Iran... What will we do?

[ben says]

And then we subvert the powerbase, initiate a populist (CIA) uprising, and arm them.

War and fiat currency... It what's for dinner.

That's the name of the game.

[JeffreyS]

Well then perhaps we are morally obligated.

[jaxnative]

When did the United States start selling arms to Syria?

[JeffreyS]

The news keeps saying Russia has been selling arms to Syria not the US. I would not be surprised however.

[mtraininjax]

Advisors and Consultants at this point, come on, its what's really happening, wink, wink.

[ben says]

Well then perhaps we are morally obligated.

States, and their respective governments, are not moral actors. States are no more moral than corporations. Both have interests, both have bottom lines. For corporations, the bottom line is profit. For states, the bottom line is power. The US has never acted on moral principles alone. Essentially, the US wouldn't intervene in Syria unless they had strong geopolitical reasons to do so.

[BridgeTroll]

I rail against our involvement in Iraq and talk about reducing military spending but I just watched a child running from Syrian sniper fire on Anderson Cooper and I want their leaders blood.

Perhaps sanity will return in the morning but maybe not.

Guess who sold the guns, ammo, and grenades used in Syria? You guessed right: America. We talk the talk, but when it comes down to it, we literally supply them with the tools they need to repress their own people.

Ben... you are just wrong.  America does NOT supply the syrian armed forces.  They have historically been armed by first the Soviet Union... then Russia... and of late your friendly neighborhood North Koreans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Armed_Forces

Procurement
The breakup of the Soviet Union â€" long the principal source of training, material, and credit for the Syrian forces â€" may have slowed Syria's ability to acquire modern military equipment. It has an arsenal of surface-to-surface missiles. In the early 1990s, Scud-C missiles with a 500-kilometer range were procured from North Korea, and Scud-D, with a range of up to 700 kilometers, is allegedly being developed by Syria with the help of North Korea and Iran, according to Zisser.[15]

Syria received significant financial aid from Persian Gulf Arab states as a result of its participation in the Persian Gulf War, with a sizable portion of these funds earmarked for military spending. In 2005, Russia forgave Syria of three-fourths, or about $9.8 billion, of its $13.4 billion Soviet-era debt. Russia wrote off the debt in order to renew arms sales with Syria.[16] As of 2011, arms contracts with Russia, Syria's main arms supplier, were worth at least $4 billion.[5][17][18][19]

ModernizationSyria for the few past years has reached out to Russia to obtain modern weapons that included many modern anti-tank and anti-air missile systems that will further improve its combat capabilities. In early September, 2008 The Syrian Government is in line with Russia to purchase MiG-29SMT fighters, Pantsir S1E air-defense systems, Iskander tactical missile systems, Yak-130 aircraft, and two Amur-1650 submarines. Russia's foreign minister said his country's sale of weapons to Syria won't upset the balance of power in the Middle East. The sales are "in line with the international law" and "in the interests of strengthening stability and maintaining security" in regions close to Russian borders, Sergei Lavrov told reporters during a visit to the United Nations in New York. Also Russia plans to turn a Soviet-era navy site in the Syrian port of Tartus into a permanent naval base, RIA Novosti reported, adding that 10 Russian warships are deployed there now while Russia expands the port. Israel and the United States have said they oppose further arms sales to Syria because the weapons could fall under the control of Iran or Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.[8]

[Ocklawaha]

Such imagery is fed to us when we gots us some invadin' to do.

Snipers are WMD.

We must invade, "for the children".

WMD? Wow, you do know the motto of the snipers don't you... ONE SHOT - ONE KILL.  This best protection a sniper has is distance and the fact that the kill should happen before the enemy hears the report. That makes it very hard to try and find the one with the gun. 

[BridgeTroll]

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/29/red_lines

Red lines
Posted By Blake Hounshell 
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - 12:49 AM 

For Iran watchers, the week or so leading up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington has been a busy one.

First, on Friday, the latest International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards report came out on Iran's nuclear program, conveniently giving fodder for all sides of the bomb-Iran debate. The IAEA report, as an analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security describes, shows that Iran is expanding its uranium enrichment program, including in its deeply buried Fordow plant, but having trouble with next-generation  centrifuge technology that could make its breakout to a nuclear weapon much faster. (See also the New York Times, which concludes, "The report is likely to inflame the debate over whether Iran is nearing what Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, calls entering a 'zone of immunity.'")

