The coming Crisis
I'll try to write more on this later but i am too busy to do the amount of reseach needed to get all of my facts and quotes straight. The big issue here, is Iran. And it might not be the US thats causes it. The problem we are looking at here is 2-fold. The first is Iran's running around the UN inspections, reported repeatidly by the IAEA. (International Atomic Energy Association). The only reason that Iran has not gone to the security council for discussions of sanctions or even resolutions is that Russia has said it will not support and will indeed veto anything of the kind and Iran will see it as an act of War. So what we have here is a messy situation from the get go. A authoritorian state, ruled by a bunch of religious crazies (again, my opinion but I have yet to find anyone that thinks the mullahs are anything less than certifiable) that hates the US and Israel, indeed the Western World with a passion. But that brings us the catalyist for good or evil. Israel has said they will not allow Iran to build a nuclear reactor. They have stated that because of Iran hiding its nuclear program and then running around the inspectors, they cannot verify that Iran will be try to create a nuclear weapon to use against it. The fears are pretty well founded in that both Khomeni (the Ayatollah, leader of the mullahs) and the newly "elected" president both have called for Israel's destruction. Its the offical position of the government. Israel has already bombed a reactor that was about to come online in Iran in 1982? (year might be off) and they have said they will not allow Iran to build one, so North Korea like relations seem unlikely at best. I don't know what the proper course of action here is and how it might even play out but it looks like this could be a really really big deal.
posted by Maddawg at 12/03/2005 08:31:00 PM
7 Comments:
I've got a question that lies at the fundamental level in what I like to call the Middle Eastern Bullshit Parade, and it is as follows:
If Arabs and Persians by-in-large hate Israelis, why do we support Israel? As a matter of fact, why do we support either side of the war?
Though I know it's not the ONLY reason, one BIG reason a lot of the Arab world hates us is because of our support of Israel. So logic would dictate that we stop supporting Israel, and maybe we might not have as many airplanes flying into buildings, battleships blowing up in harbor, and embassies being bombed.
As far as Iran is concerned, I've got another question. Why are certain countries allowed to use nuclear - excuse me, NUKE-u-lar - power, and others not? Isn't energy a tradeable good? What happened to free trade? Aren't WEAPONS a tradeable good? What happened to free trade?
Just a couple of questions I'd like a good answer for, when you get a chance.
First, you should have read the battleship post earlier, ain't shit gonna happen to a battleship, the cole was a destroyer. 2nd, the US supports Israel as its the only democracy in the ME. By and large thats one of the best reasons to support Israel. And trade is something we strive for, but we generally don't do it when it impacts our national security. Thats why the new F-22 isn't gonna be international, neither is the Aegis rader system, the Abrams tank armor combination, etc. Its not a good idea to give nuclear technology to a country that says it wants to wipe you off the face of the planet.
Yeah, but as far as Iran is concerned, we want to wipe THEM off the face of the Earth, or invade them and enslave them, and yet WE'RE allowed to have nuclear weapons when they're not. I'm just saying, there's two sides to the story, and maybe part of the reason they hate us so much is that we're expecting them to accept our bullying and authority while we treat them like shit.
Can you show me any proof that the US wants to wipe them off the face of the earth, or have public officals refer to them as the Great Satan? Perhaps government sponsered rallies where we burn the Iran flag and shout "Death to Iran?" No you can't because we don't do that. Can you show me some proof that we have any intention to, using your quote "we want to wipe THEM off the face of the Earth, or invade them and enslave them." Cause then I would start to give your argument some credence, however until then i am forced to assume you are just posturing because you have no facts. As far as I am aware, we are not in any way shape or form posturing to enslave Iran, however we do want the country to abide by international law. I also don't see how we treat Iran like shit or bully them. You'd have to go back over 30 years to find any actual relations with the country, and the over throw of the Shah. Since the relations of almost every country has changed in 30 years thats hardly fair. Our only interests in the area are: Make Iran hold to its obligations under international law for inspecitions of its nuclear facilities, we would like to see some sort of representation for the people, and that they keep from interfereing in Iraq. If any of this seems like enslaving to you, I would love to see how
Oh and why do we support Israel, perhaps it has something to do with that fact that the Israeli people, including Israeli Arabs have the only well functioning democracy in the Middle East where the people are not subjected to a central, non elected authority. The Knesset (i believe it is called) is elected parlimentarily and has powers over the prime minister who is also elected. Seems to be an easy question over whether we support this dude or, say, king such and such, or Sultan whats his face. And also, having your babies shot by snipers doesn't do much for Israel's enemies PR.
