Iran Super Thread- Merged

[CougarKing]

Iraq's Shias becoming too cozy with Iran, even after former PM Maliki relinquished power?

Military.com

Iran-Iraq Deal Challenges US Fight Against ISIS Militants

Jan 02, 2015 | by Richard Sisk


Iran and Iraq have signed an agreement for Iran to train, advise and assist Iraqi forces similar to the deal Washington has with Baghdad in the fight against ISIS.

"We assume Iran's increased support for the Iraqi armed forces as a strategic necessity," Iraqi Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi said earlier this week after concluding the agreement in Tehran with Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan, the state-run Iranian Fars New Agency said.

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[CougarKing]

Wouldn't this apply more to Iraq's Shia population though?

To think that only about 30 years ago there was actually an Iran-Iraq War.

Business Insider

Iran Has Never Been More Influential In Iraq
Associated Press
HAMZA HENDAWI QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD (AP) — In the eyes of most Iraqis, their country's best ally in the war against the Islamic State group is not the United States and the coalition air campaign against the militants. It's Iran, which is credited with stopping the extremists' march on Baghdad.

Shiite, non-Arab Iran has effectively taken charge of Iraq's defense against the Sunni radical group, meeting the Iraqi government's need for immediate help on the ground.

Two to three Iranian military aircraft a day land at Baghdad airport, bringing in weapons and ammunition. Iran's most potent military force and best known general — the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force and its commander Gen. Ghasem Soleimani — are organizing Iraqi forces and have become the de facto leaders of Iraqi Shiite militias that are the backbone of the fight. Iran carried out airstrikes to help push militants from an Iraqi province on its border.

The result is that Tehran's influence in Iraq, already high since U.S. forces left at the end of 2011, has grown to an unprecedented level.

Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition have helped push back the militants in parts of the north, including breaking a siege of a Shiite town. But many Iraqis believe the Americans mainly want to help the Kurds. Airstrikes helped Kurdish forces stop extremists threatening the capital of the Kurdish autonomous zone, Irbil, in August. But even that feat is accorded by many Iraqis to a timely airlift of Iranian arms to the Kurds.

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[a_majoor]

Perhaps the combination of economic struggle and a resurgent US administration in 2016 could lead to regime change in Iran. We will have to see if the Congress will move in this direction now and who actually wins the next US election:

http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2015/01/16/the-citizens-guide-to-regime-change/?print=1

The Citizen’s Guide to Regime Change
Posted By Michael Ledeen On January 16, 2015 @ 3:59 pm In Uncategorized | 5 Comments

All of a sudden, it’s OK to talk seriously about regime change in Iran and even elsewhere.  It had been a taboo subject since the final years of the G.W. Bush administration, aside from yours truly, a few friends such as Bill Kristol and Bob Kagan, and the Washington Post editors, who remarked in 2011 [1] that “only regime change will stop the Iranian nuclear program.”  The latest elected official to join the party is newly elected Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas:

“The goal of our policy must be – regime change in Iran,” Cotton said. “We cannot and will not be safe as long as Islamist despots rule in Iran.

“The policy of the United States should therefore be to support regime opponents and promote a constitutional government at peace with the United States, Israel and the world,” he added.

He’s got it just right:  promote regime change in Tehran by supporting the vast political army of Iranian citizens who hate Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, including President Hasan Rouhani and other recent idols of the deep-thinking set.

Those of us who worked with anti-Soviet dissidents throughout the Empire know that non-violent regime change can be achieved.  When Reagan moved into the White House, hardly anyone believed such a thing was possible.  Indeed, lots of politically active men and women–in undoubted good faith–implored us not to “put Gorbachev’s back against a wall” and to “work with him” to achieve detente.  Even today, there is passionate unwillingness to credit Reagan’s policies with the fall of the Empire, even though the winners on the ground, from Lech Walesa and Havel to Natan Sharansky and Vladimir Bukovsky, all testified to the electrifying effect Reagan’s words and actions had on regimes and dissidents alike.

It was not all that difficult, and certainly not prohibitively expensive.  It didn’t require military action (although the relentless growth of US military power was indubitably important in deterring any Soviet action).  It didn’t involve a vast bureaucracy (I would guess that there were maybe 20-30 high-ranking officials involved, including those very important people at the radios).  Plus those great foreign leaders, like Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.

The main requirement was the will to bring down that wall.  Once the world saw that, it was really no contest.

