I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.
Well, if I am you have my leave to torture me as much as you like in the Pit. I’m sure you won’t be alone…hell, I’ll join in and help!
-XT
For that happy moment to manifest, we would have to be at war with Iran. Frankly, I’d much prefer to be sneered upon as a hysterical lefty. “Neener neener!” doesn’t work well as a dirge.
True enough. Well, vibrotronica can consider it a silver lining I suppose. FWIW, if (as I suspect) nothing happens I don’t intend to do more than shrug…and perhaps sigh with relief. No ‘Neener neener!’ planned here.
-XT
The odds of Israel or the US bombing Iran before June 2008 are now set at… 25% [1], up about five percentage points from the time of the OP. Then again the March 2008 number is down to 14%.
So it probably won’t happen. Those who believe bombing to be an absurd notion (not John Mace, but apparently xtsime, unless I’m missing something) will presumably max out their credit cards and sink their 401Ks into short sales of the Intrade Iran contract.
Anyway, as I said earlier, the rollout was determined to be an inside-the-beltway affair within 1 week of the OP. Cheney is no longer hyping Iranian WMDs, but wants to use Iranian attacks on US troops as a casus belli. See the Seymour Hersch article. WMDs are “Out”: Revolutionary Guards are “In”.
[1] Actually, the June 2008 contract was only made available on Oct 1st. I’m reporting the highest percentage contract available.
No more than you are likely to bet heavily on the ‘dropping bombs’ or ‘invasion’ side of things. First off, those odds don’t mean shit as far as I’m concerned. Not being a gamboler myself I wouldn’t waste money on such a stupid bet.
Well…this seems rock solid to me. I’m thinkin you guys breathlessly waiting for the big propaganda roll-out ought to just hold your collective breaths at this time…it could happen any time. DEEEEEP BREEEAAAATTTTHHHHS…now hold it…
Now, just kick back and relax. We’ll be at war with Iran any second…
-XT
And yet the beat goes on…
Any support for the hysterical premise that there is an ongoing propaganda effort tending towards conflict with Iran? (We’ll leave the “tending” trapdoor to cover the possibility that this all just innocent sabre-rattling and just a touch of jabbing the bear with a stick…) How are back would one have to look?
How about yesterday?
Wherein General Petreaus carries yet another bucket of water for The Leader, fretting about those twin menaces, AlQ and Iran. Is the good General unaware, ignorant, of different views? For instance, to the effect that AlQ is, in fact, a comparatively minor factor in Iraq, being foreigners largely unwelcome by natives. (Note the poetry: “the wolf closest to the sled” is AlQueda. Tell you what, if they get too close, give them Chalabi…)
This, then, is either inaccurate or debateable. And if debateable, it will require some extraordinary evidence, evidence he not only doesn’t provide, he doesn’t even allude to. But, nonetheless, we proceed straight from point A to point B. On the same authority we are offered the threat from Iran. Not last months threat from Iran, the New! Improved! threat from Iran.
(dated Sept. 25)
Well, isn’t that a predicklement? The Prime Minister of the entirely sovereign nation of Iraq appears not to quite agree with the commandant of the occupying army. One of these men is wrong, or lying. And, if Maliki is lying to defend Iran, wouldn’t that sort of imply that the political leader of the very, very sovereign government of Iraq would rather be Best Friends Forever with Iran, rather than us?
Given the multitude of doubts about all this, we can fairly conclude that Gen Petreaus’ presentation is at least somewhat slanted, as it claims insurmountable authority while ignoring the existence of contradictory testimony. Pretty much, that’s what propaganda is. Crafted to present a point of view, politically. Towards an end.
Now, you may well argue against referring to this sort of thing as an* incessant* drumbeat for war, or quibble that it is not especially more intense after Labor Day (though what metric you might use to measure escapes me…). But there clearly is a propaganda effort to ratchet up America’s hostility towards Iran, and Gen Petreaus has rendered himself, for whatever reason, into Ari Fleisher with campaign ribbons and combat pay.
