Redstate

Iran already has The Bomb™. Three Russian nuclear-warheads were sold to Iran in 1991 for approximately $7.5 Billion. With technical assistance from Russian engineers, Iran has the technical knowledge and the capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons. The only obstacle to mass production of these weapons is a viable nuclear enrichment program incorporating P-2 centrifuges. The heavy-water nuclear facility, think plutonium, is already operational. I'm unable to verify if Iran is constructing an array of P-2's, or already has them.

Initiate the preemptive phase of the Bush Doctrine, ASAP.

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"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan

Here is a 2003 unclassified report by the CIA to Congress which says nothing about possession of nuclear weapons. Nor can I find that information from any other source. I am not completely dismissing your facts, just can’t find any credible ones that indicate Russia gave Iran nuclear warheads. Otherwise this whole exercise is just academic.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"

In autumn 1991 Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Khazakhstan, sold three nuclear warheads to the Iranians. The Iranians wanted to use them as a prototype for their own bomb manufacturing. The price was said to have been 7.5 billion USD. Whether this amount is true or just the fantasies of a less paid government official, I cannot verify. The amount was to cover all bribes and kick-offs and military protection during transport. Every country involved had demanded their fair share of the deal.

Anyway, the warheads were removed from a military depot somewhere in Kazakhstan and transported by train down to Makhachkala in Daghestan. Here they were reloaded onto huge trucks and then taken through the Caucasian region and into Turkey. In the city of Dogubeyazit the Iranians met the convoy and took over. The three vehicles were then driven by Iranian drivers down to the border post Bazargan, where they entered Iranian territory.

The warheads were brought down to Teheran and parked in the military campus Lavizan. Here they were seen by a soldier who later defected to Israel and told the story to the Israeli intelligence services who at that time were unable to verify the matter further. Various rumours have been circulating ever since. Some stories say two bombs, some say four. The correct number, however, is three.

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"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan

That might be his plan but I wonder if you can let him execute it, and survive yourself. If you are the Prime Minister, and you play footsie with a guy who is shooting at the Army and killing its soldiers (executing them in the streets, according to one report), how long before "your" Army turns on you?

Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.

Thanks for the original article. That's a fairly good report, however it doesn't mention that Sadr's forces were forced to accept a ceasefire agreement that saw them slithering out of town under a truce. I think his men paid a fairly high price for their efforts.

I would agree that the Prime Minister must start to take charge of the situation. From the U.S., it would seem he's done nothing for months. That's probably a perception enhanced by a lack of reporting much of anything out of Iraq, except negative news focused to make U.S. and Iraq forces look bad.

It would seem that sooner or later, accurate reporting or not, the Prime Minister will have to act or answer to his own forces. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

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"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan

especially after this post

but at the same time, taking out Sadr at that juncture would probably have alienated Sistani irreparably. At this juncture, he could probably made to understand the necessity of acting against the Mahdi Army. It is easy to sit back and second-guess, but it is also easy to see why at that juncture they made the decision that they did and why even in light of what we know now it may still have been the right decision.

I hope you are right. Everytime I hear about him, I start fuming.

http://stupidrandomthoughts.blogspot.com/

But a couple of days ago, Academic Elephant did a front page post on Don Rumsfeld's speech. I believe the post was "From the Horse's Mouth". If you read the quotes in it, and maybe the link to the whole speech, you would probably get a better idea at least of what they are trying to do.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

interest in convincing you of much of anything because anyone who could have lived through April 2004 and write what you do is demonstrably incapable of being convinced of much, which gets back to the title of your blog.

Since you are of the opinion that we were better off fighting a Shia and Sunni insurgency since April 2004 I'd be the last one to challenge that cherished belief. Which again gets back to the title of your blog.

I readily admit that I am not the smartest bear in the woods, but I guess I do have the ability of critical thinking seeing that I have a 6-figure salary with little more than a high-school education. I do feel that I have a somewhat better pulse on the war on terror than the average Joe-Citizen who only gets his talking points from Wolf Blitzer and HardBall and I try to read the good blogs, like Strategy Page, Bill Roggio, Counterterrorism, and so on to try and keep up with the inside scoop. I do the best I can in the spare moments I have between the family and work.
I do believe that we are fighting the good fight, but I am having trouble believing that we are winning or doing enough. If you ask me what Bush is supposed to be doing, my gut thinking is that we are not fighting this war as hard as we should and that more bombs should be falling. But I'm neither a military genius nor an intellectual giant, just a Joe voter watching the lastest body count.
I voted for Bush and if the election were held again today, I would vote for him again for lack of a better choice. Unfortunately today I just don't see the war leader in him.
I found the Academic Elephant post that you had mentioned and read it. Some things to chew on, but my initial impression is that I've generally heard this before. "Security is improving", "No civil war", "Enough troops", etc.
So are my thoughts stupid or random? With the increasing occurrances of conservatives questioning our leadership, maybe not. So I guess that makes me part of the group known as "The Disatisfieds", or is it "Chicken Littles". Come November some of us may be called "The Non voters".
No, you really don't have to convince me, or the rest of us for that matter.
As you for your snide remarks regarding the title of my blog beamed down from your lofty, ivory tower of arrogance, I will refrain from responding in kind with suggestions for the title of your mother. Its not what I'm here for.
http://stupidrandomthoughts.blogspot.com/

on your success in the business world.

