Should/can the Security Council do something about Iran?

[Sam_Stone]

That good will lasted exactly 30 days. Then the U.S. went into Afghanistan, and that all went away.

[Der_Trihs]

@Sam Stone

That good will lasted exactly 30 days. Then the U.S. went into Afghanistan, and that all went away.

I don’t remember a real backlash until Iraq.

[Sam_Stone]

From Wikipedia:

In 2001, a number of small protests against the invasion of Afghanistan occurred in various cities and college campuses across the United States and other countries in the first days after the start of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. These protests were mainly peaceful, but larger protests and general strikes occurred in Pakistan, a previous Taliban ally. Some of these were suppressed by police with casualties among the protesters. In both Islamic and non-Islamic nations, protests and rallies of various sizes against the attack on Afghanistan took place.

Many protesters felt that the invation of Afghanistan was unjustified aggression and would lead to the deaths of many innocent people by preventing humanitarian aid workers from bringing food into the country.
…
On October 7, there was a peace rally of ten to twelve thousand people in New York City.
…
On November 18, 2001 the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) organized an anti-war demonstration. This was the coalition’s first national demonstration in London under the slogan “Not in my name”. The organizers estimate that 100,000 people took part. This included a large number of British Muslims.

There were other anti-US marches in the middle east and in other countries around the globe.

[Neurotik]

@Sam Stone

Why do we assume a strike would be at the nuclear facilities?

What if Israel strikes at Iranian leadership, either with assassination teams or bombing?

What good what that do? Unless you believe there are moderates in good position to take control, then it would likely only make things worse. Not only that, but when has assassinating the political leadership ever undermined the faction with the assassinated leader. It only draws public sympathy to their side. Do you think the Republicans would be helped or hindered if Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were assassinated?

If you believe that the consequence of not doing something is merely another Pakistan, a nuclear nation that, however unstable, seems to be bearing the responsibility rather well, then perhaps the answer is that we don’t do very much.

This is the most likely scenario according to pretty much every foreign policy expert with experience in the region.

On the other hand, if you think that the end result of a nuclear Iran is a nuclear war in the Middle East, then everything up to and including a large scale war is preferable.

This is the most likely scenario according to lunatics, people who don’t know what they’re talking about and people who have a hidden interest in scaremongering.

My guess is that the best case scenario of a nuclear Iran is a regime that feels invulnerable, and therefore will become increasingly belligerant, especially with regards to Israel, and perhaps with Iraq. Nuclear blackmail against the west doesn’t seem out of the question. Would a nuclear Iran invade Iraq in five years after the Americans are largely gone, and threaten nuclear retaliation if anyone does anything to stop them?

So highly unlikely as to be laughable. Why would a nuclear Iran invade Iraq? Especially if they’ve got a Shi’ite ally in power? Would they be more belligerent? Possibly, but it’s doubtful. They might try to use a nuclear umbrella to gather more allies in the region, but that’s not likely either.

The most likely danger is that Iran gaining nuclear weapons would encourage rivals in the region like Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to pursue that course as well.

The worst case scenario is that Iran will use the bomb to attack Israel.

Whatever. Only nutcases fear this.

For example, he’s not interested in a Democratic Palestinian state, or any accord at all with the Jews. He wants Israel destroyed, and sees it as his sacred duty to attempt to carry that out. And we’re going to let this guy have the bomb?

If was going to be the guy with his finger on the bomb then maybe I’d be a bit more worried. But he’s not. The Iranian president is far less power than the US president. Not only that, but Ahmedinejad doesn’t even have control of parliament and has been undermined by the Mullahs in his policy choices. Several of Ahmedinejad’s choices for cabinet have been vetoed by the legislature and the Mullahs have appointed rivals of his to key positions. He’s really not much more than a figurehead.

But assuming this doesn’t happen, letting this country get the bomb would be suicidal.

In your opinion. Unfortunately, your opinion is pretty much in the minority as to the characterization of the Iranian leadership.

[Orbifold]

@Sam Stone

Well, to be precise, they could sail over any ship that wasn’t sticking up more than 80 meters from the sea bed. That would be pretty much all of them.

Those that have the good grace to sink flat instead of having one end stick up out of the bottom, at any rate.

@Sam Stone

Okay, first of all, these ships aren’t sailing sideways through the straight.

Yes, they are. Because the strait isn’t straight, if you’ll pardon the expression. The strait of Hormuz is curved.

