Joe Lieberman says Iran is "expansionist."

[Eric J in MN]

Lieberman accused Obama of blaming U.S. policies for "essentially sort of strengthening" Iran.

"If Israel is in danger today, it's not because of American foreign policy, which has been strongly supportive of Israel in every way," he said. "It is not because of what we have done in Iraq. It is because Iran is a fanatical terrorist, expansionist state."

[saltpoint]

1. Lieberman endorses a U.S. administration that wants x-number of permanent

bases in Iraq and he accuses Iran of expansionism.

Got it.

[jwirr]

2. That is just idiotic. The only nation in the ME that is busy taking over

land is Israel.

[grassfed]

24. & won't declare its borders and routinely kills and cluster bombs its neighbors

[qazplm]

3. Iran is many bad things

but expansionist isnt one of them.

[Cha]

16. It's the one lieman thought would work..

he's a fucking liar and a disgrace to himself.

[pinto]

4. Geez, this is the kind of verbal hyperbole that hurts diplomacy.

Ahmadenijad does the same at the other end of the spectrum.

We need cooler heads to prevail. It sure is frustrating to watch.

[harun]

5. Iran hasn't been expansionist for about 400 years, can the same be said about the United States?

[thewiseguy]

6. They have been expanding alot in the past 30 years.

What a fucking moron. :sarcasm:

[anonymous171]

7. Lieberman is an idiot.

Ever notice how he and the GOP are constantly trying to make WWII metaphors with regards to Iran? First Obama was an "appeaser" and now Iran is an "expansionist" power? Let's not forget Podhoretz urging Bush to attack Iran so that "another Holocaust" could be avoided.

[kenny blankenship]

8. I wonder if he thinks the "settlement" & annexations by Israel in the West Bank is expansionist?

[Occam Bandage]

9. Iran is expansionist. It is more powerful now than ever before because of American foreign policy.

Moreover, American foreign policy has radicalized much of the Muslim world, to Israel's detriment. And, you know, Iran isn't a "terrorist state." So I guess Holy Joe's batting .250 on this one.

(To say Iran *isn't* expansionist is dumb. It now counts Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq as client states to various degrees.)


Edit: Please note that I am not advocating any sort of action against Iran.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. Which new territories has it acquired or occupied?

Perhaps we have a terminology problem, but to me a nation is 'expansionist' if it has or has attempted to occupy and acquire new territory, or create new vassal states. For example: the US appears to have acquired Iraq. I fail to see where Iran has done anything like this in the last 300 or so years.

[Occam Bandage]

14. "the US appears to have acquired Iraq"

If that is your definition of "acquire," then Iran is certainly expansionist. Through Hezbollah it now controls Lebanon outright, it exerts enormous influence on Syria, and through the Badr brigade and its political allies, it effectively controls the southern half of Iraq. Iran has not changed its official borders, true--but neither has America since we allowed the Philippines its independence.

[Eric J in MN]

15. Using the term "expansionist" when a country isn't even putting its soldiers...

...in the places it's supposedly expanding to, is a broad definition of "expanisionist."

[Occam Bandage]

17. It depends on what you mean by "its soldiers," now doesn't it?

If they're arming, funding, training, and directing an organized military force in foreign nations, with intent of aligning the political direction of those nations with Iran's, and if that force is successful in its mission, why would you not count that force as "(Iran's) soldiers" for the purposes of this narrow discussion?

Iran is projecting military, paramilitary, and political force across the Middle East with expansionist intent. America is doing the same. I don't see why so many people believe that only one or the other can be expansionist.

[Warren Stupidity]

23. We keep looking for the evidence that Iran is arming Iraqis

and keep not finding it. The last time we trotted out such evidence it turned out to be our own stuff instead.

Iran has a legitimate interest in Iraq and its shiite population. Iran has an interest in either seeing our occupation forces depart the region, or in keeping them off balanced enough to avoid their use against Iran, a threat that is not exactly implausible. To that extent Iran most certainly is involved in Iraqi affairs, but that is not evidence of an expansionist Iran, it is evidence that the Iranians take the threat of US military action against them very seriously and are doing what they can do to prevent that from happening.

Iran does not in any sense of the word control Syria. Iran does back Hezbollah, but does not control Lebanon. Instead Syrian and Iranian efforts stabilized and ended the long and bloody Lebanese civil war, with Syria until recently occupying Lebanon to enforce a ceasefire.

[thewiseguy]

19. FYI US invaded and occupied Iraq

Did Iran invade and occupy Lebanon? Hezbollah might be a group connected to Iran but that has no relevance to the expansionist argument.

Iran has not invaded any country in many many years now. Could we say that about US?

[Occam Bandage]

22. "but that has no relevance to the expansionist argument."

Can you say why, exactly? I would say that a military group controlled and funded by Iran, that is in effective control of a sovereign nation, represents a far more subtle and intelligent form of expansion than an outright invasion.

An invasion breeds resent. An 'astroturfed' puppet militia breeds instability but can also engender fierce loyalty among the people of the targeted nation.

