Ao minuto: EUA atacam Irão. Trump fala em "sucesso militar" e MNE iraniano em "guerra perigosa"

[Pendolatrice]

A China não assitiria impávida e serena e talvez fizesse o dump de algumas das suas reservas estratégicas ( precisamente dólares e ot americanas ).

essa "ameaça" há mt que recai sobre o US, só que a China não o vai fazer pq sacrificava o seu maior cliente (a médio-longo prazo a história é diferente)

Enquanto a retórica se vai radicalizando lá para as bandas americanas, os chineses tornam muito claro que o domínio americano sobre a componente estratégica global entrou em "gap down".

gap down foi o q ue aocnteceu á URSS

os states podem entrar é em modo Bear

Um dos primeiros avisos de que a china, uma das nações mais pacíficas de entre aquelas que detêm semelhantes auras de poder ( vide deployment nuclear e eforços nas nações unidas e no conselho de segurança ),

cof...cof

(Tibete, Darfur/Sudão, Birmânia, Formosa)

ehehe

a China não que invadir mninguém pq é enorme e tem muitos problemas internos que se preocupar

se prepara para num ápice histórico ( uma ou duas décadas ) arrematar o controlo euro-asiático das mãos da europa e dos seus satélites ( us and a ). Aguardemos mais desenvolvimentos.

sim...tudo parece indicar que sim, vamos lá ver como é se vai relacionar com as potências "locais": Japão e India

os satélites ANZAC ontinuam por lá

Isto é um fórum de investimento e o principal aqui são números. É difícil pesar centenas de biliões investidos pela china no irão e noutros estados alvo da retórica americana (i.e. venezuela ) contra o flow de mercadorias e subsequente excedente comercial. Mas é absolutamente certo que algures num futuro não muito distante, o "break-even" terá lugar , e aí, a necessidade chinesa de vender estas securities sem grandes percas entra em declínio.

Quanto à quantificação de valor estratégico, daquilo que consigo avaliar historicamente, todas as potências fizeram o dito " gap down" algures no seu declínio (britain, ottoman emp. , rome, portugal, spain, etc). É de acreditar que a próxima grande recessão económica americana venha a trazer grandes mudanças no tecido social, com ganhos de poder aos sindicatos e aos restantes movimentos populares e daí a minha opinião de quebra violenta.

Já quanto ao cof cof, é difícil para mim compreender, mas posso tentar ... ora vejamos ... A mérica, dos us mexico para baixo, médio oriente, europa de leste, ásia central, indochina e korea ... e na maior arte destas locations, com violência em grande excedente, em relação à a´ctução regional da chinha. Sem dúvida, são ambos grandes violadores de princípios que são sacrosantos, pelo menos no papel, mas overlook as diferenças é borderline criminal, neste caso. E sim, os problemas internos chineses são horríveis, o que é um facto histórico das grandes potências.

Finalmente , em relação às ligas do sudoeste asiático, na minha opinião, são fundamentalmente diferentes das ligas ocidentais. Um bom case study é a questão norte coreana e para esclarecimento adicional, comparar este caso com qualquer um dos estados americanos quando se encontrou de mal com os usa.

Obviamente a china não trará um novo paradigma, porque num mundo tão interdependente, os "defeitos" são rapidamente e violentamente absorvidos, mas oferece, na minha opinião, uma visão mais benevolente e pacífica de um hegemono global. Embora este não deva constituir o objectivo, é quanto a mim, um passo na drecção certa.

[Keyser Soze]

Ahmadinjead: Iran has 3,000 centrifuges working at enrichment plant

The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 7, 2007

BIRJAND, Iran: Iran has achieved a landmark, with 3,000 centrifuges fully working in its controversial uranium enrichment program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Wednesday.

"We have now reached 3,000 machines," Ahmadinejad told thousands of Iranians gathered in Birjand, in eastern Iran, in a show of defiance of international demands to halt the program believed to be masking the country's nuclear arms efforts.

Ahmadinejad has in the past claimed that Iran succeeded in installing the 3,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. But Wednesday's claim was his first official statement that the plant is now fully operating all those centrifuges.

When Iran first announced launching the 3,000 centrifuges in April, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tehran had only 328 centrifuges up and running at Natanz's underground facility.

