Mid-East News II

1) Olympic medals from a Middle Eastern country have relevance in a thread entitled "Mid-East News". The taunting that led to the bet, and then the repeated updates about Michael Phelps never had any relevance.

2) The main reason "the bet" itself was relevant is because it went to a question that is often debated in big-soccer: do Iranians on bigsoccer overestimate Iran in everything, or the Iran haters trying to intentionally underestimate it? I think we got the answer in the contest of these Olympics at least, although the full answer will require for the Olympics to be finished and Iran's total medal tally be counted.

3) Iran is a country under severe sanctions. I won't bother explaining these sanctions but they are intended to strangulate Iran. In this context, as I mentioned, I am doubly proud of the achievements of Iran, in sports as in other fields. Those achievements are a clear message that those trying to keep Iran down are not succeeding. And may they never succeed!

In the meantime, even after your buddy "Conspiracy" lost the bet, he didn't have the class to STFU and stop trying to put down Iran. He started switching the issue to a discussion about the Wall Street Journal projection that Iran would earn 15 medals and somehow make that a yardstick of things. While that is not the real yardstick at all, as no one insisted Iran will definitely earn as many medals as projected by the Wall Street Journal, I think it is also true that those projections are looking pretty good! Having been cheated of a couple of medals, Iran may not end up with 15 medals, but it will likely surpass my expectation of 10 medals and come very close to the Wall Street Journal projection.

IM's biggest flaw is that, when making such projections, he always assumes God and his angels will play on Iran's side. While what he says is theoretically possible, it is by far the most fortunate scenario for Iran for the beginning of a war - and that only if all the stars will shine on Iran's side. Which is in no way guaranteed.

We had this discussion before, but IM, in his obsession that Iran does everything perfect, never learns.

For instance, what he says above is true. The problems is that he outlines all the arguments working in favor of Iran and ignores everything which could work against Iran. Such as:

1. In regard to closing Hormuz, while US would have a harder task, so would Iran: the Iraqi scud missiles were aimed at huge fixed targets, such as cities. Iran will have to target smaller mobile ones such as ships. Do iranian missiles possess the ability to track such targets, withstanding enemy ECM's, and the precision to hit them? We do not know. But it's easy to assume that a rate of failure involved in targeting a ship will be far greater than the one involved in targeting a city. Moreso, does Iran have the capability to track ship movement through the Gulf in case of hostilities well enough for them to succeed in coordinating the kind of offensive IM describes?
2. The US capabilities in regard to tracking and discovering mobile targets might have also increased;
3. The statement that US assembled a "huge armada" and was still unable to take out the Scuds is utterly misleading as well; while US had indeed a lot of aircraft in the area, only a part of them were devoted to hunting the Scuds. In fact, at the beginning, the US did not pay too much attention to them and they changed their mind only due to Israeli pressure. The demands on USAF during the Gulf War were much bigger, having to pound the Iraqi ground troops as well and many others, and do so with only a limited quantity of precision-guided weapons, which led to bigger strike packages than it would be needed today.
4. The criteria by which to measure success or failure were also much more demanding. The problem of the Scuds was the political pressure they created on Israel to retaliate - thus success meant the annihilation/suppresion of all the launchers. The US did manage to take out a lot of Scuds (the number of launches constantly decreased during the war) - they just failed to destroy all of them. In case of war with Iran, the task of US would be to prevent the kind of barrage which could overwhelm the defenses of US ships. At least in the first month of fighting, there would be no commercial shipping through Hormuz and, after that, the Iranian missile inventory would have shrinked due to the fighting.
5. The " world economy collapse" scenario: this is a favorite of IM, which repeats it like a mantra, but, in 1990, the world went without Iraq and Kuwaiti oil for a very long period and nobody collapsed. In case of prolonged fighting, what is there to stop the oil which usually goes through Hormuz from being diverted through pipeplines or the Red Sea ports?
6. Iranian political will: Iran's only chance of success is to make the war not worth it for the US, while at the same time putting pressure on US both domestically and internationally. Iran basically has to balance on this (tight) rope and this seriously question the idea whether Iran would actually target oil installations in surrounding areas. First of all, whose oil instalations? There are 5 possible targets: Iraq, Kuweit, SA, Bahrain, UAE. Iraq seems out of the question. But, even for the other 4, would Iran have the gall to take such a step, knowing that, in such a case, it could forget about any international support and it will only make its enemies more determined? Theoretically it's possible, but very doubtful.

