Posted on 01/17/2006 6:35:38 AM PST by Check_Your_Premises
Is it just me or does it seem like Iran is picking a fight?
If so, what is their motivation?
Do they already have the bomb, and hope to use our attack as cover for a launch on Israel? our troops in the region? wave of prestaged terror here?
Are they trying to use an external enemy to solidify power and to distract an increasingly hostile populace?
Are they simply trying to find the boundaries of Western will in general, and American will in particular? The risk for us being that if we don't have the will to finish this war, the lesson for the islamists is don't strike again until you can do so with a mortal blow.
Prayers.
CYP
They are on TV so they MUST be an expert on our military! Neither one knows their *ss from a hole in the ground.
It's a no brainer.
For lack of a better word, "macho" carries alot of weight in the ME. Iran (leadership) prolly wouldn't care if half their country turned into a sheet of glass, if they got in a good hit to Israel or the US first. They would see themselves etched in big letters in the muslims vs jews islamofascist history book. They've already shown as a culture(arab/muslim) they are nihilistic enough to off themselves at the drop of a hat. I'm not speaking of the Iranian students and others who are fighting for change- but they seem to be still too outnumbered as yet.
Let them chatter, obfuscate, and unintentionally create a smokescreen. In the meantime, quietly prepare for what needs to be done.
Keep telling yourself that...
Read The Time Machine.
I agree. We really do need to pray for him everyday at least once...
The bombs are already here.
They will wait for us to move against them before the detonate them.
It doesn't matter to their leadership if we nuke them back. They will have done something to us that's never been done.
It's not just you.
Bluster and puffery is the mass-murdering savages ultimate weapon. The modern version of the wild yell.
Saddam tried it, "The mother of all battles".... blah blah blah.
Unfortunately, muslims are slow learners, and as the Iran-Iraq war taught us plainly, they have no problem losing a hundred thousand soldiers to play their game ineffectively.
On the other side, human nature hasn't changed that much since the 8th century. If a horde of screaming savages approach, most modern countries would wet their pants, then the able-bodied will run, even though, today, they are unlikely to be sent to Baghdad or Istanbul to be sold at the slave market.
Then there is the political dimension; the abstract form of "he'll eat me last". Every cowardly nation will turn against the victim, as we have seen in the last couple of generations. Even the U.S., to our shame, has pressured Israel not to punish evil and mindless murder, but to negotiate with it. Why then, are we surprised that the fat, comfortable and made-to-be-slaves Euroweenies have viciously turned against the U.S., actively and covertly aiding the mass murderers?
Nuclear weapons will be used. I would rather it not be by the mass murdering cult from the 7th century first.
If history is a teacher, islam will be allowed to raise its ugly head again in two or three hundred years.
Personally, I would pre-empt that possibility this time around.
Hmmm. Tricky, this one.
How much of the bullsh*t that Ahmadinejad is spouting on the tribulations preceding the "coming of the 12th imam" does he really believe? Hard to say. If he's a true fanatic, then he could be extremely dangerous.
Then again, power is diffused through the Iranian system, so how much power would he really have to make the decision to make a nuclear first strike on Israel? I suspect that, despite the loony rhetoric, Ahmadinejad and the Iranian leadership very much want to keep on living. Suicide bombing is great when somebody else - preferably some deluded Palestinian teenager - does it.
My guess is that the Iranians will def go for a nuke, no matter what. President Bush has made it very clear that regime change in Iran is what we want and the only thing that might stay our hand is nukes in the hands of the mullahs. To them, nukes=regime survival. To us, Iranian nukes is the most compelling reason for regime change.
Which is why a head-on conflict with Iran and Israel and the US is, IMO, inevitable.
via Belmont Club, 322 pages:
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB629.pdf
There's a first (and only) time for everything, like flying loaded airliners into skyscrapers.
Personally, with nukes, I would eliminate even that first attempt.
If it must come, let it be clear:
The results to your country, and to your people, will be awesome and horrible beyond belief.
Let us then see, once we have delivered on our promise, who will be the second to attempt it.
Even the dumbest animal is never suicidal.
It requires intelligence to overcome the natural instinct for survival and commit suicide. The same intelligence allows humanity to deny the threat to its existence when the signs are all around them.
A deer would smell the danger and run.
We refuse to see, to smell, to hear.
We will not strike first. The will to survive has evaporated from the west.
We can't even admit to ourselves who is the enemy.(one of them, Islam is only one) We make up nonsense to avoid the truth. We declare a war on tactics rather than the ideology that employs those tactics.
I'm surprised we call it a war on terror when a war on massed cavalry charges would have been a surer win. Or why not a war on the throwing of hand grenades or the bolt action rifle.
Maybe because some don't want to win, but love the distant boogeyman for its own sake.
I agree. We've got troops, equipment, artillery, ect. already deployed on two sides of Iran.
If the U.S. needs to kick Iran's butt, the U.S. will kick Iran's butt.
Unless Israel does it first.
However, they obviously do not think the "new management" makes any difference.
Very well stated, and the source of frustration for many of us.
The willingness to be victims, and the subdued ones, for most people, is beyond my comprehension, however.
Clearly what you say is true, and is the main source of the disrespect that I feel for our leadership.
The war on terror, but not on the clear cause of it, islam, is beyond my comprehension.
I do realize that diplomacy plays a role in a civilized world, but when it is used as a tool for denial, and as a substitute for effective action, I part company.
Frustrated is the word.
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