chicot

It's difficult to grasp because it's a ridiculously simplistic viewpoint. It assumes that Iran's leader are quite happy to see their country devastated by the massive retaliation of Israel's far superior nuclear arsenal. Despite the rhetoric I simply do not believe that.

Sounds like a fun party

"... and they intend to use the nuke as son as it is avaiable." Know that for a fact do you? Who exactly do they intend to use it on?

Perhaps it would have been prudent for a goverment that "has plans for every contingency and every scenario" to have some idea about what to do in the unlikely event that these geniuses were proven wrong.

Certainly, it's a good thing if you accept the premise that an attack on Iran is a serious option. I do not accept that premise.

They had plans but didn't use them? Why bother to make them in the first place?

Really? That must be why they were suprised by the Iraqi insurgency (as they have admitted). I mean who could have imagined that invading and occupying a country could lead to resistance? Any half-decent student of history could have told them that was a very real possibility.

The problem is that news channels shouldn't be politically balanced. They should only present the US (Bush admin) point of view and nothing else

"Sounds like a retreat to me. You are leaving before things are finished. Why? Because it is unpleasant. Regardless of whether you are for or against the war (I think I know what side you are on ) we cannot just cut and run. That is exactly what this plan calls for, IMO. " But how do you know when things are "finished"? What criteria do you apply to decide when this is the case? What happens if the conditions that need to be met are still not in 10 years time? In 50 years time? Do you go blindly on forever or do you decide that Iraq is not going to be what the US wants it to be and let the Iraqi people decide how best to deal with this mess?

"The frustration was seen many times in the past where Moulds was quoted as saying how disappointed he was that the Bills couldn't find a decent QB to get him the ball since Jim Kelly left the team." ? This seems like something of an odd quote since, if I remember rightly, Moulds saw very limited playing time while Kelly was at qb and actually enjoyed his best seasons with Flutie at qb.

?! What idiocy is this? I fail to see how anything in BiB's post justifies such a response. Most people who have been on this board for a while know that BiB does indeed work in this field.

Is there no such thing as the concept of "unfair dismissal" in the US?

? I'm not quite sure what, if anything, that has to do with the post that you replied to.

I doubt that the government will ever have the tools to enforce their legitimacy and their legitimacy will always be questioned as long as they have to rely on foreign support to maintain it. Also, theoretically at least, this should be the call of the Iraqi parliament and not of the US since they have stated they will leave when asked. In the last parliament, some 40% or so were in favour of setting a timetable for the end of the occupation. With increased Sunni representation now, this may well have grown to a majority. As for Al-Sadr, he may actually be one of the few people who can help to unite Shiite/Sunni divisions, as, as well as his Shiite powerbase, he is also well respected by many in the Sunni community.

6. Set a definite timetable for withdrawal - no ifs, no buts - "we are leaving by such and such a date". That will give a big incentive for the so-called Iraqi "government" to actually start making some real decisions instead of their endless dithering, because they would be facing the very real prospect of losing power (possibly their lives) if they don't sort things out before then.

I said the government of Pakistan was friendly, not the population as a whole. I agree that Musharraf's position is pretty precarious.

Problem is that the enemy the US faces is not so much a nation state which can be nuked (or even deterred by the threat of nukes) so much as a loose network of people, many of whom are present in countries whose governments are friendly to the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for instance. In this context, the 10,000 nukes are not relevant and more subtle tools like special forces, human intelligence etc ... are needed.

I'd say nuking Iran would make that more likely, not less.

Palestine is hardly the entire Arab/Muslim world and the Palestinians have more of a direct grievance against Israel than other Arab nations. Even then, is it actually Hamas's policy to murder the entire Jewish population of Israel? I think it's more likely that they have some pipedream of forcibly expelling the Jewish population in a similar way to the way they believe they were forced from their land. That's bad enough but it's not the same thing as genocide.

Israel is certainly hated in the Muslim/Arab world as it seen (rightly or wrongly) as being responsible for the dispossession of the Palestinians. I don't believe, however, that any more than a tiny minority of fanatics would wish for the genocide of it's population.

So, what you're saying is that 100% of the population in any Arab and/or muslim country advocates genocide? I tend to doubt that. Much of the youth in Iran, for instance, is weary of the Islamic theocracy and would welcome change. You'd probably have more in common with them then you'd imagine. The thing is, if you were to "wipe out Iran" (as I have no doubt some hotheads on here would argue for) you'd be killing them as well as Ahmadinejad and his ilk.

Dammit, you should know by now that those filthy savages are all the same. Every last one of them would slit your throat as soon as look at you

Doesn't justify advocacy of genocide though.

To be honest, I haven't really been paying too much attention to that. What was the American reaction?

How stupid? In connection with what?