Sabres Rattling: US - Iran - Israel

[Deus Ex Machina]

Every time I turn on the television, or read the newspaper, or hear the President speak, I hear more and more about Iran, and nuclear weapons, and preemptive strikes, and drones and whatnot. At first I just thought it was your average right-wing talking points . . . but . . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/obama-iran-war_b_1250668.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/world/middleeast/no-israeli-decision-on-iran-attack-obama-says.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=iran&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/opinion/trading-threats-with-iran.html?scp=6&sq=iran&st=cse

And the most recent bit of business, sanctions on Iran's central bank:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/industries/obama-orders-new-us-sanctions-on-irans-government-including-central-bank/2012/02/06/gIQAU8r2tQ_story.html



The skinny: Israel and the US believe Iran has a nuclear program (which, they probably do). Everybody seems to think Israel is ready to strike, and US sanctions are an attempt to get Iran to cut it the fuck out. I wish I could be more coherent or articulate here; but, as an American who's not been asleep for the past 20 years: This kind of language precedes war, and I really don't like it.

I don't see any conditions under which Iran (or any country) would ever abandon a program to develop nuclear weapons. So I think it will be hard hard for them to see these US and world sanctions as anything but a provocation.


We're not seriously going to do this again right?

edit: I realize that initial post might have sounded somewhat resigned, and I don't want to give that impression. I would/do oppose this war with Iran and will do everything I can to keep it from happening/stop it. But I just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention. I think the powers that be are gearing up to pull another fast one. However you feel about it, you should at least be ready.

[andreas]

don't think that'll happen

being situated between iraq and afghanistan, iran could fuck up too many things for usa. besides it could easily stirr some trouble in lebanon via hesbollah, in palestine via hamas and still more trouble in syria. hell, it could also have a little fun with turkey, via PKK. and soon usa would be forced to deal with so many fires around the region, it'd have no idea in which direction to turn first...
besides, as far as arab league is concerned, or arab countries in general - i don't think usa would want to check which is stronger the shiia-sunni antagonisms or the muslim-non muslim ones

not to mention the questionable zeal of china and russia to go there...

and i think many in usa are pretty damn furious with israel and its hardline stance and would want to separate from it if it was possible (but it tsn't, imo), 'cause now us government is being held hostage by israeli internal politics... so in order to loosen up the leash a lil' bit - they'll try to distance themselves from israeli warmongering

so, i think, there'll be more stuxnet stunts, nuclear scientists' assasinations, sanctions and stuff, but no gulf of tonkin hoax is being orhestrated now.

[PooPooMeowChow]

I try to ignore Alex Jones but this ex-CIA officer Ray McGovern he has on talks a lot of sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG5xCDH6NLw&feature=channel_video_title

[Deus Ex Machina]

Taibbi smells it too!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/another-march-to-war-20120217 (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/another-march-to-war-20120217)



We have a similar gentleman’s code, a “Westernized industrial power” code if you will, that operates the same way. In other words, our newspapers and TV stations may blather on a thousand times a day about
attacking Iran and bombing its people (http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200607240011)
, but if even one Iranian talks about fighting back, he is being “aggressive” and “threatening”; we can impose sanctions on anyone, but if the sanctioned country embargoes oil shipments to Europe in response, it’s being “belligerent,” and so on.

[Sutekh]

Another nail in the neo con coffin... They were so sure big-stick tactics would work, but it just made Iran and NK pursue weapons more frantically

Did you know the Bush admin did not believe long term deployment would be necessary in Iraq? Staggering optimism/stupidity

So glad they are gone

Call me mad but i don't think Iran will get bombed. They've been talking about it for too long. I'm not sure if they will see the weapons programme through (remember there is always the possibility there isn't a weapons programme), their admin are pretty stupid but nonetheless they know that if they get the bomb, 2 seconds later they will get struck by US or Israel, militias will take advantage of the chaos and they could risk losing control

[Sutekh]

EU unfreezes Iranian money because they feel there is insufficient evidence to suggest it is being used to facilitate a nuclear weapons program http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23984722