Iran: "You can start a war but it won't be you who finishes it,"

[cynatnite]

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran said it could defeat any American military action over its controversial nuclear drive, in one of the Islamic regime's boldest challenges yet to the United States.

"You can start a war but it won't be you who finishes it," said General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards and among the regime's most powerful figures.

"The Americans know better than anyone that their troops in the region and in Iraq are vulnerable. I would advise them not to commit such a strategic error," he told reporters on the sidelines of a pro-Palestinian conference in Tehran.

snip:
"I would advise them to first get out of their quagmire in Iraq before getting into an even bigger one," General Safavi said with a grin.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060414/wl_afp/irannuclearpolitics_060414191647

[Maraya1969]

Can I add this from Comcast? They are starting to sound scary to me

http://www.comcast.net/news/international/index.jsp?cat=INTERNATIONAL&fn=/2006/04/14/368006.html&cvqh=itn_iranleader

Iran Leader: Israel Will Be Annihilated
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

3 hours ago

TEHRAN, Iran - The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.

"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

Ahmadinejad provoked a world outcry in October when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

On Friday, he repeated his previous line on the Holocaust, saying: "If such a disaster is true, why should the people of this region pay the price? Why does the Palestinian nation have to be suppressed and have its land occupied?"
==============================================

EDIT: COPYRIGHT--PLEASE POST ONLY FOUR OR FIVE
PARAGRAPHS FROM THE COPYRIGHTED NEWS SOURCE
PER DU RULES.

[cynatnite]

2. Everyone should be worried

Two insane ideologues hellbent on destruction. That's what they are. These people scare the shit out of me because their fingers are on the buttons.

Thank you for adding that to this thread! :hi:

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

4. Out Of Our Hands

If the world is to come to an end, and we are to destroy ourselves as a race on this earth, it will be out of our control unfortunately, and the one good thing is.....that everyone may end up suffering equally, as the end arrives.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

1. Oh my god, two shit talking idiots

Iranians and Bush.

[acmejack]

7. Perhaps you should amend that to read the Iranian.

Not all Iranians are batshit goofy as Ahmadinejad, just as not all AmeriKans are is idiotic as il Douche.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

20. Good point

Too late to edit.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

3. Who Will Blink First.....

It really doesn't matter, since we're all the ones who will suffer for these Evil, Incompetent, Set Upon Destruction Bastards, running our respective governments.

[Atman]

5. Translated into Bushist Egotalk...

"Bring it on!"


Bush CAN'T back down after an invitation...er, threat like that!

[Javaman]

6. The battle of the stupids....

Many years ago while out in L.A. I had the opportunity to talk with an Iraqi who defected to the states. he was in the Iraq/Iran war.

I asked him what it was like. In one word he summed it up, "insanity". Stuck in a fox hole then trenches for "several years", the one thing he still gets nightmares over was the wave after wave of Iranians willing to sacrifice themselves. Knowing full well they would be cut to ribbons, they just kept coming.

the in the Muslim faith, they try the best they can to bury their dead within a day of the persons death. Not on the battle field. He said after several weeks of the "waves" the bodies on the battle field were just piling up from both sides.

My point in this is: regardless if the general pop hates the leaders, if we attack them, I can bet you, just as in Iraq, they will rise up and support their gov't if only to show that no one invades their country and tries to get away with it.

I hate moron*, I despise everything he* stands for and I'm against everything he* has done to this country, however, if invaded tomorrow, I may still not support that fucking idiot* but I would be damned to hell if I didn't offer myself in defense of this country. With that in mind, why would an Iranian or an Iraqi for that matter be any different????

Like everything moron* and his room full of dopes have done in the past, they will once again repeat their foolish performance: underestimating their "adversary". It's in quotes because both Iraq and Iran (with the exception of the hostage crisis , but we did install the fascist shah of iran after all) have done nothing to us.

This situation will, once again, not play out the way moron* and his jerks portray it to us.

[stillcool]

8. I 've read the same sentiment...

before, and usually with historical emphasis.

[sutz12]

9. And he's right.

We started the Iraq war, and now we can't finish it.

Iran will be no different, except in scale.

