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2006-06-12 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Asia Times: The day the US took a beating over Iran
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Posted by 3dc 2006-06-12 10:17|| || Front Page|| [11130 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 The day the US took a beating over Iran was on Jimmy Carter's watch. And everyone else has been paying the price for it ever since.
Posted by Fleaper Speater7122 2006-06-12 10:47||   2006-06-12 10:47|| Front Page Top

#2 Russia and China were both expecting the US to try the same trick we used to invade Iraq, resolution 1441. We really skunked them with that one. And we knew they weren't going to let us do it a second time, so this effort was just pro forma.

This means that we will use some other means to get the ball rolling. Traditionally, we have waited for the other side to attack first; but this is no longer viable as the weapons are too destructive.

So we cajole Iran into attacking us first, in an ineffectual manner; and we actively put increasing unconventional pressure on them until their society starts to crack. Either way, we neuter them, and it doesn't matter what Russia and China think.
Posted by Anonymoose 2006-06-12 11:35||   2006-06-12 11:35|| Front Page Top

#3 I can't see where we are getting any benefit from being in the U.N. at all. If they can't even agree that Iran shouldn't have nuclear weapons then they truly are useless.

They are going to try to screw us any way they can.
Oh, but keep those checks comming though.
Posted by bigjim-ky 2006-06-12 11:41||   2006-06-12 11:41|| Front Page Top

#4 The UN is what you make of it and so far the US has failed to use the UN effectively.

When China/France/Russia gets uppity we should start loudly supporting India and Japan as Permenant Members of the Security Council and force China to veto them and look the villian.

More members dillutes the power of the Security Council (and could increase their dues and save us money) so this is a win/win.

Other nations should be held accountable for their anti-American votes. You vote against us over and over again don't expect an Aid check. That would save the us a fortune in foreign aide money or drastically switch votes towards our positions.

We should also hold UN employees to a higher standard. Corruption should result in legal prosecution and perhaps the corrupt persons nation losing the ability to vote in the General Assembly (or Security Council) for so many years.
Posted by rjschwarz 2006-06-12 12:06||   2006-06-12 12:06|| Front Page Top

#5 Ten years ago you may have had an argument, rj. Today not. The corruption is so ingrained in the culture that the only way to root it out is with institutional agent orange.

The UN was set up by New Deal fellow travellers with guidance from their communist opinion setters. It was intended to evolve to be a world government where all the nations of the world would band together to oppose the bad guys. But we now know who the bad guys were. And the UN did nothing in the 50 year cold war to defeat them.

The UN is now nothing more than a venue in the war for public opinion. Even the UN agrees its building is decrepit. We need a new, low cost set.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-06-12 12:30||   2006-06-12 12:30|| Front Page Top

#6 “…the US administration has suffered a decisive defeat of its effort to get international sanctions for possible military action against Iran.”

Bzzzzt…Wrong! The fact that Russia and China didn’t advocate UNSC sanctions at this stage was not only plausible but expected. Besides, had the proposal contained that language it would have been DOA once it reached the Mullas. However, now the gauntlet has been set should Iran refuse this offer outright.
Posted by DepotGuy 2006-06-12 13:08||   2006-06-12 13:08|| Front Page Top

#7 Darn! Our diplomatic overtures have been defeated! I guess this leaves only the military option.
Posted by Hupailing Ebbuns2352 2006-06-12 14:13||   2006-06-12 14:13|| Front Page Top

#8 
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Posted by  fuck you scum 2006-06-12 14:51||   2006-06-12 14:51|| Front Page Top

#9 I assume #8 will get some moderator attention?
Posted by Inspector Clueso 2006-06-12 15:06||   2006-06-12 15:06|| Front Page Top

#10 Charming use of language #8.

Stick with it and one day that brain cell may multiply .
Posted by MacNails 2006-06-12 15:28||   2006-06-12 15:28|| Front Page Top

#11 In the end we will act alone, or Isreal will. Now is the time to talk and foment insurrection. The Prez was qouted as saying a nuclar Iran is not an option. The day before they try and field a weapon will the their last.
Posted by BrerRabbit 2006-06-12 15:56||   2006-06-12 15:56|| Front Page Top

#12 Nimble Spemble, I disagree. Anytime you control such a large percentage of the financing of a thing, you control the thing.

