Top US general calls for military action against Iran

[SubWater]

I suppose during pre-Islamic times the Iranians conquered Yemen. Not sure how that would draw Yemeni people to Iran.

we never conquer Yemen that was historical alliance and in post Islamic era Tabarestan had always relation with Yemen.

 

[OldTwilight]

Iran has signed NPT, you should abide by the Treaty


We only hate Pakistan and...
Pakistan is the reason for this hatred, We have very good relation with rest of the Muslim world. I wish God had given us good neighbors like Iran instead of Pakistan.

We can withdraw from it whenever we want

 

[friendly_troll96]

Tokhme Khar

 

[Tokhme khar]

I bringing sohan halwa bro........

Okay.
I'm hanging on tight.
Please don't forget to bring some peshmak and gaz.


Hindu -- the ghatiya, ayyar, and very bozdil enemy.


you can suck on our collect diick till it squirts prasad everyday day of the week and twice on diwali.

 

[Cthulhu]

For example, for some strange reason it seems like Iran and Oman are always in good terms

Sorry mate, There's no supernatural weird beyond comprehension cultural thing going on. The main reason that Oman is in good terms with us is because back in the days Mohammad Reza Shah helped Sultan Qaboos save his own neck during the Dhofar Rebellion, a Marxism-Leninism rebellion backed by Soviet Union and Communist China. Imperial Iranian Armed Forces had 719 casualties while Omanis themselves had 187 casualties trying to save that guy's a*s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhofar_Rebellion
And secondly because of Strait of Hormuz, it's in their best interest to keep a good relationship with us. so you shouldn't be surprised that Iran and Oman are always in good terms.
The funniest part to my is that we have these Pan-Persian Empire guys that analyze every single thing that is happening today through what happened 2000 years ago, and on the other side we have these Pan-Islamic Umma guys in power that plan our foreign policy on Islam Umma basis instead of our national interests, and now these groups made an unholy alliance cause these Pan-Persian Empire guys see that Pan-Islamic Umma guys are making Iran more influential in the region. As our brother @Tokhme khar said "If koroush kabir was alive today, he'd have the same military policy as akhond." and our brother @Arminkh confirmed it.

 

[yavar]

US SCOM Gen Votel calls for military action against Iran and Iran DM Gen Dehqan respond

 

[Draco.IMF]

if us dare to attack Iran (which i dont believe calculating enourmouse risks for the zionists in the whole region) this will open pandoras box, it will a bloodbath for them which they never saw before.
i think they are bluffing, some tactics behind...
yes they are lunatics, but also lunatics have an instict of self preservation

 

[Arminkh]

Sorry mate, There's no supernatural weird beyond comprehension cultural thing going on. The main reason that Oman is in good terms with us is because back in the days Mohammad Reza Shah helped Sultan Qaboos save his own neck during the Dhofar Rebellion, a Marxism-Leninism rebellion backed by Soviet Union and Communist China. Imperial Iranian Armed Forces had 719 casualties while Omanis themselves had 187 casualties trying to save that guy's a*s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhofar_Rebellion
And secondly because of Strait of Hormuz, it's in their best interest to keep a good relationship with us. so you shouldn't be surprised that Iran and Oman are always in good terms.
The funniest part to my is that we have these Pan-Persian Empire guys that analyze every single thing that is happening today through what happened 2000 years ago, and on the other side we have these Pan-Islamic Umma guys in power that plan our foreign policy on Islam Umma basis instead of our national interests, and now these groups made an unholy alliance cause these Pan-Persian Empire guys see that Pan-Islamic Umma guys are making Iran more influential in the region. As our brother @Tokhme khar said "If koroush kabir was alive today, he'd have the same military policy as akhond." and our brother @Arminkh confirmed it.

First, I'm not Pan-Persian Empire. I'm Pan-Iranian and proud of Persian Empire as a result. 2nd, I try to keep my feelings out and look at things logically.

As El Pahino, put it in famous movie "Godfather": Never hate your enemy, it affects your judgement. I can see you are not a fan of current government, but you should give credit where it is due.

What you explained about Oman doesn't explain why two countries are so close. Shah helped Oman's king and then Omanian king decided to become friends with the current government who ousted its friend and hero?

It is in Qatar and Bahrain's best interest to keep friendly relation with Iran as well. But I don's see them try at all. However, just wait until a government backed by majority of people is installed in Bahrain and see how it will turn into one of Iran allies over night. Why do you think KSA directly intervened to save the government in Bahrain?

Look at the countries around Iran and tell me what you see? All Iranian names: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, ...... all these countries were part of our nation once and there are still a lot of cultural ties on which Iran can capitalize.

