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[justinlee999]

There's a LOT of people here in Malaysia who just want to hate someone - Israel, the USA. Around 30 years ago it was the UK, South Africa.

I think some people just have a lot of hate and feel the need to direct it somewhere. I'm sure that even if the USA managed to completely settle their differences with the middle east, people would just focus it on others. Like China. Or Cuba. Or Latin America. Or Japan. Or France. Or Canada. Or Australia.

Hahahahaha, you're from Malaysia too? I have been noticing an awful lot of pastors visiting Malaysia saying that God will lead Israel to victory and they have a super-secret-awesome-weapon.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

keep me posted

[Il Palazzo]

This seems relevant:

Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon
TEHRAN—Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America's uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th nuclear weapon. "Our intelligence estimates indicate that, if it is allowed to progress with its aggressive nuclear program, the United States may soon possess its 8,500th atomic weapon capable of reaching Iran," said Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, adding that Americans have the fuel, the facilities, and "everything they need" to manufacture even more weapons-grade fissile material. "Obviously, the prospect of this happening is very distressing to Iran and all countries like Iran. After all, the United States is a volatile nation that's proven it needs little provocation to attack anyone anywhere in the world whom it perceives to be a threat." Iranian intelligence experts also warned of the very real, and very frightening, possibility of the U.S. providing weapons and resources to a rogue third-party state such as Israel.

[scriver]

Posting to watch.

[Loud Whispers]

Ok, the nuclear argument is just really terrible.

Oh yes, lets invade countries suspected of building nukes, and completely ignore the ones who have them. DPRK.

[GlyphGryph]

Of course, that's the EXACT reason they undoubtedly want themselves a nuke.

[Bouchart]

Yeah, if the U.S. bombs Iran, China and Russia will intervene on their behalf and it will start WW3.  Not going to happen.  Also Obama doesn't want to risk $9/gal gasoline in an election year.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No they won't. China loves US business, and while they play a tough game the fact of the matter is that they don't want to anger the US to the point where it adversely effects them.

Russia is just using Iran as a pawn to antagonize the US by proxy, they don't actually care what happens to them.

[nenjin]

No they won't. China loves US business, and while they play a tough game the fact of the matter is that they don't want to anger the US to the point where it adversely effects them.

Russia is just using Iran as a pawn to antagonize the US by proxy, they don't actually care what happens to them.

Well....I'm sure Russia would care if America planted its boot firmly in the middle of Persia. They don't care about the welfare of the Iranian state, so in that sense you're right. But both China and Russia are are taking decidedly cold war views about U.S. action in Iran.

[Zangi]

I would venture to say that ALL gov'ts don't care about the people or gov't of other countries...   If it serves their purpose, they will talk about or act upon 'human rights violations'.  Look at Libya versus Syria and the installed Dictators in history for example...
Noone liked Gaddafi and he was also easy to bomb away while letting the rebels do the fighting and dying.  Syria, not hated as much as Gaddafi, the Syrian army is much harder to bomb away... and the rebels... well ain't as much fighting going on...

Otherwise, it can be used for useless rhetoric....

[RedKing]

Russia's interest is strategic and rational. You already have an American footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan (both of which border Russian clients states that are former SSRs). Their counterbalance to that is to have a strongly anti-American power in the middle of those two. If the US were to try and oust the regime and install a pro-American government (which would not be viewed all that favorably by the vast majority of Iranians, even pro-democracy ones), Russia might be compelled to intervene somehow. I think it'd be short of total war though.

China....I don't see them getting involved unless Russia had already amped up the level of conflict. Iran isn't their sphere of concern, and China lacks the power projection to really do anything outside of mainland East Asia. Any conflict with Beijing would be mostly economic or some kind of proxy war in Africa (although there's really no key US allies in Africa, so it wouldn't be much of a war).

[monk12]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The pro-Israel lobby.

