HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost Hayden was Bush’s head of the CIA. He says a strike against Iran was down the list of probabilities when Bush was in charge. Now he says it is high on the list because he says the "suspected "nuclear enrichment program is nearing a level to create bomb quality uranium
That is not proof. Iran is bigger and stronger than any country we have attacked without reason. We can not actually be planning another one. We are broke. Iran is near China and Russia. No good can come from this.
They have been at it awhile. The enrichment plants are underground and in cities . Therefore if we bomb them, it will kill a lot of civilians and destroy cities. This is just too ugly to be real.
It’s OK, gonzo, the neocons’ll get the Israelis to do the deed instead of us. Daniel Pipes:
It’s also likely that this is part of campaign to try to make the Iranians think the U.S. is serious about this, and to enhance the sanctions campaign and all that.
It could also be a deal reached with Israel to give Israeli action some political cover.
It could also be an official speaking out of turn.
What you’re going to see with respect to Iran long before an actual attack will be a ramping up of gunboat diplomacy. First comes the harsh words and threats. Followed by sanctions. Followed by military manoevers, followed by a military buildup, in the hope that war can be avoided if the enemy comes to its senses anywhere along this continuum.
The risk, as the Iraq war proved, is that somewhere along the way you reach a point of no return. One of the things that led to war in Iraq was that the Bush administration’s attempt to intimidate Hussein and show him that the U.S. was serious required that large quantities of troops actually start massing on the borders of the country. The thing is, once you’ve gone that far, if you can’t get the other side to back down it’s extremely damaging to just pack up all your people and go home. Then it becomes clear that you were always bluffing, and once people believe that, it becomes next to impossible to avoid war the next time, and the next.
He didn’t say it was likely. Here’s the quote:
And that wasn’t an actual quote from Hayden-- it was their interpretation of his remark. Plus he’s the ex-CIA director. Let me guess-- He was a new book out now, or one that is coming out shortly.
The quote they gave didn’t make sense: “But he tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that such action now “seems inexorable.”” Inexorable must be referring to Iran, not the US.
Yawn.
I love words like “Likely” what does that mean? There is a 51% chance? What does the word “Strike” mean?
He said inexorable. That merely means it can not be stopped.
From The Rules:
I have no idea what this has to do with Iran. I don’t think they even play baseball over there.
Just got done watching a 60 minutes rerun. It was about a man who gave up his radical connections to Islam. What he pointed out in the interview was that his group wanted to dominate Pakistan to gain the use of nuclear weapons in order to create a world caliphate.
It’s hard to imagine Iran as a nuclear state.
Irani people don’t hate America. they are pretty westernized and would probably like to have more contact with us. There is a slit of religious nuts on the top. But even they don’t sound like Afghani or Saudis who think we are evil. I think some serious diplomacy would go a long way. They did give up their move toward nuclear enrichment when we were talking with them. But Bush named them to Axis of Evil and then started picking off the other members. That would give some urgency to developing a weapon that would keep us away.
Pakistan is sunni. Iran is shia and therefore wouldn’t be part of the caliphate (at least initially - until they were conquered)
What gave me chills was:
Is this world a fucking echo chamber? :mad:
Why should I give any weight at all to a former head of the CIA? Maybe under his policies, an attack would now be more likely, but presumably he’s out of that post now precisely to get rid of his policies. I don’t know if he’s got a book out right now, but this definitely looks like he wants attention for some reason or other.
Because he was the head of the CIA. He was at the top of those who were supposed to have knowledge. If you dismiss him as a know nothing, you will have set an impossible level to reach.
I saw no info that he was hawking a book. Did you?
We’ve only engaged one of the three named in that speech, and the other two (Iran and North Korea) are increasingly isolating themselves from the rest of the world community with their actions, rhetoric and nuclear ambitions that nobody, not just the US, wants them to have or continue to produce.
As far as “keeping us away” because they possess nuclear weapons, I think thats a meme that keeps getting repeated by people that portray the US as some big mean bully that won’t pick on someone because they have a nuke or three. I don’t want us to attack Iran at all, but if for some unforeseen justifiable reason we ended up doing that, them using a nuclear weapon on us would be a very bad idea for them, as we would respond in kind and overwhelmingly. Their entire country would be in ruins.
No, it’s not an impossible level to reach. I would, for instance, give some weight to a current member of the CIA, even at a lower level, because such a person would have access to information that’s actually currently relevant. A former head does not have currently-relevant information. He has plenty of knowledge, but it’s irrelevant now.
Has anyone told this guy that Bush is not actually president anymore?
The speech that Iran’s President gave to the UN about the 12th Imam doesn’t give the world any warm and fuzzies. He thinks there’s a direct descendant of Mohammad who’s been hiding since the 12th century waiting for a little chaos to announce his debut
Thats one upside of Bush’s wars. When Americans get pissed, I don’t think the world thinks “bahh, that would be stupid, they would NEVER do that” as much as they used to.
Hayden’s been out of the loop for a year and a half. And he has one other strike against him - I don’t think he’s telling the full truth that an attack on Iran was ‘way down the list of options’ for the Bush administration. I think they would have done it if they could have. They couldn’t do it, so if it wasn’t an option, it’s only because they couldn’t find a way to make it happen. I don’t see how it’s any more plausible for Obama even if he wanted to do it, and I haven’t seen evidence that he does.
I don’t see the policy, not allowing Iran to get nuclear weapons, as having changed from one President to the next. Just the tactics. Once you start using tactics, and they don’t work, you begin to narrow your available options.
As a former head of the CIA, I don’t know that he’s right, but he’s definitely qualified to give a pretty good opinion on the matter.
Obama’s, let’s have respectful dialogue with Iran, did not work (not that the only goal of the dialogue was to get Iran to quit pursuing nuclear weapons), so he moved on to international sanctions. Watered down sanctions were passed. Yet, nobody really believes sanctions (watered down or not) will even work. Even American and EU sanctions will not stop a determined Iran.
So what are the options if the ultimate policy is unchanged? Covert sabotage? Empowering the pro-democratic Iranians to overthrow the Gov’t? Just letting Iran become nuclear and say we tried. If you don’t want them to have nukes, then it will likely come to military action (at extremely high costs); or you just let them have nukes and live with it; the cost of a nuclear Iran might not outweigh what it would take to prevent it…It’s not the end of the world.