Do you think that the U.S. will go to war with Iran in 2013?

[Al-Qaerra]

Won't happen... US won't risk war with with the other major powers, besides that... the last people Iranians want in their country are Americans...

[Benuty]

Won't happen... US won't risk war with with the other major powers.

Its not like the US hasn't done it before

Besides remove the Russian-Chinese oil interests in Iran thus giving away its ability to finance "certain" interests in the middle east.

[Constaniana]

Unless the Iranian government decides to start following the example of Leeroy Jenkins, no.

[Benuty]

Unless the Iranian government decides to start following the example of Leeroy Jenkins, no.

Well considering their see-saw economy at the moment, I hardly think they'd have the advantage.

[Al-Qaerra]

Won't happen... US won't risk war with with the other major powers.

Its not like the US hasn't done it before

Besides remove the Russian-Chinese oil interests in Iran thus giving away its ability to finance "certain" interests in the middle east.

US has done it before, But Russia and China won't let such thing happen now... Iran is one of the most important countries for Russia when it comes to geopolitics.. For China its just to annoy the US i guess...

But both Russia and China won't let the US attack Iran.. the US won't attack if it leads to extremely bad relations or even war with one of those two, it would mean the end of the US as a superpower.

[Dilange]

The only war we would go to war with Iran, is we went to war with Syria. Which in either case is not going to happen anytime soon.

[Northern Molovsky]

If Iran does manage access to nuclear weapons and continues to act provocatively, the US(among others) will be in a situation where it is simply not possible to avoid serious first strikes against their nuclear capability using any means necessary. So it's up to them for now.

Well, I don't like the Iranian regime anymore than the next person, but for all these decades their hostilities towards the West have practically been reactionary since their revolution. Also, it should be noticed that North Korea is way ahead of Iran in developing nuclear weapons as they're using plutonium instead of uranium. Granted both nations are nowhere near WW2 levels, but you have to wonder why US and NATO haven't even beaten a war drum against NK regarding nukes as much as they do with Iran.

Because North Korea is the most militarized nation on earth and any war with it on it's soil is likely in result in a huge amount of casualties, also China's longstanding alliance with the DPRK makes any offensive action towards them difficult as it is likely to risk Chinese intervention. Hence, the U.S & NATO will go after the easier target.

[Vulkaniya]

I would think that israel (eager for war as ever) would invade Iran long before the US. But where Israel goes, this country blindly follows.

[Benuty]

Well, I don't like the Iranian regime anymore than the next person, but for all these decades their hostilities towards the West have practically been reactionary since their revolution. Also, it should be noticed that North Korea is way ahead of Iran in developing nuclear weapons as they're using plutonium instead of uranium. Granted both nations are nowhere near WW2 levels, but you have to wonder why US and NATO haven't even beaten a war drum against NK regarding nukes as much as they do with Iran.

Because North Korea is the most militarized nation on earth and any war with it on it's soil is likely in result in a huge amount of casualties, also China's longstanding alliance with the DPRK makes any offensive action towards them difficult as it is likely to risk Chinese intervention. Hence, the U.S & NATO will go after the easier target.

While the Korean war has never truly ended, DPRK forces haven't seen actual combat since the last of it mostly died down in late 1953. Hell the Chinese are for more military experienced considering they've been involved in wars since their action in Korea. I'd highly doubt resistance by the military would be much problem, if anything guerilla resistance is the main concern.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Its not like the US hasn't done it before

Besides remove the Russian-Chinese oil interests in Iran thus giving away its ability to finance "certain" interests in the middle east.

US has done it before, But Russia and China won't let such thing happen now... Iran is one of the most important countries for Russia when it comes to geopolitics.. For China its just to annoy the US i guess...

But both Russia and China won't let the US attack Iran.. the US won't attack if it leads to extremely bad relations or even war with one of those two, it would mean the end of the US as a superpower.

All Russia and China can directly do is veto UN action. If the US decides to go outside of it, China and Russia can practically do fuck-all. China can't even economically punish us - their economy is that tied up in ours.
I doubt in either case Russia or China (especially Russia) would care enough to go to war over a Middle Eastern theocracy. And in no way would even a war with either change the US' superpower status. If anything, it would likely mean the reduction of one of the main challengers to that position.

[Imperium of Tanith]

No. Attacking Iran would be a terrible mistake. The U.S. and it's terrorist allies in Israel would win but it would make Vietnam look like a picnic.

I'm going to take a shot and say that you live in Syria, Jordan, or Lebanon from your comment.

