I still believe that Admedinejad is crazy…like a fox, and that it’s all about the $$$. He’ll do just enough to drive up the price of oil, and still remain in power. I refer you to this largely ignored thread…Is US military aggression economically empowering Iran? - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board
Yea - I’m sure it’ll be such a cogent, fact by fact rebuttal of our position, complete with a sound military tactic to achieve the aim of freeing the 15, that I’ll be stunned into silence.
I think I’m going to go find a crayon and a mirror so I can colour myself a nice shade of impressed now, because from close of business today I’m internet free for two plus weeks and I wouldn’t want you to feel the kind of razor-sharp erudition and intellect that can sum up two different statement of opposition to the Alexander the Great level of armchair generalling here in one such pithy and well-chosen word has gone completely to waste.
I’m sure you are right. Iran has played us like a violin ever since 9/11. We’ve helpfully removed their enemies on two sides and installed a client regime for them in Iraq while spending ourselves into the ground, breaking our military and driving the price of oil up and up while allowing them to portray themselves as victims.
And here we are again - with the same old bellicose crowd eager to help them play the role of martyr to the Muslim world while shoring up the position of a guy that internally is looking shaky and insecure.
Hey, if it worked for the Medicis it should work now, too. The world hasn’t changed as much as some people think.
I think you are dead right! This reminds me of our stooge (Achmed Chalabi), whom we now know to have been in the pay of iran! Dear old chalabi was setting us up, but good! Now we are bogged down, the Iarian regime is getting stronger, and we have blown all of the good will that we ever had in the Middle east. A complete fiasco! :eek:
And he has yet to recieve his Medal of Freedumb!
None of this will happen btw, so is irrelevant.
Northern English: Check (Being a Northerner and a leftist is pretty much the same, hence his political opinion)
Cunt who also uses cliches about Neo-cons every fucking time I read his posts: Check.
Iran can’t even refine it’s fuel to the capacity it wants, not to mention the ability to launch a protracted war against the British. Hell, all the UK has to do is blockade the Persian Gulf, albeit with Arab backing which would be more than willing, and take pot shots at Iranian coastal defences for a couple of years, not to mention a few missiles lobbed at military bases in Iran proper. Easy and cost effective. A withdrawal from Iraq would make this even easier.
The UK is second to the US in the abilty to project it’s military power beyond it’s borders. So for the Bullshit about the Falklands, read again.
Yep, we’re chicken-hawks when it comes to military action, cowards when it comes to diplomacy, can’t fuckin win with that newspeak prole.
Southern White Folk who can’t spell. 
So now it’s their country, right or wrong. Well. Good luck with that.
(Actually, I would think that those smoking “crack rocks” would be considerably more creative than Mr. Admedinejad)
See “redundant.” 
tagos: Give me one realistic reason those 15 aren’t as good as dead already. That is, assuming Iran hasn’t killed them by now and is just stringing us along with premade videos and written confessions.
Because the Iranians have no reason to kill them ? Because keeping them alive and unharmed makes them look morally superior to us ? Because killing them wouldn’t give them anything ? Because they might want live prisoners to trade for the Iranians we’ve grabbed ?
What reason do you have to think that the Iranians have any intention of killing them ? Or hurting them at all ? How would that profit them ?
And tagos said he/she won’t have Internet access for two weeks, so don’t expect an answer from tagos.
I’ll save him the trouble: Iran has been playing the diplomacy game as long as anybody. Those sailors are as safe as they would be in their homes. Iran puffs, we puff, and after a few puffs they get released with nothing REAL accomplished by either side but, if it’s played right by BOTH sides, BOTH sides get to claim victory. Iran is banking on our bellicoseness keeping us from making it a cat’s game, but they don’t really care if we do. Zero-sum works pretty much as well for them.
Jesus, the lack of patience and understanding of how The Game is played has been the ruin of MORE negotiations…
I don’t know, maybe the wild adulation of Islamic extremists?
Remember that in 1979 Iran captured 63 diplomats and held them hostage for 444 days. Diplomats, not soldiers, bound and blindfolded. Although they didn’t kill them, they sure didn’t seem too concerned about moral high ground or any type of master negotiation strategy. Some of the hostage-takers are suspected to have posts in the current government.
And are they in danger of losing the support of those people ? Not that I’ve heard; it’s the non extremists that they need to keep in line.
So ? That was 28 years ago.
And they’d like to keep it that way.
What has occurred in the past 28 years that would lead you to believe Iran would treat military prisoners today any better than diplomatic hostages 28 years ago?
Time ? Change ? Circumstances are quite different between then and now; why wouldn’t they treat them differently ?
And even if they treat them exactly the same as they treated those diplomats, that’s still much better than I’d expect us to treat prisoners. They’ll have to do something pretty damned hideous to those people to lose the moral high ground compared to us, because right now we’re at the bottom of a moral well.
I asked what’s changed in the past 28 years. The passage of time is implicitly acknowledged in the question. “Change” is not a valid answer to the question “what has changed?”
Iran is a very different country now than when Khomeini was alive. They actually have elections – not entirely free, but not a total sham like Iraq’s under Hussein – and there are moderate, secular political forces in their society now.
The prisoners will be fine. They’re worth less dead.
However, don’t expect them to be released without serious concessions on behalf of the U.S. and the U.K. Ending sanctions, easing down of nuclear inspections, oil deals, the release of hundreds of prisoners, withdrawal of forces - pick any or all of the above. Whatever price they pay, it won’t be cheap. That’s how the game is played in the Middle East.