Iran Fixation
With all of the real problems in the world today, why does Obama keep going back to Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program to show he’s “tough”?
Dr. Cole covers much of the controversy today and yesterday. Sean Paul adds the perspective of someone who has actually talked to Iranians about the issue.
I would add that Iran has no reason to believe anything the US or the West has to say on the nuclear issue. They already know that the US has pushed forged evidence on their nuclear program, and aid to Iraqi insurgents. They know that the US and the West unilaterally abrogated contracts with Iran, and kept Iranian payments for supplies and equipment that were never delivered. The West has no credibility with the Iranian government on this issue.
Iran continues to act within the confines of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. They don’t think, they know they are being attacked for taking actions that the treaty permits. The US intelligence community assessment is that there is no weapons program in Iran.
It is also useful to remember that Iran is now a regional power because of the Shrubbery’s unprovoked attack on Iraq after pushing the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan. US has once again failed to think things through and must deal with problems of its own creation.
9 comments
It surely shows either the complete and utter ignorance, or the “I don’t give a damn about the facts and the cost, I’m gonna do what I damn well please” attitude of the morons running things there.
We get PBS News here on one of our stations, and as it happens, they were discussing this. Surprisingly, the unanimous consensus was (essentially) “Can we PLEASE deal with The Taliban & Afghanistan before we start a war with someone else?” The USA will never be able to effectively deal with Al-Qaeda whilst they are protected, supplied and trained by the Taliban, and whilst Pakistan turns a blind eye. And AQ is still the USA’s biggest global threat.
“Stupid is as stupid does!”
Any just BTW… I get the distinct impression (as does most of the World outside of the USA), that all this Sabre-rattling towards Iran is a) A smoke screen (designed to keep people at home from thinking about the failures in Iraq & against AQ), and b) The USA ‘idiots-in-charge’ must think Iran would be a *soft* target (as they thought Iraq would be). Compared to Iran, Iraq IS a soft target, and that’s worked out great so far… 😆 Hisory is littered with the wreckage of Nations that thought Persia/Iran would be easy target’s. If Iran hadn’t whittled down Iraq before ’91, ‘Desert Storm’ would have been much tougher. 🙂 Even “Stormin’ Norman” commented as such about that. He was possibly the last of your sane commanders with a clue, sadly.
i’ve actually been saying iran is next since 2003 [or maybe 2004] and no, i can’t remember if there was a specific incident or reference that made me think that or if it was just that i was convinced that bush/cheney would do whatever it took to get their oil out from under all of the people who are living on top of it.
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There are still people around who have on-the-ground experience inside of Iran from the Shah’s days, and they can certainly explain about the problems of doing anything in Persia.
If we would really like to see major naval losses before the ground war gets going, yeah, sure, start something with Iran. Those mountains hide a world of hurt, and no one drives if the Strait of Hormuz is blocked.
It’s hard to get through to people that the Iranians don’t think they will win, but history has taught them that they never really lose. If Obama wants to make Ahmadinejad president for life, go ahead and attack Iran, after all we know how well a long term policy of hostility towards Castro worked. 😈
Oh, yes, the neocons have always wanted to attack Iran because the Likud think it would be a great idea, but they are supposed to be gone.
Iran is not a place you can just roll over, and the more you press, the harder they resist. It’s not their fault that the Shrubbery decided to make them the most powerful country in the Persian Gulf by taking out Saddam.
Oh, yes, the neocons have always wanted to attack Iran because the Likud think it would be a great idea, but they are supposed to be gone.
i figured they’d stick with covertly engineering regime changes in both iran and iraq for awhile longer. oil profiteering ought to be much more profitable if you don’t expend a bunch of resources in full-scale war, but i guess with peak oil approaching [or already past, depending on who you believe] war profiteering is the new black gold.
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The real puzzle is that the Iranians seem to be one of the few governments that really believes in “peak oil” and is looking beyond it to the future. That is really what the nuclear power thing is all about – life after oil. It is hard for a country that thinks in terms of centuries, Iran and China, to communicate with people who can’t think beyond the next quarter, or election at most.
Ha! And that’s the nail right there Bryan! The real people running the USA really fear that an oil/gas rich Nation such as Iran can show the World that they really are a rapidly depleting limited resource and that even a Nation with as much fossil fuel as Iran really needs alternative energy sources. That and the fact that the energy barons in the USA want all that Oil/Gas for themselves. 😉 Plus, if a Nation such as Iran can have an abundance of energy without the fear of the fuel getting harder and much more expensive to source over the next 50 years, they will have a boom in research, development and manufacturing, and be very competitive with Nations relying heavily on disappearing fossil fuels. Aus can supply enough Uranium to Iran to keep them going for a century or more. More than long enough to find better energy sources. 🙂 and Aus would be happy to supply Iran! 😉 If Iran were allowed free reign to construct Nuclear reactors, the partners and winners would probably be Russia, China, Canada and Australia, and possibly even Pakistan. The USA would be sidelined, and justly so.
Even the whole Israel/Likud thing is a smokescreen for the real intentions. It’s a case of the USA using Israel as a cover for what they really want. Of course, Israel doesn’t care, so long as they get what they want. 😉
It’s always about the money & control. 🙂
There is definitely an oil connection but it coincides with the neocon/Likud crazies to make a very dangerous lobby. One is fueled by greed and the other hate, but they both approve of using violence to get what they want.
Even the mess in Iraq didn’t convince them that they weren’t going to get anything using violence, and actually retarded their stated goals. The energy supplies have moved toward Russia and China, and Isreal has new implacable enemies. The area’s balance of power has shifted to being even more anti-US than before. They simply refuse to acknowledge their failures, or change their tactics.