Suppose the tanker is 200 feet wide and a third of a mile long. Can it fit down at straight passage that’s only 300 feet wide? Of course. Can if fit down a curved passage that’s only 300 feet wide? Not necessarily: if the curve is tight enough, the length of the ship starts to become an issue. Again, it’s like carrying a ladder down a hallway: even if the hallway is wider than the width of the ladder, that doesn’t mean it can go around tight corners.

A ship sunk in a curved passage is not going to be a 200 foot wide obstacle; it’s going to block much more of the effective width of the passageway. Sink a couple of ships, and now you have an obstacle course…one which the other ships have to maneuver while negotiating the curved straits at the same time. And again, supertankers are not known for being the most maneuverable of ships.

[Sevastopol]

The Security Council cannot and should not do anything about Iran.

The post WWII system established the UN and the UNSC as a system to avoid and manage global military conflict. Essentially it recognised 2 tiers of military power: The first order military powers, who were the victors of WWII; and the rest.

The overriding concept was to provide national security for the member states, without involving military conflict. To this end a series of treaties were signed. The most apposite is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It’s intended effect was to entrench the position of the first order military powers and to limit the threats associated with nuclear proliferation.

In a simplified form, the guarantee of national security for UN members took 2 forms:

• trust the first order military powers to not to invade you, as per their Treaty ratifications,
• constrain the rest, who cannot be trusted.

The problem is that the first order military powers cannot be trusted to hold up their end of the deal. The Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the US in Iraq, wars of aggression. The idea of national security through a system of treaties has failed. Instead as India, Pakistan and Israel have shown, the best guarantee of not being invaded in nuclear weaponry.

Why then should Iran subscribe to a system that has plainly failed, with 2 of its neighbouring countries, invaded in acts of military aggression by the supposedly trustworthy signatories to non-aggression treaties? It shouldn’t.

Ideally the UNSC should censure the US for its military aggression, conduct a war crimes tribunal to investigate if “waging aggressive war” has occurred, as per Nuremberg. That would affirm the idea of global security provided by treaty. But that won’t occur because the US has decided that might makes right. Nobody is in any position to censure Iran for responding correctly to this development.

should do is accept that Iran will have nuclear arms

[mswas]

Ok here are some things I’d like to remind this thread about.

1. A sunk supertanker would cause an oil spill that would fuck over any life in the strait of Hormuz causing immense amounts of damage to the Iranian coast. The cost long after the war for Iran would be immeasurable.

2. Iranians aren’t Arabs they are Persians.

3. Syria is controlled by a Shi’ite ruling class

4. Muslim sects think that all other muslim sects are going to hell, they are united mainly by their hatred for the infidels. Israel first, the United States second.

5. Russia, India, Pakistan, and China could all mount an invasion force into Iran. They are on the same continent, they can walk there, especially if the United States is working with them to get them through Afghanistan.

6. A war with Iran could upset Pakistan’s stability, and they already HAVE nuclear weapons. Renewed aggression between Pakistan and India would not be good. What if Musharraf got capped? He’s come close a few times.

7. A war could unite Iranian and Iraqi Shi’ites more than they already are.

8. What you are talking about is World War III, that involves three different religions that all believe Megiddo in Israel is the site of the climactic battle at the end of the world. Do you honestly believe this kind of escalation wouldn’t whip fundies all over the world into an apocalyptic frenzy?

9. Perhaps the current extreme president of Iran doesn’t have that much domestic political capital, and more level headed, but still far right leaning people in his country might remove him themselves, due to not desiring a World War.

10. Anyone who has read ANYTHING about Islam at war knows that they have a long history of seriously fucking with enemy armies even when outnumbered and outgunned, so don’t get too happy with the American military and it’s video games.

11. Do we really want a Middle East that it completely and totally dominated by Saudi Arabia? Sure the Saudis love the Bushes now, but what happens when the balance of power shifts, and they rule the middle east? The Saudi royal family is ALLOWED to operate with the west by the Wahabbis because they are gaining power for Saudi Arabia, how will that dynamic change when without Iran balancing that out on the Persian side of the coin?

12. What would the increasingly anti-US South America do? I doubt that they’d go to war with the US, but they might start to dissolve American interests down there.

13. Almost EVERYONE on that side of the world, Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, wants to see America brought low. There are strategic ways to hurt America without actually committing aggression against us. All they have to do is not help at a key moment. Haven’t you ever played Civilization? That’s how I prosecute wars in that game, I destabilize a region by making mutual protection pacts that conflict and causing the one country that doesn’t conflict with any of my mutual protection pacts to to attack me. Then I promise help to a country, and don’t send it, I devour the nation that’s attacking them from the back, and go straight across into the territory captured from my ally, and ‘liberate’ it by taking it, in order to conquer two nations at once while only fighting one of them, and using the other as an ally. I don’t think that the United States will fight an all out war on domestic soil in all of this, but our foreign interests might be completely shredded in a conflict of the magnitude we are discussing, and your Divine Right to drive your SUV will be cut off by oil prices that are levied upon you by corporate interests that are American only because the American tax structure and political system are the most suitable to their aims right now.

