Talk Elections

Hello

Several times for one year I heard and read in french medias that Dick Cheney wanted to strike on Iran.

Personnaly, I don't know what to think about it, I consider it would be a big surprise but I also consider G.W. Bush as a man who can do everything without worrying about his image or about which sort of trace he could let in the History, he seems to be persuaded that he always do the right things, the judgement of others seems to not matter a lot for him.

Anyway, if something like that happens it could be the begining of a real big war, not a 3 mounths one like in Irak, maybe engaging a coalition versus an other and all that this could implicate. So it would be not a light decision.

Can we hear same thing about such a decision in USA? Do you consider it's a possibility? If ever it happens what could be the impact on the campaign? Which candidate could it favour? Is there already a candidate who want such a thing?

Iran is a fairly hot topic on the campaign trail.  Most Democrats are taking a diplomacy/sanctions approach while leaving military action open only in extreme circumstances.  The Republicans are also saying they would look at military action as a last resort but several of them seem to be more open to the idea of a war in Iran than others.

As for Bush and Cheney although they may like to attack Iran the US military is stretched too thin for them to do so without invoking a draft which would cause massive protests across the country and would be the final nail in the GOP's presidential coffin.

The question is: do Bush and Cheney care about all of this?

Bush and Cheney are on crack so no they don't. All they care about is giving money to defense contractors, oil companies and Israel.

No one is talking about a ground invasion though.  If anything, there will just be airstrikes.  (Granted, Iran could retaliate against US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I suppose things could ultimately escalate out of control.)

What do you mean could? I see them escalating in the event of airstrikes.

That's also what I think, and more of that Iran has treats of cooperation with at least, Russia (who can communicate with Iran by the Caspian Sea), Venezuela (Chavez said he will intervene if a military action was undertaken against Iran) and China could also want to make problem to occident is such a thing is done.

So I consider that to know if Bush and Cheney care about consequences of such a thing is highly important. They know they are highly unpopular and that their assessment is considered as highly bad, will they resist to this last temptation if they have nothing to lose?

If such a thing happen where could it drive 2008 USA presidency election?

Here's a dose of reality.

1. The US Military does not currently have the man power to maintain a war on 3 fronts and will not invade Iran any time soon.

In order to move against Iran the US would either (A) have to win broad global support, (B) vastly increase the size of its standing military, or (C) abandon one of its other fronts.  After the Iraq debacle there's no way we can win global support.  We're currently struggling to maintain the size of military so the only way to grow it would be through a draft and that won't happen.  Bush won't abandon either of the other fronts.

2. Iran is actively pursuing nuclear weapons.

Iran's two longest border nations are currently occuppied by massive US forces.  When Iran had a reformer government in place which had reached out to the US, the current US leader publicly described Iran as being part of the "Axis of Evil".  Naturally Iran is nervous and doesn't feel it can trust the good will of the US.  Iran also has seen that after North Korea acquired nuclear weapons the US decided to negotiate with them.  This means Iran's only option for its safety is nuclear weapons.

3. Iran will get nuclear arms.

Since the US can't get the arms and they've made Iran feel that they need them, Iran will spend the time and resources necessary to acquire nuclear arms.


Thanks Bush voters, you screwed the world.

Would voting Bush out in 2004 made Iraq any less of a debacle than it already was?

And could any voter in 2000 have reasonably been expected to anticipate anything resembling this?


The blame is on Bush himself, not the voters.

Here are the facts:

1) The President of Iran is a radical Shiite Muslim who is trying to usher in the 12Th Imam by nuking Israel.

2) Iran’s proxy forces (Hezbullah, Syria, etc) are gearing up to destroy Israel.

3) Such a war will forever change the world as you know it.

