Pentagon Launches Operation ‘Guardian of Prosperity’ to Protect Red Sea from Houthi Attacks

It didn't need to be military strikes against the French. Some political presure probably would have gone a long way by itself, rather than the US backing the French.

 

In my opinion there are very limited ways Iran might invite a US nuclear attack.

1. A nuclear attack of their own on Israel.

2. An attack on the US proper, such as with an EMP or dirty bomb.

Not to save face after a humiliating conventional defeat. Afghanistan gave us a humiliating conventional defeat and we didn't nuke it. We simply slunk away leaving billions in military equipment.

 

What you say sounds partially sensible, but I see things differently. The long and short of is that pro Israel lobby's center of gravity hasn't merely shifted from the Democratic party to the Republican party; its demographics have also shifted from "liberal Jews" to "Christian Zionists".

 

I sincerely hope you are right. There is zero chance of Iran initiating a nuclear or EMP attack on anyone.

 

I once participated in a DoD planning cell which was tasked with studying possible responses to enemy attacks. One such study involved a very scary scenario. It went like this: Iran is assumed to have about the same number of nukes as China (that's about 60) due to their joint development and production programs. The scenario envisioned Iranian ships, flagged in many countries, each carrying a nuke. They would coordinate simultaneous arrival in US ports and plan a simultaneous detonation of their weapons on both the east and west coasts. Meanwhile, the Iranian ship "Kharg", which was stationed for long periods in the Atlantic to assist Iranian shipping heading to Cuba , as required, would bring SCUD "TEL's "Transporter Erector Launchers" up to its decks. These TEL's would launch SCUDS into the US interior, detonating nukes at altitude to "EMP" the interior of America. Air defense would be ineffective. They are designed to stop incoming threats... not chase threats into the stratosphere. The combined effects of these operations would devastate America,

In order to understand Iran's motivations in such a scenario are key. we must stop thinking that Iranians are like us. They are a THEOCRACY run by radical muslims whose motivation is to get into PARADISE. They have little ambition in this world. This life is just a "foyer" at the entrance of PARADISE. Killing non-believers ("infidels") is the key to getting in. Iran isn't like other nations. It is run by religious zealots that wholly different goals and methods than other adversaries we face.

Russians don't want to die. Chinese don't want to die. The Iranian leadership just views death as part of the process to get to PARADISE... nothing more.

 

"Christian zionists"? LOL What next? Giant minnows? English chow mein? Puerto Rican Mulligan stew?
Maybe trains that run on contrails?

LOL... thanks for the chuckle

 

Having grown up in the evangelical south, I can tell you that evangelical Christians do see Jews as God's chosen people. But again, demography and the influence of religion in US society is in steep decline. From reading this forum, you might have gotten some ill informed ideas that "Christian Nationalism" and "Christian Zionism" are large wide spread movements ready to plunge the US into a dark Handmaids Tale Theocracy.

Instead, they are declining in influence. And by a lot. The percentage of unchurched in the Republican Party is skyrocketing, simply because the percentage of unchurched in the United States is skyrocketing. Religious influence over the Republican Party agenda reached it's high point in the 1980's and has been declining ever since.

And of course, it doesn't matter if the religious have influence in the Republican Party. Although the Republicans are occasionally in office, they are seldom in power. All of the institutions in the United States belong to the Democrats (or visa versa-it's hard to say). The fact that some southern and rural church folk will vote Republican doesn't matter. We just had Trump as a Republican as President who was able to make virtually no permanent change to the US government. His only accomplishments were eliminated on the first day of Biden's Presidency.

What I'm saying is, Republicans don't have any institutional power in the country and that doesn't seem likely to change in the future.

 

I would judge those chances as more than zero, but I hope you're right and I'm wrong.

 

Exactly what they WANT you to think.

 

I agree that East is East and West is West. We don't share their worldview and frankly don't understand it, at least not in the way we did say, a century ago. For some reason we had a better grasp of foreign peoples then unlike now.

I can only hope that US intelligence would be able to pick up on such a large operation as you describe...or they may spend their time chasing the real enemy: Trump supporters on Twitter or Reddit.