Oil capacity is stretched to the limit, and every country is dependent upon it, growing MORE dependent, not less. America can afford to lose Iranian production, but China and Russia cannot. As far as I know, they have already said no to sanctions.

Erek

[BrainGlutton]

!!! Now this is interesting! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran's_nuclear_program:

In January 2006, James Risen, a New York Times reporter, alleged in his book State of War that in February 2000, a U.S. covert operation - code-named Operation Merlin - to provide Iran with a flawed design for building a nuclear weapon, in order to delay the Iranian nuclear weapons program, had backfired. Instead, the plan may have accelerated Iran’s nuclear program by providing useful information, once the flaws were identified [2].

[BrainGlutton]

@Sam Stone

Amir Taheri on what Iran’s Prime Minister Ahmadinejad and his inner circle believe:

. . . Ahmadinejad, however, has restored the concept of the Hidden Imam as the central truth of Iran’s political, cultural, economic and social life. He has written and signed a pact with the Hidden Imam and has asked all officials to do so, a move that, taken to its logical conclusion, dispenses with the need for any mullahs including the“ Supreme Guide”. . . .

Only (logically speaking) if the Hidden Iman himself actually countersigns the pact. Or if Ahmadinejad forges his signature and gets Iranians to take it seriously. Is that possible?

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

Only (logically speaking) if the Hidden Iman himself actually countersigns the pact. Or if Ahmadinejad forges his signature and gets Iranians to take it seriously. Is that possible?

When they say Hidden Imam do they mean like some Grand Master of a secret society? Or do they mean something akin to like an ascended master or the Holy Ghost or something?

[BrainGlutton]

@Whack-a-Mole

No way does Iran want to push it to the point of giving the US reason to invade their country. They have seen the result of a better military than theirs going against the US and getting rolled in shockingly fast time…it was not even remotely close and it was done twice so it wasn’t a fluke. Indeed I’d wager this is a large factor in Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons. Without them they have no credible military threat to the US.

Hmmm? Was Iraq’s pre-war military better than Iran’s? If so, why didn’t Saddam Hussein (who had an even stronger military at the time) win his war with Iran?

[Neurotik]

@mswas

When they say Hidden Imam do they mean like some Grand Master of a secret society? Or do they mean something akin to like an ascended master or the Holy Ghost or something?

I believe it’s like an ascended master who will make a messianic return. The Mullahs are said to have access to him, which is why they have the proper authority to interpret scripture.

[BrainGlutton]

@Sam Stone

You can give Iranian pilots the same jets the Americans have, and the Americans will destroy them just about as quickly as if they’re flying their old MiGs.

Why?

[Neurotik]

@BrainGlutton

Hmmm? Was Iraq’s pre-war military better than Iran’s? If so, why didn’t Saddam Hussein (who had an even stronger military at the time) win his war with Iran?

A couple of reasons (in no particular order):

1. Iran’s Air Force was far superior to Iraq’s at the time, with cutting edge American F-4s and American trained pilots. The only reason Iran’s Air Force didn’t completely dominate was their lack of spare parts as a result of the revolution and the hostage crisis. But for the most part, Iran’s Air Force could hit nearly any target in Iraq without suffering large losses and was superior in air-to-air combat.

2. Iraq lost its initiative after their initial push and began to settle in, rather than continue the offensive. Once they dug in, they became more vulnerable to Iranian human wave tactics. This eventually turned the war into a war of attrition, where the Iranians could sustain heavier losses due to their larger population.

3. Even though Iraq had a significant technological advantage when it came to armor and artillery, their training was insufficient. According to analysts at the time, the Iraqis failed to fully master the gunsights on the tank, lacked the technicians required to repair equipment in the field meaning that it was often abandoned, and rather than use tanks lead assaults, they dug them in and used them as stationary artillery support pieces.

[Sam_Stone]

@BrainGlutton

Why?

For a few reasons. The first is training. Pilot training makes all the difference in the world. But more importantly, a modern air force is a large coordinated effort, with AWACS planes offering radar coverage, GPS used for navigation, tankers used to keep fighters on station, etc.

