What stupidfuck thinks this is a good idea at the moment? Stupid fucking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ahole.
Sounds like (mostly) propaganda to me. Stealth missiles that use only home grown Iranian parts? I smell bullshit…
Still, if they wanted to throw gas on the fire they sure have. I’m sure Israel is sitting up and taking notice, and doing its best to figure out exactly what the capabilities of this new missile are.
BTW, I love the ‘its for defensive purposes only’ disclaimer… :smack:
-XT
You don’t think a country like Iran needs to develop appropriate miltary technology to defend itself from possible attack? Even when the largest miltary power in the world is openly speculated to be considering an invasion?
I’m frankly disturbed that the general announcing the news is named “Salami.” That can’t bode well for Mideast peace.
I’m frankly disturbed that the banner ad at the top of the linked page is for “The Fart Button: Push it…you know you want to.”
Bwa ha ha!
I agree that it’s probably vapourware and bluff, but I don’t see anything egregiously stupid about this move, if you subtract values and just consider Iran’s interests as a nation.
The sensible thing for them to do right now is assume a strong defensive posture while not making any hostile moves. When another nation starts making rumbling noises about “first strike” policies, what do you expect?
Immediate and total disarmament? Does that further their security?
No, you’re going to make a show of indicating that, if attacked, there will be retaliation. At least, that’s the way things traditionally go.
There are certainly many, many things that Iran is doing that are “not helping” in obvious ways. This, on the other hand, is just about what you’d expect Belgium to do if there was talk of someone making a hostile move against them on the horizon.
No, I don’t to be honest. The only reason we are speculating about an invasion (and I think thats a bit of an overstatement to be honest as I have serious doubts we COULD invade Iran at this time…let alone that we actually want too) is due to Iran’s own actions with reguard to dancing on the abyss of going nuclear. Take that away and Iran has no need to fear ANY kind of military or even economic repurcussions with reguards to either the US or anyone else.
My own point though is that I have serious doubts that Iran, with only homegrown technology, could produce a stealth missile. Hell, I’m unsure if they could produce an accurate multiple warhead missile. This isn’t to say the Iranians are stupid, just that they are (supposedly) technologically isolated so to speak…at least in theory. So, to me it begs the question…HAVE they developed such a beast, and if so…who helped them or provided them the technology to do so.
-XT
You don’t need a stealth missile for that. Stealth technology is usually more an offensive weapon than defensive. You WANT folks to see your strong defenses after all. Stealth (to my mind) in a missile is to give you a first strike capability…thats why I found the statement of defensive intent, um, ironic.
Maybe I’m wrong about this though and stealth could be considered defensive. I agree that its most likely vaporware and BS.
As for the rest, what do I expect when a lone nation breaks its treaty (NPT) and then defies the rest of the world and continues to (seemingly) aquire nuclear weapons…well, my own expectations would be for such a nation to, perhaps, reconsider such a dangerous course instead of pushing through more weapons systems. Unless they WANT war that is, or think that war is inevitable.
-XT
I saw one recently on a blog that was a big flash button with the word “START” on it in big letters. Nothing else. Naturally, I clicked it, and it starts blaring loud obnoxious music with the picture of a car bouncing, and says “Click here to vote and make the music stop!”. Needless to say, I did.
I don’t understand why you’re saying it’s a bad idea from his perspective.
That said, I don’t believe the announcement. Iran wouldn’t be the first country to overstate its military capabilities.
I urge you all to sign up to the Strategic Forecasting, Inc. mailing list. This week they released a fascinating - and IMO incisive - analysis of what the hell Iran is up to, that I’ll forward to anyone who emails me for it (don’t worry mods, it’s a free mailout).
Oh, please. We ( Bush ) openly labeled them part of an imaginary axis of evil, then conquered a country that was no threat to us. If we weren’t tied down in Iraq due to our own incompetence, we’d have invaded Iran years ago.
Why I don’t agree with Iran on much of anything, I do think they have the right and duty at this point to acquire nuclear weapons, as quickly as possible to keep America from devastating the country, not to mention raping, torturing and murdering it’s citizens. Frankly, trying for nukes is one of the most sensible things the Iranians have ever done.