If you'd ever read Bill Roggio on Sadr you'd understand why he's there. If you'd read Counterterrorismblog then you might know why bombs aren't falling.

But if whining like a little girl makes you feel superior and well educated, drive on.

As far as being "a Joe voter watching the lastest body count" seems to me you left armchair general off your resume.

As I've already said, I'm no military genius, soo "armchair general" was purposely left off the resume. As a featured contributer, I expected you to have better responses than "whiney little girl", sadly I was disappointed.

Getting back to the subject at hand, Bush's wartime leadership. Its hard for me to not question his abilities when roughly 39 months has past since we first went in and we are still taking casualties and the progress appears to be little. Mookie is still causing trouble with his monkey militia, Iran is causing havoc, and all I hear is "violence is decreasing", "we have enough troops", blah blah blah. Look, you can call me names and act like the arrogant peckerhead you are, but the fact is that many of us proVictory types are not believing that things are going as well as it should be.
And lets not stop there, Afghanistan is still a problem, Somalia is on its way to being a problem, Iran is a problem, NoKo is a huge problem, Hezbollah is a problem. And when Dubya said that Israel defeated Hezbollah, I had to do a double take and wonder if he seriously lost his ever-flipping mind.
Maybe I am an armchair general, maybe I shouldn't expect to much, maybe I should be more patient, maybe more bombs is not the answer but one thing I do know is that I'm angry to wake up to hear another 6 soldiers dead here, another 3 dead there. I'm tired of seeing images of jihadist pumping their AK's like monkeys on crack. I'm tired of Adiminojerkoffs blustering. And Nasrallah's blustering. And Sadr's blustering. And I'm tired of the excuses of why we must be patient. I'm angry and the only thing I want to hear is the sickening thud of jihadi bodies slapping against the wall after a JDAM party.
And if my rant offends thee, well then eff you and the middle aged thai hooker you call a mother you royal snob.

http://stupidrandomthoughts.blogspot.com/

.. will probably get banned for that.

First learn a better vocabulary. Learn to express yourself civilly. If you hope to influence anyone to your point of view, learn to express yourself like an adult!

See The World In HinzSight!

Hit "Reply to This." It makes conversations easier to follow.

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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.

Sorry about that. I'm out of coffee, my wife packed a crappy lunch, Sadr is rampaging, and I can't find my cigarette lighter.

Iran's "real army and navy" would have a very short and exciting life were it to face the US military. Just as Iraq's real army and navy did twice. The Iranians well know this and that is why they're behaving with such bellicosity. While they know they can't defeat the US military, they can have some confidence that their are enough US civilians of the same opinion you express that they may not have to face the US military.

Dealing with irregulars that can move in the civilian populus is quite another matter, but in purely military terms they are little more than a bother. Which isn't to say they can't cause casualties and materiel damage, but they can almost never defeat an organized unit.

In Vino Veritas

In Vino Veritas

Algeria, Vietnam, Somalia...

is in the list; that was a French screwup. Vietnam and Somalia were the result of feckless civilian "leadership," not military failure. In the case of Somalia, the fecklessness bordered on criminal inasmuch as the US military was willfully sent there with no armor because WJC didn't want to upset people.

In Vino Veritas

It's on the list for the same reason the Gulf War and OIF Phase I aren't on the list. Or Panama or Grenada. Because if you look at the examples critically they are bs.

but I was giving the benefit of the doubt.

In Vino Veritas

low-level insurgency is the only way to engage US forces for them. This has benefits for timing because the longer such nuisances persist, the less confident people will be politically. I'm guessing this is Iran's rationale.

Other political opportunities abound in this scenario. We all remember how almost every defeat of the Mahdi army turned into complaints of violating mosques and shrines.

We all know the worst way for any enemy to engage US forces is with massed conventional forces. Massing only makes a larger target.

In Vino Veritas

We can't bomb people into submission

Ask Japan. We just have to have the will to do so. (I know I know, DFTT)

Get Rich Slowly

We're all out of angels. We can't send one at this time. Due to an increasing angel-request volume, your angel request has been abruptly terminated.

Thank you for calling The Scorpions Hotline.

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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.

I was hoping Romania's legendary Red Scorpions would act in retaliation for Iran's takeover of a Romanian oil platform, but it didn't turn out that way. It probably would have been a big shock to Iran if Romanian leaders had been that bold.