War In Iran

Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Pushing my luck here a bit, but this amused me too:
campuscapers.jpg
 
F

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
US Considering Terrorist Label for Iran's Revolutionary Guards

Were always inching closer......


"The Bush administration is reported to be ready to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a "specially designated global terrorist" organization.

If the move goes forward, it would be the first time the United States has added an armed forces unit of any sovereign government to its list of terrorist groups. The designation allows the U.S. to freeze any assets the group, its members, or subsidiaries may have in the U.S...."
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2995111.ece

Very, very interesting.

Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 and has not restarted it since, a stunning new assessment released yesterday by intelligence agencies in the United States has found.

The findings contradict an assessment by US intelligence officials two years ago that Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons and appear to undercut President Bush’s repeated warnings about Iran becoming a nuclear power.
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The plot thickens.


Israel, however, publicly contradicted the NIE findings. Its defence minister, Ehud Barak, said Iran had restarted its military nuclear programme.
"It's apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear programme for a time. But in our opinion, since then it has apparently continued that programme," Barak told army radio.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2221663,00.html
 
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H

hundredmillionlifetimes

Banned
crackerjack said:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2995111.ece

Very, very interesting.
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It just further confirms what was already widely known, but the neo-cons have never heeded the findings of the US' 16 intelligence organisations (here, again, they have simply dismissed them), preferring to invent their own 'findings' in accordance with their still-operative, war-crazed agenda.

crackerjack said:
Israel, however, publicly contradicted the NIE findings. Its defence minister, Ehud Barak, said Iran had restarted its military nuclear programme.
"It's apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear programme for a time. But in our opinion, since then it has apparently continued that programme," Barak told army radio.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2221663,00.html
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How could Israel's Zionists possibly have any credibility on this issue when for over forty years they have had nuclear weapons, yet - bizarrely - they still continue to deny their existence?

Even Nixon and Kissinger expressed concern back in 1969 about Israel's nuclear-weapon buildup, as recently revealed by documents in the possession of the Nixon Presidential Library just released by the US National Archives:

Nixon Papers Recall Concerns on Israel’s Weapons

By DAVID STOUT
Published: November 28, 2007

“The Israelis, who are one of the few peoples whose survival is genuinely threatened, are probably more likely than almost any other country to actually use their nuclear weapons,” Henry A. Kissinger, the national security adviser, warned President Nixon in a memorandum dated July 19, 1969.

Israel’s nuclear arms program was believed to have begun at least several years before, but it was causing special fallout for the young Nixon administration. For one thing, President Nixon was getting ready for a visit by Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel, who was also in her first year in office and whose toughness was already legendary.

[ ... ]

“There is circumstantial evidence that some fissionable material available for Israel’s weapons development was illegally obtained from the United States about 1965,” Mr. Kissinger noted in his long memorandum.

One problem with trying to persuade Israel to freeze its nuclear program is that inspections would be useless, Mr. Kissinger said, conceding that “we could never cover all conceivable Israeli hiding places.”

“This is one program on which the Israelis have persistently deceived us,” Mr. Kissinger said, “and may even have stolen from us.”​
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
read it here first

Mr McCain, by contrast, outspokenly supports the Bush Administration's policy of ostracising Iran. He wants, if anything, to tighten both economic sanctions and reinforce the country's pariah status. Mr McCain has endorsed President Bush's accusation that talking to America's enemies is comparable to the prewar policy of appeasing Hitler. More specifically, Mr McCain has pointedly refused to dissociate himself from threats to bomb Iran if it continues with its nuclear programmes and seems as gung-ho about the persuasive power of US military action as President Bush.

Such is the passion of Mr McCain's anti-Iran rhetoric that some informed observers in Washington believe a bombing campaign against Iran could be the “October surprise” that Republican strategists are planning to swing the election in their favour if polling points to a Democrat victory. The idea would be to present the war hero McCain as the best man to lead America at a time of military danger.

Mr Obama, if he was reluctant in his support of a pre-election bombing, could be presented as a muddle-headed peacenik. And what if he denounced military action? Mr Obama could then stand accused of insufficient patriotism or even outright treason. His campaign would then come crashing down to a McGovern-style landslide defeat.

That is the nightmare scenario for what should be a dream election. But maybe my friends in America who speculate along these lines are taking their cynicism too far. Even in the language of Washington there is, after all, a difference between politics, policy and polity. Let us hope that John McCain's self-evident respect for the American polity transcends the Republican Party's desire to win the game of politics at any cost.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article4069152.ece
 
N

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Isn't it a bit strange that US pentagon officials should be talking publicly about their strategic assessment of Israeli manouvres?

It's more like a pathetic attempt to frame a potential Israeli attack as having nothing to do with the US.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
From an excellent new blog on IRGC:

Revolutionary Guards & Basij prepare for war

Developments on the IRGC's restructuring campaign continue to unfold daily. As written in previous posts, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is undergoing a period of reorganization in order to better prepare it and its associated forces (the Basij popular milita, the regular army, etc.) for the possibility of war with the US.

As part of this effort, Fars reports in Persian that the Basij (Iran's national popular militia) is in the process of establishing 600 new "Imam Husayn" battalions. These battalions, of which "more than 200" have already been created, will work under the new IRGC provincial commands.

Although these battalions will be established throughout the country, the IRGC appears to be emphasizing the Basij's presence along Iran's western border. This is directly related to both the fears of a possible US invasion originating in Iraq and to the increasing skirmishes between Iranian forces and Kurdish groups based in Iraq.​
 
hmg

hmg

Victory lap
swears said:
Where's the US gonna get the extra troops for another war? Anyone feel a draft in here?
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if ever a generation was being psyched up and sized up for warfare, it's the current cohort of teenagers. why are there so many knives in school? that's where they're getting them. They're not taking them in, they're bringing them out. Everyone thinks SATS is some sort of high school IQ test off the O.C. Actually it stands for Stabbing And Tactical Skills.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
HMGovt said:
if ever a generation was being psyched up and sized up for warfare, it's the current cohort of teenagers. why are there so many knives in school? that's where they're getting them. They're not taking them in, they're bringing them out. Everyone thinks SATS is some sort of high school IQ test off the O.C. Actually it stands for Stabbing And Tactical Skills.
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Haha...General Combat and Strategic Examinations? Advanced Shooting levels? :D
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
vimothy said:
It ain't gonna happen, and Israel don't have the capacity either.
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According to this even the bombing mission couldn't be done without active American support.

The simple reality is that, for all its sabre-rattling, Israel cannot carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities on its own. An Israeli strike would require the active co-operation of the US. Israeli F15 and F16 warplanes would not only have to fly and be refuelled in Iraqi airspace - controlled by the Americans - but the whole operation would require logistical support from US bases on the ground in Iraq. Support helicopters would need to be based in Iraq and rescue teams needed to evacuate any downed Israeli pilots would have to operate inside Iraq.

In short this would be in effect a joint US-Israeli mission. The catch is that Washington has no intention of joining in any attack any time soon.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article4312319.ece
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Yeah, that's exactly what I meant -- the IAF don't have the refuelling capacity to hit the dispersed mix of sites and underground compounds that make up the Iranian "nuclear network". Turkey won't give em fly-over rights, America won't either and there's zero fucking chance anyone else in the region will.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Israel is basically that little mouthy sod who goes around like he's cock of the walk because he's got a really thick but utterly massive and hard mate following him everywhere a few paces behind.

Edit: - Mr. Tea, your one stop shop for scalpel-sharp geopolitical analysis.
 
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