This was locked out by a Mod for incorrect forum but I was interested enough to re-post it here. I’m putting it here because it’s political in nature and has a debating quality to it.
President Ahmadinajad has eluded to a global event on February 11 which is the date of the Iranian Revolution.
**February 11 marks the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, but Iran’s president is now threatening the west that the 11th will mark a strike against ‘global arrogance.’
With Iranian opposition leaders urging Iran’s citizens to mark the February 11 anniversary of the Islamic Revolution as a symbol of freedom and of broad protest against the regime, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad warned western powers that he intends to strike against their “global arrogance” on February 11th. **
In a possibly related itemthe United States has expanded missile defenses in the Gulf.
Are these related and do you think Ahmadinejad is planning an attack on Israel/US or is he referring to outside influences on the political dissonance that is currently going on in Iran.
I took it to mean he was going to crush political protesters who rally on the 11th and blame it on Western attempts to instigate anarchy.
However, he’s a crazy nut job who thinks there is an Imam waiting to rise again and usher in chaos so I wouldn’t be surprised if he does something insanely stupid.
It’s not just the President of Iran who is making threatening statements. Since the President is considered a figure head and not the true power of Iran his statements have always been taken with a grain of salt. Now the Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is making threatening statements. He said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a “punch” that will stun world powers during this week’s 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
Iran will unveil its new space projects during a ten-day ceremony beginning Monday to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in the country. Tehran has reached self-sufficiency in launching complicated electronic, optic and communications technology, Defence Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said at the inauguration of the ‘Ten-Day Dawn’. The same trend of development is in process in more sensitive technologies, including space systems which use highly sophisticated electronic devices, he said. The Iranian government also disclosed its 36 electronic and communications projects at the beginning of the ceremony, Fars news agency reported. ‘Tolou (rise) and Mesbah (Lantern) satellites as well as Simorq satellite carrier engine will be unveiled in the Ten-Day Dawn,’ Vahidi had said Wednesday on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting.
The Iranian regime relies on keeping its base, Iranian religious conservatives, fired up and scared of the Great Satan. Everything they do like this is presented as a great victory in the ongoing battle against the GS.
Of that there is no doubt. It’s a standard political tool to create an external nemesis as a diversion from internal problems.
As I stated earlier I think this is likely a threat against internal protesters whose actions will be blamed on Western external provocation. But there’s 5% of me that wonders if they’re planning on striking Israel or something equally stupid.
I have little doubt that the regime would like to distract the population from their economic problems by building up the idea of an imminent attack by evil oustide forces, but the trick is to make it sound plausible without actually drawing an attack, ya know?
My bet’s on test-firing of a missile, perhaps of a longer-range type than Iran has demonstrated previously. Whether one think the Iranian leadership is “crazy” or not, I seriously doubt that they fail to recognize that any real military or quasi-military strike against the US, Israel or NATO countries will almost certainly result in military action against Iran.
The stars on this map represent US military bases. (got it from google images, my posting it doesn’t mean I agree with anything on the site it came from, not a word of which I’ve ever read, but if you google image iran us bases you’ll get a bunch of similar maps).
Bearing in mind this map, the fact that Iran’s military budget is less than 1% of America’s, and the fact that since they overthrew the dictator we imposed on them after their democratically elected government had the temerity to nationalise their own oilfields in 1951, and that since they overthrew him we’ve put them under punitive sanctions, constantly threatened them, worked to overthrow the new government, shot one of their civilian airliners down etc., who do you think can legitimately feel more threatened by the other, Iran or America?
Gee, if I was Iran I’d make sure that someone as ‘powerful’ and ‘evil’ as the US wasn’t pissed at me for any reason rather than continually flicking their noses. You know, become an ally rather than an enemy? I wonder why they don’t do that?
Yeah, I don’t see a problem with Iran getting the ability to launch things into an orbit where they can then have an intercontinental ballistic trajectory.
Oh, I don’t know, I’d say that was an actual opinion, albeit not stated in the most diplomatic manner.
I am curious, though. There are quite a lot of people in the US who believe a pre-emptive military strike against Iran is a necessary thing. Would you happen to be one of those people, Magiver?
There’s nothing to say. (And non-diplomatically? The response was essentially "I don’t like that you’re using facts, you’re a bed wetter!!!)
The IAEA has been quite clear that Iran is in deliberate non-compliance and that, as such, they cannot verify non-diversion of nuclear materials or that Iran doesn’t have a weaponization component to its nuclear program. The recently NIE report confirmed that Iran had had a nuclear weapons program and that its continued mothballing could only be stated with a moderate degree of confidence, and not a high degree of confidence because there wasn’t sufficient information to make such a blanket statement (which they did make about other things in the same report).
The worry, I would argue, is not even so much that Iran will launch of a first strike (although the claim that the possibility of that is 0.0% is… curious.) but that with a dynamic of MAD sets up an Iran that is free to repeat events like the Khobar Tower Bombing, the Marine Barracks Bombing, etc… It gives the foremost sponsor of international terrorism and unacceptable safety net. They’ve already had Hezbollah nearly touched off a civil war by installing a regional telecom networkthat allowed Iranian proxy forces to communicate directly and to organize/plan as a unified force as well as spy on the legal government of the area.
The idea that there’s no reason to worry if “all” that can happen is that Iran can set about spreading Khomenism again and take over a country here or there while shipping ever more advanced weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah is, unsettling, to say the least. During the last war that Israel fought with Hezbollah they had APC’s and standard military hardware. And we’ve already seen how the Iranian power structure enforces Khomenism at home.
Of course, we don’t know for sure whether Iran does or doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program, and that’s part of the issue. If Iran would just institute the Additional Protocols we could verify total non-diversion and, hell, be on the way to yawning when they display technology that can be a precursor for ICBM’s. Until then, those who can’t really argue with the facts can always talk about how those in the fact-based community are wetting their beds, or what have you.
