There’s quite a ways to go between shipping AKs to a bunch of useful loonies and throwing nukes around. The US (as well as the rest of the Western powers, come to that) have been shipping weapons to a wide gamut of useful loonies over the years - but they have yet to let the Bombs fly. Well, fly again I suppose.
If Iran was supplying Hezbollah with only rifles/carbines and small arms, it wouldn’t be an issue. However, Iran has previously supplied and continues to supply missiles and rockets to Hezbollah. These are Hezbollah’s primary means of attacking Israel and Israeli cities. The claim that because Iran has not attacked or started a war with another country in the past century or so is a complete non sequitur when trying to determine its regional status, since Iran’s recent actions have been de-stabilizing in the Middle East (even more so than the US’s actions in invading Iraq).
Iran is funding and providing arms to Hezbollah, which until very recently was threatening to start another civil war in Lebanon. Iran has provided financial support and limited military assistance to Hamas after the split between it and the Gaza Authority, further fracturing the split between them and giving Iran another proxy against Israel. Iran has allied itself with Syria and thus created a divide in the Sunni Arab states, particularly with Iran’s attempts to pull the strings with previous Iraqi governments both financially and through militias. All of these developments, not to mention the unresolved nuclear issue, have caused turmoil within the Arab gulf states and sparked the potential for a nuclear arms race between Saudi Arabia and Iran if Iran openly declares itself a nuclear weapon state.
Iran is openly and aggressively trying to expand its influence and power throughout the Middle East, through proxies and its own financial and military resources.
[QUOTE=Camus]
Iran is openly and aggressively trying to expand its influence and power throughout the Middle East, through proxies and its own financial and military resources.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. It’s pretty obvious that Iran wants to position itself as a regional superpower, at least, with many of the other regional states being drawn into their sphere of influence.
-XT
Laughably short of any actual analysis. Iran is not Iraq. Obama is not Bush. The whole situation is entirely different.
We replaced the President, not the electorate. Did a majority of Americans support the Iraq invasion?
Do you have any evidence that the majority of American’s today supports an invasion of Iran? :dubious: It’s like saying ‘Well, the majority of American’s supported the war in Vietnam, so I’m sure we will invade North Korea’. That’s not the way politics works in the US.
For that matter, I doubt the majority of American’s would have supported an invasion of Iran instead of Iraq…or that the government could have gained the support needed for such a venture. The invasion of Iraq was a fairly rare confluence of events that would be very difficult to imitate in the future.
-XT
Actually, no. Not just before the AUMF was voted on, and not in the way we did it. I’ve cited that dozens of times on this MB. They wanted international agreement, and they wanted to give the inspectors more time.
But don’t you think the more important gauge would be how many people support and invasion of Iran today? Or how many now think the Iraq war was worth it?
To us, sure. However, I doubt Iran follows American public opinion quite that closely.
A weapon you cannot use is essentially useless. I don’t understand how Iran can use nukes for anything other than defense.
Every country knows that if Iran nukes anyone, even a fellow Muslim, Arabic, Israel-hating country, the collective nations of the UN will pretty much authorize their annihiliation. What good would it do Iran to threaten a country with nukes when it’s essentially a suicide bomb? Expansion of influence? How’s that going to play out in real life?
Iran: “Do this for us or we’ll use our nukes!”
Everyone else: “Fuck off, you won’t use it because you’d be dead”
Everyone knows this but everyone expects the opposite. Other than in WW2 and the Cold War between superpowers, there’s no way anyone would dare use a nuke in offense now. Countries that have them can be treated exactly like countries that don’t unless you’re talking about total invasion. That’s the only way nukes will be used, in defense.
It’s hard to take your statements of warning seriously when you included this last part about the US actions in the parentheses. There are lots of dead Iraqi Sunnis and Shia, Iraqi Christians, lots of dead Iraqi, Iranian, and Turkish Kurds, and lots of Martyred Turkish Soldiers that would beg to differ with you if they could. I am certain their families might have something to say. The violence in Iraq is continuing and the near future likely holds no small amount of international chaos along Iraqi borders. Of course, we can’t forget the surge in Middle Eastern influence enjoyed by Iran due to our conquest. Iraq War II was an arrogant play for control of the Middle East and its biting us in the ass while killing our soldiers and the people that live there.