Also on Friday, the Times reported that U.S. intelligence agencies have not changed their view that "there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb." The Los Angeles Times ran a similar story a day earlier. (In his Friday sermon, Iran's supreme leader seemed to confirm this assessment, calling nuclear weapons a "sin.")

Then, on Monday, both the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press reported on the tense negotiations between Israel and the United States over what to do about all this. The Israelis are apparently "fuming" that Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly warned against an Israeli strike on Iran's facilities. Last week's visit to Israel by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon reportedly did not go well precisely for this reason. ("We made it clear to Donilon that all those statements and briefings only served the Iranians," one Israeli official told Haaretz, a comment sure to infuriate the White House.)

The Israelis do not plan to tell their American counterparts if they do decide to attack Iran, the AP's Kimberly Dozier reported, a move a U.S. intelligence official interpreted for her as Israel wanting to give the United States plausible deniability in the event of a strike. But another way to look at it is as one more sign that Israel and the United States simply do not trust one another.

The key issue under discussion is what the appropriate "red lines" are -- Iranian actions that would trigger a military response by Israel or the United States. For Israel, the bar is lower, but nebulous: Defense Minister Ehud Barak talks about Iran soon entering a "zone of immunity" that will make an attack impossible. For the United States, the big no-no is weaponization. The Israelis believe that waiting until Iran decides to build a weapon is too late, but it's not clear they have the capability to take out Iran's nuclear sites (read: Ferdow) on their own.

The Journal suggests that Obama is coming Netanyahu's way on this, but a story in today's Los Angeles Times says the opposite. Clearly there's a policy fight going on behind the scenes, and the president's recent claims that he and Bibi are on the same page can't be taken seriously. Haaretz reports tonight that "Netanyahu wants Obama to state unequivocally that the United States is preparing for a military operation in the event that Iran crosses certain 'red lines,'" and that the distrust between the two men only seems to be deepening. Each leader feels the other is meddling in his country's domestic politics -- Obama by seeking to turn Israeli public opinion against a strike (example), and Netanyahu by working with Republicans to attack the president as soft on Iran.

The million-dollar question is whether all this drama is really about establishing a credible threat to get the Iranians to capitulate (while terrifying European and Asian countries into boycotting Iranian oil), or whether Israel is indeed serious about attacking if the sanctions don't work, and is earnestly seeking U.S. buy-in.

I have some sympathy for the view that, by publicly warning against strikes, the Obama administration is undercutting Israel's deterrent. Bluster aside, Iran has shown a tendency to back down when frightened, as in 2003 when it is thought to have shuttered its nuclear weapons program, and more recently when it toned down its tough talk about blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

But threats have consequences, too. U.S. officials haven't clearly articulated why they believe all this war talk is unhelpful, but I suspect two reasons. One is the rising cost of gasoline, perhaps the issue that terrifies the political side of the White House most heading into November. Tensions over Iran are already adding about $10 per barrel to the price of oil, some analysts say, threatening to choke off America's nascent economic recovery and make Obama a one-term president.

But the more serious issue is that if you make such a threat, you actually may need to carry it out someday. Is that something Barack Obama, a man who has staked his presidency on winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and wants above all to do "nation-building at home," is prepared to do? He's already committed to preventing Iran from getting the bomb, taking containment off the table. He's shown little inclination for taking the big political risk of putting some sort of "grand bargain" on the table. But if sanctions don't bring Iran around -- and there's no sign yet that they will -- and sabotage and asking nicely don't do the job, what then?

[BridgeTroll]

The sites that could be attacked...



The routes that could be used...



The article...

Twelve hours is an agonizingly long time for endurance athletes as they punish their bodies, pushing themselves to the ultimate limit in events like triathlons or mountain bike races.

Twelve hours is also an agonizingly long time for politicians, acting under the pressure of an ultimatum, to prevent a war that would mean the inevitable deaths of large numbers of people....


http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,819312,00.html

[finehoe]

