If both Western and Eastern powers are in the pockets of the military-industrial complex, and politicians on both sides want to 'contain' the other power's sphere of influence, isn't it only natural that these oil-rich countries (that lack functioning civil societies) become flush with weaponry, zealotry, and perpetual strife? They are being used as chess pieces and cannon fodder. When was the last time a U.S. government official discussed the plight of the Iranian people (e.g., its suppressed but burgeoning civil society) outside of the context of 'strategic' influences in the region?

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No proper post of mine ever lacked some good old fashioned oversimplification.





Before or after the revolution? A quick perusal of wiki doesn't seem to support this claim, e.g., in the case of abortion.

yeah...................................................................................................... if by "showing it's autonomy and resisting unwarranted US force on one of it's allies" you mean, looking for just one more reason to pick a fight with Israel. Right now this display of autonomy seems to fit in right between "if you attack us directly we will attack Israel!!!" and "what!??! You are eating a cheese burger!?!?! HOW DARE YOU! We will now attack Israel!!!"

But in point of fact, yes. If Iran and Israel actually went to war with each other, that WOULD probably be a dangerous threat to all.

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well, yeah... that what i said they were probably doing.

some idea yes... irans military in terms of man power is nearly 3 times the size of israels. then there are other areas where they are much closer militarily. and a few areas where israel has an edge on them.


to be perfectly honest, no. not entirely. guessing something to do with Palestine and the "illegal Zionist regime"


my guess would be, because everyone else has them too and its no fun bringing a knife to a gun fight.


capacity to strike... they certainly do. ability to win... maybe not so much. smoke?? yes probably.


no, in fact not at all. I was simply commenting that Iran will seeming use ANYTHING as a reason to at least threaten attacks on israel. not saying that israel is innocent in... well, anything. just that iran WOULD probably use a cheeseburger as an excuse if they could figure out how.

Why do the countries with the best food have to go through so much turmoil?

Italy haven't been at war since WW2.

Damn you Kroko, you beat me to it.

"I ran out of gasolini!" - Italian Tank Commander, 198$

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Yes, and Israel would never do anything to provoke countries like Iran...

thanks for reading

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oh, I am sure the number of "official" offensive strikes iran has made is probably very low. they are just a bushel of peaches.


Not saying that the two nations military forces are exactly equitable, but I think iran has a better military than you are giving them credit for. they do of course have some older U.S. aircraft and such, but they also are producing their own fighter jets and UAV's, as well as tanks, submarines and missile systems that are certainly not what would be called pieces of junk.



Which is kind of an odd position to hold considering neither have Pakistan nor India, and they all get along... well, much better than Israel and Iran. especially considering their somewhat colorful pasts with each other.


and India (who has also not signed.) and russia and the U.S. and China and France and the U.K. also Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Turkey and Italy through Nato weapons sharing... Oh! and north korea... although lets be real, they cant seem to get theirs off the ground. So, i guess you have a point and i should said "a lot of countries" instead of "everyone"



yes, this is probably true.


Again not at all what i was saying. But, yes. Iran would probably use that, as well as cheeseburgers, as an excuse to saber rattle.

Could someone give a brief summary of why the US supports Israel anyway?

Besides wanting to have a "little America" in the region?

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I just wanna throw it out there that just about all of the American made aircraft that Iran has are half assed "upgraded" Vietnam-era stuff that doesn't really work very well. And their new stuff is pretty much either useless or flat-out made up.

Wait... are we talking about in comparison with Irans vast history of human rights abuse? or just as a general fact?



I actually mostly agree with you here. the U.S. doesnt get involved in things like this out of compassion.


It's a little different than that, it would be like china threatening canada so we threaten... russia? I would have not really had anything to say had iran threatened the U.S., but like i said. U.S. threatens to take action in Syria... they threaten Israel. U.S. threatens to eat a cheeseburger... they threaten Israel.

honestly my concern about Iran is starting to temper a bit now that ahmadinejad is out of office.

Aircraft haven't changed as much as you think.

What makes their planes suck is that we sell them without weapons, avionics, and or engines

To put things in perspective, the sr71 was developed in the 50s. (Still the fastest air breathing aircraft EVER)

The apache in the 70s.


The f22 is almost 20 years old.

That's what I'm saying, Rob. There's nothing bad about Vietnam era aircraft, but the fact that Iran has Super Cobra helos does not mean they have the same ones we do. It's the basic chassis, and all of the components that actually make it work are just flat-out terrible on their aircraft. It's like saying the teenager down the street is armed as well as our military because he has a Javelin prop, a kevlar vest without sapi plates, an M16A4 and an M240 when they're actually just airsoft guns.

And once again, don't forget that their super advanced stealth fighter that was developed in-country was actually a half-assed photoshop job of a Russian fighter plane in a museum.

No, they get those, they are just provided with significantly lesser capability. And in Iran's case, they are really old, outdated weapons avionics and engines with significantly less capability.

It's stuff like this that made me really mad when Harper wanted to get on the F35 bandwagon instead of doing Super Hornet modernizations.
The F35 makes me mad in general too.

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I like how the U.S. kind of stirred the kettle on all of this and THEN sat back and said... "no, wait. we need to think about this some more." after they took everyones rectal temperature on the situation and found it rather tepid. but in the meantime the countries they riled up are still going at it. -_-

Probably because the last million times they did that it came back to bite them in the jacksy.

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The f35 is the only vtol ever developed without a chance to kill the pilot on every landing.

Neat the F35 achieved a technical thing, woo.
This makes it not stupid to fund on a large scale for the reason of:

Reasons an enormous, sparsely-populated arctic country with a purely defensive air force and no aircraft carriers would need a fuel-constrained single-engine stealth VTOL air superiority fighter:

Reasons Stephen Harper wants the F-35:

• Lockheed Martin's international marketing agency is the Department of State.
• As part of the acquisition, Bombardier would receive tooling and contracts to manufacture some (but not all) F-35 components for the international market. This effectively buys Montreal back from the NDP.
• He's felt insecure about his manhood ever since his wife left him for that lesbian RCMP officer.

Build the pycrete carrier Steve, let's show the world who's boss.

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Liberals want the war on Syria? I thought it was just the plutocrats seizing on the first reasonable-sounding excuse.