A qustion for Tahran Tim

Do you think Isreal and Iran are on an inescapable path to war?

Whats up with you and your hate of the letter E?

__________________
"True Freedom is the Freedom to oppress others"

Ideology: Self Preservation.

if I'm allowed to answer, I'll say no. they won't fight each other, at least soon.

__________________
Why does my heart cry? Feelings I can't fight...

I say settle this the old fashioned way Naked Oil wrestling match.

__________________
"True Freedom is the Freedom to oppress others"

Ideology: Self Preservation.

With women!

Whew, just barely dodged that one. Always remember to specify.

In regards to the OP: only unless the US facilitates a diplomatic, peaceful end to naked hostilities.

__________________
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. – H.L. Mencken

I refuse to trade humanity for patriotism.

Only if Israel is convinced that we will back them up with full force no matter what and is intent on striking first... That's why we need to talk them out of it- to avoid being dragged into a very explosive (literally) situation that could be WWIII.
Iran will not attack as they have no one to back them up and counter the US. I doubt Russia or India will jump in to their aid after so foolish a move.
Thus the saber-rattling... It's all they have.

If Iran does get nukes, the one good consequence will be a MAD dynamic.
Israel will officially release that it has the nukes we know they have... or the US will threaten retaliation by proxy. Israel and Iran cannot war at that point.

Some of the nuttier hardliners in Israel may see this as a reason to take out Iran's reactors ASAP. To preserve military dominance and the possibility of aggression against Iran should it be "necessary". I think hardliners in the US see things similarly (but are balanced out by non-hardliners).
Iran's hardliners are on the defense right now... which could make them more reckless if attacked in any way.

But I suppose the moral is that hardliners in every country are nutty. Stop voting for them!

__________________
That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.

Bush wil give the green light to its imperial watchdog, Israel, to attack Iran during the build up to the US elections in November in a last desperate atempt to shore up ailing Republican party fortunes.

In short, no. Israel is the only natural ally Iran has in the region. If you want a detailed analysis of why we are where we are, why Israel is hostile to us, why we support Hezbollah, and virtually anything else you need to know about this conflict, I've summed it up in the following.


If for whatever reason you decide to read one post of mine, let it be this one:




In '91 the Soviet Union collapsed and Iraq was defeated in the Gulf war. When these two common threats that Iran and Israel shared disappeared, they both found themselves unchecked. The Iran/Israel rivalry began at this point for a number of reasons having to do with these two events.

During the Gulf War Israel turned from being a strategic asset in the eyes of Washington to a liability, almost overnight. Pan-Arabism had turned into a myth and the Mid East entered this bi-polar era. Israel now began to see Iran as a foe and a convenient player in the region. It made every effort to target any US-Iran relations, because any break-through in US-Iran relations would wipe out any little strategic value Israel had left to the US. The Israelis essentially felt that a US-Iran relationship would come at Israels expense.

Also in 1991 the Madrid conference took place, which was far more than just a conference. It focused not just on Israeli-Palestinian peace, but on the future of the Mid East. The entire region along with delegations from the EU and a number of other places were invited, but Iran was not. The logic was that Iran had nothing to contribute, and had no leverage on the Arabs. Iran had no cards to play, so Iran had to change this dynamic. Syria was invited, and that threatened the Iran/Syria axis, which was crucial to Iran because of its heavy investment in the Levant. It's influence and access to the Levant was through Syria.

And then Yitzhak Rabin was elected, and Labor needed a way to sell peace with the Palestinians domestically, so it made Iran into the scapegoat and portrayed it domestically as the far greater threat that needs to be dealt with, and can only be dealt with once peace with the Palestinians is reached. In order to obtain peace with the Arabs he portrayed Iran as the grand common threat that both Arabs and Israelis shared. Obviously this didn't go unnoticed in Iran. Also after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Israels strategic value disappeared, and so a hyped up Iran threat could serve as the new glue for a US-Israel strategic relationship in the region.

1993 brought in the biggest game changer, and that was Oslo. The Oslo process would have pushed Iran into the fringes of the region, and combined with its isolation this threatened Iran tremendously geopolitically. If the Arabs forged a peace with Israel, than the focus of their anger would shift from Israel to Iran. And what would start as a political threat, would evolve into an eventual military threat, the Rafsanjani government calculated. And the Arabs confident as they had Israel behind their back, they could pose a serious threat to Iran.

So overnight after the Oslo process was announced Iran for the first time adopted a policy of sabotaging the peace process and supporting Palestinian groups that didn't want peace. Iran did this despite the ideological differences, and despite the fact that every one of these groups had backed Saddam against Iran.

So while Israel was turning Iran into the regional scapegoat and sabotaging every effort to re-establish US-Iran relations, Iran had to keep the Arab focus on Israel while sabotaging every effort at an Arab-Israeli peace. This wasn't only because of the Arab threat that Iran perceived, but also because Washington wouldn't grant Iran the role Rafsanjani felt Iran deserved in the region. And because Washington wouldn't do that, Iran had to make that decision as costly as possible for Washington.

Something very significant happened during the Khatami administration however. For the first time an Iranian administration declared that it would go along with whatever settlement the Palestinians agreed on, even if it meant recognition of Israel. This groundbreaking shift went unnoticed in Tel Aviv and Washington. But even far more significantly, Khatami realized that the key to relations with the US lied in the hands of Israel. Understanding this fact, Khatami put forward that 2003 proposal to the US. That proposal was as much aimed at an Israeli audience as it was aimed at the Americans. In it, Khamenei and Khatami agreed to the recognition of Israel, and signaled that they would end all support for Palestinian and Lebanese organizations like Hezbollah, and that Iran would use its clout with Hezbollah to turn it into strictly a political organization. The aim of all this was to convey to the Israelis that if a US-Iranian relationship is established, not only would it not come at the expense of Israel, but that it would even benefit Israel tremendously. The message was to the Israelis, stop sabotaging a US-Iranian relationship.

That was Iran's last effort at gaining American recognition through diplomacy. The failure of that proposal weakened the Khatami school of thought. After all, the hardliners in Iran could easily have argued that Khatamis efforts were to no avail because no matter how much Tehran tried to appease Washington, it wasn't going to work. In Afghanistan Iran was the most significant player, and in return Iran got nothing more than being labeled part of an Axis of Evil for all of its help. And that signaled the takeover of the hardliner school of though in foreign policy. The position of the likes of Ahmadinejad was, the only way to gain American recognition is to make non-recognition as costly as possible for the US so that it would have no other choice but to come to the table with Iran. The manifestations of that policy can be seen today in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the Middle East.

And lastly, I won't go over this very much, but there's no doubt that Israel wants to see a US-Iran war. Israel has long had a rather unsophisticated view of foreign policy. It failed to pick up on the signal that the Khatami proposal sent Israel, and it's conducting its foreign policy as if Iraq and Afghanistan never happened, and that everything is the same as it was 6 years ago. The entire weight of Israels influence in the US and on the world stage today is focused on creating a US-Iranian war.

The US will attack Iran before Israel does.

Possibly. Maybe.

__________________
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

---- Ronald Reagan