Don't Hand Your Deserts Back In Just Yet ......

[CatpainCaveman]

Interesting reading here....... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1181969,00.html

Hopefully, if Shrub (little Bush) does decide to turn right at Baghdad, he makes a better job of it than Bush Snr did in his attempt to incite revolution amongst the Irai Shi'ias and Kurds in the early 90s. If not, we could be in for a world of pain if Shrub and Bliar both get re-elected, revolution fails and they decide to march on Tehran.

The Iranian armed forces are a damn site better equipped and bigger than the Iraqis, and indeed, are probably the biggest armed forces in the region now (c 800,000 regular + reserves??) And the Iranian version of the Republican Guard are not exactly known for their sense of fairplay and sportsmanship and are a lot better than the Republican Guard. Also, given that the Islamic Republic of Iran has a theocratic religious foundation, unlike the Iraqi Ba'ath party's quasi-religious foundation, we could be taking the lid off a huge can of worms as all the other less occidental appreciating Islamic countries in the region/world take umbrage. :(

Hope the stackers have started ordering the body bags.

[Stitchbitch]

The shi'ite would definately hit the fan ! :}

[FJJP]

That's all very well.

Just exactly what are we going to hit them with?

Would someone please enlighten me?

Or do I have to turn in my pension book and dust off my uniform?

[allan907]

Any chance of cutting and pasting said article? Cannot be arsed to register with Timesonline.

[JessTheDog]

Do you think Blair would be trusted if he tried to sell the case for a strike on Iraq? And I don't just mean public demonstrations akin to the 2003 one, I mean very public military and political resignations!

The Spams would be going it alone, assuming their public bought the story.

[November4]

US sets sights on toppling Iran regime
By Michael Binyon and Bronwen Maddox

THE US will mount a concerted attempt to overturn the regime in Iran if President Bush is elected for a second term.
It would work strenuously to foment a revolt against the ruling theocracy by Iran’s “hugely dissatisfied” population, a senior official has told The Times.


The United States would not use military force, as in Iraq, but “if Bush is re-elected there will be much more intervention in the internal affairs of Iran”, declared the official, who is determined that there should be no let-up in the Administration’s War on Terror.

To what extent the official, known to be hawkish, was speaking for the White House was unclear, but his remarks are nevertheless likely to cause alarm in Europe. He hinted at a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying that there was a window of opportunity for destroying Iran’s main nuclear complex at Bushehr next year that would close if Russia delivered crucial fuel rods. To destroy Bushehr after the delivery would cause huge environmental damage. The rods would allow the Iranians to obtain enough plutonium for many dozens of nuclear weapons, he said.

The official also stepped up the pressure on Britain, France and Germany to take a tougher line on Iran, voicing the disdain within the Administration for the Europeans’ attempt to defuse the Iranian nuclear threat through diplomacy. Britain had joined the effort in order to demonstrate its European credentials, he said. France and Germany had teamed up with Britain because they realised that the pair of them could no longer run Europe alone.

Washington believes that the trio has been embarrassed by Iran’s failure to hold good to a deal it struck with the Iranian regime last October. Iran pledged to give UN inspectors the freedom to make snap inspections, and also to suspend uranium enrichment.

Since then, some members of the Administration have begun referring in private to Britain, France and Germany as “the Tehran three”, and to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, as “Jack of Tehran”.

If the Europeans fail to get Iran to back down at a meeting this month, the US wants to close the gap between the rival diplomatic approaches and refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council.

Russia is due to deliver the first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran early next year for insertion into the reactor at Bushehr before the end of the year.

Despite that, the official believes that “it is not impossible to get Russia to see it our way” and back a UN resolution that would “raise the international saliency” of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He is convinced that Iran is afraid of a “conveyor belt” that would lead inexorably to sanctions and even military action.

Iran is one of the three members of President Bush’s “axis of evil” and has further angered Washington with its covert interference in Iraq since the end of last year’s war to topple Saddam Hussein.

