War between Israel -v- Iran & Co (merged threads)

When a small group of ayatollahs decides who may not run in an election there is nothing free about it. The current president was permitted to run because the Ayatollahs agreed with his positions. They have excluded all "reformers" from the last two elections.

I tend to doubt the report of missing suitcase nukes simply because if some one like al Qaeda had them they would have used them by now.

Iran has stated its intentions and it would be a mistake not to believe them. Even the guy who lost to the current president has said that Iran could survive a nuclear exchange with Israel, but Israel could not. We are dealing with people with a death cult mentality in Iran and permitting them to have nuclear weapons is not acceptable. If Pakistan ever gets leadership as irresponsible as that in Iran we will have to deal with them accordingly.

I must have been mistaken in my assumption that due to the fact that women can vote and hold office, and that the former president, Mohammad Khatami, was touted as a reformer that Iran was relatively free. In relation to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen (all US friends in the GWOT), the Iranians are down right progressive!

What Khatami and the rest of the reformers found was that they had about as much legislative power a student council does in effecting school policy. Even that was too much for the ayatollahs and almost all of them were excluding from running for reelection. Right now Iraq and possibly post Syrian Lebanon are the only function democracies in Muslim middle east. Saudia Arabia and Kuwait are taking baby steps in the direction of democracy but have a long way to go. But at least they are not threatening to wipe Israel off the map.

The current government cannot be described as representative of the will of the Iranians when people who disagree with the death cult supporting ayatollahs are excluded from the process.

There is strong evidence that Iran is not only supporting anti US terrorist but is harboring at least one of the terrorist responsible for killing Americans in Lebanon.

Iranian elections are more show than anything, real power is held by the religious authorities. That is why I never understand people getting all up set when the Iranian President makes crazy statements; so what, the guy is on par with the Queen of England.

I tend to doubt the Iranian political structure could survive a nuclear exchange with the Israelis. Not only do the Israelis have many more weapons and better delivery systems than Iran is likely to produce in the next 15 years but the Iranian government has too many internal problems to survive such an action. Frankly we could have made a lot of progress towards deteriorating the extremist in the Iranian government had we handled them a little smarter over the last few years.

In the end the Israelis have shown they can take care of themselves. Of course I am an American so I don’t feel the need to worry about Israeli security; I never understood why some Americans are so considered with the security of Israel, I hope their not so naive as to think Israel will return the favor.

Excuse me while I rant a bit....

I have to agree with Stu-6, let Israel worry about Israel. I don't think anybody elected the US military to be the world's police force in any popular elections either. The fact that our culture and our history has led us to believe that democracy is best for us does not imply that it is best for the Iranian people - let the Iranian people determine what kind of government they have. If they don't like the current one, there are enough of them to do something aout it.

Ghandi, speaking to the colonial superpower that ruled his country, pointed out that a few British rulers could not continue to rule India if the millions of Indians did not want them to. The same is true of Iran - a small group of despots in Tehran cannot continue to rule Iran if 68 million Iranians really do not want them to do so. Patrick Henry said something much the same about British rule to our forefathers. In my opinion, it is not our job to impose democracy on people who have not seen fit in all this time to take it for themselves. I know there are some who wish for it but wishing for it without having the support of the majority is not enough. Either they have to convince their fellow citizens to do something or they have to leave - it’s the same for any people of any country. You either do something to change it, fight to inspire others to join you, learn to accept it and live with things as they are, or you get fed up and go somewhere else. But you don't ask your neighbor to come fight and die to give oyu something your own people have not seen fit to fight and die for themselves already.

As for nuclear weapons - I'm afraid it is impossible to keep them out of the hands of every despot that wants them. I am not especially fond of Pakistan or Nkorea having them either. I'm even less happy that China has them. So what do we do - occupy every country we don't like having them? Its an impractical plan at best and one likely to backfire at worse.

OK, I'm done :)

I must concur with the assessment of Israel. In the end, just as the Chinese are asking themselves what they get out of the North Korea relationship, we must ask ourselves, what is it that the Israelis do for us in the Middle East. I agree that comments about wiping out Israel are disturbing; however, no more so than when the Ayatollah Khoemeni made them. Trust that I "get" the State sponsor of terror argument as well; however, when did this become a new revelation? Was it when Hizbollah bombed the Marine Barracks, bombed a military transport in Gander, Newfoundland, kidnapped and executed US citizens? When? To trumpet the State sponsor of terror card after allowing them to do it for the past 25 years is a WEAK argument. Is a nuclear Iran intolerable, but an unstable nuclear Pakistan is ok? I am of the impression the Iranians have long held the capability to close down the Straits of Hormuz with a significant anti ship missile arsenal. Has this been cause to got to war?

