Reply to Panetta: Israel may attack Iran in April

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=TheManWithAUsername][quote=Anonymous]I completely agree with Jeff that the tone of the US discourse in this area is increasingly reminiscent of the way the population was conditioned in 2003 to accept the need to invade Iraq.[/quote]
I look at very little mainstream media, so I can’t comment, but I think it’s worth remembering that for all of Obama’s many faults, he’s not a dipshit with a raging Oedipal complex (or at least not that particular expression of it), and he has nothing to gain politically by actually invading Iran (IMHO). There is always the military-industrial complex, of course.

[quote=Anonymous]The rhetoric that Ahmadinnejad uses is solely designed to appeal to a very narrow base throughout the region that has nothing better to do than fantasize about Israel's demise. It is no more genuine or earnest than Bush's assertion's that the terrorists who attacked us did so "because they hate our way of life."[/quote]
I agree with that for the most part. I don’t believe that he lies awake at night plotting their destruction. But we don’t know how that could change if he actually had the power to back up his words.

[quote=Anonymous]IMO one of the biggest (epic) mistakes that Americans (and to some extent, some of the dumber individuals in the leadership--usually neocons of some kind) make over and over again in foreign policy assessments is assuming that ruthless, despostic regimes who oppose us are irrational.[/quote]
I agree that the insane dictator is a very overused image, but the problem is that there have been some. I assume that the reason the idea became so popular is that European leaders had bet on Hitler’s rationality with such disastrous consequences – there’s an epic mistake for you. While Hitler was unique, he isn’t the only dictator in history who did things that were irrational, unpredictable, and/or shockingly evil. He was just probably the most powerful and the luckiest.

There’s plenty of irrationality and viciousness to go around in the Middle East. Look at Syria right now. Or look at Gaddafi – we could say that he was mostly a gasbag, but in the end he certainly didn’t behave rationally. What would he have done with a nuclear weapon in his last days? I think we could make a pretty long list of dictators who, when they thought they no longer had anything to lose and possibly well before then, might have used a nuclear weapon.
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I think there is a fundamental misconception here about Iran.  Ahmadinejad is just the president.  He does not even control the army.[/quote]

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