The only thing that is "stretched" is our ground forces.  We don't need ground forces to keep a virtual knee in Iran's back semi-permanently.  Our (and our friends) Air Forces and Navies are enough to keep Iran from doing anything in either Iraq or Afghanastan.  What exactly could Iran do?  Say we bomb all their important nuclear sites and all their rocket emplacements around the Straits of Hormuz , what are they going to do?  Mobilize their militaries and start invading Iraq?  We haven't seen the USAF blow up standing Armies in what...4 years?  Have we forgotten?  Daisy Cutters are AMAZING things and B52's can carry lots of 'em and we got lots of B52s that ARE NOT tied down in Baghdad.Agreed.  Iran's best case (well, their best case would be to overthrow the current regime and in all honesty, that's OUR best case too, but nobody on either side seems to actually desire that outcome) is to secretly aquire several nukes at once and then let the world know that they have them.  As you point out, once N.Korea got them, the West went all pussy in regaurds to the midget with a pot belly.
I doubt Iran will be able to make them locally without their assorted neighbors going crazy on them.  Saudi Arabia and the assorted surrounding Kingdoms and Emirates don't want that.  The rest of the Arabs (for the most part) also don't want to see the Persians getting nukes.  Israel obviously doesn't and has the ability to by itself to put a hurt on Iran (they don't now because of the repercussions politically in the Middle East, but if they thought Iran was close...).I'm proud to say I voted 3rd party (Libertarian) both times he's run.  I'm proud to say I've never voted for a winning President in the 4 elections I've voted in.  But I'm not going to blame the people that voted for him in 2000.

2004 on the other hand....the jackasses should have known.

with all due respect, you guys were the ones who voted for him becuase he was "likeable," or because you'd rather have a beer with him than with Gore or Kerry

You have to know that now the president of France is Sarkozy and France is no more the "3rd voice of the world" (as small could have been this voice it existed and was considered, especially in arab world and also in persian world, Iran).

I think Sarkozy just wait for a good occasion to show that now France is back and want to give the hand to the USA and if Iran becomes more and more menacing to the West in the years to come, Bush and Sarkozy could have not any problem to go together, like the whole West in general plus other countries in the world. Sarkozy could guarantee the presence of the whole European Union, he's the only moving man in it and he psychologicaly lead it, more of that France takes the turning presidency of it in July 2008. The big voices which could be opposite to such a thing, would be Russia, China and Venezuela and maybe others. Here could be two opposite coalitions, and here could be a world war.

For example friend states of the USA could be attacked by Venezuela or friend states of Chavez in Latin America, China could use the situation to open a war on Taïwan which she absolutly wants to take back, Russia could help Iran by Caspian Sea, and if Europe helps USA, Russia could attack Europe, in the way to make fall the power of the West in the world and especially the power of the USA... So like I said if Bush-Cheney take such a decision, it would not be a light decision.

Clearly, I still consider that such a decision would be a big surprise but I also still consider Bush as a man who can do everything without caring about the consequences especially if he has to leave the power soon.

American political experts who speack in France (most known is called Nicole Bacharan) consider that one of the big issues of this campaign and maybe the big issue is the image of the USA in the world, which the 2008 presidency election could change and make it better, less cow-boy. If such a thing happens, the image of the USA, and also of the whole West (Sarkozy could play a big role in it) could not be changed yet, so that amputating this election of this main issue. If a war is open, no matter Clinton, Giuliani or anybody, they will continue it, the choice would be on "who to lead this war?", so that also making other issues of USA smaller and smaller. It's because of all this that I put this topic on Iran in "2008 presidency election campaign".

Still one year to go before Bush to go away...

Blame the heartland populists for that.

I hope the people that run this country are smart enough to not legitimize Ahmadinejad as Iranians see bombs come from the sky, and automatically think all that nonsense they were told about us was true.

An invasion of Iran would cause an army coup and outlawing of the GOP at home.

speaking of which, dubya and cheney can order an attack on iran if they want, but what's the chance the military will actually do it?

If it's just bombing their military and nuclear targets? 100%  If it's wanting 100k men in Tehran? not so much.

But we can rest assured that NO likely "Attack on Iran" plan calls for 100k men in Tehran.  We don't have to occupy a country to defeat it.

I agree that in 2000 no one could have foreseen what would happen in the 4 years that would follow.  Who could have anticipated 9/11 or that the guy who railed against "nation building" in the Balkans would try to do the exact same thing in the Middle East?

