Do the Iranians want a war? They nearly got one overnight, not with the US but with the United Kingdom. The British navy aimed its guns on several Iranian ships attempting to block passage through the Strait of Hormuz of a British oil tanker, which caused the smaller ships to retreat:
Three Iranian vessels attempted to stop a British tanker traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, Britain said Thursday, in the latest escalation between Iran and Western powers in recent weeks.
A British navy ship, the HMS Montrose, was forced to position herself between the Iranian vessels and [the tanker] British Heritage and issue verbal warnings to the Iranian vessels, which then turned away, the British government said in a statement.
We are concerned by this action and continue to urge the Iranian authorities to de-escalate the situation in the region, the statement said.
Last month, the Iranians shot down a US drone operating in international airspace, which nearly prompted a military strike in retaliation. The Iranians have now apparently either shifted their focus or broadened it, also in retaliation. The UK seized a Panamanian oil tanker carrying Iranian crude off the coast of Gibraltar, accusing Tehran of violating EU sanctions by selling oil to Syrias Bashar al-Assad. Iran called it an act of piracy and threatened consequences for the seizure.
This seems to be the UKs reminder that even consequences have further consequences. For the moment, anyway, the Iranians got the message. However, they clearly want to start a fight in the Strait of Hormuz with someone, even though its becoming clearer that the US and the UK are willing to shoot back now after the attacks on other shipping in the Hormuz area.
Iran may not have much choice. Their economy is collapsing again under the weight of US sanctions, and their population is growing restive. The Trump administration announced yesterday that more sanctions are coming now that Iran has openly admitted breaking past the restrictions on uranium enrichment:
The United States on Wednesday accused Iran of nuclear extortion and threatened further sanctions against Tehran, which has begun stockpiling and enriching uranium beyond the limits set in the 2015 accord that President Trump has abandoned.
The United States called an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on Wednesday in response to the Iranian moves, while a senior French envoy was in Tehran exploring ways to reopen negotiations on compliance with the deal.
Iran says its prepared to return to full implementation of its landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, but only when matched by the full compliance of all participants.
Irans representative to international organizations in Vienna, Kazem Gharib Abadi, told a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency Wednesday U.S. actions were neither legitimate nor legal and should not be accepted by the international community.
He says that the costly consequences of American sanctions mean they should be seen as weapons of warfare.
Iran had better be careful before they find out what warfare actually would look like against the US and UK. Theyve been testing Western responses in the Hormuz area for some time, and the British navy gave the Iranians something to think about. If the mullahs are getting nervous about the misery of their population, then they should rethink their nuclear and ballistic missile programs as well as their support for Iranian proxy terror networks in the region.
Poster Comment:
When the British allies on the British protectorate of Gibralter stopped the Iranian tanker illegally bound for Syria last week, Iran's leader vowed revenge on Britain, suggesting that Iran would seize a British tanker in retaliation. Britain did lawfully interdict a contraband oil shipment destined for Syria contrary to international agreements.
Well, Iran tried to seize a Brit tanker and Britain made it clear they aren't going to be victims of Iranian piracy in the Strait of Hormuz.
They sent Iran a message. I think they should have punctuated it with sinking one or more of the three Iranian ships to make their point to Iran even clearer. But that will be the next step if Iran tries something like this again.
We had no legal deal with Iran. Obama the fake President never ratified it.
As I've pointed out to others elsewhere on this: It doesn't matter.
If you are claiming no deal ever existed, then it's impossible for Iran to have violated this deal. In which case, what's the basis of complaining that Iran enriching nuke material to any level? If there never was any deal then Iran STILL hasn't broken it.
Also since you still talk about the Liberty which was clearly an accident
It was clearly an attack by Israel that Israel claimed was an accident...
Lets talk about the hostage taking which was on purpose Iran deserves to be destroyed for that alone The government not all the people. Just the people who support their evil muslim piece of shit terrorist illegitimate government.
If you want to talk about the hostages, fine. But don't talk about them in a vacuum. It needs to be discussed in the context of all the US has done there.
You are one of those people who would cheer if Iran attacked America or Israel. But you would whine if Iran attacked the EUroweenies who have steadfastly caved in to Iran's demands and been only too happy to provide them with dual-use technology for their missile/nuke programs. So the EU can help Iran build nukes and missiles to harm her allies. Like America.
