Thursday, September 17, 2009
Experts Agree, Iran is developing a nuclear delivery system
This report just came out today.
At least our Eastern European allies feel secure in our commitment to protect them.
Oh, wait!
VIENNA (AP) - Experts at the world's top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press.
The document drafted by senior officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that the agency's leaders share Washington's views on Iran's weapon-making capabilities.
At least our Eastern European allies feel secure in our commitment to protect them.
Oh, wait!
Labels: International relations, Iran, NATO, nukes, Poland, War on Terror
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Obama recinds Weinie Roast Invitation to Iranian Diplomats.
That'll show them.
The sad thing is, this appears to be the clearest and most concrete statement our government has yet made in support of pro-democracy reformers in Iran.
The sad thing is, this appears to be the clearest and most concrete statement our government has yet made in support of pro-democracy reformers in Iran.
Labels: International relations, Iran, Obama, State Department, War on Terror
Monday, June 22, 2009
Obama still inviting Iranian diplomats to 4th of July Barbecues
What a weenie.
I wonder: How many young women do Iranian goons need to shoot in order for Obama to reconsider the invitation?
How many women need to be clubbed over the head for Obama to reconsider the invitation?
How many soldiers in Iraq does Iran have to kill, through their proxies, for Obama to consider rescinding the invitation.
How many Iranian-manufactured explosively-formed projectiles have to go off in Iraq for Obama to consider rescinding the invitation?
How much American blood, specifically, does the current Iranian regime have to have on its hands, before Obama considers rescinding the invitation?
How many?
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.
President Barack Obama's administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.
I wonder: How many young women do Iranian goons need to shoot in order for Obama to reconsider the invitation?
How many women need to be clubbed over the head for Obama to reconsider the invitation?
How many soldiers in Iraq does Iran have to kill, through their proxies, for Obama to consider rescinding the invitation.
How many Iranian-manufactured explosively-formed projectiles have to go off in Iraq for Obama to consider rescinding the invitation?
How much American blood, specifically, does the current Iranian regime have to have on its hands, before Obama considers rescinding the invitation?
How many?
Labels: Iran, Obama, stupid, War on Terror
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Neda
Friday, June 19, 2009
Compare and Contrast:
John F. Kennedy: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge—and more."
Ronald Reagan: "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Barack Obama:"“It’s not productive, given the history of the US-Iranian relationship, to be seen as meddling,”
This much we pledge—and more."
Ronald Reagan: "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Barack Obama:"“It’s not productive, given the history of the US-Iranian relationship, to be seen as meddling,”
Labels: foreign policy, Iran, Obama, Politics, War on Terror
Monday, March 02, 2009
NY Times Columnist Defends Iran
Did you know that the sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah and the country that is currently pursuing a nuclear program and whose head of state has repeatedly promised to wipe Israel off the map has not fought a war of expansion in more than 200 years?
Well, you wouldn't know that unless you read the New York Times.
Oh, and Iran's Jews have a few inconveniences, sure, compared to Muslims. But according to Cohen, "to suggest they inhabit a totalitarian hell is self-serving nonsense."
I'm sure these guys will be happy to know that.
Oh, and watch this:
Splash, out
Jason
Well, you wouldn't know that unless you read the New York Times.
Oh, and Iran's Jews have a few inconveniences, sure, compared to Muslims. But according to Cohen, "to suggest they inhabit a totalitarian hell is self-serving nonsense."
I'm sure these guys will be happy to know that.
Oh, and watch this:
Splash, out
Jason
Labels: Iran, New York Times, stupid, The Left
Friday, June 20, 2008
More on Yglesias and Iran
I meant to get to this this morning when I wrote the first post on the Cesspool at the Atlantic, below:
Another mistake Yglesias makes commenters make - actually, a huge gaping maw in his argument, but it's a very common mistake on the left - is assuming that US power would necessarily neutralize an Iranian bomb because of our nuclear deterrent. Iran would not commit national suicide by actually using it. Here's Matt:
This aside, the idea that any Iranian leader would commit national suicide in order to harm Israel is ridiculous. Lots of “crazy” leaders -- Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il -- have had nuclear weapons and they've never done anything like that. What's more, if Iran wanted to start a war with Israel, kill a bunch of Jews, and get wiped out in the process they could do that with conventional weapons. But in more than 20 years in power, the Islamic Republic's never done any such thing. Indeed, just over the weekend Iran announced it would offer up a paltry $50 million in aid to the new Hamas-ified Palestinian Authority compared with many hundreds of millions in funding the PA lost from Europe and the United States. Just as they taught me in Hebrew school, the Islamic world's governments like to talk a big game about Israel, but don't actually give a rat's ass about the issue and never have.
