[tgs]

A better option would be to take out Iran's main oil refining station at a small Island in the Persian Gulf - I think its Krug Island or something like that. It is the point of exit of the vast majority of Iranian oil. It could be done with sabotage (no killing). Extreme damage to it and a couple other facilities, and now Iran has no money, and has to deal.

No oil money, no bargaining power for Iran other than attacking its neighbors oil exports, and thus starting a war that will topple the regime.

[Beerinkol]

Would an increase in oil production from the Saudis have a slowing effect on Iranian nuclear production or is it too late for that?

[Peptobismol]

China would not do anything. They are looking for energy where they can get it. They have no alliegances, merely business partners. If Iran could not provide China with oil, China would merely look elsewhere.

[Peptobismol]

Parsi,

Please understand that there is no animosity towards the Persian people or the nation of Iran on the part of Israel. There is great concern about the present leadership.

You have a Mullahcracy that has talked about Israel being a "one bomb" country, who spreads zionist conspiracy myths, who admits to arming Hezbollah, whose president talks about the coming of the 12th Imam and essentially armagedon, and has widened streets for his coming, and who has repeatedly talked about the destruction of Israel. And they are in defiance of UN resolutions on their nuclear programs - they could have peaceful nuclear energy with no problems with the Russian compromise, etc. - which has been rejected.

Now, you might be right, it might be just talk or cover on the part of the Mullahs and Ahmadinejad. But Israel can't afford to be wrong.

I don't advocate attacking Iran's nuclear sites, they are too interspersed in the population and too hidden and fortified. It would take open war, and cause numerous causalties. No one wants that.

Covert action (sabotage) against oil facilites, on the other hand, would merely create intense economic pressure. Money would have to be redirected from hezbollah and the nuclear program to the people of Iran, which is where that oil money should be going, anyways. There would be strong pressure on Iran to accept the US/EU offer on enrichment, which would give Iran the peaceful nuclear energy it has the right to have.

Because, Parsi, if you are wrong, and Iran tests a nuclear bomb, it could be nuclear war right then and there.

[Fegasderty]

Two main reasons that Ahmadinejad was elected:

1. He was one of the (and perhaps only) non-mullah running for presidency.
2. He made many empty promises about "leaving the young alone..." and given that over 60% of the population is under 40, this was an important factor.

Ahmandinejad was not elected owing to his views about Israel, or Islamic ideas, although this is certainly what the media prefer to believe.

Despite what you may see on TV, the Iranians are increasingly becoming conscious about their "Iranian" identity rather than the imposed label of Islamic.

Many people have already criticised Ahmadinejad for his obsession about Palestine. "Are you our president or Palestine?" some people have said.

Ahmadinejad has deliberately started "fiddling" with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to divert attention from his deeply troubled economical state.

Ahmadinejad doesn't even know the history of his own country. His ministers have had to repeatedly correct his speech errors.

Mottaki, his foreign minister, is a good example:
'Nobody can erase a country from the map.' Ahmadinejad was not thinking of the state of Israel but of their regime [...]. 'We do not accredit this regime to be legitimate.' [...] Mottaki also accepted that the Holocaust really took place in a way that six million Jews were murdered during the era of National Socialism."

Like many respected political and military analysts believe, I still say Iran and Israel are natural allies.

A nuclear Iran will only help Israel. Hard to believe, but those who need to know, know this well ;-)

[Drugmachine]

By the way, the first link is an American intellingence report that seems to finally come to the same conclusion that the rest of the world ALREADY knew,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/wo...rtner=homepage
Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat


By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: September 24, 2006

"An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global
Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of
jihad ideology.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem
worse,” said one American intelligence official. "

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/200...1308-4673r.htm

European role reversal?
By Helle Dale
September 20, 2006
The corrosive effect on Mr. Blair's Teflon coating has been dramatic,
culminating in the revolt of the left wing of the Labor Party over Mr.
Blair's support for the U.S. position on the conflict between Israel and
Hezbollah in Lebanon. In a letter, Labor MPs demanded Mr. Blair's
resignation, causing the prime minister to declare that he would step down
sometime in the coming year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090900911.html
Bush's Approval Ratings Slumping Further in Europe
By Chris Cillizza and Zachary A. Goldfarb
Sunday, September 10, 2006; Page A05
A comprehensive survey of public opinion in a dozen European nations and the
United States found that things have gone from bad to worse when it comes to
disdain for the administration and its national security policies.
The annual survey, taken by the highly regarded German Marshall Fund of the
United States, shows that 77 percent of Europeans disapprove of the way Bush
has handled international affairs, as compared with 56 percent who felt that
way in GMF's "Transatlantic Trends" survey in 2002.

Asked how desirable it was for the United States to exert strong leadership
on the world stage, 37 percent of Europeans said that should be a goal --
down from 64 percent five years ago. In this country, 82 percent of
Americans think it is very desirable or somewhat desirable for the United
States to exert leadership.




