France Alarmed at Obama's Iranian Capitulation

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Sifu wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Only going to address a couple of these.

[quote]Sifu wrote:

The KH-55 range is 1550 miles not 1300. That extra 250 miles of range goes a long way in Europe. But that is only if they are in the mood to be nice by respecting borders and launch from inside their own airspace. [/quote]

2500 kilometers is 1300 nautical miles, which is what you use when you are talking about flight. Presumably the rocket would be flying, and not covering 1550 statute miles on a truck.

My mistake. Perhaps they can retrofit their existing 747s with solid fuel rocket engines.

I’d say that any approach of an Iranian airliner to US airspace would be looked at extremely askance. I mean, if there were any direct flights out of Teheran that could come anywhere near US airspace.[/quote]

They only had eight 747’s. But the sanctions prevent them from getting spare parts to maintain them properly so more than half of them aren’t flying anymore or are about to be retired.

You have ridiculous excuses for everything just so you can rationalize your stupidity. If the Iranians were going to attack the US Maybe they would fly a plane out of another territory. It’s not like every plane flying everywhere on the globe is being tracked.[/quote]

While we’re on the subject of ridiculous excuses for justifying stupidity, please tell me what you think would be the excuse for justifying a preemptive nuclear attack on the most powerful military empire in the history of the world by a pipsqueak Islamic republic that hasn’t started a war or invaded another country since before the aforementioned military empire declared its independence from the previously most powerful military empire in the history of the world.

It would be ironic if they did, considering they would be unconsciously emulating Alexander, a pipsqueak king of a pipsqueak country, who had the audacity to take on the most powerful military empire in the history of the world…which was Persia!

He won, of course, because despite being a pipsqueak, he had superior technology. Something that the Persians do not now have.[/quote]

The problem with Iran is the same problem with any other dictatorship. There is too much power concentrated in too few hands. The Iranian people as a whole may be rational but they have a handful of people who have so much power they can make irrational decisions that affect everyone else.

Just as guns are a great equalizer amongst individual humans, nuclear weapons are a great equalizer amongst nations. It doesn’t matter that we have enough nuclear weapons to turn the entire country of Iran to glass.

On 9/11 we only lost two office buildings in New York and it almost collapsed the economy. If they have the ability to take out just one major city New York the would devastate the economy for many years and kill a lot of Jews as well.

They have not started a war is a ridiculous rationalization. In their history the Persian have started a lot of wars and the Ayatollahs want to reclaim their former glory as a major empire. In recent history they have spread violence far and wide including into this hemisphere.

If they have nukes they aren’t going to behave any better. They may not do a preemptive strike they might just launch mass casualty terrorist strikes where we will have a choice of going to war against a country with nukes or just put up with the losses. Just like how we had to put up with them killing our troops in Iraq because we weren’t willing to go to war over the occasional dead soldier or Marine.

With nuclear weapons they don’t need superior technology to do a lot of damage. As I have repeatedly tried to explain all they need is something good enough to get a nuke where they want it.

Then there is the possibility of a nuclear armed Iran resulting in a nuclear war in the middle east. They have had skirmishes on their border with Pakistan which is a Sunni muslim country. The Sunni’s consider the Shiite’s heretics. They hate each other almost as much as they hate the Jews. But the rivalry between the two is much greater.

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

What was one of the stated benefits of the Iraq debacle? The fact that it brought all the al Qaeda crazies out of the woodwork and concentrated them in a single area.
[/quote]

I thought it was to topple the Saddam regime…Oh well, but weren’t the terrorists already concentrated in a single area…that area being Afghanistan? Still makes no sense to me.[/quote]

As a strategy it was a good idea. We fight the war on their land instead of fighting it on our land. Putting our troops there gave the jihadists a target that they could direct there attacks at. Our troops were the best prepared and capable of dealing with those attacks and a lot of jihadi’s who traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan for jihad never came back.

Now we have jihadi’s traveling to Iraq becoming fighting in the jihad then coming back to the west as trained, combat veterans. Veterans are much more dangerous than a raw inexperienced recruit. Which is why the failures of the Obama strategy is going to be something we pay for, for a long time.

