Exactly. Americans here fail to realize that these nations are bordered by our allies and we can't go around "liberating" countries without considering the consequences. War should always be a No Choice/Last Choice option. In the case of Iran/Iraq or North Korea, an invasion and will destroy the current order in that part of the world and it'll hurt the neighbors far more than us. We need to consider that when we decide to invade sovereign nations.
-
We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.
Why are we letting Iran develop in to a major threat?
Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Exactly. Americans here fail to realize that these nations are bordered by our allies and we can't go around "liberating" countries without considering the consequences. War should always be a No Choice/Last Choice option. In the case of Iran/Iraq or North Korea, an invasion and will destroy the current order in that part of the world and it'll hurt the neighbors far more than us. We need to consider that when we decide to invade sovereign nations.
imported_dna
Golden Member
Undermined? If anything, Hezbollah was weakend, losing soldiers, facilities, and weapons.
Your remark is hilarious, since it implies that the Gov. was stronger prior to the conflict; in fact, it was so strong that the army did not dare venture into the south of the country, and certain neighbrohoods were off-limit even in the capital.
dahunan
Lifer
Undermined? You really are a lost cause sometimes..
You really think all the killing of lebanese by Israel is going to undermine the peoples resolve to get revenge etc... Just like our offensive in Iraq and Afghanistan has weakened al-qaeda and has reduced world terrorism?
Violence BEGETS Violence..
While the Hezbullah did provoke the last war, let's not forget the infinite amount of overflights that Israel did to undermine Lebanese sovereignty and provoke the Lebanese. Nevertheless, the Israeli Prime Minister should've done what Israel always did in the past when something like this happens, get their vengeance at a time and place of their choosing. Instead, Olmert fell into the trap and got his country's reputation bruised.
imported_dna
Golden Member
Please, don't start with the dead civilians sob story. A Hezbollah fighter is a civilian with a gun. A dead hezbollah fighter without his gun is a civilian again.
Did you ever see a casualty report from Hezbollah?
Nope; if they are counted as dead civilians then they are more useful.
Am I missing something...didn't we learn our lesson from Iraq? Preemptive military action to take out a threat before it's a threat is fraught with problems, mostly because predicting the future is a silly business, as we've seen, it can lead to getting involved in a totally unnecessary war and making the world a much more dangerous place. Yet we're not even done with the LAST catastrophe and you geniuses want to jump right into another one, without even the "evidence" present in our last adventure. Are you all very stoned?
If we went around invading or bombing everyone that didn't like us, we'd quickly be at war with the entire world. I'm not saying Iran is all fuzzy and cuddly, but I think they are worth keeping an eye on...there is literally no evidence that the represent a direct threat at the moment. Yes, they seem to enjoy shooting off their collective mouth, but that hardly puts them above most other countries. Words are nice and cheap, it's when those words translate into the ability and inclination to DO something should we be worried...so far anything beyond words seems to be in short supply.
If we went around invading or bombing everyone that didn't like us, we'd quickly be at war with the entire world. I'm not saying Iran is all fuzzy and cuddly, but I think they are worth keeping an eye on...there is literally no evidence that the represent a direct threat at the moment. Yes, they seem to enjoy shooting off their collective mouth, but that hardly puts them above most other countries. Words are nice and cheap, it's when those words translate into the ability and inclination to DO something should we be worried...so far anything beyond words seems to be in short supply.
Siddhartha
Lifer
How many Iranians do you feel it is justified to kill with this strike?
Iraq couldnt hit us back
Afghanistan couldnt hit us back
Iran can hit back
does that answer your question?
Invasion of Iraq - Nobody fought back. Army surrendered (what was left of it after 1991)
Invasion of Afghanistan- No army, bunch of rebels with WW2 weapons. Half the country was already in allied control before the invasison (Northern Alliance)
Invasion of Iran - Army will not surrender, people will fight. Cannot take out regime by attacking it. Regime will only get stronger.
There you go
Afghanistan couldnt hit us back
Iran can hit back
does that answer your question?