Last I checked, Hezbollah only attacks Israel and soldiers in their country, they are not a real problem to us or to general Middle Eastern stability.
So is everybody. They are a minor threat to us and to any country that we should give a shit about in the region other than Israel, and the threat they pose to Israel, despite all the pants-shitting I hear from politicians, is minimal.
Israel can defend itself against Hezbollah and has the deterrents to prevent any direct action from Iran.
Even our own intelligence people say Iran aren’t actually currently building a bomb. What they are doing is getting enough knowledge so that if they wanted to build a bomb, they could do it quite quickly. The same kind of nuclear posture that Japan have adopted.
And Iran aren’t looking to dominate the Gulf or threaten anybody. Here’s how the situation in the region looks from Iran’s point of view, the stars being US military bases :
http://www.writingshop.ws/assets/images/Iran-encircled.gif
When you consider our history with Iran since 1953 and how we’ve acted towards them since 1979 it’s not difficult to understand why they might want to reserve the option of at least being in a position to build a bomb. And that’s without Iran’s neighbours and our allies like Saudi and Jordan being armed with billions of dollars of the latest American military hardware while Iran, with a military budget of less than 1% of America’s, are armed with Soviet-era crap and whatever second-rate rubbish that international sanctions have allowed them to buy over the past few decades. Iran are a country surrounded by their enemies and under punitive sanctions, they’re not in any kind of position to project military power or dominance and their regime is historically entitled to be paranoid over our intentions towards them.
The invasion certainly had a catastrophic effect for Iraq, Iraqi civilians and foreign individuals who traveled to Iraq to fight, but it did not destabilize the entire region in a way that Iran’s actions are currently threatening to do. The Kurds, both in Turkey and Iraq, were attacking Turkish soldiers or using bases in northern Iraq to attack Turkish soldiers well before the 2003 invasion. And to call dead Turkish soldiers martyrs simply because they were killed by Kurds is effectively making Turkish nationalism into a quasi-religious cause.
It is a problem when such attacks not only involve a third party (Lebanon), but also makes Israel view both Syria and especially Iran as even more of a threat. The more serious a threat that Israel sees in Iran means the more likely Israel is to attack Iran in an attempt to cause damage to Iran’s nuclear activities. And regarding Lebanon, the more weapons that Hezbollah has, the more of a threat they are to the political integrity and balance of power between the Sunnis, Shias, and Christians/Sufi muslims within Lebanon itself.
Name one other country in the Middle East that is actively and aggressively seeking to expand its influence in the region. And no, the US does not count, particularly since the start of the Iraq war in 2003 was potentially the zenith of the US’s direct influence in the region and it has been rapidly declining ever since. The problem with Iran’s actions in the region isn’t their arming or sponsorship of Hezbollah alone constitutes a threat to Israel’s existence. It’s the totality - Iran is using its proxies to box in Israel to the north using Hezbollah, to the southwest in Gaza using Hamas, to the northeast with its alliance with Syria, and overall through its will-they or won’t-they nuclear activities. Israel is paranoid enough without giving its leaders a legitimate reason for their paranoia.
That map is both incorrect and outdated.
Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia is not used by the US anymore and the US does not have any forces in Saudi Arabia itself beyond the embassy. The US does not have anything that you could truly call a base in Turkmenistan. There are currently no US bases or bases used by US forces in Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, though there are rumors of a stop-over/refueling agreement for US planes at a base or two in Uzbekistan following the ouster of US forces in 2005. And any Pakistani bases that house US personnel could hardly be seen as an offensive threat to Iran given the restrictions that Pakistan has likely imposed on operations there.
The UNSC sanctions against Iran have not included any general arms embargoes, though there has been significant political pressure by the West towards Russia to prevent or delay them selling Iran any of its advanced anti-aircraft weaponry. It was the arms embargo against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war that prompted Iran to rely primarily on domestic defense industries for its arms. It’s not Iran’s outright arms output or purchases that are threatening the balance of power in the region but instead who it is shipping its arms to and who they are funding, be it Hezbollah, Hamas, or Al-Sadr’s militia and other militias in Iraq.
