Toadspittle… I think if the US attacks Iran … they will won’t have to do much in terms of retaliation. Muslims wackos of all sorts and other Muslim nations should be quite able to create enough ruckus to make attacking Iran a politically and military risk.
Certainly the US can hit with impunity nuclear facilities using missiles... but its hazardous to guess the results. It certainly would be open aggression and hardly something Congress should go along with.
I don’t think, and I certainly don’t hope, that the Iranian leaders are stupid enough to deliberately provoke a war with the US. The idea that they might lob some missiles at us and that both sides would then let the situation escalate to war is ludicrous.
Afaik the Iranians didn’t retaliate (well, not directly that I know of) against Israel when it struck their nuclear program last time. I seriously doubt that Iran wants to get into a shooting war with the US…or that they would do much if we limited ourselves to tossing some cruise missiles or a few air strikes. I should restate that…I doubt they will do anything openly against the US to provoke further escallation of hostilities.
You’re thinking of the Israeli strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor. The only country to have attacked Iran’s reactors is Iraq, which got into a full-fledged war with Iran shortly after.
Interesting. I guess I just fundamentally disagree as to what their response would be. After our long-term history with Iran, recent rhetoric, and the example of Iraq, I just believe that they’ll retaliate.
How/why will Iran be attacked, or how/why will they retaliate?
For the first, we’ve got the endless posturing and rumors of war planning and wargaming by the US and Israel, so either Israel or the US could launch airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Because of the distance and geography (and politics), an Israeli strike will almost certainly be interpreted as being de facto supported by the US (because we’re allied with them, because we may have to refuel their jets or let them use our carriers, or because the jets will likely have to overfly Iraq, which we control). So the response in either case would likely be vs. the US troops in the region. The retaliation would likely also be some form of missile/air strikes.
You’re serious, I suppose. Can you provide an address so that I may send you photographic documentation, depositions, and polygraph printout?
I’ve heard this remark from two people, one of whom I can tell you about. He was a high-ranking Air Force officer who cut his teeth in an ICBM silo somewhere in the Great Plains and rapidly moved up from there, becoming fairly high placed within a Republican administration. Brilliant chap. As honest as the day is long and never one to BS or exaggerate. We’re talking an exhaustive grasp of US and Soviet nuclear doctrine, capabilities, throwweights–all the way down to footnotes. He broached this particular topic while we were talking in general terms about warhead deployment/delivery systems used by MIRVed ICBMs. (Declassified, I’m guessing.) Anyway, in talking about deterrence, etc etc, he finally laughed, said it was all moot for people in Washington, and mentioned the “steamers” the Soviets kept in their embassy. He elaborated and strongly hinted that intelligence had determined with a high degree of confidence that the embassy held a small-yield nuke, perhaps more than one.
I can’t verify the facts, but rather can only retell what I was told and add that he in no way was a braggart, BSer or ideologue. Quite the contrary, he went out of the way to play down his position and responsibilities and was a very agreeable person.
Did you check out my previous investigation into the story? Rumour and hyperbole.
Lazar says he saw UFO’s in Area 51. I don’t believe him either. And I certainly don’t believe anyone who knew such an explosive secret as Soviet nuclear weapons on Us soil would be blabbing it around.
Well it actually makes sense to have nukes in the USSR embassy… its not US “terroritory” It certainly saves in ICBM delivery costs… send it through the diplomatic pouch ! Smart ruskies.
Eating dinner at my folks house tonight I happened to catch Fox tonight (I was a captive audience). All I can say is…its not just left wing nuts who think we will be declaring war on Iran soon. Some guy on O’Reilly Factor tonight (didn’t catch his name…has some book out, sounds like a wack job) was banging on about how Iran is an enemy of the US, is harboring AQ operatives (including ObL if you can believe it), and is actively pushing terrorism against the US…blah blah blah. His opinion…we should declare war. My eyes practically rolled out of my head. O’Reilly (who I actually like most times) never did ask the hard ball question…WHAT would we invade Iran with? Even if its all true…what can we realistically do about it at this point with our crank in the golf shoes that is Iraq??? Of course he had no answer…as if declaring war would be sufficient to make it happen.
What was funny was that a lot of the same things used in Iraq were used by this guy against Iran…i.e. the majority of his ‘evidence’ comes from supposed defectors claiming terrorist training camps, ObL taking tea with the Iranian government and clerics, blah blah blah. O’Reilly DID call him on that to some extent (where are these people, who are these people, how credible are they, etc).
Anyway, just thought I’d share…no cite, no idea what this guru’s name was. If you want to basically spend 10 min rolling your eyes I recommend watching the segment. I’m sure that some folks on the left will use this as more amo to push that the administration IS going to invade Iran. Right or left I’m not seeing it.
What bugs me is that the rhetoric is exactly the same. You can take any of the words we’ve said about Iran and say we said them about Iraq a couple years ago and nobody would know the difference. And we’ve been carefully forshadowing an Iran invasion for years. The statements about Iran just seem so carefully planned. By the time they announce action, the public won’t remember Iran as anything different than Iraq, just like the public largely thought Iran was much like Afghanistan.
Obviously our plan in Iraq isn’t working so well. I think Bush honestly believed that we’d have an easier time than this. I think he figured we could invade, set up a friendly government, and secure a few bases for ourselves from which to attack Iraq (Saudi Arabia isn’t such a good place to base military operations at at this point, and the base question would be a big on in an attack on Iran.) I think he didn’t count on so much resistance.
toadspittle has the right idea on how to get support. Of course nobody will support an unprovoked invasion at this point. But it just takes one strike on a “nuclear facility” by either us or Israel to provoke Iran to retaliate against our troops in the area. Once we’ve got Iran firing at our troops, everyone (maybe even the rest of the world this time) will support fighting them.
Unless Iran does something overtly threatening to the US, I don’t see anyway that Bush has either the logistical ability or the political power to stage another invasion…especially an invasion which would meet with much greater resistance than the last one and further confirm beliefs in the Muslim world that the US is waging a war on Islam.
It actually makes me happy that Iran (like North Korea) can tell the US to go screw and proceed with it nuclear programs, and that’s there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. I’ve never thought the US had any moral right or authority to decide who should be allowed to use this technology and who shouldn’t. Iran has just as much right to nukes as we do. Who are we to say they don’t?
I agree with all of that except I’d be happier if they didn’t. More nukes = bad, if you ask me. But it is absurd for the US, UK, France, China, et al harping about other countries having nukes. As much as I don’t want Iran to have them, I don’t blame them one bit for wanting to get them.
I’m hoping that the presense of nukes in the middle east will deter further US incursions and other military conflicts. I’m a believer in the Bomb as a peace keeper.
It certainly saves in ICBM delivery costs… send it through the diplomatic pouch ! Smart ruskies.