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2005-10-31 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

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Posted by Sherry 2005-10-31 13:51|| || Front Page|| [11129 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Bring it on!

EP

Posted by ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding 2005-10-31 14:31|| 2005-10-31 14:31|| Front Page Top

#2 What an asshole.

He's only forgetting one thing, Israel. Israel is just itching to bomb the holy living shitballs out of them.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2005-10-31 14:32|| 2005-10-31 14:32|| Front Page Top

#3 âThe Western man today has no stomach for a fight,â Abbasi says. âThis phenomenon is not new: All empires produce this type of man, the self-centered, materialist, and risk-averse man.â

Didn't Tojo think this too?
He does know that Carter isn't president anymore, right?

Posted by tu3031 2005-10-31 14:40|| 2005-10-31 14:40|| Front Page Top

#4 Wars are caused by such dangerous and reckless naivete. I lost count of his terrible and false axioms, but they all point to the same, grievous conclusion: Iran thinks it can get away with it.

They think Jimmy Carter is still president, and that the US would use precisely the same tactics as it did in Gulf War I. They have calculated all the counters to those tactics, and in that ONE scenario, they could achieve a stalemate or better.

They plan to attack and neutralize or destroy a US fleet, most likely in the narrow straits of Hormuz, then missile attack the US airbases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Deprived of our airpower, they could savage our ground forces with missiles. Their ground forces in the North border would be defensive, and in the South they would advance into southern Iraq to bog down what ground forces remained.

All the while they would retain the uncertainty that they had more than the one nuke used on the US fleet. Then they begin a heartfelt diplomatic drive to end the war with the US leaving the Middle East as the condition for peace.

Their mission is simple: to drive the US from the region. If that is accomplished, then they win.

However, they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

So now the great question: does the US wait for them to attack, stimulate them to attack, or attack them preemptively?

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-10-31 14:47|| 2005-10-31 14:47|| Front Page Top

#5 I vote for all 3 Moose.

We covertly attack their nuke facilities(under the guise of an Israeli SF attack), allow them to threaten force against US and Israel vehemently enough in the media to justify any action and then gode these fuckers into supporting attacks or claiming alliance with an attacking group against an EU nation and against a smaller US naval vessel parked in the Gulf.

All three conditions are met, and we scrape up enough UN support to neutralize Russian interests.

That's just my wishful thinking.

EP

Posted by ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding 2005-10-31 14:57|| 2005-10-31 14:57|| Front Page Top

#6 Your rotting corpse looks lovely in the glow of the mushroom cloud, Hassan...

Posted by The Anglo Saxon 2005-10-31 15:05|| 2005-10-31 15:05|| Front Page Top

#7 Interesting flattery towards GB. He basically said Bush does have big balls for doing what he did with a hint of admiration. He also knows the left and democraps will never let him move on Iran. His though process is not faulty especially if he can buy his time until GB leaves office. We at R-Burg seem to think the US will do something about the Mullah's but will world opinion and Cindy Sheehan allow it?

Posted by Rightwing 2005-10-31 15:13|| 2005-10-31 15:13|| Front Page Top

#8 Don't disagree with
you bigjim, but what's holdng them back?

Posted by plainslow 2005-10-31 15:14|| 2005-10-31 15:14|| Front Page Top

#9 "They think Jimmy Carter is still president..."

The legacy of Jimmy Carter still haunts the US foreign policy.

Posted by doc 2005-10-31 15:29|| 2005-10-31 15:29|| Front Page Top

#10 His analysis is probably more true than we would like to believe. Sadly so.

Posted by Master of Obvious 2005-10-31 15:40|| 2005-10-31 15:40|| Front Page Top

#11 Michael Ledeen at National Review Online has an informative article today... "Surprise.. Iran wants the destruction of ...." http://nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200510310826.asp

Posted by Sherry 2005-10-31 15:42|| 2005-10-31 15:42|| Front Page Top

#12 Guys, this guy doesn't want to fight us. He wants us to think he wants to fight us. Iran wants a cold war with all the trimmings, not a hot one.

