Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The Middle East Shia-Sunni-Jew dilemma is tricky....I don't think we'll know whether Trump was right for years.
I agree, it is a huge mess. I am not convinced that sanctions are the right way to go. They haven't achieved anything with NK, Cuba, or Iran. Yes Iran is a bully in the region but so are we. Perhaps we have to recognize that we are no longer the only bully on the block. We hate the Russians but more or less get along with them. Perhaps we need to do the same with Iran.
And the next time Iran lobs more drones at Saudi Arabia? What happens then?
Iran is taking a page out of NK's playbook. Suffer through the sanctions and you will end up with some nukes.
Iran had already agreed to give up nukes (they never had any) and was complying with the agreement. NK has never kept their word on anything and is still actively engaged in building a nuclear arsenal and a way to bomb US cities. Trump blew it on both counts.
Iran is nothing like North Korea, it has three times the population and an actual political system with different factions.
They're not arabs and the Sunni vs Shi'ite is a relatively modern concept invented by the west. They won't find an ally in Turkey and Israel will never nuke Tehran.
Why is Iran a problem to the US? Because the US doesn't benefit at all from Iranian resources. The deal the US pulled from was good only for Iranians and Europeans. Total imports from the US is 0.24%, problaby 0 by now. Iran doesn't allow western investment.
This is not about human rights or security. The US wants to change the authoritarian regime for another brutal one, but in favor of US interest: that is allow corporations like Apple, etc to sell their overpriced toys there. But more important, to introduce foreign investors in all areas of their economy.
The military threats and security narrative are nothing but the facade sold to the public.
Regime change didn't work in Iraq, all it did (besides killing millions of people) was that they allied with Iran to oppose US imperialism. I don't think the US will try to do it, it's a lost cause, especially since they have China and Russian backing them up.
Iran in many ways is like North Korea. Both of them are big enough to be a serious military threat and both of them have very vulnerable neighbors.
Vulnerable? How is that? Exactly how is SK, China, Russia, and Japan vulnerable? They would wipe NK clean if total war concept was conducted. NK is so centrally controlled, an assassination of a handful of officials would topple the regime.
As for Iran, who is vulnerable around them? Afghanistan?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoByFour
If the US attacks Iran and Iran considers that to be an act of war, they have the ability to pretty much wipe out 90% of Saudi Arabia's oil production. They also can effectively stop all oil from leaving the gulf. The EU and China will be really affected in a bad way.
Saudi Arabia has already sponsored a war against Iran, and the oil still flowed just fine. If Saudi Arabia wants to risk cutting basically their only source of revenue, that is their problem. Perhaps Saudi Arabia should stop going around stirring up crap over their 1000 year old conflict.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoByFour
Iran will probably also green light Hezbollah to attack Israel, which will prompt the Israeli's to bomb and possibly nuke Iran. At that point the moderate Arab states that have accepted Israel - Turkey, Egypt and Jordan - are going to side with their Arab brothers. So now we have a war involving every single ME nation, that is bringing the global economy to its knees, which might just prompt the Chinese to do something.
Israel is not going to do jack squat, just as they did not do during the Gulf War despite getting hit with missiles. For Saudi Arabia to have it public that they are cooperating with Israel would be devastating to the dictatorship.
No one has accepted Israel, the peace is a false one, if there was no consequences, all of them would more than be happy to snap their fingers and have Israel be wiped off the map.
At that, the global economy is not going to be on its knees over any conflict there, quite opposite, it thrives with conflict there as history has shown.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoByFour
And then there is the question of what is the end game? Regime change in Iran? That means invading it with American troops. It is a quagmire worse than Iraq to go down this path.
End game? This has been going on for a 100 years, there is no end game in this religious conflict, not one that is going to happen any time soon or the next 100 years at least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoByFour
Trump should have never left the Iran treaty. He has put us in a really difficult position.
Trump needs a foreign policy bad guy, Iran was it.
Why is Iran a problem to the US? Because the US doesn't benefit at all from Iranian resources. The deal the US pulled from was good only for Iranians and Europeans. Total imports from the US is 0.24%, problaby 0 by now. Iran doesn't allow western investment.
This is not about human rights or security. The US wants to change the authoritarian regime for another brutal one, but in favor of US interest: that is allow corporations like Apple, etc to sell their overpriced toys there. But more important, to introduce foreign investors in all areas of their economy.
The military threats and security narrative are nothing but the facade sold to the public.
Regime change didn't work in Iraq, all it did (besides killing millions of people) was that they allied with Iran to oppose US imperialism. I don't think the US will try to do it, it's a lost cause, especially since they have China and Russian backing them up.