But 2004 was the opportunity the US had to bring in a different guy who wanted to involve the rest of the world in rebuilding Iraq.  I truly believe that if Kerry had been elected in 2004 the US would be in the process of withdrawing from Iraq.

I don't blame voters for what happened between 2000-2004 but I do blame them for 2004-2008.

Oh we can definitely bomb someone back to the Stone Age without batting an eye.  But that ability didn't prevent the North Koreans from acquiring a nuke and I doubt it will stop the Iranians.  I fully expect them to perform a little underground nuclear test sometime over the next 5-10 years.  The real fear isn't that Iran will invade somewhere but that they will acquire nuclear technology and sell it to every lunatic who wants it.


I don't blame the 2000 Bush voters.  As I said in another post, the events of 2000-2004 were unpredictable.  Even more unpredictable was how Bush would do an about-face on everything he claimed he stood for in the 2000 campaign.  But as you say, by 2004 people really should have known better.

Iran doesn't have the geographic and geopolitical ties to China that N.Korea does.  I'm not saying the same situation won't happen in Iran, I'm just saying it would be easier for us to stop them (militarily) from making their own nukes than it would have been for us to stop N.Korea.  Plus, nuke's in the UNstable Middle East are a much bigger concern than nukes in the the fairly stable Far East.  Again, not saying that Iran will/wont get a bomb, just that it will be easier and more necessary to stop them than it was for us to stop N.Korea.

I am not a GWBush fan and would not have voted for his re-election in '04 if the Democrats had given me a choice...........I feel that John Kerry was perhaps the worst Presidential nominee in history with the only possible exceptions being Dukakis in '88 and McGovern in '72

Bulls***. You need ground forces and a navy to accomplish anything beyond one explosion.


Air Forces are near worthless in an overall conflict. The only thing an Air Force can do is blow up a building and make it look good on the evening news.

As far as naval power, this is our greatest strength in our military, but the geography of the Strait of Hormuz favors the Iranians. They have mines setup (we'd need the Brits to help us there). One military analyst I've read has run a few war games based on the premise of an American-Iranian conflict, and he can't come up with any scenario where our navy doesn't receive damage from the Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz (like a couple ships sunk).

The Iranian military does not need to mobilize against Iraq. Why would they when 60% of the Iraqi population are Shiites that fear the Saudis.

As far as nuclear power, if we take the assumption they have it and they would use it if attacked, can an Air Force general 100% guarantee he can hit every single rocket launcher? No. That's why air power sounds good on paper, but in actuality, the ground forces are needed to go across the landscape and secure the launchers.


The simplest way to fight an Air Force is to not give them anything to shoot at. You could have used the Daisy Cutters and B52s against the Hezbollah in the past July War and they wouldn't have been able to do anything due to the general scattering of the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

 

So can France. Doesn't mean it's an option.


The best way to ensure an enemy will run into the arms of another enemy is to threaten him. That's why Iran ran to Russia and Russia ran to China. The Russians are right now making money selling nuclear material to Iran, but do you seriously think the Russians will give enough nuclear know-how to Iran to put Moscow within striking range of an Iranian missile?

I've always had the position that Ahmadinejad is a f***ing idiot, the majority of Iranians realize this, and that he will be voted out of power in 2009, as long as we do not legitimize him. At the end of the day, all the radical clerics will side with self-preservation.

And we do not need to go fight the Saudis' war against Iran for them. If they want to do it, let them use their own military.


I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to give civilians basic military training and tactics in high school. That way they grow up knowing about military strategy and what you can and cannot do. These are the voters and the future leaders of the country after all (who are increasingly avoiding military service, that's for the poor people to go be cannon fodder).

Reminds me of my roommate freshman year of college. Bright individual, was his class' valedictorian, entered school almost a sophomore. He was an absolute moron on how the military works. He actually thought we could fight a "perfect war". "All you have to do is send over an airplane to drop a bomb. You don't need ground troops." F***ing dumbass. Opinions like that are why Iraq is a quagmire right now. Every action has consequences that have to be considered! There's no free lunch!