As far as the missle is concerned, why not ? Assuming it’s real, it was poor tactics to boast about it, but developing better weapons is part of a government’s job.
You know, just two decades ago Iran was involved in “the longest conventional war of the 20th century” – a war in which it lost between 450,000 and 970,000 people, after an invasion from Iraq, at least implicitly backed by the US (which wanted to control the extreme Islamist in Teheran). I think the Iranian government would be crazy if it were not preparing to defend itself.
Except, of course, that the same people who planned the Iraq invasion were openly speculating on invading Iran before Iraq fell to pieces - and that was before anyone knew about Iran’s nuke program. So, actually, I don’t buy it. If Iraq had gone well, it’s quite clear that Syria and/or Iran were next.
I’m definitely with you on this one.
Both of you are correct. I agree…I think that one of the reasons we invaded Iraq (and Afghanistan) was to put pressure on Iran, and that its not unreasonable to speculate that we even had military designs on Iran. At the very least we wanted to hang a threat over their heads so that they would play nice.
However, the reality is that we DID get bogged down in Iraq…years ago. And its been appearent for quite some time that the US simply doesn’t have it to invade Iran. And certainly Europe isn’t going to do anything. So…where is the threat? I doubt the US would be able (even assuming we wanted too after our Iraq fiasco) to do anything major about Iran for at least a decade. Europe will NEVER do anything. Even Israel (who actually COULD be a threat) is too far away to do anything save perhaps an air strike or two at their nuclear program. How would stealth missiles help them against Israel in this context? Its not like Israel (or even the US with any great probability) could knock down REGULAR missiles (which Iran already has and can reach Israel IIRC). How would it help them even from a potential US threat? You don’t use stealth missiles with multiple warhead capability to defend from air strikes…and regular missiles without stealth are quite capable of being used to strike targets in Iraq (which is presumably where the US threat would come from).
To me it begs the question…why do you need this ‘defensive’ stealth missile system in the first place…except to threaten OFFENSIVE military options? And how exactly would they use these things…and against whom? (of course, taking the statement that they HAVE the thing with about a mountain of salt)
-XT
That would stop this administration, how?
The Iranians probably noticed this story, US to Test 700-ton Explosive, and decided they needed to do a little saber rattling too.
Well, one possible target would be military bases, aircraft carriers, and the like. If an enemy is invading you, hitting their bases and carriers from which the attack is being launched is a defensive measure. And of course, you want to make it difficult to defend those bases by makiong it hard to see the missile coming.
(I’m not saying that I believe Iran has everything they say they have – just that having such missiles would be useful if a hypothetical enemy attacked you.)
In the '50s and '60 nuclear weapons, the most offensive of offensive weapons, served as excellent defensive weapons, and certainly helped to prevent a direct shooting war between us and the Soviets. North Korea’s offensive weapons are turning out to be very effective.
Naturally you call everything defensive - propaganda 101, and why we now have a Department of Defense rather than a War Department.
As for us being bogged down - we won’t be bogged down forever, and you think far ahead in cases like this.
Whether they can actually build one, I have no idea - but I know lots of smart Iranians in the US, and there are no doubt lots of smart Iranians in Iran.
Of course you do. The US makes good use of radar-based tactical ballistic missile detection in the field during offensive operations. Emolliating that somewhat would make a huge difference to a country’s defensive capabilities.
Well, reality tends to be a brake even on these stupid bastards in the Administration. 
Sure, it could be that. Though again a stealth missile isn’t exactly a defense against an attack like that. Their ‘defense’ against such an attack already exists in that they have REGULAR missiles that can threaten Israel and US forces in Iraq. But ok…it probably IS saber rattling on their part to counter such things.
They already HAVE missiles that could hit our bases (and possibly missiles from the French or Russians that could hit the carriers…they are different kinds of missiles). And AFAIK we don’t have any counter missiles that could reliably knock down what they already have. So…why is stealth necessary for defense?
-XT