US to declare war on Syria and Iran?

[MakiraMarlena]

Everyone is going to have to wait until 2008, then, to do something about it.

 

[LuvDuke]

And neither one is our friend. In fact, I'm not entirely yconvinced we have any friends in the area, even the new Iraqi government. If we're not fighting them specifically, they're supplying weapons to or harboring the enemy. Maybe I'm just too much of a cynic. Used to be you could identify the enemy by the uniform he wore and the flag he fought under. Now they just crawl out from under rocks.

The Maliki government is no friend to the US. As far as Iran supplying Iraq, let's take a different approach other than nations and think in terms of religious affiliation. Right now, Iraq has a Shiite pro-Iranian government who consider the Iranians their brothers because they are Shiites. Maliki is a Shiite who owes his position to the Shiite cleric Al-Sadr. Iran is arming the Shiites and NOT the Sunni insurgency.

So you have to ask yourself: who is my enemy? The Sunni insurgency firing at our troops or Maliki's Shiites who are fueling the sectarian violence and our troops get caught in the middle.

You're not a cynic. You're another decent American who's being confronted by the history and violence of a region most American don't understand. We think in terms of nation and they think in terms of religious/tribal groups. We value freedom and they value justice and the revenge that goes with it.

I lived in the Middle East and saw the dynamics of the region. I have a whole different perspective.

 

[TheDoctor]

Here is another good article on the fact that Iran is not supplying weapons to Iraq. http://www.latimes.com/news/printed...oll=la-headlines-frontpage&ctrack=1&cset=true

For all the aggressive rhetoric, however, the Bush administration has provided scant evidence to support these claims. Nor have reporters traveling with U.S. troops seen extensive signs of Iranian involvement. During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered. British officials have similarly accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, but say they have not found Iranian-made weapons in areas they patrol.

The lack of publicly disclosed evidence has led to questions about whether the administration is overstating its case. Some suggest Bush and his aides are pointing to Iran to deflect blame for U.S. setbacks in Iraq. Others suggest they are laying the foundation for a military strike against Iran.

Before invading Iraq, the administration warned repeatedly that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Those statements proved wrong. The administration's charges about Iran sound uncomfortably familiar to some. "To be quite honest, I'm a little concerned that it's Iraq again," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last week, referring to the administration's comments on Iran.....

"We are still making arguments from authority without detail and explanation. We're making them in an America and in a world where we really don't have anything like the credibility we've had in the past."

Few doubt that Iran is seeking to extend its influence in Iraq. But the groups in Iraq that have received the most Iranian support are not those that have led attacks against U.S. forces. Instead, they are nominal U.S. allies.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two largest parties in parliament, is believed to be the biggest beneficiary of Iranian help. The Shiite group was based in Iran during Hussein's reign, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard trained and equipped its Badr Brigade militia.

But the Supreme Council also has strong U.S. connections. Bush played host to the head of the party, Abdelaziz Hakim, at the White House in December, and administration officials have frequently cited Adel Abdul Mehdi, another party leader, as a person they would like to see as Iraq's prime minister.

The Islamic Dawa Party of Iraq's current prime minister, Nouri Maliki, also has strong ties to Iran.

Some U.S. officials have also suggested that Iran, a Shiite theocracy, has provided aid to the Sunni insurgents, who have led most of the attacks against U.S. forces. Private analysts and other U.S. officials doubt that.

Again, the bushies are trying to fix the facts and the intelligence to justify an attack on Iran just as the bushies did for Iraq.

 

[LakeAriel]

Here is another good article on the fact that Iran is not supplying weapons to Iraq. http://www.latimes.com/news/printed...oll=la-headlines-frontpage&ctrack=1&cset=trueAgain, the bushies are trying to fix the facts and the intelligence to justify an attack on Iran just as the bushies did for Iraq.

Yes, I heard the threats last night. No wonder he wants to increase the military. His WWIII will require a draft.

