Can you name me one provocative act that Iran has made in the last year

not giving in to the u.s. demands. in bush-land that counts as provocative

any calculation of odds of war by anyone, Col. Lang included, contain the inference "providing we sit on our asses and do nothing to prevent it".

It's a good time to get proactive and creative. As I posted over here -

It's not the "form" of democracy that's important. Democracy comes from the Greek demos ("people") and kratos ("rule"), and it is that which is its distinguishing characteristic, not a Congress - or even elections.

The only valid question is "do the American people want this war?", and if the answer is "no", then you must make the bastards obey their employer, using whatever methods you have to.

Source: Americans Assess US International Strategy, A WorldPublicOpinion.org Poll, December 7, 2006 Conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes / Fielded by Knowledge Networks

Translation: eighty-three percent of Americans believe Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons (curiously the identical number as Israel - both vastly higher than the world average).

Translation: even though eighty-three percent of Americans believe Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons (well over the international average), only 21% of them favor the use of military strikes to resolve it (although 30% of Israelis do). And that, incidentally, is assuming the approval of the UN Security Council.

Source: 25 Nation Poll on Iran, BBC World Service, through PIPA

[Incidentally, objectivity can go shit in its hat. The only dent that has been made in these odds at all have been made by people fighting this inevitable progression for the last number of years. The "objective" have achieved precisely nothing except enabling it. You don't fight radicals and crazies by "being objective"; objectivity is a technique or tool you use, when applicable, in engineering their defeat - ES]

"Can you name me one provocative act that Iran has made in the last year."

The Iranian government said it has ordered the central bank to transform the state's dollar-denominated assets held abroad into euros and use the European currency for foreign transactions.

"The government has ordered the central bank to replace the dollar with the euro to limit the problems of the executive organs in commercial transactions," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters Monday.

"We will also employ this change for Iranian assets (in dollars) held abroad."

The move comes amid mounting pressure from the United States for the UN Security Council to agree sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.

Elham added that Iran's budget would in future be calculated according to euros.

"Until now the budget has been calculated according to revenues in dollars but this calculation will now change."

where we have a major naval base about a mile from my house I haven't heard anything about increased activity on base tho I do have to admit that I haven't gone up to the top of the hill to see if the Abe Lincoln is still there. Generally we see a pretty wide spread but low key reaction in town and so far nothing. Not to say you are not right, just that I haven't seen anything overt here.

"I beseech you in the bowels of christ think it possible you may be mistaken."

Blair is what worries me the most. Just google and se how often he has preached the party line on Iran lately. It's all "major strategic threath", "military intervention", etc. It seems to me the language has hardened up considerably since even a few months back.

Look at what the UK is doing in Basra, which will be on the frontline vs. Iran. It's stopping patrols and extracting troops from roles engaged in Iraqi society, shifting to garrissions in protected bases.
This means more mobility, more readiness for other tasks, and less exposure to sudden insurgence and/or iran intel. No warning to Iran that "oops, for some reason all brits have stopped patrols/operations the last 3 hours.."

Then add 30K extra US tropps to Irak in the coming month. Does anyone know if it's really 30K or 60 or 90K being sent, or if some fancy equipment is being sent in with the troops? Surely not. And the extra carrier. 1 is as much as can be sent without being conspicious. And it's not as if carriers are really needed, the US does have bases. The real indicator is the aircraft.

Politically, Blair has promised to leave office in less than a year. George is in a corner, and it's not going to get better.

George wants a war while Blair is still there to blunt the media/international opinion. Gordon is NOT going to start out by supporting Bush in Iran. And W wants a war early enough that he'll have a real chance to claim any "war prize" before he has to leave office.

