Will History Repeat Itself? Kind'a?

[MicroBalrog]

Israel will not gamble on it, and they will act, with or without us, with or without our approval.

Maybe after the elections.

Kadima lacks the testicular fortitude necessary for this feat.

[AJ Dual]

Israel will not gamble on it, and they will act, with or without us, with or without our approval.

Maybe after the elections.

Kadima lacks the testicular fortitude necessary for this feat.

They're no Likud party, I'll give you that, I'm sure their stance (and formation) to deal with eviction of settlers, and the Palestinian territories, and blind faith in the "road map" must be dissapointing to many there.

However, compared to a nuclear Iran, those are minor issues.  Preventing a nuclear Iran is a much simpler yes/no question, with clear consequences.

[MicroBalrog]

Oh, I do not mean the fear of Palestinians. I mean the fear of the political cost of a terrible screw-up on the grade of Lebanon II.

And if you think the IAF is not capable of that, think again.

[AJ Dual]

Ahh, we're talking at cross-purposes then.

I did not understand that you meand they might be afraid to do it because they might fail. But when the alternative is to do nothing, and stand a better than 50% chance of getting nuked within the decade, that can light a fire under even the most wishy-washy ass.

[MicroBalrog]

Well, tbh, I'm not sure we stand a better than 50% chance of getting nuked.

But see, imagine the following:

IAF pilots  take off towards Iran. Due to lack of coordination and use of hand-drawn maps rather than the computerized GPS tracking maps (a problem that the IAF had in Lebanon II), five pilots get their bearings wrong, run out of fuel, and parachute out over some strange nation's territory.

The IAF strikes a variety of targets in Iran, loses one aircraft out of fifty to enemy fire, eliminates 50% of the Iranian nuclear program, goes home.

Syria and the Hez light up the entire country with their long-range missiles (today, the Hez is far better armed thna they were before we 'disarmed' them in Lebanon II').

Civil defense fails atrociously - as of now, most of the bomb shelters in the most dangerous areas of the country are not accessible or not useable due to years' worth of garbage accumulating there, there are not enough gas masks, etc.

The army goes into Lebanon and Syria and tears the place apart, but fails to permanently destroy the Hez, suffering the same setbacks as they did in LEbanon II.

We win, sort of - what do you think this victory would do to Kadima's ratings?

[lupinus]

Micro-

My personally feeling is that most all armies make serious blunders from time to time.  I think the IDF made one of those blunders, but doesn't mean they will always make them.

[MicroBalrog]

Micro-

My personally feeling is that most all armies make serious blunders from time to time.  I think the IDF made one of those blunders, but doesn't mean they will always make them.

Yes.

But look. None of the systemic problems that were discovered by Winograd Comittee findings were fixed.

Kadima knows this. They're the ones that didn't fix them.

[De Selby]

You're still carping about the west's inabillity to understand the Muslim/ME mindset and how we view the situation constantly in the present, while the ME views it through the lens of 1000 years of history, yadda, yadda, yadda. All the missteps and outright humiliation the ME has suffered at the hands of the west, etc. etc. etc.

Actually, no, that is not what I said.  There is no need to consider motives at this point, because there is no capability. 

There is no doubt in any reasonable mind that the Taliban are more extreme and brutal than the rulers of Iran-and more crazy.  Yet no one loses an ounce of sleep over the Taliban nuclear weapon, because there is no Taliban nuclear program...and there likely never will be.

As for Iran's weapons, the issue is not complicated at all.  The question is: Does Iran have nuclear weapons, or the immediate capacity to produce them?

The answer is quite clear: No.

The second question you have to ask is, if Iran were to have nuclear weapons, does it have any intercontinental delivery system?

That answer is also No.

All of the "what if'ing" is not justification for a war, and it's obviously not proof that Iran is a threat.  Again, if Iran were a real threat....we'd be negotiating, not threatening attacks every day, because that's how we deal with countries that do actually present the possibility of real harm to our country.

Russia and North Korea, for example, are certain nuclear powers with very real military capabilities-no sabre rattling with them, and no threats of invasion or "regime change" are on the table.  Instead we end up in long, dragged out negotiations and lodging "international law" protests (the same ones we disdain when they are lodged against anyone else, including the USA, as a waste of time) whenever they bomb an ally of ours.

There is no need to consider motives or "cultural realities" here because the geopolitical facts are quite easy to discern.  Iran has no real military power, and so it can be threatened at will.  Russia does, and so it can even go so far as to attack a U.S. ally and it will not be attacked or threatened with attack in response. 

As for Israel-of course it will gamble on Iran, because it has no choice.  There is simply no realistic scenario whereby the same army that failed miserably to stop a rag-tag guerrilla force with bottle rockets is going to destroy Iran's military.

[MicroBalrog]

*stands up and applauds Shootinstudent*

[roo_ster]

The idea is to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed threat.  Waiting until they actually have nukes is too late and a failure of resolve.

Also, writing that Iran is not a threat ignores all the ways they currently fund murder & terror (Hamas, Hez, etc.).  It is either ignorance or disinformation.

There is no need to consider motives or "cultural realities" here because the geopolitical facts are quite easy to discern.  Iran has no real military power, and so it can be threatened at will.  Russia does, and so it can even go so far as to attack a U.S. ally and it will not be attacked or threatened with attack in response.

And this is the state of affairs you desire?  Authoritarian dictatorships killing political opponents at home and crushing budding liberal democracies abroad with impunity? 

Your writings make much more sense when the reader assumes you are merely a resident of the USA and not a citizen or someone who has any emotional attachment to America.  In addition to being partial to thuggish dictatorships.