War with Iran

[rjs246]

Third, I realized it was a joke after I posted and got a good chuckle at my own retardedness. I'm a little slow...

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Speaking of retardedness:

[DutchBird]

Oh, and one more point.  I've said it before, Ahmadinejad was inspired to have a holocaust cartoon contest.  If free speech is free speech, then the Danes should publish those too.  They've admitted the whole point was to incense Islam with the Mohammad cartoons.  How is this any different?

I agree that the danes should post the cartoons, also if the NY times and other U.S. papers will post pictures of Abu Grab, post the Muhammed cartoons.

Problem however is that denying the Holocaust or discrimination is a criminal offense. Courtesy of the psychological impact of 6 million dead (plus the by many forgotten hundreds of thousands of non-Jews which were exterminated by Hitler and just as much victims of the Holocaust). Besides various Jewish groups and right-wing conservatives (many of them based within the US)  tend to bring it up every something involving Jews or Israel happens in Europe.

[MadMarchHare]

Free is free, Dutch.  If it's OK to publish disparaging cartoons of Mohammad which were DESIGNED to offend Muslims, than it's OK to publish cartoons mocking the Holocaust.  It's not even a question.

Freedom of speech doesn't preclude common sense.  Neither should have been published, even though they could.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Iran Threatens U.S. With 'Harm and Pain'
Mar 8, 12:15 PM (ET)
By GEORGE JAHN

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program.

But the United States and its European allies said Iran's nuclear intransigence left the world no choice but to seek Security Council action. The council could impose economic and political sanctions on Iran.

The statements were delivered to the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is meeting to focus on Tehran's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment.

The White House dismissed the rhetoric out of Tehran.

"I think that provocative statements and actions only further isolate Iran from the rest of the world," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters traveling with President Bush to hurricane-affected states in the Gulf Coast. "And the international community has spelled out to Iran what it needs to do."

John Bolton, America's ambassador to the United Nations, said Iran's comments showed how much of a menace it was.

"Their threats show why leaving a country like that with a nuclear weapon is so dangerous," he told The Associated Press in a phone call from Washington.

Bolton classified the Iranian comments as "reflecting their determination to acquire weapons."

Wednesday's meeting is in effect the last step before the Security Council begins considering Iran's nuclear activities and international fears they could be misused to make weapons. It began with both Iran and the nations opposing its enrichment plans sticking to their positions.

"The United States has the power to cause harm and pain," said Ali Asghar Soltanieh, a senior Iranian delegate to the IAEA. "But the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, let the ball roll."

He did not elaborate but suggested Iran was awaiting additional American moves.

But diplomats accredited to the meeting and in contact with the Iranians said the statement could be a veiled threat to use oil as an economic weapon.

Iran is the second-largest producer within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and a boycott could target Europe, China or India.

At an OPEC meeting in Vienna, Iran petroleum minister Sayed Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh deflected questions about Iran's threat, saying: "Ask the one who said that."

He later sought to ease worries about Iran's oil plans, telling reporters: "So far there's no reason to reduce exports. Iran has no intention whatsoever of reducing its oil exports."

Oil supplies are tight worldwide and prices already are high. Although the United States does not buy oil directly from Iran, any Iranian effort to tighten world supplies would effect oil prices in the United States.

Iran also has leverage with extremists in Iraq, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Islamic militant group Hamas, which won Palestinian elections in January. Both groups are classified by the U.S. State Department as terrorist organizations.

On Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld accused Iran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to stir trouble inside Iraq.

Iran's statement was unusually harsh, reflecting Tehran's frustration at failing to deflect the threat of Security Council action against it in the coming weeks. Tehran maintains its nuclear program is for generating electricity.

"Our nation has made its decision to fully use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and all have to give in to this decision made by the Iranian nation," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in Iran. "We have made our choice."

Iran also attacked "warmongers in Washington" for what it said was an unjust accusation that Tehran's nuclear intentions were mainly for military use. It also suggested America was vulnerable, despite its strength.

"Surely we are not naive about the United States' ... intention to flex muscles," the statement said. "But we also see the bone fractures underneath."

It also threatened broader retaliation, without being specific, saying Iran "will adapt our policy and adjust our approach to conform with the new exigencies."

Earlier, U.S. delegate Gregory Schulte insisted in comments to the board that "the time has now come for the Security Council to act." He said the 85 tons of feedstock uranium gas already produced by Iran could produce enough material for about 10 nuclear weapons if enriched.

He ticked off Iran's decision to curtail agency inspections, its expanding uranium enrichment program and worrying conclusions by IAEA inspectors that suggest at least past interest in nuclear arms as contributing to "mounting international concerns" about Tehran's nuclear intentions.

Schulte listed Tehran's possession of plans that could only be used to make nuclear warheads, links between its nuclear programs and the military, and its determination to develop a large-scale enrichment program that could be misused to make nuclear arms.

"IAEA inspectors have no doubt this information was expressly intended for the fabrication of nuclear weapons components," Schulte said of documents showing how to form fissile material into warheads.

Separately, France, Germany and Britain, which spearheaded the Feb. 4 IAEA resolution clearing the path for Security Council action, warned that what is known about Iran's enrichment program could represent only "the tip of the iceberg."