[Obamacult]

If you believe that destroying Iran's technologically inferior air defense structure within hours with minimal material losses and American human costs as a 'war' .

Then yes, it is possible that we will go to 'war' with this backward thugocracy.

Moreover, the US doesn't need to use conventional ground forces to destroy Iran's ability to undermine our interests in the region.

We can destroy Iran's nuclear capability, conventional forces and economic strength with standoff weaponry.

The problem will be Iran's use of asymetrical warfare that is much more difficult to deal with using our 'cadillac' conventional forces and our advanced strategic capability

Nonetheless, we can easily 'contract' out the job of ground forces to the many indigenous forces that hate the current Iranian thugocracy. For example, I believe that there is already an extensive Kurdish rebel element in Iran that can be leveraged to undermine Iranian interests to the point that their ability to engage in offensive military action, asymetric or otherwise, is severely degraded.

In sum, if you want something to worry about -- worry about the US government's self-immolation of American economic strength by corrupting, mismanaging and bankrupting itself and the Republic by destructive intrusion into economic issues best left to the individual states.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

In sum, if you want something to worry about -- worry about the US government's self-immolation of American economic strength by corrupting, mismanaging and bankrupting itself and the Republic by destructive intrusion into economic issues best left to the individual states.

I was so hopeful you were going to make one post without threadjacking back to your favorite bugaboo.
Oh well.

[Obamacult]

I would think that israel (eager for war as ever) would invade Iran long before the US. But where Israel goes, this country blindly follows.

Nobody is going to invade Iran under any circumstances.

[Obamacult]

In sum, if you want something to worry about -- worry about the US government's self-immolation of American economic strength by corrupting, mismanaging and bankrupting itself and the Republic by destructive intrusion into economic issues best left to the individual states.

I was so hopeful you were going to make one post without threadjacking back to your favorite bugaboo.
Oh well.

Iran will be a serious sideshow, if or when it obtains nuclear weapon capability. If this is allowed to happen, then all bets are off.

We will see a nuclear arms race between Shia, Sunni, Arab, Persian, secular, Salafis, et al in the most volatile region on the planet astride 70% of the globe's most accessible oil reserves.

If you think the sequester was bad, if you think a temporary govt. shutdown is bad, if you think that the housing bubble was bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

At some point, it is inevitable that the massive proliferation, with the opening of pandora's box of WMD, that a non-state, faith-based actor will gain possession of fissile technology, material or weaponry and use this weaponry on a great Western city. Note that the economic costs alone of the 9/11 attacks has been estimated (from a leftwing source) to be $3.3 trillion!

The only potential threats that are more serious than this are Russia's nuclear weapon stockpile, China's economic asendency and subsequent military adverturism in the South China Sea, near Earth orbit and cyberspace and the US debt -- not in this order.

But yes, our inability to fund a military and intelligence infrastructure to defend against emerging threats from abroad is already being compromised by the debt and deficit.

[Yarth]

Nope.

[Pope Joan]

We want to cut back our bloated military budget.

Afghanistan's costly war brought down the USSR and we are trying to avoid the same fate.

So no, not until 2016. Then, after Ms. Clinton loses, expect us to attack within months.

[R0MAN0VA]

The funny thing is everyone is all up and crazy about Iran having nuclear capability, when you've got Israel having nukes and saying it will attack Iran with or without U.S. assistance/approval, dividing up the occupied territory of Palestine with apartheid like structure, I mean what's your definition of a war worthy state? We used the 'WMD', supporting terrorists. etc. with Iraq as a pretext for war, later found to be fraudulent. It's all about control. Control of interests, politics, economies, people, etc. It pisses me off when people start saying we need to go to war with this country or these people for this reason or that reason. Alright, as long as you personally go to every family in the place you want to war with and tell them they deserve to have their loved ones die, have their homes bombed, lives destroyed, children scarred, all because the people in control of their govt. didn't align with your interests, or (insert excuse here). It makes me sick and ashamed to be an American sometimes for the evil things we do and for the excuses we give for them.

[Constaniana]

I was so hopeful you were going to make one post without threadjacking back to your favorite bugaboo.
Oh well.

Iran will be a serious sideshow, if or when it obtains nuclear weapon capability. If this is allowed to happen, then all bets are off.

We will see a nuclear arms race between Shia, Sunni, Arab, Persian, secular, Salafis, et al in the most volatile region on the planet astride 70% of the globe's most accessible oil reserves.