I am thinking this is again a case of ‘the white van is always at the corner’. But we’ll see I guess. I won’t get into your ‘logical’ parsing of Petreaus statements as I don’t think its relevent to the discussion. Even if we assume that your interperetation is the correct one I’m not seeing this as part of the media blitz predicted in the OP. We’ve been periodically hearing about Iran and the Iranian support for the insurgency in Iraq for years now. I notice no difference in the amount of coverage about Iran by the main stream sources. A quick look on Foxnews web site shows not a single story related to Iran on their home page. Checking out a few other main stream news sites is pretty much the same thing.
On some site called Anglefire here are the list of links that they appearently find the most critical:
Note…nothing related to Iran. Now, contrary to popular belief I don’t actually follow conservative news sources. I had to do a google search on ‘conservative news sources’ after Foxnews. So…maybe this one isn’t representative. Maybe they simply haven’t gotten the memo that they are supposed to push this propaganda rollout for Iran. Or, with a nod to Occam…maybe there IS no ‘production rollout’ of war hysteria concerning Iran…and the white van really isn’t always at the corner. You only THINK its there because you only notice when it is…and you don’t remember all the times it isn’t there.
-XT
Instead of Clinton did it, too, maybe we should be thinking Clinton will do it instead. Ms. Clinton is quite the hawk these days, and if she serves 2 terms a president (a distinct possibility), Iran will probably be at the point of having actual nukes during that time period. Perhaps she will feel the meed to show the country how tough a female president is when the 2012 elections draw near.
Anyway, that conjecture makes at least as much sense as the OP.
And please, stop with the Seymour Hersch. He’s been predicting the imminent invasion of Iran for what-- about 3 years now? Perhaps he’s just jealous that one of his colleagues has a unit of time named after him and that he, Hersch, doesn’t.
John Mace: Hm. I did not know that Hersh was predicted imminent invasion in his last New Yorker piece, never mind for the past 3 years. Huh. I may have missed something in the article. Or, John may be reading impressionistically.
At any rate, I wasn’t flogging Hersch’s opinion: I was referring to his actual reporting.
Fact and opinion: there is a difference.
I am not a gambler either: I am an investor who knows the golden rule: Money talks and bullshit walks.
I agree with xtisme that betting against an invasion would be a stupid bet.
As for myself, I currently place the odds of the US or Israel bombing Iran by June 2008 at 28.356%. Intrade puts it at 25%: this slight divergence of agreement is too small to make a bet worth my while: risk adjusted returns are insufficient.
Those who think that the odds are closer to 1/2% or 5% but refuse to bet are like psychics or dowsers who proclaim their vast powers but balk at actually having their claims tested, even for considerable sums of potential lucre. It’s easy to be a blowhard: I prefer tough-minded analysis over cheap talk.
So far there isn’t-- it’s more like the sort of simmering story that Ravenman and others have noted has been going on for a while. Again, as we learned in the first week after Labor Day, any new September developments were strictly an inside-the-beltway affair.
That’s an obscure angelfire page, btw. The Commy link refers to Congressional Record material – from 1963! To my great disappointment, the “Fed up with the Fed!” link was dead.
Perhaps you might provide a newsite that’s updated every couple of years.
More seriously, John M makes an interesting point. I’d say that the next 2 Presidents will face some tough security challenges in Iran, electoral considerations aside (anyway, don’t new Presidents like to bomb early in their administration, within the first 2 years?) But --and here John appears to agree with me-- dropping bombs in 2008 will only make the problem more difficult.
Well, I’ll take this opportunity again to welcome any wagers on attacking Iran within the next year. I say it ain’t gonna happen. And again I say I’ll lay odds, too.
You’re joking, right? I’ve been offering bet now and again for at least a year. Maybe more, it’s been quite a while. I’ve never had any “invading Iran is just around the corner!” types even feign interest in a friendly wager.
