The Iran War

Malor wrote:

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.

Wait, but isn't the way you disrupt that relationship to make diplomatic overtures and make Iran your own friend? What they are doing right now is EXACTLY the opposite thing they should be doing. They've already set it up so that Iran is forced to develop closer ties to China because they are one of the few places left to sell oil to.

That's like saying that they want to avoid Cuba and the Soviet Union becoming friends, so they are going to end all trade with the democratic world from Cuba.

Unless you profit from perpetual war then the strategy makes perfect sense. Peace and stability don't help weapon sales.

PissedYeti wrote:

Unless you profit from perpetual war then the strategy makes perfect sense. Peace and stability don't help weapon sales.

Halbech?

Reason has a pretty good post up today about which way the weather vane points.

PissedYeti wrote:

Unless you profit from perpetual war then the strategy makes perfect sense. Peace and stability don't help weapon sales.

Also note that the American empire currently has an "enemy gap". Bin Laden is dead, and terrorists in general have turned out to be a paper housecat as a dire threat to the American way of life. An enemy is needed to unite the people against an outside threat, and Iran is convenient as well as already embedded in the American psyche because of the hostage crisis.

I've read on the news and heard on the radio that The US said it's conventional bunker busters won't be able to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities. Maybe it's time to reassemble the B53s(9MT nuclear bunker buster) .

Or, hey, how about you guys don't shoot first. Again.

If you launch nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, even one that you're claiming is trying to develop nukes, I think the entire world, except the US, will stop trading with you. And while it's not technically legal for US citizens to boycott Israel, I imagine many of them would do so anyway.

Malor wrote:

And while it's not technically legal for US citizens to boycott Israel, I imagine many of them would do so anyway.

Wait, what?

Illegal For US Firms To Boycott Israel - Up To 10 Years Prison

The antiboycott provisions of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) apply to all "U.S. persons," defined to include individuals and companies located in the United States and their foreign affiliates. These persons are subject to the law when their activities relate to the sale, purchase, or transfer of goods or services (including information) within the United States or between the U.S. and a foreign country. This covers U.S. exports and imports, financing, forwarding and shipping, and certain other transactions that may take place wholly offshore.

Generally, the TRA applies to all U.S. taxpayers (and their related companies).

[long snip]

What do the Laws Prohibit?

Conduct that may be penalized under the TRA and/or prohibited under the EAR includes:

Agreements to refuse or actual refusal to do business with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies.

So you can't boycott Israel. If you do, you can be put in prison.

This country is so ridiculous.

Malor wrote:

Illegal For US Firms To Boycott Israel - Up To 10 Years Prison

The antiboycott provisions of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) apply to all "U.S. persons," defined to include individuals and companies located in the United States and their foreign affiliates. These persons are subject to the law when their activities relate to the sale, purchase, or transfer of goods or services (including information) within the United States or between the U.S. and a foreign country. This covers U.S. exports and imports, financing, forwarding and shipping, and certain other transactions that may take place wholly offshore.

Generally, the TRA applies to all U.S. taxpayers (and their related companies).

[long snip]

What do the Laws Prohibit?

Conduct that may be penalized under the TRA and/or prohibited under the EAR includes:

Agreements to refuse or actual refusal to do business with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies.

So you can't boycott Israel. If you do, you can be put in prison.

Does this apply to any other country in the world? Is this just a Jewish thing?

Paleocon wrote:

Does this apply to any other country in the world? Is this just a Jewish thing?

The source Malor's link uses is outdated, but I found the document it references. It looks like it applies to any country, though there are a lot of supplements dealing specifically with Israel and the Middle East, and was probably written specifically to deal with other countries boycotting Israel. There's a lot of legalese, but the gist I get from it is that primarily a set of rules for how to do business with countries that have boycotted one another. It looks like it's intended to prevent businesses and people from participating in boycotts other countries have, unless the US has an agreement with one of the countries, but it's vaguely written enough so it could easily be applied to a private citizen who won't buy goods marked "Made in Country X" on principle. There are a lot of examples of what constitutes a "prohibited boycott" and exceptions. A basic one is that it's prohibited for a US person (or business) to refuse to deal with country X because country y is boycotting them, and you have offices in country y.

