Iran Thread

[Churchill]

Quds Force is everywhere. They do everything by proxy to avoid retaliation - at the moment. They are capable enough to make Israel bleed severely. Point to consider: it's one thing to have the capability to assassinate scientists deep behind enemy lines in what are likely to be extreme levels of security - it's another to have it look like an accident, have it look like someone else entirely is to blame, or to just not flex the proverbial muscles and conduct such actions.

[Elvis]

That car bomb also happened in public didn't it? Not in some secret Iranian nuclear facility.

[Andalusian girls]

i know you guys hate Israel on moral grounds but focusing solely on efficiency and capabilities for the nonce Mossad is killing high-value targets in Iran with regularity, they sent Iran's nuclear centrifuges into spinny death with stuxnet, and the best that can be said of Quds is that they are biding their time as their nuclear program is derailed or so ninja secret no one notices their actions in Israel even though we notice their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and South America and Europe

it reeks of the same kind of threat inflation that accompanied Saddam or even the Soviet Union. they are never as dangerous or powerful as our parochial intelligence services, or our puerile sensationalist media, make them out to be but hey, if you are budget director of the NSA and need a funding increase just say the Iranians have fifty thousand secret operatives ready to blow stuff up

they can't even defend the most important people of their nation's most important military & technological endeavor and you really think they are some sort of elite black ops institution?
they gather intelligence and fund surrogates and launder money, they've never done anything else of note.

Mossad is not subtle but they have infiltrated Iran in a way even the CIA never has, and their obviousness is part of Israel's general 'fuck you we do what we want you do what you can about it' stance.

[Elvis]

The point of contention is not the power of the Israeli military. It is A) does Iran have nuclear weapons (and what are they going to do with them) and B) the quality of Israeli intelligence.

Israeli intelligence is ideologically imbalanced. It is only after Meir Dagan LEFT the Mossad that he felt comfortable enough to ridicule the notion that Israel should attack Iran. He literally called it "a stupid idea."

This isn't Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, it's more like Planet of the Arabs.

I agree with you about the Revolutionary Guard though. During the first Gulf War, we exaggerated the power of Iraq's 'Elite Republican Guard'.

[Restrat]

I kind of feel like a big strike of any kind would only strengthen Iran, their popularity isn't very high, lots of protests and social problems. If they attacked and took out a bunch of nuclear sites I can only see that ensuring the regime stays around even longer.

[Elvis]

The Iranians would use it to ignore their internal social and political problems and human rights abuses. The Israelis use Iran for the same reasons too - mainly to put off resolving their conflict w/ the Palestinians (while expanding settlements; beginning last month Israel passed a bill for the 'relocation' of 30,000 Bedouins).

[solanis]

if israel strikes down iran, I don't think they would get backlash except from the various terrorist organizations they already deal with. iran is a headache for many nations across the world, and israel would be doing them a favor by dealing with the problem.

[Ragnus]

Why do I get the feeling that Israel is going to bite off much more than they can chew and the USA is going to get dragged into this mess?

[Salodin]

Why do I get the feeling that Israel is going to bite off much more than they can chew and the USA is going to get dragged into this mess?

Even if they don't, our military is going to bank roll any attack via million dollar missiles and satellite usage. Were screwed no matter what...

[Xno Kappa]

As if we're not already involved in this lol. Iran doesn't have shit to offer in a military campaign against the US and Russia/China are just going to wait til we spend ridiculous amounts of cash on it to take advantage, they don't give a fuck about Iran on a grand scale.

[Mazmaz]

I could've sworn I saw Medvedev state that if Iran was attacked, Russia would feel threatened because they're neighbors, but I can't find source.

[djzombie]

I could've sworn I saw Medvedev state that if Iran was attacked, Russia would feel threatened because they're neighbors, but I can't find source.

Something similar.

http://rt.com/politics/syria-iran-nato-rogozin-749/

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin:

“Iran is our close neighbor, just south of the Caucasus. Should anything happen to Iran, should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security,” stressed Rogozin.

[Xno Kappa]

lol

[Churchill]

and the best that can be said of Quds is that they are biding their time as their nuclear program is derailed or so ninja secret no one notices their actions in Israel even though we notice their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and South America and Europe

they can't even defend the most important people of their nation's most important military & technological endeavor and you really think they are some sort of elite black ops institution?
they gather intelligence and fund surrogates and launder money, they've never done anything else of note.

"We" the US, and the rest of the world do notice what QF is up to, they are very, very active in the countries you mentioned especially Iraq from 2005-2009 and continue their action there now creating influence in the Iraqi Government and securing their (Iran's) power in Iraq.

You are a fool to presume you know what X, Y, or Z intelligence/SOF unit is up to because you haven't or have read about it in the paper - just because the Mossad a) doesn't give a fuck or b) is too incompetent to carry out an actual covert mission. When the Mossad overthrows the Government of Iran using words, I'll bow to the Mossad infiltrating in a way the CIA never has. I don't even like the CIA, but Mossad dickriding is an entirely different story.

Find me the sensationalist articles from the news or CIA/NSA releases discussing the QF extreme effectiveness. You won't find it. In today's world of media, that should cause you greater concern for pause.

