Iran making a real nuisance of itself
{Post by See-Dubya}
Item 1: Iran denies that one of their speedboats buzzed the U.S.S. Typhoon in the Persian Gulf on Friday.
A U.S. Navy official earlier reported the USS Typhoon had tried unsuccessfully to establish radio contact with the Iranian boat after it came within an estimated 200 yards of the Typhoon on Thursday, outside Iranian territorial waters.
Given the memory of the U.S.S. Cole suicide speedboat attack, that could have escalated very quickly. The Navy says the Typhoon fired a flare at the boat; they’re lucky it wasn’t something a bit more robust.
Item 2: The administration now names Iran instead of Al-Qaeda the top threat inside Iraq:
Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran’s “malign” influence, the officials said.
The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Item 3: I’ve linked this before but it’s an important part of the picture–
Saudi Arabia most likely would develop nuclear weapons if Iran acquires them, according to a report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
High-level American diplomats in Riyadh with excellent access to Saudi decision-makers said an Iranian nuclear weapon frightens the Saudis “to their core” and would compel the Saudis to seek nuclear weapons, the report said. …
Turkey also would come under pressure to follow suit if Iran builds nuclear weapons in the next decade, said the report prepared by a committee staff member after interviewing hundreds of individuals in Washington and the Middle East last July through December.
Even if, hypothetically, Iran built a bomb and never used it, the corresponding proliferation of nuclear weaponry around the world ought to keep everyone’s attention on Iran’s politics. Will they be as reckless with their nuclear weapons as they are with their speedboats?
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Geez….these clowns are really asking for it
We have played footsie with Iran long enough! They are directly responsible for the deaths of many of our solders and flaunt their capacity to do so. Iran senses our lack of will to deal with them so they continue to destabilize Iraq while we pretend we do not see. What a way to prosecute a war! I would have thought we would have leared our lesson in Viet Nam. Evidently not!
There was a rumor that the fire fight in see-dubya’s post the other day may have included Iranian Qod Forces.
True or not, I think President Bush will not leave office with the specter of a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon. Whether an action against Iran takes place before or after the conventions I don’t know. But I feel certain action will be taken.
Muslims deal only in stereotypes. After the Brit response, they expect the same from other Western Navies. The naivete and stupidity of Dinner Jacket cannot be overestimated.
Hussein Obama deals in stereotypes too as does his previously Muslim preacher. Pa’s are bitter people that resort to guns. Must be the typical white male syndrome.
“Will they be as reckless with their nuclear weapons as they are with their speedboats?”
More so, imho. Far more so.
How are we going to deal with the Iranian threat when democrats can’t even distinguish the Colombian government as the good guys and the Venezuelan government as the bad guys of the western hemisphere?
By the way, the Venezuelan government is currently fulfilling trade deals with Iran and the Kennedy family, while the democrats can’t even bring themselves to extend a trade deal to Colombia (our ONLY true ally in that neighborhood.)
Liberal democrats are either the most ignorant class of contemporary politicians, or the most evil. Take your pick.
Since Carter, but we talk a good game.
Brian–
Double Yep.
To quote John McShamesty bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran…
I sure would like it if a JDAM had Mr. Dinner Jacket’s phone number. Hello, Hello…………
This whole thing reminds me of that old joke about the bandit who was robbing a family during a vacation.
The bandit tells the man to stand behind a line, and not to move, as he has his way with the man’s wife and daughter.
The bandit satisfyingly turns to look at the man, smiling, and sees the man laughing.
The bandit says, “I just ravished your wife and daughter…why are you laughing???”
The man replies, “Yeah, I know…but while you were so busy and preoccupied, I stepped over the line three times, and you didn’t catch me!”
When are WE going to get a clue?
Aren’t we beyond opposition over anything preemptive against the government of Iran?
Leave it to liberal democrats to protect and excuse an Iranian regime, hell bent on our destruction, by pointing out every bump in our foreign policy history as the enemy continues to try to slit our throats.
This is akin to a Boston or a NY baseball owner trumpeting every negative story concerning his team before the hated rivals blow into town for a three game stand.
Unheard of and treasonous, right?
I believe the US govt doesn’t want to be seen as the aggressor again – our image over there and internationally is pretty bad as it is, deserved or not. Iran know this very well and are trying to provoke the US into action, and in doing so then point the finger at the ‘aggressor’ and hope to unite much of the middle east behind them, and maybe the likes of Russia. If Iran struck first, they would lose that advantage, and when I say struck, I don’t mean the clandestine stuff they are doing already to provoke the US, but a clear military strike in clear view of the international community. Until then, most likely we will just have to put up with it and basically fight by proxy.