So it would be more accurate to say that as long as any country in the world is boycotting Israel, and the US is not boycotting Israel, then no US citizen can boycott Israel. The actual statute doesn't say 'Israel', but at least to my (failing, inexact) memory, Israel is the only state that this has ever applied to.

Based on Stengah's explanation, the prosecution would be on the spot for proving that you were doing it [em]because[/em] the foreign country was boycotting Israel. (Or some other foreign nation that some other nation is boycotting.) Motivation matters, which makes it pretty much impossible to prove unless you said somewhere "I am totally doing this because country X is" or the like. In the absence of that, the prosecution would probably have to work to establish a pattern of acting in the interest of country X, or a serious interest in the goodwill of country X. (So a company that does business in country X and chooses to boycott Israel is immediately suspect. An immigrant from country X might be somewhat suspect, but I would expect that the presumed fondness for country X's policies would have to be only one piece of a compelling argument for an individual's motivations.)

An individual with no actual ties to or business interests in a foreign nation would be pretty much free to say "No, I'm doing this as a matter of conscience", and there's really no way the prosecution could show otherwise.

If a business owner wished to do things for a similar reason of conscience, I believe that they could establish their reasons by explicitly stating them and then boycotting nations that are boycotting Israel as well. That would be a pretty convincing demonstration that you're not doing it in order to gain an advantage doing business in those nations. (Although an argument could be made that it's for expected [em]future[/em] benefit, that would again take a lot of compelling evidence to prove.)

Malor wrote:

So it would be more accurate to say that as long as any country in the world is boycotting Israel, and the US is not boycotting Israel, then no US citizen can boycott Israel. The actual statute doesn't say 'Israel', but at least to my (failing, inexact) memory, Israel is the only state that this has ever applied to.

Like Hypatian said, my take on it is that it's intended to prevent businesses from complying with boycott requirements when operating in other countries. I have no doubt that it was made for, and only ever been applied to, Israel, but it's written so it could apply to any situation.

A link to the relevant section

10) This prohibition, like all others, applies only with respect to a United States person's activities in the interstate or foreign commerce of the United States and only when such activities are undertaken with intent to comply with, further, or support an unsanctioned foreign boycott.

I'm a little confused.

So, if my company does, say a brisk business of $10 million/year selling Personna double edged razor blades (made in Israel) and I decide to switch suppliers to Shark (made in Egypt) because I disagree with Israel's treatment of Palestinians, I'm okay. But if I do it because Syria is boycotting Israel, I'm in trouble. Is that the gist of it?

Paleocon wrote:

I'm a little confused.

So, if my company does, say a brisk business of $10 million/year selling Personna double edged razor blades (made in Israel) and I decide to switch suppliers to Shark (made in Egypt) because I disagree with Israel's treatment of Palestinians, I'm okay. But if I do it because Syria is boycotting Israel, I'm in trouble. Is that the gist of it?

I think so. The trouble comes when you are thinking about switching companies, then someone kindly informs you that if you do so you will be investigated and charged with breaking this law, so you stick with Israel to avoid having to prove your innocence in court.

Malor wrote:

If you launch nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, even one that you're claiming is trying to develop nukes, I think the entire world, except the US, will stop trading with you.

You should be happy to know I don't have nuclear weapons in my closet. The B53 is a US weapon that was recently dismantled. Israel will not attack Iran because it can at most cause a delay of about one year ( I think I saw that on the news). Iran having nuclear weapons is just a matter of time . According to a recent article on ynet.co.il the Saudis will try to get a bomb to after helping Pakistan fund the development of its nuclear program.

The IDF is mostly investing money in missile defense systems like Iron dome and David's Sling but those are just the first line of defense before a counter attack. Luckily uncle Sam is paying part of the bill but I bet they get a lot of control over the technology in return by regulating the Israeli weapon industry.

You guys should concentrate the topic on Iran I seriously doubt Israel would do anything about Iran . Iran isn't only Israel's problem .Israel is a tiny country which barely affect the world economy. The biggest problems are threat on the oil producers in the Mediterranean.