In a recent report, drawn up by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency put the number of centrifuges working in Natanz at close to 2,000, with another 650 being tested.

Uranium gas, spun in linked centrifuges, can result in either low-enriched fuel suitable to generate power in a nuclear reactor, or the weapons-grade material that forms the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

The U.S. and some of its Western allies believe Iran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover for weapons' development. Tehran denies this, insisting its nuclear program is geared toward generating electricity, not a nuclear bomb.

U.S. experts say 3,000 centrifuges are in theory enough to produce a nuclear weapon, perhaps as soon as within a year.

Iran says it plans to expand its enrichment program to up to 54,000 centrifuges at Natanz in central Iran — which would amount to the level of industrial-scale uranium enrichment.

Two rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions have failed to persuade Iran to halt the enrichment.

Ahmadinejad on Wednesday reiterated his rejection of any suspension of Iran's enrichment activities, or even a compromise over how Tehran will proceed beyond the 3,000 centrifuges.

"They say they've swallowed (bitterly accepted) these 3,000 and want to reach an agreement with us on what to do, at what speed, how many (centrifuges) a day or week," Ahmadinejad said of latest Western pressures.

"Our response is: 'Who are you to make comments about the Iranian nation ... do we ask you how many machine you have,'" Ahmadinejad added.

He also said he had bluntly refused a recent offer to negotiate with the United States over Iran's nuclear activities.

"I, as your representative, told those who brought the message that we didn't ask for talks ... If talks are to be held, it is the Iranian nation that has to set conditions, not the arrogant and the criminals," Ahmadinejad said.

"The world must know that this nation will not give up one iota of its nuclear rights ... if they think they can get concessions from this nation, they are badly mistaken," he concluded.

Iran says it is fully within its rights to pursue the enrichment to produce fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

[Keyser Soze]

A China não assitiria impávida e serena e talvez fizesse o dump de algumas das suas reservas estratégicas ( precisamente dólares e ot americanas ).

essa "ameaça" há mt que recai sobre o US, só que a China não o vai fazer pq sacrificava o seu maior cliente (a médio-longo prazo a história é diferente)

Enquanto a retórica se vai radicalizando lá para as bandas americanas, os chineses tornam muito claro que o domínio americano sobre a componente estratégica global entrou em "gap down".

gap down foi o q ue aocnteceu á URSS

os states podem entrar é em modo Bear

Um dos primeiros avisos de que a china, uma das nações mais pacíficas de entre aquelas que detêm semelhantes auras de poder ( vide deployment nuclear e eforços nas nações unidas e no conselho de segurança ),

cof...cof

(Tibete, Darfur/Sudão, Birmânia, Formosa)

ehehe

a China não que invadir mninguém pq é enorme e tem muitos problemas internos que se preocupar

se prepara para num ápice histórico ( uma ou duas décadas ) arrematar o controlo euro-asiático das mãos da europa e dos seus satélites ( us and a ). Aguardemos mais desenvolvimentos.

sim...tudo parece indicar que sim, vamos lá ver como é se vai relacionar com as potências "locais": Japão e India

os satélites ANZAC ontinuam por lá

[Pendolatrice]

A China não assitiria impávida e serena e talvez fizesse o dump de algumas das suas reservas estratégicas ( precisamente dólares e ot americanas ).

Enquanto a retórica se vai radicalizando lá para as bandas americanas, os chineses tornam muito claro que o domínio americano sobre a componente estratégica global entrou em "gap down". Um dos primeiros avisos de que a china, uma das nações mais pacíficas de entre aquelas que detêm semelhantes auras de poder ( vide deployment nuclear e eforços nas nações unidas e no conselho de segurança ), se prepara para num ápice histórico ( uma ou duas décadas ) arrematar o controlo euro-asiático das mãos da europa e dos seus satélites ( us and a ). Aguardemos mais desenvolvimentos.

[Keyser Soze]

The Best Conspiracy Theories





Nasa Faked the Moon Landings
And Arthur C. Clarke wrote the script, at least in one version of the story. Space skeptics point to holes in the Apollo archive (like missing transcripts and blueprints) or oddities in the mission photos (misplaced crosshairs, funny shadows). A third of respondents to a 1970 poll thought something was fishy about mankind's giant leap. Today, 94 percent accept the official version... Saps!