Invasion of Iraq - Nobody fought back. Army surrendered (what was left of it after 1991)
Invasion of Afghanistan- No army, bunch of rebels with WW2 weapons. Half the country was already in allied control before the invasison (Northern Alliance)
Invasion of Iran - Army will not surrender, people will fight. Cannot take out regime by attacking it. Regime will only get stronger.
There you go
dahunan
Lifer
Yes, everyone they killed was definitely a hezbollah fighter 😉
So which do you think was the result of the last bombing of Lebanon
Hezbollah was weakened
Hezbollah gained more Lebanese sympathizers
The sitting government in Lebanon was weakened
The sitting government in Lebanon was strengtened
**BTW, I hate Hezbollah almost as much as I hate Osama... and I hate that they use assassination as their religious tool .. they obviously will do anything they want to stop a Christian government from controlling Lebanon..
Israel cannot takeover and control Lebanon. If it does it will face the same situation the U.S is facing inside Iraq.
Except I dont think the Lebanese are going to be happy about their democratic government being occupied by Israelis. Therefore it'll be far worse than Iraq. Iraqis, the majority wanted an invasion (Saddam was brutal).
Then all the insurgents going to Iraq to fight will now go to Lebanon and Bush will go on the news 6 months later and hail the progress inside Iraq. Republicians will then win in 2008. Brilliant.
Except I dont think the Lebanese are going to be happy about their democratic government being occupied by Israelis. Therefore it'll be far worse than Iraq. Iraqis, the majority wanted an invasion (Saddam was brutal).
Then all the insurgents going to Iraq to fight will now go to Lebanon and Bush will go on the news 6 months later and hail the progress inside Iraq. Republicians will then win in 2008. Brilliant.
imported_dna
Golden Member
I didn't realize that that was argument.
Your multiple choice test isn't worth much, as it doesn't take into account Syrian influence. Furthermore, as I've said, the assumption that the Lebanese gov. was strong prior to the conflict is most likely a false one.
Hezbollah was milatarily weakend after the conflict. I don't know about the Lebanese gov., but even if it was weakend, the difference is probably inconsequential considering how strong it used to be.
Israel's attack against Lebanon did ZERO.
If you look at the latest pictures coming out of Lebanon you will see hundreds of Hezbollah guards forming a line keeping the Hezbollah protestings in-line/control. These guards are all members of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is still organized and it has grown thanks to Israel's failed war. They are still funded and they are rebuilding rapidly again. Even at the end of the war they were firing more rockets than the start of the war. There is no evidence their military strength was weakened. Sure they wasted a lot of their rockets, but they stil have thousands left. The men they lost have now been replaced with people who hate Israel for destroying their city.
If you are going to start a war finish it. Of course IMO the U.S is going to do the same B.S when it leaves Iraq which will leave Iraq to the insurgents. Iraq will turn into Hezbollah part 2. & I have no solution for the situation inside Iraq. It's f00ked. Thanks Bush.
Guaranteed outlook for Iraq:
2020: Iraq is a religious state similiar to current-state Iran. It might be "neutral" towards the U.S it may not be. It will be pro-Iran and pro-Hezbollah. Hezbollah will be training inside Iraq and will have offices inside Iraq.
... We lost 3,000+ soldiers for that folks.
Israel should have destroyed Hezbollah (it would have been horrrible for the Israel military, but it is worth it) and Israel should have helped rebuild Lebanon by offering billions of dollars for reconstruction. Much better than attacking the country and leaving it in debtwith nothing accomplished.
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
If you look at the latest pictures coming out of Lebanon you will see hundreds of Hezbollah guards forming a line keeping the Hezbollah protestings in-line/control. These guards are all members of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is still organized and it has grown thanks to Israel's failed war. They are still funded and they are rebuilding rapidly again. Even at the end of the war they were firing more rockets than the start of the war. There is no evidence their military strength was weakened. Sure they wasted a lot of their rockets, but they stil have thousands left. The men they lost have now been replaced with people who hate Israel for destroying their city.
