Iran: US can't afford another war

Discussion in 'Politics' started by a529612, Feb 24, 2007.

  1. Heck, don't they know that we can just fund another war and cut taxes at the same time?

     
  2. Very astute of them to make mention of the US taxpayer.
     
  3. We are the #1 arms dealer and terrorists in the world.

    This is standard stuff. The same people who set of bombs in iraq - who benefits from this chaos? The USA.



    If you still have not figured out that this 'war on terror' is a giant scam on us, well..

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    US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran

    By William Lowther in Washington DC and Colin Freeman, Sunday Telegraph

    Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 25/02/2007



    America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.


    President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is accused of repressing minority rights and culture
    In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions.

    The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime.

    In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials.

    Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the south-east. Non-Persians make up nearly 40 per cent of Iran's 69 million population, with around 16 million Azeris, seven million Kurds, five million Ahwazis and one million Baluchis. Most Baluchis live over the border in Pakistan.

    aFunding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.

    His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."

    Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Teheran has long claimed to detect the hand of both America and Britain in attacks by guerrilla groups on its internal security forces. Last Monday, Iran publicly hanged a man, Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, for his involvement in a bomb attack that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan. An unnamed local official told the semi-official Fars news agency that weapons used in the attack were British and US-made.

    Yesterday, Iranian forces also claimed to have killed 17 rebels described as "mercenary elements" in clashes near the Turkish border, which is a stronghold of the Pejak, a Kurdish militant party linked to Turkey's outlawed PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party.

    John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity."

    Such a policy is fraught with risk, however. Many of the groups share little common cause with Washington other than their opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose regime they accuse of stepping up repression of minority rights and culture.

    The Baluchistan-based Brigade of God group, which last year kidnapped and killed eight Iranian soldiers, is a volatile Sunni organisation that many fear could easily turn against Washington after taking its money.

    A row has also broken out in Washington over whether to "unleash" the military wing of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group with a long and bloody history of armed opposition to the Iranian regime.

    The group is currently listed by the US state department as terrorist organisation, but Mr Pike said: "A faction in the Defence Department wants to unleash them. They could never overthrow the current Iranian regime but they might cause a lot of damage."

    At present, none of the opposition groups are much more than irritants to Teheran, but US analysts believe that they could become emboldened if the regime was attacked by America or Israel. Such a prospect began to look more likely last week, as the UN Security Council deadline passed for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programme, and a second American aircraft carrier joined the build up of US naval power off Iran's southern coastal waters.

    The US has also moved six heavy bombers from a British base on the Pacific island of Diego Garcia to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which could allow them to carry out strikes on Iran without seeking permission from Downing Street.

    While Tony Blair reiterated last week that Britain still wanted a diplomatic solution to the crisis, US Vice-President Dick Cheney yesterday insisted that military force was a real possibility.

    "It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear power," Mr Cheney warned during a visit to Australia. "All options are still on the table."

    The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in London tomorrow to discuss further punitive measures against Iran. Sanctions barring the transfer of nuclear technology and know-how were imposed in December. Additional penalties might include a travel ban on senior Iranian officials and restrictions on non-nuclear business.

    Additional reporting by Gethin Chamberlain.



    Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/25/wiran25.xml
     
  4. divide and conquer! lol, what do u expect? it's a thousands yrs old, well tested war strategy; it's been employed in iraq and obviously now in iran.

    enjoy the massacre.

     
  5. moo

    moo

    If this not just propaganda (which it is), and they really believe what they say (very unlikely), the Iranians are miscalculating.

    America can easily fire a few missiles and drop a few bombs causing great damage at relatively little cost. No need to get any ground forces involved. Also, by inciting revolts among the various minorities, the whole country could be destabilised and split up. Preferably also giving some of the oil-producing areas to the minority nations.
     
  6. Do you think this is a desirable outcome ? Turn Iran into the hell hole that Iraq has become ? Encourage religious and ethnic sectarian divisions, including the arming and training of various groups ?

    The US frequently claims to be interested in stability and security in the middle east, but all the actions speak otherwise. After the initial "victory" in Iraq, massive looting was systematically ignored - almost encouraged. It looks like the complete destruction of the Iraqi state and civil service was the objective. No doubt so the neocons could have it rebuilt in their image.

    We see just the same with the Israel-Lebenon war. The US objective was not to stop the war as quickly as possible, but to prolong the war and destroy as much of the infrastructure of Lebenon as possible.

    Anybody that thinks a US military strike on Iran is likely to promote "stability and security" in the Middle East has a head full of dead insects.

    It's quite plain that instability and sectarian warfare is part of the plan. Why ? Because those running US foreign policy think there is a geopolitical advantage in doing so. Some sort of madness about creative destruction. And as Noam Chomsky recently put it, it's a sort of Mafia behavior - step outside the family and you know what to expect.

    There are already hundreds of thousands dead. I very much fear the dead will number in the millions before all this runs it's course.
     
  7. Pathus

    Pathus

    What is wrong with funding groups within Iran to cause chaos? Nothing. It is war... they are killing Americans in Iraq as we speak.

    By the way... why is the media so fuckin retarded? Why do they call the "Revolutionary Guards" "Elite"? They use the word elite so loosely it pisses me off. Remember how the 3rd armored division mowed through what... four "ELITE" Republican Guard Divisions in a day?

    It looks to me like the "Revolutionary Guards" couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag much less be considered "elite". I suppose that they are elite when compared with the pitchfork wielding regular Iranian army.
     
  8. I didn't see Iran start an war in Mexico. Why did we go and start a war in Iran's backyard and then we turn around and blame Iran for trying to protect its borders from disintegrating. We carried out an immoral invasion and we are suffering because of it. It is stupid to blame others for the mishaps that we have invited on ourselves.
     
  9. Well, you will no doubt be outraged to find that the US is cozying up to radical Sunni groups - particularly in Lebanon. Groups who are quite sympathetic to Al Quaida.

    You should be especially outraged given that the vast majority of US casualties in Iraq are due to Sunni insurgents over which Iran has no control at all.

    It is quite clear that the US wants to exacerbate the Sunni/Shia divisions in the Middle East. And if coddling up to the same people brought you 911 is needed, then thats the way it's going to be.

    The hypocrisy of the so called Global War on Terror is mind numbing.

    http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070305fa_fact_hersh?page=1
     
    #10     Feb 26, 2007