I think that sort of non-violent regime change is possible in Iran — and elsewhere — today.  It’s quite amazing how rapidly the world can be changed for the better once the United States begins to move.  Indeed, we’ve seen that in reverse with this president, haven’t we?  It works both ways.  And the chances for successful regime change in Iran are considerably better than they were in Gorbachev’s Soviet Empire in the ’80s.  The percentage of Iranian citizens ready to demonstrate their opposition to Khamenei et. al. is much higher than Soviet citizens back when, and the Iranian regime is considerably weaker.  The Soviet Union was a superpower, Iran isn’t.  The USSR had nukes and a big army.  Not so the Islamic Republic.

Nor is Iran the only candidate for regime change.  Venezuela is fully ripe, as the Chavez/Maduro failure becomes more evident and more dramatic every day.  We have actually taken a few steps to demonstrate our unhappiness with the Caracas tyranny (as we have with Iran), but the crucial ingredient is lacking:  the explicit, forceful and repeated denunciation of Maduro and his henchmen by the American president, secretary of state, and other top officials.

It is discouraging to see that many American pundits and politicos who favor regime change act as if military action is required for success.  Senator McCain is particularly egregious on this front, but even those who call for stronger sanctions (which I favor, not because I think economic misery wrecks the regimes–they wreck themselves–but because tough sanctions send a powerful political message to the Iranian and/or Venezuelan people, who are the lethal weapon in this war) often ignore the crucial political dimension.

If misery brought down failed oppressive regimes, then North Korea would be a free country today.

You will say that the Obama administration isn’t going to start denouncing the Iranian or Venezuelan regime, and supporting their domestic opposition.  I agree, but hasten to add that life is full of surprises.  None of us expected Jimmy Carter to order a massive rebuilding of US military power, which undergirded Reagan’s policies.  You never know.  In the Obama case, we don’t need a big defense spending increase; all we need is the will to win.

Even if Obama is a lost cause, a lot can be done by an aroused Washington opposition, backed by an aroused citizenry.  Not only will this put maximum pressure on the president and his team, it will make it more likely that his successor will be fully committed to the winning strategy…whether or not Iran goes nuclear in the meantime, as Gorbachev’s fall from power amply demonstrates.

Just listen to Senator Cotton, who has fought our enemies on the battlefields of the Middle East, and understands both the urgency of taking the fight to Tehran and the best way to do it.

Article printed from Faster, Please!: http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2015/01/16/the-citizens-guide-to-regime-change/

URLs in this post:

[1] remarked in 2011: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/more-half-measures-from-obama-administration-on-iran/2011/11/22/gIQADXxLmN_story.html

 

[CougarKing]

Obama against something even many in his own party support?

Business Insider

Obama Raises Specter Of War With Iran If Congress Imposes New Sanctions
By Colin Campbell | Business Insider – 18 hours ago

President Barack Obama strongly warned Congress on Friday against leveling additional sanctions against Iran and even suggested they could lead to war.

"We have shown that we are credibly trying to solve this problem and avert some sort of military showdown. In that context, t here is no good argument for us to — undercut — undermine, the negotiations," Obama said.

The White House and Iran are currently locked in negotiations for Iran to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for the US and others lifting their sanctions against the Iranian government. These negotiations have been repeatedly extended and frustrated members of Congress said they fear Obama will not strike a tough enough deal. Even Democrats have backed legislation to strengthen the sanctions against Iran.

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[CougarKing]

Israel again spoiling Tehran's plans...

Agence-France-Presse

Iran general killed with Hezbollah fighters in Israel raid

Beirut (AFP) - An Israeli strike on Syria killed an Iranian general, Tehran confirmed Monday, as thousands of supporters of Lebanon's Hezbollah gathered to bury one of six fighters killed in the same raid.

The attack on Sunday near Quneitra on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights enraged Hezbollah's supporters, but analysts said the group would avoid a major escalation with Israel.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of one of their generals in a statement on their website.

"General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi and a number of fighters and Islamic Resistance (Hezbollah) forces were attacked by the Zionist regime's helicopters," it said.

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[tomahawk6]

I believe this is the second IRG general to die in Syria.The other being Hassan Shateri.BG Hamid Taqavi was killed in Iraq by a sniper.

 

[CougarKing]

If Iran's Qaher-313 "stealth fighter" wasn't a hoax, why would they need the F-35 plans for copying?

Sydney Morning Herald

Engineer accused of stealing F-35 fighter secrets for Iran

The freight cost was barely $1700. But nestled inside an otherwise bland shipping container sat a cargo of secret blueprints sensitive enough to put to waste billions of Australian taxpayer dollars.

American Mozaffar Khazaee is accused of stealing design plans for the Joint Strike Fighter - the F-35A Lightning II, billed as the next generation in stealth air warfare - and seeking to ship them to Iran. Thousands of pages of engine schematics, technical manuals, diagrams and other as yet undisclosed detail had been secreted away in 44 boxes of documents.