OK, a couple of those bases aren’t there anymore but the overwhelming majority are. Iran is encircled with bases belonging to a military superpower who overthrew its democratically elected government in 1953, imposed a brutal dictatorship on the country and then propped it up for decades, then after the dictator was overthrown supported other dictators in wars against Iran, pushed for punitive sanctions against Iran, constantly threatened the regime with attack, shot down its civilian airliners etc. etc. They can justifiably be paranoid, sometimes people really are out to get you. The bottom line is that when you look at that map, even when you remove a couple of stars, and you consider the relative strength of the military forces of Iran and America and its allies, it’s really hard to make an argument that Iran are some kind of military threat to the region.
And like I said and you also point out, Iran are stuck with second-rate military rubbish and can’t get their hands on anything useful to defend themselves. And Hamas, Hezbollah and Mookie don’t threaten any balance of power in the region. Look at the map and explain how the Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Sadr military bases, airfields and other military installations threaten America’s dominance in the region. They’re not offensive forces of any kind, they couldn’t take one inch of any other country’s territory. They can cause a nuisance for others but that’s it, and it’s debatable exactly how much influence Iran has over any of them anyway.
First, they’re called martyrs because that is what they are called. It gives a sense of how people feel about the deaths. Second, A[=4374"]merican weapons from the invasion have made their way into PKK and PJAK hands](http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news), so our invasion has altered their international conflict. Third, “Iran’s actions are currently threatening to do”? Sounds like 2002-03 again. Draw a direct sequence of likely events from Iran developing a nuke to destabilization greater than our invasion of Iraq. Include refugees in several bordering countries as well.
Prove the level of weaponry in Hezbollah’s hands will be any different after Iran gets a nuke. Since the end of the cold war and being bullshitted over Iraq 2 I am tired of possibilities and maybes. What’s the facts; gimme a historical example of country A getting nukes and their proxies getting more weapons against country B.
If I am going to absurdly ignore, Camus, all examples of countries or militias seeking to aggressively expand their influence in the Middle East in order to suit your conclusion then sure – maybe it is only Iran. Only Iran then.
So, your post is your cite? Martyrdom is a subjective description that is entirely dependent on which “people” are doing the describing. Are American or Coalition troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan martyrs? Were the sailors killed on the USS Cole martyrs? The point is that such labels aren’t really relevant or useful to a rational discussion.
The invasion of Iraq didn’t really change much of anything in terms of the stability of the region. Foreign fighters came from several countries in the area to Iraq to fight, Libya publicly gave up any nuclear program or ambitions, Syria pulled its forces out of Lebanon, but not much truly changed outside of Iraq’s borders. The refugees who have fled Iraq following the invasion haven’t threatened to topple any nearby regimes or sparked any potential follow-on war. I have been talking about regional stability, not the stability of Iraq or the very human consequences of the war.
Iran’s actions, as I’ve previously argued, are destabilizing to the region. A nuclear arms race is by nature destabilizing, whether it is between Israel and Iran or Saudi Arabia and Iran.
I never said Hezbollah’s weapons or level of weaponry would change if Iran acquired nuclear weapons. Israel might feel differently, since given how paranoid many are already are there, it wouldn’t take too much prognosticating for them to imagine Iran giving Hezbollah a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against Israel attacking Lebanon again. However, given the frenzy of talk about Israel launching a pre-emptive strike against Iran, you may not have to tire yourself with possibilities too much longer.
And yes, that’s a bad thing for everyone. I am not making the case for the wisdom or necessity of a pre-emptive strike.
I only discounted one - the US. I have not asked you to ignore any other potential example, absurd or otherwise. Can you point to another? If you can’t answer the question, don’t complain about the one limitation you face.
More than just a couple can be removed. You can remove a lot more if you consider that having a base in a foreign country does not give the US carte blanche to use that base however it wishes, legally speaking. For example, the bases in Turkey, of which only Incirlik Air Base is of any real significance, cannot be used for any purpose without the consent of the Turkish government. Turkey denied the US and other Coalition forces from using its territory or its bases for the invasion of Iraq. Thus, not every base is somehow an automatic immediate threat against another country.
