Iran and the Bomb

[jamiebk]

I think we are entering a scary time.

We've always been in scary times. Were there ever any "Happy Days"? There is always some sort of crisis going on somewhere that affects us. So true when you try to be the world's police force.

[Haggis@wk]

I think we are entering a scary time.

We've always been in scary times. Were there ever any "Happy Days"? There is always some sort of crisis going on somewhere that affects us. So true when you try to be the world's police force.

"Scary" to me is defined as a period of time when someone I don't like has the ability to attack us with WMDs, I'm arbitrary that way

Of course you are right that there is always some crisis brewing in the world that has the possibility of involving us. Probably the closest we ever came to "Happy Days” was after WWII when we possessed the only nuclear weapons in the world; 1945 - 1952?? Although the USSR detonated its first bomb in 1949 it would have required a trans Siberian Bering Strait railroad to deliver it to the U.S.

[Serenity]

When I whack a Rottweiler in the head with a baseball bat and I don't kill it, I get really scared when I see it start to re-gain consciousness and I'm still holding the baseball bat in my hands.

[Shapley]

When I whack a Rottweiler in the head with a baseball bat and I don't kill it, I get really scared when I see it start to re-gain consciousness and I'm still holding the baseball bat in my hands.

I would be scared only if I wasn't still holding the baseball bat....

[Serenity]

When I whack a Rottweiler in the head with a baseball bat and I don't kill it, I get really scared when I see it start to re-gain consciousness and I'm still holding the baseball bat in my hands.

I would be scared only if I wasn't still holding the baseball bat....

I would have dropped the bat and started to whistle but i think I'm better off holding on to the bat....

[Serenity]

I doubt Iran is developing the weapon for its aesthetic value.....

[Haggis@wk]

When I whack a Rottweiler in the head with a baseball bat and I don't kill it, I get really scared when I see it start to re-gain consciousness and I'm still holding the baseball bat in my hands.

I would be scared only if I wasn't still holding the baseball bat....

I would have dropped the bat and started to whistle but i think I'm better off holding on to the bat....

Would it be inappropriate here to inquire why you only wacked it once?? Jes' you know, wondering

[Serenity]

I dunno...I feel that if you need to kill something it should be with one swift blow, otherwise you would leave the animal suffering between the first blow and the fatal blow. Do you agree?

[Haggis@wk]

I dunno...I feel that if you need to kill something it should be with one swift blow, otherwise you would leave the animal suffering between the first blow and the fatal blow. Do you agree?

AH! I misunderstood. I agree that any attack you commit to should be as decisive at the situation calls for; lethal and first in any conflict that causes you to fear for your life and/or your family’s lives or well-being and less than lethal in any other situation.

Personally, off the top of my head I can’t imagine any attack against me that I wouldn’t consider causing me to fear for my life and/or my family’s lives or well-being.

Remember, you aren’t the attacker, some other idiot is and once he/she becomes that attacker they can’t object to whatever level of violence they open the door too.

As Judge Roy Bean replied after shooting the Original Bad Bob in the back with a buffalo gun “If he wanted a fair fight he should have gone somewhere else."

[Haggis@wk]

Iran warn Hamas leadership of the consequences of accepting a cease fire with Israel:

Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday.
The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.

His remarks came as Hamas representatives met in Cairo with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman and his aides to discuss ways of ending the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas representatives reiterated their opposition to a cease-fire that did not include the reopening of all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesmen said on Sunday.

Iran threatened to cut off all support for Hamas and other Palestinian factions (presumably Islamic Jihad) if Hamas accepted the cease-fire. They want war with Israel.

Why do they want Hamas to keep fighting? I think it’s nukes. The rest of the world, including the U.S., doesn’t seem very determined to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons, but Israel probably will, if given the chance.

I heard a report over the weekend that the U.S. had declined to provide Israel with newer “bunker busting” bombs as well as deny Israel permission to over fly Iraq, a vital requirement to get to Iran. It seems Iran wants Hamas to fight an open war with Israel to keep the IDF from attacking its nuclear sites in the near term.

If my speculation is correct it suggests the Iranians are closer to actual production than previously thought. The Iranians would worry most about covert strikes as they near completion of their effort, and they need Israel tied up for months, not weeks, to keep them distracted.

Will Israel attack Iran anyway? This would give them a cassus belli all by itself, a way to impose some cost on Iran for its war-by-proxy on Israel. But if they do attack, they’d better be sure they get enough of Iran’s nuclear program to make it count.