The US Government Was Behind 9/11
Or Jews. Or Jews in the US government. The documentary Loose Change claimed to find major flaws in the official story — like the dearth of plane debris at the site of the Pentagon blast and that jet fule alone could never vaporize a whole 757. Judge for yourself: After Popular Mechanics debunked the theory, the magazine's editors faced off with proponents in a debate, available on YouTube.

Princess Diana Was Murdered
Rumors ran wild after Princess Diana's fatal 1997 car crash, and they haven't stopped yet. Reigning theories: She faked her death to escape the media's glare, or the royals snuffed her out (via MI6) to keep her from marrying her Muslim boyfriend. For the latest scenarios, check out www.alfayed.com, the Web site of her boyfriend's dad, Mohamed Al Fayed.

The Jews Run Hollywood and Wall Street
A forged 19th-century Russian manuscript called "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (virtually required reading in Nazi Germany) purports to lay out a Jewish plot to control media and finance, and thus the world. Several studies have exposed the text as a hoax, but it's still available in numerous languages and editions.

The Scientologists Run Hollywood
The long list of celebrities who have had Dianetics on their nightstands fuels rumors that the Church of Scientology pulls the strings in Tinseltown — vetting deals, arranging marriages, and spying on stars. The much older theory is that Jews run Hollywood, and the Scientologists have to settle for running Tom Cruise.

Paul Is Dead
Maybe you're amazed, but in 1969 major news outlets reported on rumors of the cute Beatle's death and replacement by a look-alike. True believers pointed to a series of clues buried in the Fab Four's songs and album covers. Even for skeptics, McCartney's later solo career lent credibility to the theory.

AIDS Is a Man-Made Disease
A number of scientists have argued that HIV was cooked up in a lab, either for bioweapons research or in a genocidal plot to wipe out gays and/or minorities. Who supposedly did the cooking? US Army scientists, Russian scientists, or the CIA. Mainstream researchers point to substantial evidence that HIV jumped species from African monkeys to humans.

Church's Fried Chicken Sterilizes Black Men
Sociologists call this decades-old urban legend a cultural echo of the very real syphilis study carried out on blacks in Tuskegee, Alabama. In another version, KFC is the culprit — and secretly run by the KKK. There's less controversy over whether the biscuits clog your arteries.

Lizard-People Run the World
If a science fiction-based religion isn't exotic enough, followers of onetime BBC reporter David Icke believe that certain powerful people — like George W. Bush and the British royals — actually belong to an alien race of shape-shifting lizard-people. Icke claims Princess Diana confirmed this to one of her close friends; other lizard theories (there are several) point to reptilian themes in ancient mythology. And let's not forget the '80s TV show V.

The Illuminati Run the World
The ur-conspiracy theory holds that the world's corporate and political leaders are all members of an ancient cabal: Illuminati, Rosicrucians, Freemasons — take your pick. It doesn't help that those secret societies really existed (George Washington was a Mason). Newer variations implicate the Trilateral Commission, the New World Order, and Yale's Skull and Bones society.

[atomez]

Um excerto de um texto interessante k vi num forum:

Já toda a gente sabe que Israel é na prática o 51º Estado da União.

So what?

O mundo real é assim.

Diz-nos é alguma coisa que não se saiba por aí.

[Shimazaki]

Quem escreveu isto de seguida começou a gritar "sig heil", a saudar uma foto do tio Adolfo e tem sobre a porta do escritório um letreiro que diz "Arbeit macht frei"*...

[HappyGuy]

Um excerto de um texto interessante k vi num forum:

Isnt amazing that the FACTS totally disagree with some of the posters on this site who want to argue that America is not largely controlled, intimidated and manipuilated by Israeli/Jewish zionistic entitys ?

THE U.S IS BECOMING A " PUPPET" FOR ANOTHER NATION

THE GREAT DECIEVERS ARE GAINING MORE AND MORE CONTROL...

Quem escreveu isto de seguida começou a gritar "sig heil", a saudar uma foto do tio Adolfo e tem sobre a porta do escritório um letreiro que diz "Arbeit macht frei"*...

