We Were "This Close" Says Iran

Your TDS rant is nothing but an eye roll to me and your question about how I'd get Iran back to the table is a non sequiter response to my numerous post on the subject of my proposed military action against them.What have I said that leads you to believe I want to get them back to the table?

 

What non sequitur - what does not follow ? I asked you a question "what would you do" What followed was you running from the playground - name calling - to stick head deep in the sandbox of denial.

So if you were President - you would refuse any and all negotiations to stop Iran from getting a nuke. Sounds like TDS to me

 

Trust me: the reports you read about Obama and "billions" are, first, grossly exaggerated and, secondly, the most important progress and the most important military projects by Iran predate the JCPOA or anything relating to it. Indeed, the height of Iran's progress and investment in these projects was during the "Ahmadinejad" years, both when Bush was in power and later when Obama came to power, but well before the "JCPOA". During most of those years, besides the Iranian government (elected branch) and revolutionary guards being on the same page on how to handle most foreign policy and military issues, Iran also had the benefit of hundreds of billions of dollars in extra oil revenues because of very high oil prices which prevailed during that time.

That said, the actual self-sufficiency programs for the Iranian military date back to the Iran-Iraq war, when ideology and the maxim about making virtue out of necessity given the worldwide embargo on sale of weapons to Iran, made Iran start many of its projects. By 1992, many of these projects were already beginning to bear fruit in terms of Iran producing various military equipment.

 

Obama lifted sanctions and gave Iran 1.9 billion dollars. You would be a fool to believe this didn't fund both weapon technology and production. Irans military might is Obamas Mideast legacy.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.csis.org/analysis/us-military-forces-fy-2020-navy?amp


“After years of shrinkage, the fleet is growing as new ships are delivered, particularly the numerous Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) and DDG-51 destroyers. (Rightly or wrongly, the ship count is often used as a measure of Navy capacity.3) The Navy projects that it will hit 296 ships by the end of FY 2019 and 301 ships at the end of FY 2020, up from its low point of 271 in 2015.”

Thank You, President Trump for ending Obama’s ignoring of the military. A strong and capable USN protects America and her interest.

 

Nitpicking a little data about our destroyers, there are several versions of the DDG-51 class destroyers. I don't know why we still call them DDG-51/Arleigh Burke class destroyers because the last Flight I destroyer, the USS Ross (DDG-71), was built in 1997. Since then we've upgraded to slightly larger and more powerful Flight II and IIA versions and last year the keel was laid down on the USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125), which is the first of the new Flight III destroyers.

Furthermore, I think the LCS program is being phased out and replaced by a new class of FFG(X) guided missile frigates, but that program is in its developmental stages and I think some of the funds that were supposed to go the LCS and FFG(X) programs have been shifted over to building more Flight III destroyers.

Of course, we're still building new subs and aircraft carriers. Our newest carrier, the John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), was christened two months ago.

 

My experience on naval vessels was limited to the USS St Louis, USS Denver, USS Tarawa.

The think the St Louis is not in service any longer. She was long in the tooth even back in 1989 when i was in her. Mess duty on her for two weeks sailing from Okinawa to Korea. That was fun!

 

LOL - I bet.

 

You are not even funny and you have to be rather clueless to think like you do. Looking at a "drop in the bucket" and imagining that a small fraction of what Iran has spend just propping up Assad's regime in Syria (conservatively estimated at around $30 Billion) is somehow relevant to anything. And forgetting that various US administrations have asked to see options going to war with Iran, as a result of the numerous issues and incidents between the two sides for the past 40 years, and all have decided not to at the end.

 

It present, no country in the world besides Iran has demonstrated an ability to use ballistic missiles as vehicles to carry precision strikes. None. But if you are fed on the diet of views that believes that Iran, and its 'medieval regime', must be behind others in technological capabilities, and if it can do something, then others can as well, then its natural to find articles like the one below.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinio...-tell-us-chinas-missile-program/#.XlCvwWgzY2w
What Iran's attacks on American bases tell us about China's missile program

 

1.9 billion is a drop in the bucket? I'd call it a windfall that allowed Iran to finance weapons that are meant to and have already killed or wounded thousands of Americans.

 

I am sorry that you are so wrapped into partisan politics that you can't see things straight. But not a dime of the Iranian money that was released as a result of the JCPOA, or the money owed to Iran that you allude to, played any role in killing or wounding American troops (almost all of whom were killed and wounded long before the JCPOA).

The JCPOA was a fraud on Iran anyway and I wish it had never been entered into by Iran. While the biggest fraud from the JCPOA against Iran isn't in the direct economic investment that was destroyed to make that deal, and involves losses that Iran may never recoup, even the direct investment in the thousands of centrifuges, in 98% of Iran's stockpile of uranium which was destroyed, in essentially mouth balling the Arak plutonium facility, and in many other things Iran did to allow that deal to start on the promise of the lifting of sanctions against Iran, cost Iran a lot more than the amount you are talking about.

 

Thousands of US troops were killed or horribly injured by a program instituted by your terrorist General that Trump recently turned into hamburger and obamas 1.9 billion gift to Iran funded that.

 

Repeat from your talking points as much as you wish, but it is a fact that the US troops killed or maimed in Iraq which you allude to were killed and maimed long before what you mention.

As for General Soleimani, he was a loyal soldier of Iran. I am sure he personally neither had the funds nor the equipment or anything else to wage the proxy war against the US occupation of Iraq you refer to and was carrying out Iran's policies in whatever he did and however you like to describe it. Iran's policies in Iraq or elsewhere in the region are decided by Iran through its system of government. The US committed an assassination and a murder of an Iranian General while visiting a foreign country (Iraq) on Iraq's invitation. But when the US had the chance to shoot at Iran itself, under Trump like under his predecessors, the US has simply blinked. You believe otherwise, but that is what the facts show. Clearly and unequivocally.

 

Most of our troops killed and injured by Salami and his supplying tank busting shaped charges were after Obama gave him the funds necessary.

 

Absolutely not. That is false. In fact, by the time of the JCPOA and the money you refer to, the US had already pulled out its troops from Iraq, only to return later (with a much smaller force) to fight ISIS alongside the militia allied to or led by General Soleimani.

This is getting annoying as you seem to have a problem with clear dates and facts.

 

You are focused on Iraq why? Maybe to validate your false accounting of US troops killed by Salami?

 

I was responding to your comment where you said "killed and wounded thousands of Americans" as a result of a deal in 2015. If you weren't referring to the Iraq war, and Pentagon claims such as this one mentioning 600 or so US troops killed (and several thousand wounded) allegedly by forces supplied by Iran during the US occupation of Iraq between 2003-2011, then you needed to have made yourself clear. I am not aware of 'thousands' of US troops killed or wounded" in any theater between 2015 and 2018 but perhaps you can enlighten us on the issue!

 

Why stop at 2018? Salami was just killed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...s-that-haunted-us-troops-iraq/?outputType=amp

 

Soleimani is the general that was assassinated. And I mentioned 2015-2018 to focus on the post JCPOA years under Obama, but you can let me know the "thousands of US troops killed or wounded" in any other theater after 2015 to 2020.

While you look to explain what you meant, I am reminded of this article and I wouldn't count these injuries as part of the equation as they were the direct consequence of the assassination of General Soleimani. The actual numbers eligible for the "Purple Heart" may end up being higher, but even 60 would have been more than the number of US troops suffering any injuries from the US war against ISIS (a war that saw Iran's forces actually fighting on the same side in Iraq and, when the US was aiding and abetting ISIS in Syria, even in Syria).

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...-in-iraq-than-previously-known-pentagon-says/
Nearly 60 service members could be eligible for the the Purple Heart following Iran ballistic missile attack

 

Salami was responsible for hundreds of deaths and thousands of horrific injuries of US servicemen and his efforts were aided and abetted by obama giving Iran 1.9 billion dollars as a gift. Your efforts to limit the discussion of his carnage to a three year time period show your dishonesty in this discussion.

 

I am frankly amazed by what has happened to the standards of political discourse in the US. Even basic facts can be covered up by a slew of nonsense.

The JCPOA and the deal involving the "1.9 Billion" occurred in 2015. I am waiting for information showing "thousands of US troops killed or wounded" following that deal, i.e. after 2015 including up to the assassination of General Soleimani in 2020. Unless somehow the money that wasn't released to Iran in 2015, somehow was used to "kill or wound" US troops between 2003-2011!

Until shown otherwise, and unless we are talking about some fictional world in which Trump supporters live in, the basis for the underlying claim by Trump and his surrogates that "General Soleimani" was responsible for "killing and wounding thousands of US troops" is what was announced by the Pentagon last year as alluded to in this report. And all this predates the JCPOA (in 2015) by several years.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...-in-iraq-than-previously-known-pentagon-says/
Iran killed more US troops in Iraq than previously known, Pentagon says

 

Its the "unavoidable" part worth talking IMO, not the weapons Iran has....

 

Even if, theoretically, such a war would not be 'unavoidable', that would only be theoretical as it would involve compromises that Iran could not make absent the severest duress (i.e., the regime feeling it has no other choice). It is theoretical because if we ever get to that point, it means the regime is on the brink of collapse or defeat, in which case its enemies would probably prefer to let is collapse or lose anyway.

The compromises at issue, would, in any case, deprive the regime of any claim to legitimacy even among its followers, without those compromises being enough to appease other Iranians who don't see the "mullahs" as their best candidates to emulate and follow the West! The regime has only one chance to make all the sacrifices it has demanded and for which millions of Iranians have made, at all justifiable. It must succeed in resisting US/Israeli hegemony in the region and US/Western hegemony at home -- and do so, moreover, by providing Iranians an alternative that they will find acceptable and worthy enough for them to follow. It has neither succeeded in that endeavor so far, nor really failed, as it has been able to do enough to give its supporters some hope it might succeed, while it hasn't done enough to make those who find the whole enterprise hopeless to change their mind.