If he starts in january the war will either be won and he'll be a hero by 2008, or it will be such a mess that you "can't change horses, err, president, midstream".
If he starts with 6 months left he'll only get credit for starting another mess. Democrats will come in, and either:
a) loosing by giving up (simply extracting troops and apologize), blaming Busch
b) fight on and loose, blaming Bush
c) fight on and win/get "favourable" outcome, in wich case they get the credit for fixing the mess Bush started

about the Marines and Army being stretched it sounds like the Air Force is worst off. There won't be any homeland security when Bush gets down destroying our armed forces. The Coast Guard doesn't looks so good either. This surge to Iran could leave us nothing.

from the December 19, 2006 edition - csm

US Air Force loses out in Iraq war

Aging planes, budget shortages, and ground casualties are a sharp reversal from the success of air power in Kosovo.

By Richard Whittle | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON
Fresh from its successes in Kosovo in 1999 and its initial Afghanistan campaign in 2002, the US Air Force was riding high on the notion that air power could transform warfare. But the war in Iraq has changed that.

Now the service's planes are wearing out. It is so short of cash that it plans hefty cuts in personnel. And its combat mission has changed so that, for perhaps the first time in Air Force history, hostile fire has killed more of its ground personnel than its pilots and airmen.

This reversal of fortune has been sharp, defense analysts say.

"At the beginning of the Bush administration, not only did it look like air power could win wars, but there was a new crop of policymakers ready to embrace that message," says Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., think tank with close ties to top military officers. Now, "I'm hard-pressed to think of a time when the Air Force has faced more problems."

Air Force officials acknowledge the difficulties but point to the experience that they've gained.

"The Air Force is better because of these wars," says Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, the service's chief of staff, in an interview. "The Air Force is a war-fighting institution. What we do for this country is fly and fight. You have the most combat-experienced Air Force you've had since World War II."

Fighting nonstop since 1990
By his reckoning, the Air Force has been in combat since 1990, when its surveillance planes and fighter-bombers first started patrolling over Iraq in the wake of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. After the 1991 Gulf War, Air Force pilots policed "no-fly" zones over Iraq for 12 years, along with Navy and British fliers.

Air Force fighter jets, bombers, and aerial refueling tankers played key roles in both the 1999 NATO air war to force Serbian troops out of Kosovo and in the 2002 campaign to oust the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. And the service's planes have seen action every day in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars there began.

But if the past three years have made the Air Force stronger, it's in "much the same way that a death by cuts makes you stronger," says Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace industry analyst with the Teal Group, a Fairfax, Va., consulting firm.

For example: The average age of Air Force planes is now a quarter-century, and wear and tear from the wars are forcing the service to place limits on how some are flown.

General Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne announced earlier this year that the service's new top priority is buying aerial refueling tankers to replace a fleet that includes aircraft nearly half a century old.

To free up more money for aircraft, the Air Force plans to cut roughly 40,000 people, reducing its force to 315,000 by fiscal year 2009. "The Air Force is sitting on the oldest aircraft we've ever had," Moseley says. "There's no way out of that but to seek efficiencies in the personnel account."

more

This is a very unnerving read by Jay Rosen's reflections on Ron Suskind's seminal 2004 article: Without a Doubt. As much as Rosen is impressed by Suskind's reporting, he suggests that Suskind has not fully appreciated the seriousness of his own article. He finishes with this:

Whereas if they tried to narrate the expansion of executive power (led by the vice president) through a revolt against empiricism (led by the chief executive) their story would be more accurate (to what happened) but less credible to more people. Because it sounds so extreme.

This is in fact a way to discredit the press that the press has not fully appreciated. Take extreme action and a press that mistrusts “the extremes” will mistrust initial reports of that action— like Suskind’s. This gives you time to re-make the scene and overawe people. There are all kinds of costs to changing a master narrative that has been built up by beat reporters and career pundits. When the press can hang on to an old and proven one it will. The Bush people understood that. They knew they could change the game on the press because the press finds it hard to act in reply. Therefore it tends to behave.

