Iran locked and loaded

Sponge Bob

B1 bombers in Qatar and Oman

USS Stennis battlegroup due off Hormuz this week

and now

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6376639.stm

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

and a NEW one

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.

finally, the witching hour

The UN Security Council has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February.

all very metal .

ballooba

God help us all.

Judt

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

And if they are then one would be justified in attacking...

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

If Iran is directly linked to an attack which kills a number of US soldiers then that's a casus belli, under international law. Wouldn't you agree, or do you think that US soldiers are fair game?

The UN Security Council has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February.

The same UN that everyone cried for when it was ignored going into Iraq. Now that it agrees with US policy it's evil too?

The_Minister

I honestly don't know wheather or not to be worried.

marco murphy

Scary shi-t altogether, the third anti-christ has come indeed!

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.

Now... All that one needs is for Bush to conjure up his ''The Iranians are supplying such and such... which threatens our nations troops'' and use that as an excuse.

Sponge Bob

fraid so

B1 and B2 bombers in Masirah and Tamarith airbases in Oman and in Diego Garcia . B52s deployed there too, for later. They were deployed there partially to reduce flying times to Afghanistan for Taliban intediction as well, a handy each way bet you could call it.

The new carrier battlegroup will be in place within a week in the gulf.

The North Koreans did Iran no favours last week, the US were not prepared to engage both NK and Iran , just the one .

Note

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/02/12/nkorea.talks/index.html

Dirk Gently

Who decides when Iran has breached the conditions,

Good old reliable U.S. intelligence?

wes

Wow, they can't be serious. The US has lost the plot and an attack on Iran will increase terrorism world wide 10 fold. Making things far far worse.

Judt

wes wrote:

Wow, they can't be serious. The US has lost the plot and an attack on Iran will increase terrorism world wide 10 fold. Make things far far worse.

Or drop it, given that Iran appears to be supplying plenty of the munitions our Islamic Crusading friends seem to be bandying about.

Sponge Bob

its a fair old hairtrigger since the second condition was added. So what happens if a humvee is punctured by an Iranian Made Nail , overturns , rolls down embankment splatters 5 GIs inside.?

Dirk Gently

Judt wrote:

Or drop it

Strange how there are people who still think destroying a country reduces terrorism.

wes

Judt wrote:

Or drop it, given that Iran appears to be supplying plenty of the munitions our Islamic Crusading friends seem to be bandying about.

Sure they are...... Honestly if you believe that I don't see much point in discussing this further.

marco murphy

Or drop it, given that Iran appears to be supplying plenty of the munitions our Islamic Crusading friends seem to be bandying about.

Such as?

Sponge Bob

Interestingly the BBC article has been updated and the explicit target list includes the only (just finished) Iranian nuclear reactor in Bushehr. This has not been fuelled yet. It was due to be fuelled next month but the Russians who will fuel it pulled out today.

Were it alone rendered inoperable the 'justification 'for the Iranian 'enrichment program' would in itself be questionable as for a few years as they would have nowhere to use this enriched uranium.

The Russians would rebuild it , later , for cash of course.

marco murphy

Has Russia and Iran indeed fallen out now? (pun:rolleyes:)

jank

Or drop it,

How can you destroy an idea??

Jesus ****ing christ, Havent you been following whats been going on the last 5 years in Iraq and the rest of the world...

InFront

Is it just me or was there nothing very surprising in that article?
I'm as much against a US attack as the next guy, but the US Army have already been sending aircraft carriers and the like to the gulf in the past few weeks specifically in relation to the Iran situation.

I'm not an expert on the nature of special intelligence, but I imagine it would be expected that they would already have their targets chosen long before now, so confirmation of that is nothing very surprising is it?

Also, the deadline mentioned in the opening post is the UN deadline before further economic sanctions are imposed, it is not a military deadline.

Having said all that, I do agree that there is a certain inevitability to a US attack, but I'm not sure this information gives us any reason to believe it is to come any sooner than previously expected.

marco murphy

so confirmation of that is nothing very surprising is it?

Thats what gets me. I think we all anticipated it, it's just the confirmation that sends it home.

Just I don't know how effective the US plans would be.
Have a look at the much talked about Iranian Missile Defence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPelLduhWC0

Manic Moran

Where? Unless the Iranians bought out the Russian Almaz-Antey concern, and also bought things like the one working Kuznetsov class aircraft carrier (which I don't think the Russians are about to sell), that wasn't an Iranian video.

NTM

Hobbes

Judt wrote:

Or drop it

I don't think you fully understand how terrorism works yet.

As I understand the latest going on is that Russia is claiming Iran owes them lots of money and won't continue to help on the nuclear plants until they pay up (think its around 1Billion).

Add to that Bush is getting shot down in government to get more troops into Iraq. If he was to instigate any attack on Iran it probably isn't going to go down too well either.

The only real wild card is Israel in all this.

According to News 24 last night, this was a convenient leak of a battle plan by washington so Tehran would see it.
Of course Tehran knows it's a posture and they know the U.S public don't want war with Iran.
Washington must think Tehran are thick-they are not.
I wouldn't waste time worrying about it, it ain't going to happen.
This will go down the deal with NK route eventually.
Sen McCain can almost smell office when his main opponent could be Hillary or a muslim so he's going to be influentially urging caution.

Nothing to see here really.

