Are we going to war with Iran?
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story...594977,00.html

It's quite worrying to me that this could happen without much warning.

What are your feelings on this?
Is it likely to happen?

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

I don't think it's likely at all, I suspect what's happening is that since most other diplomatic approaches seem to get laughed at by Iran, they are trying something more firm.

Probably won't work, and its a nasty bluff to get called on.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

I'm skeptical the US/UK command are that stupid. However, there's been a hell of a lot of media noise recently about how evil Iran is(they have nukes, they kill our boys in Iraq, etc) , which usually precedes any sort of measures (be they sanctions, military action, etc).

But overall no. It'd be even more of a horrific disaster than Iraq has been. And that's saying something.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

*sigh*. The Americans are bored, and they have to do something to stop people yelling at them for the mess that they've made in Iraq with lots of people dying (more after the war "ended" than during, wasn't it?) and so maybe they want a second go with Iran.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Its very unlikely :o

[insert great argumentation here]

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Before america and co can even begin to eye up another country they still got to sort out loose ends in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Look at how big Iran is.

Look at how mountains or deserts or simple wilderness takes up so much of the area.

Iraq would be a tear dropping into an ocean if the US ever attempted an occupation of Iran. As Dante has said, I seriously doubt even the combined idiocy of Blair and Bush is that severe.

Oh, and then there's the fact that the population has been subjected to more than twenty years of hardcore Shiite theocractic rule, together with all the propoganda that entails.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

you'd think wouldn't you...

By "got to" read "should"

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

That's kinda what I thought... But the article said this:
Which is much more possible...

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

and Iran are taking advantage of that fact.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

A close friend of my father is a cartographer for the British government a few months back he was in a team working on new maps for the Iran border area's. Apparently the US do all the interior mapping.

Make of this what you will.
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Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

I think that chaps' assertion that an invasion or attack could come "with no warning at all" is a bit bloody stupid. Even the US has to observe the usual standards of blame-UN-ultimatum-invasion in these kinds oc circumstances even if it only pays half-hearted lip-service to it most of them time. (Quite apart from the obvious military buildup which would be apparent, together with the inevitability of something leaking to the media.)

I don't doubt that people in the US Government would like to, at the very least, drop a few bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities, but it's hard to imagine them actually being able to force the issue in the present climate; I think that's a one for ten years down the road.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

oh shit?

though it is worth noting that apparently, military broadcasts were being made from the embassy, so it wasn't really an accident at all.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Aye true... All the more reason Bush and Blair have got to pick their battles carefully. Then again if the west wasn't so dependent on Oil then it would be alot easier.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

There'd be a riot in Parliament, the country, and probably the cabinet if Blair ever tried to hitch himself onto any other 'big' US military adventure. I'm sure he knows this. The way the Iraq war was 'done' in this country has pretty much finished off the possiblity of British support for any other big 'pre-emptive' invasion for quite a few years, I would imagine. (Certainly until the end of Brown's Premiership.)

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

given that we are pretending the point of this is to spread democracy throughout the muslim world, it would seem difficult to justify invading pretty much the only other democracy there.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Quite, it would be nigh on impossible to "justify" any sort of action in Iran.

I say let them tinker with the nukes and cross our fingers for another chernobyl.
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Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

I think the US view - despite whatever criticsms you may want to throw at it - is focused around liberal democracy, instead of token democracy dominated by Islamic fundamentalism.

I would hardly describe a country where you can be publically executed for being homosexual or even voicing 'subversive' views, and in which the clergy dominates public and political life as being anywhere near western standards.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

What? Are you bonkers? Of course it wouldn't. Iran is an authoritarian regime with nuclear ambitions and terrorist connections. It would be blindingly easy for the US to attempt to justify action against Iran, and it could potentially constuct a semi-reasonable case, despite any disagreements we might have with the wisdom of it.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

sarcasm

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Who was being sarcastic? You, him, or both of you?

Or where you just both being a bit daft?