The idea that accuracy improves credibility is comforting. The more accurate you are, the more credible you will be, right? But in extreme situations—and invading Iraq with no particular and specific idea of what to do once there is an extreme situation—an accurate description is likely to be rejected, and the describer treated as in-credible. Reporters and editors are, I believe, intimately aware of this. Bob Woodward, as I have said elsewhere, wrote Plan of Attack because at the time it was a more credible book, even though Attack Without a Plan would have been more accurate.

When I read “Without a Doubt” I felt an immediate kinship with Suskind. Because I could see what he was trying to do: warn us about something that sounded crazy but was all too real. I could see he was going to fail in that, and I sensed that he knew it too. That’s what made it so sad to read.

Journalists and talking heads: if this month you wish to tell me that realism is back kindly tell me where you think it had gone to.

This article is a must read. And in this thread, it strengthens the argument that we are facing the "unthinkable". We have an administration that has lived by doing what is outrageious and unthinkable and using those facts as cloaks of invisibility. There is nothing to suggest that this administration has retreated from what it has always regarded as an asset--to act boldly without thought. If this is the case, then what I regard as completely incomprehensible (attacking Iran) becomes all too likely.

Mike Sheehan
Published: Tuesday December 19, 2006

The U.S. military is "planning a major buildup" of its naval forces in the Persian Gulf region "as a warning to Iran," reports CBS News, as quoted by Reuters.

A senior official in the Department of Defense said "the report was 'premature' and appeared to be drawing 'conclusions from assumptions,'" according to Reuters. The Pentagon declined comment, but an additional Defense official described the report as "speculative."

CBS said that "the buildup ... was not aimed at an attack on Iran but to discourage what U.S. officials view as increasingly provocative acts by Tehran."

The buildup will reportedly begin in January. Should it occur, it would validate earlier speculation (at RAW STORY and elsewhere) that the Bush administration could use the might of the U.S. military to stymie Iran's nuclear aspirations.

RAW's Larisa Alexandrovna reported last September that "a military intelligence official described ... the movement of Naval submarines and a deployment order sent out to Naval assets of strategic import, such as minesweepers, that could indicate contingency planning is already under way to secure oil transport routes and supplies."

The CBS News video regarding the report can be viewed here. (Note: An ad precedes the report.) The Reuters alert can be read here.

Source Raw Story

-----

It appears there are now two independent news agencies that have reported this story. It appears the CBS source was AFX, from London, England.

Coupled with today's story from Iran that they moved from US dollars to Euro's, the news is worrisome.

Dec 20, 2006

COMMENT
Saudi Arabia and Iran in Iraq fix
By Ehsan Ahrari

With Iran enhancing its influence in Iraq - even by creating a "mini-Iran" in the southern section of the country - Saudi Arabia is left playing diplomatic catch-up in trying to influence events.

This underscores the power differential between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran is a real power in Iraq, while Saudi Arabia remains a "wanna-be power". It also illustrates that Iran's strategy in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq was well crafted to take into account the
possibility of the US faltering there.

The Iranians figured that the US administration was more concerned about toppling Saddam than establishing a stable order in Iraq and that it lacked a cohesive post-conflict plan. Iran thus concluded that chaos would follow. What it could not have anticipated was the magnitude of that chaos, a train of events set in motion by the US deciding to abolish the Iraqi army and de-Ba'athify the country.

In the broader context, Iran was driven by another objective: ensuring that it would not become the next victim of President George W Bush's doctrine of "regime change". This, more than anything else, would have driven Iran either to exploit the Iraqi chaos to its advantage, or to make its own contribution to worsen it. Either way, political and religious realities were overwhelmingly in favor of Iran.

Sixty-five percent of the Iraqi population is Shi'ite. Iran and Iraq have had decades of close cooperation and extensive exchanges on religious issues. In the realm of politics, Iran played a constant role in nurturing and supporting anti-Saddam forces to catch the dictator off guard. Consequently, no neighboring country knew the political dynamics of Iraq better than Iran.

much more
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL20Ak01.html

Dec 21, 2006

Page 1 of 2
Holy warriors set sights on Iran
By Bill Berkowitz

OAKLAND, California - Over the past 20 years, the US Christian Right has evolved into one of the most powerful grassroots organizing forces within the Republican Party, and a host of Christian Zionists have taken a well-earned seat at the foreign-policy table.