Akrasia

Tristrame wrote:

According to News 24 last night, this was a convenient leak of a battle plan by washington so Tehran would see it.
Of course Tehran knows it's a posture and they know the U.S public don't want war with Iran.
Washington must think Tehran are thick-they are not.
I wouldn't waste time worrying about it, it ain't going to happen.
This will go down the deal with NK route eventually.
Sen McCain can almost smell office when his main opponent could be Hillary or a muslim so he's going to be influentially urging caution.

Nothing to see here really.

Why would the us need to 'conveniently leak' battleplans? the iranians have binoculars, they can see the massive military build-up with their own eyes.

I think there's gonna be a staged 'gulf of tonkin' incident which will give a minimum justification for 'retaliatory' strikes and it's all down hill from there.

The restraint shown by the Iranians so far would not even be contemplated if the situation was reversed and Iran was building up a strike force near the coast of America

marco murphy

Akrasia wrote:

Why would the us need to 'conveniently leak' battleplans? the iranians have binoculars, they can see the massive military build-up with their own eyes.

I think there's gonna be a staged 'gulf of tonkin' incident which will give a minimum justification for 'retaliatory' strikes and it's all down hill from there.

The restraint shown by the Iranians so far would not even be contemplated if the situation was reversed and Iran was building up a strike force near the coast of America

It could be that the US leaked the plans to scare Tehran, and with that, send out a couple of carriers and B52s.

Oh and look,

Iran test fires missiles

[PHP]liveleak.com/view?i=9c8eb_4907[/PHP]

Akrasia

Poblachtach wrote:

It could be that the US leaked the plans to scare Tehran, and with that, send out a couple of carriers and B52s.

Oh and look,

Iran test fires missiles

[PHP]liveleak.com/view?i=9c8eb_4907[/PHP]

the Americans are trying to provoke Iran into attacking them to provide justification for a retaliation. They're fabricating evidence against them, they're arresting Iranian diplomats, they've given orders for U.S. troops to kill any Iranian 'suspected militants' they find inside Iraq, and they've even supporting/orchestrating bomb attacks inside Iran in recent days

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/14/wbomb114.xml

Dontico

where is the love gone?

i propose i get the us leaders, russian and iranian and sit them down for a chat. put on some chilled music and go to a good old fashioned japanese tea room.
anyone know about the Way of the Tea?

Moriarty

Akrasia wrote:

the Americans are trying to provoke Iran into attacking them to provide justification for a retaliation. They're fabricating evidence against them, they're arresting Iranian diplomats, they've given orders for U.S. troops to kill any Iranian 'suspected militants' they find inside Iraq, and they've even supporting/orchestrating bomb attacks inside Iran in recent days

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/14/wbomb114.xml

The Iranians are trying to provoke America into attacking them to provide justification for their continued development of nuclear weapons. They're lying to the international community, refusing to let the IAEA carry out their functions, supporting insurgent activity in Iraq and Lebanon with knowledge, intelligence and weapons and they've had high-level contacts with members of the largest party in the Iraqi parliament with a view to subverting US control and the will of the Iraqi people with a view to establishing a pan-middle-eastern theocracy bent on power. They even signed a secret deal with north korea to create a diversion half way around the world!!!!

http://www.fakelink.com/theorys/this-link-is-really-completely-irrelevant-to-my-point/

http://www.but-i-have.to/put-a-link-in-somewhere/to-pretend-to/back-up-my-points/when-i-know-people-wont-bother-clicking/on-them


</hysterical mirror-image overreaction>

bk

Tristrame wrote:

Of course Tehran knows it's a posture and they know the U.S public don't want war with Iran.

It depends, a full scale war, you are right, US public does not want another Iraq, on the other hand they might not be against an air war.

The US could use their Air Force and Navy (Stealth Bombers, Tomahawk Cruise Missiles and UCAV's) to knock out the Iranian Nuclear Reactor and other Nuclear facilities, Air Fields, Naval Bases, Fighters (in particular any F15's they have left), Air Defence systems, Command and Control, etc.

This would take about a week, wouldn't cost many American lives and would have the effect of pretty much completely wiping out the Iranian military infrastructure, thus greatly weakening them.

Now I'm not saying that they should do this, just that it wouldn't be difficult and probably would get support in the US.

Zambia

Something is coming to mind...

There was a time I believe one country with a impressive Military started annexing countrys it wanted. Everyone placated and accepted the excuses it gave to do this until it actually went and invaded somewhere people cared about...

Sponge Bob

bk wrote:

The US could use their Air Force and Navy (Stealth Bombers, Tomahawk Cruise Missiles and UCAV's) to knock out the Iranian Nuclear Reactor and other Nuclear facilities, Air Fields, Naval Bases, Fighters (in particular any F15's they have left), Air Defence systems, Command and Control, etc.

This would take about a week, wouldn't cost many American lives and would have the effect of pretty much completely wiping out the Iranian military infrastructure, thus greatly weakening them.

Thats exactly what I think they will do .No troops on the ground bar an incursion of some sort around the nuclear facilities maybe .

They essentially must attack Bushehr BEFORE it is fuelled, its near a large town.

lostexpectation

anybody got text of what either of the aherns said about Iran when Mohammed ElBaradei of the IAEA visited this week, did they say anything sensible of intelligent or just parrot the washington line?

Akrasia

double post, sorry