My Iran Theory

[pop 0]

I think Bush was planning to attack the Middle East before 9/11. Iran was always on the agenda. When we attacked Iraq there was talks of Iran as well.

Iran's president comes from a background that promotes destruction of Israel. He has pointed out several times that Israel is the cause of Middle East problems. Lately he has been publicly supporting Hamas.

Iran is saying it is developing Nuclear Energy for peaceful purposes knowing well that this will force US to attack them. US only needs an excuse. Once US attacks, Iran will say that now it is in war and has the right to develop nuclear weapons to protect itself.

The nuclear weapon will be developed (it might already be), and will be dropped on Israel because Israel is allies with the US.

At this point we will see WWIII.

7 ounce wonders, music and dogs that are not into beer

[billvon 3,104]

>I think Bush was planning to attack the Middle East before 9/11.

Not much doubt about that, although it would be more accurate to say that his administration was planning that before 9/11. The PNAC plan, authored by Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, outlined the reasons to topple Hussein and how it might be accomplished. They did mention they might need a catalyzing event, like a terrorist attack. (In their words, "a new Pearl Harbor.") So 9/11 presented them with their chance.

>Iran is saying it is developing Nuclear Energy for peaceful
>purposes knowing well that this will force US to attack them.

They're saying a lot more than that. Ahmadinejad is using the same sort of overblown rhetoric we saw back in the days of the USSR, threatening to "cut off the hand" of the US if it tries anything. It's important to remember that there is something of a power struggle going on in Iran now between Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad got into office by campaigning on a platform of opposing western decadence and redistributing wealth; now that he has won, he's trying to keep his base behind him by saying mean-n-nasty things about the US. (The same way Bush rallies everyone by saying bad stuff about terrorists as often as possible.) The Ayatollah was pretty closely associated with Rafsanjani (the other presidential candidate) and is now seen as a threat to Ahmadinejad's power.

So much of what you hear from Iran over the next few months will be for internal consumption by his followers. The more aggressive he appears towards the Great Satan the more support he gets, since we have an image in that part of the world as a bully.

[billvon 3,104]

A good article on this:

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PROVIDENCE, R.I.--Just when it seemed impossible for relations between the United States and Iran to get any worse, they have deteriorated once again. The rhetoric and counter-rhetoric over Iran's nuclear program sounds serious and substantive. However, a little reflection reveals this situation for what it is: a continuing piece of high-stakes political theatre that principally benefits the leaders of both nations by shoring up their lagging political fortunes.

It would be easy to dismiss this absurd scenario if the consequences were not potentially so ominous.

Both the Bush administration and the Iranian clerical regime are reeling from historic low support figures from their constituent populations. United States politicians know that attacking Iran is a sure-fire political winner with the American public. Iran has become America's all-purpose bogeyman. Foolish declarations, such as the State Department assertion that Iran is America's "greatest security threat" are received uncritically by voters throughout the nation. Similarly in Iran, the United States can be freely demonized without serious question. The leaders of the Islamic republic regularly blame the United States for their own failings in managing economic development, border control and corruption.

The issue the two sides have seized upon for the last three years is Iran's nuclear development program. For U.S. politicians, nothing gets the attention of the American public more reliably than the threat of nuclear weapons being deployed against the United States. This frightening prospect was effective in convincing the nation to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Merely suggesting that Iran poses a nuclear danger is enough to convince many Americans that the suggestion is based on fact.

For Iran, the fact that the United States has led an international campaign to halt its 35-year-old nuclear energy development program -- a program started with American blessing -- is an affront to national pride. Indeed, the specter of violent military attacks on Iran from the United States or Israel if Iran does not stop uranium enrichment is met by defiance from Iran, where the enrichment program continues unabated. As Iran's U.N. ambassador, Javad Zarif declared before the United Nations Security Council on March 29, "Pressures and threats do not work for Iran. Iran is allergic to pressure and threats and intimidation." Consistent reports from Iran state that even Iranians who are opposed to their own government support continued nuclear energy development.

The ominous rhetoric from both sides masks the weakness of both nations' positions.

U.S. and British officials when pressed admit there is no hard evidence that an Iranian nuclear weapons development program exists. They also admit that Iran's nuclear energy development program is their right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran (but not Israel, Pakistan or India) is a signatory. Moreover, Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker about U.S. plans for military strikes against Iran, emphasizes that high-raking U.S. military advisors oppose the idea of any kind of military action against Iran's widespread nuclear development laboratories as impractical, ineffective and likely to create a greater problem than it would solve.