[Haggis@wk]

Benjamin Netanyahu told Barack Obama that the US had two missions — fixing the economy and preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Netanyahu also warned Obama that Israel would accomplish the second mission if the new President wasn’t up to the task:

The primary imperative for the United States and President Barack Obama is to put an end to Iran’s nuclear race, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said before his swearing-in Tuesday, adding that if the US failed to do so Israel might be forced to resort to a military strike on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear installations.

“The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told The Atlantic. The Iranian drive for a nuclear weapon was a “hinge of history,” he said, emphasizing that all of “Western civilization” was responsible for preventing an Iranian bomb. …

Netanyahu suggested that Israeli preemptive strikes against perceived threats were the result of the Jewish people learning from a long history of grappling against those who threatened their collective existence. He cited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated calls to “wipe Israel off the map,” as well as a recent remark by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to the effect that Israel was a “cancerous tumor.”

This is tougher talk than I expected this early in the new relationship between Israel and the US and that can be seen in the difference between priorities.

Notice that Netanyahu doesn’t mention the establishment of a Palestinian state as one of Obama’s missions. The Palestinians are a problem that requires management, but do not by themselves pose a threat of annihilation to Israel. A nuclear-armed Iran does.

Obama wants to open a dialogue with Iran, but Netanyahu seems very skeptical about the possibilities for success along those lines. He pointed out what should be obvious — that Iranian theocrats don’t always act in pragmatic self-interest. That makes them more dangerous than any other nuclear power, he argued, because of the strong streak of millenialism in Tehran. Once they had the bomb, they might act rationally — but how could we trust them to do so?

It sounds as though Israel will only give a very short window for the US to take effective action before Netanyahu acts on his own. If he does so, it will put Obama on the spot; will he back the traditional American ally, or will he side with the country that hid its nuclear program for years and supports international terror through Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iraqi insurgents? Either way, an Israeli action will make Obama look impotent on the world stage.

[Shapley]

I found this while perusing the international press:

Obama's relentless media blitzkrieg stressed the new strategy is refocusing on al-Qaeda. Washington, we got a problem. Why deploy 17,000 troops against "the Taliban" in the poppy-growing province of Helmand, not in the east near the Pakistani tribal areas, where "al-Qaeda" is holed up, plus 4,000 advisers to train the Afghan Army, when Washington actually wants to fight no more than 200 or 300 al-Qaeda jihadis roaming in Afghanistan, plus another 400 maximum in the Pakistani tribal areas? And by the way they are not Afghans - they are overwhelmingly Arabs, with a few Uzbeks, Chechens and Uyghurs thrown in....

.... Asia knows this whole thing is upside down. The crucial Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), grouping China, Russia and the Central Asian "stans", all concerned neighbors of Afghanistan, met in Moscow last Friday to discuss it, ahead of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting in The Hague this Tuesday privileged by the US.

This is how Asia sees it - and that's an absolutely taboo issue for Obama to touch upon every time he faces American public opinion: Asians simply don't want US military bases in Central Asia. No wonder Iran, which is currently an observer, and soon to become a full member, officially said the SCO is the right forum to solve the Afghan tragedy, not NATO. A minimum of 40% of Afghans are either Shi'ites or they speak Dari, a Persian language.

Well, at least Holbrooke admits "the door is open" for Iran to have a say on Afghanistan, but always with conditions attached ("plus our NATO allies"). If Holbrooke is clever, he should immediately buy dinner for legendary mujahid Ishmail Khan, the Lion of Herat, in Western Afghanistan. Khan, a complex mix of feudal warlord and economic developer, told al-Jazeera English "friendship between Iran and America" is essential to solve the Afghan riddle.
What Washington has to admit is that Iran has been deeply involved for years in visible, post-Taliban reconstruction in Afghanistan - from roads and railroads to restoration of mosques, financing of libraries and madrassas and the provision of electricity. The Iranian Consulate in Herat, for instance, houses no less than 40 diplomats. Khan - the key Iranian liaison in Herat - was so successful in spite of Kabul that Karzai, under US pressure, stripped him off his enormous powers as local governor and gave him an innocuous ministry in Kabul.

At the UN-sponsored, US-backed international conference on Afghanistan this Tuesday in The Hague, Mohammad Mehdi Akhundzadeh - one of Iran's deputy foreign ministers - officially broke the ice, offering to help the rebuilding and stabilization of Afghanistan, something that Iran is already doing anyway.

