http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=14774
Nah. W’s shot his bolt, in terms of both military resources and political capital.
If McCain is sworn in as POTUS next January, then we might have to worry about war with Iran. But it won’t happen on W’s watch. And even on McCain’s, we’d still have the same problem we have now WRT troop strength.
I don’t share your optimism. War doesn’t have to involve troops. I’d be very surprised if the Bush regime doesn’t go out in a blaze of cruise missiles and air strikes.
The idea reminds me of Saddam Hussein setting fire to Kuwait’s oil wells before pulling out in '91.
Pure spite.
Even W is above that, surely?!
Cognitive Dissonance. They have to believe that everything is Iran’s fault otherwise it it is theirs. If Iran was seriously engaged with waging a proxy war with the USA then they’d supply ground to air missiles.
I can’t share your optimism, BrainGlutton. I’m afraid it’s possible the US might make a military strike on Iran by January 20th 2009. I agree it’s stupid and dangerous, and that much (if not all) of the US military leadership is against this. From their public statements, Bush and Cheney want to hit Iran, and what Cheney wants, Cheney gets. [post=9387471]Here’s[/post] an earlier post I made on this topic, complete with crucial spelling errors. :smack:
Are you saying Iran isn’t taking support for Iraqi insurgent groups seriously because they aren’t providing them the right types of weapons?
Of course Iran is serious about its support for parts of the Iraqi insurgency, because they know America can’t really do anything to stop it. It doesn’t matter who the president is; a war with Iran in the context of current politics just isn’t possible. Something BIG would have to change, bringing in the old Desert Storm coalition members before we could even think about it. Iran knows that America doesn’t have the moral position to seek allies right now, so they’re free to exert pressure on Iraq without serious threat of retribution. That might change if American planes started getting shot down with Iranian weapons.
This article isn’t about Iranian support for the insurgency. This article is about Iranian troops fighting in Basra.
No, war with Iran isn’t imminent, though it is possible in the next presidential term I suppose. Even missile strikes or surgical bombing runs into Iran are, IMHO, unlikely, though again possible.
Air strikes or missile strikes don’t equal war. And I would be quite surprised myself if Bush et al simply lashed out at Iran so they could go out in a blaze of glory. I’m sure when this unlikely event doesn’t occur before November there will be all kinds of handwaving as to why Bush et al didn’t nuke Iran back to the stone age (or some such)…
:dubious: Be a bit hard to hand wave away surface to air missiles or other sophisticated weapons by claiming the insurgent types just happened to whip them up in their basement. Even some of the IED’s and such are pushing credulity that the insurgents are home making them…put sophisiticated surface to air missiles into the mix and the cat is well and truly out of the bag…and probably skinned to boot. And try and guess exactly who would be on the short list of nation states that could and would supply such weapons to the Iraqi insurgents…
-XT
There will be no war with Iran. Our military is already stretched to its limits. There are no troops to spare. I don’t think there will even be air strikes against Iran. We can’t afford the risk of the Iranian army crossing the border en masse.
All this is just posturing to lay the groundwork for the failure of The Surge. The temporary respite in violence is already fracturing. When we draw down our troops in a few months things will get worse. Petraeus and Bush cannot admit that The Surge was a mistake. So they will blame the failure on Iran: “No one could have anticipated that our noble effort would be undermined by the evil Iranians! The Surge would have succeeded if not for Iran! It’s not our fault!”
Are any other sources carrying this story?
If Iranian planes started dropping bombs and missiles on the U.S., you don’t think we’d call that an act of war?
I can find none that is not substantially the same as the article in the OP, i.e., quoting Petraeus to the effect that the Iranians were involved. No independent confirmation. (But then again, even if this were true, who – other than the Iranians – could independently confirm it?)
It’s nice to know that the monthly freak-out of “OMG we’re going to war with Iran!!!” has diminished to a quarterly freak-out.
We’re not going to war with Iran. No bombings. No cruise missiles. As others have said, our forces cannot support a large-scale war, and any attack whatsoever is likely to make things in Iraq much, much worse than they are now. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows it doesn’t make sense. (I will predict that within the next three messages, there will be a retort along the lines of, “Bush doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together,” or “The only reason there hasn’t been war already is that Bush/Cheney have been biding their time,” or “You just can’t rule it out because we’re talking about Bush,” or other statements unsupported by facts (or innuendo that cannot be challenged by facts).
My view is that there could be new tensions with Iran, and even perhaps some saber rattling, but that this machismo will be for show and not actually based on an intent to attack Iran.
And once again, if anyone is willing to put their money where their mouth is, I’m still more than willing to place a bet (with odds) that there will be no attack on Iran during Bush’s term.
Ravenman The desire to keep Iran from having nukes is pretty strong in many circles. I don’t think it’s quite as easy as you paint it. Also, there are many people that would like to see the Middle-East in chaos without any unifying force for stability in Iran.
Oh, stop trying to throw all that logic stuff into the discussion Ravenman! Sheesh…
Why yes…I think it would be considered an act of war if Iran bombed the US. The converse of course isn’t necessarily true…though, granted, the Iranians probably wouldn’t be to happy about it.
Consider: power in the world is not symetrical. The US is a superpower…Iran is not. You may want to pound your chest or stamp up and down that this is UNFAIR! To be sure…it is unfair. It is also…reality. When the US bombed the shit out of Libya in the 80’s there was no war. When the US enforced the no-fly zone over Iraq there was no war. When Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear facility there was no war. If the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities or whatever (unlikely as that is to happen) there would probably be no official war. Oh, Iran would be highly unhappy, and I have no doubts they would step up their already covert efforts against us in places like Iraq and using puppet groups like Hamas to do their dirty work…but there would be no full out shooting war between the US and Iran. Not unless the US decided there was a war…in which case Iran would be even more unhappy.
This is simply the nature of asymetric power in the world today…and of reality as it stands today. There will be no war unless the US decides to go to war with a nation like Iran. Regardless of the provocation (short of invasion) Iran isn’t going to go to war with the US.
And frankly, as others have said, the US’s plate is a bit full these days for us to contemplate much of anything.
-XT
And it’s not like any presidential candidate is advocating that we bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran. 
I assume the point you’re trying to make is that Bush wants more war. Got anything to back that up?
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=10493 Patrick Buchanan says exactly that in this article. He thinks the Shrub is after them and a blaze of glory for our warmonger in chief.
Yeah, but Pat Buchanan is an idiot…and he also has no personal knowledge of what ‘Shrub’ et al are planning to do. In short, that means he’s speculating out his ass…no?
-XT