Iran official: We’ll bolster our military until Israel is overthrown

[Mosby]

Escalating Iran’s rhetoric against Israel, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps vowed Wednesday that the regime would boost its military capabilities relentlessly until Israel was destroyed.

“The Islamic Revolution will continue enhancing its preparedness until it overthrows Israel and liberates Palestine,” the IRGC’s Tehran province commander, Brigadier General Mohsen Kazzemeini, said in an address in Tehran, the semi-state Fars news agency reported.

He also vowed that Iran would maintain its aid to those who fight Israel. “We will continue defending not just our own country, but also all the oppressed people of the world, specially those countries that are standing on the forefront of confrontation with the Zionists,” Kazzemeini said.

Kazzemeini was speaking as Iran started two days of major drills in the capital, involving 250,000 personnel, designed to “practice fighting against security threats,” Fars said.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-official-well-bolster-our-military-until-israel-is-overthrown/

[KamaAina]

1. Gee, really good timing, guys

right when Obama is working hard to sew up support for the deal.

[msongs]

2. sounds like internal politics and jockeying going on nt

[TBF]

3. Yup, our right wing will do their best

to escalate any situation away from peace (because that is what is profitable for them). Hopefully saner minds will win out on both sides.

[leftynyc]

4. How is the right wing to blame

for what this Iranian official has to say? I'm as willing as anyone here to blame the right wing for their crap but this needs an explanation.

[TBF]

6. Did you not read the sentence I was responding

to? Obviously not or you intentionally misread both that post and my response. Look, I know a certain segment of our society loves war because they profit from it. They are generally right-wingers in this country but feel free to correct me if you'd like to demonstrate liberals who like profiting off war (besides Hillary I mean).

I don't know if the same is true in Iran regarding the profiteering, but I do know there are hard-liners there (as there are in Israel) that are not interested in any sort of peace.

[leftynyc]

23. I thought you were blaming

the right wing HERE. I misunderstood. No need to get nasty although that seems to be the order of the day on DU lately.

[TBF]

27. Nasty -

This is the sentence I was responding to from YOU -

"I'm as willing as anyone here to blame the right wing for their crap but this needs an explanation."

Take responsibility for your own attitude - I was only responding in kind. I am extremely fed up with fundamentalists in each camp and the people who defend their hate.

[leftynyc]

28. You think that was nasty?

Asking for an explanation? Whatever.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

10. We aren't threatening war with Iran

Iran's nasty rightwing is threatening war with Israel.

Regardless of one's stand on the treaty, it is possible to conclude that there is a middle ground between war and resumed relations with Iran.

[TBF]

14. You and I aren't threatening war -

but there are fundamentalists in each country (US, Israel & Iran) who would prefer war.

Of course there is a middle ground - and I think if saner minds prevail we will also eventually have a 2-state solution.

[Mosby]

5. If he's pandering what does that say about his base?

[TBF]

7. The same could be said about someone like Bohner here -

we have right-wingers who love war because they profit from it. Bohner's "base"? The very wealthy and assorted idiots for the most part.

Why can the same not be true of an official in Iran?

[Chan790]

15. That's probably very much the point.

From what I understand, Iranian hardliners, militarists and their own RW extremists don't want the deal approved any more than American RWers and extremists. On both sides, it's similar people trying to blow-up the deal and the saner segments of the population and diplomacy prevailing.

Gen. Kazzemeini is about as supportive of Obama sewing up votes to pass the deal as Bibi Netanyahu or neocons are.

[gratuitous]

8. Mohsen Kazzemeini: Tom Cotton for Iran

I was reading MSN's story about Sen. Mikulski becoming the 34th Senator to declare support for the agreement with Iran, meaning that the Senate would sustain any veto of anti-treaty legislation that comes out of Congress. The comments to the story are rife with "Chamberlain" and "appeasement," as if there's a better deal floating around somewhere. As if by rejecting the agreement, the rest of the world would jump on the nitwit bandwagon instead of honoring their own agreements with Iran. As if a unilateral sanctions regime on Iran by the United States would be any different than the box we just got out of with Cuba.

None of the commenters, naturally, had any suggestions for how they would pay for a war against Iran or who would fight it, because none of them seemed eager to join up to kill and die for the greater glory of the warmongers.

[6chars]

9. Move along. Nothing to see here.

They are going to get a lot of funds freed up from the nuclear deal, and a lot of access to new arms on which to spend those funds. But we had to let them have this in order to avoid war.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

11. What war?

Have we been at war with Iran?

Was Iran going to attack the "homeland?"

We haven't been at war with Iran, so there's no reason to believe we would have to go to war with them before a better treaty could be worked out.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

16. The "experts" are selling this treaty

by saying "It's either this treaty or war."

I don't agree. Iran is not in a position to bomb us, and we don't have to go to war with them.

[ryan_cats]

17. It's either this treaty or war or

It's either this treaty or war or we could have kept the existing sanctions going. I wonder how much money we'll make selling them the rope they're going to hang us with?

[NightWatcher]

12. Mmmm, smells like fresh propaganda

I'm unfamiliar with the source, but I'm sure they're not biased in the slightest, right?

[KamaAina]

18. Times of Israel? Not in the slightest.

[KamaAina]

21. Yep. It is linked to here rather frequently.

And seems to be about as pro-Netanyahoo as our M$M is anti-Obama.

[6chars]

22. I just looked at it

That doesn't seem like an accurate characterization, as it has a number of articles on today's page that would make Netanyahu pretty unhappy. There might be a selection bias in what gets linked at du.

[leftynyc]

24. It isn't a biased publication

But that wont stand in the way of so many duers calling it that to fortify their disdain of anything coming out of Israel. Times of Israel isn't left leaning like Haaretz - it's pretty middle of the road

[pampango]

20. Their right wingers sound just like our right wingers. And they empower each other

with their rhetoric. Imagine that.

[eridani]

25. Given that they have the lowest military spending in the ME, so what?

http://www.thenation.com/article/iran-is-not-the-greatest-threat-to-world-peace/

Turning to the next obvious question, what in fact is the Iranian threat? Why, for example, are Israel and Saudi Arabia trembling in fear over that country? Whatever the threat is, it can hardly be military. Years ago, US intelligence informed Congress that Iran has very low military expenditures by the standards of the region and that its strategic doctrines are defensive—designed, that is, to deter aggression. The US intelligence community has also reported that it has no evidence Iran is pursuing an actual nuclear weapons program and that “Iran’s nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy.”

The authoritative SIPRI review of global armaments ranks the United States, as usual, way in the lead in military expenditures. China comes in second with about one-third of US expenditures. Far below are Russia and Saudi Arabia, which are nonetheless well above any western European state. Iran is scarcely mentioned. Full details are provided in an April report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which finds “a conclusive case that the Arab Gulf states have…an overwhelming advantage of Iran in both military spending and access to modern arms.”

Iran’s military spending, for instance, is a fraction of Saudi Arabia’s and far below even the spending of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Altogether, the Gulf Cooperation Council states—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—outspend Iran on arms by a factor of eight, an imbalance that goes back decades. The CSIS report adds: “The Arab Gulf states have acquired and are acquiring some of the most advanced and effective weapons in the world [while] Iran has essentially been forced to live in the past, often relying on systems originally delivered at the time of the Shah.” In other words, they are virtually obsolete. When it comes to Israel, of course, the imbalance is even greater. Possessing the most advanced US weaponry and a virtual offshore military base for the global superpower, it also has a huge stock of nuclear weapons.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Well, that's helpful.