The official dismissed suggestions that Washington would hesitate to seek regime change in Iran, given the problems it has encountered in Iraq, and Colin Powell, a restraining influence as Secretary of State, will not be serving a second term. It is less clear how the Administration could foment a revolution without uniting Iranians against “the Great Satan”.

The official claimed that more than its dislike of the mullahs, the Iranian population was dissatisfied with an economy that did not have jobs for the young: 60 per cent of the population is under 24.

There is little organised opposition inside the country and financing it directly or through front organisations would probably play into the hands of the mullahs anyway.

At present the US relies on about a dozen Farsi satellite television and radio channels in the San Fernando Valley, California. They beam pirate broadcasts to the estimated seven million Iranians with illegal satellite dishes.

Last year Washington also set up a Persian-language Voice of America programme that is broacast into Iraq. The internet offers another channel for US propaganda, but efforts to impose stiff sanctions or fund anti-Government exile groups have been frustrated by a Republican split over the relative merits of confrontation or engagement.

Despite the US threats one of Iran’s top ruling clerics vowed yesterday that the Islamic republic would continue to pursue its controversial nuclear programme. “We are resolute. It is worth achieving it at any cost,” Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardians Council, said.

[CatpainCaveman]

Oh this just gets better and better. Why is it increasingly beginning to look like I am about to re-play the last 2 years of my life, this time on the other side of the border......

Now America accuses Iran of complicity in World Trade Center attack
By Julian Coman in Washington
(Filed: 18/07/2004)


Iran gave free passage to up to 10 of the September 11 hijackers just months before the 2001 attacks and offered to co-operate with al-Qa'eda against the US, an American report will say this week.

The all-party report by the 9/11 Commission, set up by Congress in 2002, will state that Iran, not Iraq, fostered relations with the al-Qa'eda network in the years leading up to the world's most devastating terrorist attack.


Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission
The bipartisan commission has established that between eight and 10 of the September 11 hijackers, who had been based in Afghanistan, travelled through Iran between October 2000 and February 2001. The terrorists in question are believed to have been the "muscle" - hired to storm the aircraft cockpits and overpower crew and passengers.

Iranian officials were instructed not to harrass al-Qa'eda personnel as they crossed the border and, in some cases, not to stamp their passports.

According to testimony received by the commission - based on information from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and about 100 electronic intercepts by the National Security Agency - an alliance of convenience was established between the Shia Muslim Iranian leadership and the Sunni terrorist organisation, well before September 11, 2001.

The report is expected to confirm the claim by Thomas Kean, its chairman, last month that "there were a lot more active [al-Qa'eda] contacts, frankly, with Iran and Pakistan, than there were with Iraq".

It will further inflame tensions between Washington and Teheran, where hardliners are threatening to restart its uranium enrichment programme, a key step towards building nuclear weapons.

A commission official, quoted in the latest edition of Time magazine, alleges that Iranian officials approached Osama bin Laden after the bombing of the USS Cole in 1999, proposing a joint strategy of attacks on US interests.

A preliminary report from commission staff, released last month, stated: "Bin Laden's representatives and Iranian officials discussed putting aside Shia-Sunni divisions to co-operate against the common enemy."

The offer is said to have been turned down by bin Laden, who was reluctant to alienate Sunni supporters in Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, in the wake of September 11, Iran sheltered al-Qaeda militants fleeing Afghanistan.

The full report by the commission is also expected to endorse initial conclusions that al-Qa'eda may have been involved in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, when 19 American servicemen were killed. The attack has long been blamed solely on Hizbollah, a Lebanese terrorist group backed by Iran.

Iran was declared part of an "axis of evil", along with Iraq and North Korea, by President George W. Bush in 2002. The report will add to pressure for Iran's theocratic rulers to be the first target of a re-elected Bush administration. Hawks within the administration want a concerted effort to overturn the regime by peaceful means.

