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Why Iran has it coming
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Kuros

Joined: 27 Apr 2004

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:27 pm Post subject: Re: ...

Bulsajo wrote:

Rapier, anyone who talks of "invading" Iran is an utter moron.
It shouldn't even be necessary to explain why, but I expect you'll be the exception that proves the rule.

And for the article in the OP, if and when Iran- with one of the largest oil reserves in the world- dries up, then I suspect we will all have a whole bunch of major worries other than Iran's regional designs towards its neighbours.

No, invading Iran and occupying it wouldn't be a good idea. What's under debate is should Iran be militarily defanged by force. Friedman makes some good counterpoint (altho his article was published first), as to why Iran might want the US to attack. I appreciate his views, but I still wonder if Spengler's position still holds, that as unfortunate as an attack would be, the alternative might be worse.

I would argue that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, they will likely use it to shield their conventional forces from reprisal as they exercise their local hegemonic ambitions. And this will be a concern as even if the US builds a Manhattan Project on alternative energy, the West will still need the oil that's left in the gulf.

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee

Joined: 25 May 2003

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:25 pm Post subject: Re: ...

Nowhere Man wrote:

Quote:

can you warmonger against a nation that has been at war with you?

Right, I forgot about that. Excellent point. My heart cries out for all those lost in our on-going war with Iran. All the troops the evil Iranians have killed. I see. I see. They are clearly unwarmongerable if they were already at war with us.

But, good point. Let's not be warmongerin' them if they are indeed unwarmongerable. I like dinner dates and dog biscuits.

I have many other ways of seeing at my disposal.

I have a garbage disposal...

Shipment of high explosives intercepted in Iraq
Most sophisticated of roadside bombs reportedly coming from Iran
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8829929/

9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between al-Qaeda and Iran
Senior U.S. officials have told TIME that the 9/11 Commission's report will cite evidence suggesting that the 9/11 hijackers had previously passed through Iran

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,664967,00.html

Quote:

On June 25, 1996, Iran again attacked America at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, exploding a huge truck bomb that devastated Khobar Towers and murdered 19 U.S. airmen as they rested in their dormitory. These young heroes spent every day risking their lives enforcing the no-fly zone over southern Iraq; that is, protecting Iraqi Shiites from their own murderous tyrant. When I visited this horrific scene soon after the attack, I watched dozens of dedicated FBI agents combing through the wreckage in 120-degree heat, reverently handling the human remains of our brave young men. More than 400 of our Air Force men and women were wounded in this well-planned attack, and I was humbled by their courage and spirit. I later met with the families of our lost Khobar heroes and promised that we would do whatever was necessary to bring these terrorists to American justice. The courage and dignity these wonderful families have consistently exemplified has been one of the most powerful experiences of my 26 years of public service.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003518

Iran responsible for 1983 Marine barracks bombing, judge rules
Friday, May 30, 2003 Posted: 11:14 PM EDT (0314 GMT)
Marines search through the rubble for their missing comrades after the 1983 barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iran is responsible for the 1983 suicide bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 241 American servicemen, a U.S. District Court judge ruled Friday.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/30/iran.barracks.bombing/

Amir Taheri: Khomeinists hammering new strategy to oust 'Great Satan'

Quote:

But at almost exactly the same time, militants from some 40 countries spread across the globe were trekking to Tehran for a 10-day "revolutionary jamboree" in which "a new strategy to confront the American Great Satan" will be hammered out. The event is scheduled to start on February 1 to mark the 25th anniversary of the return to Iran from exile of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the "Islamic Revolution".

It is not clear how many militants will attend, but the official media promise a massive turnout to underline the Islamic Republic's position as the "throbbing heart of world resistance to American arrogance."

The guest list reads like a who-is-who of global terror.

In fact, most of the organisations attending the event, labelled "Ten-Days of Dawn", are branded by the US and some European Union members as terrorist outfits. For more than two decades, Tehran has been a magnet for militant groups from many different national and ideological backgrounds.

The Islamic Republic's hospitality cuts across even religious divides. Militant Sunni organisations, including two linked to Al Qaida, Ansar al-Islam (Companions of Islam) and Hizb Islami (The Islamic Party), enjoy Iranian hospitality.

They are joined by Latin American guerrilla outfits, clandestine Irish organisations, Basque and Corsican separatists, and a variety of leftist groups from Spartacists to Trotskyites and Guevarists. Tehran is the only capital where all the Palestinian militant movements have offices and, in some cases, training and financial facilities.

