US officials believe Iran sanctions will fail, making military action likely

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Officials in key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme, and believe that the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so.

The president has made clear in public, and in private to Israel, that he is determined to give sufficient time for recent measures, such as the financial blockade and the looming European oil embargo, to bite deeper into Iran’s already battered economy before retreating from its principal strategy to pressure Tehran.

But there is a strong current of opinion within the administration – including in the Pentagon and the state department – that believes sanctions are doomed to fail, and that their principal use now is in delaying Israeli military action, as well as reassuring Europe that an attack will only come after other means have been tested.

guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/17/us-officials-iran-sanctions-military-action
 
Just what this country needs.

This President will use the war for political purposes, especially if he thinks he will lose this election.
 
Article talks about the election. Not sure it is a win for Obama
 
Let them get a nuke. They can’t use it. Mutually assured destruction still holds. If they attack, they will be defeated unbelievably quickly.
 
Let them get a nuke. They can’t use it. Mutually assured destruction still holds. If they attack, they will be defeated unbelievably quickly.
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Precisely,

John
 
brian24 said:
Let them get a nuke. They can’t use it. Mutually assured destruction still holds. If they attack, they will be defeated unbelievably quickly.
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If Iran gets a nuke the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia have already said they would purchase nukes. Your talking about the entire middle east having nukes. You know, those countries that keep getting radial Islamists taking control.

Saudi and other Gulf country officials have made this point clear to Western governments, though not in public. They have told their Western counterparts that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, they would feel themselves under no legal or moral obligation to adhere to the treaty’s principles. In other words, they would be free to go down the nuclear path. From the Saudi point of view, the success or failure of the international community in restraining Iran’s nuclear program will determine whether the global nonproliferation regime survives.

Nor do the Saudis distinguish between Iran acquiring nuclear capability and actually producing the bomb. In their view, an unassembled nuclear weapon on the shelf is no less dangerous and intimidating than a completed one in storage.

The dominant feeling in the Gulf region is that U.S. policy, wittingly or unwittingly, has gifted Iran with painless and costless strategic gains over the past decade. When the U.S. removed the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and then toppled Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime in Iraq, it lifted what had been for Iran a state of siege and containment, imposed by the two hostile regimes on its long eastern and western borders. U.S. mishandling of the postwar situations in Afghanistan and Iraq handed a further bonus to Iranian policy.

Iran’s release from that vice is worrying to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations because they believe their Persian neighbor represents a hegemonic state that is attempting to implement aggressively interventionist and potentially expansionist policies. So far, these policies have successfully established states-within-a-state in both Lebanon and Iraq. Iran is now vigorously trying to repeat those experiences in other Arab countries that have Shiites among their populations.

Iran’s expansionist goals are exemplified in the occupation of three islands in the Gulf that belong to the UAE. Second-tier Iranian officials in recent years have also begun to revive Iran’s territorial claim to Bahrain. In addition, Iran has threatened repeatedly to “punish” the Gulf states and to close the Strait of Hormuz, an important international waterway for global oil supplies.

Read more: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/02/16/bloomberg_articlesLZG8J01A1I4H01-LZG8J.DTL#ixzz1mhZ4kkyu
 
If Iran gets a nuke the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia have already said they would purchase nukes. Your talking about the entire middle east having nukes. You know, those countries that keep getting radial Islamists taking control.
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Then we have to have the resolve to use our superior force, instead of sending our youth to die in a continuous series of wars in a tribal area.

John
 
If Iran gets nukes, they won’t use them ever…they will sell them to those who will. It’s called plausible deniability.
 
If Iran gets nukes, they won’t use them ever…they will sell them to those who will. It’s called plausible deniability.
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And, of course, we would have no idea about that. That was sarcastic…I despise emoticans.

All this is just another excuse for a war. Dwight was Right.

John
 
oldcelt said:
Then we have to have the resolve to use our superior force, instead of sending our youth to die in a continuous series of wars in a tribal area.

John
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My son is in one of those tribal areas right now.

But I don’t understand what you mean by us using our superior force
 
But I don’t understand what you mean by us using our superior force
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I think you do…but to be specific…total war…if they attack us…level them…ala WWII.

John
 
Considering iraeli suspicions that iran has been behind the murder of their diplomats around the world and considering what the ayatollah said a couple of weeks ago about the nation of israel being destroyed - iran seems to be wanting to escalate the tensions between the u.s. and between israel.
 
