British Sailors

[StrykerFSU]

Yeah and Iran only wants nuclear power and has no aspirations to build nuclear weapons.

There is a crystal clear difference between the US led action in Iraq and the annihilation of Israel as promised by Iran, the US invaded Iraq to topple a dictator (and now operates there under UN mandate and at the request of the Iraqi government) and Iran would invade Israel in an act of genocide. Of course some may believe that Israel does not have the right to exist because it is a nation created to benefit one group at the expense of another. I do not happen to be one of those people.

To help people understand Lebanese/Israeli realtions, I recommend "From Beirut to Jerusalem" by Thomas Friedman. It is an eye opening first hand account of the 1980s in Beirut and Jerusalem. However, I think it is clear that Israel viewed the kidnapping of their soldiers by Iranian funded guerillas as an act of war and responded in kind. In my opinion, Iran is now testing the West to determine if we have such capability or resolve.

[Hackalicious]

Yeah and Iran only wants nuclear power and has no aspirations to build nuclear weapons.

There is a crystal clear difference between the US led action in Iraq and the annihilation of Israel as promised by Iran, the US invaded Iraq to topple a dictator (and now operates there under UN mandate and at the request of the Iraqi government) and Iran would invade Israel in an act of genocide.

There is zero chance that Iran could "invade Israel". They have no capacity to magically stage an large-scale invasion around the Arabian peninsula, and would get tooled by Israel anyway.

You make Iran out to be genocidal and on the verge of unleashing nuclear war. I don't see any evidence that Iran will do anything other than what it has been doing: extending its influence and protecting its interests.

[StrykerFSU]

"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, referring to Iran's revolutionary leader Ayat Allah Khomeini.

His comments were the first time in years that such a high-ranking Iranian official has called for Israel's eradication, even though such slogans are still regularly used at government
rallies.

"The Islamic umma (community) will not allow its historic enemy to live in its heartland," he said in the fiery speech that centred on a "historic war between the oppressor and the world of Islam".

The term "oppressor" is used by the clerical government to refer to the United States.

"We should not settle for a piece of land," he said of Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip.

"Anyone who signs a treaty which recognises the entity of Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim world," Ahmadinejad said.

"Any leaders in the Islamic umma who recognise Israel face the wrath of their own people."

http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=15816

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday the solution to the Middle East crisis is to destroy Israel.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080300629.html

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today echoed his earlier threats to "wipe Israel off the map" by telling a mass demonstration in Tehran, commemorating the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, that Palestinians and "other nations" will remove Israel from the region, adding a warning to the West that harsh measures against the nation's nuclear program would result in Iran walking away from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"The policy of Iran has so far been pursuing nuclear technology within the framework of the NPT and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)," he said. "If we see you (the West) want to violate the right of the Iranian people by using those regulations (against us), you should know that the Iranian people will revise its policies. You should do nothing that will lead to such a revision in our policy," said Ahmadinejad.

The crowd, numbered in the hundreds of thousands accoding to state media, responded to Ahmadinejad's defense of its nuclear program – believed by U.S. intelligence to be an effort to acquire atomic weapons – with cries of "Nuclear energy is our undisputable right," "Death to America," "Death of Israel," "Death to Denmark."

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48790

I don't think I'm making Iran out to be anything, Ahmadinejad does that just fine all by himself. If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, walks like a duck...it just might be a duck.

And yes, Israel is quite capable of protecting itself but shouldn't the responsibility of the World (not just the US) be to prevent such a war in the first place? Again I ask, isn't this why we have a UN? I don't think that the alternative, allowing Iran nuclear capabilities and then keeping our fingers crossed that they play nice, is a valid strategy.

The abduction of the British sailors was plain and simple an act of war. Much like the Al Qaeda attacks on the US Embassies in Africa and the USS Cole. The difference is that in this case the culprit is clear and not some nebulous terrorist organization that is hard to identify and isolate. There need to be repercussions from the UN Security Council but my confidence in that body is shaky at best.

[echo 600]

This situation seems eeriely familiar to an incident involving Iranian hostages almost thirty years ago. Quick, somebody get H. Ross Perot on the line! He didn't sit still then and he won't sit still now!

[laxfan25]

I think that the statements about "wiping Israel from the map" may be taking things a little out of context. I have read other pieces about this, and some have indicated that this reflects the popular Arab opinion that Israel was formed illegitimately on land occupied by the Palestinians, and that the desire is to remove recognition of that statehood - not to murder every Israeli citizen. Those citizens would become residents of the state of Palestine, just as many Palestinians reside in the current state of Israel.

