US officials tell Israel that Syria, Persia will be next middle-east targets

[monkspider]

(excerpt from http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/263923.html)

U.S. official says Syria, Iran will be dealt with after Iraq war
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials on Monday that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards.

Bolton, who is undersecretary for arms control and international security, is in Israel for meetings about preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

In a meeting with Bolton on Monday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel is concerned about the security threat posed by Iran. It's important to deal with Iran even while American attention is turned toward Iraq, Sharon said.

Bolton also met with Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Housing and Construction Minister Natan Sharansky.



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Are America's future plans beginning to unfold? Will the world stand for any future aggression?

[Shi Huangdi]

It's a pretty good strategy if you think about it. No Middle Eastern country would give us full acsess to serve as a base for whatever our troops would like. However, Kuwait hates Iraq enough that we will be able use Kuwait as a base and get into Iraq, and then Iraq can be set up as a base of operations under US occupation. And Iraq is in a nice central location adjacent to a lot of other middle eastern countries, making it much easier to use Iraq as a base.

"Will the world stand for any future aggression?"

Hopefully, since Syria and Iran both support terrorism. We have a very valid causus belli against both of those countries. We are allied with Israel, which is suffering agression from Hezbollah, which is being funded by Syria and Iran. Although if we are lucky bloodshed might not be nessecary- Syria and Iran might agree to stop funding terrorists if we were massing forces on their border in US Occupied Iraq.

[Shi Huangdi]

Heck, come to think of it, getting rid of Iran's fundamentalists is a good idea. Most of the Iranian people support liberal democracy and consistently have elected a moderate president(who sadly has no power) by massive margins. In Iran it may be relatively easy to install our a democratic, Pro-Western government that would not be a terrorist threat.

[monkspider]

So are you saying that you support an invasion of Persia?

[Dinner]

I noticed the article didn't quote any official American sources so it may be that this is just wishful thinking by a pro-Israeli newspaper.

[Mazarin]

if the us attacks every country they like to -just with the excuse that the government is not "democratic", they finally prove that they don't give a **** on other's souvereignity. You can see the damage the UN as well as international treaties will get from that.

[monkspider]

Oerdin: US undersecretary of State John Bolton.

[Ramo]

If true, these would be idiotic policies, particularly wrt Iran. Iran's the state that has been making the greatest strides towards democracy in the region.

[HershOstropoler]

"it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea"

He did not say in which way. Waving a bunch of pom-poms at Kim could also be considered a way of dealing with NK.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by monkspider
Oerdin: US undersecretary of State John Bolton.

I was just saying it was a paraphrase and not a direct quote. Sometimes paraphrases of "off the record" things are right but a lot of the time they're not.

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Oerdin


I was just saying it was a paraphrase and not a direct quote. Sometimes paraphrases of "off the record" things are right but a lot of the time they're not.

Oh okay, fair point.

[Shi Huangdi]

"So are you saying that you support an invasion of Persia?"

We'll have to see how things play out first but liberating Iran from it's opressive government would definitely be nice.

"Iran's the state that has been making the greatest strides towards democracy in the region."

The Ayatollahs still have absolute power in Iran and I doubt they will ever give it up without bloodshed.

[Ramo]

Ayatollahs? Khamenei cloned himself or something?

The Mullahs don't have absolute power. President Khatami has power. Not much, mind you, but some. The reform movement has been making great strides these past decades. Iranian society is much more free than 20 years ago. The reform movement was even on the verge of scoring a major victory over the Mullahs a while back, perhaps leading to a Democratic revolution. There's nothing saying that the situation couldn't arise again if Khatami et al. play their cards right. Shrub's incompetent diplomacy wrt Iran no doubt set the movement back a few years, but it isn't totally undermined.

[Shi Huangdi]

"Ayatollahs? Khamenei cloned himself or something? "

It's late.

"The Mullahs don't have absolute power. President Khatami has power. Not much, mind you, but some. The reform movement was even on the verge of scoring a major victory over the Mullahs a while back, perhaps leading to a Democratic revolution."

Khatami has little power, particularly in military matter and matter of foreign policy. Whatever the case, he doesn't have enough influence to stop Iran from financing Hezbollah. Whatever power Khatami gets will be decided by the fundamentalists, who control the army. The Iranians have had a long time to start launching rebel movements against the government, it hasn't happened. External force would be an excellent way of de-fundamentalizing Iran.

[Ramo]

It's already happening. Compare Iran today from 20 years ago and tell me there haven't been huge, huge improvements in liberties. External force would only hurt the situation, particularly given the bearer of this force. War is counterproductive and shortsighted.

Khatami has proven to be politically astute. I wouldn't be suprised if there's democracy in Iran within the next decade or two.

The Economist had a great overview of the reform movement in one of their recent issues, BTW. I highly recommend it.