 

[TheDoctor]

Here is another piece commenting on the lack of proof of involvement by Iran in Iraq. http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_full_070202_where_is_the_evidenc.htm

That said, there has been absolutely NO EVIDENCE of any threat to our nation or our citizens from the GOVERNMENT of Iran as Bush and other U.S. politicians claim. Reports yesterday indicated that the Bush administration has "postponed" plans to publish a "dossier" of Iranian interference in Iraq because they were "divided over the strength of the US evidence." Indeed the same day there were reports that the incidents of Iranian assistance in the Iraq violence they intended to highlight were actually committed by Iraqi generals instead. Two senior Iraq generals have been implicated in an attack against American forces in Karbala on Jan. 20th that killed 5 American soldiers. The kidnapping and killing of the 5 soldiers had previously been blamed on Iranian elements.

The question of Iranian interference in Iraq is even more muddled when considering the conclusions of the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which suggest Iran's meddling is far less than Bush is claiming (surprised?).

from the report: (http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20070202_release.pdf)

"Iraq's neighbors influence, and are influenced by, events within Iraq, but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics. Nonetheless, Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq."

The evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq appears to be as good as the evidence used to sell the war in the first place (i.e. manufacuted or fixed).

 

[TheDoctor]

Here is yet another article on the weak case that bush has against Iran. It seems that NIE disagrees with bush's claims. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16960641/site/newsweek/

Feb. 12, 2007 issue - How solid is evidence that Iran is stoking the conflict in Iraq? The White House has ratcheted up rhetorical attacks, suggesting that Iranian government elements were supplying Iraqi Shia insurgents with deadly weapons technology. But the idea that Iran plays a key role in fomenting violence inside Iraq took a knock last week with the publication, by the U.S. intelligence czar's office, of a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. The NIE, representing the consensus view of all 16 U.S. intel agencies, says that because sectarian antagonisms among Iraqis themselves are so intense and "self-sustaining," Iranian or Syrian involvement is "not likely to be a major driver of violence."

U.S. officials still maintain that Iran is helping Iraqi Shia insurgents build bombs that are particularly deadly because they can penetrate armored vehicles. But three U.S. officials familiar with unpublished intel (unnamed when discussing sensitive info) said evidence of official Tehran involvement is "ambiguous," in the words of one of the officials.

Once again, the bushies are trying to fix the facts and the intelligence. The trouble is that the intelligence agencies appear less willing to lie for the bushies now.

 

[TheDoctor]

The bushies are pushing weak and obviously fixed intelligence to show that Iran is involved in Iraq. It also appears that a top cheney aide went on record as stating that war against Iran is on the schedule for 2007. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/12/hannah-iran/

As the Bush administration ratchets up pressure on Iran, Vice President Cheney’s top national security aide has been quoted by the Washington Post — in the 10th paragraph on page A18 — that war with Iran is “a real possibility” this year:

Some senior administration officials still relish the notion of a direct confrontation. One ambassador in Washington said he was taken aback when John Hannah, Vice President Cheney’s national security adviser, said during a recent meeting that the administration considers 2007 “the year of Iran” and indicated that a U.S. attack was a real possibility. Hannah declined to be interviewed for this article.​

Those with knowledge of the build-up to war in Iraq will recognize John Hannah’s name. In Bush’s second term, he replaced Scooter Libby as the head of Cheney’s national security staff. During Bush’s first term, he personally wrote the first draft of the infamous speech that Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered to the United Nations, according to Powell’s former aide Lawrence Wilkerson.

 

[TheDoctor]

Here is a scary article from the BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6376639.stm

US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.

The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.

The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions.

But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.

Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.

 

[dcentity2000]

I'd like to think that we aren't going to attack Iran, but it's a possibility.

If we did, it'd be harder to carry through as (if memory serves) Iran has a far tougher military and a more solid, less likely to crumble regime.



Rich::