On May 5 2011 for starters, when the Ayatollah and other conservative clerics charged Aqmedinejad and allies with sorcery for claiming to know when the hidden imam would return.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/0...pe=article

There's a whole world out there operating outside the Fox bubble. This is a big step for you; you're welcome in advance.

(01-16-2012 11:21 PM)Max Power Wrote:  On May 5 2011 for starters, when the Ayatollah and other conservative clerics charged Aqmedinejad and allies with sorcery for claiming to know when the hidden imam would return.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/0...pe=article

So, in order to charge them with sorcery for claiming to know when the hidden Imam was going to return, they must believe that the hidden Imam will return. Ergo, they believe in the hidden Imam. Hard to believe something it going to return if you don't believe that something exists.

So, when you said:

Quote:I was suggesting that the Ayatollah doesn't believe the hidden imam folklore, which yes does make him less dangerous.

were you lying or ignorant?

LOL who cares? I said folklore which encompasses the belief the return was imminent, so again a piss poor attempt at deductive logic on your part. And notwithstanding your attempt to change the subject, the whole point here is that the man who controls Iran's foreign policy is not persuaded by the idea that the hidden Imam is coming tomorrow, any more than Bush was persuaded by the idea of Christ's second coming being tomorrow. Now did you lose sight of the issue or were you just being a dishonest neocon like all of your heroes?

And yes I live in America (Peoria, IL, 4 time All American city), no I'm not Muslim, yes I'm white and yes I think neocons have been destroying this country's standing as a superpower with their ruinous foreign policy based primarily on Islamophobia..

(01-16-2012 11:42 PM)Max Power Wrote:  LOL who cares?

Well obviously you don't since you're fine with any and every lie Obama tells.

Quote:I said folklore which encompasses the belief the return was imminent, so again a piss poor attempt at deductive logic on your part.

Wow, what an utterly pathetic attempt to justify yourself when you were clearly wrong. If you had any guts you'd have simply said, "My mistake." and moved on. Instead you pathetically try to justify your completely incorrect statement with that. I'm embarrassed for you.

Quote:And notwithstanding your attempt to change the subject, the whole point here is that the man who controls Iran's foreign policy is not persuaded by the idea that the hidden Imam is coming tomorrow, any more than Bush was persuaded by the idea of Christ's second coming being tomorrow. Now did you lose sight of the issue or were you just being a dishonest neocon like all of your heroes?

Talk about trying to change the subject. I asked you to validate a point you made and you couldn't do it. Not only could you not do it, you doubled down on your stupidity by trying to twist your way into not being wrong. Again, I'm embarrassed for you. Your entire position is based on the incorrect idea you had that the Ayatollah doesn't believe in the hidden Imam. I asked you to support that and you couldn't do it. Therefore your entire point falls apart because you can't support the foundation of you argument.

The point is you have no idea what the Ayatollah believes on this issue. All you know by that article you posted is you know he doesn't like Imanutajob pretending he knows when the hidden Imam is coming. That's all you can definitively say about the subject in any way.

Fool you are destroyed in every thread by those using deductive logic because you are not capable of employing it. You humiliated yourself in the above post. Major, major fail on your part. And what's funny is I truly believe you know it and just aren't man enough to admit it. You've been exposed in a major way in this thread. If you had any shame you'd just shut up and move on. But you don't so I have no doubt you'll keep going.

Fool.

We know the Ayatollah and his clerics don't believe anyone knows when the hidden imam will appear . The theory that his return is imminent is folklore in Iran. This folklore in Iran is rejected by the clerics. No, the whole point of this discussion is that the Ayatollah's beliefs here are not dangerous because he rejects said folklore. I have disproven the theory, introduced by SOAF, that the Hidden Imam story proves the dangerousness of the Iranian regime. It can't if the Supreme Leader doesn't buy the folklore. Am I being clear? Do I need to start drawing pictures?

(01-17-2012 12:05 AM)Max Power Wrote:  We know the Ayatollah and his clerics don't believe anyone knows when the hidden imam will appear . The theory that his return is imminent is folklore in Iran. This folklore in Iran is rejected by the clerics. No, the whole point of this discussion is that the Ayatollah's beliefs here are not dangerous because he rejects said folklore. I have disproven the theory, introduced by SOAF, that the Hidden Imam story proves the dangerousness of the Iranian regime. It can't if the Supreme Leader doesn't buy the folklore. Am I being clear? Do I need to start drawing pictures?

Wow, you tripled down on your stupidity. You're nothing if not predictable.

Keep digging a$$hat. You'll hit China any minute now.

TTJGSA.

(01-16-2012 11:05 PM)Max Power Wrote:  We've already been over that. It's political; Shia supporting Shia. I don't think providing material support to a belligerant group makes one a belligerant necessarily. Iran itself hasn't started a war in modern history, unless you count its own revolution.

Please tell me exactly how many Shia there are in Venezuela or Bolivia?

The bolded part tells me that you don't have any appreciation for how war is done in the modern middle east. There are no wars fought there, only proxy conflicts.