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

for some reason 'i ran' by lucky but shit band of the 80s a flock of seagulls immediately popped into my head and i can't get it out of my ****ing head.

If the US/UK do attack Iran, i hope the iranians retaliate, sink a ship or ten, fire a missile at something, ive been isolated from the respective policy of the US/UK to the extent id say 'fair enough, good on em' if a war did break out.

I agree with the consensus, the US armed forces that looked the nearest thing to invinsible after the persian gulf war look ever so slightly incapable after the iraq war. They can't deal with the majority sunni 'insurgency' god knows what they're thinking going after Iran. The only thing is, as dante says, the stuff being put out by the respective governments withregards to Iran is just what you'd expect as the build up to something


...and I-ran, I-ran so far away, blow it up make it go away :(

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

The Camel Jockeys of the Jihad would have a recruitment field day if America and Co invaded Iran without some kind of major international incident.
Hmm I am not sure what to make make of let Iran test nukes, Pros and cons to it. Sure they may do a Chernobyl, problem is the half lifes on some of these radioactive materials and it is a bitch to clean up. I think there is an isotope of plutonium that has a half life of about 20,000 years and it isn't the most plesant of stuff either.
(Nuclear chemists/physicist welcome to give exact figures)

I would recommend a Read of "Fire in the rain" by Peter Gould if anyone is interested in the chernobyl disaster.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Wait, isn't dropping bombs on nuclear testing facilities a really terrible idea assuming you give a shit about the rest of Iran? Also laughing out loud at While it may be true that the US has enough conventional firepower to hit a fair few places in Iran what exactly do you think the Iranian government will do in response? Sit there with their thumbs in their asses and watch the bombs fall?

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Iran would have been a far more sensible choice than Iraq but no, theres no chance of it happening now.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Sensible in a more justifiable, more worth it or more winnable way?

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

our government can claim we are in the middle east to prevent terrorists from getting wmd. in which case now that we've spent thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars to defeat one of the few middle eastern countries with no wmd program, it's pretty clear we're being led by incompetent ****s. few people want to follow incompetent ****s to war.

or they can claim (as they are) that we are in the middle east to spread democracy, in which case taking out a democracy surrounded by authoritarian regimes looks a mite silly.
oh i agree that it is a fundamentalist shithole.

the problem is that in this case 'liberal' and 'democracy' are mutually exclusive; if you let the people vote on the issue they would certainly vote in favor of executing fags. and so on. so any extent to which we liberalized them we would have to remove the democracy in equal proportion. now obviously we could set it up so that it would appear that they were voting on the issues that we had already decided for them like we do in iraq*, but it wouldn't work as well. in iraq, even if we only let them vote on a few trivial issues, we can still justifiably claim they are more democratic than they were before. and it doesn't hurt that the iraqi people are much more liberal to start.

*it's possible that even if every single iraqi who showed up to vote for the new constitution (and there was likely somewhere in the 60s turnout) voted against it, it still would have passed.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

i was being somewhat serious. he was being sarcastic.country A has a nuke program and bunches of queda friends.

country B has no real weapons and no friends :( (loser)

who would it be more 'sensible' to invade if our stated reason is preventing queda from getting nukes?

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

There have been 2,176 coalition troop deaths in Iraq (1,979 are Americans).

imo those numbers are quite good for invading a country and occupying it for a few years. :up:
I doubt anyone else wouldve done it better

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Yeah I'm sure all the dead iraqis are really thankful that US troop casualties are so low.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

I'm confused, you are talking about Iran there right ? I realise that as yet the US doesn't execute gays but judging by the idiots in the senate, it's only a matter of time,

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

not we are going to war.

you are going to war, maybe.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

The first 2, although talking about justification here is pretty pointless since a lot of the more vocal anti-Iraqwar people wouldnt have accepted any form of justification.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Very true, I wonder why they never revealed the Iraqi civilian death counts on the news... Hmm

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

You mean the people who was smart enough to not let themselfs be fooled by Powell, Bush, Blair and the constant whining about "IRAQ HAS WMD".
Couse you should always listen and belive people who have lied before.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

I don't think that was quite nod's point. More that even if they'd found WMD and detailed plans for abducting the world's children and boiling them to death before eating their flesh in Iraq it still wouldn't have justified the invasion for some people.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Every soverign country has a right to have WMD.
Saddam have already (with western help) boiled people to death. Maybe not litteraly, but not far away.

