Posted on 05/15/2006 12:02:52 PM PDT by SJackson
In the 27 years since the Iranian Revolution, the United States has launched air strikes on Libya, invaded Grenada, put Marines in Lebanon and run air strikes in the Bekaa Valley and Chouf Mountains in retaliation for the Beirut bombing.
We invaded Panama, launched Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait and put troops into Somalia. Under Clinton, we occupied Haiti, fired cruise missiles into Sudan, intervened in Bosnia, conducted bombing strikes on Iraq and launched a 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia, a nation that never attacked us. Then, we put troops into Kosovo.
After the Soviet Union stood down in Eastern Europe, we moved NATO into Poland and the Baltic states and established U.S. bases in former provinces of Russia's in Central Asia.
Under Bush II, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, though it appears Saddam neither had weapons of mass destruction nor played a role in 9-11.
Yet, in this same quarter century when the U.S. military has been so busy it is said to be overstretched and exhausted, Iran has invaded not one neighbor and fought but one war: an 8-year war with Iraq where she was the victim of aggression. And in that war of aggression against Iran, we supported the aggressor.
Hence, when Iran says that even as we have grievances against her, she has grievances against us, does Iran not have at least a small point? And when Russian President Putin calls Bush's America "Comrade Wolf," does he not have at least a small patch of ground on which to stand?
Which brings me to the point. There is no reason to believe Iran wants war with us. If she did want war with America, she could have had it any time in the last 27 years. If she did want war with America, all the old ayatollah had to do was continue holding those American hostages after Ronald Reagan raised his right hand. He didn't. As Reagan recited the oath, the hostages were clearing Iranian air space.
In all those years, Iran has never attacked the United States and has been tied to but one terror attack against us: the Khobar Towers 10 years ago. No evidence has been found that Iran had any role in 9-11, the first attack on the World Trade Center, the suicide attack on the U.S.S. Cole or the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
Comes the reply. Iran was almost surely behind the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 and the hostage-taking of the Reagan era. Iran supports Hezbollah and Hamas and plotted the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, and Herr Ahmadinejad routinely promises the eradication of Israel.
But if he wants a war with Israel, he could have it tomorrow by launching rockets. If he wants war with America, Bush and Cheney will accommodate him. He has done neither.
Ahmadinejad is behaving like a man provoking us to hit him, but not too hard, so he can play the "victim" of U.S. "aggression" without winding up in the hospital or the morgue.
For while Iran's regime might benefit from heroically enduring U.S. strikes to destroy its nuclear facilities – none of which is near producing atom-bomb material – a major war would be a disaster for Iran. Not only would the regime be denuded of modern weapons, it would be set back decades to where the Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis and Kurds might try to break the country up, even as Iraq is breaking up.
But this would be a disaster for the United States as well. For an attack on Iran would unify Persians in hatred of America, the way Pearl Harbor unified Americans. And a breakup of Iran could create a new archipelago of terrorist training camps across the Middle East.
What we are getting at is that there is common ground between the United States and Iran. Neither of us would benefit from a major war. Both of us benefit if there is a reliable flow of oil and gas out of the Gulf and Central Asia. Neither of us wants to see the return of the Taliban or rise of al-Qaida, which is anti-Shiite. In his 18-page letter, Ahmadinejad powerfully condemned the massacre of 9-11.
And Tehran must be having second thoughts about whether to go nuclear when that could mean Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt might follow suit, and the United States and Israel would put a hair trigger on their missile arsenals, and target them on Tehran.
Better to talk. To test the waters, President Bush might take up Ahmadinejad's missive, manifest the same respect for Islam that he showed for Jesus of Nazareth, rebut his attacks on America and lay down what Bush would like to see in a future relationship with Iran.
We have much to talk about: terror, nuclear power, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, oil, what we owe Iran and what Iran owes us.
Has Pat lost it? I would say that the Iranians declared war on us in 1979 with seizing sovereign US property and personnel, i.e. the embassy in Tehran. They have been fighting us via proxy ever since.
Not what I’d call breaking news.
;-)
To answer my own question in my previous post, Pat has lost it!
Except, of course, taking over our embassy (an act of war) and holding hostages for 444 days and funding islamic terrorists through out the world. There are many rumors that OBL may be in Iran and nobody doubts it...
Pat, put down the bong.
You have to understand, Pat simply forgets or ignores anything, however obvious, that obliterates his views. Iran has wanted war with us, continues to want war with us and is pushing for war with us. But, they aren't going to war with us until they have what they see as an advantage. Hence why they are trying to build nuclear weapons.
Pat really lives in his own little world.
Naah, he just "recognizes" the evil inherent in American policy.
Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat, it eats without listening and it’s clearly not going to listen to anyone.
Vladimir Putin
----------
Rabinovich and his pet sheep are walking in the woods. Suddenly they fall into a deep pit. A minute later a wolf also falls into the same pit. The scared sheep starts bleating. “What do you mean – baa, baa, baa?” – says Rabinovich, “Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat”.
