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C/D: US blows the shit out of Iran for the sheer hell of fucking things up or to change teh conversation from Iraq

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Inevitable>

― Grey, Ian (IanBrooklyn), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

Cheney might like it to be inevitable, but it isn't.

Furthermore, I hardly think we'd take on Iran merely to "change the conversation" -- I think it's more likely we've had designs on Iran, one way or another, all along (which is not to say things are going according to plan, as they clearly are not).

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

we've had multiple threads on this - and it's likelihood is miniscule. The US doesn't have the resources to militarily engage Iran, certainly not at this point. Anybody who has delusions about American military designs on Iran (including Cheney) does not understand a) the American military and b) the history of Iran.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:09 (nineteen years ago)

Sure, but lack of resources and understanding didn't exactly stop the Iraq debacle...

― xtof (xtof), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:14 (nineteen years ago)

you can't fire a gun without any bullets in it

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:16 (nineteen years ago)

There's more than enough resources for "surgical" strikes against suspected nuclear facilities, which is all I imagine would happen if there's any kind of military campaign against Iran.

― xtof (xtof), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:26 (nineteen years ago)

Ahmeninijad didn't "try to kill" Dubya's dad = there is no overriding motive for BushCo to bomb Iran... Surgical strikes would achieve next to nothing strategically, considering our intelligence is so bad no one can say for sure where all Iran's nuke facilities are, and any military strike against Iran would compromise the US's operations in Iraq and create and/or exacerbate a whole host of other problems. Dubya's got nothing to gain from any of that.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

plus the Pentagon is totally not into moving against Iran, if Seymour Hersh is to be believed.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

(which he usually is)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

What if Iran invaded Iraq?

― UART variations (ex machina), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:41 (nineteen years ago)

― UART variations (ex machina), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:42 (nineteen years ago)

I would guess that Iran's probably kinda tired of fighting a war with Iraq and would have more interest in exploiting the instability in an attempt to set-up a proxy state - or at least a buffer zone/country between them and the rest of Iraq.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:45 (nineteen years ago)

"NOTE: Nuclear weapons, past and current military experience, unit training and equipment quality are not taken into account. "

ROFLZ

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:47 (nineteen years ago)

Ahmeninijad didn't "try to kill" Dubya's dad = there is no overriding motive for BushCo to bomb Iran...

-- Shakey Mo Collier (audiobo...)

do you really think we're in iraq because of this?? so all the other right-wingers & warmongers & pnac dudes who were clamoring for gulf war 2 since we left kuwait in 91 i guess they were just going along with 'dubya' right? and none of them were in the highest ranking spots of the bush administration, he had to come up with the idea all by his lonesome for personal vengeance??

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:49 (nineteen years ago)

its not the sole reason but its one of 'em. there was a nice convergence of factors (9/11+neoCons+easily manipulated Prez w/Oedipus complex+ignorant citizenry = "let's have a WAR")

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:53 (nineteen years ago)

do you know what actually happens in oedipus rex????

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:54 (nineteen years ago)

oh ethanpaws

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:55 (nineteen years ago)

there's tons of threads discussing the Prez' psych profile - read those and get back to me

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 23:57 (nineteen years ago)

I can't seem to find any

― UART variations (ex machina), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 00:10 (nineteen years ago)

i made one about psychoanalyzing him. either here or on the sandbox.

― kingfish moose tracks (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 00:15 (nineteen years ago)

hey i hear 9/11 wouldn't have gone down if gore won

― roger goodell (gear), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 00:18 (nineteen years ago)

for the record I was just making a flippant reference to Dubya's daddy issues, which we've discussed a lot before. I don't think Dubya literally wants to sleep with his mother and kill his father, or that invading Iraq was a literal revenge/reprisal for Sadaam's (now discredited) "attempt" to kill George the Elder - just that Dubya has daddy-related psych issues that predisposed him to invade Iraq, but which are largely unrelated to Iran. Dubya's eagerness to invade Iraq and capture/kill Sadaam can easily be read as an attempt to show up his Daddy - prove who was more the MAN, the REAL president who's not a "wimp" - which was just as important to Dubya as winning reelection (the other thing his Daddy couldn't do).

Sorry I took an understanding of this narrative for granted, its been repeated a bunch and I thought my aside would be obvious to ILErs.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 00:26 (nineteen years ago)

Yea, his dad doesn't think much of him, right? Like he didn't think he should run?

― UART variations (ex machina), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 00:38 (nineteen years ago)

Surgical strikes would achieve next to nothing strategically, considering our intelligence is so bad no one can say for sure where all Iran's nuke facilities are, and any military strike against Iran would compromise the US's operations in Iraq and create and/or exacerbate a whole host of other problems. Dubya's got nothing to gain from any of that.

My point in my first post was that few in the administration seemed capable of this kind of strategic thought with respect to Iraq, so I wouldn't expect much of a change on the Iran front. As for the daddy issues, I see how maybe they could have helped confirm in Bush's mind that he should go along with the Iraq plan that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, et al were pushing. But say some other Republican, not a Bush, had been president in 88-92 during Gulf War I -- all other things being equal, do you really think we wouldn't be in Iraq right now?

― xtof (xtof), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 01:25 (nineteen years ago)

My understanding is that Iran moves their most useful assets around perodically.

