Iran and 9/11 Investigations

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-07-21 05:56pm

Joe wrote:Good post, but the picture isn't working. Anyway, I am hardly an expert on military technology, but I was under the impression the F15-E had a much larger range than that.

Funny, it works fine for me...

I posted it as a link rather than directly inserting into the post, because I feared it might be too big, but I'll try direcly inserting the image to the post this time and see if it works for you:

Can you see it now? As for the F-15's range, sure it can fly farther than the usually quoted 685 mile radius, (as in, it still has to fly back to base after hitting it's target), but not when it's on a combat mission and loaded down with ordinance, and not unless you intend it to be a one-way trip.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-07-21 06:23pm

Nuclear weapons are for keeping external forces at bay. You don't nuke your own country.

No, but it isn't unfathomable that some angry mullah on his way out with access to the nukes could be willing to hand them over to terrorist groups. Or someone could steal them in the midst of the chaos in the event of a revolution, which is a not unlikely possibility given the current state of affairs in Iran.

What about patriotism? Imagine if someone bombed silos on American soil. Only the most hardcore leftwingers wouldn't want revenge.

But the Iranians are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with their government, and they do not support their government's nuclear efforts. I'm not saying the Iranians wouldn't be angry at us, I'm just saying the Iranians wouldn't be ready to sign up in mass numbers to kill infidels for Allah on account of it.

Right, like no one would know what was really going on, what with so many people talking openly about it beforehand.

Not really, as far as I can recall the U.S. government has said virtually nothing about taking out Iran's nuclear program by military means. The Israelis, on the other hand, most certainly have.

The situations can't be equated. Afghanistan was harboring Osama, and the Taliban was a dangerous foe. And the world, including much of the Islamic world, was not angered by the Afghan invasion because it was seen as justified. That's nothing at all like the Iranian sitaution.

The world as a whole was generally not angry, but large numbers of Muslims around the world most certainly did not support the war in Afghanistan. And besides, you're evading my point, which is that in the wake of the Afghanistan campaign in which much more bombs were dropped than would be dropped in the event of an airstrike on Iran, and there was no massive movement among the much less secular, much less progressive Afghanis to join terrorist groups in droves.

To be totally honest with you, even if you're correct about the blowback that would result from such an airstrike, the potential benefits to be had from preventing the Iranians from getting nukes and leaking the technology like Pakistan outweigh the costs of having the Iranians angry at us in the current time period.

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2004-07-21 07:39pm

There's the small matter of the fact that Israeli planes would have to fly over the airspace of a country currently occupied by the United States in such a strike. Which means the U.S. would have to OK it in advance.

It means that Israel has to violate airspace, something the IAF has done repitively in the past. All they need to do is have the US not shoot them down over Iraq (or Turkey or Saudia Arabia). I find it doubtful that the US would engage the Israelis in the first place; certainly not if Israel can bribe, intimidate, or otherwise convince the Iraqi government not to protest.

Fucking Christ, I already tore this apart last week. Do I really have to do it again?

Said thread details exactly one logistical reason why not: the range of the fighters. However in air refueling (outbound and inbound) significantly extends the range. Think back to the Tunis raid, the Israeli F-15's can reach Tehran and beyond (like say all the way to Ashgabat).

Would it be the single most expansive strike that Israel has ever undertaken? Certainly. Would it be damn bloody risky and possibly counterproductive to Israeli interests? Again yes. Would it piss the hell out of the Islamic world? You bet it would. Would there be significant losses and fallout? Depends; I'm not terribly familiar with Iran nor the amount of ordinance needed to significantly damage the targets.

I have taken a middle-east map and added information detailing Iran's WMD-related facilities (the locations are pulled off Globalsecurity.org), and Israel's striking ranges. The innermost circle represents the maximum range of the Jericho I missile, the second circle represents the avearge maximum unrefueled combat radius of the F-15E Strike Eagle (Israel's longest-ranged strike aircraft), from the various airbases in Israel. Finally, the third circle represents the range of the Jericho II missile:

Why did you go with the unrefueled radius as opposed to a refueled radius? While Israel faces challenges to field refueled planes any talk of striking Iran is going to be centered on that.

The closest of Iran's nuke facilities are at the ragged edge of it's range, and since the Iranian Air Force would no doubt respond it would be suicide: Since the Israeli aircraft would have practically zero loiter time, they could not engage them without using up too much fuel to get home, and they would be outnumbered anyway, not to mention laden down with ordninance.

What does Iran have to engage them with? I maintain significant doubts that the Iranian airforce is particularly effective. Loiter time would, of course, depend on refueling, but it would be far from zero at the near targets with refueling.

Also, they would have to overfly the airspace of several other countries, including Syria and Iraq. Syria would certainly try to stop them (even if they could fight their way through the Syrian Air Force, they would use up too much fuel to reach their targets)

Probably not. Syria didn't do squat when Israel bombed targets in Syria last year and the Syrians are going to be hard pressed to replace their losses when they are inevitably bitch slapped by Israel for it. Most likely they will go to the UN, protest, and maybe fire off a salvo of honor from the artillery. Generally Syria stands to gain little by provoking war at its borders and much to gain by letting Israel weaken itself and Iran. The Syrian Air Force has resoundly terrible record against Israel and they know it, given their status as a piss poor semi-pariah state they are not going to be able to replace the losses for another Lebannon.

I doubt Israel would strike on its own, but they certainly could hit with refeuling.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-07-21 08:42pm

Said thread details exactly one logistical reason why not: the range of the fighters. However in air refueling (outbound and inbound) significantly extends the range. Think back to the Tunis raid, the Israeli F-15's can reach Tehran and beyond (like say all the way to Ashgabat).

The Israelis could get away using an airborne tanker in the Tunis raid because it was stationed over international waters. They would not have this benefit in a strike against Iran unless the USAF refueled them over Iraq, something I do not believe they would agree to.

Even if the Syrians don't try to defend their own airspace, the Iranians will.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-07-21 08:53pm

The Israelis could always try Turkey, though with the recent cooling in relations I doubt that's happening.

And aside from a mullah handing out nukes like candy to disgruntled followers, another possiblity is that nuclear weaponry gives the Iranians a good bit of leeway in conducting their affairs; if they being ChiCom-style bloody crackdowns on opposition leaders, are we going to intervene if they have The Bomb? If they start to dominate the region politically, their government will naturally be strengthened, forestalling any revolution - how can we stop that if they have The Bomb?

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-07-21 09:04pm

tharkûn wrote:Why did you go with the unrefueled radius as opposed to a refueled radius? While Israel faces challenges to field refueled planes any talk of striking Iran is going to be centered on that.

Because they cannot be refueled without the USAF units in Iraq. Where would they station their own tankers? Over Syria? Plus the fact that they won't be able to overfly Iraq in the first place without American permission.

What does Iran have to engage them with? I maintain significant doubts that the Iranian airforce is particularly effective. Loiter time would, of course, depend on refueling, but it would be far from zero at the near targets with refueling.

I'm not certain of their exact air force roster, but unlike the Iraqi (before the invasion, of course) and Syrian air forces, they are not a complete joke. It's likely the Israelis would also have to deal with ground fire as well, in the form of SA-6 and SA-10 (S-300) SAMs Iran purchased from the Russians in the early '90s. The IHAWKs they bought from the Americans in the '70s (before the fall of the Shah) should also be considered as well (though I doubt they are still in working order).

Probably not. Syria didn't do squat when Israel bombed targets in Syria last year and the Syrians are going to be hard pressed to replace their losses when they are inevitably bitch slapped by Israel for it.

Those targets were not very far into Syria: Quite different from overflying the entire country. I doubt the Syrians could have cought them even if they wanted to.

I doubt Israel would strike on its own, but they certainly could hit with refeuling.