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[tomahawk6]

Allegedly the PRC got the same plans.

 

[Edward Campbell]

If America decides has decided to have a public education system that does not reward academic excellence, and only academic excellence, then it will have to import more, and More and MORE scientists, technicians, engineers and mathematicians from other countries where they are in surplus (right now that's China, India and several Arab countries). Some of those people, quite a few of them, actually, are, for a whole host of reasons, going to sell secrets ...

It's an easy problem to fix, but it requires a change in attitude.

 

[tomahawk6]

The US leads the world in technical innovation.Its the wannabe's of the world that are unable to do the same so they try to steal the technology.

 

[a_majoor]

The US leads the world in technical innovation.Its the wannabe's of the world that are unable to do the same so they try to steal the technology.

Actually it is quite "easy" to do research and discover really neat stuff (read the Next Big Future website or magazines like Wired, Popular Science or Discover). The difficulty is moving from Research to Development and getting these neat ideas into a form where they can be produced reliably and at a scale where they are actually useful.

While academics are in decline in America, as Edward points out, Americans still have an overwhelming lead in the ability to get things off the laboratory bench and into the production lines and then into the hands of the customers. You can steal plans, or even have the finished product (think of the Russians crawling over the shot down F-117 Nighthawk), but to reverse engineer the product you don't just need to know what its made out of but also how all these parts are made and put together.

 

[Edward Campbell]

America continues to offer a superior business climate for innovators ... that's why, over the past 50 years, hundreds of thousands millions of bright young people from all over the world, especially from Asia, have moved there, started companies, and turned their good ideas into real, useful products. But the pure research, the catalyst for all those good ideas in not - and never has been - exclusively American. (The "mobile communications" revolution, for example, owes more to one, single, university in Israel than to America ... similar examples exist in other areas of science.)

It was said, that "the business of America is business,"* and that is still its greatest strength, but even its "business" focus is being eroded by the American culture wars which also attack education and enterprise and productivity and, and, and ... 

America remains, by far, the most productive society in history, certainly the best since Britain in the 1820s and '30s, but, like Britain, it can be overtaken by other more dynamic societies if it loses its focus on that which made it great and powerful: it's essential classic, 19th century, English liberalism (the small 'l' matters a lot).

_____
* Actually President Calvin Coolidge said, “the chief business of the American people is business.” (1925)

 

[Retired AF Guy]

I believe this is the second IRG general to die in Syria.The other being Hassan Shateri.BG Hamid Taqavi was killed in Iraq by a sniper.

You are right. Another one was General Jabar Drisaw. More info from the Counter-Jihad webpage:

Brigadier General Allah-Dadi is the latest high-ranking Iranian military casualty in the wars in Syria and Iraq. An Islamic State sniper killed Hamid Taqavi, an IRGC brigadier general who was advising Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Samarra, Iraq in late December 2014. In October 2014, General Jabar Drisawi, a general in Iran’s Basij militia, was killed during fighting near Aleppo, Syria. And in February 2013, Hassan Shateri, a top commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps who is also said to have served on Hezbollah’s advisory council, was killed in an ambush while traveling from Damascus to Beirut.

Article Link The article has hyperlinks explaining the circumstances on how each of the above generals died.

 

[CougarKing]

The end of talks with Iran in sight?

Reuters

Iran's Khamenei hints ready to accept fair nuclear deal as talks proceed
BY MEHRDAD BALALI AND SHADIA NASRALLA
DUBAI/MUNICH Sun Feb 8, 2015 8:19am EST

(Reuters) - Iran's paramount leader suggested on Sunday he could back a fair nuclear accord with world powers in which neither side got everything it wanted, boosting Iranian negotiators under fire from hardliners at home opposed to rapprochement with the West.

"I would go along with any agreement that could be made. Of course, I am not for a bad deal. No agreement is better than an agreement which runs contrary to our nation's interests," clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement issued by his office carried by ISNA news agency.

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[CougarKing]

The Israeli leader going to Washington to address Congress even if Obama won't meet him:

Reuters

Netanyahu on collision course with White House over Iran
Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:29am EST

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Netanyahu was invited by John Boehner, the Republican speaker, in an initiative cooked up between Boehner and the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, without the White House initially being kept informed.

That has upset the U.S. administration for a couple of reasons: first, because of the impression created that Netanyahu is teaming up with the Republicans to rubbish Obama's strategy on Iran and attempt to secure new U.S. sanctions. 