I lived through Vietnam as a youth (not as a participant, thankfully). Now it looks like the neo-cons will have us in two Vietnams simultaneously.

[Neil Lisst]

10. They'd better be good at catching bombs, because that's coming

I do not believe Bush will attempt to invade. He'll use air attacks to minimize US casualties, and allow him to keep ground troops in Iraq and other places in the region.

[magellan]

11. Sounds as nutty as Baghdad Bob

With one big difference: while Iran won't win, unlike Iraq she can inflict some SERIOUS damage on our military and in the region before she goes down. That it would be the opening salvo of WWIII is well within the realm of possibility.

I'm so tired of men laying their dicks out on the table to prove who's more macho. I'd love to take a cleaver to all of them.

[cynatnite]

13. Here you go...

sorry, I couldn't resist :rofl:

[Emit]

19. Yikes! LOL n/t

[Gloria]

12. Pres. A is actually there for domestic purposes; the clerics rule

the roost.

I can't stop thinking that they really want to get Bush to really start something. I'm wondering if Iran doesn't already have a bomb, imported from somewhere. They have missiles that are nuke-warhead ready...why? After months of dancing around the enrichment issue, they suddenly produce it in a stage show. I'm thinking they already had it.

I'm thinking they may be preparing a surprise for us if Bush decides to do the stupid thing.

[cali]

16. Even if they have "a surprise" for us

they surely know that launching a nuke into Israel or ? would result in Iran being wiped off the face of the earth. I see much of what Ahmadinejad is doing as posturing in the face of bushco's agression and fodder for domestic consumption. And don't forget, Iran claims that they are not trying to develop a nuclear weapon, but fuel for energy. Bush may bomb them, and all hell may break loose, but it's not going to be nuclear hell- at least not from the Iranians.

[cynatnite]

18. There's more to worry about Iran and nukes, IMO.

For Clarke, that means working with the moderates, a situation much more difficult since the moderate, dialogue-seeking former-President Khatami was replaced with the conservative-populist Ahmadinejad. That shift happened, in no small part, due to the way in which the Bush administration confronted Iran on the one issue that would push voters towards more conservative leadership. Instead of the true moderate Khatami, now we are forced to work with the weaker and more conservative Rafsanjani.

There is another card that Iran presumably still holds against the United States, one Clarke alluded to only indirectly, that is, Iran 's ability to destabilize Saudi Arabia.

On June 26, 1996, Khobar Towers, a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, was attacked by a truck bomb, killing 19 American service members and injuring 500. Clarke served as counterterror czar at the time. At first, the U.S. suspected Al Qaeda. After a deeper investigation, however, the Clinton administration determined that the operation was inspired and led by Iranian intelligence.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/01/19/richard_clarke_on_iran.php

Clarke said that Iran had three terrorist organizations it sponsored or controlled. The most important is the Lebanon-based paramilitary organization Hezbollah, which destroyed the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and killed 241 Marines. Hezbollah is suspected in the 1996 attack on the Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia.

Iran also has control over Shiite militias in Iraq and has its own special forces called the Qods Force. These three organizations make al Qaeda look like a kindergarten, Clarke said.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1798825&page=1

[AbsoluteArmorer]

14. Financially Implode

I agree with this article to the point that the US will not outlast the ME/Asian Wars due to first, the economic collapse of this once wonderfully stable nation of ours; secondly, the depletion of our armed forces due to exhaustion and dilapidated military equipment after many many more years of battles; thirdly, the entire Muslim world will turn against the USA/British nations and outlive us due to it's approx 80% population of the world. Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran will simply benchmark the beginning of the US/UK downfall.

[frazzledmom]

15. Swell.. two macho assholes are going to get us all killed...

What is this idiot thinking? Do these people really think that Bush won't drop a nuke on them? With this kind of talk they won't limit the nukes to bunker busters either. To be honest I gotta wonder if all this talk is real or not. The timing of all this Iran crap is looking mighty fishy. Talk from our side, talk from their side, something doesn't smell right here. I mean besides the normal crap...

[hedgehog]

17. What would happen if

The Iranians asked the UN inspectors in and showed them samples of all the parts they used to make their bomb that they purchased from Halliburton and other American owned companies?

A person can dream, can't they?