Iran enriches uranium to 20%

Listen I want to understand why you keep bringing up the very salient points for discussion. Is it because you are racist and hate Obama? Iran would never act that way. They have total respect for our peaceful president instead of that guy Bush who was always labeling people as evil so he could bomb them since he hates brown people. Now the President has another party to attend, a couple more fundraisers to go to and finally a few rounds of golf to play.

In the meantime you had better go off and think about what a terrible and hateful person you are for pointing out how someone in the world hasn't unified with our amazing president to clean the air and lower the sea levels.

Sorry about that, obviously tongue was well in cheek. Everyone is aware of it E#, there just isn't much we can do about it with our current terrible commander-in-chief. He will probably address the mushroom cloud as just the crisis he needs to push through another stimulus package.

I'm really out of my field here, stepping into PoliticalOutsider, but I'm actually a little concerned about that whole situation over there, so I'd appreciate at least one objective viewpoint to calm my nerves.

The way I see it, and correct me if I'm wrong, but if something DOES go down over there it will be (in order of likelihood)

1. An Israeli preemptive strike targeting known nuclear (and research) locations.
2. Some sort of breakdown of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran leading to Saudi intervention there (and maybe even joint Israeli-Saudi operations; wouldn't that be something for Middle East relations!).
3. Iran making the first move.
4. The US making the first move.
5. East Timor making the first move (obvious satire to relieve tension).

My question proper is, how likely ARE any of those situations, and in what sort of timeframe would we expect to see any of them carried out? Before the end of this year, even?

That is a good possibility, especially with Iran pushing as hard as it is.


Uh...doubtful.


They'd have to be insane or stupid. If they attack Israel, they will be annihilated. If they close the SoH, they'll be hurt badly.


With Obama, that is doubtful.


Now THAT would catch everyone by surprise.


The irony is that Obama's weakness and snubbing of Israel may just lead to a war. If they were convinced that the U.S. would handle Iran, they'd be less likely to launch a preemptive strike. If Israel attacks, Iran will respond...and we'll get involved. Not good.

So we have to attack first so Israel won't attack first. Lovely justification for going to war.

What the hell are you reading? I never said that. I said "handle Iran." That doesn't necessarily mean attacking them. The entire idea is to avoid having to take military action. What you fail to understand that is that kowtowing to Iran and refusing to face them more aggressively and consistently will make war MORE likely, not less. Peace through strength works.

Peace through strength. Health through bloodletting. Intelligence through ignorance. Generic Republican Candidate 2012.

We have thousands of nukes, Israel has hundreds of nukes, and people are freaking out that Iran might possibly want a nuke.

Because, you see, MUSLIM MUSLIM MUSLIM JIHAD JIHAD ELECT ME ELECT ME PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH don't mind me I'm just going to slip through the back after fleecing the 99% and go retire in my razorwire enclosed independently guarded leisure compound...suckers.

Exactly. Fucking morons who think saber rattling creates peace. I don't think they really want peace. It's like our dear great leader said, "Bring 'em on!"

Fucking morons.

To the people who think peace through strength is not real, ask yourself one question: if you were a general, and the other guy and 10x more troops than you, would you attack him?

We spend more than the rest of the world combined on our military. We can trim that shit down significantly.

Maybe, maybe not. Having a military edge these days is about having a tech edge, and new tech is slow and expensive to develop. Maybe you need a lot more spending than the next guy, just to maintain a slight edge.

We're not facing attacks from generals. We're facing attacks from terrorists. Now ask the question again. Suppose the terrorists have a dirty bomb.

This is why Iran will never attack us (or Israel) but the more antagonistic we are toward Iran, the more likely we are to piss off the people we really need to watch out for.

But the *reason* the only attacks are coming from terrorists is because of the huge army. It's not because history is somehow over, and nations do not want each other's resources any more.

An army 2x the size of the "enemy's" army is plenty sufficient to stop a general from attacks. What the US is doing is just pissing the "other" people off. We need to stop, and engage diplomatically. Encourage trade partnerships in exchange for good governance. Send humanitarian aid when necessary.

There is absolutely no threat from generals, even if we cut our military by 90%.

No, the enemies of the United States are human beings, and the way to stop a human being attacking you is to break his spirit.

If you only have 2x his size, he may not attack for practical reasons, but he may harbour a secret desire to one day catch up. If you have 10x, 20x his power you break his spirit. He knows he has no hope of catching up, and may even start to cut his own military spending. That is what you want in a deterrent: something that stops them even trying. Stops them even thinking about trying. Stops them even trying to try thinking about trying

We aren't attacked by major countries because it isn't economically advantageous. If we poured our money into funding medical research and green energy solutions rather than having an anachronistic penis measuring contest, perhaps humanity as a whole would benefit.