Umm ... I don't think Kerry was a good candidate, but he was far from the worst.  That distinction probably goes to Walter Mondale in '84.  Fritz was a nice guy and all but he foolishly believed you could be honest with the people.

Kerry's problems were:

1. When attacked he didn't respond with indignation.  He thought he could stay "above" things.

2. Kerry didn't hit back at Bush.  When Bush made goofy faces and said stupid things like "got wood" Kerry let him get away with it.  That was the opening for a Lloyd Bentsen comment.  He really should have said "George, if you don't know what is in your personal portfolio how can you be trusted to run a country?"  Bush's people pulled local level dirty tricks and the Kerry folks refused to retaliate.  Oh well, at least the local Dems learned from Kerry's bad moves and hit back in the 2006 Senate campaign (God I loved it when the PA Repubs for Santorum whined on here).

3. He let young idiots run his regional campaign positions.  Seriously.  Clinton, the kid who was in charge of Pittsburgh until something like 4 months before the election, was a moron who was more interested in playing with his friends than running a serious regional campaign.  Pittsburgh SHOULD have been a huge Kerry base, instead it was a battleground.


Even if Kerry was a bad candidate, Bush had already been a bad President at that point.

Air Forces are near worthless in an overall conflict?  Are you serious?Bah?The Navy is our strongest asset, but it can't clear mines without Brit help?If the Iranians instigate the attack this is possible, if we start it this is much less likely (though still possible).

Right.  They won't mobilize and if they do, they will get bombed to dust.  We have nothing to fear from Iranian ground forces.  Well, we have nothign to fear against large groups of Iranian ground forces.

The idea is that we attack them before they get nuclear weapons.We wouldn't need to.  We'd just need to hit the one (or several at most) rockets that have the war heads on them.  Iran can NOT secretly place warheads on a Shahab-3 without us seeing.That's just not true.I wasn't aware the US was fighting in Lebanon last year.Nuclear power know-how has nothing to do with Iran's ability or inability to get a nuclear weapon to Moscow.  They currently do not have that ability.

Agreed.  Imadinnerjacket is an idiot the same way Bush is an idiot.  Smart enough to pool power, not anywhere near smart enough to govern effectively with the betterment of ones country as their goal.Nah.  We teach geography in High School and only the ones that care learn any of it.  As an elective option though, now that I could get on board with.
Depends on what kind of war you're fighting and what your goals are.  If you want to nation build like Bush does (and I don't agree with by the way), yes, you need an Army.  But really, a police force would be more appropriate.  That's all the Army in Iraq is.  If you just want to punish a nation though, you wouldn't need more than the Air Force.  I acknowledge that in most wars an Air Force isn't enough to "win", but the DoD couldn't do anything without air superiority.

By the way I'm not advocating that we attack Iran.  I'm just explaining that it doesn't have to be a total fark up if we do.  It doubtlessly WOULD be, but it doesn't HAVE to be.

Compared to the Marines, Army, and Navy, yes. And it's not even close.



The only reason the Navy is the strongest asset is cause the most important item to being world power is commanding the seas.

As far as the minesweeping, it's a weak point of our ships that were built. It was not a high priority for the Navy. Go to this blog of a man that follows navies and their capabilities as well as strategies. Good sight. http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/


Here's the war game analysis.
http://myksandbox.blogspot.com/2007/11/opening-battle-in-hormuz-part-i.html
http://myksandbox.blogspot.com/2007/11/opening-battle-of-hormuz-part-ii.html


We'll have to agree to disagree. Air power just isn't worth that much in my eyes beyond blowing up one building. Which leads to my strategic opinion on how to fight air power:

"The simplest way to fight an Air Force is to not give them anything to shoot at."


They weren't. It was an analogy. The Israelis were though. And despite all their air power and bombing runs that lasted a month, they still could not achieve their objectives against Hezbollah because Hezbollah were spread out. That war and it ending in a stalemate as opposed to a decisive Israeli victory is the clearest evidence I can provide on the weaknesses of air power. If we have a war against the Iranians, the Iranians would be best served by following Hezbollah's lead of small units as much as possible.