Iran is really far away from Israel so any war between the countries would be extremely limited . Our neighbors are also unstable enough that they got they hands full taking care of internal affairs to bother us . We can now build up forces for the next war in relative peace.

Only the superpowers can do something about Iran but they have been dragging their feet for years. A nuclear Iran would only mean they would have a few nuclear weapons and their effect would be limited . I don't think the can kill more than 100000 people with one bomb but in the future that might be an "acceptable loss".

Niseg wrote:

Israel will not attack Iran.

Oh thank goodness, for a moment there I was worried Israel would do something war mongering like assassinating civilians.

Niseg wrote:

Only the superpowers can do something about Iran but they have been dragging their feet for years. A nuclear Iran would only mean they would have a few nuclear weapons and their effect would be limited . I don't think the can kill more than 100000 people with one bomb but in the future that might be an "acceptable loss".

Why do you say things like this? This culture-baiting of people who are generally from a country that works against their own self-interests to support Israel.

Yonder wrote:

Oh thank goodness, for a moment there I was worried Israel would do something war mongering like assassinating civilians.

If you are talking about nuclear scientists there is no proof Israel was involved. There are plenty of foreign Intelligence agencies who stir up trouble in Iran. The only country I remember that recently admitted killing someone in cold blood was The USA that sent the Navy Seals to kill Bin Laden . The only assassination you might directly link Israel to is El Mabhuh and I read somewhere that the Mossad allegedly tried to capture him and not kill him(it's always better to capture).

DSGamer wrote:
Niseg wrote:

Only the superpowers can do something about Iran but they have been dragging their feet for years. A nuclear Iran would only mean they would have a few nuclear weapons and their effect would be limited . I don't think the can kill more than 100000 people with one bomb but in the future that might be an "acceptable loss".

Why do you say things like this? This culture-baiting of people who are generally from a country that works against their own self-interests to support Israel.

I'm just doing the math. In WWII about 60+ million people died in various ways and from various weapons . There are plenty of ways to calculate how many people a nuclear bomb can kill and the results of killing people are about the same it doesn't matter in what way they are killed and how much time it took. You always get the same regretful result of dead people.

When the superpower weighs weather or not to attack Iran They have to look at the price in loss of life and none want to start at half a million so it's better to stop Iran before they pass the nuclear threshold . This is why Israel won't attack Iran - the cost is much higher than the benefits . In order to stop Iran's nuclear program Israel would have to use nuclear weapons (which it may or may not have I'm still doubtful and I'm Israeli) and it's very unlikely that would happen.

This is why we are concentrating on missile defense while most countries in our region are completely vulnerable to missile attacks. It won't be smart to shoot missiles at the only country that can intercept them . The response would be a legitimate counter attack that would be very costly to the attacking nation. It's better to attack countries who can't defend themselves.

You should be more worried about a nuclear Iran taking over small oil producers in the gulf putting a stranglehold on the world's oil supply. Like Avigdor Lieberman (extreme right warhawk ) said 3 years ago "Israel cannot resolve militarily the entire world's problem". Israel isn't going to attack Iran directly. All the articles about Israel attacking Iran are written in order to sell more newspapers.

Niseg wrote:

When the superpower weighs weather or not to attack Iran They have to look at the price in loss of life and none want to start at half a million so it's better to stop Iran before they pass the nuclear threshold.

Note: This response isn't just to Niseg, a lot of it (especially the nuclear generation parts) are just to the American politicians and people that are all fired up about Iran in general.

See the problem with your math there is that you are assuming that Iran wants a Nuke for military purposes. You have assigned "Iran gets Nuke" 500,000 deaths for, as far as I can tell, no discernible reason. If you make the assumption that Iran is trying to make a nuke, and make the assumption that Iran will use such a nuke aggressively, then you are guaranteed to make unrealistic and hugely dickish foreign policy moves. In this case that "dickish" move is the decision to invade Iran and kill 499,999 people. Under the logic that you have set out that makes sense, but if you step back and consider the actual situation, perhaps using some empathy and looking at it from Iran's view instead of assigning Darth Vader and Sauron the part of Iran in your mental games, you may come to the conclusion that murdering 499,999 Iranians isn't actually the right thing to do in this scenario.

