Israel and Iran - Will we see air strikes soon?

Like I said, unsustainable imperial ambitions are no reason to back Israel. We should establish good relations with the countries in the middle east instead of trying to force them to give us their oil.

Dude. It's a a 71 million difference in population. Maybe in a defensive war, but in one were Israel was attacking? No way. How do you think America getting involved in a war with Iran would end up?

Yeah it was saying something like Khamenei is slowly l arresting and prosecuting Ahmainejad's supporters and possibly getting him impeached or something before his term ends.

"Imperial Ambitions"? honestly I can't see how supporting an ally is in any way imperialism. Letting israel attack iran over nuclear weapons has nothing to do with getting at their resources.

Yea so? Iran's militray is shit compared to Israel's, quality over quanity. Plus Israel would probably not be alone, Iran is not well liked by other islamic powers in the region, like Turkey or the UAE. So if add that into the eqaution, Iran loses it's edge in numbers. Anyway why are you debating with me whether or not Israel can beat Iran, I though this was about whether or not Iran should have nukes.

It's more likely that those nations won't do anything. Israel is just as disliked (or even more) in the area. One of the two being severely weakened, or both preferably, will be beneficial to the other nations in the area. Now let's hope they don't restart the cycle of invading Israel and getting their asses handed to them, but rather keep it quiet and peaceful for once.

I disgree, none of the other Isamic powers wants to see Iran get nuclear weapons, so it is in their best interest to help stop Iran from getting them.

Agreed.

Seeing as I have yet to see any Middle Eastern nation do anything positive regarding Israel, I highly doubt any of them helping on Israel's side. Of course, they aren't the biggest fans of Iran either, but helping Israel? Not going to happen.

Not really helping israel, more like helping themselves. It is in pretty much everyone's best interest that Iran does not get nukes.

While that's true, I think it'll still feel like helping Israel to them. While Iran would pose a larger threat if they were to acquire a nuke (Note that it is still not even sure how large the threat is and if they are in fact acquiring a nuke. They're making themselves quite suspicious, though), Israel and her allies are more than capable enough of shutting down Iran's nuclear facilities, so there's hardly any need for any other nations in the area to step in.
Of course, they might if Iran somehow manages to win, in which case Iran is going to lose. Heck, in all cases I can think of, Iran loses. If they realise that themselves, the region could remain how it is now.

Yes. The only reason we support them, or that they are an ally to begin with, is because of strategic interests in the region. This isn't Mexico or Canada we are talking about, this is the Middle East. Let us see, do imperial powers try and exert influence over lands far from their own country. . .

As UnitRico pointed out, they probably hate Israel more than Iran. Why am I debating it? Because it pertains to the argument. I asked you what you would be willing to do if Israel attacked Iran and lost and you said you would intervene. You said it's not likely, but I disagree.

Who said it was not for strategic interests? Th US does not want Iran to aquire nukes(no one really does), so why is it suddenly evil for the US to use her influence to stop iran from getting them. If that's imperialism, I have no problem with it.

Yea, maybe they wouldn't they would help right away(I still think it's possible), they would probably wait to see who came out on top and then decide on their actions. Israel could still defintly take Iran. If you were talking about occupying the whole country, then I would agree with you. But israel does not need to do that, they just need too strike at their nuclear facilities and stategic centors. Iran could not stop them with their current military technology and training, so I can't see israel losing this one.

@ Unit rico, you may be right, It would make more sense for them to wait it out and see who wins, but I would not cross the possibility out entirely.

That's not quite true. There's support for Iran having nuclear weapons amongst Middle Easterners and in the Non-Aligned Movement:

First of all I didn't say it was evil, I think it is stupid. I'll say this one last time. The amount of resources required to exert that influence over Iran is unwisely spent, and a waste. It is both unjust and stupid, and will end up just making things worse. The arrogance of power is a very real thing, and it will lead to America's downfall.

Take what you want from that, but former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said it would drag Israel into a regional war.

Edit:
Another article I ran across that might be interesting. Just a side note.