Yes, and the Russians will ensure that stays the case.


We can talk about DoD idiocy another day. There are quite a few people in our military structure at the time that deserve to be shot for what they let happen in the immediate post-war situation in Iraq. However, you cannot control anything with an Air Force. The only thing an Air Force could do is point at a target. That's it. They can't make opposing forces surrender. They can't stop the leaders from making plans. They just blowup buildings. Air Forces are good for non-wars where you want to ensure no one gets hurt (like Kosovo during Clinton's reign). When it comes to real wars, they're pretty easy to neutralize. And when it comes to real wars, you don't half-ass it. You go full bore. Yes you might lose some troops, but if you're not willing to lose troops, it's not really a war worth fighting to begin with.

Nobody is advocating an invasion of Iran.  Nobody.

StateBoiler, you understand it's 2007 not 1907 right?

Now I might have some biases as I'm a USAF Vet and still work for them as a contractor, but I'm pretty sure I'm right when I say air superiority is a HUGE factor in modern warfare.

Also, your link agrees with me.
If some computer chair General can figure that out, I'm sure the planners at the Pentagon can too.

Raytheon?

Air superiority is a huge factor in modern warfare, but I rank it below sea power and land power.

Americans have a misguided notion that we are invincible in war. This is largely due to the first Persian Gulf War and the Afghanistan exercise where we faced militaries that were absolute jokes. Americans don't want "fair well", they want "perfection without even a scratch". This goes back to the idiocy of the typical civilian on how the military works. You can say that doesn't matter, but whether we go into war or not when not attacked is highly dependent on public opinion.

The silver lining of the Iraq War is Americans now have an idea and realize the limits of their military when we talk about future conflicts.

I did when I first got out, but they got under bid on the contract by ITT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_Corporation) (not the school) in 2002.  Most of the equipment I work on is Raytheon though.

I think that a modern military needs superiority in all three areas, if it's missing one it would take a huge hit in it's capabilities.

That's something we can agree on.

But the military kicked ass in Iraq when it was allowed to act like a military.  Forcing the Army to play Police while Bush tries to force Democracy down the throats of the locals isn't something the Army and Marines should be doing.

Bingo.  This is the most accurate statement I've read in a while.  I've been saying for a long time that I firmly believe that if you give the American people/military a clearcut mission with reasonable milestones they will easily accomplish it.  The problem with Iraq is that the planning has never been there.  The mission has been nebulous and the milestones non-existent.

Well

I agree with the last post of both Stateboiler and dead0man. To go in the sense of Stateboiler, I would add that in South Lebanon, military instructors of Hezbollah were Iranian and that currently, experts think that there are big probabilties for that nuclear sites are situated underground. You can still airstrike on earth the more you could get would be some vibrations, could it disturbs nukes?

I would also add that you can't put police forces right after a war, the army is necessary first but for sure it has to form a police as fast as possible. In Irak it was hard to do as fast as possible I think, but they had to previous before or at least to think more than what they did before taking the decision of going there.

For the Iraki Shiites, I think it's not so simple, Iraki Shiites fought against Iranian Shiites while Iran-Irak war (1980-1988), this war had a strong impact on peoples of the both countries. If it can work for a few militias, I don't think it would have a big impact on this eventual conflict.

Then, the debates turned until now just arround the iranian ground. I don't want to say that 3rd World War is for tomorrow but I still think we should be aware about the possibility that striking on Iran could be the begining of it. With troops (air, sea, ground) engaged in Irak, Afghanistan and Iran, the powerfull countries who don't really like USA and the whole West could want to use the situation to put down the whole West forces in the way to get more power in the world. I think the quatuor Iran, Russia, Venezuela, China (all of them armed by Russia) could be a serious opposite coalition which could be joined by other countries from all over the world. When there are two coalitions, each country of each coalition is on war against each country of the opposite coalition, here is how are made world wars. The question would be how many country could stay neutral, if their neutrality is respected.

More of that, if West propose to strike on Iran at UN security council and if Russia and China say "no", it could burry definitively UN after having been seriously shot with Irak war.