[quote]Aggv wrote:
If the world was all muslim, we would still have to kill off either all the sunnis or all the Shiites for there to be peace. It just sucks that western civilization is caught in the cross fire of a muslim civil war. [/quote]

Just reading through their history would testify to that. It is a myth that Muslims only kill non-believers and are peaceful among themselves.

Bolton Defends His Call to ‘Bomb Iran’ Over Its Nuclear Program:

Never thought I’d find myself agreeing with Pat Buchanan, but he makes some valid points in these two articles.

[quote]Sifu wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Yes. We’ll see.

The mullahs do harp on the anti-America rhetoric, which one would do if one were trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Something that our hawkish politicians and pundits in the United States never, ever do, of course.

And an aphorism about barking dogs comes to mind.

In the meantime, Iran, along with Jordan and Egypt, may be the only power in the region capable of controlling the spread of the Islamic State, which to my eyes appears to be the more noxious of adversaries.

We may at very least rest easy in the knowledge that if ISIS ever do acquire a nuclear weapon, it will not have come from Iran.

[/quote]

I don’t rest easy in that at all. Death to Israel can make strange bed fellows. In as much as they hate each other now in the whole sunni/ shiite thing, an opportunity arising may change enemy to adversary. If ISIS do get a nuclear weapon, Iran would still be high on my list of culprits. It wouldn’t take much to turn foe in to friend in order to achieve common terror goals. While they hate each other ideologically, they do have common goals. Rest easy, in other words, I will not. Having ISIS deliver a nuclear payload to Israel would be very beneficial to Iran. They would be able to achieve a long stated goal and have a scapegoat. Sure it’s hypothetical at this point, but stranger things have happened. I wouldn’t rule it out based on the current situation. [/quote]

Isn’t the US currently providing Iranian Militias airborne intelligence while they fight ISIS to regain (city name escapes me)?

So… If we are working with Iran, who wants to kill us, the Jews and ISIS, to kill ISIS, who wants to kill us, the Jews and anyone that isn’t one of them; why would Iran suddenly team up to kill the Jews, knowing we and the Jews would just fuck them both up?

I guess I’m saying that it makes no sense to sorta kill enemy #2 to turn around and use them to kill enemy #1, knowing full well they might have hard feelings for shooting them first.

But then again, FP isn’t even remotely my area of remotely close to bare bone knowledge and understanding. [/quote]

Yeah, that was kind of what I was thinking. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and even if he’s also the enemy of my friend, it does not necessarily follow that he will arm our mutual enemy to attack their mutual enemy, who is my friend.

Who says foreign policy is complicated? It’s just like high school.[/quote]

No. Not even if you went to a seriously bad ghetto high school. Foreign policy is like prison. The reason why is some of the people who we have to deal with as world leaders are the type of person you would encounter in prison.

For that reason a world leader needs to have a good understanding of the rules of prison social order, prison pecking order and gang life. If you act like a punk with people like they will run you like a bitch.

So the most important thing you have to do is be willing to do is fight for yourself and establish territory. [/quote]

Foreign policy=/=international relations. The prison analogy is a poor one. The international political system can be described as an anarchic international society. The late Hedley Bull wrote that international society is formed when" a group of states which not merely form a system, in the sense that the behaviour of each is a necessary factor in the calculations of the others, but also have established by dialogue and consent common rules and institutions for the conduct of their relations, and recognise their common interest in maintaining these arrangements." The balance of power, international law, diplomacy, war, and the central roles of the great powers are the salient mechanisms of the social life of states. This paradigm represents a via media between international relations realism and liberalism, and holds that both ideas and material capabilities shape the conduct of international politics.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Nope, no concern is necessary with the radical Iranians. They’re pretty much the same lot as South Carolina Assembly of God members.[/quote]

Well, no, the radical Shi’ites probably aren’t, but Iranian members of the Jama’at-e Rabbani probably are.

