Iran making same mistake as Iraq

[Absolute_Zero]

I'm more concerned with the British government's mis-deeds than I am with what the Iranian government gets up to, because the British government supposedly represents me.

Where did you get the idea that the government exists to represent you? Surely their raison d'etre is to represent the UK as a whole... which by the way of these things, they pretty much do.

What, goading a bunch of Arab loonies who probably have a nuclear bomb is in the UK's best interests is it?

In another time you'd be asking whether it was in the UK's best interests to be picking a fight with that loon, Adolph.

At the moment it seems like the preferred outcome is to have them execute those poor navy buggers, so that the US can step in and flatten the place.

I can't help with your outlandish perceptions of the US.

[Kemper_Boyd]

What, goading a bunch of Arab loonies who probably have a nuclear bomb is in the UK's best interests is it?

They do not 'probably have a nuclear bomb'. It is very unlikely they do,
and almost certain that they don't have one they've made themselves.
No one knows for sure how far away they are but unless some nutter's
sold them some Pu/HEU they are probably at least 5 years and maybe
10 years away*. Unless the secret parallel military nuclear programme
exists, which as far as I know nobody has found a shred of evidence
for so far. Is Iran a mid-term threat? Probably, but not right now as far
as anyone can tell.

*That's what the National Intelligence Estimate from 2005 said and the
IAEA has reported that the Iranian enrichment programme has had
significant difficulties.

[snaff]

In another time you'd be asking whether it was in the UK's best interests to be picking a fight with that loon, Adolph.

Adolph didn't appear from nowhere. He arose in response to the retarded foreign policy of other western powers in the first part of the century.

[Absolute_Zero]

In another time you'd be asking whether it was in the UK's best interests to be picking a fight with that loon, Adolph.

Adolph didn't appear from nowhere. He arose in response to the retarded foreign policy of other western powers in the first part of the century.

True enough... but irrelevant to the question of whether to grovel.

[Dr Morbeus]

The reality is that Iran is indeed a rogue state - for anyone to seriously state otherwise really flies in the face of the facts.

In many ways, 'we' are worse than 'them'

Yeah. But then again, do my last job, where you are helping women in their early twenties piece their lives back together because they were married off at eight eyars old and raped by their 'husbands' in a state mandated paedophile ring the country wide. Because Mohammed did it, so that's ok. Or the lad who would sooner live in the woods outside Calais or Hull, or take the chance of suffocating to death in a sealed container on the channel routes rather than face what awaits him from the Iranian government because his father once said something they didn't like a few years ago.

Terry Jones is right to point out the torture at Abu Ghraib, but he's talking in the same stupid terms as everyone else - as if the governments of either country are really anything at all to do with the people. Know the people of Iran, befriend as many as you can and based on them, judge that nation. If you take the rantings of their leaders seriously, why not take Bush seriously as well?

Although, if we are keeping score, in the lifetime of anyone still breathing, torture in the west is restricted mostly to a handful of shadowy governmental places whereas in Iran every village has a 'police station' where those who don't tow the line can expect to lose a finger or two. Most people don;t like to go on about it though.

Someone was talking earlier about the left-hand/right-hand puppets being a choice. Well, we do have a choice - and the western states are the lesser of two evils in this case. How many refugees from the west are entering Iran every week? And with the exception of Bush who is crippled by his own failure now, how many religious zealots are running western nations?

Amen to that. 110% agreement factor. No-one is pretending that we are perfect but the points you made were on the money. Terry Jones made some valid points but he loses all credibility when he says we are worse than them. That is just simply ludicrous.

[Dr Morbeus]

What, goading a bunch of Arab loonies who probably have a nuclear bomb is in the UK's best interests is it? At the moment it seems like the preferred outcome is to have them execute those poor navy buggers, so that the US can step in and flatten the place.

Muslim loonies maybe but definitely not Arabs. Iranians that is. They also speak a different language (Farsi).

Your just repeating your own ridiculous view of the Americans with that last statement.

[Dr Morbeus]

In another time you'd be asking whether it was in the UK's best interests to be picking a fight with that loon, Adolph.

Adolph didn't appear from nowhere. He arose in response to the retarded foreign policy of other western powers in the first part of the century.

Maybe you should read up a bit more on the rise of Naziism in Germany. That is not the only reason Hitler came to power or even the main one.

[Darth Bungle]

I have to agree with the above post regarding Hitler's rise to power.

But can we get back to the topic at hand?

I'll just provide a little background to the source I am about to provide.

Patrick Cockburn has been in Bagdhad for the last four or five years, he writes for the Independent and his reports are some of the few I trust to convey the reality of life in Iraq at the moment. He appears to have good sources and bases his work on real, and somewhat dangerous, journalism.

Now you can believe as much of this as you want, but if true, this story paints a rather interesting background to the capturing of British sailors by Iran:

A failed US attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that ten weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and marines.

Early in the morning of 11 January helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

...

The two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials.

...

The attempt by the US to seize two senior Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran such as Pakistan or Afghanistan.

There is no doubt that Iran believes that Mr Jafari and Mr Frouzanda were targeted by the Americans. Mr Jafari confirmed to the official Iranian newsagency IRNA that he was in Arbil at the time of the raid. In a little noticed remark Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the agency: "The objective of the Americans was to arrest Iranian security officials who had gone to Iraq to develop cooperation in the area of bilateral security."

US officials in Washington subsequently claimed that the five Iranian officials they did seize, and have not been seen since, were "suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces." This explanation never made much sense. No member of the US-led coalition has been killed in Arbil and there vare no Sunni Arab insurgents or Shia militiamen there.

The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President Bush making an Address to the Nation on 10 January in which he claimed: "Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops." He identified Iran and Syria as America's main enemies in Iraq though the four-year old guerrilla war against US-led forces is being conducted by the strongly anti-Iranian Sunni Arab community. Mr Jafari himself later complained about US allegations asking: "So far has there been a single Iranian among suicide bombers in the war-battered country? Almost all who involved in the suicide attacks are from Arab countries in the region."

http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick04032007.html

[Crystal_sword]

:Sl: dear muslims

Muslim loonies maybe but definitely not Arabs.

Trying to resist posting here but, had to say :

Thats a bit of a broad generalization my friend..

should swap the "Arabs and Muslim" words..

Yeah Darth Bungle, read that article on the Independent site earlier.

[kalmar]

Yeah, sorry, that was a daft statement, but all this bluster about Terrorist States and so forth does wind me up a bit.

Goatboy: good points. Iran clearly has its share of fundamentalist nutters. Why are we poking their nest with a stick?

[Absolute_Zero]

I have to agree with the above post regarding Hitler's rise to power.

Of course, there's always ways and means to divert responsibility onto the usual suspects.

I guess France gets credit for their refusal to let up on the reparations that sent the German economy down the shitter. However, the Kaiser's excursion into France was the genesis of that. But hey, Bill was the spawn of Victoria and WW1 a family dispute. Bingo!

Surely the US must be responsible, non? So the reparations paid France and Britain was set against allied debt to the US... who then (in effect) lent that money back to Germany to pay off the reparations. Come the great depression, the money-go-round came to halt. Bingo!

But can we get back to the topic at hand?

Indeed... but it's another example of the national self-loathing mind at work.

I'll just provide a little background to the source I am about to provide.

Patrick Cockburn has been in Bagdhad for the last four or five years, he writes for the Independent and his reports are some of the few I trust to convey the reality of life in Iraq at the moment. He appears to have good sources and bases his work on real, and somewhat dangerous, journalism.

Now you can believe as much of this as you want, but if true, this story paints a rather interesting background to the capturing of British sailors by Iran:

A failed US attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that ten weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and marines.

Shock horror probe, it's all the great satan's fault.

Paying off kidnappers is all very well and good for the kidnapped.. but not so great for the future victims of those you've enboldened by rolling over.

[benedictw]

BBC News: Looks like they are being let go.

[kalmar]

Well played on Iran's part. Makes them look magnanimous and us look like bullying incompetents.


Looks like a bit of bargaining went on behind the scenes though:

In other developments today, Iran's official news agency said an Iranian representative was due to meet five Iranians detained by US forces in Irbil in northern Iraq in January, Reuters reported.

[Absolute_Zero]

Well played on Iran's part. Makes them look magnanimous and us look like bullying incompetants.

"All the comfort without the guilt"

[tufty]

And with a bound, they were free...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 525905.stm