Dealing with an irrational nation is very dangerous. Lord knows, when hostilities will finally break out. I wonder what will happen when Iran announces they have a “bomb”, and attempt to hold the Middle East hostage. Will everyone jump to cooperate? I hope not, but feel many countries will flock to be first in line to cooperate.
One major shift in the West’s war fighting philosophy, is the differentiation between the Governments of a country, and its inhabitants.
We won WWII because we bomded the heck out of the populace of Germany and Japan. We ruined their economys to the point where they could no longer sustain combat ops.
Now, we try to destroy a countries ability to fight without harming the populace… which is, IMO, a HUGE mistake.
The leaders of any country are still dependent on the tacit approval of the populace… or they will get internal insurection and slowdowns of the economy (which supports the war effort).
We have the ability to destroy Iran’s economy from the air, without having to invade… bomb the Oil feilds, gas plants, bridges, factories… and anything other than food production facilites… bomb every electricity making device… leave them in the dark… and very soon… the people will make the government change its policies.
#16 Romeo13 said:
I see the first instance of this when Truman denied MacArthur’s request to blow the Chinese to kingdom come for intervening in the Korean War, crossing the Korean border and charging over a million Chinese soldiers against our forces in the north.
Besides the fear of Soviet escalation in the matter, I don’t understand why a sitting US President let the Chinese government get away with threatening our Armed Forces with possible annihilation like that.
When looking at the situation there is one dynamic most people tend to forget about, and that is that Iran & Iraq are bitter enemies.
Currently we are training an Iraqi army of what, 5 or 6 hundred thousand… to what end? I don’t know the numbers for sure but it is a bigger & badder force than anything Sadam could have mustered. And backed up by a modern Air Force & Navy to boot, oh my.
I don’t know… but this has got to be making the leaders of Iran uncomfortable.
Yeah, I grew wary of Iran’s shenanigans years ago.
I am just glad Israel has the intestinal fortitude and military might to do what the rest of the world won’t if it comes down to it.
God bless Israel.
#18 brooklyn said:
Good point. If not for the defeatist positioning of the democrat party for the past 43 years, I would like to believe that we would have had lasting military alliances and political relationships with the countries of South Vietnam, Nicaragua and Iraq by now.
We are in position to establish a lasting military relationship and forward operating Middle East base on the doorstep of Iran, Bulgaria and Russia. But rather than let this happen, the democrats want to pull out and limit our global military capabilities. Why?
and gee, i heard there was an explosion at a mosque in iran today… wonder why a mosque would have an explosion…..
maybe one of the prayer rugs blew up the place.
ajmontana, re:#21
I heard there was a recall on a shipment of defective Chinese prayer rugs… that’s got to be it.
BrianNY, the Soviet Union, we now know, would have entered into the conflict on the side of the Chinese. The threat of WW3 was just too much to risk, especially just after WW2. Nuclear holocaust would have been a very serious option. Truman made the right decision. One note to add, Soviet pilots did participate in the Korean conflict. If they were shot down over our territory, they were to be killed (strafed, bombed) so we couldn’t capture one.
You have it right. Our troops have been fighting handcuffed since Korea. Politicians and lawyers are not controlling our troops. Shameful!
opps…
With what? In 1950-51 the Soviet Union was barely beginning to get back on its feet. They lacked any kind of force projection beyond some TU-4′s. Truman (otherwise one of my favorite presidents) simply lacked the guts to take the fight beyond the Korean Peninsula.
txvet2 @ 26, ditto. That hesitation led to Kennedy having to face down the Russians over the Cuban missiles.
Had Truman been resolute, the Cold War would well have been short when coupled with standing up for the Hungarians, Czechs and other incidents.
I agree with most of the points made above, and I realize that an assault against China would have been a complicated decision. I still don’t understand how, just 10 years after we bailed the Soviet Union out with the lend/lease program, we could allow China to intervene, with over one million troops, into a “United Nations sanctioned” operation and place our troops in such peril.
Easy for me to say, (I was born much later) but I believe that China crossed a line that they should have been hanged with. I guess that was the difference between Harry Truman and Douglas MacArthur.
Let Israel rain bombs on those that openly threaten them. I’m no fan of Israel, but being threatened with annihilation time and time again -
God bless Israel. I happen to be a big fan of them.