The end game is just to weaken Iran.
I think that's correct. It would be nice if we could get along and do business with Iran but not sure it's possible.
actually NK got its nuclear tech from soviet union, china, Pakistan and the united states.. Clinton sold them nuclear centrifuges/power plants
and as to Iran...Clinton/gore have their hands all over that....democrats have constantly, have 'helped' Iran get nukes
Quote:
October 27th, 2000
Investigations are looking into Al Gore, who may have cut a secret - and possibly illegal - deal with the
Russians over arms sales to Iran have put the vice president where no
candidate likes to be on the eve of an election: playing defense.
Mr. Gore may have violated US law -
or at least used bad judgment - by signing a memorandum in 1995 that allowed
Russia to continue selling arms to Iran without the threat of economic
sanctions. It's an allegation that strikes at what has been viewed as a key
Gore asset - foreign-policy expertise.
This week's congressional hearings on the subject were prompted by documents
leaked to the press. The allegations against Gore are that he and then-Prime
Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin agreed to allow Russia to honor Soviet-era
contracts and complete deliveries of non-nuclear arms to Iran, a country
that the US considers a sponsor of international terrorism. In exchange,
Moscow agreed not to sell any new weapons to the Mideast nation.
Russian sales to Iran since this agreement was signed include a Kilo-class
attack sub (featured in the film "The Hunt for Red October"), long-range
torpedoes, and fighter planes.
Many senators say these are dangerous weapons in a dangerous part of
the world, and that Congress should have been informed. After closed Senate
hearings this week, the Clinton administration has refused to provide a text
of the agreements, senators say.
"What we do know now about the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement and its
implications for our interests abroad is disturbing," says Sen. Sam
Brownback (R) of Kansas. "It is difficult for me to understand how this
agreement is consistent with the Iran-Iraq Arms Non-Proliferation Act of
1992, a bill that the vice president himself introduced during his years in
the Senate."
The Gore campaign and the administration counter that these weapons do not
imperil the US or its interests, and that the agreement helped prevent Iran
from acquiring nuclear weapons, which advances American interests. They add
that the agreement was reported by many media outlets at the time, and key
House members were briefed on the meeting.
"The arrangements discussed here today are manifestly in the interests of
the United States and of the effort to halt nuclear proliferation," said
Joseph DeThomas, deputy assistant secretary of State for regional
nonproliferation in testimony Wednesday. "A partisan brawl that drags
legitimately classified material into the newspapers ... can only benefit
Iran."
"We also find incomprehensible that this agreement was not fully disclosed
even to those committees of Congress charged with receiving highly
classified briefings - apparently at the request of the Russian premier,"
the statement concludes.
In response, former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D) of Indiana issued a statement that
members of his staff had been briefed on the agreement in July 1995.
"The judgment call many of us made in that meeting was that it made sense to
get this kind of agreement," says a senior congressional aide who attended http://www.csmonitor.com/2000/1027/p2s2.html
Quote:
Article: Russian offer won't stop Iranian nuclear arms: But Gore sees breakthrough on Moscow plutonium.(World)
Article from:The Washington Times (Washington, DC) Article date:September 23, 1997
Russia has offered to create a joint U.S.-Russian control system for the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran, but U.S. experts said yesterday the offer would do nothing to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
The offer was made Sunday by Russian Atomic Energy Minister Viktor Mikhailov to his U.S. counterpart, Energy Secretary Federico Pena, who was visiting Moscow with Vice President Al Gore.
Mr. Gore met with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in Moscow yesterday in the ninth round of high-powered talks of their joint Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission (GCC), held every six months, and told reporters afterwards their .. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-56787353.html
Quote:
Russia sells anti-missile systems to Iran (per agreement with Al Gore)
AFP via Babelfish translation | December 2, 2005
Russia sells anti-missile systems in Iran
MOSCOW - Iran signed a contract with Russia on the sale of 29 Russian systems anti-missile Tor M-1, affirmed Friday the financial daily newspaper Russian Vedomosti, quoting sources in Russian military industry.
"Iran will defend itself against the United States and Israel with the Russian systems Tor M-1", titrated Vedomosti with the one.
According to the sources of the daily newspaper, expressing itself under cover of anonymity, 29 systems' anti-missile Tor M-1 able to intercept cruise missiles and airborne bombs were manufactured by the military factory Koupol with Ijevsk (the Volga) for Greece which had already bought 21 systems of this type.
But the end of the Nineties Greece had given up the new contract which would then have cost him 526 million dollars.
