War In Iran

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scottdisco

rip this joint please
yeah it's kinda six of one and half a dozen of the other and i note that the first point that Exum makes if he had been in Totten's shoes he might have tried to play it different, well, Totten admits - in hindsight, in comments to his own piece - he should have just tried to lamp the lad and have them all leg it, but as soon as it became apparent back-up was arriving, it was too late.

anyway, blah blah.

i read Hitchens somewhere the other day addressing the points about travelling to meet the likes of Jumblatt actually (the whole mote-in-his-eye re some of his own 'buddies' that Exum flags up in his final paragraph), and he was fair enough on holding his hands up on this, quite persuasive in how he went at it, actually.

i can't actually find the bloody piece in question though for now, but will keep looking and put it up here if anyone is bothered.

Vim, do you have a list of Future Movement funders?

ta!
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
What, you want actual facts and figures? Nudges and winks is all I've got, I'm afraid. I don't think that this is controversial, but would be happy to be contradicted.

Also, would like to read Hitchens' piece, if you find it.
 
S

scottdisco

rip this joint please
vimothy said:
What, you want actual facts and figures? Nudges and winks is all I've got, I'm afraid. I don't think that this is controversial, but would be happy to be contradicted.
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no you're quite right, i won't be losing sleep over it ;)

will try to find that thing i mentioned, it was only yesterday or two days ago, i swear!

(my memory is sieve-like, alas.)
 
S

scottdisco

rip this joint please
can't find that HItch thing i mentioned up-thread yet, i must say.

anyway.

this seems a reasonable David Blair piece.

If Iran's leaders had the power to choose between a belligerent America threatening "regime change" and a conciliatory US President hailing their "great and celebrated culture", they would probably prefer to bask in firebreathing threats.

...

Finally, Mr Obama is deliberately landing Iran's most powerful man with the greatest dilemma of all. In the end, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, will decide whether to accept the olive branch and improve relations with America, an outcome that could only be achieved if Iran compromised on its nuclear programme.
While Mr Ahmadinejad stays in the thick of political combat, the Supreme Leader tries to hover above the fray and present himself as a neutral arbiter between Iran's factions. In practice, Mr Khamenei usually sides with the hardliners and, so far, his support for Mr Ahmadinejad has been consistent.

Hence the Supreme Leader gave a spiky public response to Mr Obama, denouncing Washington before a crowd chanting the Islamic Republic's favourite slogan, "Death to America". But there was one phrase in Mr Khamenei's speech which saved it from being a total rejection. Amid all the vitriol, the Supreme Leader said: "If America changes its behaviour, we will change ours."
Even Mr Khamenei could not completely slam the door on a rapprochement. For all his bluster, he knows Iran's true weakness. Decades of economic failure have created mass unemployment and drug addiction among the country's youth. Iran produces almost nothing save oil – and the price has fallen by two thirds since last summer.
Mr Khamenei's overriding aim is to preserve his regime and guarantee the Islamic Republic's survival. He must decide whether easing ties with America would makes this more or less likely.
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S

scottdisco

rip this joint please
:(

^

hundredmillionlifetimes on February 4th said:
now. Let's see, then:


By john pilger

as opposition grows in america to the failed iraq adventure, the bush administration is preparing public opinion for an attack on iran, its latest target, by the spring.

The united states is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on iran.
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ah man.

and this was in the spring of 2007?

ah man.

i totally missed this.

in my defence, around that time, i was mostly paying attention to Sudan, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Mexico, the Chagos Islands and Saudi.

how did the Yanks do, did they achieve their objectives?
 
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padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
scottdisco said:
how did the Yanks do, did they achieve their objectives?
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are you kidding? hell yeah! we remade Iran into a Jeffersonian democracy through the force of arms and the redeeming power of savior like J.C. I was just at McDonald's in downtown Tehran yesterday. apple pie for everyone!

on a more serious note, it turns out that the Iranian regime was really run by a cabal of Masonic Jewish Communist Knights Templar Opus Dei Space Lizards working for the medical establishment to further the AIDS conspiracy.
 
S

scottdisco

rip this joint please
i must say, i was reading the first nine pages of this thread, there's some priceless stuff there.

Craner, Vimothy and crackerjack bossing the show, natch.

anyway.

Opposition sources claimed that the regime killed Dr Ali-Mohammadi because he was an outspoken supporter of the so-called Green Movement, and to inspire fear at the university, an opposition stronghold. By blaming foreign enemies it could also justify a further crackdown on dissent. The regime moved swiftly to broadcast its version of events, with state television saying that Dr AliMohammadi was a “committed and revolutionary university professor martyred in a terrorist operation by counter-revolutionary agents affiliated with global arrogance [America]”.

The Foreign Ministry said that preliminary investigations had uncovered “signs of evil by the Zionist regime, America and their mercenaries in Iran”.

Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, Tehran’s chief prosecutor, declared: “Given the fact that Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was a nuclear scientist, the CIA and Mossad most likely have a hand in his assassination.”

Mark Toner, the US State Department spokesman, said: “Any charges of US involvement are absurd.”

The weakness in the regime’s case is that while Dr Ali-Mohammadi would almost certainly have had some involvment in Iran’s nuclear programme there is no evidence that he was a particularly important figure. The key scientists are all protected.

He reportedly received the first doctorate awarded in nuclear physics in Iran in 1992. He is thought to have worked for the Republican Guard until a few years ago, but the International Atomic Energy Agency and several Western officials who monitor its key players had never heard of him and his many published articles are mostly about theoretical and particle physics.

There is, however, ample evidence that Dr Ali-Mohammadi had become an outspoken opposition activist. He was one of 420 academics who signed a statement expressing “unambiguous support” for Mir Hossein Mousavi a few days before June’s presidential election. Sources said that after Mr Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the disputed ballot, Dr Ali-Mohammadi encouraged his students to join street demonstrations. One recalled him saying: “We have to stand up to this lot. Don’t be afraid of a bullet. It only hurts at the beginning.”

Others said that in recent months he had become increasingly outspoken, even criticising regime officials openly during his classes.

According to one rumour, he had made plans to leave for Sweden. To lose a nuclear scientist would have embarrassed the regime, especially if he took secrets with him, but the rumour could not be confirmed.
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Physics of this kind is pretty specialised - I can't really see someone whose main research interest is theoretical particle physics being that much use to a regime trying to build a bomb, to be honest. That kind of physics has been well understood on a theoretical basis for over sixty years; you'd want applied physicists and nuclear engineers to realise a weapons programme, I'd have thought.
 
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