Missiles Launched From Iran Hit ISIS Terrorist Bases in Syria

That's the way it is from an Islamic/Leftist point of view but many support Israel because it's the Jewish homeland, and was long before Muslims came along, and it's the only well functioning democracy in the Middle East.

 

Apparently, you don't know how to compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges.

1) Iran fought Saddam in the 1980s, right after the Iranian revolution where Iran's armed forces had been purged and Iran was cut off from its previous sources of supply without yet being in a position to build up an adequate domestic arms industry of its own. Something it had developed in the meantime. Iran also fought Saddam when he was backed by the Arab League, NATO, and Warsaw Pact, with over $500 Billion in weapons and other aid funneled into his military and regime by these countries.

The US fought Saddam when he had been reduced to something less than the mayor of Baghdad, after a previous war where Saddam had to face all his former allies in crime being lined up against him.

2) The US didn't even have to fight Saddam on the ground. During Desert Storm, Saddam was already pulling his troops out of Kuwait without a fight after negotiating a deal with the Russians. Saddam's forces were then butchered in the so-called highway of death. In 2003, the generals who were supposed to guard Baghdad already had been in contact with the CIA and basically left their post, leaving the city to be easily captured by the Americans. Urban warfare, which is the kind of warfare which could have given Saddam a chance against the Americans, is exactly the kind of fight we didn't see!

3) Iran's military doctrine is tailor made for fighting a technologically superior force and enemy, using tactics and equipment designed for such a fight and such a war. Saddam's military doctrine and his best toys, on the other hand, were designed for a fight against Iran or foes who had inferior equipment and lacked the same level of armor and protection. On the other hand, Saddam's military was in every way inadequate (whether tactically, in terms of its composition, or its morale) in fighting a superior force.

Military analysts learn from past wars, not by looking at the name of those fighting them, but the dynamics involved. Israel v Hezbollah in 2006 is properly seen as a guide of sorts in telling us how USA v Iran will be fought if it comes to war as the tactics, dynamics and relevant advantages are similar. Iran v Iraq war is also somewhat relevant, but for opposite reasons suggested by your comment.. The US would fill the role of Iraq, which was essentially acting as a proxy and enjoyed all the advantages that the US enjoys against Iran. The fact that despite those advantages in armor and in the air, Saddam needed to resort to chemical weapons to save himself doesn't augur well for American military planners. More ancient battles that are relevant are Battle of Carhae, were the Parthians (using hit and run tactics) inflicted a devastating loss on the Romans. And the naval battle of Salamis, where the ancient Greeks using small craft and the advantages of the narrow waters of the straits in which that battle was waged, destroyed the much larger Persian fleet. The dynamics in that battle are largely similar to what you will have in the Persian Gulf, except Iran will play the role of the ancient Greeks and the US would be playing the role of the Persian empire. On the other hand, there are many notable Persian victories over Rome, including ones that saw Iran capture the Roman emperor (Valerian) and hold him in captivity for the rest of his life, which have absolutely no lessons to teach on how war between Iran and the US will be played out and may only be useful for propaganda purposes today. The same way there is little to learn about how war with Iran will go based on the kind of reasoning you used, except for propaganda purposes.

 

You don't sound suicidal but you are not the one pushng the button in iran

The leadership promises death to America and death to Isreal and I take that threat seriously

 

Keep telling yourself that. I am sure the truth that sees America's presidents and politicians kneeling before Israel would hurt too much otherwise. In the meantime, I wonder what you will have to say when Wahhabi Arabia - which has learned a bit and taken a page from Israel's playbook -- begins to further corrupt America's politics in the same manner as the pro Israel lobby have done?

Americans seem to like the idea of being used by Israel, but the idea of being used by Wahhabi Arabia may take a bit more getting used to for most of them. In the meantime, America is busy squandering its wealth and much of any remaining goodwill around the world, playing the role of patsies for those playing you like the fiddle.