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m...ixopinion.html
Stop blaming America for terrorism
The dislike of America, the hatred for what it was believed to stand for –
capitalism, globalisation, militarism, Zionism, Hollywood or McDonald's,
depending on your point of view – was well entrenched. To put it
differently, the scorn now widely felt in Britain and across Europe for
America's "war on terrorism" actually preceded the "war on terrorism"
itself. It was already there on September 12 and 13, right out in the open
for everyone to see.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...1-2295604.html
The TimesAugust 02, 2006

We must rethink the War on Terror - Blair

FIVE years into the War on Terror, Tony Blair called yesterday for a
“complete renaissance of our strategy” to defeat militant Islam.

On a day when four British soldiers were killed by insurgents in Afghanistan
and Iraq, the Prime Minister’s words were an apparent admission that the use
of military force alone had failed.
His speech came amid growing Cabinet dissent and backbench unease that
Britain was too readily following Washington’s lead over the Middle East.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...880091,00.html
The war on terror is unwinnable with Bush and Blair in charge
It will take new leaders in the US and UK to restore faith that we deserve
to win the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism
Yet there is little doubt that when the history of this government is
written, the collapse of confidence in Tony Blair will be attributed
principally to his foreign policy.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...2931_2,00.html
The Sunday TimesOctober 01, 2006

Blair can only protect his legacy by ordering a great military retreat
Simon Jenkins

Whether Blair’s choice of wars has made Britain safer than before is being
doubted by politicians and intelligence analysts on both sides of the
Atlantic. The consensus is the opposite: he has put Britons more at risk.Sooner or later that view will feed through into a change of policy and, it
is hoped, a new period of military withdrawal, reconciliation and repair.

Only then might the true threat to western interests from militant Islam be
assessable and some means of realistic containment plotted. As last week’s
intelligence leaks in Washington and London indicated, present policy is
making the threat worse.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14758018/site/newsweek/
Britain's longest-running political drama is finally coming to an end. Blair
is dead. Long live Blairism.


But Tony Blair returned to a political hurricane in London. The cause of the
storm: his handling of the summer's Israel-Lebanon war. The prime minister
parroted Washington's pro-Israeli line. Following George W. Bush's lead, he
hesitated to call for an immediate ceasefire. Furious at what they saw as
another instance of kowtowing to America, scores of M.P.s were lying in
wait.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...114502,00.html
SPY chiefs have warned Tony Blair that the war in Iraq has made Britain the
target of a terror campaign by Al-Qaeda that will last “for many years to
come.”
The Sunday TimesApril 02, 2006

Iraq terror backlash in UK 'for years'
David Leppard
A leaked top-secret memo from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) says
the war in Iraq has “exacerbated” the threat by radicalising British Muslims
and attracting new recruits to anti-western terror attacks.


“http://www.workers.org/2006/us/england-1005/
Tens of thousands tell Blair ‘time to go!’
ENGLAND
More than 80 percent of British people think Tony Blair should stop
supporting George Bush’s war-mongering policies which have brought nothing
but chaos, death and devastation,” said Andrew Murray of the sponsoring Stop the War Coalition.
Prime Minister Blair, who is often ridiculed in the local press as “Bush’s
poodle,” has been pummeled at the polls due to mass opposition against the
war. Just this week a Guardian poll found that 63 percent agreed with the
statement that Blair had made Britain “too close to the USA.” In the face of
these pressures, Blair has recently announced that he plans to resign within
the next year.

Der Terror Ist Da"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/weeklystanda...derterroristda
The good news in all this? A majority of Germans now say they see a real
threat. But then the Brits do, too. Eighty percent say yes to the war on
terror, but chiefly through more hawkish domestic policies and not in
alliance with the United States.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comme...884868,00.html
Why we are still getting it so wrong in the 'war on terror'

The ill-conceived and badly executed campaign in Iraq is directly
responsible for spawning a new generation of terrorists

Henry Porter
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer



http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/polit...ope_06-21.html

JOURNALIST: President Bush, you've got Iran's nuclear program, you've got
North Korea, yet most Europeans consider the United States the biggest
threat to global stability. Do you have any regrets about that?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13468342/site/newsweek/
A survey released last week by the Pew Research Center found that, with the
exception of Great Britain, a majority of Europeans polled have a mostly
unfavorable view of the United States.
Yet it’s more than just simple dislike. A Harris Interactive/Financial Times
survey released Monday found that 36 percent of Europeans view the United
States as the world’s greatest threat to “global stability.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5077984.stm
US 'biggest global peace threat'
People in European and Muslim countries see US policy in Iraq as a bigger
threat to world peace than Iran's nuclear programme, a survey has shown.The Iraq war continues to damage the US image, the survey says