Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

[Tigranakert]

Quote:

"We will see a war against Iran in the near future. We may also see the resumption of Israeli aggression against Lebanon and the Gaza strip. [Of course they released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, they can now kill them all in the Gaza concentration camp with complete impunity.] They are also diligently working on undermining Syria, to prevent Damascus from opening a second front when their Iranian operations begins. Therefore, what they are currently doing is preparing their field of play - and their top prize is Iran. Some may recall that several months ago they also blamed Iran for involvement in the 9/11 attacks (see article below). Mujaheddin Khalq, the anti-Iranian terror/cult group operating out of Iraq will most probably be taken off Washington's terror list (see article below). There are unconfirmed reports that the Israeli air force has been covertly operating from air fields in Iraq. There are also reports that Saudi Arabia is readying itself militarily. And under the guise of pulling troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, US-led international forces have been repositioned throughout the volatile region in preparation of the historic war against Iran. Key in all this what will Russia, and to a lesser extent China, do to forestall the Western-led campaign against Iran..."


CrossTalk: Iran Baiting: http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaTo...11/QRIxSKqBv1U

***

Iran's Act of War

There is still much to learn about the Iranian-directed plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador in a Washington, D.C., restaurant. But if the Justice Department's information is correct, the conspiracy confirms a lethal fact about Iran's regime: It is becoming more dangerous, not less, as it ages.

Since the 1989 death of Iran's revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Western observers have hunted for signs of the end of the revolution's implacable hostility toward the United States. Signs have been abundant outside the ruling elite: Virtually the entire lay and much of the clerical intellectual class have damned theocracy as illegitimate, and college-educated youth (Iran has the best-educated public of any big Middle Eastern state) overwhelmingly threw themselves into the pro-democracy Green Movement that shook the regime in the summer of 2009.

But at the regime's apex—Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his praetorian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the clergy who've remained committed to theocracy—religious ideology and anti-Americanism have intensified. The planned assassination in Washington was a bold act: The Islamic Republic's terrorism has struck all over the globe, and repeatedly in Europe, but it has spared the U.S. homeland because even under Khomeini Iran feared outraged American power. What did Iran's top officials know about the Washington assassination plan? Was it just another in a series of half-baked plots by U.S. radicals led on by the FBI, or a bigger international incident? Evan Perez has details on The News Hub.

Iran truck-bombed the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon during Reagan's presidency, calculating correctly that the Lebanese operational cover deployed in that attack would be sufficient to confuse U.S. retaliation. But the accidental shoot-down of Iran-Air flight 655 in July 1988 by the USS Vincennes unquestionably contributed to Tehran's determination that the White House had allied itself with Saddam Hussein and therefore the Iran-Iraq war was lost. The perception of American power proved decisive.

One of the unintended benefits of America being at the center of Iran's conspiracies is that the U.S. is often depicted as devilishly powerful. Running against that fear, however, is another theme of the revolution: America's inability to stop faithful Iranians from liberating their homeland—the entire Muslim world—from Western hegemony and cultural debasement. American strength versus American weakness is a dangerous dance that plays out in the Islamist mind.

Within Iran, this interplay has led to cycles of terrorism of varying directness against the U.S. Khamenei, who many analysts have depicted as a cautious man in foreign affairs, has been a party—probably the decisive party—to every single terrorist operation Iran has conducted overseas since Khomeini's death. The once-humble, unremarkable Khamenei—who was given the office of supreme leader in 1989 by the once-great Don Corleone of clerical politics, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (who assumed Iran's presidency that same year)—has become the undisputed ruler of Iran.

It was Khamenei who massively increased the military and economic power of the Revolutionary Guards Corps while often playing musical chairs with its leadership. The supreme leader has turned a fairly consensual theocracy into an autocracy where all fear the Guards and the Intelligence Ministry, which is also now under the supreme leader's control. He has squashed Rafsanjani, his vastly more intelligent, erstwhile ally. He has brutalized the pro-democracy Green Movement into quiescence. And he has so far outplayed his independent and stubborn president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose populist-nationalist-Islamist pretensions annoy the supreme leader and outrage many religious conservatives.

Khamenei's growing power and sense of mission have manifested themselves abroad. He has unleashed the Guards Corps against the U.S. and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the Treasury Department recently revealed, Tehran has ongoing ties to al Qaeda. These date back at least a decade, as the 9/11 Commission Report depicted Iranian complicity in the safe travel of al Qaeda operatives and chronicled al Qaeda contact with the Lebanese Hezbollah and Tehran's éminence grise to Arab Islamic radicals, the late Imad Mughniyeh

Matt Kaminski on Iranian plots to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington D.C.