Fico admirado com a quantidade de anti-semitismo que ainda se vê hoje em dia...

* "O trabalho liberta"

[Shimazaki]

Um excerto de um texto interessante k vi num forum:

Did you know that by law the US guarantees israel's oil supply - no matter what?
...even if it causes US a DOMESTIC SHORTAGE???



Under a 1975 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) the USA guaranteed all Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis. This Memorandum of Understanding is quietly renewed every five years. It commits U.S. taxpayers to maintain a strategic U.S. reserve for Israel, equivalent to $3 billion in 2002 dollars. Special legislation was enacted to exempt Israel from restrictions on oil exports from the USA. Moreover, the U.S. government agreed to divert oil from the USA, even if this causes domestic shortages. The U.S. government also guaranteed delivery of oil in U.S. tankers if commercial shippers become unable or unwilling to carry oil from the USA to Israel.

end article..


Isnt amazing that the FACTS totally disagree with some of the posters on this site who want to argue that America is not largely controlled, intimidated and manipuilated by Israeli/Jewish zionistic entitys ?

How can people be happy living in a world of untruths and fantasy and alternatively put their faith in fallible prophets or cartoons ?

I guess it just shows that no matter how high someones I.Q may be, common sense and the ability to recognize REALITY and FACTS does not go hand in hand with I.Q scores...

FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAILS...

THE U.S IS BECOMING A " PUPPET" FOR ANOTHER NATION

THE GREAT DECIEVERS ARE GAINING MORE AND MORE CONTROL...

[atomez]

Large-scale US Persian Gulf exercise in progress tests preventive tactics against possible Iranian blockade of key Hormuz Straits

November 5, 2007

Taking part in the American Persian Gulf exercise in progress since Nov. 2 are the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, its strike force and two smaller helicopter carriers, the USS Wasp and USS Kearsage, which are marine amphibian assault craft. Commander Jay Chambers, who also heads the combined 59th Task Force, described the exercise as tough and demanding but good preparation for realistic scenarios.

The maneuver began shortly after Iranian Gen. Ali Fahdavi stated that the Revolutionary Guards Naval forces under his command are ready and able to strike at oil export traffic heading out of the Gulf region. The statement on Oct. 29 was taken as an implicit Iranian threat to block oil tanker traffic through the Straits of Hormuz chokepoint. Fahdavi added that Iranian suicide teams were also braced to attack any Gulf target.

[Keyser Soze]

War Plans: United States and Iran
By George Friedman

A possible U.S. attack against Iran has been a hot topic in the news for many months now. In some quarters it has become an article of faith that the Bush administration intends to order such an attack before it leaves office. It remains a mystery whether the administration plans an actual attack or whether it is using the threat of attack to try to intimidate Iran -- and thus shape its behavior in Iraq and elsewhere. Unraveling the mystery lies, at least in part, in examining what a U.S. attack would look like, given U.S. goals and resources, as well as in considering the potential Iranian response. Before turning to intentions, it is important to discuss the desired outcomes and capabilities. Unfortunately, those discussions have taken a backseat to speculations about the sheer probability of war.
Let's begin with goals. What would the United States hope to achieve by attacking Iran? On the broadest strategic level, the answer is actually quite simple. After 9/11, the United States launched counterstrikes in the Islamic world. The goal was to disrupt the al Qaeda core in order to prevent further attacks against the United States. The counterstrikes also were aimed at preventing the emergence of a follow-on threat from the Islamic world that would replace the threat that had been posed by al Qaeda. The disruption of all Islamic centers of power that have the ability and intent to launch terrorist attacks against the United States is a general goal of U.S. strategy. With the decline of Sunni radicalism, Iran has emerged as an alternative Shiite threat. Hence, under this logic, Iran must be dealt with.
Obviously, the greater the disruption of radically anti-American elements in the Islamic world, the better it is for the United States. But there are three problems here. First, the United States has a far more complex relationship with Iran than it does with al Qaeda. Iran supported the U.S. attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- for its own reasons, of course. Second, the grand strategy of the United States might include annihilating Islamic radicalism, but at the end of the day, maintaining the balance of power between Sunnis and Shia and between Arab and non-Arab Muslims is a far more practical approach. Finally, the question of what to do about Iran depends on the military capabilities of the United States in the immediate future. The intentions are shaped by the capabilities.
What, therefore, would the U.S. goals be in an attack against Iran? They divide into three (not mutually exclusive) strategies:

1. Eliminating Iran's nuclear program.
2. Crippling Iran by hitting its internal infrastructure -- political, industrial and military -- ideally forcing regime change that would favor U.S. interests.
3. Using an attack -- or threatening an attack -- to change Iranian behavior in Iraq, Lebanon or other areas of the world.

