens to be head of the world's newest nuclear state. (They're not 100 percent fully-fledged operational, but happily for them they can drag out the pseudo-negotiations with the European Union until they are. And Washington certainly won't do anything, because after all if we're not 100 percent certain they've got WMD -- which we won't be until there's a big smoking crater live on CNN one afternoon -- it would be just another Bushitlerburton lie to get us into another war for oil, right?)

So how does the United States react? Well, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the comments of Ahmadinejad "further underscore our concerns about the regime."

Really? But wait, the world's superpower wasn't done yet. The State Department moved to a two-adjective alert and described Ahmadinejad's remarks as "appalling" and "reprehensible." "They certainly don't inspire hope among any of us in the international community that the government of Iran is prepared to engage as a responsible member of that community," said spokesman Adam Ereli.

You don't say. ...

What does it mean when one party can talk repeatedly about the liquidation of an entire nation and the other party responds that this further "underscores our concerns," as if he'd been listening to an EU trade representative propose increasing some tariff by half a percent?

Well, it emboldens the bully. ...


We assume, as Neville Chamberlain, Lord Halifax and other civilized men did 70 years ago, that these chaps may be a little excitable, but come on, old boy, they can't possibly mean it, can they? Wrong. They mean it but they can't quite do it yet. Like Hitler, when they can do it, they will -- or at the very least the weedy diplo-speak tells them they can force the world into big concessions on the fear that they can.


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Someone's going nuts with the political cartoons.

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Phew! I'm just glad that nukes are such a suicidal weapon that no one in their right mind would ever use one. Especially terrorist prone nations like Iran. Yep. Sure glad suicide tactics aren't something they practice...


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Yes, the doctrine of mutally assured destruction will work MUCH better than a preemptive strike on a nation full of jihad-happy suicide bomber wannabes.

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I'm seriously starting to wonder if the leaders of Iran are trying to die:



Iran is secretly trying to obtain technology and expertise needed to build a nuclear weapon, according to a leaked intelligence report that threatens to deepen a rift with the West over its nuclear programme...

The report concludes that scientists in Tehran are shopping for parts for a new ballistic missile with "import requests and acquisitions ... registered almost daily", the Guardian said.

And die quickly:



The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that there will be no dialogue with Europe because it is a waste of time. This point was underlined by the Iranian leader during his first appearance in front of the committee of foreign affairs and national security of the mullah-run majlis.

"The president, defined the attempts by the governments of the past 16 years to bring to the table a dialogue with Europe and to try and reduce tensions, as a waste of time which has so far not produced any tangible results for our country."

Playing a dangerous game with very little skill, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is doing is level best to insure that he will be the final President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. At this rate, between now and mid-March, it would be unsurprising if air and special forces from at least one nation and possibility more will likely launch a series of debilitating strikes from which the current radical Islamic regime in Iran will not be allowed to emerge.

I also suspect MoveOn.Org will start a "No Blood for Persian Carpets" campaign.


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I saw the end of a report yesterday on Iran that focused on the difference between the older, highly religious minority, and the larger, under 30, moderately religious majority. It seems the only reason the crazies are running the country, at least according to the report, is because the younger people are apathetic to politics. The older loonies don't go over board with religious demands on the women, only requiring head scarves in public and disallowing activities between men and women that could lead to physical contact, so the younger generations look the other way. Sounds a lot like America in that regard. Still, I don't know how accurate the report was, but if it is true, those young people might want to start taking an interest in their nation's current policies, and soon.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the young people interviewed don't even hate America, in fact, they are fascinated by us over here.

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The young people may want to get invloved before theier government turns thier country into a crater.


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I'm not gonna feel sorry for them if they are too afraid or numb to do anything. It's akin to giving German civilians a pass in the Hitler era..bullshit.


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NY Times:

    Iran said Sunday that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency would remove seals from some nuclear facilities by Monday, opening the way for the Iranians to resume research on fuel production.

    The plan to resume research, which Iran first announced last week, has heightened concerns in the West that the Iranians are moving toward building atomic weapons.