"We recently signed a contract with a foreign State on the sale of anti-missile systems Tor M-1", declared with AFP the spokesman of the factory Koupol, Maria Oudalova, joined by telephone to Ijevsk.
The spokesman refused to specify of which country it acted and which was the number of systems sold Tor M-1, explaining that it acted of a "strategic secrecy" of Russia.
The service of press of the official agency Rossoboronexport in charge of Russian exports of weapons, joined by AFP, affirmed that it "did not have information" in connection with this contract.
The contract "will not violate any international engagement of Russia", because Moscow had left in 2000 a secret agreement with Washington known under the name of Gore-Tchernomyrdine protocol which limited the Russian deliveries of weapons to Iran, underlines Vedomosti.
The Tor systems are "a weapon of defense" and "represent a danger to the United States only if this country attacks Iran", raises a Russian expert of the magazine Exportations of weapons, Mikhaïl Barabanov, quoted by the newspaper.
Iran in particular seeks "to defend its nuclear thermal power station" that Moscow is building in Bouchehr, bus "Israel had affirmed that it examined the possibility of launching strike preventive against this site", explains a professor of the Russian Institute of the International relations, Sergueï Droujilovski, quoted by Vedomosti.
Washington shows Teheran to seek to obtain the nuclear weapon under cover of civil activities.
The purchase of the systems Tor M-1 could cost Iran more than 700 million dollars, according to another expert, Dmitri Vassiliev of the Center of analysis of the strategies and technologies.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, in the intervening years Russia has shipped Iran three new Kilo-class submarines—the most advanced in the world today—as well as wake-homing torpedoes designed to sink U.S. aircraft carriers. They’ve also shipped MiG-29 fighter jets, SU-24 fighter bombers, strategic bombers, jet trainers and anti-ballistic missile systems—all without creating so much as a warning blip on U.S. radar screens, thanks to that 1995 deal. “The Gore-Chernomyrdin pact was a coup of major proportions for Moscow” (op. cit., Oct. 18, 2000). Russia sells anti-missile systems to Iran (per agreement with Al Gore)
Quote:
The Risk Report
Volume 5 Number 1 (January-February 1999)
In July 1998, Iran took a giant step forward in its missile program by flight-testing the Shahab-3, an 800-mile nuclear-capable missile that will be able to reach Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Iran is also developing a 1240-mile missile called Shahab-4, and within five years, according to a recent U.S. Congressional study, Iran might develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with outside help.
The Iranian missile program and the speed of its development would not have been possible without extensive assistance from North Korea, Russia and China.
Iranian missile program
U.S. intelligence had been watching the progress of the Shahab-3 for some time before the launch. In December 1997, U.S. reconnaissance satellites observed a ground test of the Shahab's rocket engine. The test occurred at Iran's Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG) and was the sixth or eighth of the year, according to intelligence estimates.
On July 22, 1998, Iran conducted Shahab-3's first test-flight. U.S. intelligence observed what appeared to be an extended-range version of the 1000 km-range North Korean Nodong missile. The Shahab-3 is reportedly not simply a Nodong with new paint, however, but an Iranian-developed missile based on Nodong technology imported from North Korea. The Shahab-3 is liquid-fueled, carried on a road-mobile launcher, and could be deployed within one to two years, depending on the level of outside assistance.
The Risk Report
Volume 5 Number 1 (January-February 1999)
In July 1998, Iran took a giant step forward in its missile program by flight-testing the Shahab-3, an 800-mile nuclear-capable missile that will be able to reach Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Iran is also developing a 1240-mile missile called Shahab-4, and within five years, according to a recent U.S. Congressional study, Iran might develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with outside help.
The Iranian missile program and the speed of its development would not have been possible without extensive assistance from North Korea, Russia and China.
Vulnerable? How is that? Exactly how is SK, China, Russia, and Japan vulnerable? They would wipe NK clean if total war concept was conducted. NK is so centrally controlled, an assassination of a handful of officials would topple the regime.
Seoul is within 35 miles of NK and has 1000s of missiles pointed at it. The population of Seoul is about 25 million people. Japan is within striking distance of the NK short range nukes. Japan has no missile defense to speak of. Both SK and Japan are US allies that we have mutual defense treaties with.
Yes, NK would be wiped off the map but their strategy is a MAD one - they will take down certainly a good part of Seoul but also parts of Japan with them.
Quote:
As for Iran, who is vulnerable around them? Afghanistan?
Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE produced about 25% of the world's oil. They are all within easy striking distance from Iran. Shutting down that oil flow would be catastrophic on the world economy. Only Saudi Arabia has any sort of military but it will probably come out the worse in a conflict.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
