US foils "Iranian terror plot"

I think the Cold War in general is the "largest waste of money ever," Savage.

Also, that would be bad. I doubt the Israeli Government would give two shits, though. Our neocon raids aren't their concern, whereas their control of their region and the favor of the US Government (and therefore reliable safety from the UN Security Council) are...

edited 12th Oct '11 7:34:29 PM by USAF713

America's needs seem to be irrelevant. I don't know why Cheney admits to pushing for an Iranian war in his memoir. I guess he takes it as gospel that it's a brilliant idea. Anyway, it's the Nixon Madman Theory all over again, which boils down to war contractors and zero concern for the nation's finances.

Such is what happens when you let a neocon like Cheney be President for a good 6-7 years or so.

Well, the Cold war was expensive, but it relied on being even more expensive for the Soviets. Market economies are good at finding ways to turn military research into civilian-use widgets. Planned economies suck at that: There's no entrepeneurship, so it's up to their DoD guys to find ways to make their toys economically productive.

That alone made bankrupting the Soviets a winning proposition. It was a spending frenzy like none before (it's been topped since), but it achieved all objectives.

edited 12th Oct '11 7:39:56 PM by SavageHeathen

The Cold War was designed to be permanently just that: cold. It was mutually advantageous.

Problem arose when you got glory-seekers like the Kennedys actually believing their own rhetoric, since they weren't hip enough to understand much of anything except Bombs = boom = Lincoln.

edited 12th Oct '11 9:34:28 PM by johnnyfog

Except we ruined any chance at having a real moral high ground, wasted millions of lives in two useless direct wars and who knows how many lesser-known black ops, and spent billions, if not trillions, on breaking windows and filling trenches in the form of weapons development that we could have spent on healthcare, infrastructure, and other such useful things.

We "won" the Cold War, but it would have been far better if it had never happened anyway...

That's what you get for arguing military intelligence issues with the guy who has access to the actual intelligence files. (Fucking "missile gap").

Anyhow, I don't think I can just say "yup, Israel did it." It's a plausible theory, however.

edited 12th Oct '11 7:42:53 PM by USAF713

The sino-soviet split pretty much fucked the commies: A commie victory in the Cold War was guaranteed before that point.

Them Soviets got real tight with India in the Seventies: If they'd been tight with China, too, a hostile takeover of all Europe and Asia would have been child's play. The only risk was whether the US would have been willing to destroy the world to prevent it. If it became clear that the Soviets had no intention of actually conquering the States (which are impregnable anyway), America probably wouldn't.

A soviet win in the cold war required it to go hot. An American win had to be economic. The Soviets stood no chance in Hell of an economic victory, and the US (without going the Fallout route) couldn't have prevented the Soviets from taking over Europe.

I think all the Cold War derail should be split, BTW. /derail

edited 12th Oct '11 7:52:42 PM by SavageHeathen

Ray Mcgovern tells it like it is.

As I close the Cold War derail, I'll say:

We should have sided with the Soviets.

Christ almighty the Israeli Government scares the living fuck out of me. We need to drop that shit like it was hot yesterday.

Uh? With the possible exception of the government being large and messy, this is all false. (If you have more to say or ask, take it to the Israel thread)

Well it was basically impossible for the Soviets to be tight with countries that actually had independent power. They wanted satellite states, not alliances. So too bad for them.

As for Mossad creating this plot, while is a possible scenario, I would rank low on the possibility chain. Although it has a history of not caring who its allies were and actively committing negative espionage against them... so it's not like they actually have a shred of credibility of playing nice with anybody, even the USA.

Rogue Iranians or American authorities making stuff up (as in, the plot, not that they are agents) are the most plausible scenarios.

There have been exceptions, most notably India and Yugoslavia. I think Egypt was too for a time.

I'd rank the possibilities in the rouge order of plausibility as rogue agents > American authorities being stupid/malicious > Israel being stupid and malicious.

I swear, though, that article that Johnny gave literally makes me hate the Israeli Government. They, insofar as that article notes, basically have zero regard for anyone but themselves, and the US still has this ridiculous complex that they actually like us.

Look, everyone! Actual sources of news about the actual topic of discussion!

Obama and PM Lee Joint Press Conference Transcript (ctrl+F Iran)

Readout of the President's Call with King Abdullah

Personally, I agree with the assessment that this was done by someone in the Iranian government without the knowledge of the higher ups. If the higher-ups were in on it, of course, they're much more stupid than I thought. Iran is really backed into a kind of corner now, considering that damning evidence apparently exists and will be shared with the international community. They can't admit that they did it, because that would be an admission of guilt, but they also can't deny it and point to a rogue individual or person within their government, because - among other things - that would be an admission that the Iranian government is grossly dysfunctional. Given that, I'm pretty sure they'll never admit that it happened and just continue to deny it forevermore. It wouldn't be the first time.

I did have a laugh at Carney saying that sanctions were doing just fine on their own, and that Iran's economy "isn't growing" anymore. Way to make diplomacy (and your administration in general) sound effective.

edited 13th Oct '11 9:00:15 PM by johnnyfog

Update: WikiLeaks Cable Hints At Motive For Alleged Iran Plot

These new theories seem like rather sound ones to me.

They want to assassinate him because he made a bad comment about Iran? I mean, we already know the two countries aren't friends but Iran hasn't done anything like that before to Saudi Arabia. In fact, they never did such a thing to any Iraqi officials. That seems like a stretch.

EDIT: Thinking about it, it lends support to the rogue operative idea.

edited 15th Oct '11 1:18:58 PM by breadloaf

Maybe a faction of the Iranian government that opposes improved relations with Saudi Arabia and the United States purposely set up an assassination/terrorist plot that they knew would fail and be linked back to Iran, just so Iran's pro-diplomacy factions would be stymied.

Explicitly encouraging the U.S. to attack Iran seems to be on a different level than simply disparaging said country, although I honestly have no idea how usual or unusual a comment like that would be in Saudi-Iranian relations. I was more intrigued by the idea that someone in the Ayatollah's camp orchestrated the plot to purposefully disrupt any chance of US-Iranian relations improving.

Edit: Ninja'd

edited 15th Oct '11 1:23:40 PM by darksidevoid

Sigh, if only we had more information. It's quickly devolving into epileptic trees here.