It is important to note the option that is not on the table: invasion by U.S. ground forces, beyond the possible use of small numbers of Special Operations forces. Regardless of the state of Iranian conventional forces after a sustained air attack, the United States simply does not have the numbers of ground troops needed to invade and occupy Iran -- particularly given the geography and topography of the country. Therefore, any U.S. attack would rely on the forces available, namely air and naval forces.
The destruction of Iran's nuclear capabilities would be the easiest to achieve, assuming that U.S. intelligence has a clear picture of the infrastructure of that program and that the infrastructure has not been hardened to the point of being invulnerable to conventional attack. Iran, however, learned a great deal from Iraq's Osirak experience and has spread out and hardened its nuclear facilities. Also, given Iran's location and the proximity of U.S. forces and allies, we can assume the United States would not be interested in a massive nuclear attack with the resulting fallout. Moreover, we would argue that, in a world of proliferation, it would not be in the interest of the United States to set a precedent by being the first use to use nuclear weapons since World War II.
Therefore, the U.S. option is to carry out precision strikes against Iran's nuclear program using air- and sea-launched munitions. As a threat, this is in an interesting option. As an actual operation, it is less interesting. First, the available evidence is that Iran is years away from achieving a deliverable nuclear weapon. Second, Iran might be more interested in trading its nuclear program for other political benefits -- specifically in Iraq. An attack against the country's nuclear facilities would make Tehran less motivated than before to change its behavior. Furthermore, even if its facilities were destroyed, Iran would retain its capabilities in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere in the world. Therefore, unless the United States believed there was an imminent threat of the creation of a deliverable nuclear system, the destruction of a long-term program would eliminate the long-term threat, but leave Iran's short-term capabilities intact. Barring imminent deployment, a stand-alone attack against Iran's nuclear capabilities makes little sense.
That leaves the second option -- a much broader air and sea campaign against Iran. This would have four potential components:

1. Attacks against its economic infrastructure, particularly its refineries.
2. Attacks against its military infrastructure.
3. Attacks against its political infrastructure, particularly its leadership.
4. A blockade and sanctions.