:smack: Well, I didn’t actually LOOK at any of the links. As I said I simply did a google search and picked the first link. My point was that the main stream news sources (such as Fox for the conservatives, but I also looked at CNN and NBC) didn’t have anything on their home pages concerning Iran…and what I guessed was a conservative wack job page didn’t either.
-XT
Point taken xtisme; I haven’t seen a huge campaign either (though whispers and white vans have been around for a while). Also, I’ve had my share of smackies on this board as well.
Intrade is not joking.
But they’re talking about “Bombing” not an Iraq-style invasion. I’d place the odds of invasion by March 2008 at de minimus percentages ( <5% ), for logistical reasons if nothing else.
Incidentally, I use the betting challenge to puncture blowhards and advance humility where appropriate. Anybody who exclaims a certain position with utmost certainty but refuses to back it up with even a token bet is operating on an emotional level. That’s ok: the tendency is ubiquitous if not universal and very human. That said, my suggestion about raiding 401Ks was pure (jokey) rhetoric.
Besides, it’s fun. Anyway, here are the Intrade specifics. If you still think that the odds of bombing by June 2008 are really low, a token bet would give you vast future bragging rights. Just don’t bet your retirement money!
And that, (John Mace) is what “it” is, in full detail.
Admittedly, I haven’t even gotten around to setting up an account with Intrade yet. Hey, at least I admit it.
Just as well. I don’t have any real opinions on things like imperiling one’s soul, but betting on the prospect of war might come close to pressing thy luck.
First, I don’t care about Intrade. I’m getting tired of hearing about it, because I don’t believe that it has any more significance to this situation than does an online poll. Second, I’ve been including bombing in my definition of attack.
Sooooooo… you’re not taking my wager, either?
The significance is that the odds are determined by the amount of money people are willing to bet on one outcome or the other. Said bettors presumably have no more inside information than you or I about the Administration’s plans; OTOH, we can reasonably expect them, on average, to think much deeper and harder before placing a bet than the average Nethead will before posting to an online poll.
Confucius said, learning without thinking is labor lost; thinking without learning is dangerous.
I don’t have a problem with it as entertainment, but I don’t see anyone hailing Ladbrokes as an effective predictor of political events. Ooh, but call it a “political futures market” rather than a betting shop, and suddenly it is supposed to have credibility? I don’t see how people who are not selected for having any particular knowledge or expertise in the matter, but who are willing to wager small amounts of money, should be considered an authority. Just because people spent a lot of money to see The Transformers this summer doesn’t mean that the public knows something that movie critics don’t, just because the public throws down some cash on attacking Iran doesn’t make them an authority on that, either.
Perhaps he was responding to questions rather than providing the info he felt was most relevant.
If you watch the video, the commentator says that the issue of Iran “was raised.” That says to me that the Good General didn’t bring it up on his own.
So assigning motivations of whatever stripe to his comments re Iran seems dubious at best.
He uses the word “if” quite a bit.
I wouldn’t bet on “it”, defined that way. As I noted earlier, I said on page one of this thread that it wouldn’t surprise me if we did some sort of “surgical strike” against Iran. I hope we don’t, and I think we won’t, but it’s definitely a possibility.
Ground invasion similar to Iraq, OTOH? Not a chance.
Does the passive voice matter to you, here? The subject “was raised”, but not necessarily by the Good General, hence we may assume…what? Does it matter who raised the issue, or does it matter more what he says?
For instance, his assertion of incontrovertible evidence of Iranian intent: have you seen any of this evidence? I know I haven’t, though I have been assured on several occassions now that such evidence exists. Just as he asserts that AlQ is the number one problem in Iraq.
Can there be any doubt that the Bushiviks would purely love to assert that meme, to have us believe that, no, really, if it weren’t for Iran and AlQ, Iraq would be going along swimmingly, the problems are not of our making, but theirs.
And is he ignorant of contrary opinions, or simply doesn’t regard them as worthy of mention? You and I are not ignorant of such, how is it that he is?