Although the Americans really wouldn't mind if Israel took out Iran's nuke facilities (and would in fact secretly praise them), I seriously doubt they would actively help them do so. They would have to help them for such a strike to succeed...

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2004-07-21 09:11pm

The Israelis could get away using an airborne tanker in the Tunis raid because it was stationed over international waters. They would not have this benefit in a strike against Iran unless the USAF refueled them over Iraq, something I do not believe they would agree to.

The Iraqi government and the US government object, maybe even strenously object

, so long as they don't shoot the tanker down does it matter?

Even if the Syrians don't try to defend their own airspace, the Iranians will.

Yes but what do they have to defend it with? Decades old F-14 A's that are likely in piss poor repair? MiG 29's with dubious maintanence and upkeep? Chinese knockoffs?

Again I'm not argueing that Israel WILL preempt Iran, just that they COULD.

The Israelis could always try Turkey, though with the recent cooling in relations I doubt that's happening.

It depends. Turkey would never agree ahead of time, however if the IDF sent the fighters they would protest rather than engage, particularly if Israel offered a large bribe in the way of military technology. Frankly Ankara and Jerusalemn both are leery of a nuclear Iran and their national interest largely coincide. If Turkey had a plausible out in protesting but not engaging, then I expect them to take it.

Axis Kast · Post by **Axis Kast** » 2004-07-22 12:08am

Iran is clearly a threat to American national security. Not only is Iran a sponsor of terrorism throughout the Middle East, but entire wings of their special forces command – namely, the Jerusalem Force of the Revolutionary Guards – are now all but beyond Tehran’s control, providing succor and support to al-Qaeda. This on top of recent reports that Iran’s lax border security – purposely intended to facilitate the movement of Afghan “jihadists” across the border, according to MSNBC – also let several of the September 11th hijackers pass through undocumented. When you factor Iran’s recent misinformation campaign against the United States as well as their poor record with the IAEA into the mix, they’re certainly high up there on the list of next-to-be-bombed.

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2004-07-22 12:13am

Bah should have refreshed the board before posting.

Because they cannot be refueled without the USAF units in Iraq. Where would they station their own tankers? Over Syria? Plus the fact that they won't be able to overfly Iraq in the first place without American permission.

Schedule a joint exercise with Turkey out of Incerlink or wherehave you and divert south. Replace a regularly scheduled civillian jet with your tanker and just piss on Jordanian sovreignty.

What is America going to do if Israel overflies without permission? Engage F-15's? Send up some patriots? When push comes to shove America is not going to willingly fight Israel, it is political suicide and they'd WANT Israel to bomb the Iranians.

I'm not certain of their exact air force roster, but unlike the Iraqi (before the invasion, of course) and Syrian air forces, they are not a complete joke.

We are talking about a country that was black listed by just about every major arms exporter for decades. Being a country run by religious whackjobs who managed to piss off BOTH the US and USSR is a bad thing for weapons procurement. When was the last time they got parts for their F-14 A's? What upkeep has occurred on the MiGs? Israel had a 86 to 0 kill ratio in Lebannon and that was back when Syria was sucking off the Soviet teat. While Iran might be able to cause significant causalties, I doubt the airforce is all that capable of winning.

It's likely the Israelis would also have to deal with ground fire as well, in the form of SA-6 and SA-10 (S-300) SAMs Iran purchased from the Russians in the early '90s.

How many of those does Iran have operational?

Those targets were not very far into Syria: Quite different from overflying the entire country. I doubt the Syrians could have cought them even if they wanted to.

The Syrians have a handful of modern planes, virtually no qualified pilots, and even when the disparity in quality wasn't so freaking unreal they were utterly trounced by the Israelis. Over Syria you can send fighter escorts so if they scramble the planes the escorts can engage and turn back to Israel (I mean the IDF has plenty of planes with range to escort across Syria without refueling but not run to Iran).

Really the only Syria can do is hope to launch SAMs without the IDF blowing the SAMs when the radars go up. They know that any prolonged conflict with the IDF is going to result in them taking it up the ass, hard.

Frankly though if you are going to piss on Iraqi flyover rights, why not just go piss on Jordanian, Saudi, or Turkish ones? How do you think they got to Osirak, they flew right over Saudi Arabia.

Although the Americans really wouldn't mind if Israel took out Iran's nuke facilities (and would in fact secretly praise them), I seriously doubt they would actively help them do so. They would have to help them for such a strike to succeed...

All they have to do is not engage them. The domestic political fallout would be huge, the benifits of not engaging quite massive. If presented with a possible fiat accompli all the USAF has to do is demand that they turn back, knowing full well they won't.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2004-07-22 05:47am

Joe wrote:
Nuclear weapons are for keeping external forces at bay. You don't nuke your own country.
No, but it isn't unfathomable that some angry mullah on his way out with access to the nukes could be willing to hand them over to terrorist groups. Or someone could steal them in the midst of the chaos in the event of a revolution, which is a not unlikely possibility given the current state of affairs in Iran.

That's pretty implausable, and even if it were likely there are dozens or hundreds of unaccounted-for Russian nukes, some of which probably fell into terrorist hands, and they couldn't get their shit together enough to use them, or maybe they knew that it would galvanize moderate Islamic support AGAINSt their cause instead of for it. The thing is that with the exception of Al Qaeda, who had CIA training, there is no anti-American Islamic terrorist group in the world that has shown itself to be anything other than a bunch of fundamentalist yahoo incompetents. Even Al Qaeda will probably never be a real threat again now that Al-Zawahari (sp?) is out of the picture. He was the brains of the operation.

What about patriotism? Imagine if someone bombed silos on American soil. Only the most hardcore leftwingers wouldn't want revenge.
But the Iranians are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with their government, and they do not support their government's nuclear efforts. I'm not saying the Iranians wouldn't be angry at us, I'm just saying the Iranians wouldn't be ready to sign up in mass numbers to kill infidels for Allah on account of it.

And what I'm saying is that you can take a bunch of anarchists from Berkely who hate OUR government, and if Iran bombed American soil, they would want blood. There's no reason to assume it would be any different for them.

Right, like no one would know what was really going on, what with so many people talking openly about it beforehand.
Not really, as far as I can recall the U.S. government has said virtually nothing about taking out Iran's nuclear program by military means. The Israelis, on the other hand, most certainly have.

Even if they didn't figure it out, they consider Israel and America to be pretty much one and the same when it comes to Middle East military action, anyway.

The situations can't be equated. Afghanistan was harboring Osama, and the Taliban was a dangerous foe. And the world, including much of the Islamic world, was not angered by the Afghan invasion because it was seen as justified. That's nothing at all like the Iranian sitaution.
The world as a whole was generally not angry, but large numbers of Muslims around the world most certainly did not support the war in Afghanistan. And besides, you're evading my point, which is that in the wake of the Afghanistan campaign in which much more bombs were dropped than would be dropped in the event of an airstrike on Iran, and there was no massive movement among the much less secular, much less progressive Afghanis to join terrorist groups in droves.

I didn't evade the point at all. The number of bombs dropped is a non-issue because the situations are night and day. Before Afghanistan, much of the Islamic world either supported our desire for revenge or wanted to distance themselves from the 9/11 attacks, so they kept their mouths shut even if they didn't like what was going on.

Today, we're already coming from a completely unjustified war that's got terrorist recruiters having a field day. Attacking another Islamic nation that can't defend itself against our stealth bombers, lesser number of bombs dropped notwithstanding, is guaranteed to be much worse PR-wise than Afghanistan.

To be totally honest with you, even if you're correct about the blowback that would result from such an airstrike, the potential benefits to be had from preventing the Iranians from getting nukes and leaking the technology like Pakistan outweigh the costs of having the Iranians angry at us in the current time period.

