The Iran War

Not if you say "no thoughtcrime" after you think it, anyway.

The TSA hasn't instituted thoughtcrime, yet?

No, but if you order something from an entity the government has declared persona non grata -- note, again, without any kind of adversarial proceeding, merely on someone's say-so -- you can end up in severe, severe trouble.

Mixolyde wrote:

The TSA hasn't instituted thoughtcrime, yet?

They've set up a few brain monitoring stations in some states, but won't roll out the national version for another 18 months.

Kraint wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

The TSA hasn't instituted thoughtcrime, yet?

They've set up a few brain monitoring stations in some states, but won't roll out the national version for another 18 months.

Yeah, but those are only going to be installed in airports, train stations, bus stops, side walks, and libraries.

It's official, the EU has instituted an embargo of Iranian oil. Existing contracts will be allowed to continue, but no new contracts can be signed.

In October, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton sent a letter to Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, saying her goal was a negotiated solution that "restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program."

In other words, Iran will need to prove a negative in order to get out from under this, which of course they cannot. This virtually guarantees that Iran will seek a weapon if they are not already, because it's clear the US and the EU want a war.

Aetius wrote:

This virtually guarantees that Iran will seek a weapon if they are not already, because it's clear the US and the EU want a war.

Man, I seriously hope we're not so goddamned stupid that we'll start another pointless war just as we wound down our last pointless war (and are trying to wind down the one before that). That and the EU (well, Britain and France) could barely manage to keep the Libyan air assault going even with our military propping them up.

I think if we allow ourselves to think wider and more creatively, it is a lot easier to see the proper motivations for this policy. I'm sure there are multiple motivations to be sure, but I think it is fair to say that one of the primary drivers behind this is the desire to keep Saudi Arabia an absolute monarchy.

The Arab Spring stuff is scaring the living hell out of the Saudi royal family and they have, despite the global recession, upped their social spending to pre-recession levels in an attempt to placate their disaffected population. Economists have crunched the numbers and concluded that this is pretty well unsustainable without oil volume staying approximately the same AND oil price per barrel staying above $100. They need both the volume and margin to maintain solvency or else they will need to introduce their population to the kinds of unpopular austerity that caused riots in Greece last summer.

Currently, the only way to ensure that that happens is to take a significant amount of oil off the market. Guess who gets it.

Paleocon wrote:

Currently, the only way to ensure that that happens is to take a significant amount of oil off the market. Guess who gets it.

Most analysts say that Saudi Arabia is pretty much at their peak production now at 10-11 million barrels per day. They simply can't get it out of the ground more quickly even if they wanted to.

That and the main customers for Iran's oil--China, Japan, and South Korea--aren't exactly thrilled with the US and the EU deciding that they should have to buy their gas from somewhere else.

OG_slinger wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Currently, the only way to ensure that that happens is to take a significant amount of oil off the market. Guess who gets it.

Most analysts say that Saudi Arabia is pretty much at their peak production now at 10-11 million barrels per day. They simply can't get it out of the ground more quickly even if they wanted to.

That and the main customers for Iran's oil--China, Japan, and South Korea--aren't exactly thrilled with the US and the EU deciding that they should have to buy their gas from somewhere else.

My point is that artificially introducing a cost of distribution (e.g.: an embargo) will have a market effect on the price of the remaining commodity (i.e.: Saudi crude). Irrespective of whether or not they are able to produce more, the margin they will be able to demand by virtue of the relative unavailability of Iranian crude will be higher.

I do suspect that China, in particular, will probably not participate in the embargo and would be surprised if Japan and/or South Korea would as well without significant inducements from the US government. In the end, it may just be political theater, but it is likely to at least have short term effects on supply.

Oil is a fungible commodity. I think this will have f*ck-all real effect on the world. The EU will buy oil from other sources, and China and Japan will keep buying it from Iran.

And once it's refined, oil loses all provenance.

edit: yes, there might be a slight uptick in prices for a short time as global oil trade routes realign themselves, but unless the speculators blow it to hell and gone, it won't matter much. The sheer amount of money being fed to the speculative community by the Fed and other central banks is very destabilizing.

