What to do about Iran missle tests?

[gdeangel]

Anyone got good ideas (include do nothing)?

[kagetora]

Let China take care of it. US already ruined its reputation in Iraq

[muy_thaiguy]

Nuke em.

[militant]

At the risk of looking stupid, why would you do anything?

It has nothing to do with you if Iran to choose to test missles. I dont mean to offend you here, but I think people in the USA are paranoid about such things, even if iran were to use said missles on the USA, I think it was brought on by the USA. I am not that clever and rarley watch the news but it seems to me the USA and the UK deem themselves international peacekeepers, they seem to think it is alright to spalsh their military forces where ever they please sometimes when the situations had nothing to do with them in the first place, any trouble they bring to themselves in on their own heads; that is what I think anyway, but I am probably incorrect since I am rather iggnorant on current affairs, partly since I am a kid and have different things to worry about. >.>

[InkL0sed]

Nuke em.

The Final Solution.

[kagetora]

China and Russia need to step up to the plate and help the world.

[GabonX]

Let China take care of it. US already ruined its reputation in Iraq

Although we don't hear very much to give us this impression China and Iran are allies. China has helped Iran with it's nuclear program and in the war between Hezbollah (sp?) and Israel last summer it was discovered that China had supplied high tech missiles to Iran which were passed on to Hezbollah. There was also a comment made by a Chinese official a while back about how the two nations are "ancient trading partners." Our exchanges with both of these countries are relatively recent while they consider their relationship to be thousands of years old.

Don't expect China to back the US over Iran, and if and when the shit does hit the fan don't be surprised if you see an alliance containing (and exceeding) China, Iran, North Korea, Syria etc. All of these countries have been helping to arm one another for quite some time.

[GabonX]

China and Russia need to step up to the plate and help the world.

Don't hold your breath over Russia either.

[InkL0sed]

At the risk of looking stupid, why would you do anything?

It has nothing to do with you if Iran to choose to test missles. I dont mean to offend you here, but I think people in the USA are paranoid about such things, even if iran were to use said missles on the USA, I think it was brought on by the USA. I am not that clever and rarley watch the news but it seems to me the USA and the UK deem themselves international peacekeepers, they seem to think it is alright to spalsh their military forces where ever they please sometimes when the situations had nothing to do with them in the first place, any trouble they bring to themselves in on their own heads; that is what I think anyway, but I am probably incorrect since I am rather iggnorant on current affairs, partly since I am a kid and have different things to worry about. >.>

You are right that the US at least (not so sure about how the UK views itself) views itself as a kind of global police force. When I was honestly a little younger and more naive about such things I thought to myself that we had no right to do such things. I was probably also reacting directly to the Iraq war catastrophe. Don't get me wrong, I still think we should never have entered Iraq, and I don't think we should throw our military at everything that moves in the world.

But really the world does need a generally benign superpower like us to keep elements safe. It can certainly be said that without us, the world would be a much more dangerous place in general, and that overall we have been a force for good. See Japan, Korea, and Kuwait as prime examples of this.

We just need to be more balanced in our approach, not overextend ourselves, and pick our battles wisely.

PS. In terms of Iran though, we definitely shouldn't do anything about their testing missiles. Like Hillary said so bluntly, if they attacked us or Israel, we could completely obliterate them. Which is why it won't happen.

[militant]

At the risk of looking stupid, why would you do anything?

It has nothing to do with you if Iran to choose to test missles. I dont mean to offend you here, but I think people in the USA are paranoid about such things, even if iran were to use said missles on the USA, I think it was brought on by the USA. I am not that clever and rarley watch the news but it seems to me the USA and the UK deem themselves international peacekeepers, they seem to think it is alright to spalsh their military forces where ever they please sometimes when the situations had nothing to do with them in the first place, any trouble they bring to themselves in on their own heads; that is what I think anyway, but I am probably incorrect since I am rather iggnorant on current affairs, partly since I am a kid and have different things to worry about. >.>

You are right that the US at least (not so sure about how the UK views itself) views itself as a kind of global police force. When I was honestly a little younger and more naive about such things I thought to myself that we had no right to do such things. I was probably also reacting directly to the Iraq war catastrophe. Don't get me wrong, I still think we should never have entered Iraq, and I don't think we should throw our military at everything that moves in the world.

