Is a world war possible?

"Part of the reason for an acceleration of Israel's contingency strike plans is that Russia agreed last month to sell Tehran £700m-worth of advanced SA-15 Gauntlet mobile missile systems."


The bastards. That is just sick. Bush's, "great friend," works hard to crush democracy in Russia, ruthlessly crushing desent by hook and by crook, supports the dictator in Belarus, cuts gas supplies to the Ukraine and Western Europe, and is doing his damnedest to help Iran become a nuclear power.

Bush, what do you think of him now?? This reminds me of when Khrushchev thought Jack Kennedy was a pushover, and began placing nuclear missles in Cuba. What are you going to do, George? "Putin" Iran aside, why haven't we recalled our ambassador to Moscow?



Keep D&D Civil.

 

With the way Iraq was handled, the casualty rates of one would be the most gruesome in the first few months while the survivors fight for the remaining scraps.

 

Technically these are defensive systems.

[rquoter]
Russia says its latest weapons sale to Iran, comprising more than $1 billion worth of missiles and other defense systems, is "exclusively defensive."

The deal violates no international agreements, including those relating to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Moscow's foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said at the weekend.
(source)

[/rquoter]

We haven't exactly been reciprocating to Russia's requests and desires as it relates to US endorsement of Russian policy in Chechnya or Russian concerns about former central Asian Soviet satelites.

If I were Russia, and I believed (as has been their constant expressed belief) that Iran wasn't the issue everybody was making it out to be, and I wanted to do something to deter any sort of destabilizing invasion like happened in Iraq, selling defensive weapons might be a way to make the US think twice without engaging in an open Political fight.

In otherwords, if the situations were reversed, we'd do the same. See the way that the US expressed concern for it's friend India's wishes when we suddently determined that their arch-enemy Pakistan was a politically and strategically useful ally after 9/11.

Finally, a quick internet search reveals that the SA-15's maximum altitude is 6000 meters. The B-2 has a celing of 15,152 meters and that is exceded by the F-15's, F-16's and F-18's so we could still bomb the crap out of them with GPS bombs.

I believe (though I'm far from sure) that this would excede the usable height of the GBU-28 bunker buster laser guided bombs that we recently sold Israel. Even in a full-scale war with Iran these SAM's would be no more than a minor aditional anoyance.

 

This won't be the first time that our leaders are responsible for tens of thousands of us dying.

Of course, the worst they have to worry about is losing some of their property.

 

So... that would be defensive weapon systems to protect offensive weapons?

 

Not that it matters to Bush's US or Israel, but doesn't Iran have the legal right to pursue nuclear energy? Isn't it illegal under international law for Israel or the US to have an unprovoked attack on Iran?

If you don't believe in international law or the illegality of attacking other countries, when not provoked, what was wrong with Iraq attacking kuwait?

 

Didn't the Russians sell GPS and IR jammers to the Iraqis before the war?

It seems like they'd sell to the highest bidder...

 

This isn't good anyway you cut it.
Iran with nukes bad.
Israel bombs Iran with US help bad.

My solution would be to cut a diplomatic deal giving Iran security guarentees along with a stick of economic blockade, ie shut off Iran's ability to export oil. Unfortunately I doubt that we or the Iranian leadership are smart enough to hammer out a diplomatic deal and with oil prices sky high no one is going to stand for actions that would limit oil supply.

IMO everyone is too shortsighted. The Iranians are, the Israelis, the Euros, the Russians and us.

 

So, while our allies and the vast majority of the developed world does what they can to prevent Iran from acquiring nukes, you see no problem with Russia selling them defensive weapons? As for Chechnya, their scorched earth policy doesn't deserve criticism? As for Central Asia, we shouldn't have sought bases and allies to fight the war in Afghanistan, after 9/11, because Russia didn't like it? That was something the Bush Administration did right. That doesn't begin to cover what Putin is doing in his own country and to the former states of the Soviet Union.

And while I'm not saying it's what I would like to see happen, how do you think Israel would attack those nuclear facilities? They have no stealth bombers. They may have fighters that can reach altitudes above what those missiles could reach, but do you really believe they would fly into Iran at that altitude?

Russia is playing the Great Game, and they are playing with fire.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

Yeah! Screw Bush for wanting to take this energy source away from the peaceful country of Iran.




Oh yeah, except for the fact that their leader said he wanted Israel blown off the map and the fact that most people can agree that their nuclear program will focus on the weapon making potential of nuclear energy.

 

Halfbreed, sadly, Iran has been more peaceful than the United States. We can all think of instances in which the US has invaded or bombed other countries in recent years. Give me an example of when Iran has.

I note that you don't address the legality of a US or Israeli attack on Iran? Don't you believe in the rule of law ,a traditional American concept?