At the same time, their support for Israel is not only growing, it is

becoming an influential political factor.

Several prominent Christian Right and conservative Jewish leaders have teamed up to found organizations that have provided millions of dollars to Israeli charities, lobbied in support of policies advanced by right-wing leaders in Israel, opposed President George W Bush's so-called "roadmap" to peace in the Middle East, and have helped defray the costs of the immigration of Russian Jews to Israel, among other activities.

While the Reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have been longtime supporters of Israel, the founding this year of Christians United for Israel by John Hagee, the pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, drew a great deal of media attention.

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's popularity has plummeted since the end of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Christian Zionists in the United States view the outcome not only as a defeat for Israel, but as a prelude to a much wider war. In fact, they think the conflict might be a sign of impending Armageddon.

"The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching," Hagee wrote in his most recent book, Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World . "Just before us is a nuclear countdown with Iran," he wrote, "followed by Ezekiel's war [as described in the biblical Book of Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39], and then the final battle - the battle of Armageddon."

For Hagee, best-selling author Joel Rosenberg and other Christian Zionists, Israel plays the critical role in End Time scenarios. Their books, commentaries and public statements reflect their beliefs that serial conflicts in the Middle East are a sign of the biblical prophecy presaging Armageddon, the return of Jesus Christ, and the final battle for the souls of mankind.

And some have started to train their sights on Tehran. In a recent weblog post datelined Jerusalem, Rosenberg wrote: "The buzz here in the last few days is that Israel is seriously considering a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities and ballistic-missile sites."

Given Israel's less-than-sterling performance against Hezbollah this past summer, Rosenberg was not convinced that Israel "has the capacity - or the will - at the moment to neutralize the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile threat".

However, with "a new [Adolf] Hitler rising in Iran", it is up to Bush, who met with Olmert in Washington in mid-November, to deal with the Iranian threat: "If President Bush believes Iran needs to be neutralized (and I believe he does), and he is convinced that military action is the only way, I don't believe he is there right now, then the US should take the lead."

After all, wrote Rosenberg, "If anyone is going to stop Iran from threatening the world with nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, it has to be soon, perhaps no later than the end of 2007. After all, 2008 is an American election year. [The year] 2009 will be the start of a new administration. By then it may be too late. The thermonuclear genie may be out of the bottle."

much more
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL21Ak01.html

...from one point of view. Right now the US is losing fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but more than that its economic relationships with eg China among others are only tenable in their current form because they are ultimately guaranteed by US military power - by the idea that US power will continue to shape the world's political economy in a way that is favorable to the US and its allies above all other states.

Once that idea finally breaks, it's downhill all the way for the empire. The US needs to nuke Iran now - to make the point that US military domination is real, not as hollow as it currently appears - to avoid surrendering economically to BRICS in ten years time. Bush's cabal can see that clearly, and need to get the job done before the next election.

It's insane of course, and would almost certainly fail in many complex ways which cannot be clearly predicted but are not pleasant to contemplate. I admit it's also incredibly simplistic, but I'm sure in some powerful people's imagination it's the final battle that Iraq was meant to be: are you with us or are you against us, now you know that we're serious about nuking you if you get the answer wrong? Yes, there are several countries now with atomic weapons, but can you imagine any one of them (bar North Korea of course, whose nuclear capability appears by most assessments to be currently next to useless) using that capability to align themselves against the US? If the answer is negative, then it's all systems go.

Incy - you're exactly right about Blair's parroting of the White House party line. When it looked like the ISG report might have some weight, Blair called for talks with Syria and Iran. Now it's clear that Bush isn't gonna play, he's fallen into step without missing a beat. Speaking as a UKer, it's beyond pathetic, it's shameful.