[StrykerFSU]

That's a bit of a rosey interpretation but for argument's sake let's say that is all they want, a return to an Arab Palestinian state. What happens to the millions of Jews living in Israel? What about all of the infrastructure ("Turning the desert green") and investment the Israeli people have made in the region? In the past 60 years, what has happened to give such confidence in the benevolence of the Arab majority? Let's also remember that Iranians aren't even Arab, they are Persian, and their hatred for Israel is completely based on religion.

But back to the topic and a question no one seems able to answer, where is the UN Security Council in all of this? The US and the UK are operating in Iraq under a UN mandate. Iran (whatever faction of the government) took British sailors hostage and is now threatening to put them on trial. This action is not legal and is an act of war but yet the very body meant to resolve such problems is impotent at best, thank you China and Russia. Be very thankful that they were not American sailors as I don't think The Decider would be as patient as Blair appears to be. What we really need is a little Doug Masters and Chappy Sinclair to get over there and get those boys (and girl) out of there.

[Hackalicious]

Let's also remember that Iranians aren't even Arab, they are Persian, and their hatred for Israel is completely based on religion.

Oh really? How is it that a Jewish minority still lives peacefully in Iran today?

[Sonny]

The U.N. will do nothing for men seized on a U.N.-sanctioned mission. The European Union will do nothing for its “European citizens.” But if liberal transnationalism is a post-modern joke, it’s not the only school of transnationalism out there. Iran’s Islamic Revolution has been explicitly extraterritorial since the beginning: It has created and funded murderous proxies in Hezbollah, Hamas and both Shia and Sunni factions of the Iraq “insurgency.” It has spent a fortune in the stans of Central Asia radicalizing previously somnolent Muslim populations. When Ayatollah Khomeini announced the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, it was not Iranians but British, Indian, Turkish, European, Asian and American Muslims who called for his death, firebombed bookstores, shot his publisher, fatally stabbed his translator and murdered anybody who got in their way.

So we live today in a world of one-way sovereignty: American, British and Iraqi forces in Iraq respect the Syrian and Iranian borders; the Syrians and Iranians do not respect the Iraqi border. Patrolling the Shatt al-Arab at a time of war, the Royal Navy operates under rules of engagement designed by distant fainthearts with an eye to the polite fictions of “international law”: If you’re in a “warship,” you can’t wage war. If you’re in a “destroyer,” don’t destroy anything. If you’re in a “frigate,” you’re frigging done for.

On Sept. 11, a New York skyscraper was brought down by the Egyptian leader of a German cell of an Afghan terror group led by a Saudi. Islamism is only the first of many globalized ideological viruses that will seep undetected across national frontiers in the years ahead. Meanwhile, we put our faith in meetings of foreign ministers.

“It is better to be making the news than taking it,” wrote Winston Churchill in 1898. But his successors have gotten used to taking it, and the men who make the news well understand that.

Taking of hostages by Iran is not Britain's finest hour:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/steyn/3218 ... 01.article

[StrykerFSU]

I don't know anything about the Jewish experience in Iran so I won't comment on it. The point of my statement was that Iran was not a part of the Arab coalition that has traditionally been so violently opposed to Israel's existence, i.e. Egypt, the Palestinians, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Being Persian and not Arab, the Iranian hatred for the Zionists is not racially based but must stem from a religious intolerance.

[cjwilhelmi]

For more fun with Iran and Persians read here

[StrykerFSU]

It looks like this might all work out and all the Brits had to do was give up an Iranian "diplomat" who was taken in Iraq...what was he doing in Iraq?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040400334.html?hpid=topnews

The sailors didn't even have to apologize for being illegally taken hostage. Oh Rosie, what happened to your Gulf of Tonkin? "Nut job", Google that Rosie.

[StrykerFSU]

Britain's Humiliation -- and Europe's

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 6, 2007; Page A21

Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the impotence of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the United Nations -- that pretend to maintain international order.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501796.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[Sonny]

Good stuff.

Europeans talk all the time about their preference for "soft power" over the brute military force those Neanderthal Americans resort to all the time. What was the soft power available here? Iran's shaky economy is highly dependent on European credits, trade and technology. Britain asked the European Union to threaten to freeze exports, $18 billion a year of commerce. Iran would have lost its No. 1 trading partner. The European Union refused.

Why was nothing done? The reason is simple. Europe functions quite well as a free-trade zone, but as a political entity it is a farce. It remains a collection of sovereign countries with divergent interests. A freeze of economic relations with Europe would have shaken the Iranian economy to the core. "The Dutch," reported the Times of London, "said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue." So much for European solidarity.

Like other vaunted transnational institutions, the European Union is useless as a player in the international arena. Not because its members are venal but because they are sovereign. Their interests are simply not identical.