Then, like someone said if Iran has nukes, it could sell it to anybody. Could it be someone like... Chavez?

I also think that Bush could only open a war, even if that's just airstrikes, if public opinion find it legitimate. For that, Ahmadinejad has to be more and more menacing, or medias has to show a more and more menacing image of Ahmadinejad. Both things that the US government can cause I think. So in this way, Bush and Cheney will to strike would be still priority.

I also agree to say that Bush and Ahmadinejad are two sort of idiots who don't really care about the betterment of their country. But they are two sorts of serious idiots. More of that, they are both some sort of radical religious serious idiots who both believe in the back of a "Lord from God", Jesus for Bush, Mahdi 12th imam for Ahmadinejad, which could come, according to what they think, by an apocalypse on Earth. When this two sort of idiots meet them and when they disagree, I think we can expect for eveything and we should to be aware about it.

To precise my thought, I currently think that strikings on Iran before november 2008 would be a big surprise at 60% and that G.W.Bush can decide to do everything at 40%.

Even if G.W. Bush doesn't strike I think that anyway it will be just an adjournment and that chances of ruling this conflict without military actions are more tiny than with. I don't see Ahmadinejad in 2009 saying "Ok, I've lost elections good luck to the followers even if they have not the same ideas, I go back to my home" and more of that, voting is sometimes manipulated in Iran according to some observers. I can also add that when someone really wants to stay on power, if the people is good controlled, he can do that especially by pretexting a military conflict. There are possibilities to rule the conflict peacefully but I currently see them as tiny, let us see.

Clearly, if such a thing does not happen during the 2008 USA precidency election campaign, making exploding it, I would be surprise that such a thing does not happen before 2020, more sure before 2015. Anyway I think we should at least consider the possibility of it.

Let me preface my statement by saying I agree.

Howeve, if you overthrow a government, you're the government or anarchy follows. That's a law of history: "If you break it, you own it." When we overthrew Saddam, we in effect made Iraq an American colony. We don't call it a colony because that is "a dirty word", but that's what it was.

I agree it is not the job of the U.S. to police the country, but we ran the country for two years, and how can you run a country if you don't control it? That's why disbanding the Iraqi military was one of those post-war manuevers that boggles the mind. Let them control the territory, it's their home. So what if they were once loyal to Saddam? Stable money flow has the power to change a lot of people's loyalty.

I think there will be air strikes on Iran, but the military is simply too overstretched to go for a full-out ground invasion; not to mention the political fallout it would cause. Any attack would have serious implications as it is, but an invasion would be a disaster for everybody involved.

As for Lebanon (seeing as the discussion seems to have veered towards this, perhaps inevitably), I've made this point before but it's probably worth reiterating - Hezbollah were operating from within the the south of the country, but that's no reason for Israel to basically destroy Lebanon's entire infrastructure by bombing roads, schools, hospitals, entire neighbourhoods, bridges, as well as blockading Lebanese waters; thereby undermining one of the few examples, perhaps the only example, of a successful Muslim secular democracy (which surely we were supposed to create in Iraq?), as well as potentially radicalising the population. Olmert did himself and his country absolutely no favour with this.

Should Israel have just sat on their hands?  What if France crossed into Luxembourg and kidnapped a couple of kids and allowed rockets to be launch from French soil without the French govt. doing anything to stop it, would Luxembourg have no right to defend themselves?  It's not the Isaeli's fault that the Lebanese people can't control themselves.  (actually, I'm sure some on this board actually think it is the Israeli's fault.)

(and Turkey has traditionally been a much more stable Muslim secular democracy than Lebanon has.  It was less than 2 decades ago that Lebanon finished their last civil war.)

Of course not, but we're talking about destroying Lebanon's entire civil infrastructure here. The analogy of trying to swat a fly with a nuclear bomb springs to mind.


Hezbollah is not the "Lebanese people", it's a fringe group operating from within the southern regions of the country (where they are, admittedly, popular, but not in the rest of the country). If you wanna take out Hezbollah, aim for the regions from within they operate, but don't bomb the whole country to sh*t in the vain hope that you might hit something (which is clearly what happened here, since Hezbollah were hardly affected by the massive bombing campaigns). That is simply counterproductive.