The problem is the US has not controlled the thing. We should insist on prosecutions for everyone involved in Oil-for-food or the UN doesn't get a dime. We should insist on total transparency or the UN doesn't get a dime. At some point they will reform or wither or other nations may have to step up their own funding to keep it alive.

The UN can be a very useful tool in fixing the worlds problems but we have to stop being saps about it.
Posted by rjschwarz 2006-06-12 16:16||   2006-06-12 16:16|| Front Page Top

#13 Another tactic is to simply veto everything done by a specific country who pisses us off. Even if we are indifferent to whatever is being voted on if the French (for example) want it we veto it. Make them kiss our butts if they want something to happen.

The result is further dissolution of UN power or a gradual change in the knee-jerk anti-Americanism because cause and effect are now alive and well in the General Assembly.
Posted by rjschwarz 2006-06-12 16:18||   2006-06-12 16:18|| Front Page Top

#14 I'd go a step further and just start vetoing everything. Even US proposals. Also start propose idiotic things like "No cattle traffic on the southern bound roads except on second Tuesdays" and then veto it.
Posted by Laurence of the Rats">Laurence of the Rats  2006-06-12 16:53||   2006-06-12 16:53|| Front Page Top

#15 rj, haven't you ever seen projects so far gone that the best way to cdomplete them was to scrap everything and start over with a new team? That's the UN.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-06-12 16:54||   2006-06-12 16:54|| Front Page Top

#16 I have seen projects that far gone, the league of nations for example. I'm not convinced the UN is hopeless, not yet. I think we've simply failed to manage the UN. We've allowed nations to flip us the bird in the UN with no repercussions elsewhere when we should take the entire picture as one.

I think people would reform quickly if they found that there were consequences to their actions. So far there have been none.

I'd start the reforming of the UN with the public flogging (Hanging would be better still) of any UN folks associated with the Oil for Food theft.
Posted by rjschwarz 2006-06-12 17:52||   2006-06-12 17:52|| Front Page Top

#17 This is wasted bandwidth. Read the rules of the UN charter.

Those bits not reserved to the UNSC, a very short list, are General Assembly votes. Ever hear of the Group of 77 (which has swelled to 123, at last count)? How about the laughable NAM? They can and do subvert the UN to their collective agenda - which bears no resemblance to the original intent of the UN. Since they are far more than the majority of the 191 members, they control the UN. It is fatally flawed.

You can't fix it because they won't let you - they have the votes and the charter rules on their side.

It would be easier to change human nature.

Kill this parasitic pig.
Posted by flyover 2006-06-12 18:01||   2006-06-12 18:01|| Front Page Top

#18 This is wasted bandwidth.

Use that as a pickup line often?
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-06-12 18:04||   2006-06-12 18:04|| Front Page Top

#19 LOL. Sorry, it was the top-most thing on my mind and made it - I should've been demure and excised it before submitting.

It's in the charter and it's exactly as I posted. I offer my abject apology for telling the truth. My bad, LOL.

Please, carry on. Fred loves this kind of pointless wankfest, I'm sure. :)
Posted by flyover 2006-06-12 18:08||   2006-06-12 18:08|| Front Page Top

#20 Fred loves this kind of pointless wankfest, I'm sure. :)

Haven't been here long, have you. Gentle, Mikey, Aris, Name-aDay. You've missed lots of wankfests. Unless you're a famous ex-poster...
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-06-12 18:26||   2006-06-12 18:26|| Front Page Top

#21 I've been in and out over the last 18 months, finally decided to pick a name and play recently. Everybody's heard of Aris, LOL. Mikey is Mike S? Gentle and Name-aDay are new to me.

Anyway. The UN is beyond repair - and that's not MO, that's the fact. Seemed to me it was getting silly, lots of talk about changing this or fixing that - when it simply cannot be done without changing the "leaders" in about 90 countries, but I guess I was presumptuous for saying so. My Bad.
Posted by flyover 2006-06-12 18:37||   2006-06-12 18:37|| Front Page Top

#22 I think you're right. The problem waasn't with what you were saying.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-06-12 18:53||   2006-06-12 18:53|| Front Page Top

#23 Ok, I'll take your implication to heart, sorry.
Posted by flyover 2006-06-12 18:55||   2006-06-12 18:55|| Front Page Top

#24 careful invoking MS and the UN in the same comment. You'll call he-who-should-not-be-named back to torment us!
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2006-06-12 19:17||   2006-06-12 19:17|| Front Page Top

#25 The UN is like a car with a bent frame. You can sink tons of effort and money into fixing it, but when you drive it around.......it is still a car with a bent frame. Always will be.

