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Iran Super Thread- Merged

Nemo888 said:
My point is that if bioweapons are "madness" what does that make nukes? Many viral agents kill only humans. Leaving all resources and infrastructure intact minus most of the populace. Your troops can be inoculated against the agents. As can your settlers to the newly depopulated land. Just like how the United States was founded after smallpox eradicated the natives.

Weapons of mass destruction are immoral. Some, like nukes, are not even rational. At best in a major nuclear exchange they give you ability to make the other guy lose too. They serve almost no purpose militarily. Having a club that has them saying others can't is doomed to failure. If we are serious about not nuking each other till everything glows NO ONE should have them.



Nemo888 said:
...

When the Soviet Union fell apart some of the scientists said of the 1972 bioweapons treaty, "We thought you were lying so we never stopped our program."  Since we fired all our bioweapons developers in the 1970's we had almost no knowledge base to defend against these weapons. The Americans paid the Russian experts huge paychecks to get them up to speed.


I won't argue that the use of any of these weapons isn't madness.  Hell, even the name of the "strategy" MAD admits as much.  The problem is with the second highlighted comment.  Sure it would be nice if Nuclear (and Biological and Chemical) weapons didn't exist, but they do.  Can you trust that everyone that has them will honestly and permanently get rid of them if we all agree?  If one side doesn't and there is no risk of retaliation (i.e. they could actually "win" by using them) does that in fact increase rather than decrease the chance of their actually being used?
 
A repost from the China superthread to put this post in context:

E.R. Campbell said:
As Mr Rosen says, the Chinese film industry is a tool in China's ongoing soft power campaign ~ charm offensive, if you like ~ which aims to use popular entertainment to spread China's "message" as, many people agree, Hollywood spread America's message to the world in the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s. Some people argue that only jazz music was more influential, all around the world, than were Hollywood films.


Meanwhile, the Iranians are also attempting their own charm offensive/soft power campaign in the Western Hemisphere:

:o

As reported in the 11 August Washington Post:

Iran has been providing all-expenses paid sojourns for detailed instruction in Islam and Iranian culture for hundreds of select Mexican and other Latin American students, all supervised by Moshen Rabbani who is an international fugitive for terrorism charges.

The program is ostensibly part of Iran's efforts to expand its influence throughout the Western Hemisphere, including building mosques, cultural centers, and even a Spanish language cable TV network that broadcasts Iranian programming.

Apparently the concern level is mixed within the our executive branch as to substantive progress and possible threats posed by Tehran's efforts, but one must conclude that with much of Iran's foreign "benevolence", it has a dark, sinister side with a potential to cultivate more than just sympathy for Iran.
 
Iran raises the stakes... :o

Strike on Syria Would Cause One on Israel, Iran Declares

Iranian lawmakers and commanders issued stark warnings to the United States and its allies on Tuesday, saying any military strike on Syria would lead to a retaliatory attack on Israel fanned by “the flames of outrage.”

The warnings came against a backdrop of rising momentum among Western governments for a military intervention in the Syria conflict over what the United States, Britain, France and others have called undeniable evidence that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces used banned chemical weapons on civilians last week, killing hundreds. Mr. Assad has accused the insurgents who are trying to topple him of using such munitions.

More at ...

New York Times
 
Is it possible that we are seeing what was foretold in the Book of Revelations ?
 
tomahawk6 said:
Is it possible that we are seeing what was foretold in the Book of Revelations ?


Anything and everything can be "foretold" in the Book of Revelations ... I'm scanning it right now to figure out how to explain Hannah Montana to my teen aged niece.

130826-Miley-Cyrus-VMAs_0.jpg
 
The elements are present for another war in the region,with Iran as instigator.It wouldnt be very smart for Iran to strike Israel,as Israel is the only nuclear power in the region.But if they hope to usher in the 13th Imam,who knows ?
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Anything and everything can be "foretold" in the Book of Revelations ... I'm scanning it right now to figure out how to explain Hannah Montana to my teen aged niece.

Just tell her that Hannah was playing zoo keeper.... :o
 
This should be all anyone needs to know to understand why we need to stay as far away from this shit show as possible.  Funny because it's true...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/26/the-middle-east-explained-in-one-sort-of-terrifying-chart/?tid=socialss
 
Iran's top cleric making more threats, not just at Israel, but directly against the US as well:

CNN link

Iranian leader: U.S. will 'definitely suffer' if it leads strike on Syria
 

By Greg Botelho and Michael Pearson, CNN

-- As the ramifications of a grisly chemical weapons attack loom over a summit of world leaders, some of Syria's staunchest friends blasted what they call the "arrogance" of U.S.-led efforts to strike the war-torn nation and said those who do will pay a steep price.

Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday the United States -- which, in addition to being one of his country's chief adversaries, has led the push to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government over chemical weapons -- has no right to make "humanitarian claims (given) their track record" in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The turmoil in the Middle East, Iran's leader said in remarks reported by state-run Press TV, is a "reaction of the global arrogance" that is rooted Washington. Should the United States and allies strike Syria, he added, it won't be able to "eliminate (the) resistance."

"We believe that the Americans are committing a folly and mistake in Syria and will, accordingly, take the blow and definitely suffer," said Khamenei.
 
(...)
 
Seems Iran may get S300 SAMs from Russia the same way Syria did.

From Bloomberg:

(Bloomberg) President Vladimir Putin is set to agree to resume Russian missile sales to Iran this week when he meets his counterpart Hassan Rohani for the first time, after heading off a U.S. attack against their common ally Syria.

Putin and Rohani, elected in June, will discuss a range of issues at their Sept. 13 meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, including possible deliveries of S-300 surface-to-air defense systems and Russia’s plan to put Syria’s chemical arsenal under international control, according to Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman.

Putin has agreed in principle to resume missile sales to Iran and to start work on a second nuclear reactor at Bushehr, the country’s only atomic plant, the Kommersant newspaper reported today, citing an unidentified person close to the Kremlin. Peskov declined the comment on the likelihood of the two leaders reaching a missile agreement at their meeting.

“First of all, they will get to know each other,” Peskov said by phone today. “Cooperation in the military sphere and the situation in Syria will be on the agenda.”

Then-President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 froze Russia’s S-300 contract with Iran to avoid international pressure after the United Nations imposed sanctions against the Islamic republic. Iran has sued Russia for breaching their contract because defensive systems aren’t prohibited by the sanctions.
 
Kat Stevens said:
This should be all anyone needs to know to understand why we need to stay as far away from this shit show as possible.  Funny because it's true...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/26/the-middle-east-explained-in-one-sort-of-terrifying-chart/?tid=socialss

I noticed that there is no direct link between the Syrian Rebels and Assad.

It's simple really:

http://youtu.be/SnO9Jyz82Ps

;D
 
This is has to be the 2nd time I heard about Iranian warships visiting Sudan, if I can recall correctly.

Defense News link

KHARTOUM — Two Iranian warships have entered Sudan’s territorial waters and were heading to dock for “routine” fuelling, a spokesman of Sudanese army said on Wednesday.

“Two Iranian ships have entered our territorial waters, one of them is a destroyer and the other is a supplies vessel,” Col. Sawarmi Khaled Saad told AFP
.


He said the vessels are stopping in Sudan for a “routine and regular visit” to get “supplies, food and water”.

In October, two Iranian navy vessels called at Port Sudan, followed by two more in December, in what Khartoum described as a “normal” port stop.

Israel considers the area of the Red Sea and east Sudan as a passage for arms smuggled to Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
Khartoum’s links with Iran came under scrutiny after Sudan accused Israel of being behind an Oct. 23 strike against the Yarmouk military factory in the capital, which led to speculation that Iranian weapons were stored or manufactured there.

Last month, Saudi authorities denied permission for a plane carrying Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to cross its airspace for the swearing-in of Iran’s new president.

Riyadh said Bashir’s flight plan lacked prior approval.
 
Iranian missiles in the news again:

Defense News

Iran Parades 30 Missiles With Range of 2,000km

TEHRAN — Iran paraded 30 missiles with a nominal range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) Sunday, the first time it had displayed so many with the theoretical capacity to hit Israeli targets.

Iran displayed 12 Sejil and 18 Ghadr missiles at the annual parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

The stated range of both missiles would put not only Israel but also US bases in the Gulf within reach.


But in his speech at the parade, President Hassan Rowhani insisted the weaponry on show was for defensive purposes only.

“In the past 200 years, Iran has never attacked another country,” he said.

“Today too, the armed forces of the Islamic Republic and its leadership will never launch any aggressive action in the region.

“But they will always resist aggressors determinedly until victory.”

The Sejil was first tested in November 2008 and the Ghadr in September of the following year.

(...)
 