Why is it that as soon as any of these countries get the chance to elect their own government, and even in the ones that were occupied by Iran's foes like Iraq, the result is a Pro Iranian Government? It is not because Iran has a magic hand. It is because of the culture.

What I tried to explain above is not only my opinion. There are western scholars who think the same way while they don't have any reason to be proud of Persian Empire or Modern Iran achievements. Here is an example. While the author is clearly not Pro Iran or its government, he is rationally explaining that considering Iran's current clout a result of it being a theocracy or Shia majority country is wrong:

http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...ies_underlying_iranian_soft_power_111058.html

Read this section: @Aryzin I recommend you read this too and learn more about your origin.

Capitalizing on an Imperial Legacy

Iran is not only a modern nation state, but it is also the inheritor of an ancient civilization. While the Middle East and Asia are home to many artificial states born in the twentieth century, Iran—or Persia, as it was known until 1935—has had a near contiguous history and sense of identity going back two millennia. Modern Iranian culture is a mélange of the influences which dominated in various incarnations of the Persian Empire and Iranian state.

The Persian Empire, at its greatest extent, stretched from the Mediterranean to India. Over just the last five hundred years, however, it has lost half its territory: The Portuguese seized Bahrain in 1521; the Ottoman Empire took Baghdad in 1638; and, in the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire wrested from Tehran’s control of what today is Armenia, Azerbaijan, and part of Georgia. Iranian elementary school texts teach about the Iranian roots not only of cities like Baku, but also cities further north like Darbent, in southern Russia. The Shah lost much of his claim to western Afghanistan after in the Anglo-Persian War of 1856-1857. Between 1871 and 1872, Iran lost much of Baluchistan not to the British army, but rather to the Indo-European Telegraph Department, the nineteenth century equivalent of losing a battle to the post office. While Iran today may be a shadow of the Persian Empires of the past, a strong sense of history and pride pervades the country. Many Iranians consider their former imperial boundaries to be a natural sphere of influence, Iranzamin, just as Russian nationalists believe that Russia should have paramount influence within their “near abroad.” Indeed, the notion of Iranzamin is a staple of rhetoric and cultural conception which transcends the 1979 Islamic Revolution; it remains an important aspect of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s rhetoric today.[1]Indeed, this is why Ali Saidi, the Supreme Leaders representative to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spoke about taking the fight “from Shalamcheh [on the Persian Gulf] to the shores of the eastern Mediterranean” and, more recently, Gen. Mohammad Jafar Assadi, a former ground forces commander, bragged in January 2017 about Iranian influence again stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean.[2]


If the history is one pillar of Iranian outreach and a commonality upon which Iranian leaders shape soft power strategies, then religion is another pillar. The Islamic Revolution may have inaugurated the modern world’s first Shi’ite theocracy, but to assume Iran’s importance or attraction rests only upon Shi‘ite Islam is to misunderstand the residual influence of Iran’s pre-Islamic past and its importance to the development of Islam. Across the Iranian plateau, Zoroastrianism grew from murky origins to become the official religion of the ancient Achaemenid Empire. From their capital in Babylon and their dynastic center at Persepolis, they ruled a vast empire stretching at its height from the Balkans to the Indus River Valley. Zoroastrianism outlived the Achaemenid Empire and dominated the Persian plateau for one thousand years. Its embrace of duality came to permeate Iranian culture, and not simply in terms of good versus evil. Even today under the Islamic Republic, the most prominent holiday in Iran is not Islamic but rather cultural: Iran’s leading ayatollahs have long ago given up any effort to stamp out celebration of Nowruz, the pre-Islamic Persian New Year which begins on the first day of the Spring Equinox and continues for almost two weeks. Rather than suppress this pre-Islamic identity, they have embraced it as a mechanism by which they can reach out to other “Persian” societies. In 2014, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, for example, spent his first Persian New Year as president attending a Nowruz festival in Afghanistan rather than Iran. The annual festival, begun in Iran, is now hosted on a rotating basis in other regional countries.[3]

The magi, Zoroastrian priests, are all but forgotten to those in the West except for their bit role in the New Testament as wise men bearing gifts. However, as a priestly class, they reigned supreme, at least up until the rise of Islam. Islam arose in the seventh century against the backdrop of a region exhausted by war. The Byzantine and Sassanid Empires had fought each other to a standstill, exhausting both empires and giving the new armies of Islam fertile ground to expand. By the end of the Prophet Muhammad’s life in 632 AD, the Islamic Empire stretched across the Arabian Peninsula. Over the next three decades, it grew rapidly to encompass a region stretching from Libya to Afghanistan. The Arabs were predominantly a desert, nomadic people; managing a vast new empire required a different skill set. Enter both the Zoroastrian magi and Persian bureaucrats who converted to Islam to retain their privileged position. Herein lies Zoroastrianism’s relevance to the present day: The magi, and by extension Iran, shaped Islam as much as Islam shaped Iran. While outsiders might believe contemporary Iran’s reach to be limited to the ten or perhaps 15 percent of the Islamic world that is Shi‘ite, the Iranian influence upon Islam is actually much greater. Iranian officials see themselves not simply as the representative and protectors of international Shi‘ites, but rather as a beacon for all Muslims.

