Iran says U.S. is too stretched to attack it

[babylonsister]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070729/ts_nm/iran_usa_mottaki_dc

Iran says U.S. is too stretched to attack it

Sun Jul 29, 5:52 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has told a German magazine that the United States has too many problems in Iraq to become involved in armed conflict with Iran.

Military action is sometimes discussed in Washington as an option in trying to derail what it sees as Iran's drive to develop nuclear weapons.

The United States "is not in a position to get into a new military conflict," Mottaki was quoted as saying in an excerpt of an interview to be published in Focus magazine.

"170,000 American soldiers can guarantee neither their own safety nor the security of Iraq," he said.

The United States and its allies say Iran's nuclear fuel enrichment program is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran insists it is purely for peaceful power generation.

The United Nations has imposed sanctions on Iran for failing to stop enrichment, but Mottaki reiterated that Iran had no intention of curtailing the program.

Mottaki has dismissed the U.N. sanctions already imposed and said that tougher penalties would not change Iran's mind.

There was no mention of plans for further talks between Iran and the United States on Iraq.

[robinlynne]

1. sssh. quiet. Don't you know these people hire private armies?

[Captain Angry]

2. Depends on the goal.

We're too stretched to take or hold anything in that country.

But if Bush and Cheney decided we were hitting Iran, we have the firepower to shut the place down, with no threat or ability to retaliate.

I'm just worried that something horrific is going to happen, and be blamed on Iran (rightfully so, or not).

If Iran's name comes up in something awful, then I don't think our decision makers will shy away from obliterating them.

[krispos42]

3. Doesn't matter

Cheney says we do, and that's all that matters.

We have enough strengh to start a war with Iran. Past that, good night and good luck.

[hiaasenrocks]

4. They are sadly mistaken.

Bushco will send yet another mercenary force there. These wars are about money for private contractors.

[thunder rising]

5. Yes sir, fight them over there,

till we can't keep them off our own shores. It won't be the Islamics; it will be Russia, China, and India. Patiently waiting, feeding us money, giving us cheap labor, while removing our manufacturing and engineering base...waiting patiently.

[rpannier]

6. I would say that too loudly

As John Stewart pointed out a few months ago...

We're trying to keep 'Sir Bombs-a-lot' from starting another war. We're not so good on nation building, byt we're experts on nation destroying.

[cliss]

7. I think Mr. Mottaki

is correct. The US is in no position to attack Iran. Now lots of people might argue that and say, "Well, we can still bomb them. We can fly over Teheran, or the Bushehr plant and bomb it to Kingdom Come". That would only require a few fighter pilots + some very heavy bombs.

But what would be the outcome? Why would we bomb a country, if we werent prepared to march in and "take it". Walk in amidst the rubble, plant a flag in the dirt, and claim it. Especially a country with as much oil as Iran.

I'm going to make a bold claim & say that we don't bomb countries unless we are planning to occupy them. Take Iraq. Also Afghanistan. Am I correct?

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. Nope, you are not correct. We bombed Libya.

The Washington Monthly, October 2006

The Tyrant Who Came In
From the Cold

Gadhafi gave up his WMDs not because we scared him,
but because we talked to him.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0610.suskind.html

"...In the 1980s, Gadhafi was looking to be a player on the world stage, and terror was his means. By the mid-’80s, Ronald Reagan was calling Gadhafi the most dangerous man in the world. The United States bombed Libya in 1986—an attack that killed Gadhafi’s daughter and injured two of his sons—in retaliation for his having bombed a nightclub in Germany. Onerous unilateral sanctions were placed on the country.

Then, in December 1988, the United States suffered one of the worst acts of terrorism it would experience prior to 9/11: the explosion of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. The attack killed 270 people, mostly Americans—including 35 students from Syracuse University. Among the planners of the attack had been one of Bonk’s fellow Spartans: Musa Kousa.

That, at least, was the consensus of every significant intelligence agency in the West. The Lockerbie flight had taken place in an era when Kousa was deputy head of Libyan intelligence. And Kousa was soon implicated by the French and British intelligence in yet another disaster: the blowing up of a French airliner, UTA 772, over Niger in 1989. The death toll was 170.