Why do I get the feeling that Israel is going to bite off much more than they can chew and the USA is going to get dragged into this mess?

The Iranian military is better than people give them credit for, for sure. A bunch of airstrikes may defeat their "nuclear" program, but it won't defeat Iran. The same people who want you to think of Iran as a bunch of dirt farmers are the same people who thought the Palestinians were a bunch of dirt farmers - right before taking all of their dirt.

[Churchill]

lol, did some searching and can only find some recent crap from late last year about an assassination attempt against Saudi, which knowing relations of Iran/Saudi I find sketchy intel work at best.

As far as Iraq, apparently I can expand a bit more - the QF were behind a large portion of US deaths, supplying Shiites and followers of Muqtada al-Sadr with weapons and sophisticated IED tech. They also supplied the training for these devices and how to make them. If you know anything about Iraq, you know Sadr City and the Shiite areas east towards Baqubah and Diyalah were some of the bloodiest and worst areas to go into. There's more, but for now etc.

[Elvis]

One thing about the alleged Iranian assassination attempt is - why kill someone as insignificant as the Saudi ambassador? How does Iran stand to gain?

Eric Holder began pointing fingers at the QF in the first press conference but then our government, in general, backed away from saying the top leaders in Iran (Ayatollah/Ahmedinejad) knew of the attack. Which is not to say it's impossible Iran was behind it, but rather we didn't have the evidence.

[Elvis]

lol, did some searching and can only find some recent crap from late last year about an assassination attempt against Saudi, which knowing relations of Iran/Saudi I find sketchy intel work at best.

As far as Iraq, apparently I can expand a bit more - the QF were behind a large portion of US deaths, supplying Shiites and followers of Muqtada al-Sadr with weapons and sophisticated IED tech. They also supplied the training for these devices and how to make them. If you know anything about Iraq, you know Sadr City and the Shiite areas east towards Baqubah and Diyalah were some of the bloodiest and worst areas to go into. There's more, but for now etc.

I don't know about this. Robert Gates said Iranian involvement in Afghanistan was exaggerated:

In a US diplomatic cable released late last year by - who else? - WikiLeaks, the then US defence secretary, Robert Gates, "noted that intelligence indicated there was little lethal material crossing the Afghanistan-Iran border".

Cowper-Coles agrees. "There is a relatively tiny covert operation by the Quds force of the [Iranian] Revolutionary Guard, sending small amounts of weaponry to some Taliban in the south of the country," he says. "But there is also evidence of the Iranians turning down requests from the Taliban for advanced weapons." The truth is that the Taliban's main supporters are based in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, both western allies about whom Blair has said little.

However, w/ respect to Iraq he says, in 2008:

"I think that there is some sense of an increased level of supply of (Iranian) weapons and support to these groups," said Gates, referring to what the military has termed "special groups" of Shiite militants. "But whether it's a dramatic increase over recent weeks, I just don't know."

Contrary to these claims though:

But a U.S. military task force had been passing on data to the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNFI) command that told a very different story. The data collected by the task force in the previous six weeks showed that relatively few of the weapons found in Shi'a militia caches were manufactured in Iran.

According to the data compiled by the task force, and made available to an academic research project last July, only 70 weapons believed to have been manufactured in Iran had been found in post-invasion weapons caches between mid-February and the second week in April. And those weapons represented only 17 percent of the weapons found in caches that had any Iranian weapons in them during that period.

The actual proportion of Iranian-made weapons to total weapons found, however, was significantly lower than that, because the task force was finding many more weapons caches in Shi'a areas that did not have any Iranian weapons in them.

The task force database identified 98 caches over the five-month period with at least one Iranian weapon, excluding caches believed to have been hidden prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But according to an e-mail from the MNFI press desk this week, the task force found and analysed a total of roughly 4,600 weapons caches during that same period.

The caches that included Iranian weapons thus represented just 2 percent of all caches found. That means Iranian-made weapons were a fraction of one percent of the total weapons found in Shi'a militia caches during that period.

The extremely small proportion of Iranian arms in Shi'a militia weapons caches further suggests that Shi'a militia fighters in Iraq had been getting weapons from local and international arms markets rather than from an official Iranian-sponsored smuggling network.

EDIT:

And forgot this gem about Israeli intelligence. From Fox News too!

[Churchill]

Aid to Afghanistan is low, the Shiite presence in AF is mainly centered in the NW/W areas, and those areas do see some Iranian influence. With AF, it's mostly humanitarian aid (something they also did in Iraq). You can argue this is for the good of Muslimkind or posturing for influence in the Iraqi/Afghani Governments. I don't know of any solid evidence either way, I would postulate it was the latter.

Weapons on the other hand, don't have to be IR made to be from IR. That's a big misconception that looking at hard data without experience in the matter at hand can leave people to believe. Their biggest contribution was teaching Iraqi's how to build these and supplying the copper for them. Among other things

[Elvis]

Yea, the report (providing it's accessible; I could not find it online) - offers a simplistic conclusion.

Iran could just so easily be facilitating the sale of weapons.

[Mazmaz]

Something similar.

That was the one. Thanks.