Posted on 02/04/2006 5:48:25 PM PST by blam
they will be nuclear capable if the current track continues. but so are north korea and pakistan.
i say - play for time, try and get russia and china on board that these lunatics in iran could upset the whole global apple cart. an oil shock that sends the western nations into deep recession, sends china into a depression, and their peasant labor force into the streets as soon as they realize that the employment and wages they use for food and housing, dissappear when no one in the west is buying their goods.
Second; look at the situational awareness, Hormuz is a tough place to get by with an enemy that is intent on defending/disrupting that area. Iran has been VERY quiet for a long time; not to misplace what their really up to; arming against the West (google and read for yourself).
Finally, we are not dealing with a country that is anything like our own, nor Iraq's. Read up on Iran's style of Gov't. Hell, they have "Religous Police" (to put it in it's proper context) as part of their Gov't. It's not a matter of "knocking off the mullahs" or messing with their Parliament. Their current setup would gladly allow the off'ing of hundreds of thousands of Iranians in order to further their cause.
Bottom line, the Persians are a hard target. They CERTIANLY didn't mind us messing with Iraq. But; our attention is now on them and they are in a pinch (Afghan/Iraq); The Persians are a wild card at this point. Dumping troops into the area is not enough. Dumping our Navy into the area is not enough.
What is enough? I honestly don't know; and certainly will not rely on the U.N. to provide an answer to. I can only hope that the folks "in the know" are working on the answer; cause my personal feelings say were looking at a huge loss of life (in general) once Iran goes nuclear.
I've been thinking about this some. If we strike before they do, we may get an early warning (as they will too) by us stopping the tanker traffic in the Gulf. I wonder where those Iranian missiles will land if there aren't any tankers?
So, they have certainally thought about this too and will shoot tankers if spooked, huh? The shooting will probably start with them doing a suprise blocking of the strait of Hormuz...then accellerate from there.
My only concern is the nukes. Any other situation is preferable to a nuclear Iran. These guys, who hold Death to America, Death to the Jews rallies often, support Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad with a passion. Ahmadinejad, a wonderful holocaust denier, won't shut up about the apocalyptic return of 12th Imam bs and has holy visions while giving speeches to the UN. His strategic guru, Hassan Abbasi, has talked about detonating nuclear bombs inside the United States. The head of Iran's expediency council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, believes a nuclear war with the west will "only" have acceptable damages for Islam, but will completely shatter the government of Israel, a country the size of New Jersey.
I'm not as worried about the price of oil as I am about millions of lives.
Oh please! Let's get this over with!
land? they won't fire them if they don't have any targets.
Tick, tock..
Nukes are vastly overrated. Their main purpose is to threaten, and that is political. Granted, a full thermonuclear war would set the Industrial Revolution back a couple hundred years, maybe more. It would be rough going for the six billion survivors, none of whom would hope to see the world returned to its present state of SUVs and shopping malls within their lifetimes.
Iran wants to detonate a nuclear bomb inside Israel. That's their main purpose. The Iranian leadership does not care about mutually assured destruction; the damages incurred in the Islamic world would be, in their words, "acceptable."
We're not dealing with the Soviet Union anymore.
Ditto.
iran doesn't have enough nukes for a "full thermonuclear war". as soon as they use one, their country is gone in 20 minutes. unless russia is willing to come in on their side.
I'm telling you, these simply do not care -- apocalypse is their *goal* -- the 12th Imam will return and make everything better, in their minds.
Here's a good article:
Iran’s Ahmadinejad: Sharon dead and “others to follow suit”
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5165
excerpt:
>>“We must believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical borders, ethnic groups and nations. It’s a universal ideology that leads the world to justice”, Ahmadinejad said.
“We don’t shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world”, he added.
Ahmadinejad dwelled on his recurrent theme that the return of the Shiite Messiah, the Mahdi, is not far away and Muslims must prepare for it.
“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”, Ahmadinejad said, referring to the Shiite Muslim belief that the Mahdi, on his return, will establish justice in a world consumed by chaos and corruption.
“If we work on the basis of the Expectation of the Return [of the Mahdi], all the affairs of our nation will be streamlined and the administration of the country will become easier”, Ahmadinejad said.
“Some politicians think we had a revolution so that some could hit others in the head and have one party ruling for some time and another party in opposition for some time. But we had a revolution to achieve a lofty goal, on the basis on the Expectation of the Return”, he said.<<
whose apocalypse? their own.
these guys talk a good game, but they don't want to die. OBL and Al Zahawari spend their TV face time telling the islamofascist sheeple to die, and spend their own days struggling to stay one step ahead of CIA drones. why don't they martyr themselves?
And, therefore, they should be allowed nukes?
Seriously, I'm not following your logic here.
no, I am simply saying that we cannot assess the situation by just listening to the rhetoric - there is alot of bluster there.
"why don't they martyr themselves?"
Did MAD stop thousands of Americans from dying on 9-11? OBL is only alive today because of luck, not because of design.
Good evening and the very best to you and yours.
Semper Fi
Tommie
Bluster? Ahmadinejad says he is going to "wipe Israel off the map" and the West is too crippled by its sinful decadence to stop him.
I think he is telling the truth.
Their rhetoric matches their actions.
Did you forget? They are the #1 state sponsor of terrorism in the entire world.
OBL is alive today because he fled into pakistan, which he had planned to do all along after 9-11. he concluded that the US would not invade the tribal regions, or go to war generally with Pakistan, to get one man.
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