Timely, didn’t take them long.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5697428
Those Iranians are smart. Now they’re using their Wayback Machine to arrest those al Qaeda bastards
last year, and the year before.
It’ll be hard to pin complicity for 9/11 on them unless we use our wayback machines to erase the memory of their long running campaign against al qaeda.
Shhh.
Ever get the idea that Iran can decapitate AQ a lot more easily than we could?
Two words: Competent Leadership.
So what we have here is not a tie to September 11th in the sense we usually use the phrase. But it does very much sound like connections to Al Qaeda (which, like I said, isn’t too hard to buy when you’re talking about Iran).
If the Commission knows about it now, I would certainly think that means the govenment knows it (or knew at some point). I still doubt an attack on Iran is coming up, mostly because it’s not feasible at this point.
I think If the US invaded Iran it would have its ass kicked. Iranis generally dislike our nation and its policies (like the fact our nation funded the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of their people during the iran-iraq war and the continual support of israel). Despite what political party you are in in Iran, I doubt the US would get any support for an invasion or uprising. The Ayatollah gets criticisms but no one gets them like president Bush and I know this from first-hand experience.
It would only be slightly more problematic to actually take the coutnry, but holding onto it would be impossible. 98% of iraqis do not accept the american invasion, in iran it would be 99. The difference is that 12 years of sanctions have not crippled iran’s security and defense. Which means as soon as the irani army fell the various citizens of the nation would take up arms themselves against the US and would give us such a hard time it would make Iraq War look like the Kosovo war.
Doesn’t Iran have nukes already?
Whatever. It’s not worth another war. It would just just escalate terrorism and mobilze the Muslim world against us even more. The notion of bombing them with missiles just strikes as cowardly and evil and way out of proportion. A genocide for a tooth. It wouldn’t suprise me if that’s what we did, though. Americans love to bomb people from a distance. It makes them feel like tough guys. I’m pretty sure that Bush could never work up the political capital for another invasion, especially if there’s a real chance of nukes or other WMDs being used on the troops. And it would really be a war this time, not just a walk to the capital. We don’t even have the manpower to keep a jackboot on the throat of Iraq right now. Where are the resources going to come from to invade Iran without pulling them from Iraq and Afgahanistan.
No, another invasion is out of the question. Bush will never pick a fight he doesn’t know he can win. Look for lots of “tageted” missiles, declarations of success and a blackout on images of civilian casualties as well as accusation of lies and propaganda against anyone who manages to get such images into the non-US media or the internet. It will accomplish nothing, of course and it would not exactly square with Bush’s prior assertions about how certain regimes needed to be completely removed for far less reason. But the US media will never bring that issue up. Bush will bomb Iran. he will kill lots of babies. he will declare himself a hero, and his supporters will agree that responded appropriately to Iran’s treachery.
Personally, I say fuck it. Let it go. We’re not that damn important that we have to take some king of massive, self-righteous revenge over any perceived slight.
So the Iranians are moving quickly to get rid of Al-Qaeda, eh? One wonders if the response time could have anything to do with massive numbers of American troops on their border with Iraq and their border with Afghanistan.
But that appears to be the viewpoint of many Americans and the entire Republican Party.
Anyone remember that we hardly have enough troops to keep Iraq under control, let alone invade a much bigger country with a real army? This is exactly why invading Iraq was stupid (well, one of the reasons) - we are stretched to the limit.
However I may be wrong, and Bush will respond to this outrage in force - by invading Syria.
The massive numbers of american troops were to seal off the common border between Iran and Iraq , to stop terrorists and resupply of money and munitions going to the various in country terrorists.
If anything , look to the naval side for the Iranians taking rapid action. Since the intel was developed by interviews at Gitmo , it should be assumed that the Govt has known of this for some time, and is timely releasing it for public digestion.
An invasion is the last thing the Iranian govt needs to worry about right now.
Declan
I call bullshit on this story, but I’ve gotta go, so I’ll keep this brief.
Al Qaeda - loose grouping of Sunni Islamists with an unholy (pun intended) mix of ideological roots in Wahhabism (from Saudi Arabia), Deobandism (from the subcontinent) and the Islamic Brotherhood of Egypt. Members tend to be Arabs, most are Arabic-speaking and all are Sunni. Most think of Shiites as heretics.