 

It sounds like you see a ground war between America and iraq and I dont see that happenimg

The US will punish iran with air power and naval power and perhaps special forces

It will be ugly with great loss of life on both sides and may even involve russia

 

I assume you meant Iran!
I don't expect a ground invasion of Iran. I was responding to the comparison being made. On the other hand, the reason US military planners aren't comfortable following the pro Israeli lobby in waging war on Iran is precisely because once a war with Iran is waged, its not clear how it can be contained. If Iran retaliates with its full might and capabilities, the war could spiral out of control and who knows where and how it will end.

I don't expect the Russians to get directly involved, but all of America's bases in the region scattered around various countries would be in play. Traffic through the Persian Gulf, and even heading to the Suez Canal, would be in play. Saudi and other oil facilities would be targeted too. And Israel will be under a shower of missiles and rockets, not just from Iran, but also Hezbollah. At the same time, US forces and their allies in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon would be fighting against Iranian backed forces. Such a war would be an utter disaster for all concerned, all the more so as it is built up on entirely bogus and false premises.

 

I sincerely hope that the Iranian leadership doesn't share your point of view or there'll be hell to pay.

 

It is not my "point of view". What I outlined are well known facts about Iran's military strategy, doctrine, tactics - and equipment and forces designed to serve that strategy.

In the meantime, to highlight how appeasement by Iran, as represented in the nuclear deal, was simply the wrong choice, I will say 2 things: first, contrary to what the proponents of such appeasement were saying in Iran, the nuclear deal hasn't resulted in a significant enough change in the economic warfare waged against Iran though sanctions and related measures. Any temporary gains from the deal are already being threatened by new sanctions which the US is considering. Second, the chances of war have dramatically increased because of Iran's appeasement in negotiating the nuclear deal. Unlike in the past, Iran's nuclear facilities are now vulnerable to military attack as they have been all placed in a single, rather exposed, location. What's more, Iran has lost the ability to deter such an attack by threatening to go "nuclear" in short order since the deal stripped Iran of its surge capacity. The nuclear deal was a bad deal for Iran. The Israelis, of course, played the issue well: they quietly lobbied against measures that would have actually killed the deal in the US Congress which would have put unacceptable conditions on the deal, while they set up the whole thing in such a way through their public opposition to the deal for the US to be able renege on its end of the bargain after Iran had already given up much of its nuclear capacity.

I have to admit: it was all played brilliantly by the Israelis. But if the Israelis succeeded in their ploy, it was also because a good part of Iran's government isn't entirely following the right script and is being influenced by its own corrupted motives.

 

What you say about the unpredictability of war is true

Something the crazy mullahs in tehran need to think about

 

The brainwashing is very very deep. SA is where most of the 911 terrorists were from.

 

The iranian leadership dream of death to America and Israel.

So they are even more dangerous than our iranian posting here

 

Thats true

How ironic that some of the people in SA are quite crazy but the leadership is sane

Whereas in Iran its the leaders who out of their minds

 

There is nothing new here. Deliverable nuclear weapon is an old technology. Even poor technologicaly undeveloped nation like Iran will develop it one day if it wants to. And it does. But the price for them for killing some big portion of Israelis would be their own total annihilliation.

 

The iranian clerics believe in the muslim version of Armagedden

Seeing their country wiped out in a nuclear war does not scare them

 

Then this is what will happen.

 

Highly doubtful. They are a radial form of Islam.

the movement underwent "explosive growth" beginning in the 1970s and now has worldwide influence.[3] The US State Department has estimated that over the past four decades the capital Riyadh has invested more than $10bn (£6bn) into charitable foundations in an attempt to replace mainstream Sunni Islam with the harsh intolerance of its Wahhabism.[25]

The "boundaries" of Wahhabism have been called "difficult to pinpoint",[26] but in contemporary usage, the terms Wahhabi and Salafi are often used interchangeably, and they are considered to be movements with different roots that have merged since the 1960s.[27][28][29] However, Wahhabism has also been called "a particular orientation within Salafism",[30]or an ultra-conservative, Saudi brand of Salafism.[31][32] Estimates of the number of adherents to Wahhabism vary, with one source (Mehrdad Izady) giving a figure of fewer than 5 million Wahhabis in the Persian Gulf region (compared to 28.5 million Sunnis and 89 million Shia).[22][33]