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/04/01/28/109235.html

Nah Iran hasn't been engaged in a war against the US Rolling Eyes

I guess you would pretend not to see.

Well anyway I guess now by your definition Kuros isn't a warmonger . Thanks.

Bulsajo

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 7:47 am Post subject:

Kuros wrote:

I appreciate his views, but I still wonder if Spengler's position still holds, that as unfortunate as an attack would be, the alternative might be worse.

Well, that's the key, isn't it?
The answer that we never know until we have the perspective of looking back with 20/20 hindsight- which is the lesser of the two evils?

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:33 pm Post subject:

[deleted] Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:43 pm; edited 1 time in total

laogaiguk

Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 4:00 pm Post subject:

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/01/25/military.studies/index.html

America can't invade Iran now, and should only if they really started doing some wacky nuclear stuff (which would be out of pure necessity, not intelligence)
On a different note, I love this quote from Rumsfield in the article...

Quote:

Rumsfeld said he has not read the study but took issue with its conclusions.

Good job there Wink

bignate

Joined: 30 Apr 2003
Location: Hell's Ditch

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 4:18 pm Post subject:

Now this truely could get interesting.....

Iran accuses West over bombs

Quote:

From Associated Press

Iran blamed Britain and the US for two bombings on Tuesday that killed at least nine people and injured forty-six others in the southwestern city of Ahvaz.
State television reported that President Ahmadinejad had ordered an investigation into the possibility that ��foreign hands�� were responsible. He said: ��Traces of the occupiers of Iraq are evident in the Ahvaz events. They should take responsibility in this regard.��

He did not offer evidence to support his assertion. Ahvaz is the capital of Khuzestan, an oil-rich province that borders Iraq. The bombs detonated inside a bank and outside an environmental agency building, the state news agency reported.

Bulsajo

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:09 pm Post subject:

Do they mean 'British-made weapons' here? It wouldn't be the first time that hints of some sort of cross-border weapons smuggling is going on...

bignate

Joined: 30 Apr 2003
Location: Hell's Ditch

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:19 pm Post subject:

Bulsajo wrote:

Do they mean 'British-made weapons' here? It wouldn't be the first time that hints of some sort of cross-border weapons smuggling is going on...

I think it is rather that the Iranians are taking the piss..... a sort of rebutle to the US and UK blaming the US for being involved in some of the bombings occurring in Iraq....

Sort of to give them a little prod about their whining about being the target of Islamic ire, while they are occupying Iraq.

The point vary well maybe....bombs find their way into the hands of bad people, regardless of their origination.

It also may be that they are trying to make a point that there may be some support of the Iranian Arab population there from the West, and that the Iranian government is aware of it....

What ever it is, I still think it should be interesting...

Kuros

Joined: 27 Apr 2004

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 11:35 pm Post subject:

bignate wrote:

Now this truely could get interesting.....

Iran accuses West over bombs

Quote:

I'm riveted.

Nowhere Man

Joined: 08 Feb 2004

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 5:17 am Post subject: ...

Quote:

Joo: it is pointless to attempt to reason with Nowhere Man. He's a U.S.-hater, a very bitter U.S.-hater.

You would make a great communist. Wink

And again, this is the same pap that I heard from people in pre-war 2003.
And again, you're another one of the 2003 warpuppies, aren't you?
Gopher teaching Joo about me is, I must say, quite amusing.

Perhaps Joo will teach you the cut-and-paste function, Goph.

Meanwhile, I don't really want to spread across numerous threads what could be contained in one.

Goph, rather than randomly inserting yourself into a thread to take a dig at me, why don't we carry on this discussion here:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=50585&start=15&sid=12bb91f71fc90888220f2aec2f69cb40

Unless, of course, you forgot to include the bit that you, like Joo, are down with the "We're already at war with Iran" silliness that Joo calls logic.

Or down with the "Iran will be out of oil, so they will attack their neighbors who, if a thing called logic can follow will also be out of oil, for oil".

Bucheon, that is what I'm attacking. Not the prospect that Iran is a nice country, I just don't see them attacking their neighbors for oil (see logic above). That was the rationale of the OP.

And what I do see in a thread entitled "Iran has it coming" is the wind-up for another war.

Laogai's point that the US can't afford another war assumes that we have an administration that is coherent and rational. We don't.