Except Turkey's "democracy" is far more flawed and basically a quasi-military dictatorship. Remember, this is a country where referring to the Armenian genocide can land you in prison.

Except that it isn't a fringe group.  link (http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/07/28/lahoud-interview.html)<snip>
More flawed than Lebanon?  Turkey has some issues as you mention, but it's still more stable by a long shot than Lebanon is.  And that goes for today and most of the past half a century.

It'd be interesting to know if that poll was taken before or after the bombings, but either way, I wasn't aware that Hezbollah enjoyed such widespread support in Lebanon - I suppose there still are some sour grapes dating back to the 1982 invasion.


That's true, but I felt it needed to be pointed out that Turkey is far from the stable democracy many in the West profess it to be, and that it still has some way to go, insofar as human rights issues are concerned. Either way, I think Lebanon's instability stems primarily from the fact that it constantly faces interference from neighbouring countries, specifically Israel and Syria. I suppose it suffers from the sort of dilemma most small countries stuck inbetween competing bigger regional powers face (eg. Korea in the 19th century) - they usually end up being reduced to some sort of geopolitical playground.

Discussion has spread on Libanon and Turkey, I would like to add elements about these two countries.

First, Lebanon. We can't say Lebanon supports Hezbollah, it's not so simple. Lebanon is a very splinted country, maybe one of the most splinted of the world. In this country there are about 17 communities. There different sorts of Muslim (Shiite, Sunni, Druze, concerning the mains), different sorts of christians (Catholics, different sort of Orientals, different sort of Orthodoxes), and a Jew community, here are for the main communities which share this country. This unified country seems to be quite a sort of miracle in the middle East. The lebanese political system is shared by all communities in the way these are all represented and have a representation which reflect their importance. So, the post of president is reserved to a communuty, so is the prime minister post, the commandant of the army post, etc. The current president Emile Lahoud is part of a community which is pro-syria, so which support Hezbollah, but the prime minister is from a community anti-syria.

Concerning the general agreement of Libanon to Hezbollah, it's good to think about its two decades ago civil war (civil wars are surely the worst wars that exist), and in July 2006, what lebanese feared it was a new civil war so they prefered not criticizing the shiite community (about 30% of the lebanese population, occupating about 30% of Lebanon) which Hezbollah pretends to represent. More of that the stupid massive bombing of Israel on whole Lebanon, destroying unusefully this country which didn't need it, helped the lebanese to prefer Hezbollah than Israel. An israeli action was legitimate, they had been offensed, but the way they took was so scilly and counterproductive.

To finish on lebanon, it's good to know that Hezbollah wins most of his popularity cause he has iranian oil dollars and it uses it to take care of the peoples. For example after the sutpid israeli bombing, Hezbollah offered 10.000 $ cash (in tickets) to all the ones who had lost their home in the bombing, how to get more popularity?

Concerning Turkey. It's interesting to speack about this country cause to me he could play a not negligible role if a open conflict with Iran begins.

First concerning the freedom and democracy in this country. It's good to wake up and to think about the fact that we're speacking about a traditional muslim country, so in this country we don't envisage the society and the individual like we do in Occident. This said, it's also the muslim country who is the most close of Occident and its current government is surely the most open government that Occident can have to cooperate with.

Then, this country is also a young republic and it can explain that we can go in jail when we speack about something that put in cause the country, like armenian genocide. Remember that Southists and Yankees met troubles each other when USA was a young republic and I'm not sure it was easy to have a free opinion in this time, we can also speack about Mc Carthy, could we speack freely 50 years ago in USA? Franco left Spain in 1975, and in 1914-1918 war, France executed the soldiers who did not go on war. So, things are not so simple, we are all men and we have to remember about what we are and about what we were a few time ago before going on cristicisms so easily.