I'm going to submit "green energy" to the over used words list for 2012.

Go right ahead. That just demonstrates you don't give a shit about the environment. If green energy doesn't become a priority of this nation soon, we're going to fall even further behind in the technology race. Getting off fossil fuels is a good thing, like it or not. Much of the rest of the world wants to. It's in our economic best interests (ooh, money, that should make your greedy conservative ears perk up) to dominate the science of green energy.

Sure it is...for the military-industrial complex, for the financial speculators with insider knowledge, and for those who retain power instead of being ousted by invaders or the home opposition.

Oh, sure, the people may suffer, but how many of the super-elite actually give a flying fuck?

Trumptman.

1) Which of the following presidents took MORE days of holiday at the same point in their presidency?

A) George W Bush or B) Barack Obama.

Choose one.

2) Which American president, since Ronald Reagan, took the MOST DAYS OF HOLIDAY at this stage of their presidency? (Hint: it is ONE OF THE PRESIDENTS IN THE PREVIOUS QUESTION.)

3) How heavy is water? To carry? For die-hard Republican hacks?

Oh I know it will be George W. Bush but the thing about that is I personally don't consider someone going to their house to be the same thing as on vacation. Bush basically treated his home as the second White House and spent considerable time conducting business from there. While the media or other sources may count that as vacation days, I think the public at large doesn't see it that way.


I'll gladly add again that Bush spent considerable time at his Crawford ranch.


Yes of course you are right. Iran isn't enriching uranium. They aren't conducting naval exercises or threatening their neighbors. It is all a Republican meme being pushed to make Obama look bad.

It isn't like all these parties, golf rounds and fundraising are just being pushed by Republicans. They are just being reported and people are drawing their own views. The liberal media complex trying to make Obama look so awesome by showing him with his shirt off playing volleyball "accidently" keeps reporting that he's on vacation and in Hawaii for extended periods. When reporting all the fundraising he is doing and the large amounts of money pulled in, obviously trying to demoralize Republicans, it also lets slip how many he had, how much was pulled in per head and the cost, etc.

People draw their own conclusions from that info. You can't help it if the media put it out there with one intention and due to their disconnect from main street, a different conclusion is drawn instead.

Gotcha.

George Bush took more days of holiday than any other president in history. But that's OK.

You don't say a single fucking word about that. That is no grounds for criticism. Nope.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, is an evil shit and an incompetent layabout, even though he takes less holidays.

How thrilling to be so full of hate.

Yeah, right. Obama, who is known to be addicted to his Blackberry, his iPhone, and his iPad, turns off all those devices every time he leaves the White House, and he doesn't do any work. While Bush, who didn't even know how to send an email, was really working all the time at Crawford.

Need a few more buckets?

Actually we call them staycations to make the 3-5% of the population that is permanently unemployed under Obama feel better. When you stay home all day and don't go out, it's not unemployment, it's a staycation. See how that works?

Working at home isn't a foreign concept, except perhaps for you. You insult millions when you declare if they telecommute or work from home, they are actually golfing or playing volleyball on the beach.

When someone says they are working from home repeatedly, it sounds completely plausible because plenty of people do it.

When people say they are working from a boogie board on the beaches of Hawaii, not really the same of course.


Actually I've criticized Bush plenty, but you probably don't count it because it didn't include a racial slur, some sort of made up lie, or a bunch of name calling. Those seem to be the only things you understand.


Actually given his level of incompetence, we prefer him on vacation. He does less damage then.


Hope you are enjoying the projection.


It must be nice to have chats with the "facts" in your head. Please provethe claim that Bush doesn't know how to send an email. Considering his administration had a small controversy related to it, I'd find it interesting to see you prove this lie.

Obama wasn't known for being addicted to his Blackberry, he just wasn't going to give it up when becoming President and that created a problem because all things Blackberry have to go through RIM's servers. You can see why sending presidential emails up to RIM and back might be a problem with White House Security.

So prove your point or admit you are making stuff up. Oh wait, you do that in most threads anyway. It's sort of like how you won't say what you would do to parents who don't hand their daughter's bodies over to the government and then call a bunch of names while making up your own facts there too.

Oh and btw, while you guys are swearing Obama does more in Hawaii than Bush did in Crawford, Iran is still going nuclear on his watch and also still threatening their neighbors. Way to focus on the important stuff!! Perhaps you ought to encourage Obama to go back to Hawaii. When he is back in D.C. his appailing lack of leadership becomes that much harder to explain.

I see two opposing ideologies but I don't see much in the way of substance to this thread. Just to satisfy my curiosity, could you give some indication of what you think Obama should be doing to deal with this "crisis"?

The president should be doing all in his power to get our troops out of the Middle East and end foreign aid to Israel, Pakistan, and other countries in the region (and the rest of the world).