I don't think you appreciate the danger. An attack like this could open some kind of floodgate. Most muslims now hate us for Iraq, but that hatred is still mostly restricted to yelling and screaming. Attack another Islamic country, and all bets could very well be off.

As far as the risks of letting them develop nukes go, I agree that it's not a happy situation, but something like a hundred nukes (including "backpack nukes") have slipped through the cracks after the fall of the Soviet Union, and nothing came of it. A nuke is an extraordinarily complex piece of equipment. I would be astonished if there were a single terrorist group in the world with the facilities and know-how to house, maintain, and detonate a nuke.

There's also a chance that they're not as close to developing the bomb as we thought they were.

The dangers of letting them be are pretty minimal, and only in Clancy-esque fiction would anything come of it. The dangers of attacking, on the other hand, are quite dire.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-07-22 12:09pm

I posted it as a link rather than directly inserting into the post, because I feared it might be too big, but I'll try direcly inserting the image to the post this time and see if it works for you:

It's nice to know Israel can keep Bulgaria and Armenia in line if the need arises.

Not only is Iran a sponsor of terrorism throughout the Middle East, but entire wings of their special forces command ? namely, the Jerusalem Force of the Revolutionary Guards ? are now all but beyond Tehran?s control, providing succor and support to al-Qaeda.

Ok, I'd like to know where you get your sources for this. If the government had lost control of large portions of the armed forces I think it would be all over the news, wouldn't you?

his on top of recent reports that Iran?s lax border security ? purposely intended to facilitate the movement of Afghan ?jihadists? across the border, according to MSNBC ? also let several of the September 11th hijackers pass through undocumented.

Sources for this, too, please.

When you factor Iran?s recent misinformation campaign against the United States as well as their poor record with the IAEA into the mix, they?re certainly high up there on the list of next-to-be-bombed.

Are you referring to the Chalabi thing? I hardly think that merits bombing.

But don't get me wrong; I think that a limited strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would be a prudent move as long as it can be done without causing too much widespread support for the mullahs within Iran. If there's any chance it could forestall a secular revolution or transition then it's simply not worth it, as there's no chance the Iranians would ever use them.

And, now that I think about it, I doubt their ability to become a regional hegemon, either. Who are they going to bully? The US owns Afghanistan and Iraq, Pakistan also has The Bomb, all that's left is Turkemistan and the Caucasus republics.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-07-22 01:02pm

That's pretty implausable, and even if it were likely there are dozens or hundreds of unaccounted-for Russian nukes, some of which probably fell into terrorist hands, and they couldn't get their shit together enough to use them, or maybe they knew that it would galvanize moderate Islamic support AGAINSt their cause instead of for it. The thing is that with the exception of Al Qaeda, who had CIA training, there is no anti-American Islamic terrorist group in the world that has shown itself to be anything other than a bunch of fundamentalist yahoo incompetents. Even Al Qaeda will probably never be a real threat again now that Al-Zawahari (sp?) is out of the picture. He was the brains of the operation.

al-Qaeda does not need the support of moderate Muslims. If one half of one percent of the world Muslim population is sympathetic, they have enough for a global network.

And it's certainly plausible that leaks in the Iranian or dissemination in the event of a chaotic revolution could happen. After what happened with Pakistan I'm not willing to take any chances. As for al-Qaeda, this is an organization that killed 3,000 people and caused probably over 30 billion dollars of economic damage for a cost to them that likely did not even reach into the low hundred thousands in an attack that was not planned and developed by al-Zawahiri. And a fundamentlist yahoo group does not have to be particularly competent to cause lots of damage, as proven by the Palestinian terrorists (the vast majority of their suicide bombing attempts have failed, but they have still managed to cause considerable amounts of damage). So again, I'm not willing to risk any preventable course of action that could allow nukes to end up in the hands of these fuckers.

And that bit about al-Q having CIA training is a falsity - being indirectly funded by the CIA through the Pakistani ISI does not qualify as "training."