Posted by Secret Master 2005-10-31 15:47|| 2005-10-31 15:47|| Front Page Top

#13 If the asshats use even ONE nuclear weapon, even if only at sea against our fleet, we will eterminate them.

They hope to use our restraint against us. Ask the resident of Hiroshima about our restraint.

Posted by SR-71 2005-10-31 15:50|| 2005-10-31 15:50|| Front Page Top

#14 Were not "ready to send a million men" into Tokyo either, so we sent a "Little Boy and a Big Boy." Keep it up you goat buggers.

Posted by Besoeker 2005-10-31 15:50|| 2005-10-31 15:50|| Front Page Top

#15 Iran -- playing "chicken" with the USA

Except Iran is driving a 1970 Pinto, and the U.S. is driving an M1 Abrams TANK!

(sadly, some poor Tank mechanic is going to have to scrape what's left of the Pinto off the front of the Tank)

Posted by Justrand 2005-10-31 16:26|| 2005-10-31 16:26|| Front Page Top

#16 I wonder what would happen if all of Iran's nuke sites simply exploded one night...

Chemical lasers on 747s, tungsten penetrator GBUs, commandoes (insert nationality here) simply sabotaging a coolant valve or three, concrete filled GBUs, satellite based weapons...

"'Tweren't us, honest!"

Posted by Parabellum 2005-10-31 16:56|| 2005-10-31 16:56|| Front Page Top

#17 Iranian Hen vs US Eagle

Take on the whole Anglo-Saxon world?
LOL and their not working on nukes?

They're about to get smoked and tossed!!

Posted by Flinese Phinter9385 2005-10-31 17:14|| 2005-10-31 17:14|| Front Page Top

#18 Abbasi believes that the US intervention in Iraq, which involved âslightly higher risksâ than the invasion of Afghanistan, was the very last of its kind.

I sincerely hope this monster-raving-looney is right. America can no longer be bothered with boots-on-the-ground solutions for these incessant piss-ant Islamist temper tantrums.

The next full session of Iran's Majlis needs to be greeted with a aerial formation of HE tipped cruise missiles that will temporarily darken their skies (and, concomitantly, light up Tehran like an octogenarian's birthday cake).

Decapping the entire Iranian power structure is the one sure and swift solution to this insanity. The UN will blow smoke up its own @ss until the sun explodes. Europe will trip over its own d!ck with conciliatory efforts that lead to naught. Russia and China could give a sh!t about the threat a nuclear armed Iran poses to the entire Middle East, Europe and the West, just so long as the cash flows.

Kill the mullahs now. All of them. Trash their nuclear facilities and forward the gunsight videos to North Korea.

Posted by Zenster 2005-10-31 17:20|| 2005-10-31 17:20|| Front Page Top

#19 There it is - spot-on, Zen. Ahmadinejad & Co better be thinking in 3 dimensions. Not that it will change anything, of course.

Posted by .com 2005-10-31 17:24|| 2005-10-31 17:24|| Front Page Top

#20 "I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve".

Posted by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto 2005-10-31 18:16|| 2005-10-31 18:16|| Front Page Top

#21 It was great PR, but not true. Nice try, Admiral, lol.

Posted by .com 2005-10-31 18:26|| 2005-10-31 18:26|| Front Page Top

#22 Not that it will change anything, of course.

.com, perhaps that is the most ~~hilarious~~ pathetic thing of all. Obsessive-psychotics like the hard-line Iranians are utterly immune to simple logic, overwhelming contradictory evidence or even the potential for complete obliteration.

Such obliviousness confers immunity to even the most glaring facts. For that reason, we have ZERO obligation to meet them with anything remotely resembling ordinary military action. After decades of Iran sponsoring the most horrific terrorist atrocities, they do not have the least right to any sort of conventional military response.

The Persian people also deserve some sort of low-impact deletion of their current oppesive power structure. I'd like to see them get at least one chance at building within their own vision. If they install another theocracy, we can always decap that one too.