In the first Gulf war, Iraq actually had some pretty good planes including the Mirage F1 and the MiG 25. They lost 38 of them in air to air engagements while the U.S. Air Force didn’t lose a single plane. Iraq then flew the rest of their air force into Iran for safekeeping.

[Sam_Stone]

@Neurotik

A couple of reasons (in no particular order):

1. Iran’s Air Force was far superior to Iraq’s at the time, with cutting edge American F-4s and American trained pilots. The only reason Iran’s Air Force didn’t completely dominate was their lack of spare parts as a result of the revolution and the hostage crisis. But for the most part, Iran’s Air Force could hit nearly any target in Iraq without suffering large losses and was superior in air-to-air combat.

Iran actually had the F-14, which at the time was one of the best aircraft in the world. Iraq managed to shoot some of them down with their Mirage F1s. In fact, I believe they had a kill ratio of close to 1:1 with their Mirages against the F-14.

Getting back to my point with BrainGlutton - Iraq’s pilots managed to kill a few Iranian F-14’s, but they couldn’t lay a glove on the Americans. In fact, the U.S. air force has never lost an F-14 in air-to-air combat (they lost one to a ground-fired missile in the first Gulf war)

[BrainGlutton]

Update: In anticipation of possible economic sanctions, the Iranian government is moving its foreign exchange reserves out of European banks to an undisclosed location, possibly in Southeast Asia. http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/iran

[Shodan]

@mswas

Ok here are some things I’d like to remind this thread about.

1. A sunk supertanker would cause an oil spill that would fuck over any life in the strait of Hormuz causing immense amounts of damage to the Iranian coast. The cost long after the war for Iran would be immeasurable.

Granted. A nuclear war might not be so good either.

8. What you are talking about is World War III, that involves three different religions that all believe Megiddo in Israel is the site of the climactic battle at the end of the world.

The scary part is, it is not impossible that they are wrong.

9. Perhaps the current extreme president of Iran doesn’t have that much domestic political capital, and more level headed, but still far right leaning people in his country might remove him themselves, due to not desiring a World War.

I don’t see how Iran acquiring nuclear weapons would trigger this. The mullahs presumably already know that Iran is trying to get nukes, and he is making threats against Israel and the US now.

They already close their legislative sessions by chanting “Death to the US”.

10. Anyone who has read ANYTHING about Islam at war knows that they have a long history of seriously fucking with enemy armies even when outnumbered and outgunned, so don’t get too happy with the American military and it’s video games.

You mean like in Gulf War I and II?

You may recall that Iran lost its war with Iraq. And the US military had relatively little difficulty with them, twice.

11. Do we really want a Middle East that it completely and totally dominated by Saudi Arabia? Sure the Saudis love the Bushes now, but what happens when the balance of power shifts, and they rule the middle east? The Saudi royal family is ALLOWED to operate with the west by the Wahabbis because they are gaining power for Saudi Arabia, how will that dynamic change when without Iran balancing that out on the Persian side of the coin?

I don’t understand the concept of a nuclear-armed Iran as a counter-weight to the House of Saud. The Saudis are our allies. And they have a lot of practice balancing off the various crackpots, dictators, corrupt plutocrats, neo-Stalinist maniacs, and terrorists against each other - mostly by bribery. Removing one from the mix doesn’t strike me as all that destabilizing.

Regards,
Shodan

[XT]

There seems to be several folks in this thread dancing around the idea that the Iranians COULD take on the US conventionally and if not hold their own at least get in their licks and make us pay. We aren’t talking about the post war occupation and all the nasty-ness we all know would happen at that point but the actual set piece campaign. I’m just curious on what basis folks are thinking this. Is it wishful thinking or is there a reason that people think Iran would somehow magically be more proficient at field or set piece battles than the Iraqi’s were?

Or perhaps I’m misreading several posters. I just want a response if anyone actually DOES think the Iranian military could stand toe to toe with the US…and what basis you are making at evaluation on. Simple curiosity on my part…maybe I’m missing something.

-XT

[Shodan]

If they have nukes, they could threaten Israel.

Or start a nuclear war. I think that is most of why most people don’t want an unstable theocracy like Iran to have nukes - it is a force multiplier. Same with Kim Jong-il - in general, those who have shown themselves to be irresponsible should not have nukes.

Is that what you meant? I doubt anyone with even a minimal grasp of military issues believes that Iran could prevail in a conventional war without a lot of help from a lot of people. I mean a lot of help - the kind that probably cannot be hidden long enough to make a difference.

Regards,
Shodan