For example, if you look at the formula as En * Ea * Ek, where En is the chance they will produce a nuke if left to their own devices, Ea is the chance that they will attack someone with that nuke if left to their own devices, and Ek is the Expected death toll of such an attack, then the values change. For example if those numbers are .5 * .001 * 500000 then you are only "allowed" to murder 250 Iranians before you are officially the bad guy!

But wait, there is more! Lets make the crazy assumption that unprovoked military actions against a country increase the chance for open hostilities between those two countries. Lets model this by saying that for every assassination or similar action the chance that a nuke is fired in defense increases. Now the formula becomes En * (Ea + Ed) * Ek. We will arbitrarily say that every assassinated scientist increases Ed by .001.

So now for every real civilian Israel/US assassinates they have killed 1 real person and 250 math people. The correct response to this is to say "hey, maybe we have found the single situation in which unprovoked hostility doesn't actually solve all of our problems." What I fear, however is that some agency will be crunching these numbers and say.
"Ok, we are allowed to kill 250 people while still being in the clear."
"Alright, we assassinated someone, so 249 left?"
"Oh uh, the Iranians are looking angrier, looks like we now have 999 kills left."
"Alright, well I killed another Iranian, are things looking more peaceful now?"
"Hmm, you'd think they would, but there are actually 1250 expected future deaths instead of 100."
"Hmm, so we're allowed to kill 1248 now. I think I'll try killing more than one of them at a time, that's probably going to be better."

"Now Yonder," you are saying, "certainly you realize this is ridiculous, this is Iran we are talking about. There is obviously a 100% chance that they are trying to make a Nuke, and a 100% chance they will attack someone with it." Perhaps, but lets temper our enthusiasm a little bit. Now I've seen a lot of allegations being thrown around, but nothing hard. No "oh yeah we found 40% enriched Uranium when nuclear power plants only need 20%" or anything close to that. Now I was chomping at the bit to invade Iraq with the worst of them, but then it turned out that whole thing was a farce. So I'm a lot more critical and skeptical about my government trying to whip me into a frenzy for a second time.

Additionally, nuclear power plants make perfect sense to me. I honestly think they are the best power generation option we have, so when a new country decides to get into that it doesn't instantly strike me as ominous. I can see why it would be uncomfortable to consider why an oil producing country would choose 'not-oil' to power their nation, our entire economy is based on ignoring the fact that oil will be harder to find after 30 years, so when another country forces us to examine that we feel weird and unsettled. If it makes you feel better, however, you can just decide that they have made the drug-dealer choice of not indulging in their own product.

But lets say that they want a nuke, despite the lack of evidence, from there the assumption that they want to use it offensively is such a huge leap that I honestly think I was being really generous by labeling it .001. Just from looking at recent history, at Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and North Korea, you can see that the true strength of a nuclear weapon is not on the offense, but in their tremendous defensive value. I don't believe that a country with a nuclear weapon has ever been attacked.

If Iran did use a nuke offensively, would it be anything other than the end of their regime? A nation which signed the Nuclear Proliferation Act using a nuclear weapon against another country would instantly make Iran a greater global pariah than any other country. All diplomatic and political roadblocks to the US, and the rest of the first world, invading Iran and seizing their weapons would instantly evaporate, and the government would cease to exist within months.

Niseg wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
Niseg wrote:

Only the superpowers can do something about Iran but they have been dragging their feet for years. A nuclear Iran would only mean they would have a few nuclear weapons and their effect would be limited . I don't think the can kill more than 100000 people with one bomb but in the future that might be an "acceptable loss".

Why do you say things like this? This culture-baiting of people who are generally from a country that works against their own self-interests to support Israel.

I'm just doing the math. In WWII about 60+ million people died in various ways and from various weapons . There are plenty of ways to calculate how many people a nuclear bomb can kill and the results of killing people are about the same it doesn't matter in what way they are killed and how much time it took. You always get the same regretful result of dead people.

