3 stories illustrate our strategic situation vs the Khomeinist freaks ..STORY ONE..

U.S. military leadership said to oppose Iran strike as ineffective - GERTZ

Iranian policemen try to prevent students from getting out of Tehran's Amir Kabir university in December 2006. Now, 17 Iranian students have been hospitalised after going on a hunger strike to protest strict rules at a university in the northwestern city of Tabriz, according to press reports. AFP

ABU DHABI -- Andrew Terrill, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Army War College, said the United States would not launch air strikes against Iran. Terrill, who teaches at the Strategic Studies Institute, said Teheran did not have the capability to develop nuclear warheads.

Again, the USA created a weapon so reliable using U235 density differences from U-238 in 10 months (1944-45) it did not need testing to use over Hiroshima, and 40 years later, AQ Khan and Pakistan REPEATED this, creating an untested but reliable STOCKPILE before testing publicly for strictly political reasons)

"A bombing raid would not knock them out forever," Terrill said in an address to the Bahrain Center of Studies and Research on May 15. "They will rise again."

Neither did Osirak. History and the future are neither predictable nor linear.

Terrill has been regarded as a leading U.S. military analyst. His opposition to a U.S. war with Iran was said to reflect the feeling of most of the military brass.

The lecture merits attention because it offers an insight into the way the new leadership in Tehran approaches issues of international politics. According to Abbasi, the global balance of power is in a state of flux and every nation should fight for a place in a future equilibrium. The Western powers, especially the United States, still wield immense military and economic power that "looks formidable on paper." But they are unable to use that power because their populations have become "risk-averse." "The Western man today has no stomach for a fight," Abbasi says. "This phenomenon is not new: All empires produce this type of man, the self-centered, materialist, and risk-averse man." Abbasi believes that the US intervention in Iraq, which involved "slightly higher risks" than the invasion of Afghanistan, was the very last of its kind. And even then, the US went into Iraq because of President George W Bush's "readiness to do what no other American leader would dare contemplate." According to Abbasi, the US knows that the only power capable of and willing to challenge it across the globe is the Islamic Republic. The reason is that the Islamic Republic not only enjoys "strong backing from its people", but also has the support of millions who are prepared to kill and die for it across the globe.

Terrill called on the Bush administration to deny Iran nuclear weapons capabilities through its likely suppliers.

They need NO SUPPLIERS for the P-2 centrifuges creating the reliable U-235 weapons, only for the Bushehr plants and the more complicated plutonium processes. More, both Russia and China have clearly decided that if the USA or it's close ally Israel suffer one or two nuclear detonations, no nuclear war would ensue, and they may well benefit in the end. No other explanation fits their incredible behavior. Both of them should simply SHUT IRAN OFF.

He said Iran was still far away from being able to place a nuclear weapon on a missile.

What kind of moron thinks thinks a missile would be the preferred weapon at first?

"We must keep talking to the Russians, the Chinese and all others who are helping the Iranians with their nuclear capabilities not to do it, and we must, at the same time, keep other channels of communication open," Terrill said.

Uh, excuse me, but haven't we been doing all this all along with what to show for it? Therefore isn't it prudent to make other plans?

Terrill said the United States must launch a dialogue with Iran.

The professor said Teheran was driving toward nuclear weapons capability, and that U.S. air strikes would not change Iranian policy. "Delay them by two or three years?" Terrill asked regarding the effects of a possible U.S. strike. "Would that help? Would that stop them from supposedly interfering in Iraq? "The U.S. is already spending $12 billion a month just to stay in Iraq, and people are increasingly asking whether it is worth it," Terrill said.

What happened to the "CAN DO" attitude?
If we cannot be effective, shouldn't the question be HOW DO WE BECOME SO, rather than uh oh we better talk, especially from a perceived position of weakness?
Would 'talking' be much more effective if we could demonstrate we know what they have and where they have it?

Andrew Terrill is a perfect example of Hassan Abassi's risk averse western man