Countdown to IRAN

by sacolton 69 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  james_woods

  Well, this thread has certainly headed across a field to chase rabbits instead of hunting the birds intended in the original post...

  Point of thread was - Will the US invade Iran, and when?

  Conjectures have been:

  US will do it just before the evil Bush leaves office - I give this less than 10% chance for the most obvious reasons.

  Israel will do it for the US before the evil Bush leaves office - Again, less than a 10% chance.

  Iran might explode a test bomb which triggers a war - I do not think they will be able to do this before about 2010 to 2012.

  I really think that all the personal and political rantings are helping to answer the original interesting question.

  Just my opinion, James
• 

  BurnTheShips

  US will do it just before the evil Bush leaves office - I give this less than 10% chance for the most obvious reasons .

  Israel will do it for the US before the evil Bush leaves office - Again, less than a 10% chance .

  Iran might explode a test bomb which triggers a war - I do not think they will be able to do this before about 2010 to 2012 .

  All the recent noise may just be a ploy. I guess we will find out if when it happens. One thing is for sure, one of Iran's first actions would be to attempt to shut down the Straight of Hormuz. ~40% of the world's petroleum gets shipped down that narrow channel. If Iran succeeds for any length of time, it will not be a matter of high oil prices, but of access to petroleum at all.

  BTS
• 

  hillary_step

  Forscher,

  Partially correct Simon. The US is more successful than you realize at the moment because the Mainstream is keeping our success out of the public eye. Haven't you noticed that there is almost nothing in the news right now about Iraq? That is because 15 of the 18 objectives of the increase in forces in Iraq are met. The Iraqis have taken over much of the responsibility for dealing with insurgents and accomplished much more than the media wants the public to know. So they are silent on the subject.

  Your analysis is incorrect.

  The Sunnis, who had previously been fighting WITH Al Queada and filling US body bags, turned against them after being offered in diplomatic talks a power sharing deal and a rack of cash for doing so. That is why there has been fewer Coalition casulaties in recent times. The Sunnis are pointing their weapons in a different direction.

  However, the Sunnis have also promised that once Al Qaeda has been pushed out of Iraq, they will then turn their attention BACK to the US and Coalition troops until they have driven THEM from Iraq. To them a US presence in their country is not an option.

  This is not conjecture, but is well documented and easily researched to those more interested in fact than agenda.

  HS
• 

  james_woods

  Ignoring again the off-topic, I submit that it is highly unlikely that the countdown to Iran be set for anything under 2 years.

  After that, it depends on Iraq.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  The Sunnis, who had previously been fighting WITH Al Queada and filling US body bags, turned against them after being offered in diplomatic talks a power sharing deal and a rack of cash for doing so. That is why there has been fewer Coalition casulaties in recent times. The Sunnis are pointing their weapons in a different direction.

  That is correct, a large part of the new counterinsurgency strategy implemented last year involved winning over the locals in new ways. It also helped that the Sunni tribes got fed up with the islamist atrocities and began to see what a fundamentalist Al-Qaeda style state would look like. This was the reason for the Anbar awakening and the slacking in violence. This also demonstrates the point that an armed populace cannot be subdued against its will, even against the most modern of military machines, as noted by Simon.

  However, the Sunnis have also promised that once Al Qaeda has been pushed out of Iraq, they will then turn their attention BACK to the US and Coalition troops until they have driven THEM from Iraq. To them a US presence in their country is not an option.

  I would appreciate a source for this, the expectation has always been that coalition troops will withdraw once rebuilding and stabilization is accomplished. I recommend Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal for reportage by someone who is actually there and has a pulse on the mood of the place.

  BTS
• 

  VoidEater

  Hi Forscher: Some reactions, if I may...

  Were it not for a very powerful political left which was actually sympathetic towards Hitler and considered WWII a "European problem" which had nothing to do with us the US would've come to your aid earlier

  That's not my impression. Pre-World War II conservative sentiment was towards isolationism, the same isolationism that leads to the disregard of the United Nations and the US standing as part of an International community. It was US conservatives that appreciated Mussolini's ability to get the trains running on time and looked to facism as an effective "business oriented" strategy. In Germany, it was appeals to conservative nostalgia for "how things used to be" that vaulted Hitler to power.

  Conservative isolationism, more than liberal idealizing, kept the US out of World War II as long as it did. I'm not saying the US should have entered the War sooner, nor that we should have stayed out. I see the logic of events as they transpired. What most strikes me is the atmosphere of open debate in the lead up to WWII, something which conservatives in power were not willing to entertain with the invasion of Iraq.

  WWII was a kind of crucible that led to an alchemic transformation of conservative response. A leak developed in the isolationist ideal: something you touched on, a threatening outside force. In this case, the threat of Communism, conflated to boogeyman proportions. Rather than an imminent war machine threat that supposedly galvanized liberals into invading Europe in WWII, in this case there was the ideological threat of Communism that converted Conservative isolationism into a near evangelical pounding of wardrums that we often see today.

  I'm sure that neither of the positions we present here are entirely accurate; no short posting like this can do the subject of WWII and US public sentiment justice. But between us we perhaps start to paint a fuller picture of events.

  As for war turning my stomach: absolutely. War is deplorable, and represents the failure of better options. I am happy to limit to war to extreme cases of last resort. Unashamedly so.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Our battlefields are strewn with war's bitter fruit.

  
• 

  beksbks

  Poor Florida!
• 

  Big Tex

  VoidEater

  That was a well written, well thought out post that captured the pre-WWII attitudes.

  Thanks.
• 

  Satanus

  'WWII was a kind of crucible that led to an alchemic transformation of conservative response. A leak developed in the isolationist ideal: something you touched on, a threatening outside force. In this case, the threat of Communism, conflated to boogeyman proportions.'
  
  Wasn't the usa fighting ww2 against fascism, mainly germany and japan? Was not germany making war against communism? It was only after the war that the usa made an about face and turned against it's communist allies.
  
  S