But really the world does need a generally benign superpower like us to keep elements safe. It can certainly be said that without us, the world would be a much more dangerous place in general, and that overall we have been a force for good. See Japan, Korea, and Kuwait as prime examples of this.

We just need to be more balanced in our approach, not overextend ourselves, and pick our battles wisely.

PS. In terms of Iran though, we definitely shouldn't do anything about their testing missiles. Like Hillary said so bluntly, if they attacked us or Israel, we could completely obliterate them. Which is why it won't happen.

I mentioned the UK because the 2 wars in my lifetime I have been old enough to faintly comprehend are the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, and in both examples, the USA and the UK have fought together, regardless of whether the UK view themselves as a global "police service" it is obvious the USA do and the UK are blaitently aiding them and are "friends" so to speak.

[InkL0sed]

Well yes, but the US has a long history dating back to Teddy Roosevelt of interventionism, and has viewed itself as superior for even longer... just saying, this stuff isn't new around here.

[Backglass]

At the risk of looking stupid, why would you do anything?

Exactly.

I dont mean to offend you here, but I think people in the USA are paranoid about such things

Yup...many also feel like it is our "god given duty" to protect and police everyone else.

Personally, I wish we could just worry about the problems in our own backyard...we have plenty, believe me.

[MeDeFe]

Hasn't Iran signed that non-proliferation treaty or what it's called? Promising not to sell or spread nuclear weapons in any way. India has not signed it afaik, but they're a close ally of the USA so I guess that makes it alright then.

And has anyone considered offering them help with their program, supposedly it was to be only for generating electrical energy. I read an article some time ago where a method for generating nuclear power was described that does not require on Uranium and does not leave weapon-grade Plutonium as a by-product. It made use of a radioactive material that is a good deal lighter than Uranium, is far cheaper to obtain, less dangerous to handle and does not lead to the risk of a meltdown in the reactor. Persuade them to use that and all will be splendidly fine, they could be at the forefront of a revolution in energy-production.

[GabonX]

PS. In terms of Iran though, we definitely shouldn't do anything about their testing missiles. Like Hillary said so bluntly, if they attacked us or Israel, we could completely obliterate them. Which is why it won't happen.

The old model of mutually assured destruction does not apply here. Here's an interesting segment about former Iranian President Rafsanjani.

Rafsanjani said that Muslims must surround colonialism and force them [the colonialists] to see whether Israel is beneficial to them or not. If one day, he said, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel's possession [meaning nuclear weapons] - on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam."

http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?A ... ID=SP32502

Iran is ruled by fanatical Islamic Fascists. They believe in the concept of martyrdom and if they have to lose 30,000,000 people to kill 5,000,000 Israelis they will pay that price because they truly believe that God wants them to do it.

This may seem outlandish but it is dead accurate. Iran is a country which used children to clear out Iraqi land mine fields in the war in the 80's. Let me reiterate, they sent out their children telling them that they would become martyrs, so that they would step on and detonate the land mines to clear the way for advancing troops. This is a well documented historical fact. This kind of resolution and ruthlessness is something which to many people in the West are unfamiliar with.

Essentially what this means is that they value death in the context of martyrdom more than they value human life. This attitude is very competitive and if we do not have an equally competitive policy in the end we will lose. The longer it takes us to adopt an appropriate policy the greater our casualties will be.

We will watch it happen.

[tzor]

Secretly I would give them a high five.

Publically I would turn to Russia and say "see we told you so." Then we give them the option of either putting enough pressure to make Iran stop or to look dumber than the US when it objects to a "reasonable" anti-Iranian missle defense system for Europe.

[GabonX]

Hasn't Iran signed that non-proliferation treaty or what it's called? Promising not to sell or spread nuclear weapons in any way. India has not signed it afaik, but they're a close ally of the USA so I guess that makes it alright then.