Iran - strict Twelver Shiite Islamists, different ethnic background, different language. Tendency to crack down on groups within their nation with differing allegiances, including Arab groups and the more extreme Sunni groups, like al Qaeda. Has actually helped the US by rounding up al Qaeda members over the last few years.
Chances of these two working together? Even less than the chances of Iraq and al Qaeda working together.
This story sounds extremely unlikely to me, and I haven’t seen any proof other than the assertions of this committee report.
We are only “stretched to the limit” under the current scenario of continuing ordinary peacetime operations, i.e. all volunteer military and no rationing or other war-supporting resource allocation measures, while engaged in a war.
If all of the US resources were mobilized for a war I don’t think the Iraq operation would be a stretch.
In any case, attacking Iran would be pretty stupid. And is why I’m concerned that GW, Rummy, Wolfie et al might have your Syrian option high on their “to do” list.
As has already been mentioned, Iran need not fear imminent invasion. The “massive numbers” of US troops in the region (hardly a “massive” presence in Afghanistan, and not exactly “massive” in Iraq, either) are already tied up with situations they are having a difficult time controlling. Also, Iran has a much more competent military than Iraq had, not to mention a (generally) more enthusiastic population. Also, Iran may (or may not) actually have WMDs, including but not limited to nukes. I can’t see us up and invading them.
But neither of these has a chance in hell of happening. The current scenario is not likely to change, especially since that would be a kind of admission that we went into Iraq underprepared.
I’m sure someone will be along in a minute to correct you and to point out that we have plenty of troops to do whatever we want to. Stuff like extended tours of duty and activation of inactive reserves (isn’t that an oxymoron?) are just spectres created by the Liberal Media…
-Joe, generally inactive
lol
Would you care to explain?
Eh, I just figured it will be said soon enough.
I’m guessing something along the lines of…
“You guys need to buy stock in Reynolds Wrap. You bunch of losers. They’ve only reactivated groups of 3000-5000 inactives at once. That’s only about 2.5%-3.7% of the troops out there. You’re just a bunch of Librul-Chicken Littles.”
-Joe
The problem wouldn’t be taking Iran. The Iranian army would fare no better than the Iraqi army did, and its wishful thinking to state otherwise. The US has sufficient conventional force to destroy every hostile military in the entire ME with some to spare, even with the present tie down in Iraq.
The problem though is we could never even dream of holding Iran, as I’m pretty sure the population would be MUCH more volitile than the Iraqi’s (well, the flood of foriegners and ex Saddam loyalists anyway) have been. Iran though, with its larger population…it would be a nightmare to attempt to occupy it, even leaving out the flood of foriegn fighters who would divert from going to Iraq to join in the fun in Iran.
As has been stated we are barely holding our own in Iraq, and (at least according to the History Channel show I saw last night) are increasingly using civilian contractors and even mercenaries to assist us there because our own military is so strapped. Our military is not designed to be an occupation army. They are designed and geared to frankly destroy other peoples militaries in a brutally short time and come home…or to defend friendly nations from aggressors, again by completely destroying opposition in the shortest possible time. Our military is VERY good at this function. However, its not very good at peacekeeping, mostly due to the fact that in raw numbers of warm bodies its not all that large. Nor is it trained to a peacekeeping role. Its sort of like putting an attack dog to watch your children but never really training said dog to like children much.
As to Iran’s supposed nukes I doubt they would be a factor as I seriously doubt they would use them…at least not directly (its possible that they would try and smuggle them out when they saw the writing on the wall, or hide them for future use).
Thats even granting them the fact that they are A) Ready to use (as far as I know Iran has never tested a Nuke of its own, and without testing I doubt they have a high confidence that they have everything right), B) In a form that they could be delivered against the Americans and not devistate Iran and their own population (i.e. if the thing can only be delivered by a truck, it would be pretty vulnerable to air attack, if they leave it in a city and wait for the Americans to occupy it then detonate they are killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of their own citizens and for nothing more than to bloody the Americans nose), and C) have the Iranians think it would actually do some good other than to totally piss off the Americans and probably lose them a hell of a lot of good will in the ME and in the world. My guess is, even if they have them they wouldn’t use them. Still it would be madness for the US to invade and attempt to occupy Iran at this time…hopefully another way to punish Iran (if this is all even true of course) will present itself and cooler heads will prevail.
-XT
Leave it to Kerry to deal with.