I heard something recently that I'm not sure is true. Are we still giving foreign aid to Germany (and other European countries)?

That needs to stop. I can understand charitable aid to countries that have experienced a natural disaster, but when they're 1st world countries and nothing's going on? No. And countries that refuse to stop funding terrorism or comply with our requests? No foreign aid; you're right.

I wouldn't be surprised if we are still sending money in some form or fashion to Germany and Japan. We still have a military presence in those countries, so it's probably true. It's time to bring our troops home from there, as well.

And South Korea certainly has the capital and resources to defend itself now. Why are we still there?

You raise a good point regarding humanitarian aid. I don't believe government should be using tax money for that purpose at all (I don't believe government should be taxing income either, but that's a different conversation ).

Private organizations and charities such as the Red Cross already do far more good around the world than governments. We should continue to encourage and support such efforts through private donations - NOT tax money.

He should be doing a few things. One is he should not be stopping our domestic energy production. He has placed a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf. He has Canada threatening to send their oil to China to be refined instead of of keeping it close due to his lack of decision on a pipeline. Secondly he should be taking action both through the U.N. and with allies to make sure Iran does not go nuclear.


Not only are we still giving foreign aid, we have massive bases abroad. Whether we are giving direct aid, we are certainly giving a free ride when we provide their defense for them.

Foreign aid

Bases overseas

Yes OK - what action would that be?

Is this your position on this? Really? Because it's pretty much the Democrats and Libertarians who are demanding a reduction in bases. It's the Republicans who are refusing to do so. I commend you for disagreeing with your party for once! Well done!

And now you're suggesting we work with the UN on international matters? Wow. Just wow. Will the real Trumptman please stand up?

Sanctions with a follow up threat of action if certain lines of action are crossed.


There is an entire wing of the Republican party that thinks this way. I mean this in the nicest way possible tonton but we've discussed this. The very thread where I declared Obama would undertake the same thing Bush had done because he was following Pax Americana had all of this explained.

There is a paleocon wing of the Republican Party. Regardless of what you claim, there is also a majority section of the Democratic Party that endorses Pax Americana. Obama claimed to run against it but was also running against Biden, Clinton, etc who had endorsed the Iraq war and likewise Kerry in the prior election cycle had voted for action in Iraq. I used to have a sig declaring that the same people who wanted our troops out of Iraq wanted to put them into Darfur.

Neo-con can only be called that because it is old liberal. It is new to the Republican party to not be isolationist and demand to be the police of the world. It is OLD to the Democratic Party. From eugenics to world affairs, they think a central authority can control it all and fix all the world's problems. You'd realize this if you stopped with the strawmen and caricatures and just actually quoted people while reading what they said.


I've never claimed there isn't a role for the U.N. I've simply said our troops should not be commanded by them and we shouldn't disproportionately shoulder the funding and workload. Likewise both Bush presidents did use the U.N. Bush I did precisely what every liberal claims he should do and the net result was he wasn't re-elected. He took a coalition, removed the threat from Kuwait but didn't remove it. He enacted sanctions, as did Clinton and let the problem fester.

Bush II took his coalition of the willing and did part of what needed to be done in Iraq. If anything Iran is showing that ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. The same arguments going on with Iran right now involving WMD's are the same ones we were having with Iraq.

In the meantime, a good chunk of the power, wealth and ability to act by these crazy regimes goes away when we do things like drill in the Gulf and build pipelines so allies like Canada can send us their oil to refine. Sure we can help fund research and see what happens but the reality is that subsidizing solutions that are not cost effective won't suddenly make them cost effective. Look at how powerful and how quick the innovations in tech and electronics occur. Why is it that this doesn't happen in solar or wind? Probably because there is an upper limit on the effectiveness and the solutions. We can undertake tech based environmentalism and likely get better yields, but honestly most current environmentalists don't endorse many solutions short of a few billion people dying off and most of the world returning to the agrarian age. That isn't a real choice.

So try disagreeing with your party in a few areas like...say building a pipeline. It might be good for you too.

Keep going. We already have sanctions. What lines, and what kind of follow up actions?

Obviously stricter and wider than what we have now and that follows for U.N. and allies.

Add something to the discussino besides 20 questions. This is a forum. I'm not writing you a chapter or two just so you can ask for a book.

Why the sudden reticence to share your wisdom? Disregard - another of those damned questions. So your brand of logic just triggered my curiosity. For example, to paraphrase a previous part of this thread:

"Obama is lazy and takes too many vacation days."

Turns out he takes less than his predecessor...

"OK - he takes less than Bush did, but he's an incompetent leader so we prefer it that way."

That's simply brilliant. How could I possibly add anything to such an erudite discussion? Instead, I was looking forward to you reconciling the dichotomy between two of your other recommendations - insularity and world domination. Of course you were way too clever to fall for that one.