Don't you just wonder, btw, how much the livers of the Kosites and, DU's and Puffho's are filled with bile at LGF and Charles Johnson, AGAIN, and AGAIN....
We now know, from the interviews with Saddam after his capture, that he was trying to convince everyone he really DID have WMD's when he prevented the UN inspectors from fulfilling their tasks in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq.He also believed the USA could be stopped via his plethora of bribes to the UN, France, Russia and Germany, and that he would be free to act once the same process had lifted sanctions.
Of course WE KNOW, that in the post Pearl Harbor, post 9/11 USA, nothing could have more guaranteed our invasion than his actions over a threat which did not exist, but he did the most to insure we believed was real.
Comes our new friends, the Hojatieh of Iran and the mad mullahs dead set on making us believe they are willing and able to create a 'ball of fire' in the middle east, and their unwitting sunni allies warning of 'unlimited oil' price increases, when they are afraid the whole thing (Israel unleashing a process begun by Iran....) will result in such chaos they get chopped.
So we see their new plane, which turns out to be really a 1960's US trainer, the T-38, which we made in to a low tech lightweight fighter for Taiwan (the F-5), with twin tails 40 years later.
Their navy, while they now own several VERY CAPABLE Russian Kilo subs, remains based on cigar boat swarm tactics, and now to enhance THEIR deterrence they resort to Photoshop to Crayola in extra missiles as if this makes a difference to the those who are trying to figure out if the Iranian nuclear test will be in Tel Aviv.
This is a reminder to be critical in our approch to Iran.
They are not ten feet tall.
That means they may be making the same mistake Saddam made.
Our error in Iraq has meaning. It's not enough to believe they are doing what we think they are, WE must be certain. Israel, however has a different calculus to figure.
Never the less, I hope someone is delivering a message to Khameinei that if they are making up things up to deter us, as Saddam did, they are on the exact path to ENSURE we attack them by their lies, and people are going to get killed for NOTHING. Only they know where they are in their process to refine enough U-235, or/and then process plutonium for weapons. Maybe they are 5 years off (I doubt it), or maybe they are months away (far more likely...it took us 10 months in 1944-45), but if they are 5 years off, and are trying to convince us it's 5 months ..... Iraq redux, without the occupation.
We now know, from the interviews with Saddam after his capture, that he was trying to convince everyone he really DID have WMD's when he prevented the UN inspectors from fulfilling their tasks in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq.He also believed the USA could be stopped via his plethora of bribes to the UN, France, Russia and Germany, and that he would be free to act once the same process had lifted sanctions.
Of course WE KNOW, that in the post Pearl Harbor, post 9/11 USA, nothing could have more guaranteed our invasion than his actions over a threat which did not exist, but he did the most to insure we believed was real.
Comes our new friends, the Hojatieh of Iran and the mad mullahs dead set on making us believe they are willing and able to create a 'ball of fire' in the middle east, and their unwitting sunni allies warning of 'unlimited oil' price increases, when they are afraid the whole thing (Israel unleashing a process begun by Iran....) will result in such chaos they get chopped.
So we see their new plane, which turns out to be really a 1960's US trainer, the T-38, which we made in to a low tech lightweight fighter for Taiwan (the F-5), with twin tails 40 years later.Their navy, while they now own several VERY CAPABLE Russian Kilo subs, remains based on cigar boat swarm tactics, and now to enhance THEIR deterrence they resort to Photoshop to Crayola in extra missiles as if this makes a difference to the those who are trying to figure out if the Iranian nuclear test will be in Tel Aviv.
This is a reminder to be critical in our approch to Iran.
They are not ten feet tall.
That means they may be making the same mistake Saddam made.
Our error in Iraq has meaning. It's not enough to believe they are doing what we think they are, WE must be certain. Israel, however has a different calculus to figure.
Never the less, I hope someone is delivering a message to Khameinei that if they are making up things up to deter us, as Saddam did, they are on the exact path to ENSURE we attack them by their lies, and people are going to get killed for NOTHING. Only they know where they are in their process to refine enough U-235, or/and then process plutonium for weapons. Maybe they are 5 years off (I doubt it), or maybe they are months away (far more likely...it took us 10 months in 1944-45), but if they are 5 years off, and are trying to convince us it's 5 months ..... Iraq redux, without the occupation.
