A follow-up to Rick Ballard's post on Sunday, The Drums Grow Louder, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld accused Iran of sending troups into Iraq.
Rumsfeld, when asked if he thought these troups were being sent on orders of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said, “The Revolutionary Guard doesn't go milling around willy-nilly, one would think.”
With his characteristic dry humor, the Secretary observed, "I don't think we could consider them religious pilgrims.”
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Courtesy Wikipedia:
Operation Praying Mantis was the 18 April 1988 action waged by U.S. naval forces in retaliation for the Iranian mining of an American warship.
The 14 April mining nearly sank the guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts, which was sailing in the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Earnest Will, the 1987-88 convoy missions in which U.S. warships escorted reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect them from Iranian attacks. By the time the Roberts was towed to Dubai on 15 April, battered but saved with no loss of life, U.S. planning for the retaliatory operation had already begun in Washington and in the Middle East.
The battle, the largest between surface forces since World War II, sank two Iranian warships and as many as six armed speedboats. The attack by the U.S. may have helped pressure Iran to agree to a ceasefire with U.S-backed Iraq later that summer, ending the eight-year conflict between the Persian Gulf neighbors.
Thomas Jefferson
"Not one cent for tribute"
Theodore Roosevelt
"We want either Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead."
Moshe Dyan's reply when asked how to gain a military reputation Fight Arabs
(Yes, I know - Persians aren't Arabs - but these puppies think that they are.)
George Bush ?
Remember - two fo those fellas are on Rushmore.
I think that George has pocketed the Chinese rook.
These are strange actions too my mind. I was saying the other night that I would put nothing past the mullahs. But, even so, Iran is acting as if to precipitate war. I wonder, do they already have what they need (as they see it) for an attempt to annihilate Israel? And, perhaps, are just waiting for us to make the first strike, so that all will be justified and islam can wear the moral crown? Or, are they just ignorant of what will happen to them if they succeed in truly pissing this country off. Or, are they correct, and we may as well surrender now?
It is difficult and oh so foreign to put myself in the mind of a mullah, in an attempt to divine actions. Talk about not knowing the enemy. Are we underestimating the evil we deal with?
I think Rick is right, take out the mullahs, small, surgical strikes. And, as well, stealing from Rick's metaphor in an earlier post, if there is a seed of sanity, (versus a weed) in Iran, maybe we could give it a window of opportunity for growth.
Sorry, I forgot. Thanks for those links Rick. We forget our history at times.
Who knows, but the Iranians are acting as if they are in the cat bird's seat. A bluff? If we capture some of their soldiers on Iraqi soil, what would they say or do? They are testing and provoking? Do they want a real fight or are they simply probing the limits? For now, I think it's the latter, but it won't stay that way.
A bluff? I don't know Barry, are they so deluded as to not realize that a bluff means you can still lose?
In principle I agree with you, Luther. But when Ahmadinejad talks about the return of the 12th Imam, then I wonder whether conventional rationality is his main operating principle. Whether that is delusional is another question. How much is religious logic playing in his calculations and do we understand his (or the mullahs) reasoning principles? There may be a religious rhyme and a reason to it and not "delusional" in the way most think of homeless schizophrenics.
Why wouldn't they bluff? We not only suffer OPEC to exist, we furnish transport security at no cost for the goods they use to extort money from us. We let them take our embassy, bomb our Marines in Beirut, bomb the Cole in Yemen, bomb our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, drag our soldiers bodies through the streets of Somalia, bomb the WTC for the first time in '93 and plot the death of a retired president. It took dropping the Twin Towers to get us off our asses and they're betting we're already tired - because they read the Copperhead press.
They saw what happened to Hussein but they don't quite believe it - and they have absolutely nothing in their hand to stop it from happening to them. If they have a nuclear device and set it off then they are all dead anyway - I believe they do know that. And for all their bluster about not fearing death, they've lied about everything else and they're lying about that too.
I believe that they will fold and give up the nuclear program but they won't fold if there is a hint that we might back down. And if they don't fold - kill them and find out what happens. It worked on Hamas and it will work on these fellows the same way. They're just extortioners and cowards.
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