The Iran problem: Of sanctions and sabre-rattling

I don't know that Iran wants a conflict, but it wants to be taken seriously as a world power and having nuclear weapons is a fast track ticket to getting everyone's attention, even if it means starting a war in the process.

I don't think the US would go to war with Iran, nuclear weapons or not. I'm not sure that we have the political will for that. Israel though, I think has considerably more to fear from a nuclear Iran than we do and therefore would. Of course we would naturally support Israel for being on the 'right' side and we'd end up with a good ol' fashioned proxy war. Possibly with China on Iran's side, though I think China will just stay out of it. To much to lose by pissing us off and not enough to make up for it from Iran if they somehow manage to pull though.

 

I don't think political will means much of anything concerning Iran. If the US wants to invade, they will find a reason regardless of the truth/facts behind it. Especially if the next quarters profits are looking to be short of what was expected. (This stopped being a government of the people by the people once the Supreme Court said money = free speech...but that's another thread....)
As far as China, I wonder exactly how much of a US military presence they will tolerate in the Middle East before they start sticking their noses into things. They have a growing economy that needs fossil fuels, of which I believe they import some 50+% of from the Middle East.
I think Iran will go right on with whatever they are planning to do, consequences be damned.

 

I think that Obama is wise enough not to engage the US in another unilateral war without some sort of absolutely massive provocation. And that kind of provocation would, most likely, lend itself to a non-unilateral invasion, i.e. we'd get help from Europe and the Russians.

The thing is, I think that the Iranians (at least those calling the shots) think that they have something to gain from at least a limited engagement with US forces. They seem to be using their foreign policy muscle as a way to get their internal dissenters to close ranks. They're in the process of manufacturing a crisis for their general public, hoping that it will take some of the internal pressure of the regime. The question is "how much of what the Iranians are saying happens to be true?" If they are enriching uranium in an underground mountain bunker, then that's a big step towards the Israeli's trying something, assuming they can get at least the tacit approval of those who geographically stand between the two.

One thing to remember is that the Iranians are not universally loved in the Middle East. With the exception of the Syrians, who have their own problems, most of the Middle East would just as soon have the Iranians fall off the planet. If the Israelis do intend some sort of attack, they're going to have to get the approval of some powerful neighbors - the Jordanians, the Saudis, maybe the Iraqis and possibly the Egyptians - simply to pull off the attack, which would by no means have an assured success.

There's nothing for the US to gain by attacking the Iranians - or by allowing them to attack us.

 

Having nuclear weapons has always seemed like so much dick waving to me. Has there ever been an ACTUAL threat that someone would press the button, or does having nukes just give countries economic/political leverage?

I don't think Obama will go into Iran, but I think certain GOP candidates would jump in there with both feet if elected.

 

What political leverage could exist without the possibility of actual use of the weapon? Kinda answered your own question there.

I think the more likely scenario is not that Iran would use them in a conflict directly but, that some of the weapons could end up in the hands of groups that Iran supports that aren't actually 'Iranian' in which case it seems to me that they would very likely be used. There is also the problem of general political instability in the region, if the bomb leaves Iran there is no predicting where it could ultimately end up for use. Do you think there are groups that hate us enough to steal/buy weapons for use, if not inside the U.S., against soldiers over there? If not against us, what about against Israel?

 

the bomb is the ultimate weapon for a nation to obtain if they want security. no nation seriously messes with a country that has nukes. look at that goofball kid in nk. his father would launch nuke tests into the ocean despite outcries from every global council. nothing ever happens to him militarily.

you gain true sovereignty when you get a nuke. that's why there is such a push to go into iran before they obtain one. i think iraq is a perfect example of this. we knew they didn't have nukes, if they did saddam would of used them thus letting the nuclear cat out of the bag which no one really wants. however, if he got them he'd still be in power today because no one wants to get involved in another nuclear cold war, or hot war.

 

I've outlined the difficulties for US/Israeli invasion of Iran in another thread (forgot the title of it). In short: Very fucking unlikely.

The Strait of Hormuz is a different issue. Iran's culture is that of stubbornness and the current Iranian leaders exemplify it. They also love to be aggressive in the manner of "you do this, I'm going to punch your lights out", which is a very common trait in the Middle East.

Really, I do not see how Iran's navy could possibly stand up to the US Navy with their far-superior battleships, marine warfare technology and aircraft carrier behemoths. Iran's Air Force would similarly be a weak opponent compared to the better-trained, much bigger and much better-equipped USAF.

Further, if Iran really went for closing down the Strait, they'd immediately militarily involve the Gulf countries and their Big Daddy Saudi Arabia. While the Arab militaries are laughable, their well-equipped (especially Saudi Arabia's) air forces are to be reckoned with, especially when they all gang up on a single country.

So, naval and air superiority for Iran is out of the question.

The only advantage I see for Iran's military is the very close land proximity to the Strait. Their land-based cannons, AA guns and cruise missiles would wreak havoc on Iran's enemies. The most important factor here being medium/long-range cruise missiles.

I don't see the USAF taking a shitload of casualties, but the US Navy is very different. Each ship carries from a hundred to thousands of personnel. Completely destroying a larger ship will quickly cause severe political backlash back in the States in one go.