I don't legitimate what is Turkey, I just say Turkey has a history and it explains its present, we can't put western cristicisms on it without thinking about it. We can't say "I don't like you! You have to change!" or if you say it you must have a deep, strong and honest reason, otherwise it's just some basic self interest and in this case it's good acknowledge it, otherwise it's some hypocrisy. When the question of the justification is ruled, I think it's good to be aware that if change can need force it especially needs time and pedagogy.

Concerning the role which could play Turkey if a military conflict is open with Iran.

Like I said the current government is surely the most Occident-friendly turkish government that Occident can currently have in Turkey. But in the population there are nationalist and ultra-nationalist forces and I think it's good to be aware that there are possibilities for them to go on power, by democracy or by a coup. For example, I think that what's currently happening in Kurdistan is important, if the current turkish government continues to listen the current US government, so if it does not decide a big military intervention in iraki Kurdistan and if the Kurds, who fight for an independant Kurdistan, continue to make problem to turkish army, it could make growing the nationalism and the anti-USA, anti Occident feeling in Turkey. More of that, yesterday a trial opened, it's the trial of the murderers of 3 evangelicals (2 Turks, 1 German), the murderers killed these evangelicals in the name of nationalism, pretending that evangelicals are a threat for Turkey and that they act to serve the foreign interests (for the reason they are maybe not so wrong, look at what happened in Ivory Coast, anyway currently evangelicals are just about 3.000 in Turkey for about 100 millions peoples). What is good to know in this story it is that, according to a serious media in France, the public opinion supports these ultra-nationalist murderers.

All of this to show that to me there is a nationalist danger in Turkey. The decision of USA to attack Iran could encourage nationalism to take the power to use the situation to invade the iraki Kurdistan and to breack the cooperation with the USA, and then maybe making Turkey joining an eventual, but possible to me, anti-Occident coalition which could be composed of at least, like I've already said, Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela.

Here are some possibilities, and high probabilities to me if the current world trends stay like they are. In this way it would be just a question of time to me, less than a year? 5 years? More? Less? Let us see but I still think it's good to be aware about these possibilities.

What's the reaction of the candidates for presidency after the report of American intelligence agencies?

Do they support Bush position? Is he alone on this position? What's about the public opinion? The media? 

If there was serious concern, yes, there would probably be a strike.  However, at the moment, it doesn't look like we're at that point.

The public would support an attack if there is a real threat.

Absolutely not.

Back of this topic on Iran.

I reopen it because I want to announce that I've just opened a new topic on Iran in the rubric of this forum named "International general discussion" to speak there about Iran in general and about the consequences of strikes there. Last event, the one between US and Iranian warships. You can find it here (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=67791.0).

So, I really want to dedicate this topic to which impact could have on the presidential campaign  an attack from G.W. Bush on Iran and to the position of the different candidates on the Iranian crisis.

For example, which candidates do you think could decide to strike on Iran if they are elected. Personally, I think that Obama, Edwards and maybe Romney could be the only ones, through the credible to be elected, who would not decide to strike on Iran.

100%.  If the Commander in Chief orders it, our brave men and women obey.  That's the system.  And it works...err...used to work.

We handed the keys to the asylum to the two chief lunatics eight years ago. Frankly, I think The Decider and Count Dickula are frustrated they can't figure out a way to circumvent that little "no third term" thingie...

Well Bush wouldn't attack Iran because he woke up in a bad mood one morning, he would need an excuse.*  And if he had an excuse, he could sell it to the military.  Especially if the military is the one that gave him the excuse in the first place ;)



*-assuming of course that Bush is chomping at the bit to attack Iran, something I personally don't buy into 

>>> Well Bush wouldn't attack Iran because he woke up in a bad mood one morning, he would need an excuse.*  <<<


Jesus told him to?

If he wanted to use that excuse...errr, I should say, If he thought he could get away with using that excuse, he would have already....one would assume.

I suppose you're right.  But Jesus tells him lots of things -- I'm just afraid he might act on it.  Unless Jesus suddenly starts telling him to do justice to the poor and oppressed.  But Jesus would never do that.

No Bush would not attack IRAN unless IRAN attacked us first or we found out that they were very close to getting nuclear weapons and using them.

Close like Iraq?