We really need to disband NATO. It's entirely useless if not counterproductive.
The way you talk it sounds like you are an Iraian.
A lot of people are. With 85 million, Iran is fully 20% of the size of the USA.
You seem to have a deep unnatural hatred of Israel.
Do you not hate Iran? Do you not hate muslims?
Who could destroy Iran if they wanted to.
And how is it that a country of 7.5 million was able to obtain nukes before a country of 85 million? Because they exploited the US into giving them away. What ever happened to the virtues of "non-proliferation" if we give nukes to a tiny country like that?
Israel exploits the USA. I know you and other Christians favor Israel, but it's not because of what they've done. It's because of a religious belief that they are Biblical prophesy fulfilled. The irony is that the Palestinains and other actual semites in the area probably have more blood of ancient Israel in them than present day Israelis.
But they don't because they genuinely want peace unlike the Muslim pieces of shit in Iran who are commanded by their cult book to kill pillage and rape. A sick religion that muslim gutter religion is.
Iran is much more civilized than you think, and probably on the more westernized compared to the rest of the countries in the region.
I'm convinced Israel doesn't want peace at any fair price. If they had peace with the Palestinians, they wouldn't be able to create more illegal settlements.
One has to wonder, given all that we know about how Iran's terror network has operated for decades,
Do we know that? Or is that just long standing fake news coming from Israeli intelligence?
That claim has been out there a while. But can you state a single terror act carried out by the Iranian gov? I can name one carried out by Israel, when they assassinated an Iranian nuke scientist. Remember that one which involved forging an Ireland passport to effect the deed? I'm sure they'll be given a waiver for that terror act because it was a *nuke* scientist they murdered. But it was terror.
You suppose they'd finally be on America's side if Iran nuked an American city?
Hypothetical. If Israel nuked an American city, would that sway pro-Israel Americans?
That does actually invoke a memory of a radioactive hotspot being allegedly ID'd in the the Israeli embassy or similar in the USA.
But I'd turn on Iran more strongly if they did engage in hostilities WITHOUT having economic war declared upon them first. War has been declared already. By the US.
Twenty years ago, we spent four days in Havana discussing the missile crisis with Mr. Castro, former Soviet officials and American decision makers from the Kennedy administration, including the former defense secretary Robert S. McNamara.
Mr. Castros interest had been piqued by the declassification and release of Soviet and American documents in 1991 and 1992, which both surprised and angered him. These included long-suppressed passages from memoirs, released 20 years after Khrushchevs death, in which he wrote that Mr. Castro had become irrational and possibly suicidal and that the crisis had to end before Cuba ignited a nuclear war.
In addition, declassified letters between Khrushchev and Kennedy revealed the extent to which Washington and Moscow cut Cuba out of negotiations, refused to consider Cuban demands and eventually resolved the crisis in spite of Mr. Castros objections. So to truly understand how the world came close to Armageddon, one must look not to Washington and Moscow but to Havana.
...
There are many parallels between communist Cuba in 1962 and our current bad actors, Iran and North Korea, in 2019.
These are not countries that should ever have nuclear weapons.
That claim has been out there a while. But can you state a single terror act carried out by the Iranian gov? I can name one carried out by Israel, when they assassinated an Iranian nuke scientist. Remember that one which involved forging an Ireland passport to effect the deed? I'm sure they'll be given a waiver for that terror act because it was a *nuke* scientist they murdered. But it was terror.
Another that comes to mind is their assassination of the Canadian arms builder Gerald Ball. They killed him to stop his work on one or more supercannons capable of hitting Israel from Iraq.
Iran is the worst state sponsor of terrorism. Everyone around the world considers this to be the case. They act in bad faith constantly, issue radical statements, organize assassinations and bombings around the world, even in places that don't matter, just to intimidate everyone else.
Israel has no comparable terror network or history of mad dog attacks.
Iran has earned its bad reputation and nothing they've done in the last decade has improved their standing as a state sponsor of terror and as a warmonger and regional troublemaker.
There are many parallels between communist Cuba in 1962 and our current bad actors, Iran and North Korea, in 2019
You forgot other "second Hitlers", Milosevic, Kadaffi, Saddam, the endless list.