Let's begin in reverse order. The United States has the ability to blockade Iran's ports, limiting the importation of oil and refined products, as well as food. It does not have the ability to impose a general land blockade against Iran, which has long land borders, including with Iraq. Because the United States lacks the military capability to seal those borders, goods from around Iran's periphery would continue to flow, including, we emphasize, from Iraq, where U.S. control of transportation systems, particularly in the Shiite south, is limited. In addition, it is unclear whether the United States would be willing to intercept, board and seize ships from third-party countries (Russia, China and a large number of small countries) that are not prepared to participate in sanctions or might not choose to respect an embargo. The United States is stretched thin, and everyone knows it. A blockade could invite deliberate challenges, while enforcement would justify other actions against U.S. interests elsewhere. Any blockade strategy assumes that Iran is internationally isolated, which it is not, that the United States can impose a military blockade on land, which it cannot, and that it can withstand the consequences elsewhere should a third party use U.S. actions to justify counteraction, which is questionable. A blockade could hurt Iran's energy economy, but Iran has been preparing for this for years and can mitigate the effect by extensive smuggling operations. Ultimately, Iran is not likely to crumble unless the United States can maintain and strengthen the blockade process over a matter of many months at the very least.
Another option is a decapitation strike against Iran's leadership -- though it is important to recall how this strategy failed in Iraq at the beginning of the 2003 invasion. Decapitation assumes superb intelligence on the location of the leadership at a given time -- and that level of intelligence is hard to come by. Iraq had a much smaller political elite than Iran has, and the United States couldn't nail down its whereabouts. It also is important to remember that Iran has a much deeper and more diverse leadership structure than Iraq had. Iraq's highly centralized system included few significant leaders. Iran is more decentralized and thus has a much larger and deeper leadership cadre. We doubt the United States has the real-time intelligence capability to carry out such a broad decapitation strike.
The second option is an assault against the Iranian military. Obviously, the United States has the ability to carry out a very effective assault against the military's technical infrastructure -- air defense, command and control, aircraft, armor and so on. But the Iranian military is primarily an infantry force, designed for internal control and operations in mountainous terrain -- the bulk of Iran's borders. Once combat operations began, the force would disperse and tend to become indistinguishable from the general population. A counterpersonnel operation would rapidly become a counterpopulation operation. Under any circumstances, an attack against a dispersed personnel pool numbering in the high hundreds of thousands would be sortie intensive, to say the least. An air campaign designed to impose high attrition on an infantry force, leaving aside civilian casualties, would require an extremely large number of sorties, in which the use of precision-guided munitions would be of minimal value and the use of area weapons would be at a premium. Given the fog of war and intelligence issues, the ability to evaluate the status of this campaign would be questionable.
In our view, the Iranians are prepared to lose their technical infrastructure and devolve command and control to regional and local levels. The collapse of the armed forces -- most of whose senior officers and noncoms fought in the Iran-Iraq war with very flexible command and control -- is unlikely. The force would continue to be able to control the frontiers as well as maintain internal security functions. The United States would rapidly establish command of the air, and destroy noninfantry forces. But even here there is a cautionary note. In Yugoslavia, the United States learned that relatively simple camouflage and deception techniques were quite effective in protecting tactical assets. The Iranians have studied both the Kosovo war and U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have extensive tactical combat experience themselves. A forced collapse from the air of the Iranian infantry capability -- the backbone of Iran's military -- is unlikely.
This leaves a direct assault against the Iranian economic infrastructure. Although this is the most promising path, it must be remembered that counterinfrastructure and counterpopulation strategic air operations have been tried extensively. The assumption has been that the economic cost of resistance would drive a wedge between the population and the regime, but there is no precedent in the history of air campaigns for this assumption. Such operations have succeeded in only two instances: Japan and Kosovo. In Japan, counterpopulation operations of massive proportions involving conventional weapons were followed by two atomic strikes. Even in that case, there was no split between regime and population, but a decision by the regime to capitulate. The occupation in Kosovo was not so much because of military success as diplomatic isolation. That isolation is not likely to happen in Iran.
In all other cases -- Britain, Germany, Vietnam, Iraq -- air campaigns by themselves did not split the population from the regime or force the regime to change course. In Britain and Vietnam, the campaigns failed completely. In Germany and Iraq (and Kuwait), they succeeded because of follow-on attacks by overwhelming ground forces.
The United States could indeed inflict heavy economic hardship, but history suggests that this is more likely to tighten the people's identification with the government -- not the other way around. In most circumstances, air campaigns have solidified the regime's control over the population, allowing it to justify extreme security measures and generating a condition of intense psychological resistance. In no case has a campaign led to an uprising against the regime. Moreover, a meaningful campaign against economic infrastructure would take some 4 million barrels per day off of the global oil market at a time when oil prices already are closing in on $100 a barrel. Such a campaign is more likely to drive a wedge between the American people and the American government than between the Iranians and their government.
For an air campaign to work, the attacking power must be prepared to bring in an army on the ground to defeat the army that has been weakened by the air campaign -- a tactic Israel failed to apply last summer in Lebanon. Combined arms operations do work, repeatedly. But the condition of the U.S. Army and Marines does not permit the opening of a new theater of operations in Iran. Most important, even if conditions did permit the use of U.S. ground forces to engage and defeat the Iranian army -- a massive operation simply by the size of the country -- the United States does not have the ability to occupy Iran against a hostile population. The Japanese and German nations were crushed completely over many years before an overwhelming force occupied them. What was present there, but not in Iraq, was overwhelming force. That is not an option for Iran.
Finally, consider the Iranian response. Iran does not expect to defeat the U.S. Air Force or Navy, although the use of mine warfare and anti-ship cruise missiles against tankers in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz should not be dismissed. The Iranian solution would be classically asymmetrical. First, they would respond in Iraq, using their assets in the country to further complicate the occupation, as well as to impose as many casualties as possible on the United States. And they would use their forces to increase the difficulty of moving supplies from Kuwait to U.S. forces in central Iraq. They also would try to respond globally using their own forces (the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), as well as Hezbollah and other trained Shiite militant assets, to carry out counterpopulation attacks against U.S. assets around the world, including in the United States.
If the goal is to eliminate Iran's nuclear program, we expect the United States would be able to carry out the mission. If, however, the goal is to compel a change in the Iranian regime or Iranian policy, we do not think the United States can succeed with air forces alone. It would need to be prepared for a follow-on invasion by U.S. forces, coming out of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Those forces are not available at this point and would require several years to develop. That the United States could defeat and occupy Iran is certain. Whether the United States has a national interest in devoting the time and the resources to Iran's occupation is unclear.
The United States could have defeated North Vietnam with a greater mobilization of forces. However, Washington determined that the defeat of North Vietnam and the defense of Indochina were not worth the level of effort required. Instead, it tried to achieve its ends with the resources it was prepared to devote to the mission. As a result, resources were squandered and the North Vietnamese flag flies over what was Saigon.
The danger of war is that politicians and generals, desiring a particular end, fantasize that they can achieve that end with insufficient resources. This lesson is applicable to Iran.