Many in Washington and Europe would like to believe that the assassination plot in Washington came from a "faction" within the Iranian government—that is, that Khamenei didn't order the killing and Washington should therefore be cautious in its response. But neither this analysis nor the policy recommendation is compelling.

Lord help Qasim Soleimani—the man who likely has control over the Revolutionary Guards' elite dark-arts Qods Force, which apparently orchestrated this assassination scheme—if he didn't clear the operation with Khamenei. He will lose his job and perhaps his life. For 20 years, Khamenei has been constructing a political system that is now more submissive to him than revolutionary Iran was to Khomeini.

And for 20 years the U.S. has sent mixed messages to the supreme leader. Under both Democratic and Republican presidents, the U.S. has tried to reach out to Iran, to engage it in dialogue that would lead away from confrontation. For Khamenei such attempts at engagement have been poisonous, feeding his profound fear of a Western cultural invasion and the destruction of Islamic values. This deeply offensive message of peace has alternated with American-led wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars spooked Tehran, radiating American strength for a time, but such visions ebbed.

Khamenei probably approved a strike in Washington because he no longer fears American military might. Iran's advancing nuclear-weapons program has undoubtedly fortified his spine, as American presidents have called it "unacceptable" yet done nothing about it. And neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama retaliated against Iran's murderous missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Obama has clearly shown he wants no part—or any Israeli part—in a preventive military strike against Iran's nuclear sites. And Mr. Obama has pulled almost all U.S. troops out of Iraq and clearly wants to do the same in Afghanistan. Many Americans may view that as a blessing, but it is also clearly a sign that Washington no longer has the desire to maintain hegemony in the Middle East

That's an invitation to someone like Khamenei to push further, to attack both America and Iran's most detested Middle Eastern rival, the virulently anti-Shiite Saudi Arabia. In the Islamic Republic's conspiracy-laden world, the Saudis are part of the anti-Iranian American Arab realm, which is currently trying to down Iran's close ally, Bashar al-Assad's Syria, and squash the Shiites of Bahrain. Blowing up the Saudi ambassador in Washington would be an appealing counterstroke against the two foreign forces that Khamenei detests most.

The Obama administration will be tempted to respond against Iran with further unilateral and multilateral sanctions. More sanctions aren't a bad idea—targeted sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards and the sale of gasoline made from Iranian crude can hurt Tehran financially. But they will not scare it. The White House needs to respond militarily to this outrage. If we don't, we are asking for it.

In the 1980s and '90s, the U.S. failed to take Secretary of State George Shultz's wise counsel after Khomeini's minions bombed us in Lebanon. We didn't make terrorism a casus belli, instead treating it as a crime, only lobbing a few missiles at Afghan rock huts and a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant. But we should treat it as a casus belli. The price we will pay now will surely be less than the price we will pay later.

Mr. Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

[Tigranakert]

Re: Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

Iran Says Saudi Plot Defendant Belongs to Exile Group

Iran injected a new twist on Tuesday into the week-old American accusation of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, asserting that one of the defendants really belongs to an outlawed and exiled opposition group. The defendant, Gholam Shakuri, identified by the Justice Department as an operative of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, is actually a “key member” of the Mujahedeen Khalq, Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported.

The agency did not explain the group’s possible motive but left the implication that the plot was a bogus scheme meant to frame and ostracize Iran. It said Mr. Shakuri, who is at large, had last been seen in Washington and in Camp Ashraf, the group’s enclave in Iraq. “The person in question has been traveling to different countries under the names of Ali Shakuri/Gholam Shakuri/Gholam-Hussein Shakuri by using fake passports including forged Iranian passports,” Mehr said.

American officials did not immediately comment on the Mehr report. Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, reiterated the American view in a daily press briefing in Washington that “this was a serious breach of international law and that Iran needs to be held accountable.” The opposition group itself dismissed the Mehr report as nonsense. Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman, said in an e-mailed response that “this is a well-known tactic that has been used by the mullahs in the past 30 years where they blame their crimes on their opposition for double gains.”

The group, also known as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is regarded by Iran as a violent insurgent organization with a history of assassinations and sabotage aimed at overthrowing the Islamic government that took power in 1979. While the group claims to have renounced violence a decade ago, it is still classified as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department, but not by Britain or the European Union. It maintains a headquarters in Paris.

