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Sun Sep 27, 11:15 am ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran test-fired missiles on Sunday to show it was prepared to head off any military threat, four days before the Islamic Republic is due to hold rare talks with world powers worried about its nuclear ambitions.
The missile maneuvers coincide with escalating tension in Iran's nuclear row with the West, after last week's disclosure by Tehran that it is building a second uranium enrichment plant.
News of the nuclear facility south of Tehran added a sense of urgency to a crucial meeting in Geneva Thursday between Iranian officials and representatives of six major powers, including the United States.
Iran test-fires missiles amid nuclear tension - Yahoo! News
This is worrying news. Iran seems to be betting that no one will go to war with them to stop them from gaining nukes. The question is whether they are right in that, as we are not in a good situation to go to another war. I don't think just a bombing campaign would be effective.
Yes and No the real question is how long can Western Power keep Israel from going in an destroying these site along with some of the other Military Sites.
We already know that Saudia Arabia and Jordon will not stop them from flying thru there Airspace.
I personally see a three to four prong attack by Israel not only taking out these plants but hitting their(Iran) Air Defence and Naval Base's.
I have my doubts that Israel would risk this action without first consulting with the United States. I have serious doubts that the US would go along with this.
So, for Israel, is the prospect of upsetting your best ally worth the risk of possibly (and possibly not) causing any delay in the Iranian nuclear program. On top of it all, this is not as easy a mission to simply go in and take out sites as we are making it out to be. Iran has been under this threat for awhile now and unless they are complete idiots have defended their sites. This all assumes that Israel (and the United States) know where the bulk of these sites are to begin with.
The problem is not taking out sites. That can be done no matter how well defended. The problem will be Iran's reaction. They could start firing off missiles, play around on their borders launching strikes, and so on, basically daring some one to actually invade.
What effect do you think this show of strength will have on the talks?
Actual effect, probably very little to none, though of course that is part of why this is being done.
You don't think it'll add another layer of seriousness to them?
This is worrying news. Iran seems to be betting that no one will go to war with them to stop them from gaining nukes. The question is whether they are right in that, as we are not in a good situation to go to another war. I don't think just a bombing campaign would be effective.
What effect do you think this show of strength will have on the talks?
Yes and No the real question is how long can Western Power keep Israel from going in an destroying these site along with some of the other Military Sites.
We already know that Saudia Arabia and Jordon will not stop them from flying thru there Airspace.
I personally see a three to four prong attack by Israel not only taking out these plants but hitting their(Iran) Air Defence and Naval Base's.
The problem is not taking out sites. That can be done no matter how well defended. The problem will be Iran's reaction. They could start firing off missiles, play around on their borders launching strikes, and so on, basically daring some one to actually invade.
I do not believe that Israel has the resources to complete a destruction of all Iranian nuclear plants, "Air Defence and Naval Base's". The most that Israel can do is take out a good portion of the nuclear plants but only with extreme cooperation from us, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and with refueling from us.
Israel can perform a quick limited sneak attack but to take out all trhee of those types of installation let's be serious.
No it wouldn't be a sneak attackit would be a major attack not only taking out the Nuke site but taking out some of there larger Military Base's along with some of their Duel-Use Factorys.
No one's going to a damn thing to stop Iran from going nuclear. The only thing that will provke action will be an attack, by Iran. Even then, maybe.
Iran has been saying it for years: "The Great Satan and the Little Satan are going to be destroyed." They've been showing us their missles. They've played hide and seek with the IAEA for years, many people said oh there's nothing to worry about, now we've heard about a hidden underground site the IAEA never knew about.
If Israel doesn't act, it looks like we're just going to keep dorking around and whining...then when a mushroom cloud appears over some city in Israel, Europe or maybe even the USA people will look shocked and say "whoodathunkit??"
I am disgusted.
I don't think that even the Mullah Hulllahs of Iraniya are stupid enough to actually attack anyone themselves. What scares me is that they would give or sell nuclear devices to the whackiest of the whacks aka Al Queda !!
We very well may have to perform some surgical strikes oursleves. We have that capability. That would not stop the Mullah Hulllahs and their puppy pig Archimedijan or however he spell his names but that would delay the monsters for a long time. The backlash is that the moderates of Iran would move back under the Mullah Hulllahs when we attack them.
Iran has been saying it for years: "The Great Satan and the Little Satan are going to be destroyed." They've been showing us their missles. They've played hide and seek with the IAEA for years, many people said oh there's nothing to worry about, now we've heard about a hidden underground site the IAEA never knew about.
If Israel doesn't act, it looks like we're just going to keep dorking around and whining...then when a mushroom cloud appears over some city in Israel, Europe or maybe even the USA people will look shocked and say "whoodathunkit??"
