Um, is it just me, or did we just have one of those "breaking news, just buried on Page A23!" things happen? We just blasted the f- out of an Iranian Embassy, yes?
Isn't that one of the classic definitions of Cassus Belli, or is there some point of international law that states that embassies in occupied territory don't enjoy their normal sovereignty? Shouldn't this be headline news f-ing everywhere??
19 comments:
Consulate.
Yes, and yes. But Iran also has committed casus belli towards us, so it evens out.
For those of us who haven't done our homework, what has Iran done that rises to that level?
Listening to NPR yesterday on the way home this was commented on heavily, and the commentator (Ted Koppel) was making comments that his military contacts were assuming that we would be a war with Iran by the end of the year.
Causes that were mentioned and that I have been following:
1) The whole nuclear enrichment thing.
2) That Iran and Syria have been supporting insurgents in Iraq, as well as Al Qaeda.
If you follow the past logic and justification for invading Iraq, both of these are "Cassus Belli" for war with the current administration.
The perhaps ironic thing about this is that there have been several large student protests in Iran against the current administration and the current president of Iran (I cannot spell his name at all, sorry - but not the Shiite Islamic leader) candidate slate lost heavily in the last election - just barely holding onto a slim majority against the moderates. Change may happen from within, but if we invade or attack, the hard-liners will sweep the moderates aside. Potentially if we continue to let the hard-liners alienate Iraq from the rest of the world and if the economy there continues to tank - the more moderates and highly educated students may do internally what they did to the Shah in 1979 - throw the old government out and create something new. This new system is likely to be much more favorable to us than the current regime.
More interestingly the same president of Iraq is going to Venezuela this week to talk to Chavez, and since China needs Iran's oil....this scenario becomes a lot more complicated than the news is letting on, at least main-stream vapid US media anyway.
According to the BBC yesterday US officials were saying that "the building did not have diplomatic status" and "quoted Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman as saying ...
'I can confirm for you through our forces there that this is not a consulate or a government building,' "
Is that different now?
Yep, big difference. There's a big difference between our acting against Iran's interests (which I'm all for) or vice-versa, and an overt act of war.
Iran has been known to be supplying trainers and doctrine for the use of advanced shape-charge projectiles specifically designed to target our armored vehicles.
Bang. That's cassus belli.
But the US has to walk a tightrope, because while the Iranian *govt* is one of the world's greatest threats to widespread peace, the Iranian *people*, if freed from the mullahcracy, would be some of our best friends on the planet. There is NOWHERE, paradoxically enough, in the Middle-East as pro-US as Iran.
So we're playing a long game of financial and small-scale military leverage to try to hit our enemies while not alienating the folks who are our friends.
No, I meant:
Are we still saying it *wasn't* an embassy, and therefore is just a normal blast-in-and-take-prisoners?
Amanda: I dunno.
Russ: we developed stuff specifically to target Russian systems, and vice-versa, for decades, but that wasn't seen as an act of war. Why should their developing shape-charges been seen as one? Unless we're using different terms here: I regard an act of war as something that requires another nation to respond or else to lose sovereignty. Interests, prestige, etc. are another matter.
"we developed stuff specifically to target Russian systems, and vice-versa, for decades, but that wasn't seen as an act of war."
Sure it was, hence the massive military buildup and the phrase 'Cold War'. The only reason it didn't result in what you describe is that we had the mutual assured Sword of Damaclesian destruction hanging over us..
(I like when I pretend I know things).
Chris is absolutely right. But it's not just developing: Iran is *delivering* these muntions directly into a war zone, for use against us.
Just like we did in Afghanistan, and they did in Korea, etc etc. Nukes and the threat of more nukes is what kept us fighting on a proxy basis, rather than going head-to-head.
If I may, I have a interjection on that whole shaped-charge thingy. It has a neat acroynm to it, but we just call it a platter charge. You build the bomb so the blast pushed a metal projectile (a platter shaped one) into a flying dart that is damn near plasma hot and going really fast into a small area. Simple in theory, hard to make UNLESS someone trains you. The only ones capable of providing the training are Iranians, as well as some of the more specialized parts required. Much more deadly IED, but much harder to make and therefor much easier to track. And we tracked them back to Iran. So let's give them back with interest.
I am a bit annoyed by these things, the first one ever used was on my Brigade and it killed two of our soldiers by decapitation (the only combat losses my BDE suffered for a whole year). And it was down south, in the Shia areas, near Iran/Kuwait/Iraq border. There isn't a whole lot of Detante on this matter for me.
Where did the Iranians figure this out? I hope this wasn't our old tech left laying around after the fall of the Shah. If not, did they get it from the Chinese?
I'm beginning to wonder if waiting for an internal political solution wouldn't work anyway, since those who still want to see us destroyed won't necessarily be voted out of office in Iran (Revolutionary Guard, security services, etc.) even if the Iranian president loses his next election.
No, it just requires some good engineers. The Iranians have them, and can spare some to train other folks. The Syrians have them, but not enough to spare for training other folks. Other things we can thank the Iranians for are armor piercing sniper rounds for the Russian Sniper rifles (the Russians didn't even bother with this and so far the only guys in the world who have them are Iran, and so when they show up in a raid in Iraq, 2 + 2 = 4 so blatently that even CNN could figure it out (so they just didn't report it).
I am surprised about the AP sniper rounds, that I didn't know. We're talking about the Dragonov SVD rifle, right? I'm surprised that the Russians/Soviets never developed this technology, but then again, maybe they never needed to if I look at the traditional cold war threats.
I am forced to admit though that Iran does have a pretty good science and technology base. Despite the Shiite theocracy that was set up, most of their scientific publications that they publish are pretty good, at least in chemistry anyway.
Yeah, but they are killing it off bit by bit. The higher educated people are leaving Iran in droves so in about 10 more years Iran will be full of a bunch of semi-educated madras-taught morons. I'd like to see them build a nuke then. Of course maybe that is why they are pushing it now.
Maybe not, long-term. I'm seeing more McNews stating that Ahmedinejad is in trouble politically; perhaps Iran might end up coming around after the next big round of elections.
Bah, not if this is centered around college students leading the charge.
I think that the students have a bit more power than we think they do, especially since they outnumber the old by 2:1 or more, but now I wonder about their real ability to change Iran more than just superficially.
Even if Ahmedinejad loses political power, those in the security services and revolutionary guard will not give up power, and so they will continue to support anti-US actions, or accelerate their exporting of mil-tech to our other enemies. Wouldn't even surprise me if the migrate to Syria and/or N. Korea to get the work done.
Some of this though is puzzling - it's part hatred for US and part Sunni vs. Shiite. Iran wants to be a Shiite powerhouse vs. a Sunni Saudi Arabia, but they can only do this if they have the full support of the country, and if they lose that how will they get all the oil to pay for those efforts?
No, apparently he's done a crap job of reaching out to the parliament, including his own constituency. They're not quite yet totally fed up with him, but close.
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