No. You missed my point. The way I read what you wrote is that 100,000 dead Israelis might be an "acceptable loss" to superpowers. i.e. The US. That's how I read that. How did you intend it? Because it sure sounded like you were doing your usual thing where you take a leak on how the US treats Israel in spite of how much the US supports Israel against their own interests.

I think foreign affairs is less about statistics and more about scenarios . It's more of going through a price list and comparing the price and the reward. The prices are usually measured in dollars and human life and the reward are measured in the delay on the Iranian nuclear program. There is no real limit on the number of casualties each side must pay "all the options are on the table".

The list includes everything from killing certain people , destroying facilities , economic and political sanction and different scenario of war. The sanctions currently offer very little rewards but they do help. Iran has to perform extra effort to evade sanctions and import equipment for its nuclear program. The recent Oil Embargo and Bank blacklist will also hurt the Iranian ability to get funding for their nuclear program. The embargo isn't that effective because there are still plenty of countries filling the Iranians' pockets with foreign currency.

The embargo will be extremely expensive to all economies but none would get killed over it. It might be designed to provoke an Iranian response like a blockade the Strait of Hormuz which the Iranians won't do even though they threatened it because it would immediately be seen as an act of war by Europe and USA and then war would be a matter of time.

Killing scientist working on the nuclear program may directly hurt the Iranians progress but it costs human lives and can be risky to the executors. The rewards are relatively high compared to the investment and the limited amount of retaliation Iran can do after those attacks.

Going to war with Iran is very expensive and it's prices unpredictable. A limited attack of the nuclear program may only delay Iran for a year or two and the Iranian retaliation can be very expensive and can escalate to a full scale war.

I think the world is generally working to destabilize the Iranian government by isolating it and making its people suffer enough so they revolt. The Iranian people can't really go far because their regime is more brutal as than the Syrian one (Syria is secular and people has some freedom of religion) .

My guess is that when Assad falls (it's a matter of time) things will start going crazy in Iran. With Assad gone there would be one less Shia ran country in the middle east which is one less ally for Iran . It would also make it harder for the Iranians to equip Hezbollah which is one of their most active military forces.

I'm not worried about an attack any time soon but the assassination business will surely continue and if you want to pin it on the Mossad you should get some proof though it's not recommended to mess with foreign intelligence agencies

Niseg wrote:

The prices are usually measured in dollars and human life and the reward are measured in the delay on the Iranian nuclear program.

Can you explain how delaying the nuclear program is a reward? You even said yesterday that Israel wouldn't do anything to stop Iran because there was no point since Iran getting a nuke was a foregone conclusion. Even if you assume a nuclear weapon is being created, which I dispute, why is a dead scientist and a nuke in April better than a nuke in January.

It's not, unless you think Iran would use such a nuke immediately, and I've explained why that assumption is even more far-fetched.

Niseg wrote:

If you are talking about nuclear scientists there is no proof Israel was involved. There are plenty of foreign Intelligence agencies who stir up trouble in Iran. The only country I remember that recently admitted killing someone in cold blood was The USA that sent the Navy Seals to kill Bin Laden .

Please. Israel did it. Its operational fingerprints are all over it.

Notice that when we killed Bin Laden we didn't sneak up and strap a bomb to the car he was in. No, we came in with stealth helicopters and a team of special forces.

The only country with a big desire to disrupt Iran's nuclear program and a history of similar assassinations is Israel.

Niseg wrote:

This is why we are concentrating on missile defense while most countries in our region are completely vulnerable to missile attacks. It won't be smart to shoot missiles at the only country that can intercept them . The response would be a legitimate counter attack that would be very costly to the attacking nation. It's better to attack countries who can't defend themselves.

Two things. One, no missile defense system really works 100%. Just because you have your version of a Star Wars program doesn't mean it's actually going to work (ours didn't) and it certainly won't work 100%. Given the small size of Israel and it's population concentration you need it to work 100%.

Two, who says an Iranian nuke (if it ever came to that) would come atop a missile? You now have an Egypt to the south that just elected a ton of Islamists. What do you think the odds of them turning their eyes and letting a nuke move through the tunnels into the Gaza Strip and elsewhere?

