Article

2007-07-02 Terror Networks

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by anonymous5089 2007-07-02 10:50|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Pretentious name, pretentious output.

Posted by mojo">mojo 2007-07-02 11:58|| 2007-07-02 11:58|| Front Page Top

#2 Pretentious name, pretentious output.

Are you saying he's wrong? He may be too pretentious for your liking, but I'd say he was spot on.

Posted by Natural Law 2007-07-02 12:49|| 2007-07-02 12:49|| Front Page Top

#3 NL: Are you saying he's wrong? He may be too pretentious for your liking, but I'd say he was spot on.

It's the Barbara Tuchman crap that's hard to take. The idea that nobody wants war but it happens anyway is bullcrap. Wars don't happen by accident. They happen for two reasons - the two sides have national objectives that are incompatible and zero sum and neither side is willing to appease the other. Wars happen because the opposing sides value their objectives over peace. War is the means of deciding whose objectives will prevail. What nobody wants is casualties. But without casualties, wars wouldn't decide anything. Like it or not, it's attrition that causes one side to back down.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-07-02 13:26|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2007-07-02 13:26|| Front Page Top

#4 The writer's chief contention is that Iran's proxy forces can not be precisely controlled and that the primary players like Israel, Iran and America will inevitably be drawn into a more direct clash.

As I see it, there are even more wild cards in play. The events of 9/11/01 activated the Jacksonian ethic in U.S. foreign policy and this force is far from quiescent. The American public, by and large, can see the connection between Islamic attacks around the world and Iran's intentions (the image of Iranians burning a U.S. flag while chanting, "Death to America" come to mind). Although the current administration wishes to consolidate the situation in Iraq before addressing the Iranian problem, Iranian complicity in the production of EFPs used in Iraq or a major attack on U.S. interests around the world with Iranian fingerprints on it could provoke calls for retaliation against the head of the Islamofascist snake.

There is also a divide in Tehran itself between the realists (most of the generals) who recognize that a direct confrontation with America would be ruinous for Iran and the idealists (like Ahmadinejad) who see it as a divine mission. Political setbacks like the riots over a raising of gas prices could impel the idealists to seek a confrontation to improve their image at home, with the possibility that a miscalculation causes the situation to escalate prematurely (the capture of the English seamen was a bonanza but the stakes have now been raised).

Posted by Grumenk Philalzabod0723 2007-07-02 22:12|| 2007-07-02 22:12|| Front Page Top

23:44 CrazyFool
23:42 Mac
23:40 Abdominal Snowman
23:26 Super Hose
23:21 lotp
23:09 Super Hose
23:07 logi_cal
23:05 Frank G
22:58 Skidmark
22:54 3dc
22:52 Super Hose
22:52 Mike N.
22:42 Super Hose
22:40 Mike N.
22:40 Frank G
22:29 Super Hose
22:27 Pappy
22:26 Frank G
22:26 Nimble Spemble
22:25 Super Hose
22:20 Frank G
22:20 Pappy
22:20 sinse
22:18 Nimble Spemble