And what I'm saying is that you can take a bunch of anarchists from Berkely who hate OUR government, and if Iran bombed American soil, they would want blood. There's no reason to assume it would be any different for them.

They could be extremely angry, but like Afghanistan I don't imagine the blowback would be enormous.

I didn't evade the point at all. The number of bombs dropped is a non-issue because the situations are night and day. Before Afghanistan, much of the Islamic world either supported our desire for revenge or wanted to distance themselves from the 9/11 attacks, so they kept their mouths shut even if they didn't like what was going on.

I'm not talking about the rest of the world, I'm talking about Afghanistan. Whether or not we were justified in Afghanistan, we were dropping bombs on them, and that should have angered them enough to start joining terrorist groups in droves, but it didn't.

As for the rest of the Islamic world, they hated us before 9/11, and they hate us even more now, so I'm not particularly concerned about taking a course of action that will make them even more angry at us, particularly when I don't imagine there's anything we can do to make them happy with us.

Today, we're already coming from a completely unjustified war that's got terrorist recruiters having a field day. Attacking another Islamic nation that can't defend itself against our stealth bombers, lesser number of bombs dropped notwithstanding, is guaranteed to be much worse PR-wise than Afghanistan.

The situation in Iraq has more to do with the fact that we made the brilliant move of dismantling the country's security apparatus and let thousands of soldiers and guards go, who were ready to join the insurgency. If we had kept them around and used them to police the country instead of having to rebuild the security forces and military from the ground up things would be much better.

I don't think you appreciate the danger. An attack like this could open some kind of floodgate. Most muslims now hate us for Iraq, but that hatred is still mostly restricted to yelling and screaming. Attack another Islamic country, and all bets could very well be off.

The risks of having them angry at us now do not outweigh the benefits of having an nuclear-free Iran.

As far as the risks of letting them develop nukes go, I agree that it's not a happy situation, but something like a hundred nukes (including "backpack nukes") have slipped through the cracks after the fall of the Soviet Union, and nothing came of it. A nuke is an extraordinarily complex piece of equipment. I would be astonished if there were a single terrorist group in the world with the facilities and know-how to house, maintain, and detonate a nuke.

That the Soviet nukes have not caused any problems is a good thing and something we should be thankful for. However, it does not mean we should not try and prevent other countries with the potential for similar leakage of nuclear technology to get nuclear technology, especially one where the risk of dissemination to terrorists is so high.

And it doesn't take much to be able to house, maintain, and detonate a nuke. It's developing them that's the problem, which is why we shouldn't let Iran develop nukes for them.

There's also a chance that they're not as close to developing the bomb as we thought they were.

It doesn't matter what stage they're in. Destroy their facilities and they're effectively out of the picture for the foreseeable future.

The dangers of letting them be are pretty minimal, and only in Clancy-esque fiction would anything come of it. The dangers of attacking, on the other hand, are quite dire.

More than any government in the world, the Iranians are the most likely to pass nukes on to terrorist groups, who WILL use them. I think the danger is quite dire.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2004-07-22 03:13pm

Joe wrote:
That's pretty implausable, and even if it were likely there are dozens or hundreds of unaccounted-for Russian nukes, some of which probably fell into terrorist hands, and they couldn't get their shit together enough to use them, or maybe they knew that it would galvanize moderate Islamic support AGAINSt their cause instead of for it. The thing is that with the exception of Al Qaeda, who had CIA training, there is no anti-American Islamic terrorist group in the world that has shown itself to be anything other than a bunch of fundamentalist yahoo incompetents. Even Al Qaeda will probably never be a real threat again now that Al-Zawahari (sp?) is out of the picture. He was the brains of the operation.
al-Qaeda does not need the support of moderate Muslims. If one half of one percent of the world Muslim population is sympathetic, they have enough for a global network.

A global network isn't good enough. They need competent people with a lot to lose, who will only join if they hate al-Qaeda's enemy enough.