Each made from the same cookie cutter, created in Hollywood long time ago (I recommend Wag the Dog movie). Every brainwashed zombie, that cannot even show a respective country on the map, "knows" well, how wicked their leader is.
No knowledge, no understanding, only Pavlovian conditional reflexes.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
You forgot other "second Hitlers", Milosevic, Kadaffi, Saddam, the endless list.
I never saw any of them as a "Hitler". Not even Saddam. But I knew more than most people about how our government funded Saddam's military buildup covertly via BCCI, if you recall that chapter of the Iraq-Iran war (which we certainly joined Saddam by providing a manned barge platform and continuous AWACS coverage of the region and served as the air controllers and intel source for Iraq's air force. Our navy was also quite nearby to keep the Iranian navy in check.
The mullahs and the Norks are very much in the Hitler mold. The Norks even have a racial purity and supremacy political doctrine. They are profoundly racist as a regime and consider themselves genetically superior to the South Koreans who they are duty-bound to conquer by the sacred principles of Lenin and Stalin. And Iran has their Twelver apocalyptic, their version of Armageddon. It's akin to how evangelicals and Protestants considered that re-establishing Israel in the modern era fit into Bible prophecies about the Christian apocalypse. It's one of the main reasons why Israel gets so much support in Christian circles that go in for apocalyptic Left Behind stuff. Iran has that same sort of thing but they are much more serious about it, including all the senior leadership. They consider that it may be necessary to sacrifice various nations and even themselves to establish the final Twelver Caliphate, the end of history for Muslims. This would be comparable to the thousand-year reign of Christ following the Second Coming, for instance.
Both North Korea and Iran are extremist totalitarian regimes that regularly break agreements and foment terrorism. Kim killed his own brother overseas with nerve gas. And Iran's list of crimes as a state sponsor of terrorism is endless. And not just against Israel. Far from it.
A country like Nazi Germany shouldn't have nuclear weapons. And Iran and North Korea are both too much like Nazi Germany in the worst ways.
The Norks even have a racial purity and supremacy political doctrine. They are profoundly racist as a regime and consider themselves genetically superior to the South Koreans
There is no such thing as illegal settlements. Palestinians are illegal aliens in israel.
Due to a biblical claim going back thousands of years. Yes. And THAT attitude is why there won't be peace.
Never mind that it's highly doubtful that even a single present day Israeli can even trace his lineage back that far.
Like I said.... it can be tempting to simplistically think present day Israelis and ancient Israelies are related by blood. The reality may closer reflect the fact that before 100 years ago, a sizeable percentage of people generally didn't move more than 20 miles from their place of birth. Go back to times of antiquity, and you'll find people intermarry into neighboring cultures.
Which is why the irony of this whole mid-east situation may be that the Palestinians may have, in spite of their current Islamic faith, more blood of ancient Israel in them than present day Israelis do, who are, I understand, mostly of Eurasian descent. And if THAT is true, then you would be cheering for the persecutors of God's chosen people.
The mullahs and the Norks are very much in the Hitler mold.
From what I know from people that lived under Hitler and what I've read and heard about life in N. Korea and Iran, there's a lot in your comparison that bears credible consideration.
But when I read "Texas Court Orders Father to Raise His Son As A Transsexual" I wonder how a liberal democracy like the one we've been taught to honor from the day we learned to tie our shoes has so suddenly and inexplicably turned to shit.
But when I read "Texas Court Orders Father to Raise His Son As A Transsexual" I wonder how a liberal democracy like the one we've been taught to honor from the day we learned to tie our shoes has so suddenly and inexplicably turned to shit.
The American Left does have a genuine totalitarian streak, right down the middle of its yellow back.
The question is, can Iran be strong armed into not making them,
And the answer is: of course they can be. They're not supermen. If they're willing to sacrifice their futures and live in the dirt for four generations, in order to assert the dream of having nuclear weapons (because the reality is we will bomb their facilities if they ever get close), then let them become another North Korea - backwards, falling behind the world, suffering terribly, isolated.
My bet is that the second or third generation will get tired of eating dirt and give up on the dream, the way the third generation of Communists did. The Communists did because we RESISTED them, fought them everywhere, at every turn, overthrew every government they tried to infiltrate, and contained them and fought them, until they finally ran out of money and the new generations lost hope, then their government collapsed and with it, all but four of the Communist countries ceased to exist and turned into potential friends and allies. Most did ally with us.