Mehr said it had learned what it called the new information about Mr. Shakuri from Interpol but was not more specific. Calls and e-mailed queries to Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, were not immediately returned. If Mr. Shakuri were in fact a member of the opposition group, it would be an embarrassing turn for the United States, which announced the suspected plot with some fanfare a week ago in a televised news conference by Attorney General Eric. H. Holder Jr., who said American investigators believed high officials in Iran’s government were responsible.

The Justice Department has accused Mr. Shakuri and Mansour J. Arbabsiar, a naturalized Iranian-American citizen from Corpus Christi, Tex., of conspiring to hire assassins from a Mexican drug gang for $1.5 million to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States. American officials have acknowledged the suspected plot sounds hard to believe but asserted they have the evidence to back it up. Saudi Arabia, apparently accepting the accusation as fact, has accused Iran of a “dastardly” scheme, and other American allies say they regard the accusation seriously.

Britain has gone farther than others, announcing on Tuesday it had ordered British banks to impound any assets of the two defendants as well as three other Iranian officials in the Quds Force suspected of running the plot. Since Mr. Holder’s news conference, Iran has sought to counter the accusation with a mix of verbal counterattacks, accusing the Obama administration of concocting the plot to divert attention from other problems, conspiring with Israel to malign Iran and driving a wedge into Iran’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Iran scholars in the United States have said the suspected plot, while sounding far-fetched and amateurish, is not implausible. Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said it could reflect an attempt by Iran’s security forces to retaliate for what they view as American-hatched plots carried out within Iran. “It is suggesting, if true, that they’re trying to meet pressure with pressure,” he said. “From their perspective, the United States is involved in Iran’s internal affairs.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/wo...ile-group.html

Court Filings Assert Iran Had Link to 9/11 Attacks

Two defectors from Iran’s intelligence service have testified that Iranian officials had “foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks,” according to a court filing Thursday in a federal lawsuit in Manhattan that seeks damages for Iran’s “direct support for, and sponsorship of, the most deadly act of terrorism in American history.” One of the defectors also claimed that Iran was involved in planning the attacks, the filing said. The defectors’ identities and testimony were not revealed in the filing but were being submitted to a judge under seal, said lawyers who brought the original suit against Iran on behalf of families of dozens of 9/11 victims.

The suit’s allegation that Iran had foreknowledge of the attacks is hard to assess fully, given that the defectors’ testimony is being filed under seal. The suit contends that Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant organization with close ties to Tehran, helped Al Qaeda in planning the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and in facilitating the hijackers’ training and travel. After the attacks, the suit contends, Iran and Hezbollah helped Qaeda operatives escape, providing some with a safe haven in Iran.

The question of an Iranian connection to 9/11 was raised by the national 9/11 commission and has long been debated. Al Qaeda, which adheres to a radical Sunni theology, routinely denounces the Shiite sect that holds power in Iran, and the terrorist network’s branch in Iraq has often made Shiites targets of bombings. But intelligence officials have long believed there has been limited, wary cooperation between Al Qaeda and Iran against the United States as a common enemy.

The lawsuit also names as defendants Iranian officials and ministries, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, among others. The families’ lawyers have asked for a default judgment against the defendants, which have not mounted a defense. Even if there were such a judgment, legal experts say it would not be easy to collect monetary damages. In their court papers, the lawyers assert that Imad Mugniyah, as the military chief of Hezbollah, was a terrorist agent for Iran, and that he traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2000 to help with preparations for the 9/11 attacks.

Mr. Mugniyah, who was killed in 2008, had been accused by American officials of planning a series of major terrorist attacks and kidnappings, including the 1983 bombings of the United States Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The 9/11 commission report said there was “strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of Al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.” The report also said there was circumstantial evidence that senior Hezbollah operatives were closely tracking the travel of some of the hijackers into Iran in November 2000.

But the commission said that it had “found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack,” and that the “topic requires further investigation by the U.S. government.” Thomas E. Mellon Jr., a lawyer for the families, said the suit, first brought in Washington in 2002 and later moved to Manhattan, sought to do that investigation.

Ellen Saracini, whose husband, the United Airlines pilot Victor J. Saracini, was killed when his plane was hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center, said she became involved with the suit because she wanted answers. “We now know,” she said, “who assisted Al Qaeda — Iran did — and we want our American justice system to find Iran accountable.”

