war with Iran?

What are your thoughts about the possibility of the fighting in Iraq spreading?  May 4, 2008 United States is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp

Michael Smith

The US military is drawing up plans for a “surgical strike” against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards’ special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi’ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country.

Despite a belligerent stance by Vice-President Dick Cheney, the administration has put plans for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities on the back burner since Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as defence secretary in 2006, the sources said.

However, US commanders are increasingly concerned by Iranian interference in Iraq and are determined that recent successes by joint Iraqi and US forces in the southern port city of Basra should not be reversed by the Quds Force.

“If the situation in Basra goes back to what it was like before, America is likely to blame Iran and carry out a surgical strike on a militant training camp across the border in Khuzestan,” said one source, referring to a frontier province.

They acknowledged Iran was unlikely to cease involvement in Iraq and that, however limited a US attack might be, the fighting could escalate.

Although American defence chiefs are firmly opposed to any attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, they believe a raid on one of the camps training Shi’ite militiamen would deliver a powerful message to Tehran.

British officials believe the US military tends to overestimate the effect of the Iranian involvement in Iraq.

But they say there is little doubt that the Revolutionary Guard exercises significant influence over splinter groups of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, who were the main targets of recent operations in Basra.

The CBS television network reported last week that plans were being drawn up for an attack on Iran, citing an officer who blamed the “increasingly hostile role” Iran was playing in Iraq.

The American news reports were unclear about the precise target of such an action and referred to Iran’s nuclear facilities as the likely objective.

According to the intelligence sources there will not be an attack on Iran’s nuclear capacity. “The Pentagon is not keen on that at all. If an attack happens it will be on a training camp to send a clear message to Iran not to interfere.”

President George W Bush is known to be determined that he should not hand over what he sees as “the Iran problem” to his successor. A limited attack on a training camp may give an impression of tough action, while at the same time being something that both Gates and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, could accept.

Sojourner…I think your uncle already washed your brain with his ideas…, since U always say "my uncle….bla..bla..my uncle said..".

US troops will probably begin withdrawing from Iraq after the election. The war is incredibly unpopular in the US. I live in a fairly conservative part of the country (our state voted for Bush twice) but even here the war is heavily criticised.

The Democrats will certainly take Congress and most likely the presidency.

The United States has no desire to start a war with Iran. The Iran-Iraq war proved that the Iranians are impossible to conquer. The Iranian government has a much broader base of popular support among the Iranian people than Saddam Hussein did. And Iran's oil industry has serious problems, it would require quite a bit of investment to modernize the wells, bring in technical experts to drill new ones, etc. all of which would be costly enough during peacetime but would be nearly impossible in the middle of a guerilla war. So there's really no profit motive, either.

Besides, the price of oil will recede over the next year anyways.

Ryo, I wasn't trying to make the case that war is a good thing. But you asked what will happen and it's the truth that Japan and Germany have benefited from a close relationship with the US after losing the 2nd World War largely because of the amount of assistance the US gave to those countries in rebuilding. Vietnam was not really the same case, but as trade and friendly relations with the US have increased, so has their prosperity. 

Look at Iraq in 30 years or so and you may see the same. Iraq could emerge as the dominant economic power in the region. If it is stable and relatively democratic, that should be a positive for the world.

I can't say that it was worth the cost, but at this point we can only try to make the best of the situation.  

The sooner the better!

-

Proud Student of Open English 

Whatever the purpose is I’m against the utilizing of war to gain result..hopefully there’d be no other silly wars..

Whatever the purpose is I’m against the utilizing of war to gain result..hopefully there’d be no other silly wars..

no^no war, I like the culture in western asia.  NOOOO WAR!

Ryo,

Of course we mustn't ignore those things, and obviously most people do not. As you and other point out, the majority of Americans are opposed to the war in Iraq. I am a pragmatist about the situation. It doesn't matter to me right now WHY the US is in Iraq, or how things were conducted up to now, but rather it's more important to deal with the situation at hand. I feel that my government now has some responsibility to clean up after themselves and ensure that when our military leaves the country is relatively stable.

Your comments about why the US should have helped Japan and Germany "Because of what they did it" seem to imply that those two countries bear no responsibility for the damage done to them. You remember that they were the aggressors  in that war, right?

I don't think that history would have judged the US or other Allied countries harshly if they had NOT provided such economic assistant after the war, but if they had not you might have had the same kind of situation as in post- WWI when Germany was "punished" for its aggression which some say lead inevitably to the next war.

As far as the US not caring for other countries, I will agree that, like every other nation, it looks out for it's own interests, but I think it's not fair to say that the people or even the government don't care. I've mentioned in one old thread numerous times about the amount of aid the US gives to other countries, and you can look to the current situation in Myanmar or other disasters around the world to see that the US and it's government don't ignore these things.

I think your information about American cities is very wrong. MOST people in some cities have no money and are suffering from famine? What cities?

There are certainly poor in the US. And their are homeless people. It's doubtful that there will ever be a society where some people are not poor. In general, the "poor" in the US are MUCH better off than even the average person in many other countries.  

Regardless of these facts, my response to the problems of poverty and homelessness is NOT to ignore them, but it is also NOT to exaggerate them.  

RYO:

There really aren't poor people suffering from famine in the United States; in the American poor people tend to be fatter than rich people, because they eat more fast food (like McDonald's) and can't afford to go to gyms and health clubs. 

Although, RYO I agree with you, the money spent on the war in Iraq would have been better spent at home. The US economy would not be in trouble if it were not for the massive spending on the conflict.

The poor in the US are much better of materially, but suffer in other ways – for instance, the level of violent crime in places like certain sections of Oakland, LA, Anacostia in Washington DC, East St. Louis, etc is equal to that of a war zone.

After WWII, the USA intentionally starved Germany between 1945-47, the USA refused to allow the German Red Cross to function, it refused to allow food aid to enter Germany, etc. A lot of this was due to Ike Eisenhower's very personal animosity towards Germany (which is understandable). The average caloric intake per person in Germany dropped to 1500 calories per day, which is well under survival level. Infant mortality increased by a 1000% as compared to 1945.  It was only in 1947 when TIME magazine published an expose on the rampant suffering in Germany that the US was pushed to allow the German Red Cross to function and to allow humanitarian aid to enter the country.

Strangely enough, the US occupation of Japan was instantly beneficial to the country, as wartime Japan had exhausted its supply of heating oil and coal, and a large part of Japan's urban population would have frozen to death during the winter if the US hadn't flown in massive amounts of Kerosene and clothes and blankets. For the first few years after the war, many Japanese people wore US army surplus clothes, because their own textile industry was shattered and all their old clothes and blankets had burned during the bombing. 

It's interesting how much revisionist historians like to harp on the racism of the US against Japan during the War, and yet they ignore the massive aid given to Japan while the US simultaneously withheld aid from Germany.   

THIS MY GIFT TO BUSH , TELL HIM WHO KNOW HIM :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJl5PGg2IR8