That is EXACTLY what you do the Muslim fanatics in Iran. No, you will NEVER be permitted to develop atomic weapons. And given your size, and your lack of resources, you never have any hope of standing up to the US and the whole West and, the rest of the Middle East too.
You will be isolated, you will not be permitted to sell your oil in quantities that even let you support your own people right. You will fall further and further behind, and the US will be there, wrapping you in iron, and grinding all hope of any future out of all of your children for generations to come, until you yield.
And, since you're stubborn, fanatic jihadi fucks, you will NEVER yield, so your children will be ground into the dirt, And if they're stubborn Islamist fucks like you, THEY will live in poverty and despair. Eventually, your grandchildren or great grandchildren will renounce you and your beliefs and give up the point and join the civilized world, just like the Soviet Bloc did.
That took us 75 years. And we weren't as relatively strong or relatively rich when we did that. We have FOREVER> We ALREADY rule the world, for all practical purposes. Our lives are advancing and getting better. But we are willing to make you live in a prison outhouse and keep you there, until you give up the point.
That's the way it's going to be. We have forever. Their suffering doesn't even cross our radar screen, so we can just keep at it. In the end, we're too strong, they're too weak, and nobody but they want the nukes. They will never get them, and eventually they will surrender the point.
All we have to do is just stand on them until we do. So we will. Count on it. Worked against the USSR. Will work against Iran.
We've done that to North Korea for a long time, and Kim will make a deal with Trump on account of that.
We're much better at this than you give us credit for.
Israel is not relevant to the issue. Iran is a permanent, declared enemy and, unlike North Korea, which has a superpower protector that limits our ability to directly strike them to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, Iran has no such protector, so we CAN physically prevent them from doing so and destroy whatever they do develop. And we will.
If the Iranians have decided that they are going to destroy the future of their people by engaging in a headlong, permanent fight with the United States and our worldwide allies, over their supposed "right" to obtain nuclear weapons, then so be it: they will in fact destroy the future of their people, by charging into guns too strong for them to face and getting shot down doing it.
One of the reasons that it's so important to break Iran in this matter is because so many people, like you, see in Iran the hope of holding up the fist of rebellion against the American world order. It is very important, therefore, that the Iranian example of resistance is utterly crushed, so that hope dies in hearts all over the world, and the rebellious at heart realize that rebellion against the status quo comes at a fearsome price, that it comes without victory at the end, and that it's ultimately not worth it.
Unfortunately for the Iranians two and three generations from now, the stubborn decisions of their grandparents to shake their fist in the face of the American world order will result in those children and grandchildren living backwards and constrained lives compared to what they might have lived, all of that sacrifice for the arrogant pipe dream of obtaining nuclear weapons (which still will not have happened by that time).
By the fourth generation they'll be truly sick of it and give up. It would be best for all if they gave up before starting it, but there always have to be examples in this world. Iran has stepped up to provide one. We should thank them for that, I suppose.
I can't tell if you are in favor of the US empire or are just stating that's the way it is.
Yes Iran is the underdog. But they are not alone. The US has only 5-6% of the world population, and an Achilles heel of enormous debt. In fact, much of the ME policy is no doubt to defend not the US directly, but the dollar itself.
I for one don't consider Iran a military threat even with nuke weapons. Is Pakistan at threat? They have nukes and they are Islamic.
I'm not confident the US will retain its empire status perpetually. Nor am I confident the US can prevent Iran from developing them any more than they prevented the much poorer NK from obtaining them. Iran is a large country fully 20% of the size of the US in population, and they have a lot to lose in any nuke contest, especially with Israel having nukes pointed at them. There is no danger in Iran having nukes. That's my assessment at least.
Nukes are a reality, and Iran WILL have them if they so choose. If we could not keep NK from making them, we will not prevent Iran from making them. If they want them.
Our only choice, as imperfect as it is, is to establish good relations with them and remove as much motive as we can from them from making that choice. Massive sanctions creates a motive for them to make them, as once Iran becomes a viable nuclear armed country, antagonizing them with severe and permanent sanctions will encourage their use.