Bush: U.S. would aid Israel if attacked Well, not that this is a shock or anything, but its just more clearly drawling the lines. It'll be interesting to see the kind of stuff that comes from Iran after this. Also, be interesting to see if "aid" would go so far to include large scale military action. hmmm.
That was good. Iran should only worry though if Bulgaria decides to back Israel. Then that will signal a very serious turn of events one that could leave the ME scarred for a century or more.
We haven't provided armed forces in any of the previous wars, in each of which, IIRC, Israel managed to prevail. P.S. Israel's current most important deterents are nuclear bombs, which I imagine are labelled as follows "Tehran, Damascus, Cairo, Mecca", etc. The ones previously labelled Baghdad & Kabul are in the process of being renamed.
Bush has made it clear that he would assist Israel militarily. That's no guarantee that subsequent American administrations will. If/when Iran gets a nuke, with their current government, they would probably use it within five years. If I were Israeli, I'd seriously consider getting out. The nuke threat alone may make Iran succeed in driving out a million or so Israelis where generations of other enemies have failed. It'll be like the 1930's again with some Israelis realizing another Holocaust is coming.
I doubt Ahmadinejab acts without full & complete blessing of the religious hierarchy. Will they risk the retaliatory destruction of Tehran & the Shiite holy cities? 'MAD' (mutually assured destruction) held the US & USSR in place during the cold war, as it may do now between India & Pakistan. OTOH, http://www.glumbert.com/media/rave.html
M.A.D. presumes rational actors. You've heard the term, "acceptable level of violence"? The Mad Mullahs are on record as acknowledging that an Israeli counterstrike could kill tens of millions of Arab Muslims but that, in dying for the faith, they would be 'shaheed' (martyrs) and would thus gain heaven. So six million dead Jews and 30 million dead Muslims would be a 'win-win'. Don't you read the fatwas? But to be serious for a second--nuclear blackmail is what the Mullahs are after and it will be very effective.
Surely america, whether led by a D or R, would help out Israel if they are seriously attacked. I'm not so sympathetic to many of Israel's policies, but they are officially our friend, and there is no reason to not help a friend when attacked. A baseless, speculative assertation, don't ya think? Wait - why would Iran want jews to leave if they are, in essence, fairly willing hostages? Sounds like Iran would want more jews around, to discourage Israel from dropping the bomb. And does anyone else find it funny that this guy thinks Iran is nuke trigger happy, but then tells jews to leave because Israel will surely drop a nuke in Iran?
I don't want to lower myself to the level of 'discussion' on this thread. Instead, let me here tackle an issue that might throw some light on the real facts which are often buried by propaganda. Here I am specifically referring to the question of whether Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons, and if so, when it would have them? The issue here has been politicized by propagandists on practically all sides of the political divide in the US. The left, relying on the false assertions by the Bush administration about Iraq's WMD program, has been trying to argue that Iran is very far away from being able to build nukes. False. The right has been trying to argue for a couple of years that Iran is months away from having the technological capability to build the bomb. False. US intelligence leaks, trying to fit the facts into a political timetable, have suggested Iran is anywhere between 5-10 years away from being able to build nukes. False. The facts are easy to gather since Iran's nuclear program has been subject to IAEA inspections. Based on those inspections, Iran is technologically capable of enriching uranium and, if it was so inclined, could produce nukes in a matter of a couple of years. That is assuming what Iran has shown to the IAEA consists of its entire program. And assuming Iran wanted to build nuclear weapons. If you accept the assumption that Iran has shown the IAEA its program in full, however, then there is absolutely no basis to conclude that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons in the first place. After all, IAEA inspections have not produced any such evidence. On the other hand, if you believe Iran has not been upfront and has a secret military nuclear program, then you must also conclude that Iran already has nuclear weapons. The fact is that the only hindrance to Iran having nukes has been self-imposed constraints arising from its cooperation with the IAEA. If that cooperation has beens merely a front, then the entire timetable about "when" Iran would have nukes would have to change. Even based on known facts derived from IAEA inspections, Iran is capable of manufacturing 100 centrifuges each month. Realistically, Iran would need at a minimum 2,000 such centrifuges to make a bomb and would need an additional one year to have those centrifuges run to make sufficient quantities of highly enriched uranium for a bomb. Iran had a few hundred operational centrifuges and parts for up to another thousand ready for assembly as of last year based on what it had showed the IAEA. If Iran was not being upfront, then it surely would have used the period of the so-called suspension agreement the past couple of years to make centrifuges and it would have had (even based on the technology it has revealed, which might be much less than its true capability) assembled enough centrifuges to have already enriched sufficent uranium for a bomb already. In other words, either Iran is already in possession of what it needs to build the bomb anytime it chooses or has chosen already, or it has no intention of building the bomb in keeping with its NPT commitments. You cannot, however, logically have it both ways. Neither one of those two conclusions, however, fit US/Israeli propaganda purposes. To argue Iran has nukes already would basically make the argument about having to 'isolate and sanction' Iran, or to engage it militarily, to prevent it from having nukes nonsensical. On the other hand, to argue that Iran has been complying in full with its NPT commitments, and that it doesn't have any intention to make nukes based on what it has been doing, would take away the supposed reason for the propaganda campaign against Iran. One last comment. Iran is not worried about any conventional US military attacks. Iran is fully capable of defending itself against any such attacks. Nor does Iran have any intention to attack Israel with or without nukes. The relevance of the Bush administration's 'guarantees' to Israel lie elsewhere. They relate to two factors. First, to make sure Iran can't engage in 'nuclear blackmail' against Israel by making sure Iran knows that it would be subject to US nuclear attack. Second, to make sure Israel and the US are able to engage in nuclear blackmail against Iran, with Iran knowing that even with nukes (and certainly without them), it would have no chance in a conflict with both of them if they are willing to brandish the nuclear card. And against Iran, both the US and to some extent Israel, have taken out the nuclear card already. They have been showing it to Iran for a while now.
im sure that iran has no intention of attack israel, saying that it should be wiped off the map was merely a joke, and showing how beautiful the world would be without zionism is just ahmadinjad's way of ********ing around with his old pals israel. and by the way, why do you always enter a thread and try to manipulate it into something else, instead of just facing the fact that you have a psycho "president", and that you have no intention of standing up against him if, err i mean when, he decides to launch the missile.
A Jewish survivor of the Holocaust said, "When somebody says they're going to kill you, believe them."
fyp, sadly Followed by a ten-paragraph threadjack! The least you could do is ID the guy in the video!
Ahmadinejad words or not. The notion that mullahs are irrational, mad people, is absolutely irrational and it's not backed up by any historical/geopolitical fact. The notion that iranian mullahs don't care about keeping the power and their role and that they don't care about the nuclear annihilation of iran if that means destroying Israel is totally irrational and belongs to the realm of paranoia. The kind of dangerous and destructive paranoia who could actually produce what is supposedly aimed to avoid. It's almost 30 years that the islamic republic exists and they started exaclty 0 (zero) wars. Unlike some other who should be the rational hero of democracy. The bottom fact is, YES the fact that iranian leaders know that by attacking and/or dropping nukes on Israel (or US targets) the final result would be Iran's nuclear annihilation (both by Israel and USA) IS a tremendous decisive incentive to never do such suicidal move. To question that is to let paranoia rule over rationality.
Incidentally US openly backing Israel in case of an aggression is GOOD. I had no doubt about it but to state it clearly could relieve the fears of those who think that some hundreds nukes are not a deterrent enough. Of course keeping in mind that the one who strikes first is the agressor.