What will the US do with Iran?

[dak7]

Just watched the news where Iran is shooting off
missiles and told the US they better keep their
aircraft carrier away from the Strait of Hormuz.

Will the US show them some shock and awe?

Just what the world needs right now.

[boarderbloke]

Obama is content to have Iran become a nuclear armed country. A Middle east crisis is exactly the diversion he needs in order to pull off a electoral win this coming Nov.

[Hopperbin]

Shit Boarder, you are correct. That is what the Bush's have done. Not good.

[freewheat]

Either way, we is screwed. At some point, we is screwed.

[skip]

That Iranian nut and North Korea with nukes.

It is scarey just saying it.

[farmaholic]

The last two wars the US fought have helped to bring them to their knees financially. Whose money are they going to use to fight this one???

[JACKFLASH]

I don't understand Obama's logic. He will risk a war with Iran,yet not allow a pipeline in the US.

[cottonpicken]

Its what china and russia would do that scares
me,and its not nukes its biological.

[ASRG]

Has Iran ever invaded another country? Who are the agressors in the region? Do they have nukes? Which is the only country in the world that has ever used nukes against civilians? Should that country be allowed to have nukes? Maybe before America starts preaching to the rest of the world they should take a long look in the mirror.

[boarderbloke]

That's it ASRG, come on out of the woodwork, thats it, reveal yourself.
Stand proudly beside your buddy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.(i'm a dinner jacket!) Do you also pronounce daily your hopes for the destruction of Israel, are you also desirous, just as Ahmadinejad, to use Iran's nuclear technology to "wipe Israel off the map", a quote regularly stated by the president of Iran. Do you also support an unprevoked attack against the Jewish people? How do you think that will provide stability to the Middle East? That's it ASRG, come out of the woodwork, reveal your hidden thoughts. Reveal your deep dark prejudices.

[TOM4CWB]

ASRG,

Well... since you asked...

Iran: Oil field is ours, not Iraq's

Tehran denies Iraqi claim to borderline oil field, says troops are 'on Iranian soil, as defined by known international borders'

Dudi Cohen Published: 12.19.09, 20:37 / Israel News

"Iran confirmed Saturday that its forces had taken over East Maysan oil field, located on the Iran-Iraq border. The move caused a 2.4% spike in oil prices....

"The East Maysan oil field (Photo: Reuters)

...Iraq's Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji said the move was the latest in a series of Iranian incursions over the past few days, which focused on the Fauqa oil field, some 186 miles south of Bagdad.

The invasion followed an agreement between the Iraqi Oil Ministry and several of the world's leading oil energy companies, to operate seven oil fields.

Iraq slammed the incursion as a violation of its sovereignty and demanded Iran withdraws its troops immediately. This is the first major incident between Iran and Iraq since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff stressed Saturday that the matter must be resolved independently between the two parties.

Meanwhile, Iran accused "foreign elements" of trying to instigate a dispute between the two countries. National Security Committee chairman Ala Al-Din Boroujerdi vehemently denied "claims that Iran has taken over an Iraqi oil filed."

The matter, he told Iranian news agency IRNA "was being examined through diplomatic channels," adding that "the foreign press is to blame for this propaganda."

Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad Al Boulani said that "Iraq will not give up its oil deposits, no matter the circumstances."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3822172,00.html

If you police the world... getting a Public Relations 'Black eye' will be on of the costs!

[cpallett]

Not that it may matter too much to anybody on this thread, but both the US invasion of Afghanistan and the US invasion of Iraq violated at least three international treaties as well as the Rule of Law.

I understand the cowboy maxim of "shoot first and ask questions later" as well as "kill 'em all and let God sort them out", but to those who respect the Rule of Law it might be prudent to note that Afhanistan borders Iran to the east while Iraq borders Iran to the west.

Hmmm. Might make me a trifle tetchy to note that the country with the most atomic weapons in the world and the undoubted ability to deliver them on target had illegally invaded the countries on either side of me and was now turning up both the rhetoric and the economic sanctions threat yet again.

It might well seem reasonable from that perspective to take the position that the only thing that will prevent your country from becoming the smoking ruins that are Afghanistan and Iraq was the threat that you would take as many down with you as possible. Try threatening my family some time and see how I respond.

As for the oil fields around Basra, that bone of contention goes back just under a hundred years. You may recall a little nine year stalemate war that Iraq and Iran fought with the US backing So Damn Insane. Bet the Iranians haven't forgotten.

Bet they also haven't forgotten the CIA sponsored overthrow of the only democratically elected government in the 5,000 year history of Persia back in 1952-3. The Shah fled to Paris and a former university professor named Mossadegh was elected Prime Minister. A moderate centrist with an impeccable lifelong record of public service.