"We believe that the time has ... come for the U.N. Security Council to reinforce the authority" of the IAEA and its board, the European statement said.

Russia and China, which have Security Council vetoes, may use them to foil any resolution in that chamber that would meaningfully increase pressure on Iran, their political and economic ally. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing appealed Tuesday for more negotiations and suggested Security Council involvement was not needed.

The Chinese and Russian statements to the board were relatively moderate, said delegates inside the closed meeting. China urged "more time for diplomacy" before any Security Council action, one delegate said on condition of anonymity, quoting from the Chinese statement.

[ice grillin you]

On Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld accused Iran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to stir trouble inside Iraq.

no shtein rummy...you sent your army over there...what do you expect them to do

stir trouble = they are trying to kill the enemy

[MURP]

   

Iran builds a secret underground complex as nuclear tensions rise

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Military force can't destroy our atomic program: Iran
Mon Mar 27, 2006 10:08 AM ET

By Louis Charbonneau

BERLIN (Reuters) - Military strikes against Iran's nuclear sites would not destroy the Islamic republic's uranium enrichment activities, which could be easily moved and restarted, a senior Iranian official said on Monday.

"You know very well ... we can enrich uranium anywhere in the country, with a vast country of more than 1 million 600 square kilometers," said Aliasghar Soltaniyeh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

"Enrichment can be done anywhere in Iran," he told a panel discussion on the possible use of military force to destroy what the West fears is Iran's atomic bomb program.

Soltaniyeh said that after Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear power plant at Osirak in 1981, then Iraqi-leader Saddam Hussein bombed Iran's Bushehr plant.

The Security Council then passed a resolution condemning the attacks and making it illegal for countries to strike nuclear facilities.

But Soltaniyeh said those U.N. documents were "just pieces of paper" today to the United States and Israel.

Soltaniyeh said Iran was hiding nothing from the world and that all of its nuclear fuel facilities were known to the U.N. nuclear watchdog. But he hinted that threats of possible military action against Tehran could change that.

"Any threat or potential threat will create a very complicated situation," he said, adding that Iran would never give up its enrichment program.

A retired U.S. Air Force colonel and well-known war gaming expert told the conference the United States was under increasing pressure to use military force to destroy Iran's atomic sites and would make a decision on this option soon.

Iran has completed a 164-machine "cascade" of centrifuges to enrich uranium at its Natanz plant and is expected to begin testing it soon, diplomats in Vienna say. Operating such a cascade would not enable it to fuel any atomic weapons but would enable Iran to master the difficult art of uranium enrichment.

"I think we may be looking at a (U.S.) decision in six to nine months," said Sam Gardiner, a military strategy expert who has taught at the U.S. Army's National War College.

"I say before the November elections there will be a serious decision made in the United States," he said.

Gardiner said that while Washington supported European and Russian efforts to use diplomacy to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear enrichment program, U.S. officials were skeptical about the efficacy of sanctions or other diplomatic weapons.

Washington also believes the U.N. Security Council will fail to agree on a course of action against Tehran, he said.

Tehran insists its nuclear program is aimed solely at the peaceful generation of electricity. However, it hid its uranium enrichment program, which could produce fuel for nuclear power plants or weapons, from U.N. inspectors for nearly two decades.

Gardiner said a U.S. operation aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear facilities would take less than a week and would not use any of the forces currently stationed in Iraq.

"This is an operation that would not take more than five evenings to do," he said, adding that it would probably use Stealth bombers to bomb the facilities.

But Gardiner said all his war-gaming and analysis had led him to the conclusion that Ambassador Soltaniyeh was right and the military solution would not destroy Iran's nuclear program as the know-how would remain.

"I don't think U.S. policymakers understand that the military option won't work," he said, adding that continued diplomacy was the only way to resolve the issue.

[mussa]

broken record, this douche is just as dilusional as saddam. israel wil take care of our light weight.  hail israel!

[LBIggle]

israel won't do what we tell them, as usual.

looks like round two in the "war on terror".  yippee. 

for a rare comment in bush's defense, its kind of hard to ignore a country practically calling you out.  you really can't have a bunch of rogue retards with nukes.

[MadMarchHare]

The big difference is that the EU and the UN agree this time.  If it comes to war, I'd like it a lot more like Afghanistan than Iraq.

[henchmanUK]

He sure doesn't seem as though he's interested in what anyone thinks.

He and Bush have a lot in common.  Both religious zealots.  Both don't give a damn what anyone else thinks.  Yay!!

You can put Tony Blair in that category too.

[MURP]

Bush 'is planning nuclear strikes on Iran's secret sites'

[Diomedes]

Is he planning to eat any pretzels soon?  I hope he has some pretzels today.

[Drunkmasterflex]

Bush 'is planning nuclear strikes on Iran's secret sites'

I hate when the use headlines like this, they are talking about using tactical nukes as opposed to the Fat Man and Little Boy type nukes, huge difference.  For me I don't even care if we go to war with Iran at this point, I am going to one those countries whether it be Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan in the next year or two anyway.  From what I am hearing it will most likely be Afghanistan.