Posted by Zenster 2005-10-31 18:32|| 2005-10-31 18:32|| Front Page Top

#23 I can run wild for ten minutes â¦ after that, I have no expectation of success.

Posted by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto 2005-10-31 18:32|| 2005-10-31 18:32|| Front Page Top

#24 My contention is that Iran is Yugoslavia Mark II. Half of Iran's population is not ethnic Farsi. These populations vary in the degree they hate the Farsi's. A democratic Shiia/Kurd run Iraq with a capable military is about the worst possible news there could be for Iran. Once the Iraq internal situation stabilizes. They will become vigorous defenders of their ethnic Kurd and Arab cousins across the border. I give Iran within its present borders 24 months at most.

Posted by phil_b 2005-10-31 18:32|| 2005-10-31 18:32|| Front Page Top

#25 phil_b, if Iran's acquisition nuclear weapons were entirely out of the question within the next 24 month timeframe, I would concur with your wait and see stance.

Dithering for another TWO YEARS is something we cannot possibly afford. Iran needs an unmistakable message sent to it now. Tehran needs to be the poster child for North Korea, Pakistan and other nuclear proliferators or A-Weapon aspirants.

Despite economic repercussions to the West, the ripples felt in China over their continuing support for the Iranians might be a very positive message regarding what awaits their constant interference with timely action against terrorism sponsors.

Posted by Zenster 2005-10-31 18:40|| 2005-10-31 18:40|| Front Page Top

#26 Yamamoto: "I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve".

That's a fake quote that originated in the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (i.e. Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!). The giveaway is that it doesn't even sound right - you'd almost expect the next line to be "he who cooks carrots and peas in the same pot unhygienic". What he actually said was that he believed he could win, but success would depend on surprise and speed.

Posted by Elmenter Snineque1852 2005-10-31 18:41|| 2005-10-31 18:41|| Front Page Top

#27 You guys just kill me.

Posted by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto 2005-10-31 18:48|| 2005-10-31 18:48|| Front Page Top

#28 I'm afraid that Abbasi may be right. So, Tommy Franks in '08! Rumsfeld as VP.

Posted by FeralCat 2005-10-31 18:49|| 2005-10-31 18:49|| Front Page Top

#29 Anonymoose: Wars are caused by such dangerous and reckless naivete.

Actually, they are not.* Wars are usually caused by a desire for territorial expansion (i.e. national gain for a rising power) or the intent to check a rising power (i.e. security for the incumbent power).

* I call this the Barbara Tuchman fallacy, where a spiral of military preparations leads to a war that nobody wants. Wars don't happen for mechanistic reasons. They occur because one side is dissatisfied with the status quo and wants to rearrange the furniture. Military preparations and/or miscalculations by the initiating power merely affect the timing of war - as long as the anti-status quo power and the incumbent power have fundamentally incompatible territorial and security goals and at least one of them is willing to fight to achieve its ends, it will eventually occur.

Posted by Elmenter Snineque1852 2005-10-31 18:56|| 2005-10-31 18:56|| Front Page Top

#30 Zen - Fine summation of where we stand, IMHO, Zen. We do not need to put many boots on the ground - depends upon how much of the oil infrastructure we deem at risk, and how much cooperation we're getting with local anti-Mullah factions. If they're ready to take over, with our decap help, then we might also help them with strongpoints so they aren't slaughtered at the outset.

phil_b - I'm mulling your comments about the internal ethnic splits in Iran... might oughtta email that to a friend who has been there many times - last in 2003 on a walking tour (backpacker-style) that lasted a month. He sez we have to be careful about making certain the Persian people understand our intentions are purely anti-theocratic / anti-MullahsWithNukes. His take was that the MMs are widely unpopular with most of the young, almost all of the "middle class" - the young moderns - and almost all of the older population - who remember what pre-Khomeini was actually like, not the propaganda version, but he didn't go into much about different Iranian ethnic groups. The population bubble has come of age thee and is not pro-Mullah. Typical thugocracy situation - just these thugs wear turbans and couch their BS in Shi'a Islamese. IIRC, he went to Tehran, Esfahan, Kerman, and Shiraz this time. He'd have some thoughts on it, I'm sure. Extremely well-traveled and, with some ex-intel background, not prone to overstatement due to personal feelings. Good touchstone for Iran, IMHO.