By the end of the 1980s, Gadhafi had destroyed Libya’s relations with much of the world, and the isolation had seemed to be irreversible. But things changed by the end of the following decade. In 1998, George Tenet, just a year into his directorship of the CIA, and John McLaughlin, his deputy director for intelligence, had flown to Jiddah to meet with Bandar. In the ambassador’s sprawling home, which McLaughlin compares to “Disney World, with flying monkeys and giant TV screens,” Bandar mentioned he’d chatted recently with Gadhafi. “I think he might want to talk,” Bandar said. “He’s tired of being alone.”..."

Bill Clinton also launched cruise missiles into Sudan, and Afghanistan, with no intention then to invade or occupy either nation.

But the most important precedent wasn't an over American act. It was when Israel attacked Saddam Hussein's one nuclear power plant:


BBC - On This Day
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/7/newsid_3014000/3014623.stm

1981: Israel bombs Baghdad nuclear reactor
The Israelis have bombed a French-built nuclear plant near Iraq's capital, Baghdad, saying they believed it was designed to make nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.
It is the world's first air strike against a nuclear plant.

An undisclosed number of F-15 interceptors and F-16 fighter bombers destroyed the Osirak reactor 18 miles south of Baghdad, on the orders of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

The army command said all the Israeli planes returned safely.

[spanone]

8. please do not tempt our idiot-in-chief

[Imagevision]

9. Great! another "bring em on idiot"...!

[VP505]

10. Wrong thing to say

to "Mr Bring It On" commander guy, or maybe they want to provoke him, anyway if we go into Iran it will likely be an air war and I am pretty sure we have enough aircraft and bombs to take out most everything there without setting foot on their soil. However, I think I know where their Army would attack and I doubt we could deal with that in Iraq.

[Junkdrawer]

12. All depends on the size of the next terror attack...

If big enough, there'll be a draft...

[Tom Rinaldo]

13. Correct, except it will be our attack on Iran that increases terrorist attacks

And then the draft will be justified by the fact that we really will be in a state of war with a much broader set of adversaries able to tap into much greater resourses than Al Quada now has. The U.S. can withdraw our troops from Iraq to tamp down some of the anger against us, but we won't be able to withdraw the bombs we drop on Iran, the damage, in more than one way, will already be done, the dynamic of war will be launched. We won't be able to organize an anti-war movement to bring our troops home because once the U.S. comes under sustained retaliatory attacks the movement will be in the oppostite direction, to send our troops in, just like with Afghanistan.

There will at that point be an actual threat to America, one that our own actions triggered off, but real none the less. That is how the draft will be justified. I have very strong suspicions that some of the neocon supporters of "limited tactical air strikes on Iran's nuclear facillities" actually know exactly the next steps that would trigger off, and they are planning on it. They believe war in the middle east, either over Oil or for Religious prophesy, is inevitable and think future Administrations may not have the resolve needed to bring it on while the U.S. is still the world's only super power.

I wrote an extensive Diary on this subject at Daily Kos. Here is the link:

“If we want a war with a billion Muslims we can probably have one.” - Wes Clark
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/23/133937/363

[BlooInBloo]

14. Unfortunately we can still bomb them back into whatever age you care to name...

... Except for that, they're right.

[TahitiNut]

15. Too stretched to invade. Not too stretched to bomb.

Let's remember that Iraq was hammered for over ten years, predominantly by the Air Farce, before it was criminally invaded.

[rucky]

16. They must have spies deep in the Pentagon to make that assessment.

:sarcasm:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Are the geniuses at the WH and Pentagon stupid enough to attack Iran?

They certainly were stupid enough to attack Iraq and expect the jubilant Iraqis to embrace the GI's and fling flowers at them.

As it is now, I think even the most idiotic denizens of the WH & Pentagon realize that a land invasion is impossible. But, they might have delusions of bombing the nuwkuler facilities and escaping unscathed with grinning "victorious" pilots, nifty smart bomb videos, and proclamations by the politicians that a "necessary step" was taken to protect the world from the Iranian bogeyman.

Of course, the brilliant planners, as usual, would fail to take into account that the Iranians, like the Iraqis, might have plans of their own that differ from the rosy scenario of a triumphant Dubya and cami-clad generals receiving the gratitude of the world.

Much like the Sioux had somewhat different plans than those assigned to them by Custer.