    "Iran is ready to resume the research activities after the inspectors remove the seals," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi. He also reiterated Iran's contention that it has the right to conduct nuclear research under the nonproliferation agreement. Inspectors from the agency arrived in Tehran on Saturday to remove seals they had affixed to the research sites after Iran voluntarily agreed to stop all enrichment-related activities more than two years ago.


Thank goodness our "international allies" are doing their level best to keep the crazies in Iran from getting nukes.





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A good editorial on the feckless European Union approach to Iran’s nuclear ambitions: Unserious Consequences.

    Iran’s decision yesterday to resume what it dubs “nuclear research” is garnering stern criticism in unexpected quarters.

    Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says he’s “running out of patience” with Tehran. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy urges the mullahs to “immediately and unconditionally reverse the decision.” His German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warns that matters cannot continue this way “without consequences,” citing Iran’s actions as a violation of the November 2004 Paris Accord in which Tehran agreed to suspend its nuclear programs.

    It’s almost enough to think the Europeans and their friends finally mean to get serious with Iran. Almost, but not quite.

    Thus, even as Iran announced plans to break the IAEA seals on the centrifuges of its Natanz uranium enrichment facility, Austrian Chancellor (and temporary president of the European Union) Wolfgang Schüssel warned that it would be premature to discuss sanctions. Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, added that “every effort must be made to convince the Iranians to return to the previous situation, to negotiations.” Mr. Solana’s idea of getting tough with the Iranians is apparently to beg them to show up for lunch.

    The Iranians have seen this European two-step before.

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Will Israel solve our problem?

    It is remarkable how quickly discussions about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons turn to Israel.

    But there is a problem with this tidy scenario. The Iranians have learned from Iraq's mistake — they've thought of little else — and have hardened and dispersed their nuclear facilities all over the vast territory of Iran. The sites are buried deep and well disguised.

    In other words, from the world's point of view, there is no easy fix. "Let the Israelis do it" won't work.

    For more than two years, the Europeans, with America's blessing, have been exhorting the Iranians to forego nuclear weapons. Shocking though it may seem, this has not worked. Last week, Iran announced that the country is removing the seals from its Natanz plant — a direct violation of an agreement with Britain, France and Germany.

    The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran was made even more terrifying with the ascent last June of the Holocaust-denying, religious vision-seeing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Ahmadinejad reportedly believes in the imminent return of the righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, the 12th Imam, whose appearance on Earth will be presaged by war and chaos. A previous Iranian leader mused that only one nuclear bomb would be sufficient to completely obliterate Israel and the largest Jewish population on Earth. A return salvo by Israel could destroy only a fraction of the world's Muslims. Would this madness be within the realm of the conceivable to Ahmadinejad? Even apart from his hysterical rantings about Israel ("a disgraceful blot" that "should be wiped off the face of the Earth"), consider what he said to his own countrymen when a plane crashed into a Tehran building killing 108. "What is important is that they have showed the way to martyrdom which we must follow."

    Ahmadinejad and the sick mullahs who run Iran may be crazy, but they're not fools. They know that between fighting al Qaeda and building a durable democracy in Iraq, we're hardly in a mood to deal with Iran at the moment. But we cannot avoid it. The current state of play suggests that Iran will be referred to the U.N. Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But sanctions against Iran will probably be vetoed by Russia or China.

    That leaves us with no painless options. If we, together with a coalition of the willing, impose the only sanction that will truly pinch — an embargo on Iranian oil — oil prices will rise, probably by a lot. But that cost will have to be weighed against the cost of military action, which would be far higher.

    In the meantime, as the far-sighted JWR columnist Michael Ledeen has argued for years, we ought to be supporting the democratic opposition within Iraq for all we're worth. The vicious Iranian regime sits atop a population that detests it. Revolution would be redemption — for all of us.

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What a world with an Iranian nuclear weapon would look like:

    "I would sleep happier if there were no Iranian bomb," writes former Times of London editor Simon Jenkins. "But a swamp of hypocrisy separates me from overly protesting it." Iran, he adds, "is a proud country that sits between nuclear Pakistan and India to its east, a nuclear Russia to its north and a nuclear Israel to its West. . . . How can we say such a country has 'no right' to nuclear defense?" In other words, what's the big deal?

    Well, the deal is the combination of the world's most destructive weapons in the hands of clerical radicals who might use them. And even short of using them, Tehran's rulers could use the leverage of the bomb to dominate the Middle East and limit America's ability to defend itself and fight terrorism.

    The most immediate threat in the region would be to Israel, an ally that only this week President Bush said we would defend against Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has publicly mused that the Jewish state should be "wiped off the map," and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has said that "the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground whereas it will only damage the world of Islam." Why should we assume they don't mean this?

    All the more so because Iran's current leaders seem possessed of an apocalyptic Islamist vision that wouldn't mind an episode of pan-global martyrdom. "We must prepare ourselves to rule the world and the only way to do that is to put forth views on the basis of the Expectation of the Return" of the Mahdi (Shiite Messiah), says Mr. Ahmadinejad.

    The Iranian President is sometimes dismissed as a figurehead, especially on nuclear questions, but he wouldn't have his job without the consent of the ruling clerical council for whom he also serves as a mouthpiece. His fanaticism suggests a mindset that isn't vulnerable to the normal calculations of deterrence that governed during the Cold War. The complacent tell us not to worry because no state would dare use a nuke because that would only guarantee its own destruction. But what if you're a cleric who likes that trade-off?

    A bomb would also give Iran far more leverage to press its influence abroad since it will believe it is immune to retaliation. In Lebanon, the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah sits on Israel's northern border with 7,000 medium-range missiles, deterred only by Israel's conventional arms superiority. But the military balance changes once Hezbollah's patron becomes invulnerable.

    A nuclear Iran could also wield a predominating influence in OPEC. It could disrupt maritime traffic in the Persian Gulf and force the U.S. Navy out of its narrow, shallow waters. It could menace Europe, and eventually the U.S. homeland, as its ballistic missile capabilities develop. It could arm Palestinian terrorists with sophisticated weapons, turning Gaza into a risk not just for Israel but the entire Mediterranean basin.

    It would be in a position to extend its influence into the Caspian region and neighboring Afghanistan. It could meddle in the affairs of traditional rivals such as Saudi Arabia (which, like Iraq, has a sizeable Shiite population in its eastern provinces); the Saudis--as well as the Egyptians and the Turks--might respond by seeking nuclear weapons of their own.

    It's also important to consider the effect that a nuclear Iran would have on the potential for a democratic Iran. Its nuclear project is often portrayed as a matter of national prestige, the implication being that any strike against it would rally the regime's domestic opponents to its side. What Iranian dissidents tell us is closer to the opposite. A nuclear Iran would enhance the mullahs' sense of invulnerability and facilitate domestic repression.

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Washington's kneejerk belligerence ignores Tehran's influence and the need for subtle engagement

Quote:

Sir Simon Jenkins, Guardian Ltd Columnist
Wednesday January 18, 2006

Guardian

Never pick a fight you know you cannot win. Or so I was told. Pick an argument if you must, but not a fight. Nothing I have read or heard in recent weeks suggests that fighting Iran over its nuclear enrichment programme makes any sense at all. The very talk of it - macho phrases about "all options open" - suggests an international community so crazed with video game enforcement as to have lost the power of coherent thought.

Iran is a serious country, not another two-bit post-imperial rogue waiting to be slapped about the head by a white man. It is the fourth largest oil producer in the world. Its population is heading towards 80 million by 2010. Its capital, Tehran, is a mighty metropolis half as big again as London. Its culture is ancient and its political life is, to put it mildly, fluid.

All the following statements about Iran are true. There are powerful Iranians who want to build a nuclear bomb. There are powerful ones who do not. There are people in Iran who would like Israel to disappear. There are people who would not. There are people who would like Islamist rule. There are people who would not. There are people who long for some idiot western politician to declare war on them. There are people appalled at the prospect. The only question for western strategists is which of these people they want to help.

Of all the treaties passed in my lifetime the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) always seemed the most implausible. It was an insiders' club that any outsider could defy with a modicum of guile. So it has proved. America, sitting armed to the teeth across Korea's demilitarised zone, has let North Korea become a nuclear power despite a 1994 promise that it would not. America supported Israel in going nuclear. Britain and America did not balk at India doing so, nor Pakistan when it not only built a bomb but deceitfully disseminated its technology in defiance of sanctions. Three flagrant dissenters from the NPT are thus regarded by America as friends.

I would sleep happier if there were no Iranian bomb but a swamp of hypocrisy separates me from overly protesting it. Iran is a proud country that sits between nuclear Pakistan and India to its east, a nuclear Russia to its north and a nuclear Israel to its west. Adjacent Afghanistan and Iraq are occupied at will by a nuclear America, which backed Saddam Hussein in his 1980 invasion of Iran. How can we say such a country has "no right" to nuclear defence?

None the less this month's reopening of the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant and two others, though purportedly for peaceful uses, was a clear act of defiance by Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) remain unsure whether it implies a secret weapons programme but the evidence for this is far stronger than, for instance, against Saddam Hussein. To have infuriated the IAEA's Mohamed ElBaradei takes some doing. As Saddam found, deviousness in nuclear matters is bound to arouse suspicion. Either way, the reopening yielded a strong diplomatic coalition of Europe, America, Russia and China in pleading with Ahmadinejad to desist.

On Monday, Washington's kneejerk belligerence put this coalition under immediate strain. In two weeks the IAEA must decide whether to report Iran to the UN security council for possible sanctions. There seems little point in doing this if China and Russia vetoes it or if there is no plan B for what to do if such pressure fails to halt enrichment, which seems certain. A clear sign of western floundering are speeches and editorials concluding that Iran "should not take international concern lightly", the west should "be on its guard" and everyone "should think carefully". It means nobody has a clue.

I cannot see how all this confrontation will stop Iran doing whatever it likes with its nuclear enrichment, which is reportedly years away from producing weapons-grade material. The bombing of carefully dispersed and buried sites might delay deployment. But given the inaccuracy of American bombers, the death and destruction caused to Iran's cities would be a gift to anti-western extremists and have every world terrorist reporting for duty.

Nor would the "coward's war" of economic sanctions be any more effective. Refusing to play against Iranian footballers (hated by the clerics), boycotting artists, ostracising academics, embargoing commerce, freezing foreign bank accounts - so-called smart sanctions - are as counterproductive as could be imagined. Such feelgood gestures drive the enemies of an embattled regime into silence, poverty or exile. As Timothy Garton Ash wrote in these pages after a recent visit, western aggression "would drain overnight its still large reservoir of anti-regime, mildly pro-western sentiment".

By all accounts Ahmadinejad is not secure. He is subject to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His foe, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, retains some power. Tehran is not a Saddamist dictatorship or a Taliban autocracy. It is a shambolic oligarchy with bureaucrats and technocrats jostling for power with clerics. Despite a quarter century of effort, the latter have not created a truly fundamentalist islamic state. Iran is a classic candidate for the politics of subtle engagement.

This means strengthening every argument in the hands of those Iranians who do not want nuclear weapons or Israel eliminated, who crave a secular state and good relations with the west. No such argument embraces name-calling, sabre-rattling, sanctions or bombs.

At this very moment, US officials in Baghdad are on their knees begging Iran-backed Shia politicians and militias to help them get out of Iraq. From Basra to the suburbs of Baghdad, Iranian influence is dominant. Iranian posters adorned last month's elections. Whatever Bush and Blair thought they were doing by invading Iraq, they must have known the chief beneficiary from toppling the Sunni ascendancy would be Shia Iran. They cannot now deny the logic of their own policy. Democracy itself is putting half Iraq in thrall to its powerful neighbour.

Iran is the regional superstate. If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be "hugged close" it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy.




This is the full article that WSJ qoutes out of context.

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Quote:

magicjay38 said:Iran is the regional superstate. If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be "hugged close" it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy.