Secondly, it tramples on diplomatic protocol by inviting a foreign leader days before an election - Netanyahu will speak just two weeks before Israeli parliamentary elections on March 17, when he will bid for a fourth term. As a result, Obama will not meet him during the visit.

Relations between the two have always been uncomfortable, but the sense of mutual irritation has deepened in recent months, with Netanyahu increasingly critical of U.S. policy on Iran and the United States pushing back on everything from Israeli settlements to the lack of talks with the Palestinians.

Gideon Rahat, a professor of politics at Hebrew University, regards the current state of affairs as the worst between Israel and the United States in more than 20 years, since George Bush senior and Yitzhak Shamir were in office.

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[Rifleman62]

The Obama foreign policy and Obama's legacy is predicated on getting a nuclear treaty out of Iran. Several extensions to the negotiations have given Iran more time to develop the bomb.

In Obama's State of the Union speech the Republicans, who, through elections by the people, have a majority in the Congress were upset the President grossed over the threat of a nuclear Iran.

Netanyahu will speak to the Congress and tell it how it is with a nuclear Iran, which the President refuses to do. Remember, Israel only has to lose a war once.

There is also talk that the President wants Iran to be an allied with with USA!

This is from a President who will not allow the use of the word Muslim extremest/terrorists etc as posted elsewhere.

 

[Rifleman62]

Proof. Iran will stall until they have a bomb and the Obama administration will allow that. Crippies, even the UN is saying Iran is stalling.

When they get a nuclear bomb, can they manufacturer a dirty "suitcase" bomb that one of their surrogates will drop off in a US city or will they launch on Israel? Who do they hate most?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/19/us-iran-nuclear-iaea-idUSKBN0LN1DJ20150219

Iran still stalling U.N. nuclear inquiry as deal deadline looms: IAEA

By Shadia Nasralla - VIENNA - Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:12pm EST

(Reuters) - Iran has still not addressed specific issues that could feed suspicions it may have researched an atomic bomb, a U.N. watchdog report showed on Thursday, potentially complicating efforts by six powers to clinch a nuclear deal with Tehran.

Iran and U.S. negotiators will resume talks over Tehran's nuclear programme in Geneva on Friday to narrow remaining gaps aimed at ending a 12-year standoff with the powers, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported.

The confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), obtained by Reuters, said Tehran was continuing to withhold full cooperation in two areas of a long-running IAEA investigation that it had committed to giving by August last year.

"Iran has not provided any explanations that enable the agency to clarify the outstanding practical measures," the IAEA said, referring to allegations of explosives tests and other activity that could be used to develop nuclear bombs.

Western diplomats have viewed such stalling as an indicator of the Islamic Republic's unwillingness to cooperate fully until punitive sanctions are lifted in talks with the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain.

The IAEA document about the U.N. inquiry, which has run parallel to the big power talks, was issued to IAEA member states only weeks before a deadline in late March for a framework agreement between Iran and the powers.

Iran's IAEA envoy said the report attested to Iranian cooperation with the Vienna-based agency to address doubts about its nuclear programme, rejecting "baseless claims" about weapons studies.

"Repeating such baseless claims will not add to the IAEA's credibility," Ambassador Reza Najafi told the Iran's Students News Agency ISNA.

The seven countries have imposed a June 30 deadline on themselves for a final settlement. Iran denies any intention of seeking atomic weapons, saying its nuclear energy programme is aimed at generating electricity only.

The deal sought by the powers would have Iran accept limits to its uranium enrichment capacity and open up to unfettered IAEA inspections to help ensure it could not put its nuclear programme to developing bombs. They also want Iran to resolve all IAEA questions to build trust in its nuclear aspirations.

In return, Iran would see a lifting of international trade and financial sanctions that hobbled its oil-based economy.

IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano and Iranian senior nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi will meet in Vienna next week, both sides said. "In his meeting with Amano, Araqchi will discuss ... future cooperation needed between Iran and the IAEA in the framework of a possible final deal," Najafi told ISNA.

A senior diplomat said all issues in the inquiry barring possible military dimensions (PMD) to Iran's nuclear activity were being tackled well, but "with respect to PMD, progress is very slow, if there is any progress at all at this point in time."

 

[jollyjacktar]

They're not keen or SA either.  Or Syria.  A target rich environment for them.

 

[Force]

The usa wants to pressure iran because of its revolution that kicked out usa's Shah, making usa lose its biggest regional vassal. As to iran wanting to make the bomb well... maybe in 200 years?
http://youtu.be/a2Ve4HrRpvs

 

[Rifleman62]

Force:

As to iran wanting to make the bomb well... maybe in 200 years?

You are kidding? You believe that?