On the Verge of Nuclear War

Explain to me how it is not.

Because a bipolar order is inherently more stable than hedgemonic one.

Therefore it would stand that a bipolar middle-east (Israel vs. Iran) would be inherently more stable than hedgemonic one (Israel).

 

hummm, we can draw a parallel to US vs. Soviet, 2 superpowers each of which are equally capable of total destruction of the other, thus providing the deterent that resulted in no nukes being detonated and the period going down in history as the "cold war".

 

You seemed to be arguing the opposite a moment ago.

You can't deter terrorism. You can reduce its effectiveness, however, and thus decrease its occurence. To do this, you limit media air play as well as ensuring it has no policy effect whatsover.

Think what you want, but anybody who has objectively examined the issue would understand that terrorism, Jihadism, and Zionism have a long and complex past. It is absurd to believe one nation is "ultimately behind [it]."

Iran and the USA have had shakey relations for decades, but no worse than many other nations. "Undeclared war" is extremely exaggerated.

What possible motive could there be to attack Iran with nuclear bombs.

The American government isn't stupid - completely immoral, yes, but not stupid. Iraq was well-planned out - they got what they wanted there: access to non-OPEC oil. In those terms, I wouldn't call Iraq a failure.

Better think it through again, Skip.

The global muslim community is divided by hundreds of years of ethnic and religious conflicts. They are as likely to unite as the world's "caucasians" are.

Complete logical fallacy: false analogy. Obviously they didn't want an insurgency... But you are out of your mind if you don't think they expected one.

 

Iraq is in OPEC, spooner.

It's the reestablishment of petrodollar hegemony for Iraqi oil sales that they sought (amongst other objectives) as a warning to other OPEC nations who might have considered following Saddam's example and switching to the Euro for oil sales.

 

They sure don't seem to care if we are solvent and that social security will be around in the future.

 

This is from IranToday, an on line monthly newspaper published for over one million Iranian-American readers all over the USA, Canada, UK and Europe. I have traveled the middle east while in the USAF and can attest to this. We (the USA) don't understand the middle east/Pursian Gulf region.

Iranians are not Arabs, they are Persian

It is a widespread tendency for westerners to think of all Middle Easterners as Arabs. Not true. Arabs came from the Hadhramaut in Yemen, and spread across the Peninsula. Before such countries as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or Iraq existed as individual countries, the land of the Arabs was known simply as “Al Jazeerah”. Al Jazeerah in Arabic means Island or Peninsula. Accordingly, and the name is loosely used to mean “Island of the Arabs”, which is also the name of my Saudi Arabian expedition. These days, Al Jazeerah has become better known as the name of the TV station broadcasting out of Qatar.



Iranians on the other hand are not Arab; they are Aryan. The Arabs actually have much more in common with the Jews (another Semitic people) than they have with the Iranians. Iranians have more in common with Europeans than with Arabs. Although frequently invaded and conquered by various marauding armies, Iran has pretty much always been known as Iran and their language is Farsi, not Arabic. The term Persia is a somewhat confused linguistic reference to Fars. And while both the Iranians and Arabs follow Islam, their religions are quite different. As with Christianity, which embraces Catholics, Protestants, Southern Baptists, Episcopalians, there are many sects of Islam. It was the Arabs who conquered the Iranians and forced them to convert to Islam and denounce their own Zoroastarian faith, which continues as a minority religion in Iran today.

The Jews are, of course, the other key group in the region. And not just in Israel. Jews live throughout the Middle East including Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Iran. In the Arab world, the Jews tended to be silversmiths and much of the beautiful “Bedouin” jewelry is made by Jewish craftsmen. Operation Magic Carpet airlifted many from Yemen to Israel in 1959, but many more chose to stay. In fact, the largest concentrations of Jews outside of Israel and the US are today in Iran.

As we all grapple to understand the enormity of what happened on September 11th, keep in mind that the people of the Middle East, regardless of ethnicity or religion, must be treated as fellow human beings and not condemned out of hand as terrorists. Now, more than ever, we need to read, learn, and travel. Let’s find ways to use travel for the benefit of both worlds, before it’s too late.

 

as for the topic at hand.. I doubt that a limited nuke exchange will lead to a global nuclear war. The only countries that have ICBM's, for now, are the US, Russia and China. Those countries that are new to the nuke club have a limited amount of warheads and delivery systems and their use would have to be judicious. A more likely scenerio would be the use of chemical weapons which "might" result in a retaliation with nukes. The thing with nukes is that of fallout, which given the closed quarters of the region, could land on people that launched the nuke attack.