Rummy came out today to say that troops aren't spread too thin.

It would be very easy to "Aghanistan" Iraq and send troops into Iran, then let the nest president sort it all out.

Responsibility hasn't been a noteworthy component of the past 6 years. Gambling has.

And I'm not going to sit here and be quiet while the same pseudo-liberal war morons start burbling about the need for pre-emptive attacks.

Again, not in self-defense, but because of the "imminent/grave/gathering" danger.

But this propaganda takes the cake:

Quote:

We're already at war with Iran.

Quote:

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.

- George Orwell

Kuros

Joined: 27 Apr 2004

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 6:01 am Post subject:

Nowhere Man wrote:

And again, this is the same pap that I heard from people in pre-war 2003.

Very nice. You are taking a different situation and using the 'I told you so' stance of a liberal vindicated by Bush's poor decision to go to war in Iraq and applying it to Iran.

The problem with defending the article is that Spengler has actually written extensively on why Iran will become expansionist and seeks to become a regional hegemon, he just hasn't space for all that reasoning in the present article.

When self-immolation is a rational choice

Quote:

The trouble is that entire peoples frequently find themselves faced with probable or inevitable ruin, such that no peaceful solution can be found. Situations of this sort have arisen frequently in history, but never as frequently as today, when 90% of the world's languages are not expected to survive the next century. A people facing cultural extinction typically will choose war, if war offers even a slim chance of survival.

Paradoxically, it is possible for wars of annihilation to stem from rational choice, for the range of choices always must be bounded by the supposition that the chooser will continue to exist. Existential criteria, that is, trump the ordinary calculus of success and failure. If one or more of the parties knows that peace implies the end of its existence, there exists no motive to return to peace. That explains why the majority of casualties in such wars are suffered long after all hope of victory has disappeared (see More killing, please!, June 12, 2003). Democratic governments are quite capable of taking such an apocalyptic direction.

That is why Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is the Islamic world's pre-eminent democrat, telling the Islamic masses what they want to hear while the tyrants and autocrats of neighboring lands growl indistinctly through their American-made muzzles.

The landslide victor in June's presidential poll, Ahmadinejad heads a new generation of elected fanatics. By the same token, Hamas represents the popular will in Gaza and the West Bank. A majority of Palestinian Arabs now support an Islamist party committed to destroying Israel by means of terror. Regarding the participation of Hamas in Palestinian elections, President George W Bush said earlier this year, "I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes." The trouble is that the West Bank as a whole is a pothole, and not fixable.

Ahmadinejad's threats to wipe Israel off the map and deriding as "myth" the murder of 6 million European Jews appeals to the Islamic electorate. Popular sovereignty in the Arab and Persian spheres favors the war party. The Iranian president grasps this elementary truth, which makes him a far more effective force in the Middle East than the Bush administration. As it is presently constituted, Iran has no future, and the Islamic world broadly faces a social crisis of lethal proportions (The demographics of radical Islam, August 23, 2005). Within the Islamic framework, war represents the sort of rational choice that popular majorities will embrace.

And going even further back...

Demographics and Iran's imperial design

Quote:

Aging populations will cause severe discomfort in the United States and extreme pain in Japan and Europe by mid-century. But the same trends will devastate the frail economies of the Islamic world, and likely plunge many countries into social chaos.

By 2050, elderly dependents will comprise nearly a third of the population of some Muslim nations, notably Iran - converging on America's dependency ratio at mid-century. But it is one thing to face such a problem with America's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $40,000, and quite another to face it with Iran's per capita GDP of $7,000 - especially given that Iran will stop exporting oil before the population crisis hits.

The industrial nations face the prospective failure of their pension systems. But what will happen to countries that have no pension system, where traditional society assumes the care of the aged and infirm? In these cases it is traditional society that will break down, horribly and irretrievably so. Below, I will review the relevant numbers.

In a recent essay, I argued that declining Muslim population growth rates give the Islamists just one generation in which to strike out for their goal of global theocracy (The demographics of radical Islam, August 23). Muslim birth rates are collapsing as literacy rises, that is, as the modern world intrudes upon traditional society. Islamic traditional society is so fragile that it crumbles as soon as women learn to read.

But the Islamists will not wait for traditional society to unravel. I grossly underestimated Iran's new president Mahmud Ahmadinejad in a report on the Iranian elections (Iran: The living fossils' vengeance, June 2 Cool

.

