So the US National Intelligence Agency came out a few days ago with a report that states that Iran's nuclear weapons program is inactive, and that it has been inactive since 2003. What affect do you think this will have on US-Iran relations? Do you think America will still launch another war? Bush is already trying to downplay the report, saying that Iran is still a threat.

Personally, I'm just glad this report came out BEFORE a large scale attack... unlike the last time this happened.

Amp, dead-on on the intel.

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The Iranian military is two powerful. The United States' military is extremely good, I will gladly hand that over. However, the Iranian military posses enough military strength to cripple the U.S. naval fleet. If the fleet is done, the military can not continue it's operation.

The American military is the strongest fighting force out there. First, power of the sea: Amp is right, the only thing that can really stand up to the US Navy was a modernized Soviet one. Iran uses old russian technology and they're ships would be blown out of the water either through Naval missiles, or fighter/bomber craft. Then comes control of the air, American pilots have had many years of combat training and the Iraqi Air Force was knocked out of the sky almost immediately. And the Iraqis were also experienced fighters. And the army, the Iraqi's celebrated the destruction of one American tank. American's looked on at the field of hundred's of dead american tanks. Not to mention our sattelite technology which lets us put artillery shells right up the exhaust pipe of any vehicle they have. Now, as far as I know, Iranian technology is not outdated, but most of it is still based on older soviet technology.

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Israel didn't have a 100% confirmation that Iraq was developng a nuclear technology

scenario: "um...there's a 70% chance they have artillery on that hill and are about to rain shells on us, we should do something about it." "oh, no...that's not needed, the intel is not 100%" Once those shells are raining down on you, THEN you know it's 100% intel. The military and other organizations sometimes have no choice but to act on limited intelligence. It's better than waiting until those shells are knocking on your front door.

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Mostly because of international pressure to play with the kid gloves on and politics. Ask any Marine or Infantry soldier whos been to Iraq or one of the competent officers leading them, you'll get an earful "off the record" about it. Ditto troops from Vietnam, if you do ask make sure you have a comfy chair and a few hours cleared on your schedule.

yea, we win the battles, but lose the politics back home. That's how we lost Vietnam. Most Vietnam vets will tell you that they won the fighting, but the people back home kept tying their hands. Support the troops and let them do what they do best.

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They won't change regardless of who we elect to the presidency the whole "US = Great Satan thing" has been going on since the revolution took place despite the efforts of some slightly more diplomatic presidents.

they'll change, they'll look upon us as either more worthless or something to worry about depending on who's elected.

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I think the release of this report showed that the CIA is no longer willing to be used as a puppet to support this administration's warpath whims.

Let me explain to you the basic precept of intelligence gathering. You can only drawn conclusions from the data you have. Sadly CIA is not omnipotent so we have to work from the limited data that we have. Alot of what they do is extrapolate following patterns, logic and weaving together the data they had. Now unfortunantly I don't have the all the same material CIA was working with before round 2 with iraq started but here's the stuff we have that's in the public domain.

1. Saddam is a third world dictator, We and CIA know that third world dictators are always intrested in the production biological and chemical weapons. Why? Because they're the poor man's nuke that's why. It gives them an extra edge against a larger more powerful nation such as... The United States. This is an established pattern, it's happened before and it will happen again.
2. Saddam has used chemical weapons such as Mustard Gas and reportedly Sarin Gas (really, really nasty nerve agent) before, yeah all those mass graves of kurds/other various disliked populace members we dug up in the iraqi desert? they were gassed for the most part and there's eye witnesses to confirm that.
3. Saddam was grand standing to the US, you act tough from a postion of weakness (3rd World Vs Superpower) then logic assumes you have a trump card.

I'm just working off what I remember from the top of my head here I'm sure I could find more if tried and CIA has plenty of source that they wouldn't share with little ole'us.
Still logic , pattern and history add up to Saddam most likely having fun WMDs.
Now why didn't we find them? The intelligence fell through, simple as that. It happens that's the nature of intell. However I find it more likely Saddam did have this things and simply got rid of them when the US said they were coming to town. Think about it, your living on your own and you have some illegal items in your home (drugs, wmds whatever) the cops send you a notice saying they're going to raid your home in say... two weeks. What do you do? Get rid of it of course.
See this is the fun part about the intell buisness there is no such thing as 100% confirmation and on top of that we can't get the best of information (that is to say information from moles and so forth inside the nation we're looking at) in a lot of forgein nations because our intelligence budget was crushed under the clinton administration. The place that got hit hardest by that was the Directorat of Operations, so we lost alot of field spooks and in-country assets (that is to say, the afforementioned natives who work for us)

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The Iranian military is two powerful. The United States' military is extremely good, I will gladly hand that over. However, the Iranian military posses enough military strength to cripple the U.S. naval fleet. If the fleet is done, the military can not continue it's operation.

I would challenge this head on, the only naval force that could even come close to taking on the US Carrier Battle Groups was the Soviet Union and and most of their battle plans called for nuking the Carrier Groups instead of head on attacks, because it was suicide. Now if they had a powerful submarine fleet this might be a different story, but the Iranians have some russian diesal subs which US Sub Commanders can literally identify to the unique sub (been doing that the entire cold war and so on, cool eh? moral to that story: US Sonar rocks) There are two places in this world where the United States literally holds absolute power in the skies and at sea.
Now the other thing that could help the iranians save themselves? Airpower. However there's a problem the main of their airforce is primarily made up of F-14 Tomcats, an older model fighter aircraft that the US has abandoned as obsolete. Further more some of those aircraft are and have been missing vital components. (The engineers delivering the planes sabotaged them when they had to pull out during the Shah's overthrow) and even if they were full up, a large chunk of US Naval Aviation has flown Tomcats, they know how to kill them from the word go. Now Iran actually has airdefense but the United States invented Anti-AntiAir and perfected the "Wild Weasel" mission, add in HARM missles which track on radar installations and you have a very bad day for those guys manning the SA sets. Another thing that history is taugh us is that once America owns the skies it's not a good day for things on the ground or under it for that matter.
Of course we also have some new toys for dealing with big arms, it's a new munition that can take out 30 armored vehicles, I'll find the article but damn is it a cool ability to be able to load up a B1-B or a fighter bomber with these and devastate an entire armored force (A B1-B with these at all hard points could kill something like 160 armored vehicles and artillery pieces all with out possible collateral damage from giant explosives)

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Israel didn't have a 100% confirmation that Iraq was developng a nuclear technology

First off there's almost never 100% confirmation in the intelligence game as I already said. This has been true since the concept of spies was first thought up. However if the Israeli Mossad says something I would hold it as pretty damn close to 100% accurate. These guys are the best intelligence agency in the world, primarily because nations such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and several other nations who never seem to learn that you don't fuck with the jews (no insult intended to our lovely representative from Jordan) keep attacking them. So an enemy nation developing nukes would be of great intrest to israel and they would take steps to learn about it and deal with it.

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Any time an isurgency rises up, the U.S. becomes hopeless.

Mostly because of international pressure to play with the kid gloves on and politics. Ask any Marine or Infantry soldier whos been to Iraq or one of the competent officers leading them, you'll get an earful "off the record" about it. Ditto troops from Vietnam, if you do ask make sure you have a comfy chair and a few hours cleared on your schedule.

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Of course, our relations with Iran will be subject to even more change come the 2008 election - hopefully for the better

They won't change regardless of who we elect to the presidency the whole "US = Great Satan thing" has been going on since the revolution took place despite the efforts of some slightly more diplomatic presidents.

I think the release of this report showed that the CIA is no longer willing to be used as a puppet to support this administration's warpath whims.

Neither Bush nor Cheney have as much power as they used to; their approval ratings are ridiculously low, and the CIA seems to have learned its lesson from Iraq. (Before the 2003 invasion, the CIA knew that the reports they had concerning WMD's in Iraq were not reliable, but didn't come out and say so, because the Bush White House wanted to go to war, and they still had the power to do so. When someone wrote a certain article saying the White House had exaggerated claims about WMD's, heads rolled - Valerie Plame anyone?)

Of course, our relations with Iran will be subject to even more change come the 2008 election - hopefully for the better, but who knows... Clinton, for example, voted to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

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Salam brotha, Palestinian here

Palestinian, but never been there.

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My sister has a US passport so yeah, she got evacuated, but all her friends were stuck there too, just waiting it out. Hopefully the situation will improve in Lebanon soon but I'm not holding my breath.

Good to know about your sister.

Right now I have two friends studying in Beirut. The native Lebanese one says that "we Lebanese are strong...don't worry about us" and that "the media always lows things out of proportion, stop worrying so much you dumbhead"; but I happen to know she lives in denial. I like to believe her though, because I've known the other friend for years and he was in my class for the last 5, till we graduated. And said friend happens to worry a lot and he says the situation is going downhil. But at least he's home in a couple of days so that's good.

But yeah...good luck to everyone. Hopefully the situation will improve. Hopefully. I'm not holding my breath either but if there's no hope then there's nothing.

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Have you noticed that more and more people are leaving? Poland, South Korea, and the UK are all countries that have done an about face. Norway, the Netherlands, and Italy, are most likely also thinking of high tailing it out of there. Denmark is already up and running. Japan is leaving. Italy is gone too.

I so want that to mean what you say it does, and not anything worse like a corrupt new government...and with any luck we won't have to find-out whether all of these countries are still loyal the US. I just can't shake-off the feeling they'll be allies again as soon as Bush gets out of the office. I don't know. I'm trying to stay optimistic.

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Same here. Best wishes to your friends.

Thank you.

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I'm an Arab, y'know

Salam brotha, Palestinian here

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One of my best friends was in Lebanon during the bombings last year, and I have a very good friend studying there now

My sister has a US passport so yeah, she got evacuated, but all her friends were stuck there too, just waiting it out. Hopefully the situation will improve in Lebanon soon but I'm not holding my breath.

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Originally posted by Canvas:
I'm an Arab, y'know, and I want to believe the US Army isn't that strong, but the sad thing is that it is. They're very well-trained.

But let's just say they aren't strong enough. The US likes to invite everyone along for the party.

Have you noticed that more and more people are leaving? Poland, South Korea, and the UK are all countries that have done an about face. Norway, the Netherlands, and Italy, are most likely also thinking of high tailing it out of there. Denmark is already up and running. Japan is leaving. Italy is gone too.

The U.S. just doesn't have the support it used too, and a war against Iran won't have much.

Also, the U.S. is well-trained. They are an extremely good military. That said, they're not suited for combat against the Middle East. Look at how they dealt with the past few conflicts. Any time an isurgency rises up, the U.S. becomes hopeless.

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But God oh God, I hope they don't start a war/operation. One of my best friends was in Lebanon during the bombings last year, and I have a very good friend studying there now - it's terrible, how you feel thinking about them. Imagine how a native must feel...

Yeah, we'll hopefully not have war.

Same here. Best wishes to your friends.

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I doubt the U.S. will attack Iran. It just doesn't have enough strength. Combine it with the British, French, and Russians (like World War II), and then you can take on Iran. Until then, no.

I'm an Arab, y'know, and I want to believe the US Army isn't that strong, but the sad thing is that it is. They're very well-trained.

But let's just say they aren't strong enough. The US likes to invite everyone along for the party.

But God oh God, I hope they don't start a war/operation. One of my best friends was in Lebanon during the bombings last year, and I have a very good friend studying there now - it's terrible, how you feel thinking about them. Imagine how a native must feel...

Yeah, we'll hopefully not have war.

Yeah, but history has a twist in this case.

The United States can not hope to defeat Iran.

The United States's Military has not officially won a war since 1945. The insurgency in Iraq is not a war. The United States lost Vietnam to the NVA and VC. Korea was a stalemate. Operation: Desert Storm was an operation, not an open war. Operation: Enduring Freedom, and Operating: Iraqi Freedom are both operations, not open war.

The Iranian Army on the other hand, IS battle tested. The Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988. The United States has missed out on virtually, the last 40 years of warfare.

The Iranian military is two powerful. The United States' military is extremely good, I will gladly hand that over. However, the Iranian military posses enough military strength to cripple the U.S. naval fleet. If the fleet is done, the military can not continue it's operation.

I doubt the U.S. will attack Iran. It just doesn't have enough strength. Combine it with the British, French, and Russians (like World War II), and then you can take on Iran. Until then, no.

¬¬ I can't edit my post.

Yeah, I meant to add that I'm hopefully just being pessimistic here. Hopefully we'll avoid conflict.

Another thing: what I meant by linking that article is that Israel didn't have a 100% confirmation that Iraq was developng a nuclear technology, but they attacked anyways; and, a few decades later, so did GW. History has this annoying habit of repeating itself.

You know, if history's taught us anything, it won't affect them and they'll attack, resulting in the unnecessary, unwanted massacre of millions. And what sucks is that after that, Bush's reign will end and the American public will forget about it and say that the new President isn't as bad as Nazi Georgey and it'll all be pink and yellow flowers and flipping dolphins and the world will be peaceful again 'cause Georgey is outta the office and the New Leader will deal with everything, thank the Lord. And somewhere in Iran the 10th million child will die in the hands of his weeping mother.

It makes me sick.