The danger of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Sadr’s militia isn’t to US dominance. They are, to one degree or another, examples of Iran’s influence in the region. Hezbollah, and to a much lesser extent, Hamas, are threats to Israel. The level of threat they represent is not measured by whether they can conquer and hold territory, but whether they can kill others outside of their territory.
You cannot be saying this with a straight face. What do you think “stability of the region” means ?
America has invaded a sovereign nation under dubious pretences, removed its government, threw the whole country into a chaos it has yet to emerge from and caused every *other *country in the region to shit their pants because they just might be next on the list.
As far as respecting the statu-quo goes, that’s Iran (and every other ME country) 1, US -100.
The war that toppled a regime and drowned the surrounding countries in refugees, causing all kinds of social problems the way masses of refugees always do - how to house them, feed them, protect them etc… Gotcha.
How, exactly ? What practical effects does a nuclear arms race has on the people of the region, besides scary headlines in the papers ? Do people die ? No. Get thrown out of their homes ? No. Are forced to move to unknown, possibly hostile new locales ? Still no. Are neighbouring countries getting antsy, fearing an invasion under nuclear umbrella ? Nope - everyone knows nukes are political (quickly followed by actual) suicide.
So paint us the picture, why don’t you. Don’t just throw around words like “destabilizing the region” which you obviously don’t quite grasp. Say Iran really is out to get nukes. Say in fact Iran announces it has them, they’re fully operational and could reach any part of the region in 5 minutes tops.
What happens now, according to you ? Remember : practical terms, no vague buzzwords allowed.
OK, let’s acknowledge that a couple of those bases couldn’t be used to attack Iran and raise the number that couldn’t be used to 50% of the number on the map. That still leaves the US with a vast array of bases to launch a military attack on Iran and leaves the US in control of the waterways of the Persian Gulf. What you have is basically a military superpower with a huge number of bases in and around a country with no advanced weapons and a military budget of les than 1% of America’s. Any military action would be as one-sided as Israel’s war with Lebanon in 2006. A situation which, especially when you consider Iran-US history from 1953 and especially 1979 onwards, is justifiably making Iran feel paranoid enough to want to have the ability to put together a nuke should they want to.
It’s debatable exactly how much control Iran has over Hezbollah and Hamas. When Israel was bombing Gaza a couple of years ago, if Iran controlled Hezbollah why didn’t they tell them to start firing rockets at Israel? Hezbollah didn’t do it because, like Hamas, they’re going to take their own interests into account before anybody elses, even if they’re funded by them. They’re not going to allow Israel to blow southern Lebanon to bits just because Iran would like to see Israel under attack from two fronts, they’re going to keep their powder dry until using it is in their interests. And Iran are well down the list of funders for Hamas, Saudi and the Gulf States are the chief funders of Hamas and their interests, like Iraq and Iran’s nuclear programme, are diametrically opposed to Iran’s. Saudi have massive influence in Lebanon too, they own half the media there and a chunk of the economy. Rafiq Harriri and his son Mini Harriri have both had strong Saudi backing and have a long history with the Saudi royal family. You can make a much better argument that Saudi/Gulf funding and influence prevents Hamas and Hezbollah from doing anything Iran wants.
The whole meme that Iran control Hezbollah and Hamas is just something spread by US neocons/Israeli propagandists to build more and more pressure for eventual military action on Iran. They’re movements of national liberation, not Iranian proxies. But let’s put both of them fully on Iran’s side. You have Iran, Hamas and Hezbolah on one side, then you have the United States, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt and other US allies on the other side. There’s no balance of power there and the “threat” from the Iranian side is absolutely risible compared with the actual threat from the US side, there’s just US/Sunni ally dominance and paranoid Iran. There’s only a “balance of power” or “Iranian aggreession” in the minds of the same Israeli propagandists and US neocons who were inviting Americans to wet the bed over the threat from Saddam’s WMD and are now pushing for new military action on Iran.
Iran bars experienced nuclear inspectors.
When I first saw that, I thought “bars” was like taverns. As in “Iranian taverns experienced nuclear inspectors.”, seeing some really drunk guys in white suits puking green radioactive bile while the Mullah smiles and smokes his hash, but then I realized that Iran has no bars, is not a fun place and nuclear inspectors are geeks!