Top Ten Dangers for Obama of Iran Sanctions on behalf of Israel

1. One basic problem with a dire sanctions regime like that imposed on Iraq, and now on Iran, is that it can kill a lot of innocent civilians, including children. Because the US interdicted chlorine exports to Iraq and had knocked out its electricity and water purification plants in the Gulf War, it is estimated that the US/ UN sanctions killed about 500,000 Iraqi children in the 1990s. Infants are especially vulnerable to dying of diarrhea and dehydration from gastrointestinal diseases.
2. In turn, this killing of so many children made other Arabs and Muslims angry at the US, and these deaths were also cited by Usamah Bin Laden as one of the reasons he sought to attack the United States. That is, the human toll of sanctions can cause the sanctioning country to suffer reprisals.
Obama’s sanctions on Iran are beginning to have a human toll, making it increasingly difficult for Iran to import wheat from the Ukraine and India. The Obama sanctions are turning into collective punishment of civilian populations, which is illegal. If Obama miscalculates, he could kill thousands of people by provoking a food famine. The resentments of Washington that step would incur, in turn, very likely will hurt the US directly.
3. Onerous sanctions do not remove a regime or cause it to change policies, since the elite can cushion themselves from the effects. The Baath Party in Iraq in the 1990s squirreled away billions of dollars, even as the Iraqi middle classes were devastated and many Iraqis began living on the edge, with insufficient food and medicine.
4. In fact, as the urban middle classes decline, they lose the wherewithal to challenge the government. Authoritarianism is strengthened by sanctions, not weakened.
Iran’s middle classes are already being deeply hurt by sanctions. The idea that they will mobilize to pressure the government to give up nuclear enrichment as a result is a non-starter. Political movements and campaigns need money. In an oil state like Iran, the government gets the oil profits and so is flush. The middle classes are increasingly thrown down into poverty, so they can’t compete with government largesse.
5. A feeling of being under siege also causes populations to rally around even an unpopular government. One suspects that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s most ardent supporters took 75% of the seats in parliament in Iran’s recent election in part as a backlash against US sanctions and pressure.
6. Wide-ranging and deep sanctions can bleed over into being a sort of blockade. Blockades are a casus belli in international law, and very frequently provoke wars. FDR’s decision to stop oil sales to Japan helped precipitate Pearl Harbor.
So, sanctions start off looking like an alternative to war. But they can impose such a massive death toll on the civilian population of the targeted country as to call forth reprisals on the leader of the boycott. Or the blockade aspect can itself provoke a war.
7. Israeli agents of influence attempt to keep Americans talking about anything but Israel’s own ongoing crimes against humanity with regard to the Palestinians. They have special success if the US goes into full-sanction, soft war mode against another country on Israel’s behalf. Now, instead of talking about Israeli predations against the Palestinians, we are being led by the nose by AIPAC and its many media allies to obsess about Iran.
8. Our policy emphases are distorted by fantastic propositions, illusions really. We were told that the road to peace between Israelis and Palestinians ran through Baghdad. It was a bald-faced lie, a magician’s piece of misdirection.
How absurd and insincere the proposition was can be seen in how it immediately evaporated from public discourse as soon as the US was induced to occupy Iraq.
9. US interests are directly and very negatively affected by Washington’s collusion with Israel in keeping the Palestinians stateless and without basic human rights.
Make no mistake. It is in the US interest to resolve the Palestine crisis. Israeli occupation of and crimes against the Palestinians was among three major reasons given by al-Qaeda for their attack on New York and Washington, D.C. on September 11, and this ongoing human rights violation will make more and worst trouble for the US, Israel’s chief enabler in it, as the years go by. Imagine the cost Americans have already borne in loss of our civil liberties as a result of knee jerk support for Tel Aviv’s exploitation of Palestinians and their land.
Moreover, the US antipathy to the Palestinians will increasingly be an obstacle to good relations with countries like Egypt, where public opinion now matters in politics and foreign policy as never before.
10. Because misdirection on this very large scale is a little difficult, the US is thrown by such an endeavor into being a propaganda state, which is bad for public policy generally.
(Most Americans just don’t know the facts on the Palestinians. The Israelis expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 and then just stole all their property, offering no compensation. Those Palestinian families have become millions of persons over time. Some 40% of the population of the Gaza Strip, which Israel has turned into a massive slum, is refugee families from what is now Israel. Israel came after them in 1967 and exploited, occupied and colonized them until 2005. Since 2007 Israel has blockaded the Palestinians of Gaza, declining to let them so much as export virtually any of their products, and strictly regulating imports into the strip. Israel has turned Gaza into an enormous outdoor penitentiary. Since Israel is the occupation power for Gaza, this collective punishment of the civilian population there is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which were legislated after WW II to prevent a recurrence of the human rights violations perpetrated by the Nazis.
The UN estimates that 56% percent of Palestinians in Gaza are “food insecure,” that is, one step away from being half-starved. Israel apologists circulate pictures of a mall in Gaza or a nice restaurant to refute this finding. But it is mean-spirited nonsense. There are always a few well off people in a place like Gaza, and there is always some money around. The question is, how many people are being harmed by Israel’s blockade? The Israelis are eating three square meals a day and have a per capita income higher than many European countries. They are keeping the Palestinians of Gaza, most of whom are children, living on the edge of hunger. In fact, 10% of Palestinian children in Gaza are estimated to be stunted from malnutrition.
At the same time, Israel has since 1967 occupied the West Bank, and has increasingly colonized it and incorporated it into Israel, in open defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and of the UN charter, which forbids the acquisition of territory by force. Israel has stolen water, land and resources from the native Palestinians and consigned them to South Africa-style cantons reminiscent of Apartheid.
Worst of all, Israel has kept millions of Palestinians stateless, lacking citizenship in any country, and so lacking any legal protection of their rights or property. Stateless people cannot travel freely and do not have basic rights enjoyed by citizens of a state.
The far right wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has committed large numbers of torts against the Palestinians. It just legalized an illegal Israeli settlement on purloined Palestinian land at the same time it is demolishing solar panels and wind turbines of Palestinian villages.
Netanyahu has authorized the building of thousands of new Israeli homes on Palestinian land in the West Bank, and just allowed another 600 deep in the occupied territory. Israeli squatters on Palestinian land are thieves on a large scale, depriving others of their rightful property, and interfering in their livelihoods. This larceny is being actively connived at and implemented by the Israeli government.
Israeli squatters are now stealing Palestinian land in Area B, in direct contravention of the Oslo peace accords, which Netanyahu has boasted of destroying.
Israeli authorities have been arbitrarily kidnapping (it is not properly called ‘arresting’) Palestinian peace activists who peacefully protest these violations of Palestinian rights, and holding them in ‘administrative detention,’ without charges and without trial. Some of these hostages have been going on well-publicized hunger strikes, forcing the Israeli authorities to release them, since there are no outstanding charges against them and their deaths would be bad publicity for Israel.)

