[ArtK78]

Eventually we will get incontrovertible evidence that Iran has nuclear capability. That evidence will be a nuclear missile striking a major population center - Israel, Iraq, or somewhere in Western Europe.

However, I suspect that Israel will act against Iran before it comes to that.

[hrothgar]

ArtK78, on Oct 7 2009, 07:49 PM, said:

Eventually we will get incontrovertible evidence that Iran has nuclear capability. That evidence will be a nuclear missile striking a major population center - Israel, Iraq, or somewhere in Western Europe.

However, I suspect that Israel will act against Iran before it comes to that.

It must be a weird and wonderful world inside what passes for your brain. I can only imagine the colors that you see, the voices that whisper to you at night, and the intricate set of delusions that masquerades for rational thought.

Simple question: Somehow the French, the British, the Chinese, and the Russians have all be able to live with nuclear weapons for decades without ever feeling the need to launch missiles at each other. Indeed, the only country out there who has ever been willing to use atomic weapons was US, and that was back in the good old days when we had a monopoly on these types of weapons of mass destruction.

What makes you think that the Iran regime is eager to commit suicide? Can you posit a single, even semi reasonable scenario in which the Iranians would do anything as mind numbingly stupid as launch a nuclear armed missile at Western Europe?

I'll note in passing, there's nothing all that special about nukes. The Iranians could easy create nerve gas; maybe even biological weapons. Somehow, they've managed to restrain themselves for low, these many years. I don't think that they're going to behave any differently when they finally get there hands on some nukes.

Richard

Who believes that the incontrovertible evidence that Iran has a nuclear capability will be seismic readings from an underground nuclear test (And who also believes that the Israeli's launching an attack against Iran would be almost as stupid as the US invading Iraq)

[luke warm]

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2009, 12:05 PM, said:

And who also believes that the Israeli's launching an attack against Iran would be almost as stupid as the US invading Iraq

and who believes that's exactly what israel would do (unless talked down by the u.s., of course, or unless israel suddenly becomes enlightened and listens to your advice on their foreign policy)?

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 12:53 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2009, 12:05 PM, said:

And who also believes that the Israeli's launching an attack against Iran would be almost as stupid as the US invading Iraq

and who believes that's exactly what israel would do (unless talked down by the u.s., of course, or unless israel suddenly becomes enlightened and listens to your advice on their foreign policy)?

I don't think that its inconceivable that the Israeli's launch an attack Iran. However, I believe that it would be counter productive, to say the least:

1. A preemptive Israeli strike would almost certainly cause the Iranians to shut down the Straits of Hormuz. This would provoke a massive spike in oil prices and devastate the international economy. (This is one of the few things that I can think of that might jeopardize the special relationship between the US and Israel)

2. A preemptive Israeli strike would most likely cause the Iranians to rally around the flag. Right now, the Iranian government is extremely unpopular with its own people. An Israeli military strike, launched against facilities in Iranian population centers will galvanize the Iranian population (and not in a way that anyone in the West would want)

3. The Iranians just agreed to have their uranium refined in Russia in exchange for nuclear fuel rods from France. There are no guarantees that the Iranians are going to dismantle their centrifuges; however launching an immediately following a major diplomatic breakthrough seems inane.

I don't expect that the Israeli's are going to listen to "my advice" on foreign policy. Then again, this is hardly "my advice". Anyone with half a brain knows that an Israeli assault is sheer lunacy. I can point to any number of quotes from US diplomats and military personal who make exactly these same set of points.

I understand that Kristol, the Weekly Standard, and the rest of the NeoCon are still furiously masturbating about the thought of an Israeli first strike. Luckily, their credibility has gone down a bit after people made the mistake of listening to the last around, invaded the wrong country, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

[Winstonm]

luke warm, on Oct 7 2009, 05:08 AM, said:

no, but we seem to differ on just what is considered 'reporting'

I went back and reread your post. Maybe I misunderstand - but I do agree that it is O.K. to state what someone said who is quoted as an authority.

What I object to is simply reporting here's what one side said here is what the other side said.

[luke warm]

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

I don't expect that the Israeli's are going to listen to "my advice" on foreign policy. Then again, this is hardly "my advice". Anyone with half a brain knows that an Israeli assault is sheer lunacy. I can point to any number of quotes from US diplomats and military personal who make exactly these same set of points.

let's not get into a quote war... the fact remains, israel believes it has historical precedent for taking seriously threats against the existence of her people, something you and i might not fully understand

[jdonn]

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 05:04 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

I don't expect that the Israeli's are going to listen to "my advice" on foreign policy.  Then again, this is hardly "my advice".  Anyone with half a brain knows that an Israeli assault is sheer lunacy.  I can point to any number of quotes from US diplomats and military personal who make exactly these same set of points.

let's not get into a quote war... the fact remains, israel believes it has historical precedent for taking seriously threats against the existence of her people, something you and i might not fully understand

I didn't realize "taking seriously" was a synonym for "bombing"?

[mycroft]

As usual, I find my expatriate's take on things military/political a useful "other view".

Of course, the reason he's expatriate is that we wouldn't pay him to tell the truth as he read it, because, well, he told the truth as he read it too often...

[luke warm]

jdonn, on Oct 8 2009, 10:15 AM, said:

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 05:04 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

I don't expect that the Israeli's are going to listen to "my advice" on foreign policy.  Then again, this is hardly "my advice".  Anyone with half a brain knows that an Israeli assault is sheer lunacy.  I can point to any number of quotes from US diplomats and military personal who make exactly these same set of points.

let's not get into a quote war... the fact remains, israel believes it has historical precedent for taking seriously threats against the existence of her people, something you and i might not fully understand

I didn't realize "taking seriously" was a synonym for "bombing"?

i guess there are degrees of 'taking seriously'... if you were leader of israel and you were convinced, reasonably or otherwise, that if left to develop nuclear capabilities iran was going to wipe your country from the face of the earth, what would you do?

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 09:14 PM, said:

jdonn, on Oct 8 2009, 10:15 AM, said:

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 05:04 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

I don't expect that the Israeli's are going to listen to "my advice" on foreign policy.  Then again, this is hardly "my advice".  Anyone with half a brain knows that an Israeli assault is sheer lunacy.  I can point to any number of quotes from US diplomats and military personal who make exactly these same set of points.

let's not get into a quote war... the fact remains, israel believes it has historical precedent for taking seriously threats against the existence of her people, something you and i might not fully understand

I didn't realize "taking seriously" was a synonym for "bombing"?

i guess there are degrees of 'taking seriously'... if you were leader of israel and you were convinced, reasonably or otherwise, that if left to develop nuclear capabilities iran was going to wipe your country from the face of the earth, what would you do?

I hear that Long Island is lovely this time of year...

[jdonn]

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 01:14 PM, said:

jdonn, on Oct 8 2009, 10:15 AM, said:

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 05:04 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

I don't expect that the Israeli's are going to listen to "my advice" on foreign policy.  Then again, this is hardly "my advice".  Anyone with half a brain knows that an Israeli assault is sheer lunacy.  I can point to any number of quotes from US diplomats and military personal who make exactly these same set of points.

let's not get into a quote war... the fact remains, israel believes it has historical precedent for taking seriously threats against the existence of her people, something you and i might not fully understand

I didn't realize "taking seriously" was a synonym for "bombing"?

i guess there are degrees of 'taking seriously'... if you were leader of israel and you were convinced, reasonably or otherwise, that if left to develop nuclear capabilities iran was going to wipe your country from the face of the earth, what would you do?

First I would examine my own behavior to see if something I am doing is making Iran want to wipe me off the face of the earth, and if so whether that something would be worth changing or not.

Once that is taken care of I would vigorously attempt to create a coalition of as many countries as possible to help me by creating incentive for Iran to not develop nuclear capabilities.

Perhaps that coalition could also help me objectively determine if my belief is reasonable, since your post seems to imply that fact has no relevance.

[ArtK78]

hrothgar, on Oct 8 2009, 01:29 PM, said:

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 09:14 PM, said:

jdonn, on Oct 8 2009, 10:15 AM, said:

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 05:04 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

I don't expect that the Israeli's are going to listen to "my advice" on foreign policy.  Then again, this is hardly "my advice".  Anyone with half a brain knows that an Israeli assault is sheer lunacy.  I can point to any number of quotes from US diplomats and military personal who make exactly these same set of points.

let's not get into a quote war... the fact remains, israel believes it has historical precedent for taking seriously threats against the existence of her people, something you and i might not fully understand

I didn't realize "taking seriously" was a synonym for "bombing"?

i guess there are degrees of 'taking seriously'... if you were leader of israel and you were convinced, reasonably or otherwise, that if left to develop nuclear capabilities iran was going to wipe your country from the face of the earth, what would you do?

I hear that Long Island is lovely this time of year...

I thought that your response to my post was obnoxious enough.

Your last comment is going much further down a road that I hope you do not want to travel.

[luke warm]

ArtK78, on Oct 8 2009, 01:40 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Oct 8 2009, 01:29 PM, said:

I hear that Long Island is lovely this time of year...

I thought that your response to my post was obnoxious enough.

Your last comment is going much further down a road that I hope you do not want to travel.

wanna bet?

jdonn, on Oct 8 2009, 01:39 PM, said:

First I would examine my own behavior to see if something I am doing is making Iran want to wipe me off the face of the earth, and if so whether that something would be worth changing or not.

yeah, that would work

Quote

Once that is taken care of I would vigorously attempt to create a coalition of as many countries as possible to help me by creating incentive for Iran to not develop nuclear capabilities.

Perhaps that coalition could also help me objectively determine if my belief is reasonable, since your post seems to imply that fact has no relevance.

in what way does it imply that?

[jdonn]

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 02:23 PM, said:

jdonn, on Oct 8 2009, 01:39 PM, said:

Perhaps that coalition could also help me objectively determine if my belief is reasonable, since your post seems to imply that fact has no relevance.

in what way does it imply that?

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 01:14 PM, said:

i guess there are degrees of 'taking seriously'... if you were leader of israel and you were convinced, reasonably or otherwise, that if left to develop nuclear capabilities iran was going to wipe your country from the face of the earth, what would you do?

[hrothgar]

ArtK78, on Oct 8 2009, 09:40 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Oct 8 2009, 01:29 PM, said:

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 09:14 PM, said:

jdonn, on Oct 8 2009, 10:15 AM, said:

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 05:04 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

I don't expect that the Israeli's are going to listen to "my advice" on foreign policy.  Then again, this is hardly "my advice".  Anyone with half a brain knows that an Israeli assault is sheer lunacy.  I can point to any number of quotes from US diplomats and military personal who make exactly these same set of points.

let's not get into a quote war... the fact remains, israel believes it has historical precedent for taking seriously threats against the existence of her people, something you and i might not fully understand

I didn't realize "taking seriously" was a synonym for "bombing"?

i guess there are degrees of 'taking seriously'... if you were leader of israel and you were convinced, reasonably or otherwise, that if left to develop nuclear capabilities iran was going to wipe your country from the face of the earth, what would you do?

I hear that Long Island is lovely this time of year...

I thought that your response to my post was obnoxious enough.

Your last comment is going much further down a road that I hope you do not want to travel.

A rather silly movie called "War Games" had the following to say about Global Thermonuclear War

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play"

Jimmy posited a theorectical in which the Iranians would inevitably wipe Israel off the face of the map if/when they developed nuclear weapons. I don't beleive that this is a reasonable assessment; however, those are the rules of the game that Jimmy specified.

Personally, I don't believe that the Iranians can be stopped from developing nukes. Its going to take them time to do so. It would cost the regime a lot of money. However, I don't think that its possible to stop them using military means. Indeed, I think that an Israeli military attack would do very little other than guaranteeing that the Iranians would - somehow - acquire nukes. According to the rules that Jimmy specified, this means a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israeli...

I readily admit that I have a fairly emotionally detached view of this whole situation. However, at a certain point in time, you have to start asking whether the movie is worth the price of admission.

Me, I consider a nuclear exchange a week bit too expensive for the priviledge of lining in the land of Israel... Personally, I'd cut my losses and move out of Dodge.

[ArtK78]

No one said that an attack by Israel against an Iranian nuclear facility would be a nuclear attack.

Israel successfully destroyed an Iraqi nuclear facility about 15 years ago (I don't remember exactly when this happened, but it was considerably before the current US war in Iraq commenced). Popular wisdom (for what it is worth) states that this delayed Sadaam Hussein from developing a nuclear capacity for a significant period of time. Obviously, that considerable period of time was long enough to prevent him from deploying nuclear weapons. Considering that he used chemical weapons against the Kurds, there are grounds to believe that he would have used nuclear weapons against someone if he had the capability to do so. Israel was sufficiently convinced to launch a preemptive strike against him.

If Israel is convinced that Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons capability, I would not be surprised if Israel were to do something about it.

And I am familiar with the movie. Certainly, a thermonuclear war between superpowers such as the US and the USSR would not be survivable. But I bet that within the bowels of the Pentagon there are plans drawn up for a "survivable" nuclear conflict between the US and various "minor" nuclear powers, and also between two "minor" nuclear powers (India and Pakistan?). In fact, it would be gross negligence for the military to not have researched such scenaria thoroughly.

Let us hope that these scenaria remain a matter for research only.

Chess, anyone?

[luke warm]

jdonn, on Oct 8 2009, 02:44 PM, said:

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 02:23 PM, said:

jdonn, on Oct 8 2009, 01:39 PM, said:

Perhaps that coalition could also help me objectively determine if my belief is reasonable, since your post seems to imply that fact has no relevance.

in what way does it imply that?

luke warm, on Oct 8 2009, 01:14 PM, said:

i guess there are degrees of 'taking seriously'... if you were leader of israel and you were convinced, reasonably or otherwise, that if left to develop nuclear capabilities iran was going to wipe your country from the face of the earth, what would you do?

i said that for richard's, and it seems your, benefit... since he called any such potential action "stupid"

hrothgar, on Oct 8 2009, 02:54 PM, said:

According to the rules that Jimmy specified, this means a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israeli...

actually no, what i meant to imply was that i don't believe israel can be stopped from preventing iran from obtaining the weapon and/or delivery system... i could be wrong, but that's my opinion

[Winstonm]

Quote

Considering that he [Hussein] used chemical weapons against the Kurds, there are grounds to believe that he would have used nuclear weapons against someone if he had the capability to do so.

You have either: 1) been watching too much Rev. Hagee, or 2) donated too much to Pat Robertson's 700 Club, or 3) read too much Bill Kristol to be able to form rational conclusions based on the facts to which you point.

The fact the Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against his own population in limited areas in no way suggests that he would use a nuclear weapon against another country. He could use chemical weapons against the Kurdish without fear of retribution or consequence.

And as far as Israel goes, it is the Zionist regime that is viewed as the enemy of Iran - a political enemy. Iran has the largest population of Jews of any Muslim country and there is a Jew in the Iranian Parliament.
To claim Iran is attempting a holocaust is simply hawkish propaganda.
The enemy of Iran is the Zionist regime and the state of Israel, without Palestinian rights.

Quote

It is one of the many paradoxes of the Islamic Republic of Iran that this most virulent anti-Israeli country supports by far the largest Jewish population of any Muslim country. While Jewish communities in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria have all but vanished, Iran is home to 25,000 - some here say 35,000 - Jews. The Jewish population is less than half the number that lived here before the Islamic revolution of 1979. But the Jews have tried to compensate for their diminishing numbers by adopting a new religious fervor. ''The funny thing is that before the Islamic revolution, you would see maybe 20 old men in the synagogue,'' whispers Nahit Eliyason, 48, as she climbs over four other women to find one of the few vacant seats. ''Now the place is full. You can barely find a seat.'' Parvis Yashaya, a film producer who heads Tehran's Jewish community, adds: ''we are smaller, but we are stronger in some ways.''

Tehran has 11 functioning synagogues, many of them with Hebrew schools. It has two kosher restaurants, and a Jewish hospital, an old-age home and a cemetery. There is a Jewish representative in the Iranian parliament. There is a Jewish library with 20,000 titles, its reading room decorated with a photograph of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini protection Iran's Jewish community is confronted by contradictions. Many of the prayers uttered in synagogue, for instance, refer to the desire to see Jerusalem again. Yet there is no postal service or telephone contact with Israel, and any Iranian who dares travel to Israel faces imprisonment and passport confiscation. ''We are Jews, not Zionists. We are a religious community, not a political one,'' Yashaya said.

Does Iran want the Zionist regime to vanish from the pages of time? Of course they do - and they have some valid complaints.

Should Israel be concerned about Iran? Absolutely, and those concerns are justified.

Neither offers such a compelling argument to make its side superior to the others' views, and hence a more neutral stance should be the stance of U.S. foreign policy.

Saber rattling and fear-mongering by repeating invalid claims does nothing to cure the problem - it is time for adults to try their hand, instead.

[Winstonm]

Here is the latest "infomercial" from the Pentagon sent through their press agent, The Washington Post.

Notice how no source is named and no opposition voice, no challenge to the theme of the story is to be found anywhere.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...704056_pf.html#

Of course, to get a second opinion instead of the infomercial, we have to step outside MSM and go to...you got it....blogs:

Quote

There is a continued need for effective international police work to thwart the efforts of a widely dispersed al-Qaida network, but putting resources into that effort does not satisfy the need of the military establishment for a conventional field of battle. That is the significance of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s leaked report calling for a massive counterinsurgency campaign to make everything right about life in Afghanistan, down to the governance of the most forlorn village. The general’s report aims not at eliminating al-Qaida, which he concedes is barely existent in the country, but rather at creating an Afghan society that is more to his own liking.

It is a prescription, as the Russians and others before them learned, for war without end. That might satisfy the marketing needs of the defense industry and the career hopes of select military and political aspirants, but it has nothing to do with fighting terrorism. In the end, it would seem that some of our leaders need the Afghanistan battleground more than the terrorists do.

[ArtK78]

Winstonm, on Oct 8 2009, 07:21 PM, said:

Here is the latest "infomercial" from the Pentagon sent through their press agent, The Washington Post.

The Washington Post is the press agent for the Pentagon? Now I have heard everything.