[Keyser Soze]

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CHESS MASTER GARRY KASPAROV EXPLAINS POLITICAL NATURE OF OIL

[atomez]

Raid aéreo ou Photoshop?

This two picture combo shows two satellite images made available by Digital Globe show a suspected nuclear facility site before and after an Israeli airstrike. The image on the left is from Aug. 5, 2007; and the image on the right is from Oct. 24, 2007. Analysts believe Syria dismantled a building on the site after the Sept. 6 bombing in an attempt to hinder a proposed investigation by international nuclear inspectors and suggests Syria is trying to conceal evidence.

DigitalGlobe / AP Photo

[atomez]

Isto equivale a uma declaração de guerra.

Porque com as leis aprovadas após o 11 Setº o presidente americano pode mandar atacar qualquer "organização terrorista" e quem lhe der abrigo (neste caso o governo do Irão) sem precisar de autorização prévia do Congresso.

U.S. imposes new sanctions on Iran's militar

Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:06am EDT

WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Ratcheting up the pressure on Tehran, the United States on Thursday designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a proliferater of weapons of mass destruction and its elite Qods force a supporter of terrorism.

In total, Washington slapped sanctions on more than 20 Iranian companies, major banks and individuals as well as the defense ministry, in a bid to pressure Tehran to halt its nuclear program and curb its "terrorist" activities.

[Keyser Soze]

Bomb Iran? U.S. Requests Bunker-Buster Bombs
White House Bomber Request Leaves Some Wondering if U.S. Is Preparing Action in Iran
By JONATHAN KARL

Oct. 24, 2007

Tucked inside the White House's $196 billion emergency funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is an item that has some people wondering whether the administration is preparing for military action against Iran.

The item: $88 million to modify B-2 stealth bombers so they can carry a newly developed 30,000-pound bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator, or, in military-speak, the MOP.

The MOP is the the military's largest conventional bomb, a super "bunker-buster" capable of destroying hardened targets deep underground. The one-line explanation for the request said it is in response to "an urgent operational need from theater commanders."

What urgent need? The Pentagon referred questions on this to Central Command.

ABC News called CENTCOM to ask what the "urgent operational need" is. CENTCOM spokesman Maj. Todd White said he would look into it, but, so far, no answer.

There doesn't appear to be any potential targets for a bomb like that in Iraq. It could potentially be used on Taliban or al Qaeda hideouts in the caves along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but there would be no need to use a stealth bomber there.

So where would the military use a stealth bomber armed with a 30,000-pound bomb like this? Defense analysts say the most likely target for this bomb would be Iran's flagship nuclear facility in Natanz, which is both heavily fortified and deeply buried.

"You'd use it on Natanz," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org. "And you'd use it on a stealth bomber because you want it to be a surprise. And you put in an emergency funding request because you want to bomb quickly."

"It's kind of strange," Pike said. "It sends a signal that you are preparing to bomb Iran, and if you were actually going to bomb Iran I wouldn't think you would want to announce it like that."