And has anyone considered offering them help with their program, supposedly it was to be only for generating electrical energy. I read an article some time ago where a method for generating nuclear power was described that does not require on Uranium and does not leave weapon-grade Plutonium as a by-product. It made use of a radioactive material that is a good deal lighter than Uranium, is far cheaper to obtain, less dangerous to handle and does not lead to the risk of a meltdown in the reactor. Persuade them to use that and all will be splendidly fine, they could be at the forefront of a revolution in energy-production.

I believe that North Korea also signed the nuclear non proliferation treaty and they violated it. Part of the treaty states that Iran, or any country, needs to allow inspection of all nuclear sites which they do not. In addition we know that North Korea exchanges military hardware (they recently sold a number of submarines to Iran) and information (they were caught providing nuclear technical assistance to Syria) with nations which are less than reputable.

Also, yes the United States and other nations have offered assitance in return for being able view the Iranian nuclear sites and the Iranians have refused.

[InkL0sed]

If it comes down to it Israel will destroy their facilities. They've done that sort of thing before. We don't need to get involved.

And I disagree that mutually assured destruction does not apply -- I think any government wants to keep power above all else, and thus the Iranians will not nuke anyone despite the peoples' fundamentalism. But I also don't think it will ever get to that point.

[Simon Viavant]

I think we should do nothing, they're just building missiles for defense because they know Bush wants to attack them.

[Pedronicus]

I'd go along with that. If America invades - they attack Israel because missiles to reach US are hard to make (unless you live in Cuba)

[GabonX]

"First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday."

[gdeangel]

... even if iran were to use said missiles on the USA, I think it was brought on by the USA.

This is not about the blame game. Even in the wrong, it just makes stupid policy if you don't have a strategy to win.

And if winning means that no nation state implodes due to any reason other than the internal determination of that nation's people (i.e., democracy - majority action or vote) then standing behind both Israel and Iraq and Saudi Arabia are the only strategy for winning, whether you are Britain or the US. It also means never being the aggressor, or even act in retaliation unless either (a) called on the people for liberation from minority rule or (b) your own national integrity is at risk of being overrun (thus you can invade Afganistan or Iraq after the WTC is destroyed, but if the ability of the aggressor to hit you again appears to have been broken, the course is to withdraw). This seems to be the crux of current western doctrine, whether the means employed is military or diplomatic.

On the other hand, if winning means you have the most cards at the end of the day, or you don't bloody your own nose in someone else's fight, then sitting on the sidelines is the way to go probably at the moment, at least until we are talking about inter-continental delivery systems. That probably sums up Chinese policy.

But, and here's the kicker, if winning means being the last person standing, then you have to get into the fight at some point. Even in a regime of mutually assured nuclear destruction, the destruction part applies not just to the guys fighting, but to humanity as a whole, because we are not talking about clearly bounded geographic territories out to annihilate each other, but socio-religious groups that span across borders. I have a feeling this is where Russia comes down. Under these rules, you get to be the aggressor when it suits you, even though you don't have WTC-type breaches of your national defenses. The policy in Chechnya comes to mind possibly... or orchestrating assassinations of dissident organizers outsider your territorial borders. I think this also could be used to fit Israel's policy.

and of course there are other criteria for winning too. And other than rhetoric, I really couldn't say what Iran would define as winning. It seems possibly that the people of Iran have one definition and their Presidents (including the current one and the past one that is quoted here) have a different version of victory?

So I'm going to add to the original question: 1) what do you consider winning in this situation & 2) what should be done to win, as you defined it...

[muy_thaiguy]

Nuke em.

The Final Solution.

I meant send in Duke Nukem.

[gimil]

do nothing? Its not our fight? Isnt the goal of a liberal society to protect individuals? If our friends feel threatened should we not feel obligated to protect them?

A trur liberal should look to help the individual universally, that means iran should not muscle over isreal, Zimbabwae should be occupied to create true democracy, was iraq really such a bad idea?

take note these MAY not be my opinion, I just want to get some real two sided discussion on this//////

[Pedronicus]

I say the US should airdrop porn mags and booze into Iran. more effective than nukes.

[t-o-m]

do nothing? Its not our fight?

YAY, lets all go into isolationism!!!

i say that we let them ttest their nukes on themselves, see if they die. If they dont, np - they dont have missiles that work. If they do work, np, theyre dead.