All we need is another war and this would be an unjust war too I believe.
 
oldcelt said:
And, of course, we would have no idea about that. That was sarcastic…

John
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Why sarcasm? :confused: Does it it matter if we know about plausible deniability? :confused: Can they still not wreak havoc by selling nukes to other countries? :confused: I guess I don’t know what your point was…:confused:
oldcelt said:
All this is just another excuse for a war. Dwight was Right.

John
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How do you know that? :confused: I thought this administration was the "anti-war admin? :confused:
oldcelt said:
…I despise emoticans…
John
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Oops sorry…(that was sarcasm) 😉
 
5 dollar a gallon gas being predicted by Summer (and that’s without a war) an economy in shambles, our Constitution and Bill of Rights being destroyed in the name of anti-terrorism, and of course a possible showdown shaping up between the Church and the Obama administration over mandatory healthcare. Do not be a bit surprised if this government tries to play the Patriotism card and waves the red, white and blue for a war with Iran. All I can say is, do not fall for it.
 
gilliam said:
Officials in key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme, and believe that the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so.

The president has made clear in public, and in private to Israel, that he is determined to give sufficient time for recent measures, such as the financial blockade and the looming European oil embargo, to bite deeper into Iran’s already battered economy before retreating from its principal strategy to pressure Tehran.

But there is a strong current of opinion within the administration – including in the Pentagon and the state department – that believes sanctions are doomed to fail, and that their principal use now is in delaying Israeli military action, as well as reassuring Europe that an attack will only come after other means have been tested.

guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/17/us-officials-iran-sanctions-military-action
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Between Bush and Obama, I have witnessed the greatest foreign policy blunders in American history. It almost uncanny how much has been destroyed (domestically and abroad) between the two of them.

This latest episode in Iran is almost a self-fullfilling prophecy. Ron Paul had it exactly right in one of the recent debates: the sanctions on Iran are themselves an act of provocation. It is almost uncanny how the exact same pretense and propaganda that was used in 2003, has been recylced and repackaged to justify and rationalize Obama’s foreign policy. It is interesting that the one man who has had the courage to tell the truth about our foreign policy at the recent Republican debates, is hated equally by the elites in both Parties.

Ahmadinejad and Assad are not stupid - they know that our foreign policy goes in one direction: West to East (Sadaam, Gaddafi, Mubarak). They know that we are bought and sold by the Saudis and Israelis (not to be confused with “the Jews,” before I get called an anti-semite), as evidenced by our double standard with Saudi tyranny and our double standard with Israel, a country that refuses to officially acknowledge that it possesses nuclear weapons and refuses to join the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (of which Iran is a member). Thankfully, the “evil” Russia and China appear to be putting a check on our warmongering.

The sad thing is that as a result of our foreign interventions in the Middle East, American national security is actually getting WEAKER. You see, terrorists are picadors and matadors. They prick the bull until it bleeds and is blinded by rage, then they snap the red cape of bloody terror in its face. The bull charges again and again until, exhausted, it can charge no more. Then the matador, though smaller and weaker, drives the sword into the soft spot between the shoulder blades of the bull. For the bull has failed to understand that the snapping cape was but a provocation to goad it into attacking and exhausting itself for the kill. We have actually been played for a fool by the late matador Bin Laden who waved the red flag of terror in our face on 9/11 and is now actually closer to achieving operation victory. One of Bin Laden’s most important operational goals was to draw us into a wider guerilla conflict in that region - a conflict that would eventually bleed and bankrupt us into permanent withdrawal. The Iraq War was the first step in that direction and we charged right into the red cape of the matador Bin Laden. There are two other operational goals of Al Qaeda that are CLOSER to being accomplished since our foreign policy blunders following 9/11. One of those goals is the destruction of U.S. and Western-supported Muslim tyrannies. The other goal is the destruction of Israel. The so called Arab Spring is making bringing these two goals CLOSER to fruition.
 
gilliam said:
Officials in key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme, and believe that the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so.

The president has made clear in public, and in private to Israel, that he is determined to give sufficient time for recent measures, such as the financial blockade and the looming European oil embargo, to bite deeper into Iran’s already battered economy before retreating from its principal strategy to pressure Tehran.

But there is a strong current of opinion within the administration – including in the Pentagon and the state department – that believes sanctions are doomed to fail, and that their principal use now is in delaying Israeli military action, as well as reassuring Europe that an attack will only come after other means have been tested.

guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/17/us-officials-iran-sanctions-military-action
Click to expand...
All of this Iran business is reminding me of how we treated Japan in WW2. Luckily for us with today’s instant news cycle, governments can’t hide behind a slowly reactive media anymore.
 
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