If the Iranian government really cared about Shia as individuals, they would not kill their own citizens with abandon. I don't think you appreciate how much more they identify as Persians than as Shia (my experience with Persians is mostly the non-Shia variety, but I don't ask religious identity when I meet most folks). Their interference in Bahrain has far more to do with geo-political leanings, oil, and regional hegemony than it does about any kind of genuine concern for fellow Shia. The local Shia minority in the Saudi Peninsula is mere leverage, not a primary concern for Iran.

That Iran may not have started a war in recent history may well be more an accident of history than anything else - they have not had the power or reason to do so, and have not had a government predisposed to until the past 35 years. Yet, when you see them develop the offensive wherewithal to do so combined with rhetoric and reaching alliances with similar regimes with anti-western tendencies, looking to the past without those precedents doesn't logically lead you to what they will or may do in the future. Look - if you're right, then you face one of the most well defended nations on earth for a nation that is among the least likely to be invaded to begin with, provided it were not involved in terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation. At a minimum, possessing nuclear weapons allows it to invade its neighbors incrementally with impunity. That is the same reason that Sadaam Hussein indicated (in the love-in days of post-weapons inspection, pre-invasion Iraq) he made a mistake by invading Kuwait before he had nuclear weapons. The problem is that you may be wrong about their intentions, and you seem to support a policy that would allow them to both proceed on their current course with impunity and to know that there is no-one in the world prepared to counter any aggressive intentions that they may have.

There is a gulf of possibilities about what the intentions may be, and a huge range of uncertainty. There is not so much of a gulf about their activities. They certainly have proceeded through some of the biggest obstacles of nuclear weapons development and can basically produce the Uranium for weapons at will. There is no uncertainty there. There is not much uncertainty about their propensity to lie to the international community about their intentions. There is no real uncertainty about their intentions to obfuscate and delay international negotiations to try to minimize consequences and prolong their activities unfettered.

The choices the US can make are (1) to intervene to stop their weapons buildup (including dual ICBM space launch and nuclear weapons payload medical supply production programs), (2) prepare to thwart any offensive actions that the Iranians could possibly contemplate, or (3) do nothing and take it on faith that - even with these activities and their history of terrorism and interference in the affairs of at least 7* neighboring countries - they would never contemplate military action on their neighbors.

Ideally, I would want to see both the military establishment and clerical establishment cut down at the knees ... I think we could easily see a strong, secure, prosperous, and friendly nation in its place. But that's not what we have now. It is trending towards a system like Pakistan where the military is firmly if not irrevocably entrenched in the economy.

* Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, if you neglect Gaza and the Palestinian Authority as a nation

To build a "Little Boy" type U-235 bomb the Iranians need about 150 kg of fissile material or indigenous enriched material. They may have enough U235 already. Little Boy was a simple design- in fact they were scared more of accidental detonation than the design not working.

Getting it to Israel would be fairly easy- Use a standard shipping container (modified with shielding) and put it on a container ship. Offload it in Syria or Lebanon or Egypt and move it overland. Detonate it at the border

There are no wars in the modern Middle East? What about the Iran-Iraq war? Iraq-Kuwait? Egypt-Israel? Pakistan-India? They use proxies; we use proxies. Hell we've used proxies in Iran to overthrow an elected government.

Yeah I'd agree they don't care about Shia as individuals. And I mentioned the Persian-Arab factor before. Hegemony is a motivating factor, sure. The more Shia influence in the Middle East it follows the more Iranian influence there will be; that's why it matters. Not some altruistic reason.

They certainly could have attacked Iraq and had the power to do so. We provided Iraq help to balance out that conflict and insure a stalemate. If they were so predisposed, they would have opened fire (you know, preventive war). Do you not think they had the capability to wage and win war vs Afghanistan and Turkmenistan? If they were so belligerant I think they would have as the opportunity has been there for quite some time.

Their reaching out to anti-western countries like Venezuela is a logical consequence of being isolated by the west. They have no choice. In the last 20 years Iran has made many overtures to America under the Clinton administration through today but we've refused to engage. Just this past month they've expressed willingness to resume nuclear talks and the west dismisses this as a delay tactic. They want to have a voice and be a player on the world stage, and they know the only way to earn that respect is possession of nukes.

Their pursuit of nukes is a logical response to deter western countries from meddling in their affairs (Operation Ajax?), dictating their behavior and otherwise throwing their weight around. And yes, hegenomy over their neighbors.

I'm not disagreeing that Iran is expansionist, seeking hegemony and influence over their region, etc. The issue I dispute is fairly narrow--that there is little evidence they're predisposed to start full scale wars and there is at best highly dubious evidence they are predisposed to starting a nuclear war. No they don't need nukes for defending their country but it's a damn good way to assert their interests. America and Israel have bullied and bribed the Middle East for decades and to think we can continue to do so indefinitely is foolish. We have to find common ground, respect for their culture and Israel needs to learn to live with its neighbors.