Me, too, Gator. In reference to Korea, McArthur wanted to use nuclear weapons against China. That would have led to WW3 and I’m not sure that the rest of the U.N. would have supported it. The Soviets would have retaliated likewise. Nuclear explosions would not have been a good thing in 1951. We didn’t want a WW2 repeat over Korea. China, in their paranoia, thought the U.N. would have invaded them across the Yalu. From released records of the old Soviet Union, we would have had a mess on our hands. Again, it was only 5-6 years after WW2. No one really wanted another one, including nuclear bombing. We can look back today, and play “monday morning quarterback”, but understanding the mindset of the day, it was a good decision not to go to a major war. Truman’s “guts” and a lot of our soldier’s blood, over a little country in Asia.
So, we have a decent hold on Afghanistan (to Iran’s east), a decent hold on Iraq (west), we hold the Gulf with a dread slice of America (these same fleets being hassled by buzzboats to Iran’s south), and we conveniently allow Russia to hassle Chechnya / Georgia at will (to the north). Anyone else notice that we’ve been keeping Iran effectively surrounded for about 4 years now? We haven’t been applying much pressure yet, but note the ring of steel …
-J-
I can’t help but notice that so many commentors on this blog want America to go to war with Iran.
And we thought IRAQ was difficult!
I hate to say it, but the only people that will be thanking us as “liberators” will be the Israelis!
“I can’t help but notice that so many commentors on this blog want America to go to war with Iran.” - feeler
Yeah, I noticed the same thing, and have the same concerns about it that you do. It’s an entirely different game than Afghanistan or Iraq.
It’s not that I’m opposed to preventing Iran from getting nukes. Quite the opposite, really. But we need to keep in mind exactly what we’re talking about here. A bombing only campaign will only solidify support behind Ahmadinejad. I’m betting he’s actually hoping for it, as shaky as his regime is.
We go in there on the ground, and we face a military that’s probably been drawing up contingencies for this exact thing ever since Desert Storm. I have all the confidence in the world that our military could defeat the Iranians, even as stretched as it already is (which shouldn’t be ignored). However, we will NOT do so without significant additional casualties. Recent naval simulations against the sorts of small boat attacks Iran is likely to conduct in case of war, show that there’s a very high likelihood that they will be able to destroy or heavily damage some quantity of American naval vessels in the Persian gulf. That, folks, is the strong potential for a number of casualties surpassing that we’ve had in the entirety of the Iraqi campaign OVERNIGHT.
Granted, the potential casualties should Iran get its hands on nuclear weapons could be far higher (if they use one), but maybe we should be a little less eager, and a little more thoughtful about the prospect with war against Iran.
“Once bitten, twice shy.”
“The boy who cried wolf.”
“Fooled once, shame on you. Fooled twice, shame on me.”
We certainly don’t want the first warning to be a mushroom cloud. LOL.
The United States has very many very good nuclear weapons. Iran thinks they need some. They are betting that if there is a “nuclear incident” maybe just a little “accident” They will not only survive but be better off? This is a very very poor bet. I think they, as a country do not understand this. The United States does not place control of Nuclear Weapons in the hands of religious leaders! It does not seem like such a big task to be convince ANY country that having a few not so good nuclear weapons, is for them….a bad bet. It does go to survivability
jfish @32, notice how like Chinese incursions across the Yalu, Iran infiltrates the Iraqi border in support of their ideological friends. We’ll see how this story plays out vis a vis the mullahs’ race for nukes.
Yes, I think so.
Iran has a growing resistance movement. It wouldn’t be like Iraq.
And if Jimmy Carter thought Russian nukes were tough, wait till he sees what Iran has in store.
See, that’s really what the left doesn’t get. Russia didn’t want to use its weapons unless the utmost need called for it, that is in a defensive strike.
Iran will use nukes on offense if it gets the chance, in the name of religion, which many liberals scorn dearly.
I’m of the opinion that if we vaporized one of these little runt boats, they’d begin to think twice about playing gnat with us. It’s a little annoying, but we can make it very clear to them if need be and I wish for once, we’d send that message, consequences be damned. Iran’s infrastructure would be enough of a target to shut them down. Also, their own people would rise up and riot if this whole shootin’ match started.
Remember how everyone thought Saddam’s Elite Guards were going to be too tough for us too? Iran is every bit the paper tiger Iraq was… and Afghanistan (Taliban) was… bet on it.
The sooner this nutjob assumes room temperature, the better.
I’m all for helping him get there.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
To #34: What do you mean IF they use them? How else could they WIPE Isreal off the map without using nukes? Just think of the OUTCRY if Isreal said they were going to WIPE a moslum country off the map. Iran has made it pretty clear what they will do when they get nukes.