Niseg wrote:

Like Avigdor Lieberman (extreme right warhawk ) said 3 years ago "Israel cannot resolve militarily the entire world's problem". Israel isn't going to attack Iran directly. All the articles about Israel attacking Iran are written in order to sell more newspapers.

So Israel can't resolve the problem with conventional military force and it won't attack Iran directly. Are you still going to insist that it's not killing Iranian scientists because that seems to be the only response Israel has left in its kit bag?

I'm beginning to think that Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be a good thing for the Middle East. It would keep us from doing stupid things like invading countries and it would force Israel to realize there are very serious consequences to its actions.

DSGamer wrote:

The way I read what you wrote is that 100,000 dead Israelis might be an "acceptable loss" to superpowers. i.e. The US. That's how I read that. How did you intend it? Because it sure sounded like you were doing your usual thing where you take a leak on how the US treats Israel in spite of how much the US supports Israel against their own interests.

I never said 100000 Israelis . People are people and the Iranians may chose to retaliate against any country in the range of its missiles. They won't waste a nuke on Israel which can intercept their missiles and can probobly tell the difference between the conventional ones and nuclear ones. Saudi Arabia would be a better target. They can launch artillery rockets full of VX gas or stuff like that from Lebanon. Even though Israel is somewhat ready for a chemical attack there would be plenty of casualties in Israel . The casualties in Lebanon may also reach very high numbers because the military would retaliate with everything it got simultaneously with very little warning.

If you think The US is supporting Israel too much you should vote for Ron Paul He's generally against the US sticking its nose into other countries' business. I though this thread was about Iran and not about US-Israel relations ;). The US seem to be angry at Iran and Israeli paranoia might not be the only reason .

OG_slinger wrote:

Please. Israel did it. Its operational fingerprints are all over it.

Notice that when we killed Bin Laden we didn't sneak up and strap a bomb to the car he was in. No, we came in with stealth helicopters and a team of special forces.

The only country with a big desire to disrupt Iran's nuclear program and a history of similar assassinations is Israel.

Strapping a bomb to a car is kind of a standard operation world wide. Many crime syndicate do that too. It's a simple way to get someone killed. You can't really say it's a "fingerprint operation" because the Mossad is generally known to be unexpected and that it changes its MO continuously. There were many bombed cars in Iran so it's unlikely it's the Mossad. There are a few countries who can provide the intelligence and the resources to conduct this kind of operation. It's not really that high tech.

The fact the the US went to kill Bin Laden with guns blazing can mean one of two things . Either the US is incredibly stupid or they wanted to capture him alive. Maybe American soldiers are expendable. In my country if one soldier dies in action it's a national day of mourning (at least according to the news paper).

I generally don't disagree with you on the other things. Iran can now unleash a conventional strike to kill half the population of Israel. The Iranian don't need nuclear bombs to do it. The nukes would only be used to secure the regime and take over neighboring Oil rich countries. The missile defense only gives a second strike capability to deter the other side from attacking first.Missile defense technology also give us something to sell our neighbors who are worried about Iran (money makes the world go round). I also agree the US sticks its nose into other countries' business more than it should, but recent events suggests that China and Russia are in that business too.

I prefer the US as an ally because it has similar values as Israel while the Russian and Chinese don't value human life as much. I still heard things like "Israel should strengthen its relations with China. We are generally neutral in the Syrian riots but the loss of life is regrettable . All we are worried about is when we'll get attacked next and was we can minimize its effect. This is why Israel is in a frenzy against Iranian nukes while the Saudi prefer to be less vocal about it.We got gas masks but not nuclear bomb shelters but someone said on the radio the regular shelters can offer some protection against a nuclear explosion.

Israel isn't the only country worried about Iran but we've been on their "to kill" list for a few decades so we might be more vocal about it.

Niseg wrote:

I though this thread was about Iran and not about US-Israel relations ;).

It's impossible to adequately discuss Iran-US relations without also covering Israel-US relations.

Niseg wrote:

The US has similar values as Israel

I agree completely. I don't think that remarks positively on the US or Israel though.