In the end, I try to remember that Iran was a democracy before the US and Brits decided to toss out Mossadegh, thus hold out hope. If we attempted a direct military action in Iran, every man, woman, and child would come to fight us. We should remember that they believe 13 year-old Iranian Hussein Fahmidah to be the first suicide bomber, and have buried his remains beside Khoemeni's to honor him. These are not the people we want to fight. No matter how much they may hate the mullahs, they would hate a US invasion more.

At what point do countries not have the ability to defend themselves in any way they see fit so long as it is congruent to international law? The Iranians surely have the right to walk away from the NPT. This is their legal right as a sovereign nation. If we truly wanted to see a peaceful resolution to this situation, why dont we have Israel renounce its nuclear program as a first step.

We also must face the unfortunate possibility that we are being told about Iran's desires by the same people who told us about Iraq's WMD desires. These are the same sources as the yellow cake sources.

Iran has indicated recently that they would be interested in Russia enriching Uranium for them so they can use it for power stations - if that is indeed true, then it would seem to be evidence that they are telling the truth and not wanting the byproducts of enrichment. Of course, it might not be true and it might be a ploy of some kind - unfortunately, a lot of folks could say the same thing about our own govt.

CNN Report

The current US administration is certainly lacking any credibility on the issue, however I still think it is reasonable to assume that Iran is at least trying to keep their options open on a bomb.

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Originally Posted by Stratiotes

We also must face the unfortunate possibility that we are being told about Iran's desires by the same people who told us about Iraq's WMD desires. These are the same sources as the yellow cake sources.

Iran has indicated recently that they would be interested in Russia enriching Uranium for them so they can use it for power stations - if that is indeed true, then it would seem to be evidence that they are telling the truth and not wanting the byproducts of enrichment. Of course, it might not be true and it might be a ploy of some kind - unfortunately, a lot of folks could say the same thing about our own govt.

CNN Report

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The sources are not the same as the "yellowcake" sources (which proved to be true, by the way, except for one). The IAEA is one of those sources and has stated that Iran can have nuclear weapons in little more than two years.

And Russia enriching Uranium for Iran to use was part of the original deal for Russia to support the construction of the Nuclear reactor at Bushehr, something Iran has reneged on since then. Iran hasn't sunk billions into enriching uranium only to give it up now, just as Iran hasn't sunk billions into nuclear research to develop electricity - with one of the world's largest reserves of natural gas they could've met their energy needs at a fraction of the cost of their nuclear program.

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Originally Posted by Hansmeister

And Russia enriching Uranium for Iran to use was part of the original deal for Russia to support the construction of the Nuclear reactor at Bushehr, something Iran has reneged on since then. Iran hasn't sunk billions into enriching uranium only to give it up now, just as Iran hasn't sunk billions into nuclear research to develop electricity - with one of the world's largest reserves of natural gas they could've met their energy needs at a fraction of the cost of their nuclear program.

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It sounds like the deal is still alive - unless the security council aggrevates the situation:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060203/...ar_agency_iran

As an aside, I think how much they spend on power production is a matter for the Iranian people and not us. Whether we can read anything into that or not is questionable in that most governments are less than frugal in how they handle taxpayer money and it is generally the fact that they (governments) are, by nature, wasteful rather than attempting to hide something. It may be suspicious but not condemning evidence.

one that's been waged for 3 generations: Palestinian people vs. Israel.

Who will win? That's the ultimate question for any discussion about war. Not who SHOULD win, or DESERVES to win, or who has the best soldiers, tactics, or equipment. Just the bottom line.

Here's one forecast, explicit with supporting logic:

"The Fate of Israel" by Fabius Maximus

Part two in a series of articles about grand strategy in a 4GW Era.
Demonstrates the difficultly of distinguishing strong from weak in 4GW,
and that choosing the wrong grand strategy can be terminal for a state.

http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/fabius_fate_of_israel.htm

The Palestinians should adopt a strategy consistent with that which the west promotes, yet the Israelis find unacceptable in an attempt to demonstrate the reality of the conflict. If the Palestinians pursued a policy of "one man one vote" within the framework of a single-unfied Israel, they would surely win a substantial number of seats in the Knesset simply due to their large population in comparison to the Israelis. This would demonstrate their desire to seek peaceful resolution through the ballot box and representative government, something desirable to the west; however, unacceptable to the Israelis. This strategy would put increased pressure on the Israelis, and thus create a new enthusiasm to create a lasting peace.

I think both sides will continue to play out the eye-for-eye MAD strategy - each side becoming ever more intent on destroying the other. At best, a coexistence of perpetual war.

I agree with the Major that, if left to majority rule, the outcome might be different. But, I think the Israelis will never allow majority rule. Each new act from either side just feeds the hatred and it will not win unless one side decides to concede to the other - a scenario that is effectively impossible to conceive of.

