Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly! At this rate, we just need to leave it up to the Iranians, and hopefully they'll continue to blow their ammunition depots up.

From the AP:
"My colleagues at the Guard were transporting ammunition at one of the depots at the site when an explosion occurred as a result of an accident," Sharif said.

At least 15 Guard members were killed, state TV reported. The semi-official ISNA news agency said 10 people were injured and hospitalized. Sharif said some of them were in critical condition.

Lawmaker Parviz Soroori ruled out sabotage.

"No sabotage was involved in this incident. It has nothing to do with politics," Soroori was quoted as saying by the parliament's website, icana.ir.

"Leave it up to the Iranians" is EXACTLY how we got into this situation. If we step into the way-back machine, and we listen to GWB's Axis of Evil speech, the message to the world was this:

There are 3 countries who are in the Axis of Evil
1. North Korea - we expect the region to police this one (this was a reversal of the bilateral talks under Clinton that had kept the peace)
2. Iran - we are leaving it up to internal dissenters to take care of this problem
3. Iraq - we are putting you in our gunsights

The result was a heightened level of aggression by North Korea, an unchecked Iran, and a debacle in Iraq.

And if that was not enough, the Iranians did start revolting in 2009 and we left them hanging and they got crushed. And in case this action seems somehow unique, somehow we have forgotten the gas riots and gas station explosions back in 2007, that didn't go anywhere.


So no, in the case of Iran, letting it go is a policy that has failed for over a decade.

So what exactly would you have suggested? Putting everybody in our gunsights and ending up with two additional debacles?
The Green Revolution did not ask for US assistance. The Iranians are leery of anything that smacks of US intervention after we toppled their democratically elected government in the 50s and installed a puppet dictator for the benefit of our oil companies.
Moral: Sooner or later, the children and grandchildren pay the price of their elders' misdeeds.

No! The point is not to go to war with everyone. Did you even read my post? We were doing very well with North Korea on nuclear nonproliferation until we abandoned the bilateral negotiations and the 1994 framework, under which they froze its plutonium enrichment program and stored the spent fuel from that reactor in exchange for peaceful technology and a path to normalizing relations between NK and the US. Bush pissed on NK, so they ejected weapons inspectors and ramped up their program. Three years later, they successfully detonated a bomb.

As for Iraq, is it not obvious that we invaded the wrong country? So no to that, too.

And that leaves Iran. And the point with Iran is not that we need to invade it. The point is that, having stayed oiut of Iraq, we would have had a great deal of support from ME governments, we would have had a military force that was not expended, and we would have had intelligence resources to throw at Iran. This means that we would have had a huge amount of negotating leverage. Meanwhile, they would have been the pariah nation, pissing off most of their neighbors.

And it does mean that at some point we may have to take some military action. But it is far more likely that we would have a more cooperative Iran if we did not expend our credibility, our military, and our intelligence resources on a global folly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly! At this rate, we just need to leave it up to the Iranians, and hopefully they'll continue to blow their ammunition depots up.

From the AP:
"My colleagues at the Guard were transporting ammunition at one of the depots at the site when an explosion occurred as a result of an accident," Sharif said.

At least 15 Guard members were killed, state TV reported. The semi-official ISNA news agency said 10 people were injured and hospitalized. Sharif said some of them were in critical condition.

Lawmaker Parviz Soroori ruled out sabotage.

"No sabotage was involved in this incident. It has nothing to do with politics," Soroori was quoted as saying by the parliament's website, icana.ir.

"Leave it up to the Iranians" is EXACTLY how we got into this situation. If we step into the way-back machine, and we listen to GWB's Axis of Evil speech, the message to the world was this:

There are 3 countries who are in the Axis of Evil
1. North Korea - we expect the region to police this one (this was a reversal of the bilateral talks under Clinton that had kept the peace)
2. Iran - we are leaving it up to internal dissenters to take care of this problem
3. Iraq - we are putting you in our gunsights

The result was a heightened level of aggression by North Korea, an unchecked Iran, and a debacle in Iraq.

And if that was not enough, the Iranians did start revolting in 2009 and we left them hanging and they got crushed. And in case this action seems somehow unique, somehow we have forgotten the gas riots and gas station explosions back in 2007, that didn't go anywhere.


So no, in the case of Iran, letting it go is a policy that has failed for over a decade.

So what exactly would you have suggested? Putting everybody in our gunsights and ending up with two additional debacles?
The Green Revolution did not ask for US assistance. The Iranians are leery of anything that smacks of US intervention after we toppled their democratically elected government in the 50s and installed a puppet dictator for the benefit of our oil companies.
Moral: Sooner or later, the children and grandchildren pay the price of their elders' misdeeds.

up to 27 dead

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Huge-blast-kills-27-at-Iran-military-base-near-Tehran/articleshow/10707493.cms

Anonymous wrote:Exactly! At this rate, we just need to leave it up to the Iranians, and hopefully they'll continue to blow their ammunition depots up.

From the AP:
"My colleagues at the Guard were transporting ammunition at one of the depots at the site when an explosion occurred as a result of an accident," Sharif said.

At least 15 Guard members were killed, state TV reported. The semi-official ISNA news agency said 10 people were injured and hospitalized. Sharif said some of them were in critical condition.

Lawmaker Parviz Soroori ruled out sabotage.

"No sabotage was involved in this incident. It has nothing to do with politics," Soroori was quoted as saying by the parliament's website, icana.ir.

"Leave it up to the Iranians" is EXACTLY how we got into this situation. If we step into the way-back machine, and we listen to GWB's Axis of Evil speech, the message to the world was this:

There are 3 countries who are in the Axis of Evil
1. North Korea - we expect the region to police this one (this was a reversal of the bilateral talks under Clinton that had kept the peace)
2. Iran - we are leaving it up to internal dissenters to take care of this problem
3. Iraq - we are putting you in our gunsights

The result was a heightened level of aggression by North Korea, an unchecked Iran, and a debacle in Iraq.

And if that was not enough, the Iranians did start revolting in 2009 and we left them hanging and they got crushed. And in case this action seems somehow unique, somehow we have forgotten the gas riots and gas station explosions back in 2007, that didn't go anywhere.


So no, in the case of Iran, letting it go is a policy that has failed for over a decade.

Exactly! At this rate, we just need to leave it up to the Iranians, and hopefully they'll continue to blow their ammunition depots up.

From the AP:
"My colleagues at the Guard were transporting ammunition at one of the depots at the site when an explosion occurred as a result of an accident," Sharif said.

At least 15 Guard members were killed, state TV reported. The semi-official ISNA news agency said 10 people were injured and hospitalized. Sharif said some of them were in critical condition.

Lawmaker Parviz Soroori ruled out sabotage.

"No sabotage was involved in this incident. It has nothing to do with politics," Soroori was quoted as saying by the parliament's website, icana.ir.

Anonymous wrote:http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/20111112105645946264.html

At least 15 killed and many wounded in twin blasts at military base west of Tehran.

and this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15705948

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/20111112105645946264.html

At least 15 killed and many wounded in twin blasts at military base west of Tehran.