The MOP is a massive bomb -- 20 feet long and encased in 3.5 inch thick high-performance steel. It is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet underground before exploding.

The bomb was developed by Northrop Grumman and Boeing for the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

In an interview earlier this year with Air Force Times, Bob Hastie, the manager of the MOP program explained its purpose: "We have a mission to defeat ... hard and deeply buried targets where our adversary would have the support structure for WMD-type systems."

[Keyser Soze]

Extract of a satellite image taken by Digital Globe and released this week by the Institute for Science and International Security. A detailed PDF file relating to this story can be found at the ISIS website here.

http://www.isis-online.org/publications ... er2007.pdf

[Keyser Soze]

Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?

Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

By Fareed Zakaria
NEWSWEEK

Updated: 1:57 PM ET Oct 20, 2007

At a meeting with reporters last week, President Bush said that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." These were not the barbs of some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This was the president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

When the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami was elected president in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figurehead. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the unelected "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn't have a nuclear button yet and won't for at least three to eight years, according to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore. But these are just facts.)

In a speech last week, Rudy Giuliani said that while the Soviet Union and China could be deterred during the cold war, Iran can't be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a "residual rationality," he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao—who casually ordered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insurgencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposed them—were rational folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has done what that compares? One of the bizarre twists of the current Iran hysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

If I had to choose whom to describe as a madman, North Korea's Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad, I do not think there is really any contest. A decade ago Kim Jong Il allowed a famine to kill 2 million of his own people, forcing the others to survive by eating grass, while he imported gallons of expensive French wine. He has sold nuclear technology to other rogue states and threatened his neighbors with test-firings of rockets and missiles. Yet the United States will be participating in international relief efforts to Pyongyang worth billions of dollars.

We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003.

The one time we seriously negotiated with Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to create a new political order in the country. Bush's representative to the Bonn conference, James Dobbins, says that "the Iranians were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance to make the final concessions that we asked for." Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence. The then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, "looked down and rustled his papers." No reply was ever sent back to the Iranians. Why bother? They're mad.

Last year, the Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal predicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, President Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he explained, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the Prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world" (my emphasis). This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/57346

[Keyser Soze]

sem esquecer que um ataque poderia desencadear um choque petrolifero e uma crise económica global

de acordo com tudo. Excepto que o nosso amigo Bush é fã de choques petrolíferos.

deve ser fã de preços altos com a economia a bombar

um spike nos preços pode ser o trigger uma crise economia global

...mas eu nem penso muito no Bush, tenho mais receio do Dick Cheney

[vibra]

Realmente, foi o Choque fiscal, choque tecnológico, choque petrolífero...


anda muita electricidade no ar.

[scpnuno]

de acordo com tudo. Excepto que o nosso amigo Bush é fã de choques petrolíferos.

Se funcionarem tão bem como os "choques tecnologicos" cá do burgo, escusamos de ficar preocupados...

Tu não me digas que eles andam a ter conferencias secretas sobre "choques"?

[Dwer]

sem esquecer que um ataque poderia desencadear um choque petrolifero e uma crise económica global

de acordo com tudo. Excepto que o nosso amigo Bush é fã de choques petrolíferos.

[Keyser Soze]

não tou ver como é que esta Administração pode desencadear um ataque preventivo

a comunidade internacional está à espera de Dezembro pelo relatório da International Atomic Energy Agency
(a China e Rússia continuam amigos do Irão)

não creio que Israel tenha capacidade para um ataque eficaz, sozinho

nos Estados Unidos a ideia de atacar o Irão não é consensual nem popular, parece ser uma ideia defendida apenas pelos elementos mais radicais da Administração .... como o artigo da Slate refere, os militares estariam muito relutantes em aceitar tal decisão

sem esquecer que um ataque poderia desencadear um choque petrolifero e uma crise económica global

[Keyser Soze]

já caiu para a casa dos $85

Profit taking

expiração de futuros tb

[atomez]

já caiu para a casa dos $85

Profit taking

[Keyser Soze]

Os acontecimentos precipitam-se.

O petróleo já passou dos $90. Saberão "eles" algo que o resto de nós não sabe?

já caiu para a casa dos $85