Shi‘ism is, of course, part and parcel of the Islamic Republic, but for Iran, it is actually a relatively new phenomenon. Iran was largely Sunni until the beginning of the 16th century. In 1501, Shah Ismail Safavi, the founder of the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736), decreed Shi‘ism to be Iran’s official religion. He imported clergy from southern Lebanon (the linkage between Lebanon and Iran thus extends back centuries before the creation of Hezbollah in the wake of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon) in order to replace and supplant a clerical class at the time indistinguishable from the Ottoman Empire. While textbooks might give 1501 as the date of Iran’s conversion, the process was slower. Just as King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church in England was simply the start of a centuries-long religious upheaval rather than its end, so too did Iran only became majority Shi‘ite around the time that George Washington crossed the Delaware River.

Religion is one source of identity; ethnicity is another. While in the West, a genetic definition of ethnicity predominates, in the Greater Middle East ethnicity has revolved around language since the late 1920s and early 1930s:[4] An Arab is someone who speaks Arabic as their mother tongue, a Turk is someone who speaks Turkish, and a Persian is someone who speaks Persian (or its constituent dialects, Farsi, Dari, or Tajik). Arabic may be the lingua franca of the Middle East from the Mediterranean to the shores of the Persian Gulf, but Persian fulfills that role from the mountains of Kurdistan through the bazaars of Central Asia and down through the Indian subcontinent. Indeed, the official language of India was Persian under the sixteenth century Moghul Empire; only in 1832 did the British army force India’s princes and rajas to conduct business in English. Even so, Persian remains the language of culture and poetry throughout much of West, South, and Central Asia. School children well beyond Iran’s borders memorize the poetry of famous Persian poets like Rumi, Saadi, and Hafez. When Iranian authorities reach out to Shi‘ite communities, like Afghanistan’s Hazaras, they might embrace sectarian identity as the commonality around which to shape soft-power but, if their target is further afield—such as predominantly Sunni Tajikistan, Iranian authorities would be more likely to draw on their common ethnic heritage. That is not to say that other Persian speakers always embrace Iran’s big brother attitudes; indeed, they often resent it.[5]

Language and culture can be important for other reasons. Strategies evolve within cultural contexts. Western academics may trace modern strategy and statecraft to Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), and China scholars may root Chinese strategy to Sun-Tzu (544-496 BC). A genre of princely literature also developed during Sassanian times in the centuries immediately before Persia’s Islamization. Mirrors for Princes, books of protocol and other guides, elaborated on the relationships and duties of ruler and subject. The most famous examples include the Qabusnama (“Book of [King] Qabus”) written by a 11th century king ruling over what is now the southern coast of the Caspian Sea; Nasihat al-muluk (Counsel for Princes), written by the eleventh century philosopher and theologian Al-Ghazali (1058-1111); and the Siyasatnama (“Book of Government”), a manual of government written by the eleventh century Seljuq grand vizier Nizam al-Mulk (1018-1092).[6] The Siyasatnama included 50 chapters, ranging from “On holding court for the redress of wrongs and practicing justice and virtue,” to “On having troops of various races,” to “Exposing the facts about heretics who are enemies of the state and of Islam.” There is documentary evidence that rulers into the nineteenth century not only kept such literature in their personal libraries, but that they also read them.[7]Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may not see himself as a Persian king, but his strategy for ruling and for exporting his ideology has far more in common with Iran’s imperial and intellectual past than it does with other countries and regimes which have evolved out of other cultural milieu. Beyond simply examining specific chapters of the Qabusname or Siyasatnama or any other example of “Mirrors for Princes” literature, Notre Dame professor Deborah Tor’s “The Islamisation of Iranian Kingly Ideals in the Persianate Furstenspiegel”[8] provides some useful context by showing the interplay between Islam and kingship before the Islamic Revolution.

Yes... my comment was tongue in cheek...



Umm.... That's cute... however... let's give this whole Persian empire thing a rest or if this catches on my Italian neighbour would start walking around with his Roman Empire soldier costume and start stabbing me with his Roman sword... my Egyptian Co - worker will start wrapping himself like a mummy and glorifying his empire... my south American Mexican friend will start walking around dressed in all the glories of the Aztec empire claiming part of the USA ... so on and so forth...