There is substantial evidence that the Palestian Authority grossly fudgeed the numbers on the Palestinian census. The numbers may have been off by a factor of 2 million. Notwithstanding that, what the Major has suggested is actually Hamas's position on a Palestian state from the Jordon to the Ocean. Their problem is that they do not control much of that space and it is unlikely that the Israelis will give them that opportunity.

If democracy is truly our aim, then we cannot fail to recognize Hamas in Palestine, Dawa and SCIRI in Iraq, the MMA in Pakistan, potentially the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or Ahmedinejad in Iran. Our policy cannot be - "democracy as long as you elect who we want." Maybe we should start asking ourselves why these groups are so popular?

I went with the two states. I am assuming that Israel will be able to truly disengage from the West Bank. The path Israel has been on for most of the last 40 years would most likely lead to is ultimate destruction, however resent efforts, such as the withdraw from Gaza, suggest that they might be able to change course. If that happens then the Palestinians would in time establish a viable state. I would imagine that if the two states formed like this they would for sometime refuse to recognize each other, at least in any meaningful way.

I'm trying to think of similar "arrangements" in the past that might support one or the others - Pakistan and India come to mind as possibly supporting the 2-nations response. I still find it difficult to imagine even a mild détente there but I'm willing to entertain that I might be wrong - I certainly hope I am.

Vietnam seems to fit the one-will-overcome-the-other response. North/South Korea seems to fit the perpetual war idea - if the past 50 years are enough to assume "perpetual." But both of those are rather special cases which could change given a collapse of the system feeding the animosity in one or the other - as it did in East/West Germany. So, just brainstorming a bit, what are some others and how would they be similar and give us some indication of what is possible/impossible?

Query what a breakdown in order by both sides might look like: rogue settlements staying on the wrong side of the fence, various palestinian militias claiming different towns/neighborhoods, etc. You'd have a very complex geopolitical map (it's there now, really) populated by violent amateurs.

Isreal has been at war, or nearly so, since before its inception. The underlying problems are religious, political AND economic - military force one way or the other won't really solve them. I.e. even should Hamas (or some entity) wipe Isreal off the map the region itself will still be a chaotic, violent mess. And there's always the danger that five hundred years afterwards more Jews will decide to resettle the place again. Likewise, even if the Palestinians themselves were to agree to a ceasefire (or be killed, driven off, etc) there are still plenty of other Arab Muslims around the world who'd have no problem attacking Israel and trying to eliminate it - or just get revenge or whatever.

If the Isrealis *really* want a grand strategy, it will have to be moral, religious and psychological. The war rests in their immediate enemies' heads and not in Kalashnikovs or bomb factories. Note that the USA defeated the American Indians not just through blood, but through destruction of their belief systems - few modern Native Americans even speak their own language, let alone believe in any kind of resistance to the US.

The Palestinians can elect who they want, but that does not mean the US and others should subsidize their bad choices any more than a parent shouls subsidize a childs bad habits. The Palestinian Authority is basically a begger entity with no indigenous flow of funds. It relies on taxes collected by Israel and charity from the US, the UN and others. If the US disagrees with Hamas on its goal of genocide against Israel, there is absolutely no reason we should continue to offer any financial support. If the Palestinians were forced to create an economy that generate revenue for the PA they would all benefit from getting off the dependency drug. They are the only lose of a war who continue to get subsidized. It is time to stop that.

Excerpt from "The Fate of Israel"
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/fabius_fate_of_israel.htm


The Palestinians show us the raw power of a primal strategy, a belief in a shared dream. They dream about the extermination of Israel. That is the official goal of Fatah, the former ruling party. Which is in turn losing strength to Hamas and Hezbollah, who seem even more dedicated to eliminating Israel. Their primal strategy forges the Palestinian people into a powerful weapon, against which Israel has few defenses. ...

Why is this so difficult to see? This quote from Col Hammes explains this blindness of western experts to Middle Eastern 4GW, one that applies equally well to the Palestinians and the Iraqi insurgents.

"Today’s insurgents do not plan for the Phase III conventional campaigns that were an integral part of Mao’s three-phased insurgency. They know they cannot militarily defeat the outside power. Instead, they seek to destroy the outside power’s political will so that it gives up and withdraws forces. They seek to do so by causing political, economic, social, and military damage to the target nation.

"After being driven out of Fallujah in November 2004, Abu Musad al-Zarqawi (sic) wrote, “The war is very long, and always think of this as the beginning. And always make the enemy think that yesterday was better than today.” "

“Dealing With Uncertainty”, Marine Corps Gazette, November 2005
http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/hammes1.pdf