[thewiseguy]

28. The controlled and funded part is an allegation

Hezbollah denies that they are controlled by Iran. Same thing with Hamas. They were running around with pictures of Saddam after he was executed. Saddam was no friend of Iran.

You have to be careful when you draw such links.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Lieberman is simply a liar.

Iran has a very long history (thousands of years) but its last expansionist period was something like 300 years ago. The modern state has shown no interest in territorial expansion. Iran does consider itself to be the leader of the shiite muslim world, the counter to Saudi's role as the leader of the sunni muslim world. As such Iran intends to be a minor world power, and a major regional force, and there is nothing much wrong with that. (Not that there isn't a lot wrong with the Iranian regime with respect to human rights, but that is somewhat separate from its role in the world and the community of nations.)

[Occam Bandage]

11. Not all expansion is territorial.

America has been enormously expansionist in the past fifty years, and has not added a square mile of territory to our borders.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. Yes we have, just not as a direct acquisition.

We maintain occupation forces in Germany, Italy and Japan 60 years after WWII, and Koreaq 50 years after the end of that conflict. We maintain 900 odd military bases around the planet with extra-territorial status of forces agreements imposed on various client states that give our military the status of imperial garrisons. Our occupation of Iraq, permanent barring a major change of perspective in Washington, is by plan part of a de facto colonization of the mesopotamian oil fields, a keystone of the neocon plan for world domination as outlined in their infamous PNAC documents. To claim that we have not added a square mile of territory to our borders is to accept the working fiction under which we have established our empire without violating the letter of the law under our post WWII treaty obligations.

But aside from that, in what way has Iran behaved in any similar fashion? Where are their widespread military bases? Who are their client states? The nearest I can get to are Hezbollah and Hamas. Neither qualify as anything other than Iranian backed political militias in the failed or near failed states of Lebanon and Gaza.

[Occam Bandage]

20. So you're willing to accept that American military projection allows it to exert influence to

an extent that it may be called 'expansionist,' but do not hold Iran's actions to be of the same cloth. Why? Because Gaza and Lebanon are unstable? Because Iraq is contested and not held outright?

You're living in the 20th century. Political militias composed of native citizens of the targeted nation are just as effective--if not more effective--at power projection than conventional militaries. I would think that the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war would have taught you that.

[Warren Stupidity]

25. You let me know when Iran has military bases in Iraq or Lebanon.

Yes there is a huge difference between Iran supporting a shiite political militia in a fractured nation near its own borders and our having huge military bases with extra-territorial SOF agreements planted in foreign countries all around the planet. One of these is clearly expansionist, the other not at all. You are inventing new meanings for commonly understood words.

[Occam Bandage]

26. Sure. It does. You're drawing an irrelevant distinction between military and paramilitary

operation. Both nations are using force of arms to direct political direction of sovereign nations. You seem to believe that militias are not capable of expanding a nation's military sphere of influence--or, more accurately, it seems you do not care if they are capable or not. You're quibbling over the exact nature of the means, and dismissing the ends out of hand.

[Warren Stupidity]

29. an irrelevant distinction ?

Really? Iran cannot even impose complete policy control on the militias that it supports in Lebanon and Gaza, and those militias are local political organizations that emerged from their respective populations to exert political power within two failed or near-failed states for the purpose of protecting and advancing the political aims of their respective base populations. We put military bases into foreign nations with the backing of the planet's premier military force, capable of asserting that force with complete domination of the battlefield almost anywhere on the planet outside of a few remaining nations that have retained the capability to at defend themselves from us. Your comparison of support for Hezbollah and Hamas and the Badr brigades as equivalent to our planetary garrisons is ludicrous. Hezbollah and Hamas can't even control the nations they operate in. At best Hamas controls the days in the Gaza strip when the IDF is not back in town, and Hezbollah is just one player in the Lebanese mess, strong enough to hold its own against the foreign backed government, but not strong enough to take control of that government.

Iran is not expanionist. We are at this point having a semantic debate. I'll go with wiki:

In general, expansionism consists of expansionist policies. While some have linked the term to promoting economic growth (in contrast to no growth / sustainable policies), more commonly expansionism refers to the doctrine of a nation's expanding its territorial base (or economic influence) usually by means of military aggression. Compare empire-building and Lebensraum.

Irredentism, revanchism or reunification are sometimes used to justify and legitimize expansionism, but only when the explicit goal is to reconquer territories that have been lost, or even to take over ancestral lands. A simple territorial dispute, such as a border dispute, is not usually referred to as expansionism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansionism

You let me know when the Iranian Army has bases established in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Gaza.

[charlie]

12. Joe needs a breath mint

One of those puck sized urinal cakes.

"essentially sort of"? Could you get any more weaselly Joe? If you're gonna take a swipe, man up and take a swipe.

In any case, this is the crack that earned him the visit from Obama that got him backed up against the wall. He's been schooled. He knows there'll be quick consequences when he acts like a butt trumpet.

[Liberal Veteran]

21. Joe Lieberman = Peter Pettigrew (aka Wormtail) from the Harry Potter books.

[KittyWampus]

27. My head would explode but I must settle for an ironic scowl. Too much