When the Israelis begin to bomb the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, the formerly secret enrichment site at Qom, the nuclear-research center at Esfahan, and possibly even the Bushehr reactor, along with the other main sites of the Iranian nuclear program, a short while after they depart en masse from their bases across Israelâ€"regardless of whether they succeed in destroying Iran’s centrifuges and warhead and missile plants, or whether they fail miserably to even make a dent in Iran’s nuclear programâ€"they stand a good chance of changing the Middle East forever; of sparking lethal reprisals, and even a full-blown regional war that could lead to the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Iranians, and possibly Arabs and Americans as well; of creating a crisis for Barack Obama that will dwarf Afghanistan in significance and complexity; of rupturing relations between Jerusalem and Washington, which is Israel’s only meaningful ally; of inadvertently solidifying the somewhat tenuous rule of the mullahs in Tehran; of causing the price of oil to spike to cataclysmic highs, launching the world economy into a period of turbulence not experienced since the autumn of 2008, or possibly since the oil shock of 1973; of placing communities across the Jewish diaspora in mortal danger, by making them targets of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks, as they have been in the past, in a limited though already lethal way; and of accelerating Israel’s conversion from a once-admired refuge for a persecuted people into a leper among nations.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/09/the-point-of-no-return/8186/

[BridgeTroll]

It is interesting that you chose this one paragragh to post from a well written and comprehensive 6 page article...

[finehoe]

^^^Interesting how?

[Ajax]

For what it's worth:

http://www.juancole.com/2012/03/netanyahu-1992-iran-will-have-the-bomb-by-1997.html

Netanyahu 1992: Iran will Have the Bomb by 1997
Posted on 03/06/2012 by Juan
Scott Peterson at the Christian Science Monitor did a useful timeline for dire Israeli and US predictions of an imminent Iranian nuclear weapon, beginning 20 years ago.

1992: Israeli member of parliament Binyamin Netanyahu predicts that Iran was “3 to 5 years” from having a nuclear weapon.

1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres predicts an Iranian nuclear warhead by 1999 to French TV.

1995: The New York Times quotes US and Israeli officials saying that Iran would have the bomb by 2000.

1998: Donald Rumsfeld tells Congress that Iran could have an intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit the US by 2003.

[buckethead]

Another interesting article:

Much has been spun in recent weeks to indicate that as a result of collapsing trade, Iran's economy is in shambles and that the financial embargo hoisted upon the country by the insolvent, pardon, developed world is working. We had a totally different perspective on things "A Very Different Take On The "Iran Barters Gold For Food" Story" in which we essentially said that Iran, with the complicity of major trading partners like China, India and Russia is preparing to phase out the petrodollar: a move which would be impossible if key bilateral trade partners would not agree to it. Gradually it appears this is increasingly the case following a just released Reuters report that "Iran will take payment from its trading partners in gold instead of dollars, the Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted the central bank governor as saying on Tuesday."

Via Reuters:

Iranian financial institutions have been hit by sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union in an effort to force Tehran to halt its nuclear programme.

Significant difficulties in making dollar payments to Iranian banks have forced Iran's trading partners to look for alternative ways to settle transactions, including direct barter deals.

"In its trade transactions with other countries, Iran does not limit itself to the U.S. dollar, and the country can pay using its own currency," central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani was quoted as saying. "If a country should so choose, it can pay in gold and we would accept that without any reservation."

The sanctions include a phased ban on importing oil from Iran, which EU member states are to implement by July.

China and India, two of the largest consumers of Iranian oil, have said they will continue imports, but Japan and Korea have announced cuts to quotas following pressure from the United States. As a result the value of Iran's rial has plummeted, pushing the price of goods sharply higher across the country.
And from the souce:

Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Mahmoud Bahmani says the country can trade in currencies other than the American dollar in its foreign transactions.

“Iran does not just work with the dollar in trade transactions and every country can pay in its own currency,” said Mahmoud Bahmani on Tuesday.

Bahmani added that Tehran could receive gold in its transactions instead of currency transfers.

In case a country is willing to pay for the price of its imports from Iran in gold, there is no problem in this respect, he noted.

According to Bahmani, Iran imports commodities from China and India in exchange for the countries’ currencies. Tehran’s move is aimed at bypassing the upcoming freeze on CBI’s assets and the oil embargo, which the European Union's foreign ministers agreed to impose on the Islamic Republic.
Now this would be great news for Greece which as previously reported had at times relied for more than 50% of its crude imports on Iran. There is just one problem: very soon the country will no longer have said gold in its possession, as part of the preapproved Greek bailout of Europe, the country's constitution would be changed to reflect that even its gold now is part of the bailout conditions, and European banks have a lien on it. Especially if said gold is located in the basement of the NY Fed where it most likely resides.

As for other countries, such as China which we are confident has been quietly stockpiling gold in the last few years, and will make a surprise announcement any day now, as it did back in 2009... that's a different matter entirely.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/iran-moves-further-end-petrodollar-announces-will-accept-payment-gold-instead-dollars