Sorry it took so long to reply, I did not have time last night and I had school and practice today.

First you say it's not evil, and then two sentences later you say it is unjust. So which is it? As for whether "influening iran" is worth it, let's ask ourselves a question. If it turns out Iran is in fact devoloping nuclear weapons should we try to stop them. You say no, because you think a nation exerting influence is bad, I say yes because I don't want to see the most powerful weapon ever invented to fall into the wrong hands. You don't think Iran is stupid enough to launch I think they just might be, that's not the only concern. what if a terroist group were to get their hands on one from iran. I am sure al quadea has influence in iran, so is not conceviable they could make a grab for one?

As for the articles I found the first one interesting, but i have few disagreements. While I can certanly see Hammas and Hezbollah taking a crack at israel, Syria is in no condition to take on israel. With the amount of unrest in the nation, assad would be overthrown if he sent troops after israel. I also think he is overblowing the casulties that would result in war against iran.

As for the other article, I thought it was just anti zionist peice of trash. Half of his points were about how either israel was the most evil thing around, or how the israeli intelligence community was secretly controlling the US and our policies, It's kinda ridiculous. I could however see where he was coming from with the effects a heavy duty sanction could have on iranian civilians.

@ D3vil
I don't know much about the non-alingned movement, but I can not see other middle eastern powers wanting Iran to get nukes. Iran is rival for pretty much every other power in the region, so why would they like to see a rival with a nuke.