And it's certainly plausible that leaks in the Iranian or dissemination in the event of a chaotic revolution could happen. After what happened with Pakistan I'm not willing to take any chances. As for al-Qaeda, this is an organization that killed 3,000 people and caused probably over 30 billion dollars of economic damage for a cost to them that likely did not even reach into the low hundred thousands in an attack that was not planned and developed by al-Zawahiri.

Really? My understanding was that he had been the brains behind the group for a long time. In any case, 9/11 was months or years in planning, and we had months of warning, the administration just chose to pooh-pooh it. I don't buy the view of the world with all kinds of shadowy figures in the background that no one ever gets a whiff of. These people just aren't that competent. Someone will slip up and let the cat out of the bag. I'm not worried about another large scale terrorist attack, because we had warning last time, we'll have warning again, and this time we won't pooh-pooh it.

And a fundamentlist yahoo group does not have to be particularly competent to cause lots of damage, as proven by the Palestinian terrorists (the vast majority of their suicide bombing attempts have failed, but they have still managed to cause considerable amounts of damage). So again, I'm not willing to risk any preventable course of action that could allow nukes to end up in the hands of these fuckers.

Palestinian suicide bombers are already in the area. It doesn't take a brain to strap on a c4 jacket and take a gander over to the local market. That's not at all like smuggling yourself into a country, and even though people like you or I could list many ways to do it, without educated leadership, some terrorist cell over in the Middle East who doesn't know squat about U.S. geography just won't be able to.

And that bit about al-Q having CIA training is a falsity - being indirectly funded by the CIA through the Pakistani ISI does not qualify as "training."

I stand corrected, then. I don't remember where I heard that.

And what I'm saying is that you can take a bunch of anarchists from Berkely who hate OUR government, and if Iran bombed American soil, they would want blood. There's no reason to assume it would be any different for them.
They could be extremely angry, but like Afghanistan I don't imagine the blowback would be enormous.

I've already explained twice why Afghanistan is completely different, and how the reaction to Afghanistan is in no way a predictor of the possible reaction to further military action in the ME.

I didn't evade the point at all. The number of bombs dropped is a non-issue because the situations are night and day. Before Afghanistan, much of the Islamic world either supported our desire for revenge or wanted to distance themselves from the 9/11 attacks, so they kept their mouths shut even if they didn't like what was going on.
I'm not talking about the rest of the world, I'm talking about Afghanistan. Whether or not we were justified in Afghanistan, we were dropping bombs on them, and that should have angered them enough to start joining terrorist groups in droves, but it didn't.

For reasons I've explained twice now.

As for the rest of the Islamic world, they hated us before 9/11, and they hate us even more now, so I'm not particularly concerned about taking a course of action that will make them even more angry at us, particularly when I don't imagine there's anything we can do to make them happy with us.

I hate Fred Phelps. I think he's the lowest creature I've ever been made personally aware of. But I haven't thrown a shotgun in the backseat of my car and driven over to where he lives.

Increasing existing hatred is not something you want to do. People think in groups, and we don't know where the imaginary line is that makes a terrorist sympathizer go from "I hate those bastards, yay al-Qaeda" to "I'm gonna kill those bastards, where's my AK?"

And they'll be a lot happier if we do absolutely nothing. You don't have to buy someone a pony to make them calm down, you just have to stop pissing in their cornflakes every morning.

Today, we're already coming from a completely unjustified war that's got terrorist recruiters having a field day. Attacking another Islamic nation that can't defend itself against our stealth bombers, lesser number of bombs dropped notwithstanding, is guaranteed to be much worse PR-wise than Afghanistan.
The situation in Iraq has more to do with the fact that we made the brilliant move of dismantling the country's security apparatus and let thousands of soldiers and guards go, who were ready to join the insurgency. If we had kept them around and used them to police the country instead of having to rebuild the security forces and military from the ground up things would be much better.

It still pissed off the Islamic world even more, not to mention alienating much of Europe, who we should be on great terms with.