I am disgusted.
people said that about Hitler, too. Look how that turned out. When it comes to psycho, ass hat dictatorships, nothing surprises me.
Even if they're not that stupid, prudence dictates that we should assume that they are.
Either we fight a total war, or we don't bother with it. I'm tired of all this policeing BS. Either we declare war and roll in killing every living thing, or we leave them alone.
They will not do it themselves they know that would be suicide. They do not have the capability to strike us directly.
As Iran rushes towards confrontation with the world over its nuclear programme, the question uppermost in the mind of western leaders is "What is moving its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to such recklessness?"
Political analysts point to the fact that Iran feels strong because of high oil prices, while America has been weakened by the insurgency in Iraq.
But listen carefully to the utterances of Mr Ahmadinejad - recently described by President George W Bush as an "odd man" - and there is another dimension, a religious messianism that, some suspect, is giving the Iranian leader a dangerous sense of divine mission.
In November, the country was startled by a video showing Mr Ahmadinejad telling a cleric that he had felt the hand of God entrancing world leaders as he delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly last September.
When an aircraft crashed in Teheran last month, killing 108 people, Mr Ahmadinejad promised an investigation. But he also thanked the dead, saying: "What is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow."
The most remarkable aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's piety is his devotion to the Hidden Imam, the Messiah-like figure of Shia Islam, and the president's belief that his government must prepare the country for his return.
One of the first acts of Mr Ahmadinejad's government was to donate about £10 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the pious come to drop messages to the Hidden Imam into a holy well.
All streams of Islam believe in a divine saviour, known as the Mahdi, who will appear at the End of Days. A common rumour - denied by the government but widely believed - is that Mr Ahmadinejad and his cabinet have signed a "contract" pledging themselves to work for the return of the Mahdi and sent it to Jamkaran.
Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect believes this will be Mohammed ibn Hasan, regarded as the 12th Imam, or righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammad.
He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the ninth century, at the age of five. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.
This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus.
Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.
The prospect of such a man obtaining nuclear weapons is worrying. The unspoken question is this: is Mr Ahmadinejad now tempting a clash with the West because he feels safe in the belief of the imminent return of the Hidden Imam? Worse, might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?
The 49-year-old Mr Ahmadinejad, a former top engineering student, member of the Revolutionary Guards and mayor of Teheran, overturned Iranian politics after unexpectedly winning last June's presidential elections.
The main rift is no longer between "reformists" and "hardliners", but between the clerical establishment and Mr Ahmadinejad's brand of revolutionary populism and superstition.
Its most remarkable manifestation came with Mr Ahmadinejad's international debut, his speech to the United Nations.
World leaders had expected a conciliatory proposal to defuse the nuclear crisis after Teheran had restarted another part of its nuclear programme in August.
Instead, they heard the president speak in apocalyptic terms of Iran struggling against an evil West that sought to promote "state terrorism", impose "the logic of the dark ages" and divide the world into "light and dark countries".
The speech ended with the messianic appeal to God to "hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace".
In a video distributed by an Iranian web site in November, Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN.
"I felt it myself too," Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink…It's not an exaggeration, because I was looking.
"They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."
Western officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that "they couldn't believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad".
Their sneaking suspicion is that Iran's president actually relishes a clash with the West in the conviction that it would rekindle the spirit of the Islamic revolution and - who knows - speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that Israel is dying and that its 60th anniversary celebrations are an attempt to prevent its "annihilation."
He spoke hours after President Bush arrived in Israel for the anniversary celebrations.
"The Zionist (Israeli) regime is dying," said Ahmadinejad during a speech in northern Iran. "The criminals assume that by holding celebrations ... they can save the sinister Zionist regime from death and annihilation."
Ahmadinejad used an Arabic word, ismihlal, that can also be translated as destruction, death and collapse.
Iran doesn't recognize Israel, and Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction. Threatening exchanges between Iran and Israel have intensified since 2005, when Ahmadinejad said in a speech that Israel will one day be "wiped off the map." The Iranian leader has also described the Holocaust as a "myth."
"Nations of the region hate this criminal fabricated regime (Israel) and will uproot this fabricated regime if the smallest and shortest opportunity is given to them," Ahmadinejad said Wednesday in an address broadcast live on state television.
Israel considers Iran a serious threat because of its support for Hamas and Hezbollah militants, its nuclear program and its arsenal of long-range missiles, which can be fitted with nuclear warheads and are capable of striking the Jewish state.
Tehran is equipped with Shahab-3 missiles, which have a range of up to 1,250 miles. Israel is about 625 miles west of Iran.
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