If you are going to start a war finish it. Of course IMO the U.S is going to do the same B.S when it leaves Iraq which will leave Iraq to the insurgents. Iraq will turn into Hezbollah part 2. & I have no solution for the situation inside Iraq. It's f00ked. Thanks Bush.
Guaranteed outlook for Iraq:
2020: Iraq is a religious state similiar to current-state Iran. It might be "neutral" towards the U.S it may not be. It will be pro-Iran and pro-Hezbollah. Hezbollah will be training inside Iraq and will have offices inside Iraq.
... We lost 3,000+ soldiers for that folks.
Israel should have destroyed Hezbollah (it would have been horrrible for the Israel military, but it is worth it) and Israel should have helped rebuild Lebanon by offering billions of dollars for reconstruction. Much better than attacking the country and leaving it in debtwith nothing accomplished.
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
Siddhartha
Lifer
Wouldn't this pre-emptive strike push the Iranians to be even more anti-US?
The right wing has a basic fallacy in their approach. Most of them don't realize it, but their ideology turns them into the worst sorts of imperialists.
The logic is basically an arrogance of power and security: anyone else who can be strong enough to hurt us is a totally unacceptable threat, because we imagine the worst people coming to power and doing so without regards to consequences - while these right-wingers are utterly incapable of avoiding a double standard in considering how they see the US as a threat.
Oh, no, we're the good guys who would never abuse our power for evil, power grabbing, domination, stealing land, etc.
The only possible outcome to their logic is for the US to go to war over and over and over to conquer any nation we can who can get strong enough to pose any threat (or, by the way, deny us very friendly terms to extracting their resources), until we dominate those nations. The USSR stood in our way and were defeated; no other power comes close.
So, we're now down to knocking off anyone who doesn't follow orders, as we like; Panama, Yugoslavia, now Iraq, and such. We're limited not by any principles regarding sovereignity or international law, but only by the price to be paid - North Korea with their nukes, promixty to South Korea, the effect on trade with China, etc., for example.
These people are unable to look at American history as it looks to others. Take one quote from the Iranian president out of context, about his desire for the nation of Israel the west forced onto the region and which has put a huge military presence on their borders as an ally/agent of the US, not to exist *politically*, and pretend he was saying he wants to nuke Israel; that's their argument against Iran (forget that Iran was attacked and conquered in the 1920's for England and the US to force a puppet on them who agreed to let England and the US take their oil very cheaply). Forget that England and the US ovethrew their elected government to install a dictator for 25 years. Forget that the US gave Saddam WMD and took his side and encouraged the invasion of Iran which suffered a million casualties, over 100,000 from WMD which the US did nothing to stop Saddam from using and even improved our relations soon after they were used. No, they're the bad guys - who have they conquered again? When have they done those sorts of things to the US again?
But consider how non-Americans see American history: first was a genocidal conquering of other civilizations in North America, done entirely 'dishonorably', over ten million people wiped out (more than the Holocaust); then consider the US's attacking Mexico and stealing half of Mexico's land, for another step in our history.
There are many other examples, including an aggressive war in the Phillippenes to dominate there, killing hundreds of thousands of phillipinos defending their home, to Viet Nam, killing 2 million Vietnamese who were defending themselves from foreign domination (western governments set up to serve US/French interests, the US paying up to 90% of the French costs in the 1950's for their occupation, and then later going to war directly); not to mention the countless other examples from long installations of brutal dictators in many nations to the more recent attempt to overthrow the elected leader of Venezuela, shades of our overthrow of the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende earlier.
Now, would you think the US would have an interest in propagandizing its citizens in a democracy so that they don't do anything to stop the government (who is serving the interests of the very wealthy who, through their corporations, gain from that dominance)? Yes, they would - and it works on many citizens, as you see in the right-wing followers.
The bottom line is that history does repeat itself, and that history is the ability for the powerful to manipulate enough Americans to see the next desired target to attack for power and profit as the bad guy and support the war.
These right-wingers are no better off than any other cult members who act on blind ideology, but they are enabling the most powerful military in the world to run around doing huge damage.
They are just incapable of any reasonable view of foreign affairs where somehow, other nations are able to be strong military as well as the US, and so they will, inevitably without fail, find some reasons why we have to attack and attack - there will always be some threat they have to deal with, ANY threat is unacceptable to them.
The fact that there is a bogglingly huge defense industry, politically powerful, pushing the same agenda makes it further inevitable to continue the policies.
The logic is basically an arrogance of power and security: anyone else who can be strong enough to hurt us is a totally unacceptable threat, because we imagine the worst people coming to power and doing so without regards to consequences - while these right-wingers are utterly incapable of avoiding a double standard in considering how they see the US as a threat.
Oh, no, we're the good guys who would never abuse our power for evil, power grabbing, domination, stealing land, etc.
The only possible outcome to their logic is for the US to go to war over and over and over to conquer any nation we can who can get strong enough to pose any threat (or, by the way, deny us very friendly terms to extracting their resources), until we dominate those nations. The USSR stood in our way and were defeated; no other power comes close.
So, we're now down to knocking off anyone who doesn't follow orders, as we like; Panama, Yugoslavia, now Iraq, and such. We're limited not by any principles regarding sovereignity or international law, but only by the price to be paid - North Korea with their nukes, promixty to South Korea, the effect on trade with China, etc., for example.
These people are unable to look at American history as it looks to others. Take one quote from the Iranian president out of context, about his desire for the nation of Israel the west forced onto the region and which has put a huge military presence on their borders as an ally/agent of the US, not to exist *politically*, and pretend he was saying he wants to nuke Israel; that's their argument against Iran (forget that Iran was attacked and conquered in the 1920's for England and the US to force a puppet on them who agreed to let England and the US take their oil very cheaply). Forget that England and the US ovethrew their elected government to install a dictator for 25 years. Forget that the US gave Saddam WMD and took his side and encouraged the invasion of Iran which suffered a million casualties, over 100,000 from WMD which the US did nothing to stop Saddam from using and even improved our relations soon after they were used. No, they're the bad guys - who have they conquered again? When have they done those sorts of things to the US again?
But consider how non-Americans see American history: first was a genocidal conquering of other civilizations in North America, done entirely 'dishonorably', over ten million people wiped out (more than the Holocaust); then consider the US's attacking Mexico and stealing half of Mexico's land, for another step in our history.
There are many other examples, including an aggressive war in the Phillippenes to dominate there, killing hundreds of thousands of phillipinos defending their home, to Viet Nam, killing 2 million Vietnamese who were defending themselves from foreign domination (western governments set up to serve US/French interests, the US paying up to 90% of the French costs in the 1950's for their occupation, and then later going to war directly); not to mention the countless other examples from long installations of brutal dictators in many nations to the more recent attempt to overthrow the elected leader of Venezuela, shades of our overthrow of the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende earlier.
Now, would you think the US would have an interest in propagandizing its citizens in a democracy so that they don't do anything to stop the government (who is serving the interests of the very wealthy who, through their corporations, gain from that dominance)? Yes, they would - and it works on many citizens, as you see in the right-wing followers.
The bottom line is that history does repeat itself, and that history is the ability for the powerful to manipulate enough Americans to see the next desired target to attack for power and profit as the bad guy and support the war.
These right-wingers are no better off than any other cult members who act on blind ideology, but they are enabling the most powerful military in the world to run around doing huge damage.
They are just incapable of any reasonable view of foreign affairs where somehow, other nations are able to be strong military as well as the US, and so they will, inevitably without fail, find some reasons why we have to attack and attack - there will always be some threat they have to deal with, ANY threat is unacceptable to them.
The fact that there is a bogglingly huge defense industry, politically powerful, pushing the same agenda makes it further inevitable to continue the policies.
Arkaign
Lifer
This keeps popping up, the Iran issue.
There is no ´military solution´ for Iran. Any kind of hostile action against them would only have negative consequences for US interests at large.
Iran cannot seriously attack Israel, because with Israel's nuclear strike capabilities, Iran would end up a wide swath of radioactive glass.
Iran is not, and will not be, a 'major threat'. They are surrounded by countries with thermonulcear weapons and excellent delivery systems. They have 2nd-tier ground forces. They have questionable agricultural resources to work with even in the event of a sustained conventional war with a neighbor. Finally, and most importantly, all of the bluster and fury of the anti-west/anti-israel speeches that they give in their own countries .. is just pandering to the lowest common denominator of their populace. It is not to be taken as a credible foreign-policy statement. That much is obvious. If Iran was seriously stupid enough to provoke a war with the west and Israel, they would have had the golden opportunity during the Lebanon/Israel conflict. With the token US forces in Iraq dispersed and distracted, a massive land invasion could have swathed through straight to Israel. Conventionally, this had a chance of working, but once you add tactical and theatre-level nuclear weapons to the mix, it's quite obvioiusly suicide. This proves somewhat, that they are not simply suicidal jihadist loonies at the policy level, but that they can see what is already quite clear to any attentive unbiased observer. Bridging from this moment to the time when they do achieve nuclear capability, the best that they can hope to achieve is a regional M.A.D. shield. Which, if you look at the internal paranoia that the Mossadegh overthrow caused, and the clumsy destructive nature of Western interactions with other regional players, is probably exactly what they are going for. I can't say I blame them.
Any US citizen that has any 'fear' of Iran, or believes them to be a credible military threat, is woefully undereducated, and has soaked in far too much chickenhawk fearmongering paranoia-drenched propoganda from those who WANT more useless and wasteful wars to profit from.
A major conflict with Iran would have unfortunate repercussions to the economic stability of the US at large, but you can count on the usual players taking full advantage of the internal looting opportunities provided by such adventures.
Stupid stuff. Iran is immediately surrounded by : Israel, Pakistan, India, China, Russia .. all with credible conventional and nuclear war capabilities, and none save Pakistan even remotely capable of even the pretense of a cohesive alliance for wargoing purposes. Of all the counterweights to Iranian agression, Israel alone is many times more powerful at every measurable level besides raw size.
Someone should start a poll : Is Iran a military threat to the US?
I believe that they're not even close, and probably never will be.
There is no ´military solution´ for Iran. Any kind of hostile action against them would only have negative consequences for US interests at large.
Iran cannot seriously attack Israel, because with Israel's nuclear strike capabilities, Iran would end up a wide swath of radioactive glass.
Iran is not, and will not be, a 'major threat'. They are surrounded by countries with thermonulcear weapons and excellent delivery systems. They have 2nd-tier ground forces. They have questionable agricultural resources to work with even in the event of a sustained conventional war with a neighbor. Finally, and most importantly, all of the bluster and fury of the anti-west/anti-israel speeches that they give in their own countries .. is just pandering to the lowest common denominator of their populace. It is not to be taken as a credible foreign-policy statement. That much is obvious. If Iran was seriously stupid enough to provoke a war with the west and Israel, they would have had the golden opportunity during the Lebanon/Israel conflict. With the token US forces in Iraq dispersed and distracted, a massive land invasion could have swathed through straight to Israel. Conventionally, this had a chance of working, but once you add tactical and theatre-level nuclear weapons to the mix, it's quite obvioiusly suicide. This proves somewhat, that they are not simply suicidal jihadist loonies at the policy level, but that they can see what is already quite clear to any attentive unbiased observer. Bridging from this moment to the time when they do achieve nuclear capability, the best that they can hope to achieve is a regional M.A.D. shield. Which, if you look at the internal paranoia that the Mossadegh overthrow caused, and the clumsy destructive nature of Western interactions with other regional players, is probably exactly what they are going for. I can't say I blame them.
Any US citizen that has any 'fear' of Iran, or believes them to be a credible military threat, is woefully undereducated, and has soaked in far too much chickenhawk fearmongering paranoia-drenched propoganda from those who WANT more useless and wasteful wars to profit from.