I don't think you appreciate the danger. An attack like this could open some kind of floodgate. Most muslims now hate us for Iraq, but that hatred is still mostly restricted to yelling and screaming. Attack another Islamic country, and all bets could very well be off.
The risks of having them angry at us now do not outweigh the benefits of having an nuclear-free Iran.

As far as the risks of letting them develop nukes go, I agree that it's not a happy situation, but something like a hundred nukes (including "backpack nukes") have slipped through the cracks after the fall of the Soviet Union, and nothing came of it. A nuke is an extraordinarily complex piece of equipment. I would be astonished if there were a single terrorist group in the world with the facilities and know-how to house, maintain, and detonate a nuke.
That the Soviet nukes have not caused any problems is a good thing and something we should be thankful for. However, it does not mean we should not try and prevent other countries with the potential for similar leakage of nuclear technology to get nuclear technology, especially one where the risk of dissemination to terrorists is so high.

And it doesn't take much to be able to house, maintain, and detonate a nuke. It's developing them that's the problem, which is why we shouldn't let Iran develop nukes for them.

There's also a chance that they're not as close to developing the bomb as we thought they were.
It doesn't matter what stage they're in. Destroy their facilities and they're effectively out of the picture for the foreseeable future.

The dangers of letting them be are pretty minimal, and only in Clancy-esque fiction would anything come of it. The dangers of attacking, on the other hand, are quite dire.
More than any government in the world, the Iranians are the most likely to pass nukes on to terrorist groups, who WILL use them. I think the danger is quite dire.

I realize that I was wrong on this point last night. We should take steps to stop Iran from acquiring the bomb, but the military solution should be a last resort, not the first one. That's one of the big reasons so much of the world hates us, is that we come in with guns and bombs to get what we want without even trying to use the diplomacy channel first. There's no binary choice between doing nothing and bombing a sovereign nation.

I know you're going to say that diplomacy won't work with these people because they're crazy, but that's a ridiculous thing to say, mostly since it's never been tried in earnest, rather than being set up to fail in order to paint the other side as fanatical.

Plekhanov · Post by **Plekhanov** » 2004-07-22 03:27pm

Joe wrote:As for the rest of the Islamic world, they hated us before 9/11, and they hate us even more now, so I'm not particularly concerned about taking a course of action that will make them even more angry at us, particularly when I don't imagine there's anything we can do to make them happy with us.

Take a look at the history of Northern Ireland and you’ll see why you should care, the Republicans have always hated the British and the Loyalists but far, far more hated us enough to join the PIRA and try to kill us after Bloody Sunday than before.

You can always make a bad situation worse and push more people across the line from hatred to violent action, an unprovoked attack (and I mean real provocation not them looking at you funny) against Iran would make the situation worse and undoubtedly push more muslims across the line that seperates hatred from action.

As for making Muslims happy with the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) we could maybe start by not going out of our way to piss them off.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-07-22 04:19pm

I realize that I was wrong on this point last night. We should take steps to stop Iran from acquiring the bomb, but the military solution should be a last resort, not the first one. That's one of the big reasons so much of the world hates us, is that we come in with guns and bombs to get what we want without even trying to use the diplomacy channel first. There's no binary choice between doing nothing and bombing a sovereign nation.

Thank you. Since we are in agreement now, there's no need to continue this discussion.

Axis Kast · Post by **Axis Kast** » 2004-07-24 12:14pm

And how, exactly, are we supposed to enforce an agreement of that nature? It's impractical to think that we would keep inspectors on-site in a country that size for lengthy periods of time - or even indefinately.

Not to mention that negotiation over nuclear disarmament produced unwanted fruit in North Korea, where the confidence that Americans would always provide something "better" every time Kim rattled the sabers - and no matter how bad his faith had been the last time around - has produced nothing but trouble.

Negotiate with Iran toward ending its sponsorship of terrorism and reducing nuclear arms seems like opening the door to a world in which they ramp up support for either activity everytime they get too greedy.