They'll do anything to help the Palestinian cause unless it involves spending money, risking the stability of their own regimes, or deploying their military assets. Now we're supposed to believe that, suddenly, the Mullahs are willing to guarantee their own destruction in order to turn the holy city of Jerusalem into a radioactive wasteland. That's absurd.
That's naive.
Modern warfare is different from warfare just a few years ago. Iran, via Quds Force and Hezbollah, maintains a vast network of shadowy proxies more than willing to commit murder and genocide on Iran's behalf. Iran needn't put an obvious fingerprint on a WMD attack on Israel, or anyone else they choose. All they need is plausible deniability.
Yglesias fails to consider the nature of war by proxy. But the existence of nonstate terror networks, led by religious fanatics with a martyr complex, or at least led by those who can and do successfully recruit same, combined with nuclear proliferation, turn the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction on its head.
We've already seen the idea at work. The Taliban were perfectly willing to commit national suicide, at least as far as their regime was concerned, because of Al Qaeda.
Further, a limited nuclear strike need not level the whole city of Jerusalem. Just a few key blocks of it. If they strike while Knesset is in session, or if they just get lucky with the timing, they can actually go a long way toward decapitating the Israeli government. It's not all about 25 Megaton Warheads, Matt. We have tactical nuclear weapons, too, with much smaller yields, and they can be loaded onto vehicles as small as an artillery shell.
It's time to update your strategic thinking.
Splash, out
Jason
Another mistake Yglesias makes commenters make - actually, a huge gaping maw in his argument, but it's a very common mistake on the left - is assuming that US power would necessarily neutralize an Iranian bomb because of our nuclear deterrent. Iran would not commit national suicide by actually using it. Here's Matt:
This aside, the idea that any Iranian leader would commit national suicide in order to harm Israel is ridiculous. Lots of “crazy” leaders -- Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il -- have had nuclear weapons and they've never done anything like that. What's more, if Iran wanted to start a war with Israel, kill a bunch of Jews, and get wiped out in the process they could do that with conventional weapons. But in more than 20 years in power, the Islamic Republic's never done any such thing. Indeed, just over the weekend Iran announced it would offer up a paltry $50 million in aid to the new Hamas-ified Palestinian Authority compared with many hundreds of millions in funding the PA lost from Europe and the United States. Just as they taught me in Hebrew school, the Islamic world's governments like to talk a big game about Israel, but don't actually give a rat's ass about the issue and never have.
They'll do anything to help the Palestinian cause unless it involves spending money, risking the stability of their own regimes, or deploying their military assets. Now we're supposed to believe that, suddenly, the Mullahs are willing to guarantee their own destruction in order to turn the holy city of Jerusalem into a radioactive wasteland. That's absurd.
That's naive.
Modern warfare is different from warfare just a few years ago. Iran, via Quds Force and Hezbollah, maintains a vast network of shadowy proxies more than willing to commit murder and genocide on Iran's behalf. Iran needn't put an obvious fingerprint on a WMD attack on Israel, or anyone else they choose. All they need is plausible deniability.
Yglesias fails to consider the nature of war by proxy. But the existence of nonstate terror networks, led by religious fanatics with a martyr complex, or at least led by those who can and do successfully recruit same, combined with nuclear proliferation, turn the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction on its head.
We've already seen the idea at work. The Taliban were perfectly willing to commit national suicide, at least as far as their regime was concerned, because of Al Qaeda.
Further, a limited nuclear strike need not level the whole city of Jerusalem. Just a few key blocks of it. If they strike while Knesset is in session, or if they just get lucky with the timing, they can actually go a long way toward decapitating the Israeli government. It's not all about 25 Megaton Warheads, Matt. We have tactical nuclear weapons, too, with much smaller yields, and they can be loaded onto vehicles as small as an artillery shell.
It's time to update your strategic thinking.