The majority of mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims worldwide strongly disagree with the interpretation of Wahhabism, and many Muslims would denounce them as a faction or a "vile sect".[8] Islamic scholars, including those from the Al-Azhar University, regularly denounce Wahhabism with terms such as "Satanic faith".[8] Wahhabism has been accused of being "a source of global terrorism",[34][35] inspiring the ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),[36] and for causing disunity in Muslim communities by labelling Muslims who disagreed with the Wahhabi definition of monotheism as apostates[37] (takfir) and justifying their killing.[38][39][40] It has also been criticized for the destruction of historic shrines of saints, mausoleums, and other Muslim and non-Muslim buildings and artifacts.[41][42][43]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism

 

There are radical clerics in SA also.

But as long as the royal familly is in power Saudi Arabic will remain a reasonably rational country.

The uncertainity is what will happen if the king is overthrown like the shah was in iran

 

State sponsored terrorism is what you've been arguing about Iran this whole thread and praising SA who are state sponsors of terrorism.

 

I don't think that is true

Some members of the government may support terrorism unofficially but not to the extent than Iran does as official government policy

 

Labels and propaganda are certainly a part of the arsenal of 'weapons' used against Iran. Those who peddle these terms and make these claims against Iran don't even believe much of it themselves and use these labels and claims merely to enlist to their cause gullible Americans who don't know any better. But ultimately, while the whole "Iraq WMD" episode and claims might suggest otherwise, against Iran this propaganda can only go so far. That is because war with Iran, as opposed to war against Saddam, still involves the same dynamic that it did in the past. At the time, the neocons put it this way: "everyone wants to go to Baghdad, only real men want to go to Tehran." I would paraphrase what they said as follows: "everyone wanted to go to Baghdad and was willing to be fooled by the WMD story. Not too many will want to be fooled going to Tehran."

 

Too bad they got even scared of sanctions, much less "nuclear war", and capitulated into accepting the nuclear agreement that dismantled billions of dollars of Iranian investment in its nuclear program and stripped Iran of what it had already: nuclear surge capacity, or the capacity to build nuclear weapons in short order (less than a month's time). I am just hoping against all evidence and against all hope that they actually have a few nukes hidden somewhere for insurance against nuclear blackmail.

 

What's the explanation for the explosion of Islam in the first millennia considering post 241?

 

Do you really want to know? Stripped of the propaganda, and admitting there are always more details that are lost in any short summary, the following gives you the basic picture:
Iran had a revolution under the banner of Islam. Its revolutionary ideology was anti-imperialistic, pro Palestinian, and supported resistance to western imperialism and various forms of neocolonialism. That scared the wits out of the Saudis, who saw their own claim as "custodian of the Holy Shrines" challenged and their political legitimacy - never all that secure - threatened by an avowedly revolutionary government in Iran. To meet this challenge, they began funding all sorts of anti-Iranian/anti-Shia ideologies and movements, most specifically their own Wahhabi brand that was now infused with a far more politicized component to be used against Iran. The war in Afghanistan became a breeding ground for some of the folks who were being indoctrinated with this new ideology. After it became clear that the Russians would be leaving, the fight turned on who will rule Afghanistan: a regime close to Iran or one close to the Wahhabis and their allies in Pakistan? To give the answer they wanted to this question, they countered Iranian support for what became the northern alliance with support for the Taleban. The Taleban, a reactionary, backward, fundamentalist group who were infused with the same ideology, gave protection and cover to various extremist groups being born from this ideology. Of course, not all those who joined these extremist groups were blind and eventually they turned their ideology against the Saudis as well. But never mind: for the Saudis, Iran was the bigger and more serious challenge. So they continued with their funding and support of these groups. That continued until 9/11. After 9/11, the Saudis formally broke relations with the Taleban, but continued funding the same ideology for the same reasons as before. Then you had the war in Iraq, which led to a shia government the Saudis feared for bringing Iraq close to Iran. In response, the Saudis poured vast sums to support all sorts of groups, ex Baathists, wahhabi extremists, or anyone else who made fighting Iran part of the gospel they preached. Eventually, in conjunction with the Israelis, the Saudis convinced the neocons that the idea of finding the shia as allies wasn't working out well. You then had the "Redirection" and a whole slew of policies aimed at creating a much larger sectarian war in the region, with the US and Israel now complicit in efforts to fund and arm these anti-Shia/anti-Iran extremists all over the map, including in Lebanon and Syria as well as in Iraq. From this process, and new wars in places like Libya and Syria, new brands for the same ideology emerged and new extremists who couldn't be controlled as much as the Saudis had promised. The most powerful among them became ISIS. Even now, as the US pretends to be focused on fighting ISIS, its real fight is for the post ISIS map in Iraq and Syria, wanting to make sure its stooges (and those supported by Saudi Arabia and Israel) are the ones that take over and not the groups supported by Iran.

