Obama's Big Decision

[jordan179]

In "It's A Dick Cheney World," American Thinker October 16th 2011

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/its_a_dick_cheney_world.html

James G. Wiles sums up exactly what about the thwarted Iranian attack seaks poorly of the effects of three years

Comments

[igorilla]

Let's hope the Iranians got a lot of joy out of holding those hostages: the price for it was a lot of young Iranian men who never returned home).

You're so completely American, so you simply can't understand other cultures, can you ?

[jordan179]

Let's hope the Iranians got a lot of joy out of holding those hostages: the price for it was a lot of young Iranian men who never returned home).

You're so completely American, so you simply can't understand other cultures, can you?

Not a matter of "understanding other cultures." The reason why we armed Iraq against Iran was because of the war that Iran started against America in 1979: before then, America had been Iran's ally against Iraq. And our arming Iraq against Iran was what ensured that the Iranians would lose hundreds of thousands of young men and get NOTHING for it. Absent that armament, Iran probably would have defeated Iraq in the 1980's.

Thus, the cost of the ego boost the Iranians got by winning the Hostage War was hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives in the Iran-Iraq War. Direct cause-and-effect relationship, whether you're American, Iranian, or for that matter Green Martian.

[ext_531464]

Well, that's disproportionate retaliation.

And we invaded Iraq soon afterwards, so what was the point in arming Iraq, so that more Iranians would die?

[jordan179]

Well, that's disproportionate retaliation.

Which is always the best kind of retaliation, when one wishes to deter aggression in the future.

And we invaded Iraq soon afterwards, so what was the point in arming Iraq, so that more Iranians would die?

How would we have known in 1979-88 that Saddam Hussein would be stupid enough to attack an American ally in 1990? And yes, the point was to contain -- and even hurt -- Iran.

[polaris93]

A marvelous summary of Obama's reactions to the attempted assassination of the Saudi Ambassador in our nation's capital by Iranian agents and his options in the context of the history of the Cold War. Will he take Reagan's likely stance here, or Carter's (there really are only two, however many guises they might come in)? Frankly, I'm betting he'll try to waffle his way out of making any decisions -- exactly the way Carter would have handled it. If so, the possible consequences of that are terrifying. We're now at a do-or-die moment, especially because Russia and China will do everything they can to take advantage of that moment and manipulate the consequences to their own advantage, no matter what decisions and actions taken on them are made by President Obama. Every American who is at all literate ought to read this post, which is why I reposted it on my own blog.

[jordan179]

Thank you for those extremely kind words. :)

[polaris93]

You're most welcome. I wish I could be kind and reassuring, but I'd be a damned liar if I tried. The world just keeps getting darker and darker -- and Obama sure as hell ain't helping.

[cutelildrow]

Yes, I know that Russia and China are probably making veiled (and not-so-veiled) war threats against America should we move against of Iran. It's all part of the Great Game, the Game Obama ran an electoral campaign in 2008 to get the chance to play now.

China has been doing this by actively engaging in hostile cat-and-mouse with two prominent US allies, to test the waters, almost literally: Japan and the Philippines. It took Australia giving unequivocal support to the Philippines before Obama went 'all in' verbally. This does not bode well in the terms of testing the strength of Obama's military capability, the Osama Bin Laden and Al-Awie kills notwithstanding.