At some point, however, you have to recognize that certain people, no matter how hard you hug them, are never going to be your friend.

In the case at hand, we are dealing with the leader of a group that takes violent offense at ...cartoons. Do you really think he can be "hugged" into listening to reason?

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Quote:

the G-man said:
Quote:

Simon Jenkins said:Iran is the regional superstate. If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be "hugged close" it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy.




At some point, however, you have to recognize that certain people, no matter how hard you hug them, are never going to be your friend.

In the case at hand, we are dealing with the leader of a group that takes violent offense at ...cartoons. Do you really think he can be "hugged" into listening to reason?




We've hugged many countries to our bossom that were far more abhorrant than Islamic Iran. The Shah's Iran for example. The previous president made many overtures to the US to improve relations. We rebuffed them all. Iran is a player, we need to recognize that. We're still pissed off for the hostage crises 25 years ago and Iran's success at keeping us at bay.

Do you know why there was a hostage crises in the first place?

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Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Do you know why there was a hostage crises in the first place?




Because Jimmy Carter was weak.

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Quote:

the G-man said:
Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Do you know why there was a hostage crises in the first place?




Because Jimmy Carter was weak.




Don't play stupid with me! The Revolutionary Guard had siezed the US Embassy the previous week and the Government of Iran ordered them to leave and the emabassy was vacated. All hostages were freed. What happened subsequently to cause the Iranians to hold them for over a year? What was there to negotiate?

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Quote:

the G-man said:
Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Do you know why there was a hostage crises in the first place?




Because Jimmy Carter was weak.



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Quote:

the G-man said:
Quote:

the G-man said:
Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Do you know why there was a hostage crises in the first place?




Because Jimmy Carter was weak.







I'll take that as a no

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Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Do you know why there was a hostage crises in the first place?




Because as long as there are extremist Muslims who are not six feet under they will do whatever they think they can get away with.


go.

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Quote:

Captain Sammitch said:
Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Do you know why there was a hostage crises in the first place?




Because as long as there are extremist Muslims who are not six feet under they will do whatever they think they can get away with.




By extremist muslim you mean conservative and moderate muslims.


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Quote:

Captain Sammitch said:
Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Do you know why there was a hostage crises in the first place?




Because as long as there are extremist Muslims who are not six feet under they will do whatever they think they can get away with.




Since you weren't born yet, I'll cut you some slack. It was about .....MONEY ( what a surprise!).

In the week between hostage seizures the USA decided it would be a good idea to seize Iranian assets held in US Banks in the event they were needed to settle lawsuits by American companies in US courts. I don't recall the exact amount but billions were seized. Far from being Muslim extremists, they wanted their goddamn money back! We give them back their money, they give us back our people. It took 400 some odd days to negotiate a compromise. If you've ever done business with people of the Persian persuasian, that wouldn't surprise you!

Hey! Is that why a corporate litigator, Warren Christopher, was the guy who made the deal?

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Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Do you know why there was a hostage crises in the first place?



Quote:

the G-man said:
Because Jimmy Carter was weak.



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Quote:

the G-man said:
What a world with an Iranian nuclear weapon would look like:






Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Washington's kneejerk belligerence ignores Tehran's influence and the need for subtle engagement

Quote:

Sir Simon Jenkins, Guardian Ltd Columnist
Wednesday January 18, 2006






This is the full article that WSJ qoutes out of context.




I fail to see how G-man (in the WSJ editorial he cites) quoted the Guardian article out of context.

Until I read both articles, I thought you were referring to Reagan's alleged "October Surprise", which has been thoroughly discredited (as evidenced in the link I provided).

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Quote:

Wonder Boy said:
Quote:

the G-man said:
What a world with an Iranian nuclear weapon would look like:






Quote:

magicjay38 said:
Washington's kneejerk belligerence ignores Tehran's influence and the need for subtle engagement

Quote:

Sir Simon Jenkins, Guardian Ltd Columnist
Wednesday January 18, 2006






This is the full article that WSJ qoutes out of context.