The problems with the UN are institutional. How can you raise consciousness with the majority of voting members dictatorships and/or kleptocracy. There is no accountability. There is a resistance to accountability that emanates right from the top. Better that representative republics make ad hoc agreements and work together for the common good without building another bureaucratic monster. The UN should be treated like our military treated the military bases on Rabaul and Truk Island during WW2: bypass them, leave them to wither on the vine, and keep pushing toward our main objective.
Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul  2006-06-12 20:49||   2006-06-12 20:49|| Front Page Top

#26 "leave them to wither on the vine"

I hope that means without our money and substantial material support, which is a mainstay that prevents them from imploding as the joke they have become...

The Great Tsunami should have been more than sufficient to demonstrate how feckless and pathetic they are, but with the MSM, that message was largely buried.

I believe the only "weapon" they have is to attempt to "shame" us into underwriting their continued existence. Personally, I feel there's absolutely no shame in dropping them like a bad habit.

If we pulled out, so would others who they've been holding hostage in this manner. I say we should do it - but I don't know if I'd try to start a better designed organization. At least not until the UN has collapsed and some perspective is built up to make it clear that a bad organization, run by the despots and kleptos, is worse than no organization at all. I presume the MSM would go crazy for some period of time, trying to resurrect this corpse. Perhaps the row would also accelerate the demise of the Tranzi MSM.
Posted by flyover 2006-06-12 21:23||   2006-06-12 21:23|| Front Page Top

#27 flyover, Gentle wasa dear, sweet college girl from the UAE, or perhaps one of of the other Gulf countries. She had well-taught English, but was very clear on the Muslim party line and abominably ignorant about the realites of even her corner of the world. .com, who'd spent a lot of time in Saudi Arabia, was particularly unappreciative. Name-a-day was an obnoxious idiot (I don't remember which particular species of troll, I don't have a mind for such things these days, I'm afraid), posting out of either British Columbia or Washington, DC who, after losing every point of his argument, would come back with similar nonsense the next day under a different name. I think he used to change computers to get around Fred banning his IPs, too. At one point he called himself Cassini or Canolli, or something, I think. You dind't miss much by not knowing him.
Posted by trailing wife 2006-06-12 22:09||   2006-06-12 22:09|| Front Page Top

#28 More foolishness. The line-up has been set for months, with little to no expectation that Russia or the ChiComs will change from their position(s).

The ChiComs are being amazingly consistent by placing its own economic self interests ahead of anything else (as is the Ruskies). So, why go through the exercise at all?

Because the diplomatic end game calls for a coaltion of the willing, and for optimal support from American citizens.

The seemingly inevitable advance to military action is best made without any rationale arguments that diplomacy had not been exhausted.
Posted by Captain America 2006-06-12 22:13||   2006-06-12 22:13|| Front Page Top

#29 A couple of bloggers at STRATEGYPAGE and WORLD MILITARY FORUM believe part of America's problems wid CHAVEZ and other regional Lefties is that Chavez & Co. truly intend to build a pipeline andor transhipment network separate, but in competition with, from the Panama Canal, one where CHINESE TANKERS/FREIGHTERS can load = offload without worrying about the US-West. Bloggers > opine that said pipeline-network will likely be protected by Chicom armed "workers" + security + mil units, plus of course the local boyz.
Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-06-12 23:40||   2006-06-12 23:40|| Front Page Top

#30 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]
Posted by  fuck you scum 2006-06-12 14:51||   2006-06-12 14:51|| Front Page Top

14:51  fuck you scum
23:57 JosephMendiola
23:53 JosephMendiola
23:51 flyover
23:45 RD
23:40 JosephMendiola
23:31 JosephMendiola
23:25 JosephMendiola
23:11 RD
23:11 ryuge
23:05 ryuge
23:01 ryuge
23:00 Anonymoose
22:59 trailing wife
22:55 trailing wife
22:50 trailing wife
22:47 flyover
22:42 Zenster
22:36 Frank G
22:33 Danking70
22:32 trailing wife
22:29 Alaska Paul
22:25 Alaska Paul
22:20 Alaska Paul









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