Admiral, lol - not 6 months, anymore? Ah, the age of instant ~~gratification~~ annihilation, sigh.

Posted by .com 2005-10-31 19:02|| 2005-10-31 19:02|| Front Page Top

#31 Iff one believes that Hillary wants to be POTUS and also wants eight years of MSM-verified success and properity, her and the Dems GOT NOTHING FOR 2006 andor 2008 - the Radics Islamists can't attack the USA fast enough, Russia-China can't militarily intervene fast enough either. ALL THE ABUSED/MISSING WOMEN AND KIDS ON LATE-NITE NEWS ISN'T ENOUGH TO HELP HILLARY. Iff warmongering, defective unreliable free America = Clintonian Fascist Amerika does NOT attack or wage war, Amer will be attacked and warred against - RIGHT NOW, THE HOPES OF THE DEMS RESTS IN AMERICA'S ENEMIES! The WOT is a BATTLE FOR CONTROL OF THE WORLD, AND ANY AND ALL -ISMS - AMERICA EITHER WINS, OR IT WILL BE DESTROYED. ARMISTICE, TRUCE, AND US-SPECIFIC CONCESSIONS IS FOR THE US LEFT, AND ONLY THE US LEFT, NOT FOR THE ASIAN LEFT AND AMERICA'S ENEMIES WHOM WANT TO WIN AND RULE.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2005-10-31 19:04|| 2005-10-31 19:04|| Front Page Top

#32 *wipes screen*

I'm with Zen and .com - no need for boots on Iranian soil in large numbers - the population already knows the threats made daily against us as well as the MM worship of a nuke weapon capability. Do the dirty, get it over with, with minimal reverse civilization effects, and say....."hey! we had to!" I only hope a serious plurality of the MSM is able to witness the attack from up close and hazardously personal. Grow a new crop of reporters who don't remember Viet Nam

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-10-31 19:39|| 2005-10-31 19:39|| Front Page Top

#33 Let's face facts, ya'll, the "blue states" dwellers are en masse lilly livers who behave more like eurocowards that the strident "red staters".

The folks who roll the sleeves up and do the serious work are from the red states. If you doubt this, research who in the military is doing the fighting and doing the dying.

Posted by Captain America 2005-10-31 19:48|| 2005-10-31 19:48|| Front Page Top

#34 The truely foolish part of this is that these guys are so convinced that we can't get along without their oil. The only reason we are addicted to oil is that it has been the cheapist form of energy available. Lots of other options are starting to open up. Unfortunately, the left and the environmental kooks seem to always find something that don't like about the alternatives (windmills kill birds, solar panels take up too much precious desert land, coal pollutes, nuclear has nuclear waste, etc, etc)

I know these assholes had a lot of oil. How much is left? It'll be great when it runs out and Iran is left with a huge population of disgruntled fanatics with no money and nothing to do but fight each other. Same with the Saudis...although it'll take a little longer. The truely great part will be when they start fighting over their dwindling oil. They have NOTHING else to give except hatred.

Posted by Phumble Threck4845 2005-10-31 19:59|| 2005-10-31 19:59|| Front Page Top

#35 Whoa! Your beloved can-do-no-wrong President made and maintains political-military alliances with Shiite aggressor elements under the control of the Ayatoilets. Can-do-no-wrong twice let al-Sadr's army slip out of US hands. The genius-in-chief's head rainbow-coalitionary - Condi Rice said, last week, that military operations against the Khomenist terrorist entity were not in the scheme of things.

In order to save face among his pathologically sheepish followers, jerk-in-chief must maintain the White House-Qom alliance, until a Hizbollah Corridor runs from Teheran to Tel Aviv. Feed the gullible masses, serial rhetorical doses of "freedom," "decisive" and "resolute" gibberish, and they will continue to resist perception of the nation-building farces in the Iraq and Afghan dog's breakfasts. The next President will find nation-destruction more workable.

