I have no quotes, no headlines, I just listen to the Beeb who bang on about it endlessly and i've yet to see it covered in more than a 2 second soundbite over here.
What do you think? Is Iran next? Are they already in there subverting (sorry) supporting the youth and offering them options.? Have they found nuclear sites?
Why isn't it news here?
I think if they had enough soldiers and logistical support, there's a whole bunch of places they'd like to invade but they' re having trouble enough rotating the troops in and out, supplying them while maintaining some control.
I think they'd love to invade Iran but it won't happen as long as we're in Iraq. Unless we have a sudden influx to the army....like a draft perhaps. o
I have no quotes, no headlines, I just listen to the Beeb who bang on about it endlessly and i've yet to see it covered in more than a 2 second soundbite over here.
What do you think? Is Iran next? Are they already in there subverting (sorry) supporting the youth and offering them options.? Have they found nuclear sites?
Why isn't it news here?
actually the story started here - Seymour Hersh in the NYT. It was all over the US news Web-sites earlier in the week but seems to have gobe quiet.
I'd be surprised if the US wasn't in Iran - they want to know what is going on there and have convient bases on both sides of the country. Also one of the huge flaws in the whole Iraq debacle was the lack of reliable first hand intelligence - hopefully they've learned the lesson and will look before they bomb this time.
However attacking Iran is dangerous - aside from the whole troop level issue. Iran has terrorist proxies and a well established foreign intelligence service. They have been implicated in terrorist attacks across the world, from Africa to Argentina. They have a proxy army in Lebanon and support terror groups in Israel (Hamas). Also they are Shias, as are the majority of Muslims in Iraq.
As such Iran is more than capable of retaliating against the US and making it hurt. On the other hand,as N Korea has shown, once a nation has the bomb America is effectively neutered.
Basically the US has a choice - act now and risk getting their heads blown off or wait a bit longer and get their balls cut off.
Such is the wonderous success of Codi Rice's foreign policy.
8) I agree with Scramble. We just don't have the man power to go into Iran. Just compare the size of Iraq to Iran. Iran is much bigger for one and we would have to have a draft here for another, and thats not going to happen.
The most they would do at a logical guess, would be to bomb Irans Nuclear facilities.
That may kick off something abit bigger, but thats why they get paid the big money .
Iran has a decent military that wasn't practically wiped out 14 years ago before an invasion.
The 100,000-odd troops in Iraq are for occupation duties ONLY - that is to say they are in no position to stage an invasion of a second country. In addition, the US would now have to ask Iraqi permission to invade from their sovereign territory, which would a) probably not be forthcoming, for fear of reprisals and b) cause a lot of red faces and calls of "puppet" when the Iraqi government was over-ruled anyway.
I would imagine that if Iraq is "hard work", then Iran would be an absolute nightmare, pretty much what Rob suggested in his post.
In my opinion, even the Neo-Cons aren't stupid enough to poke that tiger. The most they can do is drop the odd bomb on suspected facilities but I doubt Iran will just sit and take it. If anything, this "regime-change" mentality has simply accelerated the desire of 'rogue nations' to develop an antidote, in the form of atomic weapons which will ultimately have the range to reach the United States.
The simplest approach is to have a proxy deal with the problem for you and that is Israel's job - however, their position is precarious to say the least and it may be beyond their capabilities.