When asked whether he would renew the US military leases Prime Minister Mossadegh not unreasonably responded that as Iran was now a democracy the matter would have to be debated and determine by Parliament. Wrong answer.

The CIA engineered a coup, the Shah returned and stepped aside in favour of his son, SAVAK was launched against all protesters, and totalitarianism was back. Bet the Iranians haven't forgotten that either.

My beloved brother, and others, have taught me over the years that if you want to have any hope of understanding the actions of others you need to be able to see things from their point of view. What would you do?

[Burbert]

To date, the only nation on earth that has
ever used nukes is Amerikie! Shouldn't we
be more afeered of a country that has a
record of using the weepons?

[TOM4CWB]

cpallett;

Israel has much more at risk than the US... Iran has made this clear.

"U.S., Israel Discuss Triggers for Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Infrastructure
Dec 28, 2011 4:45 AM EST

The Obama administration is trying to assure Israel privately that it would strike Iran militarily if Tehran’s nuclear program crosses certain “red lines”—while attempting to dissuade the Israelis from acting unilaterally. Eli Lake reports exclusively.

When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opined earlier this month that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could “consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret,” the Israelis went ballistic behind the scenes. Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, lodged a formal diplomatic protest known as a demarche. And the White House was thrust into action, reassuring the Israelis that the administration had its own “red lines” that would trigger military action against Iran, and that there is no need for Jerusalem to act unilaterally.

Panetta’s seemingly innocent remarks on Dec. 2 triggered the latest drama in the tinder-box relationship that the Obama administration is trying to navigate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. With Republicans lining up to court Jewish donors and voters in America in 2012, Obama faces a tricky election-year task of ensuring Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear bomb on his watch while keeping the Israelis from launching a preemptive strike that could inflame an already teetering Middle East.

The stakes are immensely high, and the distrust that Israelis feel toward the president remains a complicating factor. Those sentiments were laid bare in a speech Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, Moshe Ya’alon, gave on Christmas Eve in Jerusalem, in which he used Panetta’s remarks to cast doubt on the U.S.’s willingness to launch its own military strike.
Ya’alon told the Anglo-Likud, an organization within Netanyahu’s Likud party that caters to native English speakers, that the Western strategy to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must include four elements, with the last resort being a military strike.

“The fourth element of this combined strategy is the credible military strike,” Ya’alon said, according to a recording of the speech provided to The Daily Beast. “There is no credible military action when we hear leaders from the West, saying, ‘this is not a real option,’ saying, ‘the price of military action is too high.’”

The lack of trust between the Israeli and American leaders on Iran has been a sub-rosa tension in the relationship since 2009. Three U.S. military officials confirm to The Daily Beast that analysts attached to the Office of the Secretary of Defense are often revising estimates trying to predict what events in Iran would trigger Prime Minister Netanyahu to authorize a military attack on the country’s nuclear infrastructure. Despite repeated requests going back to 2009, Netanyahu’s government has not agreed to ask the United States for permission or give significant advanced warning of any pending strike.

The sensitive work of trying to get both allies on the same page intensified this month. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited Washington last week to go over Iran issues; and the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, and a special arms control adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Robert Einhorn, were in Israel last week to discuss Iran as well. Panetta for his own part has revised his tone on the question of Iran’s nuclear program, telling CBS News last week that the United States was prepared to use force against Iran to stop the country from building a nuclear weapon.

The new diplomacy has prompted new conversations between the United States and Israel over what the triggers—called “red lines” in diplomatic parlance—would be to justify a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Matthew Kroenig, who served as special adviser on Iran to the Office of the Secretary of Defense between July 2010 and July 2011, offered some of the possible “red lines” for a military strike in a recent Foreign Affairs article he wrote. He argued that the U.S should attack Iran’s facilities if Iran expels international nuclear weapons inspectors, begins enriching its stockpiles of uranium to weapons-grade levels of 90 percent, or installs advanced centrifuges at its main uranium-enrichment facility in Qom.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Kroenig also noted that Iran announced in 2009 that it was set to construct 10 new uranium enrichment sites. “I doubt they are building ten new sites, but I would be surprised if Iran was not racing to build some secret enrichment facilities,” Kroenig said. “Progress on new facilities would be a major factor in our assessment of Iran’s nuclear program and shape all aspects of our policy towards this including the decision to use force.”

Until recently, current and former Obama administration officials would barely broach the topic in public, only hinting vaguely that all options are on the table to stop Iran’s program. Part of the reason for this was that Obama came into office committed to pursuing negotiations with Iran. When the diplomatic approach petered out, the White House began building international and economic pressure on Iran, often in close coordination with Israel.