As the song goes... "what have you done for me lately... (both thousands of years ago)... ooh, ooo...yaaa.... What have you done for me lately..."

Read my post above. I'm explaining the history behind Iran's current success.

 

[Aryzin]

@Arminkh , thank you it was an interesting read however our view of the situation is different. Unfortunately it seems that if someonein this forum is critical of IRI, they are viewed as anti Iranian. I really like Iran and it's people, in the other hand those mullahs and company are not working to improve the country but to enrich themselves. Anyway I don't want to get into political debates. I know Iran has clout but it's not as big as you think and it comes from paying people to do their bidding.
Regards

 

[VEVAK]

They are preparing their people for war ...
Don't act like fools .... The threat is real , they plan for attacking us by using pgcc Arabs ...

We should have nukes ....

The reality is that the U.S. sells over $100 Billion USD of weapons to the region and that's just weapons! Cars, Computers, Cell Phones, Clothing,....

If they attack Iran, in response Iran's main target will be to go after the source of income of GCC US puppet states & that's 1st Oil & then Tourism!
Iran will hit every Oil & Natural Gas facility in U.S. puppet states & Iran will hit every Port & Airport they have and that will cause havoc to the U.S. economy!
The U.S. not only has massive foreign debt but it's Gross National Debt is greater than it's GDP meaning if Oil prices hit $200 pb and sales to it's puppet stats stops Americans will go hungry & will not even be able to pump gas to go to work!

Having Nukes wont solve anything for Iran! Who is Iran going to Nuke? Muslim countries? Israel where Millions of Palestinians live? If we had nukes who exactly do you think Iran could possibly nuke? The answer is NO ONE!
We wouldn't even be able to Nuke U.S. ships at Sea because that would destroy sea life that millions of Muslims depend on!
And even if we did have a good target to Nuke! What do you think the U.S. response will be? 3 nuclear armed U.S. Peace Keeper ICBM's can wipe out over 80% of Iran's population! As long as U.S. is Iran's main enemy having Nukes for Iran is more of a liability than a capability!

Iran is not North Korea and unlike North Korea it can NOT Nuke a Muslim country and Nuking the U.S. is absurd! For Iran having Nukes is no capability at all! Iran needs Precision Guided Weapons of all kinds and all ranges mass produced in large numbers not Nukes!

 

[RealNapster]

The U.S. not only has massive foreign debt but it's Gross National Debt is greater than it's GDP meaning if Oil prices hit $200 pb and sales to it's puppet stats stops Americans will go hungry & will not even be able to pump gas to go to work!

USA at the same time "Import's as well as Export's Oil and Other crude fuels". it's Up to their choice if they completely want to shutdown Oil imports some day.

They don't need KSA or any other GCC for Oil anymore. the only reason that currently USA is importing oil grom GCC is

1. Local environmental issues due to Oil extraction.

2. Lower Prices offered by GCC.

 

[Star Expedition]

They almost call for such slogans everyday...
If they can, they don't need to shout so loudly

 

[VEVAK]

USA at the same time "Import's as well as Export's Oil and Other crude fuels". it's Up to their choice if they completely want to shutdown Oil imports some day.

They don't need KSA or any other GCC for Oil anymore. the only reason that currently USA is importing oil grom GCC is

1. Local environmental issues due to Oil extraction.

2. Lower Prices offered by GCC.

The price of oil is effected by the Global market! Yes the U.S. will drill into it's reserves no one said they will be left without OIL! But the price of oil will still hit record highs because Iran will attack Oil facilities and that will trickle down to the prices of everything starting with gas!

Every smart investor will remove it's money from the market and invest in Oil and that alone will cause stocks to fall companies will go bankrupt or fall into greater debt and on top of that U.S. sales to it's puppet states will plummet and yes a few rich ppl may get richer but overall most will suffer

 

[RealNapster]

The price of oil is effected by the Global market! Yes the U.S. will drill into it's reserves no one said they will be left without OIL! But the price of oil will still hit record highs because Iran will attack Oil facilities and that will trickle down to the prices of everything starting with gas!

That is another debate. the original debate was about "effect of increasing oil Prices on US". which is answered as "none". sure remaining world will be effected, but not US, in the way you said.

Edit : the US can extract shell oil for USD 55-60 Per barrel. which was considered as the "previous" norm. it was not feasible for US to extract oil when oil prices were as low as $ 30/b . so they start importing.

The day International oil Prices Hit $60+/b. US will stop importing oil and will fulfill it's need's by extracting Shell oil.

and i don't think $5-6/b increase in Price will effect US economy that hard.

 

[Hassan Guy]

Military action?

A very vague term...

Especially coming from the US....