The lawyers’ filing included reports of 10 specialists on Iran and terrorism, including former 9/11 commission staff members and ex-C.I.A. officers. “These experts make it clear that 9/11 depended upon Iranian assistance to Al Qaeda in acquiring clean passports and visas to enter the United States,” Mr. Mellon said.

But the expert reports do not in most cases seem to go as far as the defectors in contending Iran had foreknowledge of the attacks.The filing says the defectors worked in Iran’s Ministry of Information and Security “in positions that gave them access to sensitive information regarding Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism.” It says they have reason to fear for the safety of themselves and their families “should their identities and the content of their testimony be revealed publicly.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/wo..._r=1&ref=world

Tehran’s Foes, Unfairly Maligned

AS the United States tries to halt Iran’s nuclear program and prepares to withdraw troops from Iraq, American voters should ask why the Obama administration has bent to the will of Tehran’s mullahs and their Iraqi allies on a key issue: the fate of 3,400 unarmed members of the exiled Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen Khalq, who are living in Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad. The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, has brazenly murdered members of the Mujahedeen Khalq. Mr. Maliki justifies his attacks by noting that the group is on the United States’ official list of foreign terrorist organizations.

In April, Iraqi forces entered Camp Ashraf and fatally shot or ran over 34 residents and wounded hundreds more. Mr. Maliki has now given the Mujahedeen Khalq until Dec. 31 to close the camp and disperse its residents throughout Iraq. Without forceful American and United Nations intervention to protect the camp’s residents and a decision by the State Department to remove Mujahedeen Khalq’s official designation as a terrorist group, an even larger attack on the camp or a massacre of its residents elsewhere in Iraq is likely.

This situation is the direct result of the State Department’s misconceived attempt to cripple the Mujahedeen Khalq by labeling it a terrorist organization, beginning in 1997. At the time, I was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I concluded that this was part of a fruitless political ploy to encourage a dialogue with Tehran. There was no credible evidence then, nor has there been since, that the group poses any threat to the United States. Tragically, the State Department’s unjustified terrorist label makes the Mujahedeen Khalq’s enemies in Tehran and Baghdad feel as if they have a license to kill and to xxxxxle on the written guarantees of protection given to the Ashraf residents by the United States. And Tehran’s kangaroo courts also delight in the terrorist designation as an excuse to arrest, torture and murder anyone who threatens the mullahs’ regime.

For better or worse, the State Department often makes politically motivated designations, which is why the Irish Republican Army was never put on the list (despite the F.B.I.’s recommendation). Similarly, Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq and the Haqqani terrorist network in Pakistan — both of which have murdered many Americans — have successfully avoided being listed. During my tenure as F.B.I. director, I refused to allocate bureau resources to investigating the Mujahedeen Khalq, because I concluded, based on the evidence, that the designation was unfounded and that the group posed no threat to American security.

I did, however, object to the State Department’s politically motivated insistence that the F.B.I. stop fingerprinting Iranian wrestlers, and intelligence operatives posing as athletes, when the wrestlers were first invited to the United States in a good-will gesture. And the F.B.I. did try, unsuccessfully, to focus the Clinton administration on the threat posed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which exported terrorism and committed or orchestrated acts of war against America, including the 1996 Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American airmen. We learned from prosecutors on Tuesday that a unit of the corps plotted to murder the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

Some critics call the Mujahedeen Khalq a dangerous cult. But since leaving office, I have carefully reviewed the facts and stand by the conclusion that the Mujahedeen Khalq is not a terrorist organization and should be removed from the State Department’s list immediately. Many of the most knowledgeable and respected terrorism experts in the world have come to the same conclusion. (Though I have on some occasions received speaker’s fees or travel expenses from sympathizers of the Mujahedeen Khalq, my objective analysis as a career law enforcement officer is the only basis for my conclusions.)

Britain and the European Union have already acted on the evidence, removing the Mujahedeen Khalq from their sanctions lists in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The British court reviewing the Mujahedeen Khalq dossier went so far as to call the terrorist designation “perverse.” The Mujahedeen Khalq is now led by a charismatic and articulate woman, Maryam Rajavi, who enjoys significant support in European governments. In 2001, the Mujahedeen Khalq renounced violence and ceased military action against the Iranian regime. And in 2003, the group voluntarily handed over its weapons to American forces in Iraq and has since provided the United States with valuable intelligence regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. By the State Department’s own guidelines, Mujahedeen Khalq should be delisted.

