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Invasion of Iran

January 18th, 2007 · Posted by Skuds in Politics · 9 Comments · Politics

I am often stopped in the streets by people eager to hear my opinions on the Iran situation.  Well, OK, I am often stopped on the streets and asked for the price of a cup of tea, and I am exaggerating 

Anyway, I was reading something in the paper at the weekend about the possibility of some sort of invasion of Iran.  It was pointed out that reinforcements being sent to the area ostensibly to help win the peace in Iraq are really preparations for an attack on Iran – the logic being that an aircraft carrier is not going to help battle insurgents in Baghdad alleyways.

As far as I can make out the justification is weapons of mass destruction, and a fear that Iran will manage to develop working nukes and attack Israel.  There was a phrase about trying to avoid a second Jewish holocaust.

All the time I could not help thinking about a few things which I could not reconcile:

  • Its an open secret that Israel has its own nukes
    (Even if it doesn't, its friends certainly do)
  • The justification for us replacing Trident is that it will act as a deterrent
  • Countries like Iran are the sort of places we are told that our nukes will deter

What it boils down to is that the same people who keep telling us that we must replace Trident because it will stop anyone attacking us are also preparing to move on Iran because they feel that it will not let the fact Israel has nuclear weapons stop it from attacking. 

I also noted that the suspected plans for dealing with Iran involve dropping thousands of conventional non-nuclear bombs, followed by non-nuclear special forces to 'mop up', so its quite feasible to either deter, or be able to defend against, or attack a nuclear power with conventional weapons.

The only conclusions I could come to were that we really don't need to replace Trident, that the money would be better spent by sharing it between equipping the rest of the forces better and expanding Sure Start (or something like that) and that if Tony Blair really wants to leave a legacy he should see if being remembered as the person to persuade Bush not to invade Iran would go some way to make up for the balls-up in Iraq.

 

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9 Comments so far ↓

  • Richard

    Good point – but what has ‘good’ got to do with anything ?

  • Will Parbury

    I don’ think that they are actually going to invade iran but airstrikes are a serious possibility. I suspect that the isreal’s might get there first though.

  • Richard

    As I see it, the US regime is intent on causing as much trouble as possible in the Middle East – but ensuring someone else gets the blame when ‘the shit hits the fan’.

    It’s called ‘divide and rule’.

  • tyger

    Are you suggesting that there may be some duplicity in the pro-Trident argument?

  • Skuds

    “Duplicity” implies that those making the argument don’t believe it at all but still trot it out knowing that they are wrong, because they can’t admit to the real reasons they are in favour…

    I would rather they actually believed it. But then that would leave the inconsistent argument for attacking Iran as duplicitous wouldn’t it?

  • Danivon

    Hey, if we could figure out why powerful men like big shiny weapons and starting wars, we might be able to do something about it…

    Oh, didn’t Freud say something about it?

  • Jane Skudder

    I would say that maybe we should give the power to the ‘gentler sex’ but I think big shiny weapons gave Mrs T. quite a hard-on….

  • Danivon

    Oh no, women are just as bad. My theory is that we may have fewer wars, but the one we’d have would be terrible

  • Skuds

    I’m sure I can remember a female comedian saying that women should be in charge. There would be no more wars, but every 28 days there would be some really intense negotiation.