If you think the sequester was bad, if you think a temporary govt. shutdown is bad, if you think that the housing bubble was bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

At some point, it is inevitable that the massive proliferation, with the opening of pandora's box of WMD, that a non-state, faith-based actor will gain possession of fissile technology, material or weaponry and use this weaponry on a great Western city. Note that the economic costs alone of the 9/11 attacks has been estimated (from a leftwing source) to be $3.3 trillion!

The only potential threats that are more serious than this are Russia's nuclear weapon stockpile, China's economic asendency and subsequent military adverturism in the South China Sea, near Earth orbit and cyberspace and the US debt -- not in this order.

But yes, our inability to fund a military and intelligence infrastructure to defend against emerging threats from abroad is already being compromised by the debt and deficit.

Yes, because Russia is really scheming to take over the world, those tricky commies!

[Obamacult]

Iran will be a serious sideshow, if or when it obtains nuclear weapon capability. If this is allowed to happen, then all bets are off.

We will see a nuclear arms race between Shia, Sunni, Arab, Persian, secular, Salafis, et al in the most volatile region on the planet astride 70% of the globe's most accessible oil reserves.

If you think the sequester was bad, if you think a temporary govt. shutdown is bad, if you think that the housing bubble was bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

At some point, it is inevitable that the massive proliferation, with the opening of pandora's box of WMD, that a non-state, faith-based actor will gain possession of fissile technology, material or weaponry and use this weaponry on a great Western city. Note that the economic costs alone of the 9/11 attacks has been estimated (from a leftwing source) to be $3.3 trillion!

The only potential threats that are more serious than this are Russia's nuclear weapon stockpile, China's economic asendency and subsequent military adverturism in the South China Sea, near Earth orbit and cyberspace and the US debt -- not in this order.

But yes, our inability to fund a military and intelligence infrastructure to defend against emerging threats from abroad is already being compromised by the debt and deficit.

Yes, because Russia is really scheming to take over the world, those tricky commies!

Russia has enough nukes to kill every American many times over.

If that doesn't give you pause, then nothing will.

They also don't trust their own people, so why should we trust them?

[TaQud]

Nope.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Yes, because Russia is really scheming to take over the world, those tricky commies!

Russia has enough nukes to kill every American many times over.

And so do we, for them.
That's deterrence for you.

If that doesn't give you pause, then nothing will.

They also don't trust their own people, so why should we trust them?

They may be erratic, but they have nothing to gain from opposing us (especially on a nuclear level). This isn't the Cold War, we're not on the opposite side of an ideological gulf anymore. They're frankly far more reasonable than they were pre-1991.
And I don't even know what you're talking about in the last sentence there.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

The funny thing is everyone is all up and crazy about Iran having nuclear capability, when you've got Israel having nukes and saying it will attack Iran with or without U.S. assistance/approval,

With conventional weapons, to deny Iranian nuclear capacity.
It did so in the past with Iraq, so there is a sort of precedent here. And they do have a justification, witht he Iranian state openly supporting the destruction of the Israeli state.

dividing up the occupied territory of Palestine with apartheid like structure,

That is a shame, but it's also not exactly something you can blame the US for. It's also something that stands a genuine chance at reform, what with Israel actually being a democracy. As opposed to Iran.

I mean what's your definition of a war worthy state?

One that actively presents a clear danger to the crucial interests of the state that I identify with, or to the world at large.

We used the 'WMD', supporting terrorists. etc. with Iraq as a pretext for war, later found to be fraudulent.

That was just bad intel, frankly.
There wasn't ever some grand plan to subjugate Iraq - the fact was, it was just a series of intelligence mistakes. If you think about it, that's scarier.
But it's also easier to fix and learn from.

It's all about control. Control of interests, politics, economies, people, etc.

That's how a country survives, yes.

It pisses me off when people start saying we need to go to war with this country or these people for this reason or that reason. Alright, as long as you personally go to every family in the place you want to war with and tell them they deserve to have their loved ones die, have their homes bombed, lives destroyed, children scarred, all because the people in control of their govt. didn't align with your interests, or (insert excuse here).

Right, because none of those people, or their own government, had any agency or free will. It was all just singing Kumbayah round the campfire until the mean ol' American bombs came down.
The fact of the matter is, it's sometimes necessary to make war, and sometimes (not always), it's the lesser of two evils. Not in Iraq, obviously, but the fact remains.

It makes me sick and ashamed to be an American sometimes for the evil things we do and for the excuses we give for them.

Maybe you should trying laying a little of the blame somewhere else for a change.

[Cerian Quilor]

NO.

[R0MAN0VA]

"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY." -- Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials