I agree completely. Given the more secular youth of Iran, this is a situation which will solve itself if allowed to. This is VERY different from Iraq, which was basically hopeless for decades to come. I think Bush is making an error this time. New? That's laughable. We have covertly been assisting in government overthrows for DECADES. This isn't new. The only thing that is new is the fact that it is all public.
This isn't about democracy. Is there a democracy in Afghanistan? Is there a democracy in Iraq? This is about money and power. Our government's disregard for human life is truly frightening.
GreenVegan, Meanwhile in Iran, it's own people are slaughtered daily, and women have no rights, all in the name of Allah. Yep, our government is much worse. DD
How on Earth would you know how I felt about Liberal support of Afghanistan? I have only been a member here since February. As I recall, the country was unified in the notion that we should give the Afghani government a chance to turn over the Al Queda members (including Osama), and only go to war if the Afghanis did not cooperate. We now are in a very similar situation with Iran, and to be consistant, those who supported the Afghanistan operation need to support our efforts in dealing with the threat from inside Iran. In my opinion, Iran should now be forced to make the same choice. We need to give them a chance to cooperate, and all diplomatic channels should be extinguished before any military option is considered. We need to give the Iranians a clear timetable of what we expect, and exact consequences for their refusal to turn over sworn enemies of America.
DD... I am amazed that you always reduce things to a subjective take on who'se government is better or worse, as if that somehow either invalidates criticism of our government, or gives us to right to forcibly 'fix' those nations we deem 'worse' than us. Long live the East India Company!
The Moment of Truth? U.S. policy could determine Iran’s destiny. After two and a half years of internal bickering and paralyzing turf battles, the national-security apparatus seems to be gearing up to define our Iran policy. The Washington Post, which is usually right about such things, has announced that a high-level meeting was scheduled for Tuesday morning, and my own more modest sources tell me of unfortunate bureaucrats canceling dinner and travel plans in order to work straight through the holiday weekend to respond to more than three dozen pages of queries from the National Security Council. The sense of urgency conveyed by such extraordinary requests demonstrates the longstanding failure of the NSC to either forge a consensus among the various agencies involved in national security, or to take the disagreements to the president so that he could tell them what he wanted. Our Iraq mission was defined shortly after September 11, but we still do not have an Iran policy, even though Iran is a charter member of the Axis of Evil, and has topped the list of state sponsors of terrorism for years, and still does. The urgency comes from the situation on the ground. Even the dreamers in the Department of State and the intelligence community could no longer shrug off (or blame on ourselves) the active involvement of the mullahs in the most recent terrorist attacks, their frantic and apparently increasingly successful race to develop an atomic bomb, and their commitment of thousands of men and millions of dollars to sabotage our efforts to bring an orderly and free society to Iraq. The operation in Riyadh was planned in Iran by al Qaeda leaders, notably Said bin Laden (Osama's son) and Mohammed Shoghi, whose nom de guerre is Abu Khalid Sayef al Adel (which means "the sword of justice"). Three days before the Riyadh attacks, 17 al Qaeda members were quietly moved to the Sistan and Baluchistan areas at the Pakistan border, hoping to conceal the Iranian connection, but it was uncovered anyway. Inside Iraq, there are thousands of Iranian agents at work: radical Iraqi mullahs who were trained in Iranian mosques since the early 1980s, top officers of the Revolutionary Guards, various thugs and killers, and even the head of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, Ali Panahi, who was dispatched to Karbala to organize the anti-American demonstrations after the fall of Saddam, and then to Baghdad. The new American in charge of Iraq, Jerry Bremer, was so alarmed at what he saw in Iraq that he has been peppering the intelligence community for more information on Iranian operations ever since he arrived. On the nuclear front, there are many alarming signs. Just a few months ago, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze held a press conference in which he announced that his country's leading nuclear experts were in Iran, working on the mullahs' bomb. And last year the American government was informed of many details of the Iranian program, including a then-secret heavy-water project in Arak. This operation had been hidden by a Tehran company called Masbah Energy, located on a side street just off the main drag — Vali Assra, formerly Pahlavi Avenue. The United States also learned that the chief engineers of the Arak project had come from the former Soviet Union: Vladimir Mirny of the Ukraine, Aleksy Volev of Russia, and a third expert with the catchy name of Andrei Kalachnikov. Within the past two months, leaders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards were informed by the country's National Security Council that the country would soon have nuclear weapons, and there are some well-informed people who believe that the regime is hoping to be able to test a device by the end of the summer. Despite all this, the State Department, driven by Policy Planning's Richard Haass had eagerly sought to establish a "dialogue" with the butchers of Tehran, an effort that received full support from the NSC's man on Afghanistan and Iran, Zalmay Khalilzad, who personally conducted many of the secret talks. The very idea of "dialogue" was a triumph of American naïveté over evidence, and the Iranians eagerly exploited the talks to forestall any American move against the Tehran regime, which is the mullahs' constant nightmare. They know the Iranian people hate them (as many as a million people have flooded the streets of the major cities over the past year and a half in open protest, and a general strike has been called for the ninth of July). Both the tyrants and the citizens believe that American policy could determine the destiny of the country, as it has several times in the recent past. The mullahs used the fact of the talks to delay any American action, and to discourage the opposition. "You see," they said, "the Americans deal with us, they recognize our legitimacy. They will never support you." If we have finally come to the moment of truth in the debate over Iran policy, the mullahs' worst nightmare may come true. For if the United States chooses to give real support to the regime's opponents, there could well be a replay of the mass demonstrations that led to the fall of Milosevic in Yugoslavia and the Marcoses in the Philippines. If the Bush administration instead falls back on merely repeating the president's many words of condemnation of the regime and praise for the opposition, the mullahs may survive to kill us yet another day. It is impossible to win in Iraq or to block the spread of weapons of mass destruction throughout the terror network without bringing down the mullahs. Iran is not only a participant on the other side; it is the heart of the jihadist structure. If we are really serious about winning the war against terrorism, we must defeat Iran. Thus far, we haven't been serious enough. The debate on Iran policy must produce coherence throughout the administration. The president has been exceptionally clear about Iran — a self-appointed, terrorist-supporting tyranny with an impotent group of elected officials masking the true nature of the regime — but some of his top underlings have openly contradicted him. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, for example, who never says a word without the approval of Secretary Powell, recently called Iran a "democracy," and statements of this sort play directly into the hands of the mullahs. That sort of dangerous confusion has to stop. Second, it is long past time for us to support the many independent Farsi-language radio and television stations that broadcast to Iran from the United States. There is an "official" American station, radio Farda, that does some good work, but it cannot speak to the Iranians with the same authenticity as the Iranian Americans. Third, we need to use Iraqi Shiism against Tehran. The Shiite tradition long insisted on separation of mosque and state, but this tradition was abandoned by Iran's fanatical Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the anti-shah revolution of 1979. The most important Iraqi Shiite clerics (and a surprising number of leading Iranian ayatollahs) are opposed to the Khomeneist doctrine, and we should support them, both in Iraq and in Iran itself. The Islamic Republic has been a catastrophe for the Iranian people, ruining the economy, murdering, or torturing those secular and religious leaders who call for greater freedom, shamefully enriching a handful of mullahs while prostitution, drug addiction, and beggary spread like epidemics throughout the society, and spending tens of millions of dollars to create and support the most vicious terrorist organizations, from al Qaeda to Hezbollah. Fourth, we need to find ways to get tangible support to the brave people who have called for a general strike in early July. Once upon a time, they could have counted on receiving money, communications equipment, and moral support from Western trade unions, private philanthropies, and their own diaspora. At the moment, none of these has been willing to join the cause, to their great shame. But if the issue were clearly defined by all the administration's leaders, miracles might be accomplished. This is not, as so many of the administration's critics would have it, a call for further military action. Indeed, it is a prerequisite for limiting further fighting and safeguarding the lives of our soldiers now exposed to Iranian terrorism and insurrection in Iraq. It would reinforce the president's basic insight that the war against terrorism is fundamentally a struggle against tyranny, and that we have entered the Middle East as liberators, not conquerors. If we fail to act decisively, we will permit the mullahs to define the near future. The war against terrorism was never limited to a single country, or to a single strategy. We have defeated Saddam, now we must spread freedom to the heartland of the terror masters in Iran. Now, please. Time's up. Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen, Resident Scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, can be reached through Benador Associates.
So in Bushian speak, we need to bully them about for a week or so and then announce that we will be sending in the troups.
What makes you say that? Please, be specific - counter any "biased" elements with arguments, please. BTW, I have a hard time believing that it is the most biased article you've ever read, especially since it contains quite a bit of factual information that is not in dispute. More believable that you just don't like what it is saying. Don't you mean "bully them about for a year and a half or so", since you are making an obvious allusion to the Iraq case, and that is wghat we did there? The year and a half part, that is; the "bullying" part was your characterization, inaccurate as it is. No Worries, it must really bug you when we don't play nice with mass murderers and despots. It seems to.
Treeman, the author of that article is a bit on the harsh side. He does have some points, but he carries it out a bit too drastically, as if he is making his points in order to write a convincing tale about the most "horrific" nation in the world. Could you give a link to the article?