In programs made public on August 15, Ahmadinejad revealed a response worthy of Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin to the inevitable unraveling of Iran's traditional society. He proposes to reduce the number of villages from 66,000 to only 10,000, relocating 30 million Iranians. That is a preemptive response to the inevitable depopulation of rural Iran, in keeping with a totalitarian program for all aspects of Iranian society.

As Amir Taheri wrote in Arab News on August 20, "He [Ahmadinejad] wants the state to play a central role in all aspects of people's lives and emphasizes the importance of central planning. The state would follow the citizens from birth to death, ensuring their health, education, well-being and leisure. It will guide them as to what to read and write and what 'cultural products' to consume so as not to be contaminated by Western ideas."

Reengineering the shape of Iran's population, the central plank of the new government's domestic program, should be understood as the flip side of Iran's nuclear coin. Aggressive relocation of Iranians and an aggressive foreign policy both constitute a response to the coming crisis.

Iran claims that it must develop nuclear power to replace diminishing oil exports. It seems clear that Iranian exports will fall sharply, perhaps to zero by 2020, according to Iranian estimates. But Iran's motives for acquiring nuclear power are not only economic but strategic. Like Hitler and Stalin, Ahmadinejad looks to imperial expansion as a solution for economic crisis at home.

Iran wants effective control of Iraq through its ascendant Shi'ite majority, and ultimately control of the oil-rich regions of western Saudi Arabia, where Shi'ites form a majority. As Pepe Escobar reported from Tehran (Iran takes over Pipelineistan , Sep 10), Ahmadinejad wants to make Iran a regional power not only in production but in transmission, through a proposed oil pipeline through Iraq and Syria.

This may appear to be a desperate gamble, but conditions call for desperate gambles. Ahmadinejad is not a throwback, as I wrote with a dismissiveness that seems painful in hindsight. He has taken the measure of his country's crisis, and determined to meet it head-on. Washington, from what I can tell, has no idea what sort of opponent it confronts. Iranian dissidents were supposed to push their country toward democratization, following the glasnost model of Soviet deterioration, and contagion from the new democracy in Iraq was supposed to hasten the process. Ahmadinejad's ascendancy took Washington by complete surprise. Now there is nothing obvious the US can do to reduce Iran's influence among Iraqi Shi'ites, or to prevent Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions.

The rising elderly dependent ratio, that is, the proportion of pensioners in the general population, has given rise to a genre of apocalyptic literature in the West: governments will raise taxes, debase the currency, cut pensions and flail about hopelessly as the cost rises of supporting the rising number of aged. In the US, pensioners now are 18% of the population, but will become 33% by 2050, according to the United Nations' medium forecast. In other words, a full additional 15% of the population will require support from the remaining population.

Shifting a full 15% of the population from the ranks of the working to the ranks of the retired will place an uncomfortable burden on American taxpayers, to be sure. But the shift in the case of Muslim countries is much worse. Between 2005 and 2050, the shift from workers to pensioners will comprise 21% of Iranians, 19% of Turks and Indonesians, and 20% of Algerians. That is almost as bad as the German predicament, where the proportion of dependent elderly will rise from 28% in 2005 to 50% in 2050.

Each employed German worker will have to support a pensioner in 2050. A simple way to express the problem is that German productivity must rise by 0.8% per year between now and 2050 simply to maintain the same standard of living, for that is the rate of productivity growth that would allow a smaller number of German workers to produce the same amount of goods and services. That is not inconceivable; during the 1990s, German productivity grew at such levels. Productivity growth in the Arab world and Iran has been low or negative, and is not likely to improve.

As I observed in my June analysis of Iran's presidential election, "From an economic standpoint, Iran is a changeling monster, an oil well attached to an iron lung, as it were, maintaining with subsidies a rural population that is no longer viable. Oil and natural gas earn $1,300 a year for each Iranian, roughly a fifth of per-capita GDP. The Islamic republic dispenses this wealth to keep alive a moribund economy. Government spending has risen by four-and-a-half times during the past four years, financed via the central bank's printing press, pushing inflation up to 15% pa [per annum], while unemployment remains at 11%."

Iran's ultra-Islamist government has no hope of ameliorating the crisis through productivity growth. Instead it proposes totalitarian methods that will not reduce the pain, but only squelch the screams. Iran envisages a regional Shi'ite empire backed by nuclear weaponry. And Washington, from what I can tell, has not a clue as to what is happening.

