The Iran Thread

[raybia]

all I here is all talk and no action

Yes, on the side of the U.S. and West.

Iran is all action as they continue to build their nuclear program.

 

[Kritish]

Iran doesn't stand a chance against NATO and the European Union. If they even think about using a nuke we'll bomb them into the next stone age.

 

[hotmail]

Iran doesn't stand a chance against NATO and the European Union. If they even think about using a nuke we'll bomb them into the next stone age.

Let Iran build nukes without interference, but God help them if they actually use them?

R-i-i-i-i-g-h-t.

 

[Kritish]

Let Iran build nukes without interference, but God help them if they actually use them?

R-i-i-i-i-g-h-t.

I doubt that they will, but trust me the CIA and MI6 are keeping close tabs on them.

 

[hotmail]

I doubt that they will, but trust me the CIA and MI6 are keeping close tabs on them.

And that is supposed to stop Iran, how?

 

[Kritish]

And that is supposed to stop Iran, how?

Do you realize the power that the CIA or NSA holds? Do you realize how many black ops missions they've done without the knowledge of the American people?

 

[hotmail]

Do you realize the power that the CIA or NSA holds? Do you realize how many black ops missions they've done without the knowledge of the American people?

Black Ops can take out individuals, not governments.

 

[CyberFaust]

it's times like these we could really use Cable

 

[ScottyBBadd]

Iran doesn't stand a chance against NATO and the European Union. If they even think about using a nuke we'll bomb them into the next stone age.

To paraphrase John Travolta in Broken Arrow," Iran is gonna be a rather quiet neighborhood for the next 10,000 years."

 

[ScottyBBadd]

Do you realize the power that the CIA or NSA holds? Do you realize how many black ops missions they've done without the knowledge of the American people?

I really find myself not wanting to know.

 

[Halcohol]

I really find myself not wanting to know.

Really? I'd want to know, if only in a general sense so I knew how much power my government truly has. It kinda bothers me that there's a whole other world operating below the public realm that we'll never truly know about :S

 

[ScottyBBadd]

Really? I'd want to know, if only in a general sense so I knew how much power my government truly has. It kinda bothers me that there's a whole other world operating below the public realm that we'll never truly know about :S

You and I both know this. There is always the "secret war" going on beneath what is public knowledge. I startes a story based upon that idea.

 

[Dark Vigilante]

LONDON, England (CNN) -- An Iranian naval patrol seized 15 British marines and sailors who had boarded a vessel suspected of smuggling cars off the coast of Iraq, military officials said.

The British government immediately demanded the safe return of its troops and summoned Tehran's London ambassador to explain the incident.

The Royal Marines and ordinary naval officers were believed to have been apprehended by up to six ships from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy who claimed they had violated Iranian waters.

British naval officials said the sailors, using small boarding craft, had completed an inspection of a merchant vessel in Iraqi waters when the Iranians arrived.

Commodore Nick Lambert, commander of the HMS Cornwall -- the frigate from which the British patrol had been deployed -- said the incident did not involve fighting or use of weapons.

"We've been assured from the scant communications that we've had from the Iranians at the tactical level that the 15 people are safely in their hands," he said.

The British defense ministry said that it was pursuing the incident "at the highest level."

There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials.

Lambert said the British sailors had been on a "normal, routine boarding" of a vessel that had aroused suspicions as it navigated the Shatt al-Arab, a disputed waterway that marks the border between Iraq and Iran on the shores of the Persian Gulf. (Location map)

British military patrols have been given authority to board vessels in Iraqi waters under United Nations mandate and with the permission of the government in Baghdad.

He said the captain of the merchant vessel had been cleared to proceed and the two British inflatable patrol boats were readying for departure when they were surrounded by the Iranian navy and taken into Iranian waters.

Lambert said there is "absolutely no doubt in my mind" that the marines were in Iraqi waters. But, he said, "The extent and the definition of territorial waters in this part of the world is very complicated... We may well find, and I hope we find, that this is a simple misunderstanding at a tactical level," he said.

"There hopefully has been a mistake that's been made, and we'll see early clarification and early release of my people."

Lambert added that the marines were doing critical work, "protecting the oil platforms to ensure the economic future of Iraq."

He described the Iranian navy as "a multi-headed organization" that generally stays within its territory doing its business, "and we stay inside Iraqi territory doing our business."

The British defense ministry said: "We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and on the instructions of the Foreign Secretary, the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office.

"The British government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment."

CNN's Aneesh Raman in Tehran said there had been no mention of the incident on Iranian TV and calls to officials had not been answered.

It was not immediately clear where in Iran the British personnel were taken.

There was a previous similar incident in 2004, when Iran stopped three British boats and seized eight sailors and six marines.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said at the time the three boats had crossed into Iran's territorial waters. The detained servicemen appeared on Iranian television blindfolded. They were released after Iran said it determined they had mistakenly crossed into Iran's waters. (Full story).