In spite of Rouhani's rise to Iran's presidency, we'll see if his announced willingness to work with the US and the international community translates to actual actions:

military.com

Iran Offering to Reject Nuclear Weapons

Sep 21, 2013

An Iranian government adviser said Tehran wants a deal with Washington to end economic sanctions in return for assurances Iran will not develop nuclear weapons.

Amir Mohebbian, a longtime adviser to Iranian leaders who took part in high-level diplomatic strategy sessions, said the proposed strategy resulted from a letter U.S. President Barack Obama sent to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani a few weeks ago, offering relief from debilitating sanctions if Iran will "cooperate with the international community, keep your commitments and remove ambiguities," The New York Times reported Friday.

A senior U.S. official the Times did not name said Obama made no promises in the letter.

Mohebbian and others said Tehran wants to end sanctions as soon as possible so it can re-establish relations with the international banking system. Some Iranian leaders are concerned hard-line Muslim clerics and military officials might react against Rouhani if the so-called P5-plus-1 process -- diplomatic efforts involving the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany -- fails to lead to a quick resolution of issues surrounding Iran's nuclear program.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, speaking Friday with reporters aboard Air Force One, said the United States welcomed comments such as Mohebbian's "as they do indicate a willingness to act constructively -- to work constructively with the international community. But the fact of the matter is actions are what are going to be determinative here."


(...)
 
A good will gesture that came with the new Iranian leadership led by Rouhani?

Canadian Press

Toronto man who had been on death row in Iran released from prison, wife says

The Canadian Press – 14 hours ago.

TORONTO - The wife of an Iranian-Canadian who was on death row in Tehran says her husband has been released.

Antonella Mega's husband, Hamid Ghassemi-Shall, had been in an Iranian prison since he was arrested in 2008 and charged with espionage.

He was sentenced to death in 2009 and an Iranian court later rejected an appeal.

Ghassemi-Shall emigrated from Iran after that country's 1979 revolution.

(...)
 
Iran Offering to Reject Nuclear Weapons

Toronto man who had been on death row in Iran released from prison, wife says

Etc, etc, etc

All a ploy to give a weak America (President Obama) an excuse to dither about Iran's nuclear weapons production until it is too late.
 
Since Iran seems to be the biggest beneficiary of this, I will post here as opposed to the Syria or Russia thread:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-switches-sides_757159.html?nopager=1

Obama Switches Sides

In yesterday’s U.N. speech, Obama kissed goodbye to U.S. allies and signed on with Iran, Russia, and Syria.
6:05 PM, SEP 25, 2013 • BY LEE SMITH       

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani didn’t have to snub Obama yesterday by choosing not to meet with him on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting. But, as with Vladimir Putin’s victory lap op-ed in the New York Times, Rouhani chose to rub Obama’s face in the dirt because he could. Obama hung a “kick me” sign on his back and Rouhani simply took him up on it.

As for Rouhani, his speech yesterday revealed rather less about the man than the regime he represents. Forget about the Islamic Republic’s theological foundations, ignore the conviction, held by various regime figures, that the Mahdi is destined to return. Rouhani, like every Iranian president before him and like thousands of other Iranian clerics and regime figures, is one part Polonius, one part Wizard of Oz, a mid-level manager thrilled by the prospect of his own muddled thought becoming reality.

“Violence,” the Iranian president said yesterday, “has gone beyond the physical realm, and has penetrated the psychological and spiritual realm of human existence." The fact that a world leader stood before his peers to utter this mystical nonsense would be funny—except for the fact that standing behind the great and powerful Rouhani is the very serious head of the regime’s external operations unit, Qassem Suleimani (profiled by Dexter Filkins in this week’s New Yorker) whose violence in the physical realm against Americans and our allies is quite real and may already have convinced the White House that any military action against Iran’s nuclear program will be met with terror operations against Americans around the world, and even here at home.

As head of the Qods Force, Suleimani stands apart from the rest of this regime, a gang of philosopher-magicians dancing on the head of a pin and looking to push the others off. Indeed, that’s all Iran’s presidential elections are—a version of “Survivor,” where the last man that the Supreme Leader leaves standing becomes president. If the Arabs are too often content with a strongman, the Persians love their court intrigue, with one courtier smiling to another while yet another stabs him ever so gently, ever so cleverly in the back. If the Americans are easily gulled by the charade, hoping that maybe this president will prove to be the pragmatist, the moderate, the savior come to sign a deal, then that’s just a bonus—the game is played primarily in order to entertain an Iranian audience.