As far as talk, the US and Israel are threatening to bomb Iran and did so prior to the present loose lipped leader of Iran.. Israel speaks openly when doing training exercises to practice an attack. Has anyone claimed that Iran is doing practice maneuvers for an actual attack on Israel? I guess you would say that maybe they would if they were strong enough. Well, that is not likely.

You probably think Iranians are crazy half humans or "evil doers" to quote Bush, who would willingly suffer complete nuclear annihilation just to attack Israel. Try to think outside your box and consider them for a moment as real human beings -- just as a mental exercise or because under some variants of Christianity this would be assumed.

 

The Iran situation is catch-22 bad. Iran mostly likely would never be dumb enough to directly attack anyone with nuclear weapons. The U.S./Israel attacking them opens up an ugly can of worms. The only danger I can see to Iran have nukes is them giving small ones to terrorists that could be smuggled into a country like the Israel. I would think there would be a way to trace it back to Iran though if such an event happened.

Anyone for building bomb shelters in your backyard?

 

IMHO...

Another world war is possible, but not probable.

Globablization of economies and improvements in eduction and technology around the planet dissuade war. In today's global society, wars almost always are centered around a third-world country that has some sort of key political or economic importance. As the decades go by, these countries creep closer and closer to a more civilized and controlled structure, decereasing the overall possibility of another world war.

 

Iran is much more dangerous than Iraq would ever be. Unfortunately our military options for Iran are limited. They know we are stuck in Iraq we don't have the resources to have troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and to fight Iran. So Iran can take a hard ball approach with us, because we have a weakened hand because of Iraq.

Also no one should mistake Iran’s military with Iraq’s. Iran would not be an easy war.

 

I think that Russia views the world from a fundamentally different perspective than the United States does. I think that they feel that they are in the right when it comes to Chechnya. I think that they feel they are in the right when dealing with Iran. One could point out also that Russia felt that they were in the right when opposing the US claims of WMD's in Iraq, and in spite of all of our righteous indignation at the time they have turned out to have been right.

While France treated Iraq as a chance to gain respect and influence at US expense, I would suggest that the Russian and German opposition was more out of conviction.

If we expect them do things that deviate from their natural instincts in the name of cooperation, that doesn't mean they cooperate to our views, it means compromise from both sides, and I don't see any at all from our side on any issue whatsoever. Why should we expect more from them? If at any point we had done anything but exactly what we wanted, we might have some reason to expect Russian compromise on Iran.

In fact, as we demand more and more, Russia has attempted to mediate, has tried to broker compromises, and has acted against its financial interests, for instance setting up a system to take back spent fuel rods from their Iranian reactor project.

Again, if we really want to bomb them, we still can with impuginity. We simply are prevented from using Israel as our proxy. In retrospect, one of the most disturbing things about the war in Iraq was that it was discussed without any real weight given to it's cost. If one is given to fighting, the only reasonable counter is that the other guy might punch you back. If you fear this then you might make sure the fight is really worth it before you swing.

I think Russia views the threat of Iran as offset by the threat of a world in which the United States is so powerful that it gets what it wants or blows the crap out of you as an afterthought. Like Robert E. Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible lest we should grow too fond of it."

Actually, these aren't the same thing. The Iranian airplanes are a ripoff of the U.S. export plane from the 60's, the F-5 also known as the T-38. These were second-line planes that the US sold to friendly countries in the early 60's, but which we could defeat even then. The Iranians don't have many, but we could attack and destroy them at ranges beyond those which they can even see. The Shah had a few F-14's, but Iran hasn't been able to get parts since 1979. They won't fly.

Iran's main battle tank is a variation on the T-72. This is the same tank that Saddam had scores of in the first Gulf War. Again, even with Iran-Iraq battle hardened troops with vehicles in good repair, we had no problem.

In a quick and hard military campaign we would kick their @ss. Anything longer-term would end up like the Iraq quagmire, but that's not what's discussed.

 

Don't be too sure. This is exactly the same argument and prevailing idea in Europe from after the Franco-Prussian War right up to the start of WWI.

 

I think Iran's involvement in the SCO would force Russia and China to flank off any attempts by the US to kick Irani ass on the onset.

Another millitary endeavor from us would create a large hole for opportunistic threats, such as North Korea, terror movements in ME authoritarian countries, or smaller S. American threats that haven't showed up on the media.

We could be shifting back an old European stance where powers balanced each other and formed mutual alliances when one power grew too strong and heavy handed.

 

The entente cordiale wasn't exactly a success. It caused the German resentment and militarism which fueled WWI, and the alliances that were it's framework resulted in a conflict between Austro-Hungary and Serbia to expand like a clockwork mechanism to Russia, Germany, France, Belgium and England in that order like a mechanical clockwork.

 

The best part for history fans is that the Balkans still isn't one giant ray of sunshine....