A major conflict with Iran would have unfortunate repercussions to the economic stability of the US at large, but you can count on the usual players taking full advantage of the internal looting opportunities provided by such adventures.
Stupid stuff. Iran is immediately surrounded by : Israel, Pakistan, India, China, Russia .. all with credible conventional and nuclear war capabilities, and none save Pakistan even remotely capable of even the pretense of a cohesive alliance for wargoing purposes. Of all the counterweights to Iranian agression, Israel alone is many times more powerful at every measurable level besides raw size.
Someone should start a poll : Is Iran a military threat to the US?
I believe that they're not even close, and probably never will be.
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
Not to taint the topic with the WW2-era tar brush, but so was fascist Italy under Mussolini. And like Mussolini, Hezbollah today gathers much of its support by organizing and fanning out armed terror squads around the nation in order to "protect" Lebanon.
I guess I should also add that capitalizing and busting out the word "democratically" as if it's some kind of trump word that ends all previous debate is a little too elementary even for this forum.
imported_dna
Golden Member
Against Hezbollah, not Lebanon. The "official" Lebanese army was not part of the action.
That's not a very good indicator on how hard they were hit. You can argue that they were strong in comparison to the gov., and that they still are, but that doesn't mean they didn't get hit.
The attitude you're talking about isn't as unique as you might think, it's essentially the same attitude that every other "Empire" in the history of the world has displayed. In fact, we're far more subdued about it than previous examples. The various European powers giving us such a hard time right now behaved FAR worse when they held the reigns, and the Middle East is full of countries that behaved far worse than that when they were on top. China and Russia shouldn't be allowed to lecture anyone on abuses of power either, since their history is filled with examples of the worst of imperial abuse. If Iran was baiting the British Empire of old, or the Roman Empire we're so frequently compared to, they would have been smashed flat a long time ago.
Of course that doesn't excuse the attitude, but it certainly indicates where it's coming from. We're at the point in history where powerful countries can no longer go around doing whatever they damn well please, and that pisses a lot of people off...just when we get to this point, the game is declared over. Sorry, we have to behave nicely now, because that's what new empires do. Except we don't, by the new standards, so we get called on it, and THAT pisses even more people off. We "hate" the French because they stood up to us in a way no country of their stature would have DARED do to a country of our stature in any previous point in history.
Now I tend to think that our value lies in the fact that we DON'T behave like our cousins in England did during the past several centuries, their history is filled with examples of why empires like that are bad...but I see where todays "imperialists" are coming from.
Arkaign
Lifer
Lol, if you think that Hezbollah is anything but stronger due to that conflict, then you are probably the same type of person who believed that the Iraqi insurgency was in it's final throes a year or two ago.
Hezbollah is a vicious and stupid group, but such groups always grow stronger from violence. The piles of civilians killed by Israel in pursuit of their rat asses virtually guarantees tons of new recruits.
I'm not going to posture and say that the Israeli government had a lot of other great options on the table besides a military response, but to be honest, I don't think anything positive was accomplished at all. A lot of expensive ordinance was used up, and a handful of Hezbollah madmen were killed, to be cheaply replaced by the newly recruited angry populace.
Do you think the Lebanese look at their broken roads, broken water delivery and purification systems, broken power plants and lines, dead civilians and think : Damn Hezbollah, they shouldn't have started that stupid ****** with Israel! The smart ones probably do, but taking the US as an example, probably 20% or less of the populace has any credible intelligence. So what do the rest think? Stupid Israel, coming over here and blowing the ****** out of everything, where do I sign up for Hezbollah?
You dont think Hezbollah is rearming themselves at this very moment?
They have enough cash to rebuild. All that is left is rearming. Even if they aren't rearmed they still have enough weapons to counter another Israel wave...
Next time they know how to be even more prepared.
Like in Iraq. Insurgents are getting smarter and learning new methods each day. The U.S can destroy all the stockpiles of weapons they want. Insurgents keep finding new ways or have other stockpiles.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 24K
-
-