[quote]Aggv wrote:
If the world was all muslim, we would still have to kill off either all the sunnis or all the Shiites for there to be peace. It just sucks that western civilization is caught in the cross fire of a muslim civil war. [/quote]

However if the whole world were Sunni or Shiite, not both, no problem… peace. And we could beat the shit out of women all we wanted too :slight_smile:

[quote]Sifu wrote:

The problem with Iran is the same problem with any other dictatorship. There is too much power concentrated in too few hands. The Iranian people as a whole may be rational but they have a handful of people who have so much power they can make irrational decisions that affect everyone else.

[/quote]
But are they really rational? How do they feel about Jews existing, as a nation of Jews? What about defiling the prophet? Are they rational about that?

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:
If the world was all muslim, we would still have to kill off either all the sunnis or all the Shiites for there to be peace. It just sucks that western civilization is caught in the cross fire of a muslim civil war. [/quote]

Just reading through their history would testify to that. It is a myth that Muslims only kill non-believers and are peaceful among themselves.
[/quote]

Certainly, as the Administration is quick to point out, they kill more muslims. Forget that’s a circumstance of opportunity, rather than a desire. If they took over a Christian country with a muslim minority, my guess is that they would first target the Christians…Don’t know maybe I am crazy.

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:
If the world was all muslim, we would still have to kill off either all the sunnis or all the Shiites for there to be peace. It just sucks that western civilization is caught in the cross fire of a muslim civil war. [/quote]

Just reading through their history would testify to that. It is a myth that Muslims only kill non-believers and are peaceful among themselves.
[/quote]

Certainly, as the Administration is quick to point out, they kill more muslims. Forget that’s a circumstance of opportunity, rather than a desire. If they took over a Christian country with a muslim minority, my guess is that they would first target the Christians…Don’t know maybe I am crazy.[/quote]

Oh hell yeah, look what ISIS did in Iraq. Of course they would first target the Christians, but they would hardly live in peace after that!!

Exciting news.

President Obama has ordered Kerry to leave Iran, and has apologized to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and personally invited him back to DC for a round of golf!!

[quote]Bismark wrote:

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s infamous and oft cited 2005 declaration that the state of Israel “should be wiped off the map” is the result of mistranslation. Ahmadinejad quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for “this occupation regime over Jerusalem” to “vanish from the page of time.” Calling for a regime to vanish is not the same as calling for people to be killed. Dissolution=/=destruction. [/quote]

OK:

“Arming the West Bank has started and weapons will be supplied to the people of this region,” Naqdi said.

“The Zionists should know that the next war won’t be confined to the present borders and the Mujahedeen will push them back,” he added.

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Exciting news.

President Obama has ordered Kerry to leave Iran, and has apologized to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and personally invited him back to DC for a round of golf!! [/quote]

Lausanne, Iran is beautiful this time of year.

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Exciting news.

President Obama has ordered Kerry to leave Iran, and has apologized to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and personally invited him back to DC for a round of golf!! [/quote]

Lausanne, Iran is beautiful this time of year.[/quote]

LOL! Dammit. Don’t mess with my April Fool’s Day, Bismark.

When he called Netanyahu, he said “I’m so sorry I acted like such an asshole when you came to visit me, Ben.”

edited

[quote]pushharder wrote:
By the way, Buchanan contradicts himself in the two articles. Do you know where?[/quote]

No. Tell me.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Never thought I’d find myself agreeing with Pat Buchanan, but he makes some valid points in these two articles.

http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2015/03/26/the-enemy-of-my-enemy/[/quote]

Pat’s much noted anti-Israeli sentiment colors everything he has to say about Middle East affairs. Been that way for quite some time now. You can trust him to come up on whatever side is against Israel.

If you think Israel is a malignant force in the Middle East you shouldn’t be surprised that you agree with him.

He has been a vaunted conservative voice for decades now but goes off the rails consistently regarding Israel. Too bad because he does have a sharp mind in many other respects.[/quote]

He’s been accused of being a Nazi sympathiser in the past, for pieces like this: