to an attack on Iran, let Israel go it alone. About time we cut them loose anyway, I for one am tired of wiping their noses and giving them my hard earned tax $$$$ to be agressive.

seems like a fair deal to me.

It means "Land of El"... El being the god Elohim (aka god of other gods). Remember the "El" part and you'll never mis-spell it again.

If these fools wish to start a war we should let them know that they're on their own.

on Iran. Make it CLEAR to those blank blanks that IF they attack Iran, the money spigot is CLOSED. NOT ANOTHER DIME OF OUR MONEY TO THOSE BLANK BLANKS. And it's time and past time for folks in the "great out there" to realize that opposing the policies of the Israeli government is NOT being anti-semitic. It is rather opposing the policies of a government that is the LAST European colony in the Middle East. Ms Bigmack

(and you know the Congress wouldn't) then he can kiss the Jewish vote goodbye. Yes, that might seem like a good idea to you, but it puts a few states in peril this fall.

If Israeli Americans want to go defend Israel against Iran, or send their own money, fine.

Most people (Jewish included) understand that allies should discuss certain things ahead of time, especially war-related issues that could cost thousands of lives.

will not. Nothing will change except AIPAC will become louder and more visible in the MSM. For once, I wish a President would put America first and do the right thing even it costs the election.

Quite a few Jewish voters lean left on economic issues and are socially liberal and actually favor sane policies with respect to things like the Middle East peace process and war.

please the short-sighted crew on this board, you'll be tossing the very winnable election away. And, pray tell, what are blank blanks?

Pray told.

what he/she is too much of a fucking coward to say?

No idea.

Come on use the terms that you really want to. You know you do.

And the US should stay out of it. The sooner that Israeli security is decoupled with the idea of US hegemony, the sooner all the large powers can take a rational level headed view of what's going on the middle east, without feeling personally threatened by it. And that, in my opinion, is where real progress can be made.

It is going to hit the fan. We will have to pick sides. Unless we get out of the Middle East on the quick as Ron Paul suggests.

No matter how much or how little the President speaks about "permission", the entire Islamic world is going to condemn this. Now, the Sunni's will do it mainly to placate the masses that they govern, but they'll secretly love it.

In any case, the US Navy will have to work overtime to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for oil shipment. They will prevail, but they will have to give it all they have got, rather than the usual half measures we take when trying to fight a PC war.

we should be prepared to fight it like WWII, or we should just not get involved. It's a complete waste of blood and treasure to 'fight' the way we did in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It would have been much better if we had stayed home.

do not involve existential threats. WWII presented us with Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, both technologically advanced nations that were willing and able to take control of the whole world. We simply have not faced any adversaries of their caliber, except perhaps the Soviet Union, and we solved that problem without going to direct war with them.

There are wars of choice, and wars of necessity. If our leadership did a better job distinguishing between them, we would have avoided Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We could have screwed over al-Queda with a few cruise missiles lobbed in the right direction, and repeated as necessary. Nation-building for people who are NOT ready for democracy is a fool's errand.

Thanks for the clip.

I hope that this won't be the case, but I can't rule it out.

I think we can all be legitimately concerned about the possible aftereffects of an Iranian war gone badly wrong but if you're really insinuating this would lead to WW3 then you are completely mistaken because there is no way that Russia or China would be willing to risk the lives of millions of civilians over a country which doesn't actually respect either of them(and has actually aided terrorism in the former!), despite whatever the neo-cons would like the American public to think.

I mean, stand back and think about it. Does Russia, first man in space, rational scientific Russia hate Israel, the scientific powerhouse of the middle east? Does cool headed, rational and secular China prefer Muslim extremists over a modern nation like Israel? No. The only reason why you see these countries involved propping up the nightmare in Syria for instance, is that the alternative is the expansion of US hegemony in the region. Its not about Israel, its about America. The neocon delusion is that American hegemony and Israeli security are inseparable, but in reality, all it amounts to is Israel unable to plot its own security course because its got its scrotum stapled to the hull of the Titanic of US hegemony. Once the US stops threatening the interests of these other global powers all over the world, than getting consensus behind dealing with low level regional actors like Syria and Iran becomes trivial.

"its got its scrotum stapled to the hull of the Titanic of US hegemony" Boy isn't that the truth.

But yeah, that's how it is. The fear drums are constantly being pounded for the supporters of Israel, telling them America is the only country that doesn't hate them, when the facts are that resistance we see from China and Russia are about AMERICA, not them. The sooner Israel declares independence from American hegemony and starts standing on their own, the sooner they will see that they have far more friends than they thought they did.

His foreign policy sounds nice but his domestic policies, especially that concerning "Personal Liberty" is terrifying! Just saying.

I like it.

I would much rather keep my Bill of Right protections at the State level where MOST of the violations of personal liberties take place! This is a large oversight by many Ron Paul adherents who drink the Foreign policy KOOL-AID & totally ignore or simply fail to learn who Ron Paul really is!

Not to mention he has very close ties to Neo-Nazi groups! There are pictures of him with the owner of StormFront, a Neo Nazi website! He takes donations from Neo-Nazi groups as well!

...Yet none of this matters to the Ron Paul adherents who either don't care because they too agree with many of the Neo-Nazi ideas or they are too drunk on Ron Paul's deceptive claims of "personal liberty" & his foreign policy rhetoric!

The Bill of Rights is a part of the Federal Constitution. I favor bringing these Wars to an end and getting the heck out of there.

In case you are lost this is a PUBLIC FORUM!

Ron Paul wants to strip evey American of their Bill of Right Protections at the State level...Is that what you would like to trade for the troops coming home? They will be home in 2014 if Obama is reelected anyway.

Do you also support Ron Paul's deep & close ties to Neo-Confederates & Neo-Nazis?

I would suggest you learn who Ron Paul is!!!

The man runs on a true libertarian platform. There are no such things as social programs in that kind of world.

And we can keep our money too.

yeah, the united states will stay neutral without intervention for about 30 seconds...

Apparently so.

Read my reply to amandabeech........seriously, we have much more realistic things to worry about such as the possibility that the world's economy could possibly take another free dive or the looming threat of domestic terrorism(possibly even including nuclear terrorism soon enough).

No other country would believe that the US did not have advanced intelligence of an Israeli attack on Iran, even if the Israelis and the US truthfully protest that no formal coordination occured prior to the attack.

shoot down their planes

and don't think the Pentagon hasn't thought this option over

NuttyYahoo wants one of the crazies to win, because any of them would be delighted to mount a full-scale invasion of Iran.
He has made no secret of this.

They will time their attack on Iran to maximize the chances of a Republican victory (a fairly likely outcome, once gas tops $20/gallon).

The only thing that would stymie this plan would be for Ron Paul to win the Republican nomination, and that's not gonna happen.

Sounds like paranoid nonsense.

Dunno about that, quite. Netanyahu has made it pretty clear he's no friend of the Obama administraton........

Even so, the man really gives me the willies........

You'd need a guy like Gary Johnson to get THAT done.

I don't want to see Ron Paul get elected, but Israel doesn't either, so if RP were the GOP nominee,
Obama would have a LOT more leverage with Israel.

As it stands, I fear Obama may have to promise them a full scale invasion and regime change and all that,
just to keep them at bay until November.

responsible for "supporting" Israel.

How do they get there? Last time I looked at a map, Israel wasn't next to Iran...Israeli jets would have to fly over Jordan and Iraq to get to Iran by the most direct route!

I don't see either country allowing the Israelis to use their airspace...anyone got any ideas how they could do this without creating an international incident, and without the Iranians knowing they were coming?

Through Turkey, although Israel and Turkey are not getting along as well as they used to.

Jordan to Saudi Arabia to Iran. I know the Saudis are extremely concerned about Iran getting a nuke and I suspect Jordan is too.

Pretending to be airliners, several fighters and a refueling tanker all close enough to show up as a single blip on a radar*

Any effort will require extensive air to air refuleing unless one or more countries in the region are willing to allow Israel to use their airfields.


*Most commercial radars read transponders, not the actual radar return of the aircraft.

that so many here have no idea of what is going on in the Middle East and base their opinions on the latest counterpunch article. Have you heard one word from Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Turkey about this? Wonder why? They will not only turn their eyes away from the Israeli's using their airspace, they will privately be cheering them on. They all hate Iran and have no wish to see it get nukes. This thread is nothing but delusional thinking from people who think they know everything.

But after having read MANY books and articles about the Middle East and having listened to MANY regional experts on that part of the world I DO KNOW that there is NO defensible need or reason for the US to participate in ANY attack against Iran. I am NOT just some ignorant yahbo saying this - there are many knowledgeable experts saying these things as well. Ms Bigmack

as I have no idea what the Israeli's or the US will be doing. My comment very specifically was answering a post that all Iran's neighbors will not let the Israeli's their airspace and will get no support. On the very ignorant think that. Nobody (except maybe Syria) wants Iran to get nukes and they will all be very happy (quietly) if Israel takes care of that particular problem.

Muqtada Al Sadr himself regularly moves between Iran and Iraq.

Unfortunately, Iraq is standing right in the middle of the shortest and most probable path Israeli warplanes would need to follow to get inside Iran, bomb the targets, and get back to Israel with the amount of fuel F-15s can carry. The F-15s that the US sold to Israel have the range to reach Iran provided they carry an extra external fuel tank to supplement to fuel it already carries.

On the other hand, Iraq has no functioning air force. The US destroyed the Iraqi Air Force on the ground when the 2003 invasion began.

In a practical sense, your argument stands, but in a very real diplomatic sense, Iraq would likely be screaming no.

I think they are all grown up now and fine to be on their own...

No more getting your insurance paid by mommy and daddy

involved in the shit that Israel does about Iran I don't really care what they do. If they feel threatened it's their right to act on it, and Iran has the right to retaliate in self defense. But it's not ok to hide their true intentions for nuclear power.

into the open water of the Arabian Sea 24 hours before the attack will be just a coincidence.

American officials who have assessed the likely Iranian responses to any attack by Israel on its nuclear program believe that Iran would retaliate by launching missiles on Israel and terrorist-style attacks on United States civilian and military personnel overseas.

While a missile retaliation against Israel would be virtually certain, according to these assessments, Iran would also be likely to try to calibrate its response against American targets so as not to give the United States a rationale for taking military action that could permanently cripple Tehran’s nuclear program. “The Iranians have been pretty good masters of escalation control,” said Gen. James E. Cartwright, now retired, who as the top officer at Strategic Command and as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff participated in war games involving both deterrence and retaliation on potential adversaries like Iran.

The Iranian targets, General Cartwright and other American analysts believe, would include petroleum infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, and American troops in Afghanistan, where Iran has been accused of shipping explosives to local insurgent forces.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/world/middleeast/us-sees-iran-attacks-as-likely-if-israel-strikes.html?pagewanted=all

......no joke.

and will not stand for regarding Iran. I so do not want more US young sacrificed for the self-interest of Israel. Iran is not threatening the US, never has attacked another country without being attacked first (Iraq, and at the behest of the US). Iran is a nation surrounded by other hostile nations armed with nukes. Why shouldn't they have their own nuclear program? Israel has nukes and they have attacked at least two sovereign nations, unprovoked. We not spend more lives and resources and jump off a cliff for this insane ME policy. In the end, it has already brought us to the brink.