Yet Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the White House have balked at delisting the group and protecting its members at Camp Ashraf, despite bipartisan calls for action. Incredibly, as our duty to protect the camp’s residents reaches a critical stage, the State Department offers only silence and delay. The secretary is still “reviewing” the designation nearly 15 months after the United States Court of Appeals in Washington ruled that the department had broken the law by failing to accord the Mujahedeen Khalq due process when listing it as a terrorist group. Mrs. Clinton has not complied with the court’s order to indicate “which sources she regards as sufficiently credible” to justify this life-threatening designation. The reason is clear: there is no evidence.

Louis J. Freeh was director of the F.B.I. from 1993 to 2001.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/op...-maligned.html

[Tigranakert]

Re: Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

As the nets are getting tighter and tighter around Iran, and the stronghold falling apart in Syria, what will be the consequences for Armenia of a war against Iran? A likely scenario is that Iran will be divided into parts, which will be desastreus for Armenia if the Northern-Part becomes "independent Azerbaijan". How will Russia react? It's far too early to draw conclusions now, but things can change in an instant...

The anti-Iranian propaganda has intensified the last couple of weeks (probably every has seen some), trying to make Iran the "enemy" of the world and linking it to events that they didn't even have a hand in. What is the West (USA/Israel) up to?

[Mher]

Re: Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

The alleged assassination plot is so pathetic and bullxxxx that it's unbelievable anybody would believe it.

[Eddo211]

Re: Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

As the nets are getting tighter and tighter around Iran, and the stronghold falling apart in Syria, what will be the consequences for Armenia of a war against Iran? A likely scenario is that Iran will be divided into parts, which will be desastreus for Armenia if the Northern-Part becomes "independent Azerbaijan". How will Russia react? It's far too early to draw conclusions now, but things can change in an instant...

The consequences for Armenia would be very bad if an invasion into Iran is successful. Historically, no matter what type of government is placed in Iran, the relations with Armenia and Armenians does not change and remains friendly, however if Iran is torn apart like you suguest then we are screwed, I mean really screwed.

As far as dividing Iran into different parts.....that just cannot not happen due to Persian mentality. Any attack on Iran will bring in all Iranians together (including the nationalists who maybe against the regime). Iran is no Iraq, they know how to defend their lands and how to fight a smart war. The consequences for US and Israel will be great and Iran will strike back hard, and it will hurt. I know there are many Iranians (even pro Shahis) who would support an attack on Iran, for them whatever it takes to remove the Mullahs (tunnel vision) but majority will join to defend Iran. During the revolution most of the Shah's officers refused the new regime and were jailed and tortured, but when war broke out with Iraq the Mullahs went to the jail and asked these officers for help. They were the ones who destroyed the Iraqi airforce and succeeded in repelling the Iraq forces out of Iran. However they did not participate in the aftermath counter invasion of Iraq where these fcking aghounds used the human wave tactic killing many young boys to clear mines. The whole thing was a disaster and these officers warned the regime at the time.

I think Armenia should help Iran anyway they can.....who knows maybe that will open a door to liberate more land since Iran's enemies will be comming in from Azerbaijan.

As far as Russia, who knows what the bear will do, but without Iran they are next on the list.

[haysip]

Re: Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

if the US attacks iran, Armenia should take advantage and attack azergays at the same time

[Mos]

Re: Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

This is a very complicated scenario with varying implications. Our government will have to take many factors in consideration in trying to develop a policy towards such a hypothetical war. Factors such as:

1) Russia's lukewarm relationship with Iran
2) Iran's relationship with us based heavily on strategic tensions with Azerbaijan
3) Having Iran as an alternative economic partner
4) Not wanting to come under Western sanctions or attack

I would always support the Iranian nation against such an attack as I view them as historical friends, however, when it comes to what Armenia would do, I don't think it's that simple. We need to take into consideration that our main strategic/military partner is Russia, and we will have to coordinate our response to such an attack with them. We cannot afford to overtly support Iran or else the West will turn its wrath on us also which will be devastating for our country. So in all, the best course of action in my view would be to be neutral, not support, not be against, just declare that we are neutral. We could accept some refugees and open a corridor for humanitarian purposes.

I would not want to see the current regime fall however. As much as I don't like the notion of a theocracy and Mullahs ruling a country and preaching fundamentalism, the fact that they are on bad terms with Azerbaijan is a big plus for us. A regime in Iran that is friendly with Azerbaijan would be a big blow for us, as then we would be surrounded by 3 unfriendly nations.

