As General Petraeus informed us months ago, Iran is actively helping out enemies...not only in Iraq but in Afghanistan.
The latest report on this to surface comes via the UK's Sunday Times, which quoted Afghan intelligence and Taliban sources to reveal how Iranian companies in Kabul who have construction and engineering contracts with the Afghan government are laundering their profits through Afghan banks — including Kabul Bank, which is partly owned by President Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmood — to Tehran and Dubai.
As an aside, the Kabul Bank is the Afghan bank US taxpayers are rumored to be bailing out.
From there, the money is sent back to Afghanistan through the Islamic banking system known as hawala to be paid out to the Taliban.
This means the companies involved in funding the insurgency can cover their tracks easily. It makes it harder for us to trace the cash flow," a senior Afghan intelligence official said.
Iranian companies have been established with the intention of winning contracts funded by foreign aid so that donors’ cash could be channeled into the insurgency, the official said. Western officials believe the network may have been set up by the Al-Quds force, an elite branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
The Iranian embassy in Kabul refused to respond to the allegations. But according to the Taliban treasurer, who has been interviewed by The Sunday Times, Iran is paying bonuses of $1,000 for killing an American soldier and $6,000 for destroying a U.S. military vehicle.
Iran has been carrying out acts of war against the US for years now, both using its own forces and through its proxies like Hezbollah.The Iranians, after all successfully pulled off something no other country in history had ever done to the United States, the invasion of our embassy and the taking of our diplomats as hostages.
They have yet to experience any significant payback for any of these hostile actions.
Is it any wonder that their attitude towards America and the West in general is belligerent contempt?
The really bad upside of all this our commander-in-chief in the White House seems content to let this continue and simply kick the can down the road for his successors to deal with.
And that means that when we actually have leadership prepared to deal with this situation, it will be infinitely more dangerous and costly.
For Prez zero to actually do something about Iran would mean he would have to admit he was wrong in the first place about how to handle Iran and what the real problems are in teh Middle East. This is something that this narcassitic loose is never going to do.
ReplyDelete"They have yet to experience any significant payback for any of these actions." Okay,
ReplyDeleteI have two thoughts on this quote. 1.)As long as Iran is backed up by Russia and China the two most powerful nations on earth, it is virtually impossible for us to deliver any significant "payback." 2.)Most people believe the taking of embassy staff hostage and other actions by Iran are the direct result of us supporting the repressive Shah regime and over throwing their government back in the 1950s. Please understand I'm not neccessarily saying I agree with this assessment but it is what most people believe. This includes any of our "allies" in Europe and elsewhere. Until this issue is addressed, we have no support by anyone to deliver "payback."
Didn't members of the Clinton apologize for our actions in Iran back in the 1950s? If so, did they do it simply hoping the whole thing would go away? The point is before we can deliver any significant "payback" we are going to need support and until this issue is addressed in some fashion it is going to be virtually impossible, if for no other reason than our "allies", most of the meida, a significant portion of the American population, and a large number of American government officials believe the narrative expressed in point 2.
Even assuming we can get support for "payback", Iran is a far tougher enemy than Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan ever were or ever could have been. Not only do you have to adress point 1 which is getting the Russians and the Chinese to withdraw their support from Iran or significantly increasing the strength and capabilities of the American military so it is capable of fighting the Russians and the Chinese. You have to address the point 2 which is the information narrative about the conflict.
Finally there is a 3rd issue that will have to be addressed. Singificant sanctions against Iran or any type of military action against Iran will lead to all out war with that country. The American people need to be preapred for the massive American casualties that will be the result of this. Furthermore the casualties will not just be limited to American military personnel. I'm not saying don't deliver "payback" to Iran. I'm just saying all of these issues need to be addressed before we can consider such a thing. I would be interested to know how you plan to address these issues.
Hi Poster,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, we already are at war with Iran, and have been since 1979. Iran is acting on that, we aren't.
Second, neither Russia or China is as powerful as we are, and China is not going to lose $800 billion by going to war with us over Iran.
Third, as to how we handle Iran, I've already given that some thought, aided by some of the active and ex-military who read Joshuapundit. Read this, and keep in mind that it was written almost three years ago but is still completely valid...although it will be useless once Iran actually goes nuclear.
No need for us to invade, occupy and get into another ridiculous 'nation building' endeavor.
Obama, of course would never pull anything like this off. Aside from the fact he generally dislikes the military and the idea of America taking on a Muslim country, he wants a neat n' tidy exit from Iraq so he can thump his chest and say 'look what I did'. From his standpoint, he'd much rather leave Iran for his successors to deal with.
Regards,
Rob
"First of all we are already at war with Iran, and have been since 1979. Iran is acting on that, we aren't." I tend to agree, however, Iran thinks we have been at war since the 1950s since their government was overthrown. Most of the world and and much of the American leadership believes Iran is right and we are wrong. If we are going to be "acting on" that, we desparately need to do something to change the information narrative on this conflict.
ReplyDelete"Second neither Russia or China is as powerful as we are..." Yes they are. They have upgraded their militaries in recent years. This is especially true for Russia who has the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal on earth. While the US spends alot on its military much of this is beuracratic bloat and an over sized officer corps.
"....China is not going to lose 800 billion a year by going to war with us over Iran." I'll explain it this way. If you own a business and you knew your largest customer was going bankrupt and would soon be unable to pay you, you would look to diversify and would probably cut all ties with this customer as soon as is feasible. In addition, if you could, you might actually act to force this customer into bankruptcy so you could purchase his assets at auction. This is especially true if said assets are enough to compensate you for what you are owed. The US has natural resources that are easily worth this much money that the Chinese could seize. So yes they would go to war with the US. In fact, they WANT this war.
Your article on how to deal with Iran is interesting. I find especially interesting the part about why negotiations can't work. Iran is able to get what they want without giving up any thing. This is especially true since Iran is backed by Russia and China the two most powerful countries earth. Also, we can't trust Iran to keep its end of any deal. With the huge scrutiny the US faces from generally hostile media there will be sufficient pressure on the United States to honor its agreements. There currently does not exist this kind of scrutiny on Iran. Before any agreements can be made there needs to be some kind of mechanism in place to ensure Iranian compliance with any agreements. Currently there are not.
Well Poster, we appear to have a few points of disagreement.
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of Russia and China's conventional militaries is highly overrated IMO, although they have definitely improved. General training is also inferior, an important point in today's technological warfare environment.
Russia in particular has the same situation as they did in the Cold War, where they have a handful of elite units with SOTA equipment while most of their military subsists on substandard gear. We saw good evidence of that during their invasion of Georgia.
I suggest you check Jane's or other sources for more info.
Another fault I find with your analysis is the assumption that Russia and China will act together. Not only do the two countries share a long history of mutual war and antagonism, they also share a long border that necessitates keeping substantial forces along it to watch each other.
Also,the US still vastly exceeds Russia and China in the sophistication and training of both its ocean navy and its nuclear forces, although Obama is certainly doing his best to end that state of affairs.The ability to blow up the world several times over is a fairly effective deterrent.
Finally, not only does China not want to lose $800 billion we owe them but their entire economy and prosperity is based on exports to the US - and if we go bankrupt, rest assured we're taking most of the rest of the world with us, including China and Russia, which would face a highly decreased demand for it's oil and gas.
They aren't going to risk that for the sake of Iran.
Of course, you need a strong president in office to deal with that reality and use it to our advantage.
Regards,
Rob