IRAN
phongone
1,652 Posts
Sorry if this pseudo-political thread derails any of the positive SoulStrut revival vibe, but is anyone pissing in their pants like me about an imminent attack on Iran by Israel? This dude Bibby Netanyahu seems like he's about to unilaterally go HAM and pull the trigger at any moment.
Comments
The only way it will happen sooner is if there is definite proof Iran will have a nuclear weapon before election time.
Unfortunately, it's getting harder to imagine a scenario under which this won't happen eventually. The only thing I can see is if Iran decides to extort billions in 'aid' instead, North Korea style.
Well whatever happens it won't be Bibi just breaking fool with no regard to anyone/anything. Israel's been pushing the US for years to get tougher on Iran; they meet/talk all the time about this topic; there's a fierce debate within Israel as to what should happen, etc. Bibi is, after all, beholden to an electorate. He's not gonna make a move unless he feels like he has to. It would be great if the US and Israel can come to an agreement on a way forward here, but at the end of the day the threat to the US is pretty small compared to the threat Israel faces, and Obama understands that I think.
this would be a disaster for all involved, most of all Israel.
KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.
Yeah they are apparently. But it's not the kind of thing that gets put to a national referendum (unfortunately?).
The security cabinet may pull the trigger based on the intel it has (which the public doesnt have).
It's like Barak said in that NY Times magazine piece: ???It???s good to have diversity in thinking and for people to voice their opinions. But at the end of the day, when the military command looks up, it sees us ??? the minister of defense and the prime minister. When we look up, we see nothing but the sky above us.???
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/magazine/will-israel-attack-iran.html?pagewanted=all
That said, the ex-Mossad chief has been saying all year that it's a mistake to attack Iran:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/world/middleeast/04mossad.html
Hard to know how much of this talk is (a) meant to scare Iran, (b) meant to scare the US into doing something before Israel has to, (c) infighting among intelligence services, (d) actual realistic threats...etc.
THERE IS ONLY ONE K.O.N.Y.
Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History and the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan. His latest book, Engaging the Muslim World, is just out in a revised paperback edition from Palgrave Macmillan. He runs the Informed Comment website, from where this article is cross-posted.
Early returns in Iran???s 9th parliamentary election since the 1979 revolution show that Ahmadinejad???s lay populists have taken a drubbing, and that hard line supporters of clerical Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are ascendant. Ahmadinejad???s sister, Parvin, who stood for election from their own hometown of Garmsar, was defeated, a major blow to the president.
Western reporters keep saying that the parliamentary results have no implication for Iran???s nuclear program. But they only say this because they either don???t pay attention to what Iranian leaders actually say, or discount their statements as lies (treating them much less respectfully than they treated notorious fraud Andrew Breitbart in their fluffy obituaries last week).
A week and a half ago, Khamenei gave a major foreign policy speech in which he said,
??????The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.???
Now, you could maintain that Khamenei is lying when he says he holds that possessing nuclear weapons is a grave sin. (You could also maintain that the Popes are lying when they say using birth control is a grave matter, but you???d have to explain why they put their papal authority on the line for a lie they weren???t forced to utter). But even if you think it is a lie, you have at least to report what he says. I guarantee you that Khamenei???s speech opposing nukes was not so much as mentioned on any of the major American news broadcasts.
Khamenei has also repeatedly said that Iran has a ???no first strike??? policy, that it will not fire the first shot in any conflict.
And if you hold that Khamenei, as a leading clerical authority, is being dishonest on this issue, then surely you should offer some proof. Perhaps he has flip-flopped over time? But no. Here is Khamenei in 2010:
??????We have said repeatedly that our religious beliefs and principles prohibit such weapons as they are the symbol of destruction of generations. And for this reason we do not believe in weapons and atomic bombs and do not seek them.???
Or 2009, when Khamenei said,
???They (Western countries) falsely accuse the Islamic republic???s establishment of producing nuclear weapons. We fundamentally reject nuclear weapons and prohibit the use and production of nuclear weapons. This is because of our ideology, not because of politics or fear of arrogant powers or an onslaught of international propaganda. We stand firm for our ideology.???
I could go on providing the same sort of quotes going back years.
It seems to me that one implication of pro-Khamenei hard liners dominating parliament is that the Supreme Leader???s authority has been enhanced. And he is deploying his authority to forbid the acquisition of a nuclear warhead.
Warmongers attempting to drag the United States into yet another ruinous (or, rather, infinitely more ruinous) war in the Middle East have typically focused their propaganda on the person of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The president, now nearing the end of his second and last term, is easy to ridicule and easy to demonize, because of his quirky personality and colorful gaffes. He has been called a ???Hitler??? by Rick Santorum, and the Neoconservatives depict him as a madman bent on bringing the world to an end. (Ahmadinejad, unlike most establishment Shiite clerics, thinks that the Muslim promised one or Mahdi will come soon, and this millenarian belief has been taken advantage of by Neocons, who inaccurately allege that the belief could push the president to support apocalyptic policies.) It has been alleged that Ahmadinejad is a mass-murdering hard liner, seeking nuclear weapons with which to destroy Israel.