In all, though, I don't think US will attack Iran. They are stupid, but I don't think THAT stupid. That country is broke, the public wants the wars over, the economy is in a mess, if they attacked Iran, US would fall apart. So an attack on Iran would be self-suicide for the US. We mustn't forget also, while Iran preaches an Islamic idealogy that's just the outer layer. In reality, it makes pragmatic choices that at times go against what one would predict it would do if following its ideology strictly.

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

I think this article does a good job describing Iran:

Iran Could Start a Crazy War at Any Minute!
What You've Heard:
It's easy to see why people are afraid of Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe Israel off the map and claimed the United States was behind 9/11. You wouldn't trust anyone who says things like that to be in charge of a country!

Actually:
That's why Ahmadinejad isn't in charge -- Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is. Despite a title that sounds like an overcompensating member of the Wu-Tang Clan, Khamenei has been running the show for years. See, unlike our president, Ahmadinejad doesn't control Iran's nuclear strategy, armed forces or even foreign policy.
Ahmadinejad is more like the Joe Biden of Iran -- he says stupid things that embarrass the country, but the guy in power thinks he's a good enough xxxx, so he keeps him around. Though even that gives President Spell-Check a little too much credit, because Ahmadinejad isn't even the second most powerful guy in the country.
Try 14th. In addition to Lord Sexgantic Ayatollah Khamenei, he's outranked by the 12 members of the Guardian Council, which sounds like something out of the extended Star Wars universe, but actually functions more like Ahmadinejad's boss. They can shoot down his ideas via veto and get to decide who runs for president in the first place.

As the Iranian people know, Ahmadinejad doesn't even have the power to get women into soccer games (one of his campaign promises in 2007), and he has become increasingly unpopular among the masses with every day in office.

The problem is that the West pays such an unreasonable amount of attention to Ahmadinejad that according to political experts, it's one of the only things keeping him relevant in Iran. Despite a failed economic policy, and the fact that he's pissed of the Ayatollah so much that experts don't expect him to finish his second term, the Iranian people feel like they have to pay attention to him because America is paying attention to him. And America is paying attention to him because his job title sounds impressive to us.

OK, but even if Ahmadinejad isn't in charge, the real leaders are religious hard-liners who hate America. So Iran is still a threat, right? Actually, their annual military budget is around nine billion dollars, which puts them behind the powerhouses like Greece and Australia. In terms of per capita spending, Iran is dead last in the gulf region. Nuclear weapons aren't a concern, either, as U.S. intelligence agencies believe Iran has halted its program.
Making your enemies seem like unbalanced lunatics is just an old propaganda trick. For instance, remember that comment about wanting to wipe Israel off the map? According to the people who translated the statement in the first place, it was translated worse than a Final Fantasy game, due to "time pressure to produce a translation quickly." It would be more accurate to say Ahmadinejad wanted to see a regime change, which is a pretty common statement in global politics.

Of course, the media didn't have to exaggerate his statements denying the Holocaust and claiming that the U.S. was behind 9/11. They just had to ignore the fact that the guy saying it doesn't matter.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19461_6-b.s.-myths-you-probably-believe-about-americas-enemies.html

[retro]

Re: Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

Unless Iran's does some kind of a deal in regards to it's nuclear program. I'd say that at some point the Israelis could elect to bomb Iran and the xxxs aren't a people to second guess. As the religious xxxs have far to much influence in Israel and they are not rational actors.

The Gulf Arabs have few trillion USD in western assets. Which gives them a great deal of leverage. However the demographic transition in the Middle East favours the Shia. What is more, they have a majority in Iraq and are nesting in Russia's orb. So the west may look to avoid a conflict with Iran. As the bulk of it's problems are with Sunnis such as the Pakis.

The Punjabis strategy of appeasing and covertly supporting militants in North Waziristan is going very badly wrong for them. As now NATO are keen to engage militant groups hiding out in northern Pakistan.

Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said on Thursday that Pakistani forces were fully prepared to face any aggression from outside and protect the sovereignty of the country, and no one should have any illusions about that.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011...n-says-kayani/

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Upcoming war against Iran and the consequences for Armenia

The anti-Iranian propaganda has intensified the last couple of weeks...

And you are doing your bit to propagate it. Is your Israeli wage-check in the post?

Every dead American in Iraq acts as a restraint on America's war mongering spreading - so as long as the dead continue to pile up there, American boots won't be marching elsewhere.