BF2S Forums Hell is not going to thaw out for a long time. [IRAN]

rammunition wrote:

FEOS wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

Never. The EU, Russia and China have too many vested interests in Iran. Russia selling anti-missile systems, China buying oil and EU companies investing in the country means all of this posturing is pure theatre.

So this is pure rhetoric, but when the US says anything, it's warmongering. Nice double standard.

its a fact, the U.S loves drinking blood

http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=98872&p=1

JahManRed wrote:

They will never invade. They will cripple them with sanctions, which will kill thousands of children and ensure that they cant refine any of their own oil and will radicalise the nation. They will never be allowed to grow and evolve as a nation and will remain suspicious of the west. If they can't refine their own oil they won't grow to be a super power in the middle east and therefore won't financially or militarily threaten Israel and the USA's imperial aspirations for the area.

In the end Iran will attack the west when they are backed into a corner and held back for years and have no options left.
I genuinely pity the Innocent ppl of Iran who will be made suffer, judging by the current saber rattling.

CameronPoe wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Saying that military options are not off the table is not a threat of military force, so it is not warmongering.

Sarkozy himself said just the other day that diplomacy without the backing of a relevant military is powerless. By openly taking military options off the table, you are engaging in diplomacy from a position of weakness--there's nothing to fall back on if diplomacy fails.

Sounds like you're saying there should be preconditions for negotiations...but only if those conditions are concessions from some country other than Iran.

The only threats have been threats of sanctions. And those have been made by the EU, Russia, China, and the US.

Well I guess it's because I disagree with the principle of denying Iran the ability to defend itself from a western world that has long tried to undermine its sovereignty. In principle, I am in favour of Iranian nuclear weapons. I will make no bones about that. I find it hypocritical of us to try and stymie them when nothing was done to stymie Israel or China or India or Pakistan and the west themselves hold gigantic nuclear arsenals. The Iranian approach at achieveing this is their best bet because if they withdraw from the NPT or stop contact with the IAEA altogether it is a green light for a western excuse to fuck them up. This nonsense about Iran trying to take over the world or the concept that they would sacrfice their own nation to blow up an essentially irrelevant-to-Iran Israel is exactly that: nonsense.

PureFodder wrote:

I do agree that the idea of Iran actually using a nuke offensively or even giving one to terrorists is so unfathomably stupid you have to worry about the people suggesting it.

Never count on your adversary not being stupid or acting in a manner contrary to what you perceive to be their own self-interest.

CameronPoe wrote:

FEOS wrote:

I don't think the concern with Iran is necessarily (from the US perspective) that they will start lobbing nukes. I believe the concern is that they will provide one or more of their proxies with a nuke instead.

Three of those countries you listed aren't signatories to the NPT, and China developed their weapons prior to the NPT being enacted, so the comparison is moot.

The comparison isn't entirely moot. Albeit a gross transgression of sovereignty, it would have seemed to be in the wests interest to curb Chinese nuclear capabilities given their openly expansionist communist principles during those decades. The Chinese got away with it because they were sufficiently secretive about their program. Had the west suspected then they would have been far more pro-active in preventing them acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran is in the same position China would have been had suspicion existed over China. The only difference is that Iran is not territorially expansionist in either their rhetoric or through their actions.

I might add that on an analogous microscopic level the NPT would be similar to denying Americans the right to bear arms (form militias), a right ostensibly designed to prevent despotic government or external threat. On an international level this means that the military capability of countries is being curbed to serve the interests of the existing world elite and preserve their superior status: the west, Russia, China and a few others. Not a fair state of affairs if you ask me. You might ask - 'but it's an agreement that Iran signed up to voluntarily!' to which I would respond: Iran signed the NPT while under the control of its US stooge - Reza Shah Pahlavi - in 1968.

Who's picking a fight with Iran? You still cannot point to any direct threats that have been made against them by the US or anyone else (other than maybe Israel).

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2008-06-25 06:24:39)

Dilbert_X wrote:

Plus the US taking sides with Iraq for the duration of the Iran-Iraq war.

PureFodder wrote:

FEOS wrote:

PureFodder wrote:

I do agree that the idea of Iran actually using a nuke offensively or even giving one to terrorists is so unfathomably stupid you have to worry about the people suggesting it.

Never count on your adversary not being stupid or acting in a manner contrary to what you perceive to be their own self-interest. Goes back to planning for both Most Likely and Most Dangerous courses of action.

Planning for the most dangerous course of action would bar an attack on Iran as many have predicted it could lead to WWIII.

PureFodder wrote:

When have we "continually messed with Iran"?

When we overthrew their democracy, installed and supported a brutal dictatorship for a few decades, once he was overthrown, tried another coup, supported Saddam in his war against Iran in which he used chemical weapons and killed close to a million Iranians, then continued to impose economic sanction on them.

The question should be 'when haven't we constantly messed with Iran?'

wiki wrote:

According to Iraq's report to the UN, the know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained from the United States, West Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the People's Republic of China.[53][clarify]

In December 2002, Iraq's 1,200 page Weapons Declaration revealed a list of Eastern and Western corporations and countries, as well as individuals, that exported a total of 17,602 tons of chemical precursors to Iraq in the past two decades. By far, the largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and Federal Republic of Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.[54]