Some Bush officials are privately contemplating a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities before Russian fuel rods are delivered next year.

Teheran said yesterday that it had arrested an unspecified number of Iranian al-Qa'eda supporters

But I thought it was Saddam that was responsible for helping the 9/11 wallahs?? Or was it maybe Kim Jon-Il or whatever our labrador-eating chum in North Korea is called??

Either way, this is an exact re-run of the preparation for TELIC. Oh yes, and Iran has a proven devloping nuclear capability, unlike Iraq's so secret we can't find it 45-minute deployable CBW capability.

God help us all if Shrub and Bliar get re-elected. Mind you, I might even beat my grandfather's medals tally .......... if I survive
:\

[Dan Winterland]

If that pr@t Bush thinks an invasion is a possibility, he's madder than a box of frogs. It takes two hours to fly the length of Iran in a 747, and it's 90% mountains.

[M609]

and it's 90% mountains.

A massive armour assault is perfect! Oh.....hold on......
:mad:

Fingers crossed for Mr. Kerry! :) :)

[ORAC]

It is not Bush, it is Congress, both House and Senate. Given the vote (376-3), I doubt if there will be any signicant difference in the Republican and Democratic public statements on the issue - or subsequent administration policy, regardless of who wins the election.

The all-party report by the 9/11 Commission......the bipartisan commission....

Washington Post 19th July: "U.S. Faces a Crossroads on Iran Policy"

The Bush administration is under mounting pressure to take action to deal with Iran -- and end the drift that has characterized U.S. policy for more than three years.

.....Since May, Congress has been moving -- with little notice -- toward a joint resolution calling for punitive action against Iran if it does not fully reveal details of its nuclear arms program. In language similar to the prewar resolution on Iraq, a recent House resolution authorized the use of "all appropriate means" to deter, dissuade and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weaponry -- terminology often used to approve preemptive military force. Reflecting the growing anxiety on Capitol Hill about Iran, it passed 376 to 3......

Increasingly alarmed over Iran's failure to come clean on its arms programs, Congress is becoming tougher. Since House Resolution 398 passed on May 6, a similar Senate resolution calling for punitive action, mainly through broad new U.N. sanctions, is expected to be put to a vote -- and win overwhelming support -- when Congress returns after Labor Day, congressional sources say..........

In an even more dramatic move, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) plans to introduce an Iran liberation act this fall, modeled on the Iraq Liberation Act that mandated government change in Baghdad and provided more than $90 million to the Iraqi opposition. The goals would be the same for Iran, including regime change, congressional officials said........

Given the impending election, however, both congressional officials and foreign policy analysts say the Bush administration is unlikely to give formal shape to Iran policy, except to press for Tehran's full cooperation with the United Nations on its nuclear program.

[BEagle]

If Mad George and his cohorts decide to take 'punitive action' against Iran, that will just give the green light to every terrorist and fundamentalist organisation hiding in the Middle East. The only other nation reported in the media as declaring an intention to strike at Iranian nuclear facilities is ......Israel. So, US and Israel versus a fundamentalist Islamic state. That should guarantee them a few friends in that part of the world.

But for once the simpering Westminster poodle seems rather less enthusiastic about licking Dubya's bum and more in tune with the European view rather than that from over the pond....at the moment, that is, while it suits him.

The Butler debate this week - then BuffHoon will tell us how he's going to destroy the UK's few remaining Armed Forces....

How many politicians don't have insurance policies of their own? So perhaps they can tell us why they seemingly consider that the nation doesn't need one - Armed Forces of adequate strength and capability.

[CatpainCaveman]

Anybody read Total War 2006 by Simon Pearson?

All getting rather too close for comfort, but the way the Iranians whacked Israel was a master-stroke.

Maybe we may get to see it all for real next year once the US elections are over and before Iran gets its nuclear plant up and running.