Paleocon wrote:

I do suspect that China, in particular, will probably not participate in the embargo and would be surprised if Japan and/or South Korea would as well without significant inducements from the US government. In the end, it may just be political theater, but it is likely to at least have short term effects on supply.

China has already said they will ignore the embargo - and indeed, they and the Indians are negotiating prices with the Iranians to get a discount. The problem for the EU is this:

With European nations receiving around a third of Iran's crude oil exports, according to the latest data from the International Energy Agency, the proposed embargo will present a major challenge to these countries, particularly Italy, Turkey, Spain and Greece, which account for around 80 per cent of that European demand.

Does that list of countries look familiar? The EU is going to shaft Greece, Italy, and Spain right in the middle of their government debt crises and depressions. The Iranians might be okay, though still angry about the embargo and the financial attacks, while the EU is going to artificially increase the price of gas in countries that are already in a world of economic hurt.

Aetius wrote:

Does that list of countries look familiar? The EU is going to shaft Greece, Italy, and Spain right in the middle of their government debt crises and depressions. The Iranians might be okay, though still angry about the embargo and the financial attacks, while the EU is going to artificially increase the price of gas in countries that are already in a world of economic hurt.

That's what I call a win/win scenario, right there.

On a more general note, I'm playing Alpha Protocol for the first time right now, and gee whiz I don't think they had to imagine too much to create the plot. I could totally see it happening in real life.

US quietly moves thousands of troops into Israel. Looks like war could be coming sooner rather than later...

I'm fairly certain they canceled their planned joint opps two weeks ago.

Minarchist wrote:

US quietly moves thousands of troops into Israel. Looks like war could be coming sooner rather than later...

I'm confused. Israel seems like the worst possible place to pre-position troops for an invasion. The troops would have to invade Jordan and either Saudi Arabi or Iraq and fight their way to Iran or be packed in ships and sent on a very long and exposed voyage through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea.

That and any planning for an invasion of Iraq would involve pre-positioning hundreds of thousands of troops, not thousands of troops (unless no one in the Pentagon learned a damn thing from the invasion of Iraq).

OG_slinger wrote:

That and any planning for an invasion of Iraq would involve pre-positioning hundreds of thousands of troops, not thousands of troops (unless no one in the Pentagon learned a damn thing from the invasion of Iraq).

I do not find this idea impossible.

NathanialG wrote:

I do not find this idea impossible.

The pre-positioning or that Pentagon brass are idiots?

Can't it be both?

OG_slinger wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

US quietly moves thousands of troops into Israel. Looks like war could be coming sooner rather than later...

I'm confused. Israel seems like the worst possible place to pre-position troops for an invasion. The troops would have to invade Jordan and either Saudi Arabi or Iraq and fight their way to Iran or be packed in ships and sent on a very long and exposed voyage through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea.

That and any planning for an invasion of Iraq would involve pre-positioning hundreds of thousands of troops, not thousands of troops (unless no one in the Pentagon learned a damn thing from the invasion of Iraq).

OG is right. Troops in Israel is not the slightest bit likely to be a precursor to an invasion of Iran.

When there start being scattered, vociferously-denied reports of US troops massing in southwestern Afghanistan, it's time to worry.

Worst case scenario it's because they think Iran is finally about to snap and attack Israel and they want a bunch of dead Americans to show on the news so that it's politically impossible for anyone to oppose going to war with Iran.

Or because Israel is about to snap and attack Iran and they think that Iran won't counterattack to avoid the above scenario.

So, basically, you're thinking they're human shields?

Malor wrote:

So, basically, you're thinking they're human shields?

That or human propaganda posters, but I said that was worst case.

Most likely motivation? Obama's fictional lack of support for Israel has already been an election issue, and that will be inflamed once the Republican Candidate has been chosen. This is a nice piece of ammunition to use against that claim.