Splash, out
Jason
Labels: Iran, War on Terror, Warfighting, Yglesias
Cesspool at The Atlantic Monthly
In a breathtaking display of just how far brain-addled libtards will deceive themselves in order to assume the good faith of the most vile reptiles slithering across the surface of the planet, Yglesias is actually seriously floating the notion that Ahmadinejad can be negotiated with. Why? Because even though the man has repeatedly called for the destruction of the Zionist entity, he is not known, in public, to have called for the wholesale slaughter of the Jewish people.
In doing so, Yglesias amazingly cites the disappearance of Poland in the 18th Century under Catherine the Great of Russia and its partition between Russia, Prussia and Austria as an example in which a country was eliminated from the face of the planet without a slaughter of the inhabitants (the fact that Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland in 1939-1945 and slaughtered millions of Poles, Jewish and otherwise, between them somehow escapes his analysis).
Yglesias is further hobbled by his naivete in calling for the absence of a coercive element in American diplomacy. In the absence of coercion, there is simply no reason for Ahmadinejad to acquiesce to a single Western objective. Instead, he will continue to develop his nuclear program until such a time as Ahmadinejad can turn the tables of coercion, except now armed with one or more nuclear weapons and a shadowy network of terrorists to deploy them - thus sharply limiting western options for response.
But let us assume that Yglesias, and his Jew-hating mentors Mearsheimer is correct. Let's assume that Ahmadinejad is simply calling for a transfer of state power over Israeli land, and harbors no ill will toward the Jewish people. Well, to whom would one transfer such power? The Palestinian Authority? in other words, Hamas? But Hamas's spokesman, Dr. Ismael Radwan, has publicly called for the slaughter of Jews. No, not their transfer to political minority status in a representative government. Not their enslavement. Their slaughter.
Yglesias uses the term "in good faith" as if he knows what he's talking about. But can any westerner, Israeli or otherwise, acting in good faith with his or her family, entrust the fate of Jewish children to Hamas?
Let's go further: Hamas is not a fringe movement in Palestine. It is mainstream. It is the democratically elected majority government of Palestine. Its genocidal rhetoric and terrorist actions are a direct mandate of the wishes of the Palestinian people. If Hamas authority should weaken, one has to reckon with the possibility that into the power vacuum would swarm a howling, genocidal mob. It happened throughout Eastern Europe throughout the middle ages and into the 20th century. It happened in Nazi-occupied Europe, leveraged by the advances of rail technology and industrialization. It happened in Rwanda in the 1990s and it can certainly happen again in post-2000 Israel and Palestine.
It is not a neccessity. It is not a foregone conclusion. But it is, however, a distinct and substantial probability that represents a gamble the Israelis cannot afford to lose.
By eliminating the coercive element of American diplomacy vis. Iran, Yglesias removes any urgency for an early settlement on the part of Iran, and would only render the neccessity of a direct war between Israel and Iran more likely, not less ... and moves the time frame of the conflict back to a time when Iran will be a much stronger and more potent threat than it is now.
This policy, espoused by Yglesias, would not prevent American involvement in a war. It would escalate it, and the only advantage to America would be that we could perhaps complete the current phase of the Iraq war so that we would not have to fight the Iranians astride our key supply lines into Iraq.
The greatest stupidity in Yglesias's essay, though, comes in these words:
you could draw a distinction between the idea of destroying Israel as a political entity and the idea of destroying its population.
No, you usefully cannot, because both ideas are wholly, completely unacceptable - at least to freedom-loving people. I guess libtards no longer qualify. What Yglesias is doing is laying the intellectual groundwork for selling out a free people into slavery and fear. To free men, and New Hampshire residents, such a tradeoff is unthinkable. To a libtard, it's just one more card on the table. But actually leveraging military power in defense of freedom, of course, is off the table.
Natch, in floating this repulsive construction, he's germinated the seeds of libtardism, allowing the latent anti-semitic, Jew-baiting tendencies therein to become florid. Read the comments.
Splash, out
Jason
In doing so, Yglesias amazingly cites the disappearance of Poland in the 18th Century under Catherine the Great of Russia and its partition between Russia, Prussia and Austria as an example in which a country was eliminated from the face of the planet without a slaughter of the inhabitants (the fact that Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland in 1939-1945 and slaughtered millions of Poles, Jewish and otherwise, between them somehow escapes his analysis).