Iran's posturing, which included an amusing set of festivities on April 11 with folkloric performers dancing while hoisting vials of enriched uranium against the backdrop of hundreds of flying white doves, conceals the fact that Iran is years away from producing enough nuclear fuel to power a generator, much less in the quantity and purity level that would allow it to construct a nuclear weapon. However, that has not stopped Iran from showing off a new set of conventional weapons designed to counter an American attack.

This makes American and Iranian assertions and counter-assertions appear rather ridiculous. Indeed, the danger in this situation could be dismissed if there were other leaders in power. However, in both nations the leadership needs this conflict. President Bush and the Republican party face defeat in November without an issue to galvanize the voting public behind their assertion that they are best able to protect the United States from attack -- the only point on which they have outscored Democrats in recent polls. President Ahmadinejad also needs public support for his domestic political agenda -- an agenda that is paradoxically opposed by a large number of the ruling clerics in Iran. Every time he makes a defiant assertion against the United States, the public rallies behind him.

This creates what political scientist Richard Cottam termed a "spiral conflict" in which both parties escalate each other's extreme positions to new heights. It is entirely possible that Iran could goad President Bush into a disastrous military action, and that action would result in an equally disastrous Iranian reaction.

The resulting conflagration would likely engulf the region, and then the world.

[pop 0]

I abolsutly agree with the article, and you for that matter. Both of the presidents are struggling for pupoluar support and will do whatever it takes to gain it. Niether will back down becasue it shows a sign of weakness...and no one wants to look weak. Unfortunatly the end result might end in loss of lives, and the third world war.

7 ounce wonders, music and dogs that are not into beer

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Why do you think it will lead to world war? Will the Arabs fall in line with the Persians? Will the Russians? the Chinese? the rest of the non-Arab Muslims? Surely the Europeans will further recoil from the US if they invade Iran, but I am not sure how this will lead to world War.

[Darius11 12]

The more I hear about GWB using nuclear weapons as a threat to others, the more I see the point of how every nation should try to have nuclear weapons of there own.

The man is an idiot. I know the president of Iran is an idiot as well, but I expected much more from GWB as a truly democratic elected leader of the free world.

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

[steveorino 7]

While that article has a vein of truth running through it, I can hardly agree with this statement: United States politicians know that attacking Iran is a sure-fire political winner with the American public

I don't think so!

steveOrino

[AdD 1]

If Iran wanted nuclear warheads so bad, why not go to some buttf*** silo in Russia and buy a few for $100,000 and a few quarts of vodka? Would Iran nuke Israel even if they had them? I doubt it, the radioactive fallout would threaten millions of muslims. It's the US with its bunker busters we ought to be sanctioning.

Life is ez
On the dz
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[billvon 3,104]

>United States politicians know that attacking Iran is a sure-fire
>political winner with the American public . . .

I think there is a strong tendency to support the president in times of war; that has certainly been a rallying cry of the republicans lately. I think that has been shown to be true in practice, and was true during the initial invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. You may be right - this time they may not get much upswing in support, especially if the war is handled poorly. But I think they may be hoping for it.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

The government of Argintina invading the Falklands in an attempt to use nationalism to prop up a faltering regime comes to mind.

[warpedskydiver 0]

Quote

If Iran wanted nuclear warheads so bad, why not go to some buttf*** silo in Russia and buy a few for $100,000 and a few quarts of vodka? Would Iran nuke Israel even if they had them? I doubt it, the radioactive fallout would threaten millions of muslims. It's the US with its bunker busters we ought to be sanctioning.

If you fear the US maybe you should

[steveorino 7]

Personally, I strongly supported the war in Afghanistan. I was hesitant to support Iraq, and I'll be dang if I think going to Iran is a good idea.

Heck, why not jump on Korea too. A war in 4 fronts. That has a good track record, right?

steveOrino

[hairyjuan 0]

iraq was agreedto bybush and blair in 2003 at the bilderberg meeting executive order 13292 is the real reason for any attack on iran.

we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively


wishers never choose, choosers never wish

[Guest]

The weird part about all this is that Ali Khameini seems like a moderate to me.

mh

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"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."