This is who Obama is chasing after, a mystical mannequin in long black robes, and, as Fouad Ajami writes, the American is “decisively outclassed. There is cunning aplenty in Persia, an eye for that exact moment when one’s rival has been trapped.” And indeed Obama has caught himself in his own pincers move. By announcing that his administration’s diplomatic efforts will focus on “Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons,” as well as the peace process, Obama has made Rouhani a partner, with the ability to make an American president dependent on his cooperation look like a fool anytime he wishes, as he did yesterday. Obama effectively told America’s regional allies that he’s got new friends now, no matter how badly they treat him.

In making the peace process the White House’s other key diplomatic initiative, Obama signaled to Israel, as well as the Arabs, that in the end, the Iran issue isn’t that big a deal—or no more important than a peace process that everyone in the world except for John Kerry thinks is at the present moment absurd. Obama is sick and tired of the Middle East but he won’t take responsibility for his own wounded pride, so he hangs it on the American public. The fact that the Arabs always blame the United States, said Obama, has “a practical impact on the American peoples’ support for our involvement in the region, and allows leaders in the region—and the international community—to avoid addressing difficult problems.”

There’s no doubt that a war memorial in, say, Baghdad, or Basra, or Beirut, to our fallen dead is long overdue. But a little respect and appreciation from the Arab world is not the main thing that’s missing. What has a practical impact on the American people is the incompetence of the commander in chief. It’s his job to explain to the American public why the Middle East matters, why maintaining and advancing our interests there also means security at home.

As for the tendency of leaders in the region to skirt tough issues, the unpleasant fact is that Obama is in no position to lecture them on this particular failing. Whoever heard a superpower whine about its allies? American policymakers never deluded themselves that the planes, tanks and other weapons sold to Saudi Arabia meant that Riyadh was capable of taking care of itself. The purchases kept production lines running and were a pledge of U.S. support and investment in the region’s stability. When it came to ensuring open sea-lanes in the world’s most strategically vital body of water in the Persian Gulf, it was up to the United States, not Saudi Arabia, to do it.

Moreover, it cannot have escaped Obama’s notice that our regional allies have indeed tried to address one rather significant difficult problem on their own—the Syrian civil war. Obama has not only rebuffed their request that we take a leading role among them, he has undermined their efforts.

The conflict in Syria, said Obama, “is not a zero-sum endeavor. We are no longer in a Cold War. There’s no Great Game to be won, nor does America have any interest in Syria beyond the well-being of its people, the stability of its neighbors, the elimination of chemical weapons, and ensuring it does not become a safe-haven for terrorists.” That’s not how our allies see it. For them it is zero-sum. An Iranian victory in Syria, regardless of whether Bashar al-Assad survives, further expands Tehran’s reach and puts Qassem Suleimani on the border of Israel, Jordan, and Turkey.

From their perspective, the White House has changed sides. In agreeing to the Russian initiative to get rid of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, Obama legitimized an Arab butcher whose departure he called for two years ago. Obama made Putin as well as Assad partners. Given that the process to find and destroy all of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons will last at least until mid-2014, or Syria’s next presidential election, Obama is ensuring that when the only Syrians unafraid of sticking their head out of the rubble go to the polls, Assad will still be the only name on the ballot.

If the president of the United States wants to hazard his own prestige on a diplomatic breakthrough with Rouhani that’s one thing. It’s something else when he uses American prestige in order to defend the interests of our adversaries, like Russia, Syria, and the Iranian-led resistance bloc.

Look for a redoubling of efforts by te Gulf Kingdoms and Saudi Arabia to shore up their positions and attempt to block the hated Persians from besting them in the Shiite/Sunni religious wars.
 
In spite of the so-called diplomatic breakthrough simultaneously occurring between US SecState Kerry and  his Iranian opposite number this past week, actions by Iranian hackers say otherwise:

Defense News

Report: Iranian Hackers Breached US Navy Intranet

Sep. 27, 2013 - 06:30PM   
By SAM FELLMAN 

(...)

The Wall Street Journal reported that the intrusion by Iranian agents or proxies breached the Navy and Marine Corps Intranet, the world’s largest intranet network and one used on hundreds of thousands of unclassified computers across the force. The cyber-trespassers did not steal any secrets but their presence prompted alarms at the Pentagon about the prowess of the Iranian hackers.

The Defense Department declined to confirm the report of a breach, saying only that DoD networks see “daily attempts” by hackers and that these defenses are updated constantly to parry them.

(...)

Wide swathes of the Navy’s websites have been down or intermittent for the past week.
(...)
 
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