The Wolf did as the Fox told him and made straight for the smithy. He came up to the Blacksmith and said:"Please, Blacksmith, forge me a new throat, for I want to bleat like a goat."
"What will I get in return?"
"I don't know what you want. We animals have no money, but I can make you a gift of some kind."
"Well, then, Wolf, bring me a pair of geese, live ones, mind, and then I'll forge you a new throat."
The Wolf went to the river bank and began crawling through the rushes there, and he was soon muddy and wet up to his ears. But he finally
managed to catch two geese, and, holding them by their wings, carriec them to the Blacksmith. He felt very cross, for he would have liked to eat the geese himself, but this he could not do as he had to keep his promise. He brought the geese to the Blacksmith and said:
"I have brought you what you asked for, Blacksmith, so now be quick and forge me a new throat."
"Very well, Wolf, it's time to get to work," the Blacksmith replied "Move up closer to the anvil, stick out your tongue as far as it will go and close your eyes, and I will be quick and do the rest."
The Wolf moved up close to the anvil, he stuck out his tongue and closed his eyes, and he stood there as if frozen to the spot. And the Blacksmith at once seized his biggest hammer and he struck the Wolf with it over the head! The Wolf dropped dead on the spot, and the Blacksmith skinned him and sold the skiji at the market for ten silver pieces. And he kept the geese for himself to be eaten when he had a mind to.
And as for the Kids, they remained alive and well.
Evil Empire would be an apt description of Comrade Wolf.
I think pat needs to be reminded of where all these new IED's that are blowing up our soldiers in Iraq every day are coming from...IRAN
Now if thats not an act of war..what is?? ALSO AN AL QUEDA hideout..Iran is provoking us every waking minute and its time to put there lights out
Dear Moron Pat and your mindless stooges. HERE is what we are up to in Iraq. Pat, we cannot stop the next 9-11 by hiding under our bed and mindlessly screaming "Everyone loves me" as you are doing Pat. WE have to kill those who want to do us harm before they can do harm.
Pat, you are either senile or a complete clueless idiot. You are EXACTLY mouthing the same line Jewish Leaders in Eastern Europe told their people when the Nazis came. Sit down and shut up fool before you get MORE Americans killed like you Neo-Isolationist did on 9-11 with your rabid Do Nothingism.
HERE is what we are up to in Iraq.
Counter Insurgency is a strange bastard style of war. It is not total war but it is also more then the Leftist" Police matter". The other thing most old Cast Iron Conservatives forget is the political aspect. Iraq was doable. We had the political consensus to do it. So since we needed a kill zone we could suck the terrorists into and we needed to get the American people to support the cost, there was no other choice BUT Iraq.
Want to really blow the Leftists minds? Tell them this. Even if Al Gore won in 2000 and 9-11 happened the USA would STILL be doing the same thing now in Iraq. Iraq was doable militarily and politically. There was no other place for the US to go. Iraq is basically the same deal as the invasions of Italy was in 1943
Here in a nutshell, is the MILITARY reason for Iraq. The War on Terrorism is different sort of war. In the war on Terrorism, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone. Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The "Holy" soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is hostile to guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).
There are other reasons to do Iraq but that is the MILITARY reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.
Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. I often worry that the American people have neither the maturity, nor the intellect" to understand. It's so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like "No Blood for Oil" or "We support the Troops, bring them home" then to actually THINK. Problem is these people have NO desire to co-exist with us. They see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. They think their "god" will bless them for killing Westerners.
So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest realize we are serious. See in the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming "We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad" and recruit the next round of "holy warriors". Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it.
Yes, about 10 or 12 years ago.
Very well put. (I believe President Bush called it "flypaper."
More accurately, the America First Party/Committee in 1940-41. They recognized both the American incitement that led to war, as well as our inablilty to successfully militarily confront the Reich, other than defensively behind our oceans. To their credit they folded up a few days after Pearl Harbor, and joined in the war effort.
Iran takes US Embassy November 1979. Iraq attacks Iran September 1980. The enemy of my enemy... Thanks MNJ, the obvious sometimes needs to be said (over and over and over).
What I don't understand is that Everytime a Pat article gets posted on FR the same comments surface: Pat is nuts, don't believe him, he's lost it, etc.. So, why is there this fascination with Pat and his writings and thoughts, if he's supposed to be discarded and ignored?
maybe he does have a point, and maybe he's right after all?
Moral equals, yes, perhaps moral superiors, thus the usage of Putin's recent "Comrade Wolf" analogy.
Bump
I supported Pat in the primaries against Bob Dole. It turned out that I was mistaken. Dole was a loser, but Pat has really gone around the bend since then.
He doesn't even seem to understand the difference between clinton's wars and Bush's wars in this article. At least Bush has been fighting on the right side! You can criticize much of what Bush has done, but there is a big difference between fighting against the Muslim terrorists, as he has done, and fighting to help them, as clinton did in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.