Britain, the United States' main ally in Iraq, has a large military presence in southern Iraq, based out of the Shatt al-Arab port of Basra. A senior British Army officer on Friday accused Iranian agents of paying Iraqi militia to carry out attacks on coalition forces around Basra.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/23/iran.uk/index.html

It should be interesting to see how we react to this...

 

[bulok]

it's on now!

 

[Dark Vigilante]

it's on now!

The relationship between Iran and the West is already being held together by incredibly thin threads. This could be what causes them to snap.

 

[Spider-Bite]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18883834/

Iran says it discovered Western spy networks

Tehran’s statement does not refer to U.S., U.K. but takes aim at ‘occupiers’

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Saturday it has uncovered spy rings organized by the United States and its Western allies, claiming on state-run television that the espionage networks were made up of “infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers.”
The Intelligence Ministry has “succeeded in identifying and striking blows at several spy networks comprised of infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers in western, southwestern and central Iran,” said the statement, using shorthand for United States and its allies.
The broadcast did not elaborate, saying further details would be published within days.

Meanwhile, the state IRNA news agency said the uncovered networks “enjoyed guidance from intelligence services of the occupying powers in Iraq” and also that “Iraqi groups” were “involved in the case.”
‘Stop blaming everyone else,’ U.S. says
The White House said Saturday that it does not confirm or deny allegations about intelligence matters.
“We urge Iran to play a positive role in Iraq ... and stop blaming everyone else for problems they are only bringing on themselves,” White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.
Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Iran has often accused the United States and Britain of trying to undermine the security of the Islamic Republic.
The allegations Saturday come two days before American and Iranian ambassadors are to meet in Baghdad to discuss ways to ease the crisis in Iraq. It remains unclear how the announcement will affect those talks, although it clearly reflects a toughening of Iran’s stand.
Rare one-on-one talks
The talks Monday in Baghdad will offer a rare one-on-one forum between the two countries, which broke off formal relations after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The agenda is expected to be limited to Iraqi affairs, without touching on the nuclear impasse between Iran and the West.
The talks will also take place against the backdrop of five Iranians held by U.S. troops for more than three months after their January capture in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
U.S. authorities said the five were members of Iran’s elite Quds Force, accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Tehran has claimed they were part of a government liaison office and has demanded their release.
Saturday’s Iranian statement did not refer to either U.S. or Britain by name, but followed reports that President Bush has authorized the covert CIA action to destabilize the Iranian government.
Iranian officials have repeatedly raised concerns that Washington could incite members of Iran’s many ethnic and religious minorities as pressure points against the Shiite-led government in Tehran.
Growing number of political prisoners
State television said this month that Iran had captured 10 men crossing the country’s eastern border, with $500,000 in cash, maps of sensitive Iranian locations and modern spying equipment. No other details were available.
Iran has arrested a number of Iranian-Americans in recent months, accusing them of seeking to topple the ruling establishment.
Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has been held at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison since early May and charged with seeking to topple the government in Tehran. She traveled to Iran in December to visit her 93-year-old mother but was stopped when she headed to the airport to leave on Dec. 30 by knife-wielding men in masks.
She was interrogated extensively and, earlier this month, imprisoned. The Iranian government this week announced she was being charged with setting up a network to overthrow the Islamic establishment.

Other Iranian-Americans have also been prohibited from leaving Iran in recent months, including Parnaz Azima, a journalist for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda; Ali Shakeri, a founding board member at the University of California, Irvine’s Center for Citizen Peacebuilding; and Kian Tajbakhsh, consultant working for George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
Another American, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, disappeared in March after going to Iran’s resort island of Kish.
U.S.-Iranian tensions have also increased after Pentagon moved two aircraft carriers and seven other ships into the Persian Gulf.

 

[blind_fury]

what would you do?

would you go?

 

[Speedball]

I'd go. As much as I would hate it, I would do my duty for my country.

 

[millennium movies]

I wouldn't go. I don't want to kill others or get killed because politicians can't get along...

 

[Kingfish]

id go. im an american and i would consider it my duty.

 

[xwolverine2]

im mentally unstable, gay, coke addict, and i suddenly broke both my legs...

 

[deathshead2]

I don't know what i'd do, I always joke around saying i'd go to Canada. But I would just go, they wouldn't want to give me a gun though. I pretty much suck at everything so I would be pretty useless.
That and I really don't want to kill anyone.

 

[Poetic Chaos]

I'd go.

 

[Snipershot]

i cant. i have a mitro valve prolapse in my heart

 

[blind_fury]

I'd go. As much as I would hate it, I would do my duty for my country.

It doesn't matter if the invasion is morally suspect?