I'm going to have to dispute that. Israel has been a US ally in the region since it was founded. They need no lobby to maintain political support in the US.

Anyway, the Iran issue is, like most issues in geopolitics, very complex. I'll try to see if I can quantify this.

Reason #1: History

It all starts at Operation Ajax. The CIA and M16 collaborated in backing anti-communist rebels in Iran, who overthrew their democratically elected government and installed the Shah's authoritarian and absolute (but most importantly, anti-USSR and pro-USA) government. Unfortunately, the Shah was not that good of a ruler, as dictators often are. Eventually, the exiled but popular Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran and, well... you probably know the rest of that story.

Operation Ajax told an entire generation of Iranians what they were to expect from the West: The overthrow of democratically elected leaders and the exploration of their people if it served the West's greater interests in dealing with the spread of communism. This bad impression on an entire people's cultural identity would boil over years later and lead the Iranians to the theocratic government they have today.

Not a good start.

Reason #2: Iran's Allies

Iran and North Korea are on good terms. Not the best thing for ever reconciling with the United States, given that Americans generally despise the governments of both nations. Oddly enough, this antipathy generally does not extend to the actual people of the nations in question in both cases. The North Koreans are just kind of sad in how badly things are for them, and polling data shows that Iranians and Americans both highly disapprove of each others governments....but not much else.

The other, much larger problem with Iran's allies is the relationship between Iran and Russia. Putin loves trying to expand his power base on the world market, and causing problems for the USA with nations that are openly hostile to us is a golden opportunity to him. It should be little surprise that he has done everything in his power to use his anti-west stance to help strengthen Iran so it will give the US even more problems.

Reason #3: Iran's Enemies

Of course, the big one is that for the moment, the United States and Iran have no official diplomatic ties and are basically in a mini-Cold War with each other. That the US supports and has always supported Israel, which Iran constantly calls "Zionist occupied territories" probably speaks for itself. There's also the interesting dynamic that Saudi Arabia opposes Iran because it is the heartland of Shia Islam, and if there's anything Saudi Arabia can't stand it's the continued existence of Shia Islam. Saudi Arabia also gets a lot of business from the US, which helps make some clearly defined lines as to whom is on who's side in this tangled web of relationships.

The most interesting thing about that is that it would technically put Saudi Arabia and Israel on the same side if war breaks out against Iran. Talk about surreal.

Reason #4: Joining the Nuclear Club

Israel and Iran both technically do not have any recognized nuclear weapons. That Israel "does not have nukes" is the most openly silly and absolutely devious concepts on the geopolitical stage. It lets Israel dodge the pesky restrictions imposed by actually owning nuclear weapons while still holding nuclear weapons and letting everyone in the region know it. Iran is a bit more tricky. Is their program to generate power alone or is it to make a nuke? I don't think I can tell you. There is enough conflicting data on this subject that we do not have a straight answer.

All we do know is that Mossad seems rather determined to explode the hell out of anyone in Iran who is trying to advance their nuclear program, whether it exists for peace or for war.

Oh, and remember how I mentioned that Israel loves letting everyone know that they have nukes? The Samson Option (regional mutually assured destruction, even if Israel is the only one who ever launches) was probably intentionally leaked by Israel themselves to keep the rest of the region off of their backs. In light of this existing, Iran having nukes opens the door to Bad Things happening to Earth.


So there you have it. The situation between Iran and Israel is heating up more and more every day, and Israel wants to know that the US will back them if a hot war breaks out. Meanwhile, there are plenty of Americans who would be just fine with seeing Iran's government go down in flames. There are some bad potentials in all of this, and the only way out of it that won't end in widespread violence is a peaceful democratic revolution in Iran, and soon. I don't see that as very likely, but it's all we've got.

Basically that right there, and if that reminds you of the entangling alliances that led to WWI, it should. The big difference being, of course, that this time many of the players have nukes/are actively pursuing nukes, which has the potential to make this war rather... abrupt. Hence why this is a very nervous situation for all involved.