I fail to see how G-man (in the WSJ editorial he cites) quoted the Guardian article out of context.

Until I read both articles, I thought you were referring to Reagan's alleged "October Surprise", which has been thoroughly discredited (as evidenced in the link I provided).




Nope. It had nothing to do with the October Surprise. Jenkin's peice comes to a completely different conclusion than the WSJ. They also credit him as a former writer for the Times of London a conservative paper. He left that job in 1992 and currently works for the Guardian, a Liberal paper. Perhaps I'm overly critical.

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Quote:

Since you weren't born yet, I'll cut you some slack. It was about .....MONEY ( what a surprise!).




Next you'll be using this tact to get all high and mighty about WWI.


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Jay, the Journal quoted the Guardian/Jenkins piece specifically to explain how it disagreed with it, not as support for its (the WSJ) position.

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It is interesting to compare and contrast the "peacenik" or "liberal" reaction to Iran's threats with their reaction to Bush's plans to go to war back in 2002.

The antiwar crowd, and those members of the democratic party currently calling for surrender, like to act as if they opposed the Iraq war because they did not believe that Saddam had WMDs or that he was trying to obtain WMDs. In fact, they assumed he had, or would get, them but that's another thread. In hindsight, however, the antiwar left likes to claim that the war was wrong because Saddam was not a threat.

Contrast this with Iran today. You have an Iranian president vowing to defy the UN, vowing to continue his nuclear adventures and threatening his neighbors. You have, in short, a middle Eastern leader doing and/or admitting publicly to wanting to do, everything that the antiwar left claims Saddam was innocent of.

Given that Iran is doing this, you would think, if the antiwar left was truthful, they would be calling for military action. Instead, they are doing the exact same thing they did with Iraq: putting their heads in the sand, hoping the UN makes the problem go away, and telling us how we should be friendlier to the agressor.

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Quote:

magicjay38 said:
We've hugged many countries to our bossom that were far more abhorrant than Islamic Iran. ... Iran is a player, we need to recognize that. We're still pissed off for the hostage crises 25 years ago and Iran's success at keeping us at bay.




Iran: U.S., Europe Responsible for Cartoon Crisis

    Iran's hard-line president on Saturday accused the United States and Europe of being "hostages of Zionism" and said they should pay a heavy price for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that have triggered worldwide protests.




Quote:

the G-man said:

Yeppp...we should really be trying to reason with these people....



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Iran Is Threat to the World: Gore

    Former US Vice President Al Gore stated Iran’s regime presents threat to the whole world, AFP reports. “Iran is governed by corrupted politicians and religious leaders and presents a threat to the whole world’s future”, said Al Gore during Economic Forum in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

    According to him corrupted Iranian government together with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israeli views are “a signal for the threat Tehran may pose”.

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IRAN HOUSE!!!


Reveling in the knowledge that Sammitch will never interrupt my nookie ever again. 112,000 RACK Points!
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Iran may just been caught red-handed shipping high-tech IEDs into Iraq:

U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.

They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.

What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures — certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

"The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production," says explosives expert Kevin Berry. "So it's the same make and model."

U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.

"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."

I am not an expert on international law, but I think it likely that, when a nation chooses to participate in warfare against another nation, that participation is nothing less conscious and calculated than a formal declaration of war.

If these munitions can be tied to the Iranian government—and the article seems to strongly suggest just that—then we have the clear legal and moral justification to disrupt Iran’s nuke program, if not its entire government.


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I believe you can sell arms to anyone you want. The DuPonts made a fortune selling gun powder to both sides during World War I. More recently the Soviets didn't pitch a bitch about the USA supplying arms to Afghan rebels in their war in the region. BTW, are we at war in Iraq? When did that bill go through Congress? I'm sure I'd have heard something about it. You can't have it both ways.

And you claim to be a capitalist.

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It's not just supplying arms.

For the second day in a row, ABC News targets Iran with another bombshell allegation:


Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday rejected suggestions Iraq is engulfed in a civil war but predicted there would be additional "bursts" of sectarian violence in the weeks ahead.