I don't give a shit about the Olympics, so would you mind taking your retardation with someone else?

I just find your Mussolini-like antics terribly hilarious.

And, btw, all the other Mid-East news and talks have started to get drowned in this deluge of Iranian self-jerking, hence my initial comment (not because "I'm bothered with Iran doing well" or whatever your obsessive Iran paranoia makes you believe ).

I noticed that aside from the one American offical, the Americans in the games all congratulated her on her time and spoke only about her acheivement.

China has made huge investments in their programs and with such a large population they can pick from a wide range to find some outstanding athletes. I think its good for the games that China is pushing so hard, and its good for the US to be challenged and even surpassed in this arena. Competition brings out the best.

Of course this doesn't explain why iranians are afraid to face off against Israeli's in any competition. They always develop chicken flu before they are to face off. It even happened again in these games when the possiblity of facing an Israeli made that poor weak iranian develop severe symptoms of chicken flu, so bad that he had to give up his olympic dream.

You were right on the money! Goudarzi just made the final, which means he will either earn a Gold or a Silver medal. Rahimi, on the other hand, in a shocker got eliminated in the early qualification rounds.

See?! We agree on some thing, yasik. Even if it takes someone as utterly stupid and self-delusional as Mani to accomplish it.

I don't disagree with you, I think it is a disgrace to the spirit of the Olympics that the regime in iran does this to athletes who have obviously worked extremly hard to get to such a high level only to see it denied them due to hate and ignorance.

Ideologically, one could say that you're the Obama of Bigsoccer, while Yasik is the Netanyahu of Bigsoccer. So there is no surprise that you two would kiss each others' ass when it comes to Iran.

Tell us what exactly happens to the athlete, and cite an example with solid evidence to back it up. You're making it sound they'll be put on trial or something, which is false. I remember at least two cases of Iranian athletes choosing to face Israelis on their own, in the last 5 years, one in an all-star Handball match, the other at an international Weightlifting event. In neither case, anything happened to the athlete other than some loud condemnation by the media and their respective federations.

I didn't realize this, but the final in the 74 kg pits Iran's Goudarzi against the 2011 world champion in this category, Jordan Ernest Burroughs, who is an American wrestler! This guy is rated as America's best shot at winning a Gold in wrestling, while based on past results, it seems the Iranian wrestler will be the underdog. Best of luck to Goudarzi. From what I have seen from his matches, Goudarzi is a good wrestler and will hopefully make amends for his previous loss in 2011 to Burroughs.

The bout, btw, is scheduled to start in around 15 minutes.

http://www.cleveland.com/olympics/index.ssf/2012/08/us_wrestler_jordan_burroughs_d.html

Jordan Burroughs is 4 to 1 favorite over Goudarzi. He's all that US Wrestling Team got, their only viable world class wrestler.

They do it because they don't want to be treated as outcasts, while few in Iran have any sympathy for Israel in any case.

What are you implying, that's the question here. Your comment made it seem like they'll face a military trial and shot or something, which is nonsense. Worst that can happen, is that they'd lose their spot on the team or something. There has been at least a dozen cases of Iranians competing against Israelis after the 1979 revolution. In most cases, the federation in charge just turned a blind eye, in the worst case recorded, which was the 1983 World Wrestling Championships, an Iranian wrestler defeated an Israeli opponent in the semi-finals, and because of that, the whole team were forced to abandon the championships and return to Tehran. That wrestler by the way, was Mohammad Bana, who is now the coach of the Iranian wrestling team and treated as a hero in Iran.

As you very well know, Mohammad Bana is not just any coach: he is regularly trumpeted by the Iranian media as the architect of Iran's success in Greco-Roman wrestling, and no effort is spared to remind viewers that he was picked as the best coach in the world by FILA. In other words, this idea that anyone who defies the policy and competes against an Israeli will be sent away to some Iranian 'gulag' is totally misplaced. But while Mohammad Bana was able to overcome the issue, it is true that you do risk being black listed and sidelined and might feel treated as an outcast when you return home if you do compete against Israelis.

Well, I don't disagree with that. I'm pretty sure that most Iranian athletes, if allowed, would rather compete against some hopeless Israeli athlete, than lose a medal. I'm against this policy myself.

The report I had posted stated the bout between Goudarzi and Burroughs will be at 1:45 p.m. est, which would have been a few minutes ago (?). But I just saw Iranian television indicate the bout will start in around one hour.

Mani is a good person man.

Who is the Khamanei of Bigsoccer?