gray wolf

Hmm how is Iran a threat,Iran has two things to export sand and oil, seeing there is little demand for sand that leaves only the oil.Now how long do you think they could get by if they stopped selling thier oil,perhaps 30 days no longer.
Even if Iran had the bomb who would she use it on, not Isreal for they also have the bomb courtesy of the U.S. and Iran know's that they would also get nuked if they used it.Iran says they want a nuclear free middle east,so lets go in and remove Isreals nuclear capability then Iran will have her wish...

gray wolf

Sorry my friend but we are getting freaking ass kicked in Iraq and you want to attack Iran,how many armies do you think we can loose at one sitting.
We have lost how many in Iraq killed how many of them,6 years of war how many billions of dollars and now looking for away to get out and save face.Yep just like Nam your face my ass and a bunch of politicans (Joint Chiefs) running the show,switching generals like they do thier undies,yep hang in there things are looking better, send in a surge give them more targets to shoot at and if that ain't good enough we will attack Iran oh hell throw in Syria too..

zraver

It does not matter how they would suffer, but how we would suffer. The fact that Iran has systematically built up the ability to shut off the oil spigot is a threat.

Israel did not ge tthe nuke from us.. Isreal git its nuke technology from the French.

We have not bene defeated in Iraq, what we are suffeirng is a loss of political will in Washington. I guess you missed the stories where insurgent groups have joined the politcal process and are now helping hunt Al Queda. Our losses in Iraq are the lowest on any major war in history. 3600 dead in 4 years is very light. By comparison US Doctors kill nearly a quarter million (200,000+) Americans a year so since the war started 3600 Americans have died in combat and 800,000 have died via malpractice.

gray wolf

Well yes and no the 3600 are the ones killed at the point of contact once they are removed from there as wounded and then die they are no longer considered as a war casulity,tricky little bastards ain't they.
Yes I have read the STORIES which to the greatest extent is what they remain only stories,put out today gone tomorrow never verified,we have the worst reporting in Iraq of any conflict we have been involved in,for you see my friend they still blame the defeat in Nam on the press,never again they vowed will the press or media ever be permitted to actuly report the truth of whats going on nor the people see the real death and destruction that we have created.Lost the political will in Washington you say,they have been at it for 6 years,congress has given them everything they ask for (we wouldn't want to be call unpatroitic would we),remember Bushs party has been in power all during that time,no if we are there for the next 20 years it will still end up the same way.
You lost me on the malpractice as there is no bearing of one upon the other unless you are implying that doctors kill by mistake while in this war the killing is intentional..
Strange its a well proven fact Al Queda never existed in Iraq until we attacked them,you see we have to bame it on something probably the horses and donkeys in Iraq are considered Al Queda much like the old head count system used in Nam where if they killed five they multiplied it by four to infate the process,its called winning the hearts and the minds..

Shek

False.

False again. AQI in its previous form certainly wasn't robust at all, and it has grown thanks to our inept Phase IV planning and execution, but is not a proven fact that they didn't exist. Was Zarqawi a figment of everyone's imagination? Maybe if you didn't suffer from the carnage he created.

Anyways, this is somewhat of a red herring anyways, as there were other terrorists within Iraq's borders in 2003.

__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

gray wolf

Shek

Gray Wolf,

Here is an example of a soldier who died of wounds outside of Iraq and is counted in the official tally of KIA.

This is not the first time that you've posted to the boards with completely unsubstantiated and false claims.

If you continue to troll, you will find yourself listening to Aerosmith's 1987 hit album.

Offer your evidence when you make your claims and demonstrate logical deduction, and you'll be just fine.

gray wolf

Sorry friend THERE has been numerous articals on reputable site's including newspapers which have stated eactly what I just said.As far as claims I claim nothing except for what I read,try it it refreshs the mind...

Shek

What refreshes my mind is banning trolls who waste WAB bandwidth with unsubstantiated and empty claims.

zraver

He begged for it.

Swift Sword

Anybody being groomed for greatness is not politically expendable enough to open such initiative.

The thing to do is get on the phone to Halliburton and get the name of the guy from KBR who handled their dealings with Iran. Have him give us the name of the parties inside of Iran who were self-interested enough do do business with the Great Satan.

Then, we canvass our lists for some Assistant Undersecretary to Somebody Not Particularly Important Who Nobody Ever Heard Of and send him as special envoy to talk to these particular Iranians.

Maybe, maybe not.

A few years ago before the Iraq thing was under way, all of the so called "Rogue States" spent probably $90 billon on defense and security--say $100 billion for sake of argument. The United States proceeded to pass a half a trillion dollar defense budget.

Something tells me that this does not add up when one employs "frontier arithmetic".

If Iran is as much of a threat as people say she is, has most of the offsetting capabilities people say she does and is not being constrained by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, than why am I not dead or at least walking?

We chose not to sanction the right people and our dialogue is just like any other talk: cheap, so we use a lot of it. What realisitic, concrete initiatives have we put forward and made good on for all the talk?

Whether we bomb the Iranians or engineer an accomadation with them, one thing is for certain: actions will speak louder than words.

Objectively, it would appear that the Reagan Administration engaged in arms sales to the Iranians and used the proceeds to fund terrorist groups elsewhere in the World.

If we could sell them weapons, we should certainly be able to at least talk to them, don't you think?

Butter may have a more lasting and meaningful effect then guns (but I would keep the gun on the table until the deal was done, naturally).

Political civil war or no, the next government is going to be faced with many, if not all, of the same policy imperatives as the current government.

Be that as it may, it might be time for a paradigm shift; the stakes are awful high.