Apart from Iran, the population dynamics described above will lead to more rather than fewer terrorist demonstrations. A school of thought represented by Daniel Pipes, for example, holds that "terrorism obstructs the quiet work of political Islamism", as Pipes wrote on August 3 in the New York Sun. "In tranquil times, organizations like the Muslim Council of Britain and the Council on American-Islamic Relations effectively go about their business, promoting their agenda to make Islam dominant and imposing dhimmitude (whereby non-Muslims accept Islamic superiority and Muslim privilege). Westerners generally respond like slowly boiled frogs are supposed to, not noticing a thing."

Here I think Pipes is wrong; the Islamists have to strike quickly and decisively, not only to advance their cause in the West but also to consolidate their power in home countries where conditions will become unstable before long.

The reason that Iran will attack it's neighbors for oil is because their economy is oil, and their economic situation is pretty bleak. They won't make any productivity gains and their economy is not becoming modernized, partly because they are cut-off from the rest of the world, particularly the United States, because of the actions Joo listed earlier. There are elements in Iran that wanted an opening and a different solution to the long-term problem that Iran faces, such as Rasafajani. But he has been outmaneuvered by Ahmedijehad, who is appearing to be a diplomatic novice as he purges all of his political opponents in Iran, particularly Rasafajani's faction, as he baits the US as per Friedman's analysis.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 12:17 pm Post subject:

[deleted] Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee

Joined: 25 May 2003

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:49 pm Post subject: Re: ...

Quote:

You would make a great communist. Wink

If they were against Bush then perhaps you would side with them too, after all you lawyer for Igotthisguitar cause he is against Bush too.

Quote:

And I'm not going to sit here and be quiet while the same pseudo-liberal war morons start burbling about the need for pre-emptive attacks

.

well Gee whiz if Saddam gave up his war then there would have been no war.

Quote:

Again, not in self-defense, but because of the "imminent/grave/gathering" danger.

Nowhereman said:

Quote:

But this propaganda takes the cake:

Quote:

We're already at war with Iran.

Iran has been attacking the US for a long time.
Yes or no?

Shipment of high explosives intercepted in Iraq
Most sophisticated of roadside bombs reportedly coming from Iran
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8829929/

9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between al-Qaeda and Iran
Senior U.S. officials have told TIME that the 9/11 Commission's report will cite evidence suggesting that the 9/11 hijackers had previously passed through Iran

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,664967,00.html

Quote:

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/04/01/28/109235.html

I don't think bombing Iran is what the US ought to do , Kenneth Pollack says that is not the best course of action and I agree. but lets be clear Iran or to be more precise - its government and its revolutionary guards deserve to be bombed for what they have done and what they continue to do.

For 25 years Bathists Khomeni lovers and Bin Laden followers have been attacking the US. They never gave up their war. They don't have a right to their war. Let them give up their war. The fact that they won't give up their war or their revolutionary agenda is the real problem. not the US.

Al Qaida fights for the Caliphate.

Saddam fought to conquer the mideast

Khomeni fought to conquer the mideast to inspire revolutions through muslim nations. He even had the overseas translators of the Satanic verses killed in nations as far away as Japan.

Say its not so.
(If you do then you will be asked to show otherwise. )

You won't be able to .

So tell us why you weren't aware of it? Cause you don't care. Seems you were far more interested in blaming the US. By the way maybe problem isn't the cut and paste but rather that you are mad that such info was made public.

You don't like anyone posting what you can't refute.

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:23 pm Post subject:

this is the thread where I wanted to say: I recommend "See No Evil" by Robert Baer. He's a former CIA spy who connected Iran to the Beirut bombing in 1983.

AbbeFaria

Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: Gangnam

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 11:24 pm Post subject:

What They Don't Want You to Know In order to understand Iranian Nuclear ambitions you need to realize that everything is controlled by a Hassidic Jews for universal circumcision made up of hairless albino mexicans with help from Hamas. The conspiracy first started during Superbowl IX in Hoboken, New Jersey. They have been responsible for many events throughout history, including the Six Day War. Today, members of the conspiracy are everywhere. They can be identified by dirty turbins and compulsive ear wiggling. They want to cut off the hand of Ariel Sharon and imprison resisters in Tehran using lame camels. In order to prepare for this, we all must lock and load. Since the media is controlled by French nationalists we should get our information from Bush's left testicle. What do you say about that, Nowwhere Man. -S-

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