From the “Please get him away from the press” dept. :)
Joe Biden, known widely for being constitutionally incapable of shutting the fuck up, had this to say regarding a theoretical Israeli strike against Iran to knock out or disrupt their nuclear program.
“[The United States] cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.”
Think about that for a second. Israel, which has a population that roughly rivals the US state of Indiana, whose borders are sometimes only a few miles wide, is free to launch an unprovoked attack on Iran, without worrying about the United States stopping them.
Now I’m not saying that Israel hasn’t come up with some brilliant military campaigns in the past, but they’re also not exactly in a position to call down the entire military forces of all their Arab neighbors on top of them at once either.
Despite divine intervention (and I know some Christian nutcases think their tin god will swoop down from heaven and do just that), Israel would in all likelihood simply start a war it can’t handle with the sole purpose being to drag us in on their side.
Do I think a sovereign nation has a right to declare war on its neighbors? Absolutely. To the point that it can either back up their campaign by themselves or pay the consequences for their own failure.
Clearly Israel is like a person that constantly breaks the law, gets themselves in trouble, and then calls their parents to come bail them out. Israel wants all of the benefits of being an independent state, but none of the liability. (They want to have the United States continuously foot the bill for their arrogance.)
Ideally what the US line should be is ”Knock yourselves out, but don’t come crawling back to us when you get your asses kicked.”, or perhaps a coming of age cake that says “Congratulations, you’re a man now. Don’t call us if you get thrown in jail. Love, Mom and Dad.” :P
You need to look up the word “dictate.” We, actually, can’t dictate to any country what they must do. We can only suggest, convince, pressure, and then I guess we could attack or ignore. Dictating, or trying to, would only make us, or any other country trying to do it, look like complete idiots and secondly we would not be respecting their sovereignty.
Instead of dictating anything what we should be doing is pressuring them to stay away because if they don’t they won’t receive any of our aid anymore. Dictating doesn’t work.
Comment by Godless American — July 6, 2009 @ 12:52 am
I could have clarified better I suppose.
If we made it clear to Israel that we would not back them up with direct support at our expense should things go poorly for them, it would have the effect of stopping them.
Comment by Ryan — July 6, 2009 @ 1:03 am
Pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iran and the consequences:
Yes, Israel may attack Iran. Vice-President Biden said so. But would USA join in and support Israel as we did for Sadam Hossein? What would be the consequence of this attack?
First of all it will unify the Iranian people in one voice against Israel and USA, count on it.
Second, the attack will not stop there; it will drag the entire region into an anti-American union against USA-England and Israel.
The attack will create a very powerful force of dedicated people with one purpose to remove Israel and USA from the region. The attack will be seen as a coordinated attack by USA using Israel as a surrogate.
The attack of Sadam Hossein on Iran consolidated Iranian and their government into a united force after1979 revolution. USA must think through the long term implication of a foolish attack on Iran before removing the leash from Israel. We have been in war in both Iraq and Afghanistan for about 7 years; count on a regional war for half-century. USA has been paying the price for our 1953 attack on the Iranian nation.
Comment by stmichaeltraveler — July 7, 2009 @ 1:11 am
We’ve actually been at “war” for far longer than the entire duration of World War II (including the first few years where we were “neutral” and Hitler was “Europe’s problem”).
these third world terrorist networks have the advantage of being decentralized, well trained, fully willing to sacrifice 20 of their own lives to take out one US soldier if needs be.
We have the disadvantages of supply logistics, money spent, and the fact that if we fuck up and kill the civilians that the terrorists were using as human shields, they’ll just blame us for the whole thing and recruit the survivors of those villages.
Comment by Ryan — July 7, 2009 @ 1:48 am