7 comments:
All the huffing and puffing may not result in a bigger and badder missile delivery but that's not reason to dismiss the potential deceptive cloud concealing under every national radar - several itty bitty improvised deliveries of the very same deadly material.
Interesting thoughts, Epa.
I don't believe OPEC's threats. They want Iran gone in my opinion.
I think Israel's calculus, as you put it, ought to be everyone's calculus. I think when a nation threaten death on another nation, they ought to be taken at their word.
If we take it upon ourselves to figure out whether they really mean it or not, then we become Neville Chamberlain.
You may be right, pasto..
This world is ITCHING for more reasons to hate us.
If it ever turns out the Iranians are 5 years away, and we take them out, it won't matter that they WERE engaged in getting nukes - only that we were wrong again.
Does all that matter?
I am more of the mind of Lucius Accius.."Oderint Dum Metuant"
But there is a point on the sliding scales at which our cause will be much harder if our INCOMPETENCE (BUSH, TENET, ASHCROFT, DHS, CIA...) becomes institutionalized. And our actions BASED on incompetence kill lots of people when nukes were not imminent (again I believe they are).
Had we been CORRECT about WMD in Iraq, Mesbah-Yazdi and the morons would be QUAKING in der bunkers, yah?
However, that INCOMPETENCE, hinders our free action, and what would be PRUDENT for the safety of the american people and their allies.
We need to BE right, and then we will DO right.
How confident are you that Bush commanded a competent change in the CIA?
That, my friend is the bet.
What continues to concern me about Iran is the Mahdi Factor, and how much of this is deliberate provocation. How literally can we take Ahmadinejad's boast that he doesn't care what happens to Iran so long as Israel and the rest of the West is destroyed, or that the more chaos he causes the sooner the return of the Mahdi
This is a difficult factor for anylists to take into consideration; there is something fundamentally counter-intuitive about accepting the premise that the rulers of a nation would risk its destruction to further such a bizarre "greater goal". It would seem to make sense for them to delay the confrontation until they have the nuclear capability. No sense in throwing a half-assed Mahdi Pahty when you can, excuse the expression, go whole hog. But I can't take any of this seriously as long range deterence -- it's more like bracing the door shut until they can get the fuse lit.
Of course OPEC and others in the Sunni Muslim world would love to see Persian Shiite Iran removed from the scene. One less loose cannon on the decks of the good ship Caliphate, as it were. If the shiite hits the fan there are a million ways they can play those cards. Only thing for certain is that no matter how they might appear now, none of them will be good for us in the long run.
I think THEY believe they will not be 'allowed' to lose against shaitan.
They have not lost yet since 1979.
They honestly believe that Allah cannot allow them to be defeated by the kufr.
They probably imagine that an attack upon them will REALLY set off a chain of events that destroys western economies..the KSA Eastern province revolts, Al Saud get chopped, Al Sabah all leave for Monte Carlo, Shia rise up and slaughter the takfir'd leaders of Bahrain and UAE, Oman retreats under cover, the MB takes over Egypt, Hashemites in Jordan run for Geneva as HAMAS runs wild there...
Of course the reality is that SHOULD something like that occur, Europe would be compelled to rediscover European actions of 1600 AD, and the modern day conquistadores would be pumping from protected wells right into tankers ..or they will all starve while freezing in the dark.
I have a feeling the former.
Epa,
I think we had many reasons to go to war against Iraq. We chose to emphasize the WMD thing. If we would have been smart, we would have also emphasized the fact that he was breaking his peace treaty, especially by shooting at our jets in the No-fly zone.
All this stuff is crying over milk spilled into another glass.
BINGO....and my point,,
"If we would have been smart"
I have been searching for over a year for the Colin Powell statement which pissed off Bush at the time, that 'WMD was the only issue that all depts in the govt could coaslesce around' ..and that's how it became THE ISSUE.
UGH.
But u r right.
Spilt
sour
milk
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