Posted on 07/07/2019 7:27:06 PM PDT by Farcesensitive
Iran is a conservative state in a region otherwise awash in radicalism. Any military action undertaken by the United States or its allies against the regime in Tehran will represent a grave error.
Sponsorship of terror organizations or extremist groups is a hallmark of nearly all Middle Eastern states. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait have both lent financial and material support to Sunni extremist groups involved in the Syrian Civil war, Yet both remain in good standing as U.S. allies. Even Israel has aided rebels groups in Syria near its border, though Jerusalem denies that it is supporting extremists. Iran is not beyond reproach, for it has maintained relationships with Hezbollah and Hamas. However, these groups, while on the State Department’s terrorist list, do not threaten the United States.
(This first appeared in June 2019.)
The claim that the Iranian regime harbors or supports Al Qaeda is patently absurd and easily disproven.
Prior to the start of the Global War on Terror, Iran supported the foremost adversary of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the confederation of warlords known as the Northern Alliance. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Iranian government handed over photocopies of three hundred passports associated with suspected Al Qaeda members to the United Nations. Of these three hundred, many would be forcibly deported back to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. In an additional gesture of good will, the Iranian regime offered to provide search and rescue support, humanitarian relief and targeting assistance in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda to then-Deputy Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Ryan Crocker. America was initially receptive, accepting Iranian assistance in the Bonn Conference that oversaw the creation of the post-Taliban Afghan government.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
America would lose on both counts.
Really depends on how you choose to define these terms.
You really like the Mullahs.
Conservative Muslims preach "Death to America".
Conservative in what way?
They have been radically aggressive in search of influence and territory since the fall of the Shah.
Doesn’t Iran sponsor Hamas?
In the words of that immortal foreign policy expert, Billy Joel,
“You may be right. I might be crazy. But it just might be a lunatic you’re looking for.”
“Doesn’t Iran sponsor Hamas?”
Article claims Hamas does not threaten the US.
All this war talk is meaningless. I think Trump is trolling these ragheads and keeping them on edge. You can carry a gun but you don’t have to use it to defuse situations.
Huh? Wut?
I vote we kick their ass and take their gas!!
We all have our own opinions on war and international conflict, but the fact of the matter is only the President and his security team has all the information to come to that decision.
Much of that information we are not privy to, and neither is the press.
That is exactly why we have to have a Commander-in-Chief we can trust. So the only question is: do you trust this President’s judgement?
That’s a cheap shot, I don’t like them and I don’t like many different regimes around the world but that doesn’t mean that it would be good for America to run around destroying every country I don’t like, there are much worse groups out there that would benefit.
Conservative in that they foster much less violence and chaos than many other states in the region and than those that would likely benefit from their downfall.
Every time you meddle in the region you make things worse, if Carter hadn’t decided to meddle the Shah would still be there instead of the current regime.
It is very telling how many pro Iranian articles are appearing in the last month in American media. Virtually none discuss the inherent hostility the mullahs exhibit to America and its allies and the danger of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. While it is true that most Americans do not wish another US war in the region, most do not value the hostage taking medieval mullahs or the regime that supplied so many IEDs and arms that killed and maimed many Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is obvious that this concerted propaganda effort is being made because the sanctions are such a powerful smokeless weapon. The mullah regime is very hard pressed. There is ruinous inflation, social unrest and food shortages within Iran as the sale of their oil and access to international banking has been severely crimped by the sanctions. The mullah frustration is growing. It is extremely unlikely that the US will draw first blood, which historically is almost always a long term detriment. However a single, agitated jihadist junior Revolutionary Guard officer could initiate the conflagration so devoutly wished by the neo cons and others.
That’s mentioned in the article if you go there and read it.
When was the last time Hamas attacked America?
I do more than any other POTUS in my lifetime and he seems to agree that war with Iran is a bad idea.
you’re right, let’s wait till they have the bomb and ICBMs
Okay.
Maybe we just hit them in the head with a rock and see what happens...
Stopped reading this BS right there.
Both Bob and Scott are libertarian antiwar types. This sort of thinking allows social pathologies to grow and become existentially dangerous.
The incredibly disasterus Jimmy Carter really brought you the Islamic state and Obongo made it worse. Left alone they will develop atomic weapons.
Keep clearly in mind that if they get the bomb they are crazy enough to use it.
Iran got the chance to kill and maim Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan because we made the mistake of staying in Afghanistan and the worse blunder of invading Iraq at all.
I have no love for the Iranian lunatics but based on their actions I think they would prefer us to attack and I don’t think we should accommodate them.
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