I also don't really think that human shields is a controversial use of soldiers, it's really the same thing we've done in South Korea and Taiwan. They don't only materially protect the nation from material attacks from North Korea and China respectively, but they communicate that an assault on those nations will be viewed as a casus belli more strongly and directly than treaties do. The fact that it increases the chance of dead soldiers which act as an even more powerful casus belli is mostly immaterial. However in this case, when much of the public is incredibly unwilling to get involved in the third land war in Asia in eleven years then the difference in casus belli between "Ally Attacked" and "US Soldiers dead" may be a very important one.

Um, guys? I got to thinking, and checked a map.

Didn't anyone notice that Israel shares a border with Syria?

Malor wrote:

Um, guys? I got to thinking, and checked a map.

Didn't anyone notice that Israel shares a border with Syria?

Yes, but we've long established that we aren't going to get involved with Syria like we did with Libya. We've left that to the Arab League.

If the American troops in Israel act as badly as the troops at Camp Casey in Korea historically have, the larger problem might be Israeli support for America.

Isn't this topic about Iran . We don't have a Syrian topic active even though Assad's killing machine probably broke the 20 dead/day average . Israel getting blown up to bits is just a small side effect of the war. I heard on the news that the Iranians tried to assassinate the Israeli ambassador in Azerbaijan but it might also be unrelated to the topic.

All I know that's going on now is a big oil embargo while the Saudis announce they'll supply the shortage. The oil Embargo would only start in July which gives the Iranian time to complete their nuclear weapon program. The people who talked on the news said that the Europeans started to feel our paranoia about a nuclear Iran which Israel isn't willing to accept because Iran is crazy enough to use nukes and a nuclear Iran it will start a nuclear arms race in the middle east.

Don't worry about your soldiers I'm sure they'll have fun in Israel and return home safely.

Niseg wrote:

The people who talked on the news said that the Europeans started to feel our paranoia about a nuclear Iran which Israel isn't willing to accept because Iran is crazy enough to use nukes and a nuclear Iran it will start a nuclear arms race in the middle east.

I have never understood the belief that Iran would use a nuclear weapon once it was able to do so. I understand that you believe them to be religious zealots (I see Israel as being similar in this regard) but there is no up side to actually using a nuclear weapon that I can see and there is no logical reason to believe that a sovereign nation like Iran is willing to sacrifice everything by using a nuclear weapon regardless of whatever saber-rattling may have occurred. It would be pure suicide and contrary to what some believe the Iranian leadership isn't stupid nor does it have a death wish. Extremism doesn't play well with politics and those in power generally do everything they can to stay in power. Does not compute.

PissedYeti wrote:
Niseg wrote:

The people who talked on the news said that the Europeans started to feel our paranoia about a nuclear Iran which Israel isn't willing to accept because Iran is crazy enough to use nukes and a nuclear Iran it will start a nuclear arms race in the middle east.

I have never understood the belief that Iran would use a nuclear weapon once it was able to do so. I understand that you believe them to be religious zealots (I see Israel as being similar in this regard) but there is no up side to actually using a nuclear weapon that I can see and there is no logical reason to believe that a sovereign nation like Iran is willing to sacrifice everything by using a nuclear weapon regardless of whatever saber-rattling may have occurred. It would be pure suicide and contrary to what some believe the Iranian leadership isn't stupid nor does it have a death wish. Extremism doesn't play well with politics and those in power generally do everything they can to stay in power. Does not compute.

MAD is in play here, and everyone knows it. They're trying to sell it as that, so that Iran can't use that as a threat. Headaches do poorly with communicating, but that might be clear enough...

What's really at play here is that a nuclear armed Iran would effectively remove the threat of invasion off the table and make them, effectively, a natural regional hegemon. This is, at least in my estimation, the natural lay of things anyway and has only not been the case recently because of extraordinary (and extraordinarily misguided) efforts on America's part to prevent it.

I saw a comment on MeFi that a lot of this posturing is to prevent the rise of a China-Iran alliance; China has the manufacturing prowess and the raw resources, Iran has the energy to turn them into stuff. The fear is, apparently, a marriage much like the US-Saudi relationship, and they're doing everything they possibly can to disrupt it.