See, here's my problem with U.S. foreign policy, particularly with the Middle East nations of Iran and Iraq.
WE SET UP AND ARMED SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME, in fact ENCOURAGING THEM to wage war in the Middle East. Likewise, WE ARMED IRAN while encouraging their most HATED RIVAL to INVADE!
It seems to me like because of our tampering foreign policy, we've made our own bed. OF COURSE they want to destroy us.
Think about it this way. If the U.S. and Mexico were bitter rivals and neither had an overwhelming advantage in terms of economy and military, and some foreign superpower played both sides of the wars between us, leaving both nations in horrible domestic condition for decades, I'm sure we'd rally around burning their flags and call them the "Great Satan," as well. And I'm sure we'd think they were trying to enslave us.
I've debunked this one before, and i will be less than happy to rehash it yet again but i will.
First off lets prove you wrong that we armed Iraq and Iran. Did you see any of the reports from 90/91? Or the recent ones from 2003? Or in the Iraqi/ Iran war? Doubt it and here is why. We use the M-1 Abrams tank. Our planes are the F-14,15,16,18 for the most part. Some others are the AC 130, A-10 etc. Our rifles since Vietnam have been the M-16 and the M-4 recently. We also have the M-240, M 249, M 60 and the M-2.
Notice, when Iraq fought Iran, Kuwait (then us) and in the most recent war, NONE OF THOSE WEAPONS WERE USED BY IRAQ.
They operated T-55, and T-62 tanks and had some fo the more recent T-72 tanks. I even heard rumors they had about a dozen of the T-80 tanks. All of these are Russain designs that we neither buy, nor use. We do blow alot of them up however. They use the AK-47 rifle and the newer varient for the most part. There is also some G-3 rifles from germany and some specialty ones. None of them bought or sold by the US government The Iraqi air force, almost unseen since we are so overpowering in the air, consistes of the the delta designed Mirage. Both in figther and bomber roles. That is made in France exclusively since the US uses Bowing or Lockheed for our combat aircraft.
None of our military technology was ever used offensively or defensively in any of the 3 Iraq conflicts except against Iraq. AGAINST. The only military weapon we ever sold to Iraq was a shipment of approx 4 dozne UH-1 helocopters. A helocopter that is utility and non-offensive.
Did we support Iraq in their war with Iran? Yes, we did. We thought that Saddam was the least of our worries compared to Iran, who at that time was openly calling for the destruction of the US. So yes we did aide them in the war. However if you check the dates, we only began to have any kind of relations with Iraq in 1982. Up till this point they were on our list of countries that sponser terrorism. The Iran/Iraq war started in 1980. We had no diplomatic or economic ties to either county in the first 2 years of the war. So i dont know where you get the "we encourage Iraq to invade Iran" idea. I have never heard even the slightest claim on this and after yahooing and googlin still find nothing on it.
I have no idea where or when we would have armed Iran in its current form. We armed them before 1978 when the current mullahocracy took power by force in a coup but they were a US ally that was democratically elected (to a degree, it was not the same as here but he was elected by the will of the people). Of course we would sell them weapons and when the Shah was in power we sent them alot. The weapon sales ended in 1979 when Iran's government was overthrown. Also, Iran's modern military on the field is mostly Russian, not US.
Last point is, the Iran government hates us and sponsers these rallies, not the people. In 2002, 75% of the country wanted to open constuctive dialogue with the US. There have been 15 documented revolution attempts that were crushed by the ruling mullahs.
To say that no weapons at all were transfered would be a lie but to say we armed either country to a large degree would be a lie as well. In Iraq we supported a dictator, but not with much military hardware, that until then had no attacked anyone because he was a good tool to use against the aggressive and anti-american Iran. The weapons that we sold to Iran at all were under a totally different government system. Its like France treating the US the same both before and after the revolution. The total idenity of the government pulled a 180.
The fact of the matter is that the Iran Iraq war was started irrespective of us and we eventually helped the country that was the least threat at the time. It was started because Iraq, now as a more powerful country, feared that the Iran revolution would spark a war later that they would not be able to win and, with the weakening of the Iran army for political assassination reasons, they decided to start what they saw as an eventual war.
Timeline of Iran-Iraq War
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