Niseg wrote:

Strapping a bomb to a car is kind of a standard operation world wide. Many crime syndicate do that too. It's a simple way to get someone killed. You can't really say it's a "fingerprint operation" because the Mossad is generally known to be unexpected and that it changes its MO continuously. There were many bombed cars in Iran so it's unlikely it's the Mossad. There are a few countries who can provide the intelligence and the resources to conduct this kind of operation. It's not really that high tech.

Actually the Mossad has a long history of killing people with car bombs. And when they can't get close enough for a car bomb, their preferred method to kill someone is to blow up their car with missiles fired from a helicopter.

You're right that there are a few countries who have the intelligence and resources to conduct that kind of operation. Unfortunately, the US isn't one of them. On the intelligence side we prefer to invest in shiny high-tech machines that go "ping" instead of human assets. We barely have enough intelligence agents that speak Persian and we certainly don't have a stable of Persian-speaking trained killers who could actually get close enough to plant a bomb.

Niseg wrote:

The fact the the US went to kill Bin Laden with guns blazing can mean one of two things . Either the US is incredibly stupid or they wanted to capture him alive. Maybe American soldiers are expendable. In my country if one soldier dies in action it's a national day of mourning (at least according to the news paper).

Or it meant that we really didn't know if the target was Bin Laden or not and wanted actual proof. For anyone else we would have used our tried and true method for killing people in Pakistan: Hellfire missiles fired from a Predator drone.

Niseg wrote:

I generally don't disagree with you on the other things. Iran can now unleash a conventional strike to kill half the population of Israel. The Iranian don't need nuclear bombs to do it. The nukes would only be used to secure the regime and take over neighboring Oil rich countries. The missile defense only gives a second strike capability to deter the other side from attacking first.Missile defense technology also give us something to sell our neighbors who are worried about Iran (money makes the world go round). I also agree the US sticks its nose into other countries' business more than it should, but recent events suggests that China and Russia are in that business too.

I'm really puzzled by your insistence that Iran's ultimate goal is to somehow invade and occupy the Middle East. The last Iranians who pushed for regional dominance were the Sassanids and they were just trying to kick out the Romans. There's simply no evidence that Iran wants to invade Kuwait, Iraq, or any other country.

And, no, your missile defense system won't give you a second strike capability. Flight time for a ballistic missile from Iran to Israel would be in the realm of 10 minutes. Since Israel doesn't have dedicated satellite coverage of Iran to detect missile launches that means they'll only be able to detect that they're under attack as Iranian missiles tip over and begin their descent. Of course, that is just about the same time your missile defense systems actually have to fire...and that's only if said untested, highly complex missile systems can actually see through all the garbage and decoys Iran would likely loft up at the same time. To put it simply half of Israel would be blowing up by the time the military and government figured out what was going on.

All Israel has to contribute to this little regional production of MAD is three German-made submarines who can, at best, fire off a handful of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. And that's only if they're within 1,500 km of Iran. Of course, that puts them in squarely in the very shallow water of the Gulf where they can be easily detected and where Iran has been busy bolstering it's ASW capabilities.

The best case scenario if things go nuclear is that Israeli cruise missiles will kill a bunch of Iranians a few hours after all of Israel is wiped off of the map.

Niseg wrote:

I prefer the US as an ally because it has similar values as Israel while the Russian and Chinese don't value human life as much. I still heard things like "Israel should strengthen its relations with China. We are generally neutral in the Syrian riots but the loss of life is regrettable . All we are worried about is when we'll get attacked next and was we can minimize its effect. This is why Israel is in a frenzy against Iranian nukes while the Saudi prefer to be less vocal about it.We got gas masks but not nuclear bomb shelters but someone said on the radio the regular shelters can offer some protection against a nuclear explosion.

Seriously, go make friends with the Chinese and Russians. The only reason our government still counts Israel as an ally is because of a sh*tload of lobbyists and the religious idiots who think that the Third Temple has to be rebuilt before Jebus can return.

Niseg wrote:

Israel isn't the only country worried about Iran but we've been on their "to kill" list for a few decades so we might be more vocal about it.

Salmon Rushdie's been on that same list for 23 years. The Iranians must really suck at killing people.