Talk of military action in Iran standoff

AP ^ | 1/21/06 | JOSEF FEDERMAN

[defenderSD]

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel's defense minister hinted Saturday that the Jewish state is preparing for military action to stop Iran's nuclear program, but said international diplomacy must be the first course of action.

"Israel will not be able to accept an Iranian nuclear capability and it must have the capability to defend itself, with all that that implies, and this we are preparing," Shaul Mofaz said.

[defenderSD]

The situation is definitely heating up.

[The Mayor]

Time to turn up the heat!

[gondramB]

They need to coordinate with us - and I sure hope the President is getting good intelligence this time.

[David1]

I hope the US helps out. We are going to get blamed anyway whether we get involved or not. So might as well get involved and make sure all capabilities are exercised to take out Iranian nuke development. At least set it back a bunch of years.

[NormsRevenge]

Light the candles of FReedom, let the Iranian people be free of this Dark Ages scourge mascarading itself as a religion entity. It is nothing more than demonic in its actions and utterances.

[bnelson44]

How many nuclear development sites to they have?

Can Israel really take them all out at once?

[NormsRevenge]

Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier Gianfranco Fini, gestures during an interview with the Associated Press in the foreign ministry in Rome, Friday Jan. 20, 2006. Iran's nuclear program is testing the resolve of the international community, and the world needs a unified approach to the escalating diplomatic standoff, Fini said Friday. 'The international community must have a defined, very precise, very united strategy,' Gianfranco Fini told The Associated Press. Iran is facing possible referral to the U.N. Security Council for its refusal to give up its uranium enrichment program. The council has the power to impose economic and political sanctions. (AP Photo/Plinio Lepri)

[yldstrk]

If you can't stand the heat, get out!!!

[aft_lizard]

I hope things dont start getting biblical(literally) over there.

[RobbyS]

I have heard that we have already given them 500.

[IonInsights]

We need to give them some of our bunkerbusters, I'd guess.

Already did. Sold them 500 bunker-busters about a year ago. I believe it was posted on FR.

[zarf]

Cheney Says US Will Help Israel If War Comes

[defenderSD]

I would bet that the bunker busters are just the beginning of the weaponry we have sold or given to Israel for possible use against Iranian nuclear sites.

[joana]

I am afraid it looks like it's going in that direction

[contemplator]

If Israel take matters into their own hands in a unilateral fashion the world is in for a bumpy ride.

Assuming for a moment that Israel exercises another first strike scenario and try to take out reactor facilities. This gives Iran a pretense to do a first strike on Israel when that actually do get nukes at some point in the future. In the case of Pakistan, it could happen immediately.

OTOH let's assume that Israel decides to exercise a nuclear option and are successful in nuking Iran back to the stone age. Besides having the trouble of being able to prove that Iran had WMD's afer the fact, they then open themselves to any mid-eastern power with nukes in the future taking Israel out the moment they get them under the reasoning that they might suffer the same fate as Iran if they don't act first.

These countries are all too close to each other. In the case of the US and Russia, the distances and sizes of the countries involved assured that no matter who struck first the other would get a chance to respond and no one would win. In the Middle East the one who pulls the trigger first wins, the other side has no time to respond.

From an Arab-centric perspective, wiping Israel off of the map is worth it even at the cost of losing one of their countries especially if it isn't Arabs but Persians who sacrifice themselves. They know the world isn't going to take them all out, it needs the oil too badly. This is a part of the world that is used to having it's conflicts end in disasters of biblical proportions (pun intended).

No matter how you slice it, this is going to get hairy.

[burzum]

Israel needs to keep quiet. If they need to act, then they should act. But threats are not going to help the rest of the world deal with Iran. If Israel threatens Iran, they Iran is just going to be more arrogant than before. There is only one country that can threaten Iran and potentially have results, and that is the US. This uncoordinated diplomacy is just going to make the situation fire up faster than before.

Now as far as threats from the US, we should start moving aircraft carriers and building up forces. We don't need words. Translating the movement of military resources into Arabic is much easier than the translation of our diplomatic English into Arabic.

[Starve The Beast]

The situation is definitely heating up.

Here's something else that's heating up.

For the last few months all of my Lefty friends (I live near the San Francisco Bay Area) have been getting more and more agitated about how Iran isn't building bombs to use against Israel. Most of them aren't in denial about Iran building nukes, but they're being fed all kinds of alternative theories for why Iran is building them.

Here's why: Israel is fast approaching a point where its only alternatives are to attack Iran or be destroyed. When Israel makes its move, the leaders of the global Left will want the useful idiots rioting over the unprovoked aggression of the Jews against their peaceful Muslim neighbors. The propaganda they're getting now is prepositioning so that they'll act the way they're supposed to when the balloon goes up.

I'm getting a big Israeli flag to display in my window when it all happens, just to show my support (and no, I'm not Jewish). We Freepers should plan public pro-Israel demonstrations when the inevitable comes to pass.

[Semper Paratus]

I can see only one scenario with a relatively nonviolent ending and that's a military coup in Iran.

But that would be a true 'Deus-ex-machina".