Akhunzadeh was specifically referring to projects fighting drug trafficking - which badly affects Iranian society. But he was also very clear on how Iran views NATO: "The presence of foreign forces has not improved things in the country and it seems that an increase in the number of foreign forces will prove ineffective, too."

It would seem, to the Asian mind, that Obama's overtures to Iran have more to do with finding a back door out of Afghanistan than anything else. Given that President Obama wants to end the War on Terror, which he sees as an 'inherited' distraction from his lofty domestic goals, he may be willing to surrender Israel's friendship in order to shift the Afghanistan problem onto Iranian shoulders. I doubt that he cares whether a Democratic Afghanistan emerges, as long as he can secure an exit.

[dai bread]

An interesting article, Shap, and good to get something from a South Asian perspective.

Anyone who has any inkling of history knows that Afghanistan hasn't been held by a foreign power since the time of Alexander the Great, and I suspect he didn't actually hold it, but was allowed to leave troops there while they were absorbed into the local population.

Anyone who has read anything of the British in India knows that the Pashtun of the North-west frontier were the biggest thorn in the British side in the whole of India, which included Pakistan then.

So why does anyone in Washington think they can win a military victory in Pashtun territory? At best, they'll have a skirmish-riddled truce, which is about the best the British ever got.

[Shapley]

I believe President Bush' intentions were honourable: To drive al-Queda and the Taleban out of power and allow a democratically-elected government to fill the void. For the most part, that plan was initially successful, but the democratically-elected government has failed to win over the support of the people, largely due to the high levels of corruption. In addition, our unwillingness to tread into nuclear-armed Pakistan's territory, coupled with that nations' weak hold on the regions bordering Afghanistan, has left us with a Vietnam-like situation in which the enemy can strike from across a border we're reluctant to cross to strike back. Afghanistan certainly comes closer to being a quagmire than Iraq ever was. Nonetheless, it is winnable, but it will require some military rethinking to reverse the situation.

I found the articles' assessment of Gen. Petraeus interesting. I realize that is one journalists' opinion of the man and may not reflect a general attitude, but I've never considered him a political opportunist, which the author seems to consider him to be. Am I a victim of propaganda, or is he merely trying to build mistrust in the motives of our military leaders?

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

.... Afghanistan certainly comes closer to being a quagmire than Iraq ever was. Nonetheless, it is winnable, ...

Bartender, I want some of what he's having.

Afghanistan is poison. Going there was the stupidist idea anyone has ever had and lots of countries have had this stupid idea, with predictable results. Bombing it into a lumpy green glass plain is the only kind of "win" that is possible, and I don't favor that: it's not worth the munitions. Bunch of vicious cutthroat hill bandits.

*exits cursing*

[Shapley]

Every war is winnable, if you're willing to pay the cost.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Every war is winnable, if you're willing to pay the cost.

I'm willing to pay one Shapley. Go argue with a mullah. Find out the true cost.

[Shapley]

I'm willing to pay one Shapley.

I take it a 'Shapley' is that new international unit of currency they've been talking about.

I have an idea of the true cost. I think President Obama does as well, which is why he's looking for a back door.

[DavidS]

Before going so far as to consider the cost of war - has Pres. Obama, or whoever, analysed the consequences of *standing idly by*, *appeasement*, *demonstrating weakness*... insofar as the *less predictable/lucid* elements in regimes such as Iran's might be led to *mistaken* conclusions as to the West's determination to preserve its way of life, or life itself?...

[Shapley]

There is a cost to peace, as well. "Winning at all costs", or "Losing at all costs" has to take into account the consequences of the military action far beyond the simple measure of dollars and lives directly associated with the conflict. Nixon spoke of this during Vietnam. He knew that simple withdrawal from the conflict would cost us in our relationship with the Soviet Union and with China - costs far beyond the mere military costs of withdrawal. In this sense, he had a much better measure of the costs than did the Congress, which opted for 'losing at all costs'. The costs of our withdrawal from Vietnam are still being paid.

I suspect that President Bush weighed the cost of not responding militarily to the attacks on New York and Washington vs. the costs of doing so. Presumably, his advisors provided him with some measure of what those costs would be. How accurate those measurements were is debatable, but one has to make do with what is at hand.

V/R
Shapley