Rumsfeld also claimed that Iranian Revolutionary Guard elements had infiltrated Iraq to cause trouble.

"They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq," he said. "And we know it. And it is something that they, I think, will look back on as having been an error in judgment."

He would not be more specific except to say the infiltrators were members of the Al Quds Division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.


We know that Iran is supplying Iraqi terrorists with sophisticated SCMs (shaped charge munitions) that can defeat the armor of even our heaviest tanks. It is this kind of charge that was responsible for the deaths of 14 Marines in their Iraqi interpreter last August near Haditha.

Now we have the Secretary of Defense stating that members of the elite al Quds division—the same unit that deployed elements to Afghanistan to assist the Taliban and roughly analogous to the Green Berets in usage if not quality—are actively fighting coalition forces in Iraq.


It is quite probable that this has not been a proxy war for some time, but instead a low-level special operations war.

One has to wonder how and when the Iranian "error in judgement" will be corrected.


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Change a few names, Iraqi Insurgents for for Viet Cong and Iran Revolutionary Guard for NVA regulars and Rum-dumb is sounding a lot like Robert McNamera whistling in the dark at a press conference.

Has it occurred to you G-man that tanks and armour have become obsolete? Armour was rendered obsolete in the middle ages by the crossbow and it's Deja Vu all over again.

What is it conservatives are conserving? The same stupid mistakes from the past?

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Or perhaps the future.

For all the cost in Iraq, the U.S., the people of Iraq, and the world, are better off without Saddam Hussein in power.

I suspect in 15 or 20 years, long after the current conflict in Iraq has subsided and democratic reforms in Iraq are deeply entrenched, we will look back at Iraq and say the price was worth it.
No war goes without mistakes, even those hailed as our greatest victories, and those held up as the standard by which they judge the Iraq war.

Last I looked, the death toll of Americans in the Iraq war was approaching 2400, for almost exactly three years of fighting.

As I pointed out in another recent topic, it was 7000 dead at Iwo Jima in 1945. (Roughly three times the Iraq dead, in just 5 weeks of fighting at Iwo Jima).
And about 19,000 dead at Okinawa (6 times the casualties, in a single battle).

Were those battles worth "conserving"?

Were those costly victories "stupid mistakes"?


  • from Do Racists have lower IQ's...

    Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.

    EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
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Quote:

the G-man said:

Iran may just been caught red-handed shipping high-tech IEDs into Iraq :

Quote:

U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.

They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.

What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures — certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

"The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production," says explosives expert Kevin Berry. "So it's the same make and model."
U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.

"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."





I am not an expert on international law, but I think it likely that, when a nation chooses to participate in warfare against another nation, that participation is nothing less conscious and calculated than a formal declaration of war.

If these munitions can be tied to the Iranian government—and the article seems to strongly suggest just that—then we have the clear legal and moral justification to disrupt Iran’s nuke program, if not its entire government.




Quote:

magicjay38 said:
I believe you can sell arms to anyone you want. The DuPonts made a fortune selling gun powder to both sides during World War I. More recently the Soviets didn't pitch a bitch about the USA supplying arms to Afghan rebels in their war in the region. BTW, are we at war in Iraq? When did that bill go through Congress? I'm sure I'd have heard something about it. You can't have it both ways.

And you claim to be a capitalist.




I thought this was a particularly witty response on your part to G-man's argument , MagicJay.

You make some great points, that the U.S. does sell arms to nations across the globe, including rogue nations.
As you say, we supplied and trained the Afghans against the Russians.
We supplied and trained the earliest Al Qaida in the Afghan war.

We armed and supported Saddam Hussein for a long time, and arguably inadvertantly (until 1990) helped to make him a threat to his neighbors.

So while we do have the rationalization to attack Iran, for creating a threat to our military in Iraq, it can certainly be rationalized that other nations have the same justification to attack the U.S.
If you read Pat Buchanan's views on the U.S. and "avoiding foreign entanglements", you might find yourself in surprising agreement with him, and his views of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

And of Clinton's and Bush Sr.'s foreign policy that preceded it.

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