This puzzling emphasis on Ahmadinejad comes despite the president???s relative lack of power in the Iranian system. The commander in chief of the armed forces is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Who sets nuclear policy? Ali Khamenei. In Iran, the ???president??? is more like a vice president (think Joe Biden) than a real executive.
Ahmadinejad could not even fire an intelligence minister (Haidar Moslehi) he disliked last spring. Khamenei reinstated him. Ahmadinejad sulked and wouldn???t attend cabinet meetings for a while, but eventually got over himself. Hitler indeed.
Just last month, even the old parliament voted to make Ahmadinejad appear before the legislature to explain his economic policies, the first time a president has been interpellated by parliament in the Islamic Republic. Some in parliament have even spoken of impeaching Ahmadinejad, which they???d be in a position to do after these elections.
So, to conclude: Ahmadinejad is not very much like Hitler. He can???t give an order to the Iranian military independently of Khamenei, who can over-rule him at will. He can???t make his own pick of cabinet ministers, and so can???t build up an independent power base. He has been threatened by parliament. His party lost the 2012 elections big time. His own sister couldn???t win a seat in their home town. He is a lame duck. So there is no point in demonizing him, or pretending he has an atomic bomb, or that he would be the one to deploy a bomb if Iran possessed one, which it does not.
For the Neoconservatives, the jig is up.
Khamenei???s hand has been significantly strengthened. And he has signalled to the Iranian people yet again that he won???t use that strength for belligerent purposes or to pursue a nuclear warhead, which the Iranian ayatollahs consider a tool of the devil??? since you can???t deploy it without killing large numbers of civilian non-combatants.
That these developments can be commented on in Western media without Khamenei???s speech being mentioned or it being noted that he strongly opposes nukes is baffling.
I'm 9 minutes into the documentary and dude finally explained what it's about.
Slow start, but I'm not mad at this movie. Kinda annoying voiceover though.
I'm not rejecting this article out of hand, but this dude has been a consistent apologist for Iran over the years. He's famously claimed Ahmadinejad doesn't wish Israel any harm.
Also read somewhere that the religious hardliners in charge of the Iranian government would actually welcome a unilateral attack by Israel. Such an attack would basically unify the populace, which is basically being torn apart by a dismal economy caused by sanctions, religious differences, and student uprising.
I know what's going on, I read and possess a brain. My point was to offer something major media outlets are not saying.
You are exactly wrong. A military strike would galvanize Iran's unpopular regime, alienate many allies that are currently helping to isolate them, and marginalize the greens within the country. A couple of airstrikes will inflict minimal damage to the program.... I stand by my original post.
So the answer is do nothing? Or all out full bore attack?
Nuke Tehran and Israel. That way everyone is happy.
I don't have the answer, thankfully I'm not president of the US or prime minister of Israel. It's a shitty situation for all, to be sure. But my personal position is that if Israel attacks on its own I want Obama to condemn the attack (he won't). If Obama attacks, I will be in the streets protesting.
Fuck another war.
Therein lies the problem - whether or not there's the political will to try and find a middleground between the two positions. It seems you either support bombing Iran flat or, as I read someone put it the other day, you'd rather rot in your own uselessness. If there is an attack, I'd personally pay for a few of the more strident commentators to ride the bombs into Tehran, TJ Kong-style. That'd be a win/win for everyone, I reckon. Such a pity martyrdom doesn't have quite the same appeal in the West as it once did.
Any other reasoning aside I think the US simply can't afford an "all out full bore attack". This war would be more expensive than Iraq & Afghanistan combined and it would probably bankrupt the country.
In the end, the world is already totally fucked with India and Pakistan and N. Korea having nuclear weapons, why not go all the way and also let Iran have them.
b/w
Laughing all the way to the grave.
Strictly for those who get all their World news though facebook.
Let posterity record that this should have read "Damn, I thought this was going to be a A Flock Of Seagulls thread"
Carry on.
And let us correct the above to "...to be an A Flock Of Seagulls thread"
That is all.
And I thought it would've been pedantic...
Have Iran even been asked to sign up to some non-proliferation treaty? Or is it just assumed that Ahmendidhejihad would just cackle and rub his hands together?
The big problem is that the US lied about WMD in Iraq. Until Iran either admits they have a bomb, or Hans Blix sees one, I won't believe shit that comes from hawks in the US or Israel.
I won't believe it until they use them and kill a few hundred thousand people.
I wish it was.
Thread Redeemed.