One scenerio that could pull in the US would have to be an all out attack on Isreal, either conventional or nuclear. The region does understand that Isreal has nukes and would not hesitate to use them if attacked. This isn't to say that "if" Isreal got wind of a nuclear operation plan that they would launch a preemptive strike and pulling the region into a war which could escalate into a limited nuke exchange.

Militarily, few countries could stand toe-to-toe with the US in conventional warfare. Note the use of the word conventional, such as the first gulf war. Unconventional, such as the current situation in Iraq, then the US fights with one hand tied to it balls. If the US used carpet bombing, like was done during WW2 and Vietnam, without regards to civilian casualities, then Iran wouldn't stand much of a chance. The nuclear option was one of the unspoken threats that the US used to stay Saddam's hand during the first gulf war to prevent his using NBC's (nuclear, biological, chemical) weapons.

 

Your right then, but you're arguing semantics.


Correction:

No, but it does mean that nuclear war isn't very likely. In fact, nuclear weapons in Iran could actually make the Middle-East more secure - noone would be attacked for fear of nuclear retaliation.

 

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Well spoon, what you call semantics other people call knowing what they are talking about. Iran is not Arab, Iraq was in OPEC, and invading Iraq didn't give us access to any oil we didn't already have access to.

Iraq's nuclear reactor was destroyed by Israel in 1981. Shortly before, Saddam invaded Iran and since then he has invaded Kuwait, attacked Saudi Arabia and Israel, ordered genocidal campaigns against the Kurds, deliberately created the world's worst oil spill and other environmental catastrophes, and carried out the usual repression and tyranny until 2003 when he was ousted by coalition forces. However, according to your theory, had he managed to acquire nuclear weapons back in 1981, the middle east would have been more "stable".

Also, calling Israel a "hegemonic" power in the middle east creates doubts that you even know what the word means.

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But I think Skip asked, what can we do? Well, obviously there are three forms of pressure: political/diplomatic, economic, and military. We are using the first, with the EU taking the lead. We have threatened the second and kept the third option open. So far, not much success.

 

another thing we can do is ask ourselves is "what dimension of reality does one want to inhabit when one leaves this crazy planet?".

 

i think you're all overestimating what the iranian president wants out of his anti isreal stance, and that is: re-election. plain and simple, he's pandering for votes because an election is comming up and his approval ratins arent all that high, and has no real objective of wipping Isreal off the map.

 

it doesn't take a genius to realise that the states wants its hands on the oil. if/when some strategic strikes on military and civillian targets (ie b52 carpet bombing) will do the trick. looking at some hefty figures like maybe 200,000 dead using "conventional" weapons. i suspect the strike will follow the usual formula, a blitzkreig attack starting of a night , probably around 1-2 in the morning. powerstations and switchyards, water treatment plants and pumping stations and military barracks and warehouses, thinking bombing of bridges away from the main thrust of the land attack that will be in conjunction with the air attack. oil fields and admin will probably be secured using special forces with help from air cover.

 

from an armchair strategists perspective i suppose the next war on iran could be quite interesting. i mean supposing the iranians have got their act together and are actually ready for a war. i suppose given the situation a pre-emptive strike by iran would be the only way to forstall the inevitable victory by america. assuming that the americans will be using deplted uranium, small tactical nukes (remember bush has more or less said he intends to use them) and overwhelming aerial bombardment. from the iranians perspective the trouble stems from israel and its overwhelming control over washington (this is a hypothetical perspective-ie what the iranians maybe thinking not what i am thinking). a first strike on israel would be the only way of winning, assuming the iranians even have any means of actually launching an attack. it will be interesting to see if syria just sits on the sidelines and allows the next domino fall, knowing that itself will be the next target. this is now a game of brinkmanship, the israelis are probably preparing some aircraft as we speak to bomb the iranians nuclear reactors in another "surprise" attack, anyone with an ounce of sense would realise they are going to do it soon maybe within weeks. for the current american administration keeping the war going is the only way to keep themselves away from court and out of jail.

 

you may have a point or you may be full of shit...hard to say...
all i know is civilizations have blown themselves up in the past with them, so it'snothing new we are not so technologically advanced as we think we are...in fact we have far to come mainly due to the fact the elite bastards who are runnin the show don't want us to know there is SOOO much more...
it's much better not to have such a demonic plague as nucleur power upon the earth in the first place, it has no business being here

 

Should they use nukes against Iran, not only would it prove that previous use was NOT a deterrent, but would moreover show the falsity of the argument, long used by rabid US nationalists, that OUR nation acts responsibly with its possession of such destructive technology.

That there should even be talk of inflicting any other nation with such horror shows the flagrant sociopathy of those currently in power in Washington as well as those who still blindly support them.

 

wrong thread