>Surgical strikes would achieve next to nothing strategically

Isn't that a pithy thumbnail of the Rumsfedlian anti-method?

― Grey, Ian (IanBrooklyn), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 05:01 (nineteen years ago)

I went and saw Chris Hedges speak tonight, the guy who wrote _American Fascists_ and was the NYT mid-east correspondent for 7 years and actually speaks Arabic. He was talking about what would happen if we hit Iran and there was a total Shia response, going after all U.S. troops in iraq, plus iran hitting isreal and isreal hitting back, then hezbollah(who are shia, right?) hitting N.Isreal and Israel hitting back, then places like Bahrain and S.Arabia(whose shia population works in the oil industry) shutting things down.

Gunna have a fun time sleeping tonight.

― kingfish moose tracks (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 06:17 (nineteen years ago)

In 2002: Everyone loves a War.
In 2007: Not so much with the loving of the War, at least under this administration.

There would be a large and vocal public outcry. I can't see the Republicans allowing this.

― The Ultimate Conclusion (lokar), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 14:03 (nineteen years ago)

"Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2002329,00.html

― Grey, Ian (IanBrooklyn), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe Saddam Hussein hid all his WMDs in Iran... have the liberal media elite thought of that?

― The Real Dirty Vicar (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 16:59 (nineteen years ago)

Gamed via GlobalSecurity.Org. Operation Radiating Rubble.

― Dick Destiny (Dick Destiny), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

there is no overriding motive for BushCo to bomb Iran

Okay, take a look at the Bush Doctrine - HIS LEGACY - and think about his options. Iraq continues downward spiral, eventually Bush (or more likely his successor) is forced to withdraw troops, another Vietnamesque debacle. Or escalate the conflict, reinstate draft, get into a real war. Thinking it's unlikely totally underestimates the level of hatred the Bush Administration has for Iran. They won't even talk to Iran - whereas they practically beg that other recalcitrant axis of evil player, North Korea, to join talks.

Their main problem at this point is Congress holding the purse strings. Oh, and the total fucking chaos in Iraq.

― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 18:22 (nineteen years ago)

War is the tonic that gives us meaning.

― kingfish moose tracks (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 18:24 (nineteen years ago)

thx dick, that was a fun read

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 18:42 (nineteen years ago)

Their main problem at this point is Congress holding the purse strings. Oh, and the total fucking chaos in Iraq.

But those are pretty big problems. If he hadn't had lost Congress, and so much Republican support due to popular opinion, I know he definitely would have gone through with it, or at least tried with all his might in a very overt and public manner.

The best he can do, and what he seems to be doing, is trying to "subtlely" escalate it by constantly having his cronies bring it up, and move some carriers into the Gulf hoping for some kind of provocation.

However, any overt policy decisions would get shut down pretty quickly, I reckon.

― The Ultimate Conclusion (lokar), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:30 (nineteen years ago)

of course there needs to be some sort in incident to get the ball rolling

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012197.php

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:39 (nineteen years ago)

Bush today said he had no plans to invades Iran. Notably, he left out not having plans to bomb the fuck out of it for sheer spite's sake.

Anyway--a denial is a confimation.

― Grey, Ian (IanBrooklyn), Thursday, 1 February 2007 02:38 (nineteen years ago)

"U.S.-Iran tensions could trigger accidental war

Behind the scenes, nations teeter on the edge of confrontation"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16911972/

Yeah, an "accidental" war.

― wostyntje (wostyntje), Thursday, 1 February 2007 05:02 (nineteen years ago)

But those are pretty big problems. If he hadn't had lost Congress, and so much Republican support due to popular opinion, I know he definitely would have gone through with it, or at least tried with all his might in a very overt and public manner.
The best he can do, and what he seems to be doing, is trying to "subtlely" escalate it by constantly having his cronies bring it up, and move some carriers into the Gulf hoping for some kind of provocation.
However, any overt policy decisions would get shut down pretty quickly, I reckon.

-- The Ultimate Conclusion (lokar2...), January 31st, 2007. (later)

Well, he is the commander-in-chief, and head of an administration that has been demanding (and receiving) unprecedented accruals of power to the executive branch.

Just yesterday I heard Jim Webb (D-VA) complaining that he has asked several Bush admin officials during Congressional hearings, "Could we attack Iran without the clearance of Congress, yes or no?" and they would not answer the question.

Factor in this bit of speculation:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1583523,00.html

― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 1 February 2007 19:01 (nineteen years ago)

"Is it the position of this administration that it possesses the authority to take unilateral action against Iran, in the absence of a direct threat, without congressional approval?”

― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 1 February 2007 19:04 (nineteen years ago)

of course they maintain that position, what a bonehead question. but the political and material reality is that they can't do it. the military resources to accomplish any actual goal are not available, and the political capital that allowed Iraq to happen has been expended many times over. the US is simply not equipped to open yet another "front" on the war on terror and frankly, I think DubyaCo knows that. They've got enough other problems right now.

otoh I guess paranoia is patriotic at this point...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 1 February 2007 19:10 (nineteen years ago)

i heart jim webb.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 1 February 2007 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

eleven years pass...

how soon things like this are forgotten

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

― Rabbit Control (Latham Green), Friday, 31 August 2018 12:09 (seven years ago)

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