Posted by Vlad the Muslim Impaler 2005-10-31 20:02|| 2005-10-31 20:02|| Front Page Top

#36 testosterone implant, Vlad?

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-10-31 20:04|| 2005-10-31 20:04|| Front Page Top

#37 Solutions Vlad, solutions. What are your solutions? Enuf about W, he doesn't need your love.

Posted by Besoeker 2005-10-31 20:08|| 2005-10-31 20:08|| Front Page Top

#38 How many have you impaled, Vlad?

On wooden stakes, that is, not on your teeny weeny pee-pee.

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-10-31 20:15|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-10-31 20:15|| Front Page Top

#39 If they're ready to take over, with our decap help, then we might also help them with strongpoints so they aren't slaughtered at the outset.

Thank you, .com. Per above, the one thing we must absolutely avoid is what happened in Iraq, where the Shiia were left out to dry after promises of American help. If we try to do this with internal cooperation, we'd better have our juvenile waterfowl aligned, just so.

Iran's huge size is a real stickler. What works in our favor is that the Iranian Shiias might not be so prone to trashing their own petro-infrastructure, unlike the Iraqi Sunnis.

This might let us midwife the changing of hands for their power structure while sparing so many of the agonies we've seen in Iraq. I know that a lot of this is blithely optimistic.

I just do not see where we have the resources (nor, as mentioned, any obligation) to confront the Iranians in a conventional fashion. Nothing done by Iran in the last QUARTER CENTURY has been worthy of such respect or regard.

I'm hoping for a swift and dramatic alteration in Iran's political landscape. Once it is denuded of nuclear technology and its oppressive political regime, we need to shelter any nascent democracy there until is can take root. That may well prove the most difficult of all.

Sadly, the time is past to be worrying overmuch about Iran's fate. Their leaders' warmongering has sealed it and America must look towards its own internal security. Even if we did have troops to spare, I do not see the wisdom in engaging Iran when a very few well-placed cruise missiles can achieve much of what we seek.

Posted by Zenster 2005-10-31 20:21|| 2005-10-31 20:21|| Front Page Top

#40 After we have eliminated Iran's nuclear capability, we have no further responsibility there. I could care less what happens to them. Let their fate be a lesson to the next nation prepared to sustain a thugocracy ready to destroy us.

Posted by Slinegum Shonter4096 2005-10-31 20:32|| 2005-10-31 20:32|| Front Page Top

#41 testosterone implant, Vlad?

No, his ass has healed from the last time it got kicked here and like any mouthbreather, he's forgotten about it.

Posted by Pappy 2005-10-31 20:34|| 2005-10-31 20:34|| Front Page Top

#42 Amen and amen to #40. Lets NOT get involved in another "nation building" exercise. Kick thier sorry, camel sucking asses and get the hell out. Let the survivors sort it out, or burn it down. Holding thier hands for 2-3-15 years is a non-starter. It's just too damn expensive, and I'm not referring to money.

Posted by Besoeker 2005-10-31 20:46|| 2005-10-31 20:46|| Front Page Top

#43 I actually agree with you, B. With Iran, NK, Syria, Saudi(?), nation-destruction in the exact amount necessary for OUR security needs is the calculus, no more.

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-10-31 21:02|| 2005-10-31 21:02|| Front Page Top

#44 Lets not forget that at least the Iranians have gone through the motions of democratic elections. There seems to be much more structural maturity politically than in Iraq. Not sure if this is reality or wishful thinking, just an interpretation of what I've observed.

Posted by Remoteman 2005-10-31 21:16|| 2005-10-31 21:16|| Front Page Top

#45 Elmenter Snineque1852: That would be a misinterpretation of what I wrote. But what you suggest is only a half-truth. Just wanting something will not cause a war--one must have an expectation of getting it. And this is the naivete I'm talking about.

The Iranian assumptions about the US not being able to stop them are so horribly flawed as to invite disaster. They have no apprehension or fear that the US might be able, through some magical means, of overcoming the obstacles the Iranians imagine.