 

The part of your post that I found hopeful was the suggestion that the voices I read here aren't necessarily representative. But organizations such as Christians United for Israel have around 10 million members whose votes the Republicans have to compete for. Then there are Jewish right wing big donors like Adelson (or now his widow), the Rupert Murdoch family and FOX, as well as the neocons and their successful outreach into the MIC crowd, along with AIPAC and more. I will take more comfort when I see more Rand Paul Republicans, or Elizabeth Warren types, or generally fewer politicians competing to see who can kneel the best before AIPAC and take best pictures at Jerusalem's wailing wall...

 

The Houthis are trying to stop Israel and the US from destroying Gaza and murder children or at least make it more expensive and dangerous to send more weapons there .The US and Saudi Arabia have commited genocide in Yemen since Obama was president.

 

There was no such defeat of the U.S. in Afghanistan.

 

And then the Houthis teamed with Martians? Was that before or after the Houthis discovered anti-gravity? ("Destroying Gaza and murdering children? You mean like Hamas did to start all this conflict since October?)

 

I'll post this I had posted elsewhere:

Persian culture ultimately represents at its core a deeply mystical, poetic, polite, Zoroastrian and Sufi influenced, otherworldly culture, confronted by a western culture that is blunt (at times even rude), more into prose than verse, form over substance, power over virtue, focused on worldly possessions instead of any otherworldly rewards. There is indeed a clash of civilizations, but the political and religious lines drawn do not demarcate its boundaries properly.

In that clash of civilizations, there are those who (in the Zoroastrian tradition) believe in genuine free will, because they do not see victory (for the side of good versus evil, truth versus falsehood) foreordained or inevitable, particularly in any immediate sense. Our individual choice in the battle between good and evil, rather meaningful (as it can affect the duration of this cosmic battle and perhaps even its outcome). The righteousness of a side not necessarily proven by who has might and who has won.

On the other side, there are those who believe might makes right; all the rest lies intended to merely serve might. Even in their religion, everything already foreordained. The winner (the mighty) the one who is right. Our free will a lie. Until we die.

The ethos of the purely monotheistic Abrahamic religions sometimes encouraged these attitudes, even if Zoroastrian influences permeated them all, leaving divisions within their ranks that were not necessarily about each of their sectarian and denominational differences. That fundamental division more in the spirit than in the form.

I was born into the world dominated by what the west has created from these historical and cultural strains, aware of its impermanence, searching for the one Iran has always promised, hoping to see it one day be able to deliver.

 

Biden's humiliating skedaddle from Afghanistan, coupled with "gifting" of billions of dollars of military equipment to the Taliban is a humiliating defeat our country may never recover from.

 

Like driving a truck over the arm of a ten year old boy because he stole a piece of candy? I watched that on Iranian TV at Camp Caldwell on the Iranian border the night I arrived in Iraq.

You mean like throwing women in jail for not wearing the dictator's mandated headgear?

Yeah... lovely religion...

 

I have no clue what you watched but you can watch Iranian television live from wherever you are on the internet. There are several dozen channels so surf and find the channel you like.

 

Better than an American cop with hardly any kind of education shooting at a big black man, because he got scared and so it becomes a legal way of self defense.

 

What he wrote is preposterous. Article 49 of the Iranian penal code specifically exempts minors from criminal punishment. Human rights groups criticize Iran because (for purposes of the penal code) minors aren't defined by simple age but whether they have reached the age of puberty. For the latter, Iranian law allows the same punishment as for adults, except the punishment is carried out when they have reached their 18th birthday.

 

It was Trump's plan to handover the entire country to the Taliban, while had no plan to how to pull out. Biden was able to postpone it by months and months and months. And this was the best the US army was able to do, after slaughtering around for 20 years for nothing.

 

Children get prosecuted as adults in the US all the time. They also do child mariages. Like 10,000's a year.

 

I know.

 

Article 49, Iranian Penal Code
Article 49 -Children, in case of committing an offence, are exempt from criminal liability; and their correction is the responsibility of their guardians or, if appropriate, the Juvenile Correction and Rehabilitation Center.

 

The Baha’i called and they would appreciate some freedom of religion.