On the other hand, I know that the US Navy has been experimenting with laser-based missile-defense systems in the megawatt range and mounted on battleships for at least a decade now. It's very questionable that we the public know an iota of how advanced their laser research really is. Depending on their advancements in this field, it could very much solidify the US Navy's defenses against Iran's missiles and completely fuck over Iran's military.

In summary, if Iran goes for closing the Strait, the US will 100% engage. The Gulf states will 100% throw everything they have at Iran since the Strait contributes to a very large part to their GDPs.

I believe Iran can't compete here and I believe Iran's military leadership is fully aware of this.

As always, it's the civilian leadership that cares more for political posturing and babble, and would ignore the military realities for their fantasies. If war over the Strait happens, it's because of the clusterfuck retard that is Ahmadinejad.

 

Interesting BBC article on a possible conflict over the Strait of Hormuz.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16485842

 

A few thoughts on the Iran situation:

First, the US sanctions are a load of bullshit. Since 2003, Iran's only violation of international regulations was a late disclosure of the Qom site [edit: and this was only a violation of the special rules for Iran that the US bullied them into signing, they declared the facility to the IAEA before it started operating, which is all they had to do under the NPT]. They are and have been conducting research and enriching uranium in a manner entirely compliant with international law. The NPT explicitly grants nations the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology and there is no indication otherwise. The government signed the Additional Protocols (but did not ratify them) and even stopped enriching uranium for a while as a show of good faith. The US government ignored that and declared that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons, and Iran's leadership shrugged and went back to complying with only the regulations that were legally binding.

When Amano took over the IAEA a few years ago, he started parroting the US government's line that Iran is developing offensive nuclear capabilities and missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The reason ElBaredei never pursued this is because the only "evidence" for weaponization research it is a laptop that allegedly came from an Iranian source and is in possession of the CIA. The US accuses Iran based on "evidence" but refuses to produce any evidence to allow Iran to respond to it. It reeks of the falsified intelligence that led up to the Iraq war. Amano is a sycophant to the US.


Now the Straits of Hormuz issue. Iran's government threatened to close the Straits, which would be A Very Bad Idea because it would turn most of the rest of the world against them, including the rest of the Middle East who are already less than fond of Iran. Their navy is laughable, their anti-ship capabilities are questionable and it's unlikely that they could actually manage this. Shortly thereafter, they retracted the threat. This suggests instability and a possible power struggle among Iranian leaders. It will be interesting to see how this plays out because the current regime is unpopular as is, and the only thing keeping them in power is fear that what comes next could be worse, whether it's a military coup or a foreign puppet.

 

Could this be more obvious?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16501566

 

well, apparently it can be more obvious:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/11/iran-scientist-death-israeli-warning

 

well, perhaps it can be more obvious what's happening here:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/13/false_flag#.TxB0jaBL-B0.twitter

in a peculiar not-exactly-what-the-story-i-woulda-guessed kinda way.

 

I was one who said we should have gone to Iran and not Iraq. Iran has always been a thorn and whether or not they truly are enriching for nukes, they are, now that Kim Il Jumg in Korea is dead, the biggest threat in the world. Saddam tried the same thing and we had the first Gulf War that lasted a very, very short period.

I think we and the Israelis talk to those in the surrounding region, and go in. Now that we have left Iraq, those troops need to go somewhere because we have no jobs for them to come home to. Either full force or let Mossad go in and take care of things.

I am not trying to sound like a war monger, but the truth is IF Iran builds nukes or gets them somehow, the world becomes that much more dangerous. So, it would be better to do "preventative" measures and believe that in the end we saved more lives than let it go that far. In historical terms imagine how much less damage and how many lives could have been saved if the world would have gone to war against Hitler with his invasion of Poland.

 

My own opnion (take it as you want to).

I think we will be at war with iran in the next 2 to 3 years. It just seems like iran is trying to play chicken with us and a few other countries. Did iran start this after we started pulling our troops home for a reason? Or was it just luck? We have a few countries on our side over there that would help us with whatever we wanted.
Will iran become the new iraq?

 

Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. The arbitrary cutoff that defines 20% U235 as "Highly Enriched" makes it sound scary, but 20% enriched is what they need for the research reactor in Tehran. I say "need" because the US has embargoed medical isotopes that are useless in weapons. You can make a bomb with 20% enriched uranium -- you can make a bomb with anything more than 5.4% enriched -- but unless you're planning on delivering it via unmanned aircraft carrier you need to aim for the 80% range. It would take well over a year to do that and in that time they would either be caught by IAEA inspectors or have to kick them out. When that happens, we can talk about intervention, if it doesn't then they're continuing to exercise a right explicitly granted under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Start what? Ahmadinejad says outrageous and provocative things, that's what he's there for. Start disliking the western countries that consistently decide that their interests come first and do thing like installing a puppet government over oil revenue?

Is Iran the new Iraq? If you mean we're beating the war drums and manufacturing evidence to show they have a WMD program when none exists as a pretense for regime change, then yes, Iran is the new Iraq.

 

when they said get out of the gulf and dont come back, we dont warn twice. i saw that on cnn a week or 2 ago.

Thats what i ment by is iran becoming the new iraq

 

Things are not looking good. As the person on Something Awful who posted this said, the attitudes and rhetoric in Israel's media and among the general public are reminiscent of the US in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

It's an apt comparison -- a fearful public is being led by political elements who want war. They even have the cassus belli of a nonexistent WMD program to shove down people's throats.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/16/israelis_unite_for_war_with_iran/