I highly doubt that either the US OR Iran would be the ones to start this dance- The US has enough on its plate right now, and the status quo will likely result in a nuclear Iran, but the bad blood between Iran/US is nothing compared to Iran/Israel. Israel has the most to lose if Iran goes nuclear, which conversely means they have the most to gain by breaking the status quo, likely through war.

I don't know. After spending the past two hours wiki-walking from the link alway gave me, I still don't see much reason for americans to feel justified destroying iran. Attempting to be impartial, it does seems like mistakes have been made on both sides...but on the balance it looks to me like the iranians have more reason to be unhappy with us than we do with them.

...

Granted, the events of september 11, 2001 demonstrate that plenty of americans are all too happy to go invading entire countries and killing lots of people in retribution for the actions of a very small number of individuals...but overall I come away wondering if a lot of the dislike of Iran comes basically from guilt. It's pretty much either that, or identification with Israel.

Even if we selectively look at only the facts that make Iran look bad, I don't see justification for the emotional charge I see in some people I talk to, or for the burning desire to...as some people phrase it "nuke them to glass and repave their country into a giant parking lot." I've seriously spoken to people who feel that strongly about it and then get angry at me for having to audacity to ask why they feel that way.

Firstly, I'm going to say I don't know where you live, but it sounds like a rather hateful place and I'm glad I don't live there. I hail from Upstate New York, more specifically a rural, heavily conservative but largely reasonable community, so that's the background I have for the following.

The emotional "pro-war" sentiment (ranging in flavor from "topple theocratic regime" to "glass desert") does not spring from guilt, in my estimation, but fear. 9/11 was a very pointed lesson that made it patently obvious that there are a great many people in the wider world who do not like us- not just the stereotypical "stupid American pig-dogs" sense, but the "no seriously we will die to make sure you die" sense. Foreign policy of the last decade (Bush's Iraq/Afganistan, Obama's Libya) has been predicated on the theory of "if we hit them where they live they can't hit us here." Better to hit first than last, and that sentiment is only exacerbated when nukes get involved.

Knowing that Iran's feelings are justified doesn't particularly help if those feelings are still going to lead to an Iran who has the will and ability to use nuclear arms against the US, either directly or through proxies like radical terrorist groups. All it does is reinforce the feeling that reconciliation is impossible, which directly leads to "if it's war they want it's war they'll get."

As far as historical precedent goes, there are only three former rogue states- Afganistan, Iraq, and Libya. Of those, Libya is the only one where "drop bombs on it" wasn't the solution, as Gaddafi finally succumbed to international pressure. Gaddafi's eventual fate is hardly encouragement for Iran to follow the same course. And we still ended up dropping bombs on Gaddafi's forces.

[Virex]

I got a call today informing me that people are stockpiling food and water because Iran is going to use chemical weapons.  I asked why people thought that and I never got an answer, and I tried looking online, but I haven't found anything.  Are people just crazy?

Depends on where you live. Iran did deploy chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq wars, though not to the same extent as Iraq.

[Funk]

the odds are just as good  that thay use human waves of child soldiers, but im not stoking up on sweets and softdrinks.

[nenjin]

the odds are just as good  that thay use human waves of child soldiers, but im not stoking up on sweets and softdrinks.

In their defense, they were throwing child soldiers at Iraqi soldiers armed with the latest and greatest weapons the U.S. was willing to sell them. That's including tanks. They were facing a war of total annihilation at the hands of Saddam, that no one would stop, which wasn't just a sovereignty issue but a religious one as well.

I'm not condoning the tactic (nor the way it's symbolized by the regime today, with the Fountain of the Martyrs), but you should try and use a little perspective. Because if we're going to assume that the Iranian people aren't all psychopaths, that they're much like Americans in their modernity as many of us in this thread have said, then that's a low blow.

I mean, if you actually care, then read this. It's about as real as it gets.