I think America exerting pressure over Iran to discontinue a nuclear weapon program that there is not any substantial evidence for them even pursuing is wrong. But even if it turned out they did it still wouldn't be worth it. You're just wasting your time for the sake of a false sense of security. You have absolutely no good reason for why you should expect Iran to launch a nuke, or that there is even a chance they would. The disingenuous point that they dislike Israel and threatened to wipe them off the map is shallow and doesn't slide. It is pretty funny that the only nukes that have ever been dropped have been against a country that didn't even have them. Your continued underestimation of the Persian rationality and strength is a true recipe for disaster.

As for the terrorists, I'm not really a part of that whole scare. You stay the hell out of that area and I bet people don't want to hurt you anymore.

I assume you were talking about this:

But that's a fair point. AIPAC actually does exist. And take a look at this. I'm not saying that it is true, but certainly he is more credible that you make him out to be. I'm not going to argue this though, it is too tedious. I wasn't putting it up as evidence and I don't expect you to refute everything he said. I just put it in there as a side note.

This a hypothetical situation, youa asked me what I would do if Iran turned out to be making nukes, no one said it was actually happening(although they are being very suspicious, they are up tp something. If they were just working on civlian nuclear energy, why clean up your sites and hide shit from the UN inspection teams?)

I have said several times that the reason Iran should not have acces to nuclear weapons is because the leaders of that nation are islamic fanatics, who said themselves that israel should be destroyed, wiped off the map. Your right in that they would not just launch as soon as they devolop the weapons, but them merely having nukes would give them a signifigant advantage over other powers in the region(can you say hegemon?). Not only that but terrorists are a real threat, Given the extremist tendancies of Iran, I am sure al qaeda or other terrorist groups could find sympathisers in high places. And the US simply pulling itself out of the world would actually cause more war and strife then staying.

We maintain a balances of power in regions insuring that no nation gets strong enough to develop a hegemony. If we just pulled out either one of the local nations would maneuver it's way into dominating the whole region, or more likely another world power would take our place, like china or russia, doing the same things we are doing if not worse.

As for the article, Saying that because Israel has a pac, they controll US intelligence is like saying steven colbert controlls it with his super pac. A pac is lobbying organization and while it can certanly influnce our policies so can any other pac. Same thing with Franklin scandal, one man passing secrets does not equel controll of the government.

They added a different facility they wanted to check. Anyway, the absence of evidence is not the same as proof.

That "wiped off the map" is an extremely common misunderstanding. It has been refuted several times in this very forum. The so-called existential threat for Israel has also been refuted many, many times. What about Iran's existential threat with Israel threatening to bomb it? Unlike Iran, Israel actually has nuclear weapons (and it doesn't allow UN inspectors - whoops!)

No one gets hegemony... except for the US. In which case it's OK because they're the good guys.

So what? Pakistan has nukes. Islam has little to do with this. If the Middle East was politically and economically stable no one would be complaining about Islam.

This is absolutely hilarious. Really? You're really going to try and rationalize all this with balance?! Wow. I'm legitimately stunned. What about balance when it comes to balancing us? Maybe giving the good ol' United States of America some checks to its power? Especially in a region so far from home, jeeze. Are we the great protectors of balance now? While I agree, nobody getting too powerful is a good thing, that also applies to America. As for other world powers coming in, I would say the same thing to them. They probably would not listen, but eventually they would be in a similar situation as we are. And if a local power dominated the region? Well then maybe the good thing about that is people could stop exploiting the region and super powers couldn't as easy influence the region! It would be a rough process, but letting the region's power relations iron out on their own will likely be beneficial in the long term. Also, we wouldn't be having these terrorist "issues."


Hey, I forgot to address a few things so I'm going to edit it in, if you already started responding I apologize but just letting you know.

I never said it was the same proof, I just said it suspicious.

What do you thinked "wiped off the map" means? Israel will not use her nukes because the US would not let her. If they used their nukes, there be shitstorm of reprecussions from us and the rest of the world, there is no such external power holding iran back.(plus israel is just wee bit less fantical and wee bit more forward thinking, you know womens rights and all that.)

The point was someone is going to get hegomony. The US already has it, and if we just pull out and go into isolation(which is also economically stupid), every power in the region would be shootting for the top position, this means even more war and death then there is now. Or we would be replaced by another superpower. My point is, someone is going to be in that position no matter what, and I would personally prefer the US to china or russia.

I'm done editing now. Unless that was your reply to me.