 

Interesting theories but the question was what caused the initial explosion of Islam thru the ME into Africa and Europe post 700 then compare that to the post I cited. What's changed in the last 1400 years?

 

I misread your question and thought you had asked about the "explosion of Islam" this millennium. I am not sure I understood your question, but the rise of Islam can be traced and described as follows:
At the time of the rise of Islam, the areas known as the Middle East was dominated by two rival empires: the Persian empire (Sassanid dynasty) and the Byzantine empire. These two empires had fought many wars over the centuries, and were rather exhausted. The last wars between them had great fluctuations: the Persians managed to reconquer much of the territories that had been once ruled by the Achaemenid Persian empire, including all of the near east and into Egypt, before they were driven out with the Persian capital itself under siege. While the two sides eventually settled their wars again, neither was in great shape. This allowed for the Arabs from the Arabian peninsula, who had been united by Islam to work under one flag, to burst into the scene and conquer all of the Persian empire and much of the Byzantine empire.

For around a hundred years, you had these new regions under Arab rule. A revolution spearheaded in Iran's Khorasan province, however, replaced the Ummayad caliphate and installed the Abbasid caliphate. The Abbasid caliphs moved the center of their empire close to Iran's old capital in Ctesiphon, building Baghdad as the new capital. Persian influences began to be prominent and the empire was now ruled through Vazirs (or ministers) who were Persian. This was the first Golden Age of Islam, when the arts, sciences and architecture flourished. Politically, however, the empire began fragmenting and new group, the Turks, introduced to the region initially mostly as slave soldiers who had been converted to Islam by Iranians and who had undergone a thorough process of what is referred to as "Iranicization", began to dominate the political order because of their dominance over the military of the new rulers. These Turks, however, accelerated the Persianization of the Islamic world as they too relied on Persian Vazirs, Persian administrators, Persian scholars and employed Persian culture. The Seljuks were the most prominent among them, although before them you did have some strictly Iranian rulers such as the Samanids and Buyids and others who played a major role in the Persian renaissance of that period.

Eventually, you had the Ottoman Turks take over much of the region, although another group, the Safavid ruled Iran and made Iran a Shia state. The Ottoman empire expanded Islam into the Anatolian peninsula and parts of Europe. It also fought numerous wars with Iran, largely over the Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) and Mesopotamia (Iraq). Both the Ottomans and the Safavids, like the Mughal empire in Iran, are considered Persianate states despite the wars between them and their sectarian difference. Except for some of its periphery and religious sites, the Arabian peninsula itself was left largely to its own. A backwater of Bedouin nomads who nonetheless were proud of their singular role in spreading Islam in its early years and who were resentful of having lost their place and position in the name Islamic world that had since emerged. This essentially led many of them to yearn for the pristine and pure Islam, free of Persian and other corrupt influences, from the time of the prophet. This became the cornerstone of the Wahhabi ideology, which nonetheless is ironically itself intellectually still indebted to a sunni Persian scholar and jurist living in the 11th century, Al Ghazzali, whose brilliance notwithstanding, had formulated what would become in some ways the intellectual foundations for the Salafist/Wahhabi movement.