blevkog

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Of course you've seen it before - check out this article from Slate for the explanation - they've been dosing on the Ambien and they're just sleep-walking through governance.

i dunno mate. Hamas is very open about its substantial and primary Iranian backing. Islamic Jihad too.
These are 2 of the biggest terrorist groups in the Middle East, so if Iran is the primary backer of the 2 biggest, doesn't it stand to reason they're probably the regions biggest terrorism backer on the whole?

Anything is possible, but as far as I'm concerned, nothing is proven yet. You're right abou Hamas for sure - I've seen reports on that link, but surely the Americans are not going to start a war over Irael/Palestine. Islamic Jihad would be more of a concern, but I haven't seen any proof that link. Not saying there isn't one, just that I haven't seen it.

And if anyone deserves to be called for absolute information this time around, it's the US. They fucked over the UN (that's us, too) last time, and we have every right to have *all* of the information, or knowledge of its lack, before making any decisions this time around.

i think it's pretty safe to say that no other government in the region explicitly backs terrorism as much as Iran. Egypt and Mubarak are all about crack down on the islamists and don't have the kind of money Iran does. neither does Syria. Jordon is basically our friend, and the rest of the countries are to small to really measure up. Except Saudi Arabia and it might give more money than Iran, but its certainly not explicit and direct government policy like Iran; its just pretty hard to control all those rich, bored princes running. then again, that lack of control might be a very good reason for invasion, but given the closeness of US/Saudi relations and the schism that is US/Iran relations, an invasion of Iran is probably the most likely possibiliy in the ME. it certainly does not HAVE to go this way if you ask me though. not at all.

but on the UN, i dunno mate, i think you'd be hard pressed to get it to allow any invasion based on a link to terrorist support. its just not built to properly consider such a justification. It's a sick dog in need of reform and my guess is if the USA wants to attack a country based on threats of terrorism, it's gonna do so and not think to much what the UN thinks about it.

I would not be all that surprised to see Iranian hands in puppets in various countries around the region, but I'd be less surprised if, as you suggest, the Saudi's are more involved in it than they.

The problem that I see is that this terrorism beast is a many-headed hydra and attacking countries that support it just moves it underground for a little while. The only people that benefit in that kind of struggle are the cash cow defense industries.

In the specific case of Iran, I think that the only real hope might be in using a negotiated settlement to buy time. There is a pretty active reformist element there that given the right conditions might take over. Hell, in the late 90's they were actually partially in power for a while. There is every reason to believe that Ahmadinejad is using this manufactured threat from outside to bring political peace within.

Kind of like a certain president south of us, though perhaps a bit more extreme. Or not, I'm not sure.