Look objectively at everything that must go right, all of it, or else their schemes fail miserably. It is naivete in the extreme to posit that your enemy is only capable of following your explicit recipe for their defeat. It is doubly damning if you must have a chain of unbroken successes on top of your enemies' miserable failures.

This is not a case of a situation "spiraling out of control", it is a situation of a myopic dachshund challenging a fighting pit bull because to the dachshund's distorted vision, the pit bull is only the size of a marshmallow peep.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-10-31 21:29|| 2005-10-31 21:29|| Front Page Top

#46 Moose, almost every war in the last 25 years has been by one ethnic group to free itself from unwanted control by another - Yugoslavia, Eritria, East Timor, Acheh, etc. Iran is the most ethnically divided country in the world. I could put together a thesis that the Mullahs, like communism, was an attempt to have something to unify a multinational state in an age of more or less ethnically homogenous states (obviously excluding the countries composed of immigrants). Until the Iraq war, Iran could point to the odious regimes on its borders as examples of how much worse things would be for the non-Farsi ethnics if they weren't part of the Iranian state (empire). A democratic Iraq smashes that argument.

Also watch for an Orange revolution in Azerbaijan, which could well destabilize the 25 million Azeris in Iran.

Posted by phil_b 2005-10-31 21:41|| 2005-10-31 21:41|| Front Page Top

#47 .com. for a number of reasons the media and the powers that be always downplay ethnic divisions and assign other causes. I could give you numerous examples, such as Algeria, where a Berber/Arab civil war is portrayed as one against religious extremists. I am sure the Kurds are making a real effort to keep Iranian Kurdistan quiet until they have secured their gains in Iraq. And were they to ask my opinion, I would say wait until the lower hanging fruit of Syrian Kurdistan falls first.

Posted by phil_b 2005-10-31 21:55|| 2005-10-31 21:55|| Front Page Top

#48 The Iranian assumptions about the US not being able to stop them are so horribly flawed as to invite disaster. They have no apprehension or fear that the US might be able, through some magical means, of overcoming the obstacles the Iranians imagine.

Look objectively at everything that must go right, all of it, or else their schemes fail miserably. It is naivete in the extreme to posit that your enemy is only capable of following your explicit recipe for their defeat. It is doubly damning if you must have a chain of unbroken successes on top of your enemies' miserable failures.

Excellent observations, (as always) Anonymoose. I've always compared such strategizing with chess, in that you never count upon your opponent to make a bad move. One's plans must be designed to succeed even against the most well-organized opposition.

Iran's preparations in the face of even America's most clumsy exertions against them are so miserable in the extreme that it would be hysterically funny if these morons weren't so convinced of their imperviousness.

We owe it to ourselves, in terms of national security alone, to neutralize Iran's nuclear apirations. Yet from a propagandistic standpoint (much like reaching the moon before the Soviets and putting the lie to the efficacy of Communism's "scientifically planned society"), we also owe it to ourselves to thwart Iran's hardliners in such an undeniable fashion that all Islam cannot fail to take notice of its spectacular impotence in the face of modernized Western might.

This is something we owe each of the 3,000 souls who perished on 9-11. Bali, Madrid and London may all bask in the glow of such a smashing defeat, but it is America's duty to herself to deal Islamism repeated and telling body blows that shall bring these fanatics to their knees.

Anything less is not worthy of all we have fought and died for over the last 300 years.

Posted by Zenster 2005-10-31 22:01|| 2005-10-31 22:01|| Front Page Top

00:00 Zenster
23:51 Zenster
23:50 Frank G
23:49 Frank G
23:44 Red Dog
23:38 Hupeasing Jatch2629
23:35 11A5S
23:33 Zenster
23:32 2b
23:26 2b
23:24 11A5S
23:22 Frank G
23:20 Zenster
22:07 C-Low
22:05 phil_b
22:04 Frank G
22:01 Zenster
22:00 11A5S
21:55 phil_b
21:49 2b
21:43 2b
21:41 phil_b
21:34 C-Low
21:29 Anonymoose