From http://www.alternet.org/story/40042/

Speculation has been growing on a possible air strike against Iran. But with the failure of the Bush administration to present a convincing case to the U.N. Security Council and to secure political backing domestically, some experts say the march toward war with Iran is on pause barring an "immediate need."

An immediate need is also sometimes called "the trigger."

I think a war with Iran will be UN vs Iran. The US can't afford another war, and everybody knows it. We can barely keep Iraq together let alone a nation filled with radicals and extremists. At least Iraq wanted Saddam out. Iranians will die for their ayotollah. Its going to get real messy.

israel v hezbollah is a proxy war of the U.S. v Iran

Israel = the US's pitbull - we give them money and munitions
Hezbollah = Iran's pitbull - they give them money and munitions

Exactly. And like a pitbull fight, the longer things go, the better the underdog looks in terms of world opinion for holding out against the stronger opponent.

A little while ago, I posted something very relevant to this discussion that not everyone here saw, it's a transcript of MSNBC Anchor Contessa Brewer interviewing National Security Expert James Bamford on July 31:

Brewer: "You say there was this secret group within the Pentagon - war thirsty idealogues, basically - who get together with a bunch of lobbyists for Israel, and they start plotting about how they could push the United States into a war, and you even go as far as to say that Israel was planting spies within the administration. That's shocking to hear, were you shocked when you started uncovering this sort of evidence?

Bamford: "Oh sure I was, I wasn't very surprised after I'd seen what happened in Iraq, it was the same group of people that were planning the events in Iran, but I was surprised to actually see it so blatant. And again, this isn't speculation, those are words that came out of the indictment, an indictment that Larry Franklin plead guilty to. What APAC, the Israeli lobby, was saying to Franklin, who was their spy, was that 'we want to place you at the elbow of the President'; those were the exact words, at the elbow of the President, in the White House, put him in the National Security Council where he can influence the President. At the time, President Bush was tending to side with the State Department and Colin Powell more towards diplomacy with Iran; what these officials in the Pentagon were pushing was for war with Iran, regime change."

Brewer: "And they were trying to figure out how to come up with intelligence that would convince the President to move on that, to take action on that. I'm curious, now, years later, does it still seem like the President is siding with diplomacy and the State Department, and how much influence in the Pentagon do these guys really have?"

Bamford: "Well, they still have a great deal of influence. The United States is the only country in the world that was behind Israel in terms of not wanting an immediate cease-fire, and look what's happened now; the plan was to push from Israel into Lebanon and then Syria and on up to Iran, and it looks like pretty much the fulfillment of what they wanted. The only problem is it's going to end up very similar to the way Iraq ended up, with a total mess, total chaos, and lots of people getting killed - but the one thing that's for certain is that the neo-cons who came up with this war are not going to be among the people being killed."

Hope your all getting ready for the draft! They got rid of the draft after WW1, brought it back for ww2. Got rid of it, brought it back for nam.

It'll never happen. Our society has changed in the last thirty years so that a MUCH larger chunk of younger people in the workplace use computers and a MUCH smaller chunk perform physical labor. Trying to recruit people like that who have never been in so much as a fistfight into the infantry would be an utter disaster. We picture the Vietnam era as having all these hippies, but the truth is that all those kids grew up in the 50's and learned and adapted to a society that was more geared towards manual labor, chores, a hands on do-it-yourself approach, and a boys-will-be-boys mentality, including a much higher tolerance towards fighting, etc. The first prerequisite for a soldier on the ground is a fighting instinct, and if that's been completely socialized out of them, no amount of training can compensate for it.

ShadowSD said:


what an ingenious analysis, I agree 100%

btw: I think that if we have to go anywhere else in terms of troop deployments, there will be a draft and public opinion will have no bearing on any such decision whatsoever

Lets hope your right. I know there will be another draft, you will see.

Its mandatory that all citizens of Israel serve. Men and Women, at least once in their life. We live in this country and until the draft, we're getting a free ride. They WILL call on us, and they want housewives and soccer moms to speak against it. Lord knows all of baby boomer generation wont give a fuck because they went thru the draft, and we will too.

funny, I think that they will just claime an earlier "victory" in Iraq and move to Iran. Iraqi's civil war will get worse, mega attrocities would occur and then the UN would be forced to step in... which.. actually while be trumped by members of the arab legue who would want their troops in there. then you would have something like the congo, some UN, some African Union.

if they did anything, they would make immigrants who wanted citizenship be forced to do grunt work over there and pull in officers that left the services.
Fun Fact: they extended the pull-back time for officers out to something like 11 years so a 40 year old officer who got out of the milirary to start a family when they were 30yo can be pulled back in.

another fun fact: there has never been an insurgent group in the history of warfare that has been taken out or "beaten" by an outside power EVER!

the_reverend said:

it is, and it's a fucking joke that condoleeeza and rummie are in complete denial. I read that there was 1,800 sum odd iraqi bodies this month, most with bullets in their head.

Its been time to pull out of Iraq since the day after they caught Saddam in his dirthole.

Yes, but we're bring peace and democracy to the Middle East remember? Or is there a new excuse for the occupation and continued killing over there this week? Surely if we stay there and keep bombing and killing innocent people for no reason there will be peace...I mean, who would be upset over that? We'd love it if a country from the middle east illegally invaded us, started blowing up our houses, disrupted our power supplies, clean water and food right? And then if had plans to steal our resources and refused to leave that would be even better!

anonymous said:

That's true, and Iran has the same policy.

I'm not saying that a manadatory civil service policy in the US could never happen, but those civil services would have to be everything from community volunteerism to information techology to battle infantry in order for most people to find a place where they could be effective. My point is we won't have a draft like Vietnam where any guy would be randomly shunted off to basic training and active infantry, not just because of public outcry, but because it would be tactically asinine for the reasons I pointed out above. Our army is already dangerously below readyness levels now, including many troops that are not considered combat ready. Drafting computer nerds who don't have it in them to raise a fist towards anyone and sending them in to fight hardened radical insurgents would be the stupidest military strategy in history.

HailTheLeaf said:

I really wish that someone would invade your home and kill you. Everytime you open that hole under your nose it's spewing forth anti-American bullshit. I try to ignore you, I really do....but you just downright suck.

HailTheLeaf said:


Oh....and since when has there ever been a "legal" invasion of any country? "Illegally invaded" hahahahahaha that's a good one. All's fair in love and war, hippy. Get used to it.

powerkok said:

I totally agree. But you knew that wouldn't happen because of the criticism the U.S. faced after the first Gulf War. I have no idea what the hell we're trying to prove at this point.

Our stupidity.

hoser said:

"Legal" invasion means in accordance with international law, which is basically the same rules of honor that govern any fight:

If you're attacked by someone, you have a right to go kick that person's ass. If you're not attacked and start wailing on someone, you're a coward and a pussy.

Sounds right to me.