We have to "run what we brung" at this point.

As to good will, I have heard if said that "if you wish to gain the trust of the untrustworthy, you have to trust them".

Flip 'em a bone, not a cut of meat, and see if they do something concrete. If not, no cut of meat.

In lieu of good will, a good gesture might do.

Those airbases might not be too useful.

Maliki and Karzai would arguably be enaging in an act of war against Iran if they allowed the U.S. to use those bases to strike Iran.

Something tells me the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan know the U.S. is not going to stay forever and would rather not have bad relations with the Iranians when we leave.

Forward deployment actually constrains the U.S. in a manner that the previous managements of Iraq and Afghanistan were not.

The tankers are not the only targets and many of the best and softest targets are on the coast opposite.

Tankers can be made to not sail without getting anywhere near them.

Mechanically, that is not a particularly stable orbit and I suspect it might be readily perturbed by an appropriate gravitational influence.

Fact of the matter is that, if the situation is as it seems, in the medium to long term, Russian and Iranian interests are opposing rather than complimentary.

Like ODS, the campaign agains Serbia was for limited, realistic, acheivable objectives with a low risk of blowback and the action was taken in a diplomatic climate that was particularly favorable.

Agreed, in general, but IIRC, it was a desire for war and a misconception of what the costs were to be that lead to the outbreak of hostilities, no pressing need.

Same/same if you are a grass eating North Korean: the U.S. will not help make you free.

I am not so sure the Punic Wars were all that great for Rome.

But parts of the Middle East and Central Asia were strategically important enough to encourage both the Russians and the English to meddle for many years from the 1790s as well as engage in outright confrontation.

I would not bank on that.

Agreed, but the ascendancy of gas is part of the fall of oil.

Half of the gas in the World is in Russia, Qatar and Iran. A resurgent Russia combined with a hostile or at leas non engaged Iran is going to exasperate this situation as far as U.S. and allied interests are concerned.

Are we sure?

Our interests with regards to Iran go much further than nuclear proliferation.

We should not throw away the whole game by fixating on nukes alone; they might, arguably be the minor, not the major component of our agenda.

Decisive action need not be military action and we do not neccessarily have to make a particular course of action unprofitable when we can make another course of action more profitable.

In the grand scheme of things, I suspect the Russians get more out of Iran than they do out of Syria.

Too, a Lebanese solution would really cramp Syria.

Agreed, I just do not see force moving them where we want them to be.

Positive, well informed actions might, more rhetoric will not, I agree.

Bombing our way to security in the Middle East might, based on historical experience, is probably a pipe dream in its own right. How much ordnance has been expended there over the last fifty years by all parties and we still have security issues?

A. Sand shifts;

B. Even if Iran dtermines the outcome, we can have a suitable contingency plan.

As to your contention that fear should be the basis of a relationship with Iran, it is fear that is driving this crisis in the first place: our fear of them and whatever fear is driving them pell mell to acquire the capability.

Rational thought and behavior, not fear, is going to bring a satisfactory conclusion, IMO.

Regards,

William

__________________
Pharoh was pimp but now he is dead. What are you going to do today?

USAUSAUSA

I don't think we can reach a deal with them. They don't have a power hungry dictatorship, they are lead by fanatics that will do anything to meat their objective.


As for invading, I think we lose a few hundred soldiers in the invasion, then take Iran in around 4 months. But the trick would be winning the peace. The American public can't stand just sitting around while our men are picked apart by guerillas.

Thought, no Iranian government supplies messing up Iraq would be a giant help and would probably starve the insurgents sooner or later.




I think the US military could do, it would just take for ever to give self staining ability to the two countries. We would either need a draft or heavy NATO and Israel support to have a chance in the peace.


But at this point in time, it is not yet a political option.

Ray

Given the fact that Iran is hell bent on enriching uranium, it is no surprise that all concerned are sick with worry and are seeking avenues to persuade Iran to have better sense.

Notwithstanding this desire, Iran cannot be sewed up in the bag in four weeks or any number of weeks.

One must realise that to invade a country, the invader requires troops. Right now, the bottom of the barrel has been scraped to merely hang around Iraq and Afghanistan in a cognisable manner and the cost is very high!

Most armies involved are overstretched. Any further tweaking can have serious effect on the morale of the troops. No soldier, anywhere in the world, likes to go on enemy bashing without seeing an end result on the horizon. Right now, there is no end result looming, even though success in skirmishes are there, which is not enough.

The continuous fighting without any end result looming leads to things being routine and boredom sets in and with that carelessness, which leads to more lives being lost. The sum total thereafter is low morale. It is aggravated with combat isolation and long tenures that leads to anxiety. Not a happy state for any soldier to be in for combat efficiency.

Now, if with some mathematical jugglery, troops can be scrounged from the ongoing theatres, maybe Iran could be invaded. But that would leave Iraq and Afghanistan understrengthed. This would be an excellent opportunity for the terrorists to get greater and more spectacular results than what they are achieving. This, in turn, will lower the already plummeting morale of the nations!

Then, if after invading Iran, another Iraq like situation takes hold in Iran, then it can be well imagined what will happen.

Therefore, while the natural reaction is to invade, in actuality of the ground situation, it is not advocated!

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

S-2

The latest. A series of stonings (I presume) are planned for twenty plus males convicted of...adultery.

To the death, evidently. Not pleasant but the morality cops at the casbah want no rocking.

Careful Who You Sleep With in Tehran

I'd think that the French will be absolutely up in arms over this turn of events.

__________________
"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

Swift Sword

[quote=S-2;388820]

You funny guy !