Yglesias is further hobbled by his naivete in calling for the absence of a coercive element in American diplomacy. In the absence of coercion, there is simply no reason for Ahmadinejad to acquiesce to a single Western objective. Instead, he will continue to develop his nuclear program until such a time as Ahmadinejad can turn the tables of coercion, except now armed with one or more nuclear weapons and a shadowy network of terrorists to deploy them - thus sharply limiting western options for response.
But let us assume that Yglesias, and his Jew-hating mentors Mearsheimer is correct. Let's assume that Ahmadinejad is simply calling for a transfer of state power over Israeli land, and harbors no ill will toward the Jewish people. Well, to whom would one transfer such power? The Palestinian Authority? in other words, Hamas? But Hamas's spokesman, Dr. Ismael Radwan, has publicly called for the slaughter of Jews. No, not their transfer to political minority status in a representative government. Not their enslavement. Their slaughter.
Yglesias uses the term "in good faith" as if he knows what he's talking about. But can any westerner, Israeli or otherwise, acting in good faith with his or her family, entrust the fate of Jewish children to Hamas?
Let's go further: Hamas is not a fringe movement in Palestine. It is mainstream. It is the democratically elected majority government of Palestine. Its genocidal rhetoric and terrorist actions are a direct mandate of the wishes of the Palestinian people. If Hamas authority should weaken, one has to reckon with the possibility that into the power vacuum would swarm a howling, genocidal mob. It happened throughout Eastern Europe throughout the middle ages and into the 20th century. It happened in Nazi-occupied Europe, leveraged by the advances of rail technology and industrialization. It happened in Rwanda in the 1990s and it can certainly happen again in post-2000 Israel and Palestine.
It is not a neccessity. It is not a foregone conclusion. But it is, however, a distinct and substantial probability that represents a gamble the Israelis cannot afford to lose.
By eliminating the coercive element of American diplomacy vis. Iran, Yglesias removes any urgency for an early settlement on the part of Iran, and would only render the neccessity of a direct war between Israel and Iran more likely, not less ... and moves the time frame of the conflict back to a time when Iran will be a much stronger and more potent threat than it is now.
This policy, espoused by Yglesias, would not prevent American involvement in a war. It would escalate it, and the only advantage to America would be that we could perhaps complete the current phase of the Iraq war so that we would not have to fight the Iranians astride our key supply lines into Iraq.
The greatest stupidity in Yglesias's essay, though, comes in these words:
you could draw a distinction between the idea of destroying Israel as a political entity and the idea of destroying its population.
No, you usefully cannot, because both ideas are wholly, completely unacceptable - at least to freedom-loving people. I guess libtards no longer qualify. What Yglesias is doing is laying the intellectual groundwork for selling out a free people into slavery and fear. To free men, and New Hampshire residents, such a tradeoff is unthinkable. To a libtard, it's just one more card on the table. But actually leveraging military power in defense of freedom, of course, is off the table.
Natch, in floating this repulsive construction, he's germinated the seeds of libtardism, allowing the latent anti-semitic, Jew-baiting tendencies therein to become florid. Read the comments.
Splash, out
Jason
Labels: Iran, The Left, Yglesias
Friday, May 30, 2008
Pelosi attributes the success of the surge to ...
"...The goodwill of the Iranians!"
I shit thee not!
Via Ace of Spades HQ
I shit thee not!
Via Ace of Spades HQ
Labels: Congress, Iran, Iraq, stupid
Thursday, March 20, 2008
McCain, Iran and Al Qaeda
So the libtards and other apologists for Islamofascism have their miserable knickers in a twist over John McCain's linking Iran to Al Qaeda in a couple of recent appearances.
The thing is, they're wrong. McCain is right. There have been a number of documented connections between Iran and other extremist groups, both Sunni and Shia, to include, specifically, Al Qaeda, as they make common cause to undermine American power and attempt to drive us out of the region.
From the Washington Post, in 2004:
See this, also, from Time Magazine: 9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between Al Qaeda, Iran
And this, too, from Peter Brooks
These ignoramuses have been taking it as an article of faith that Sunnis and Shias will never make common cause against a Western enemy. But you have to look no further than the cooperation of the Sunni Hamas and the Shia Hezbollah against Israel to disprove their stupidity.
Iran and Al Qaeda will befriend any friend and oppose any foe in order to ensure the survival and success of tyrrany. In the short term, they will even befriend each other.