rezdawg, here's the link. Heath and Treeman perhaps tend to be ashamed of getting most of their info from the infamously rightwing. National Review of William F.Buckley. national reveiew Michael Ledeen, the author, is one of the main guys who brought us the Iraq war and has long pushed for war against Iran as just another potential opponent of Israel, who we therefore must invade. Here's an example of their thinking from last year. ****************** "If you want to know what the administration has in mind for Iraq, here's a hint: It has less to do with weapons of mass destruction than with implementing an ambitious U.S. vision to redraw the map of the Middle East. The new map would be drawn with an eye to two main objectives: controlling the flow of oil and ensuring Israel's continued regional military superiority.[Patrick] Clawson [a policy analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy], whose institute enjoys close ties with the Bush administration, wascandid during a Capitol Hill forum on a post-Hussein Iraq in 1999: 'U.S. oil companies would have an opportunity to make significant profits,' he said. 'We should not be embarrassed about the commercial advantages that would come from a re-integration of Iraq into the world economy.'...But taking over Iraq and remaking the global oil market is not necessarily the endgame. The next steps, favored by hard-liners determined to elevate Israeli security above all other U.S. foreign policy goals, would be to destroy any remaining perceived threat to the Jewish state: namely, the regimes in Syria and Iran.In 1998, [David] Wurmser, now in the State Department, told the Jewish newspaper Forward that if [Iraqi opposition leader] Ahmad Chalabi were in power and extended a no-fly, no-drive zone in northern Iraq, it would provide the crucial piece for an anti-Syria, anti-Iran bloc. 'It puts Scuds out of the range of Israel and provides the geographic beachhead between Turkey, Jordan and Israel,' he said. 'This should anchor the Middle East pro-Western coalition.' Richard] Perle, in the same 1998 article, told Forward that a coalition of pro-Israeli groups was 'at the forefront with the legislation with regard to Iran. One can only speculate what it might accomplish if it decided to focus its attention on Saddam Hussein.'Now, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has joined the call against Tehran, arguing in a November interview with the Times of London that the U.S. should shift its focus to Iran 'the day after' the Iraq war ends.[T]he hard-liners in and around the administration seem to know in their hearts that the battle to carve up the Middle East would not be won without the blood of Americans and their allies. 'One can only hope that we turn the region into a caldron, and faster, please,' [Michael] Ledeen preached to the choir at National Review Online last August. 'That's our mission in the war against terror.'" Iran and Ledeen These are the same guys who sold us the Iraq War over weapons of mass destruction. As many have predicted, the doctrine of unilateral premeptive invasion against non-nuclear nations has increased the rush toward nuclear weapons. Well you can't blame the for trying. Their lies worked to sell the Iraq war, why not Iran War? Iran was liberalizing before we stared the Axis of Evil thing. ***************** The Pentagon's pronouncement that it would seek to "destabilise" Iran's Islamic republic has given the country's clerics ammunition to portray their liberal opponents as traitors. Hardly a day passes without warnings in the official press against reformists accused of sowing divisions. more
glynch, thanks for the info. Treeman, that is why I said that article was biased. Its much too extreme.
We barely have any contact with them to begin with, what's the big brouhaha? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2936016.stm Tension is rising sharply in relations between the United States and Iran, with three issues pointing to a possible crisis between the two countries after years of stalemate. Washington has accused Tehran of giving sanctuary to operatives from the al-Qaeda movement. It has also repeated its accusation that Iran is pursuing plans to produce nuclear weapons. . . . The accusations have apparently led to the suspension of discreet American-Iranian contacts that were being held in Geneva to try to iron out differences over Iraq. US officials on Thursday failed to attend a meeting of the "six plus two" group - comprising the US, Russia and the six neighbours of Afghanistan - which has acted as a venue for official Iranian-American exchanges. . . . Iranian officials say the leadership's policy is to avoid offering anything that might be regarded as a provocation. At the same time, there is a conviction here that if the Americans want to attack Iran they will do it anyway. So there is much emphasis here on preparing for any such eventuality, with military and political leaders making almost daily declarations of military preparedness. "If Bush is re-elected, the Americans will certainly put pressure on us, economically and politically, perhaps even striking at military targets," said one senior Iranian official. "So the Islamic Republic is taking it very seriously, and making military and security preparations for defence
rezdawg: It's from the National Review, sorry no link. Sometimes I end up using AOL and have a hard time getting the damn url to show up in the address line... As glynch will surely note, I have posted the url to NRO stories before, so so much for that little conspiracy theory... And another one - glynch fails to note that the author states that he does not believe that a military solution will be necessary, so that puts to rest another one of his other theories ("Michael Ledeen, the author, is one of the main guys who brought us the Iraq war and has long pushed for war against Iran"). Why precisely do you find his view harsh? What untruths or misperceptions are his ideas based upon? I asked you to be specific in your reply... Explain, please? underoverup: Curious, as we: A) can control the flow of oil quite nicely using economic measures, without the aid of military action, so it would seem that were this our goal war would not be necessary, and B) Israel will continue to maintain regional military superiority regardless of whether or not we give them a penny because they 1) maintain their own indigenous military industry that is quite capable of producing high-quality military equipment in mass, and 2) actually train effectively, unlike their Arab counterparts. It's a nice little soundbite and theory, but it doesn't hold up to even a cursory critique.
Treeman, like I said, its not that the author is telling BS lies, its the way he writes that bugs me. There is really nothing I can be specific about because its the manner in which the author tells the tale.
That's all I wanted to know, thanks. You can fault any author for his tone, writing style, slant, etc - just as long as you acknowledge that what he is saying is based on truthful information...
alrighty then. The only question I have is... How does the author plan to achieve the goals he has set forth without military action?