And what if he had plans to do so? Such things have not stopped western support for bloody dicators before, have it?
This has something to do with no beliving US (and the UK) having any non-imperialist motives for meddling in other countries affairs.
It would be a bit different if Mongolia, Iceland, Nelson Mandela and Bono teamed up to critize Saddam and wanting an invasion.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Every sane person knew from the start that they wouldn't find any WMD's and that iraqi's were going to get killed.
I bet the war went better then the pentagon couldve hoped for.
Iraq is unstable, but that was to be expected. Their invading a country for crying out loud.
Their lucky that so many countries even want to help stabilize the region
Bush got reelected, so the people seem to be happy about it.
So from the American point of view I have to say the war is going as good as it could possibly get.
If people say it wasn't a succes then I have to disagree.

That doesnt mean the world, or the Americans themselfs got any better from it tho

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

The war* may have gone better but the aftermath has gone much much worse.


*by war I mean the bit before the regime was toppled

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

I doubt they are that stupid at the pentagon.
Its impossible to expect the people of a country to give in as soon as their invaded.
The world has seen to many wars to be that naieve :p

I doubt they expected the war to be over as soon as the regime fall apart.
but how on earth could they have found the support for a war if they publicly announced that.
It wouldnt be the first lie.


But then again, im just speculating and maybe they are that stupid.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Just out of interest.. you do realise that's a 1999 article? I don't think that suddenly China is going to respond for something that happened over 6 years ago.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

i thought iran had been buying some fancy weapons off the ruskies? although if the us does go for iran, they get three in a row. jackpot!

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It's too big a country with too fanatical a population, it'd be like gonig back to Vietnam.

Does anyone else feel that the nobel peace prize going to the IAEA and its boss a bit suspect?

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

It is not the generals we are worried about, it is their political masters like blair and bush sadly.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

I not sure if the how much they have bought, but I seem to remember them buying some new anti-aircraft rockets from Russia.
But whatever it is, its clear that an invasion of Iran will be totally different than the invasion of Iraq.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

I wasn't really referring to nuclear weapons or whatever. Personally I see nothing wrong with denying country x the right to have weapons when those who would have control over those weapons is democratically unaccountable for their actions. The point is we shouldn't judge what countries require help based on who supports helping and who doesn't but rather whether the country really needs help. The fact that we've all been hypocritical and supported x doing y doesn't mean we have to automatically condone all instances of y in future. Just admit we were wrong and we'll try not to let it happen again.

The fact we all thought it'd be shit because that's what happens in a war doesn't mitigate the fact it was shit and too many innocents died. If a nuclear war was going as good as it could possibly get that'd still be a pretty terrible state of affairs.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Yeah, but people like you opposed it due to generic anti-americanism rather than because of any specifics unique to that particular war, as is evidenced by comments like

Hence theres not much point showing you any 'justification', or even asking for your opinion.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

I'm a sovereign country actually. i think my unique mixture of anglo-irish alcoholic generically christian heritage is enough to argue for some sort of right of national self-determination. I'd like some nuclear weapons to keep in my shed for defence against the imperialists please.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Considering the IAEA's abysmal track record, yes.

Considering the Nobel Peace Prize committee, no.

Re: Are we going to war with Iran?
 

Why is the statement that every nation has the right to develop nuclear weapons anti-american? The United States, despite its failings, is a far far better nation in terms of protecting the individual and allowing dissent than Iran. Anyone who says otherwise is clearly mad. But i don't see why Iran shouldn't be allowed to develop whatever it damned well pleases.