Splash, out
Jason
The thing is, they're wrong. McCain is right. There have been a number of documented connections between Iran and other extremist groups, both Sunni and Shia, to include, specifically, Al Qaeda, as they make common cause to undermine American power and attempt to drive us out of the region.
From the Washington Post, in 2004:
On Iran, by contrast, the report concludes that al Qaeda's relationship with Tehran and its client, the Hezbollah militant group, was long-standing and included cooperation on operations, the officials said. It also details previously unknown links between the two, including the revelation that as many as 10 of the Sept. 11 hijackers may have passed through Iran in late 2000 and early 2001 because Iranian border guards were instructed to let al Qaeda associates travel freely, sources familiar with the report have said.
[9/11] Commission and government officials emphasize that they have found no indication that Tehran knowingly helped in the plot. But the commission report will cite evidence that Iran allowed al Qaeda members into the country even after the attacks.
The Sept. 11 panel has also raised the possibility that al Qaeda may have had a "yet unproven" role in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen and has been blamed on a Saudi Hezbollah group. Iran is a primary sponsor of Hezbollah, or Party of God, which the United States considers a terrorist group.
Many of the commission's findings about Iran were discovered only in recent weeks from, among other sources, electronic intercepts and interrogations of al Qaeda suspects in U.S. custody, sources familiar with the commission's findings said. Even before then, Chairman Thomas H. Kean (R), a former New Jersey governor, said, "There were a lot more active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq."
See this, also, from Time Magazine: 9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between Al Qaeda, Iran
And this, too, from Peter Brooks
Shockingly, it's been long forgotten that Iran became home to some of al Qaeda's most wanted after the fall 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Tehran admitted as much, claiming that al Qaeda operatives were under "house arrest" and would be tried.
Of course, nothing of the sort happened . . .
So al Qaeda "refugees" from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, North Africa and Europe — including senior military commander Saif al Adel, three of Osama's sons and spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith — now operate freely from Iran.
In fact, just last week, the German monthly magazine Cicero, citing Western intelligence sources, claimed that as many as 25 al Qaeda thugs are living in Iran under the protection of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Cicero cites a "top-ranking" Western intelligence official saying, "This is not incarceration or house arrest. They [al Qaeda members] can move around as they please." The IRGC even provides logistics help and training to al Qaeda.
Cicero doesn't mention which al Qaeda operations Iran is supporting, but there's little doubt that Tehran is aiding the terror in Iraq, where there are more and more Iranian "fingerprints" on insurgent/terrorist attacks.
These ignoramuses have been taking it as an article of faith that Sunnis and Shias will never make common cause against a Western enemy. But you have to look no further than the cooperation of the Sunni Hamas and the Shia Hezbollah against Israel to disprove their stupidity.
Iran and Al Qaeda will befriend any friend and oppose any foe in order to ensure the survival and success of tyrrany. In the short term, they will even befriend each other.
Splash, out
Jason
Labels: Al Qaeda, Iran, Iraq, McCain
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Admiral Fallon
Good riddance.
Sorry, if you can't commit as totally and to victory as the soldiers in the field, you don't need to be CENTCOM commander.
To see why Tuesday's "retirement" of Navy Adm. William "Fox" Fallon as head of U.S. Central Command is good news, all you have to do is look at the Esquire profile that brought about his downfall.
Its author, Thomas P.M. Barnett, a former professor at the Naval War College, presents a fawning portrait of the admiral -- a service he previously performed for Donald Rumsfeld. But evidence of Fallon's supposed "strategic brilliance" is notably lacking. For example, Barnett notes Fallon's attempt to banish the phrase "the Long War" (created by his predecessor) because it "signaled a long haul that Fallon simply finds unacceptable," without offering any hint of how Fallon intends to defeat our enemies overnight. The ideas Fallon proposes -- "He wants troop levels in Iraq down now, and he wants the Afghan National Army running the show throughout most of Afghanistan by the end of this year" -- would most likely result in security setbacks that would lengthen, not shorten, the struggle.
Sorry, if you can't commit as totally and to victory as the soldiers in the field, you don't need to be CENTCOM commander.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
I don't get it.
If it's true that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003, then that's not a blow to Administration policy. That's an overwhelming vindication of it.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Persian Mirror looks at '300'