All the while, secret sabotage initiatives like a computer worm known as Stuxnet that infected the Siemens-made logic boards at the Natanz centrifuge facility in Iran, continued apace. New U.S. estimates say that Stuxnet delayed Iran’s nuclear enrichment work by at most a year, despite earlier estimates that suggested the damage was more extensive.

Last week in a CBS interview, Panetta said Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon is a “red line.” White House advisers have more recently broached the subject more specifically in private conversations with outside experts on the subject.

“There is no credible military action when we hear leaders from the West saying, ‘this is not a real option.’”

Patrick Clawson, the director of research for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said, “If Iran were found to be sneaking out or breaking out then the president’s advisers are firmly persuaded he would authorize the use of military force to stop it.” But Clawson added, “The response they frequently get from the foreign policy experts is considerable skepticism that this is correct, not that these people are lying to us, but rather when the occasion comes we just don’t know how the president will react.”

Henry Sokolski, the executive director the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said “You don’t propose and go about doing an oil embargo unless you are serious about taking the next step, and the next step for the administration is clearly some form of military action, and people who have left the administration like Dennis Ross have made it clear that this is precisely what’s on this administration’s mind.”

Ross did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment.

Ironically, Panetta often is the official the Obama administration uses to engage Israel. “Panetta has been straightforward with the Israelis and they seem to appreciate that,” one senior administration official said. “The Israelis view Panetta as an honest broker.” In some ways that is why his remarks stung Netanyahu’s government so much.

Complicating matters, the Dec. 2 remarks also came at the same time a high-level delegation of Israeli diplomats, military officers and intelligence officials were in Washington for an annual meeting called the strategic dialogue. At the meeting, the Israeli side offered a new presentation on Iran’s nuclear program suggesting that Iran’s efforts to build secret reactors for producing nuclear fuel were further along than the United States has publicly said. Some of the intelligence was based on soil samples collected near the suspected sites.

Part of the issue now between the United States and Israel are disagreements over such intelligence. The Israelis and the U.S. both believe that Iran suspended its work on weaponization, or the research and testing on how to fit an atomic explosion inside a warhead, in 2003 shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The Israelis, however, say the Iranians started that work again in 2005, according to Israeli officials and Ya’alon, who said this in his speech on Christmas Eve. The 2007 and 2011 U.S. national intelligence estimates for Iran say this weaponization work remains suspended.

The Israelis also say a recent document uncovered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that shows detailed plans for constructing a “neutron initiator,” or a pellet that sits at the middle of the nuclear core and is crushed by high explosives in a nuclear explosion, is evidence that Iran is continuing its weaponization work. The latest IAEA report released in November said members states had shared intelligence alleging that Iran had conducted explosive tests associated with nuclear weapons research.

A senior administration official told The Daily Beast, “Both Americans and Israelis agree that some research and design work is probably continuing in the event the Iranians decide to move ahead with weaponization.”

The intelligence disagreement is significant in part because one of the factors in drawing up red lines on Iran’s program is how much progress Iran has made in constructing secret enrichment facilities outside of Natanz, where IAEA inspectors still monitor the centrifuge cascades. In 2009, the Obama administration exposed such a facility carved into a mountain outside of the Shiite holy city of Qom. The IAEA has chastised the Iranians for not fully disclosing their work on the Qom site until the United States forced the regime’s hand."

[cpallett]

"Israel has much more at risk than the US... Iran has made this clear."

Absolutely. Iran does not have the military capability of causing any significant harm to the US. Israel is within reach of Iranian missiles.

I am confident that Iranian officials are aware that the main, if not only, thing that prevents the US from acting unilaterally against Iran is the potential threat to Israel. While I certainly do not condone it, one could reasonably argue that threatening Israel is the only way for Iran to assure their own safety.

Several of my friends rejoiced when Bush Jr. invaded Iraq, believing that Saddam was a threat to Israeli security. I said then, as now, that they were gravely mistaken. Removing Iraq as a buffer and then finally removing US troops from Iraq has predictably resulted in significantly less security for Israel.

It is no secret that Israel has atomic weapons and the means to deliver them. It is difficult to believe that none of the warheads misplaced by the Soviets during the breakup of the USSR did not wind up in Iranian hands.

So, the mutually assured destruction scenario has now shifted to the Middle East. Frankly, that scares the beejesus out of me. We are forced to trust those same folks that have brought you decades of diplomatic fiascos (US government) to not set off this particular powder keg. The potentially cataclysmic results of a diplomatic and/or military misstep do not bear thinking about.