Timmyhawk

TAKE DOWN IRAN NOW Should I put a question mark behind that? Anyway, thanks to Silent Running for this latest piece of insanity:

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Official Threatens Suicide Operations: 'Our Missiles Are Ready to Strike at Anglo-Saxon Culture . . . There Are 29 Sensitive Sites in the U.S. and the West . . .'

Ok, so far this could simply be a European Parliament communique I suppose, but it goes on for quite a bit:

The London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported that "an Iranian intelligence unit has established a center called The Brigades of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening to replace the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Department of Liberation and Revolutionary Movements, which had been in charge of helping and training revolutionary forces across the world." [1] The article went on to report a speech given by an official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, threatening the U.S. with suicide and missile attacks at already-selected sensitive targets, and threatening to "take over" Britain. The following is the report: [2]

Iran Stands Ready to Attack the West

"A source close to [Revolutionary Guards] intelligence confirmed that P.R. has been appointed secretary-general of a new office that has begun registering the names of suicide volunteers to be sent to Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon.

"[The newspaper reported that it had obtained] a tape with a speech by H.A., a [Revolutionary] Guards intelligence theoretician, who teaches at the Revolutionary Guards' Al-Hussein University. [In the tape, H.A.] spoke of Tehran's secret strategy aimed at taking over the Arab and Muslim countries by means of helping revolutionary forces and organizations. H.A. is regarded as one of the advisors of a branch in the organization, and has published a number of works on exporting the [Islamic] revolution and the method of the struggle against the world arrogance [i.e., the U.S.].

"In his speech at a secret conference attended by students who are members of the Ansar Hizbullah movement at Al-Hussein University, [H.A. said]: 'Iraqi oil constitutes 11% of the world oil reserves, and it has fallen into the hands of the U.S. and Britain. The value of the intelligence documents that the U.S. obtained because of its takeover of Iraqi intelligence is greater than $1000 billion.

I sure hope that's true, would make a nice big fat plus under Iraq invasion pro-con balance sheet. But I digress:

"'(President Muhammad) Khatami speaks of the dialogue between civilizations, and I have grave doubts about this. It is a dubious idea. We do not want to take over the British Embassy, since they (the British) have already cleared the embassy of documents; we must take over Britain [itself].'

Come and take your chance ************! I'd personally volunteer to put a bullet in his head and a bayonet in his stomach. Errm, cool it . . . On second thoughts, given our treatment of other enemies I'm not so sure we would really want any more. On the other hand he can't quite leave us out of it can he:

"'Haven't the Jews and the Christians achieved their progress by means of toughness and repression? We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization and for the uprooting of the Americans and the English.
"'Our missiles are now ready to strike at their civilization, and as soon as the instructions arrive from Leader ['Ali Khamenei], we will launch our missiles at their cities and installations.

It's certainly not lacking in clarity. Though the rather disinterested response in the media –i.e.none as far as I know- would give the impression all is fine and dandy with Iran, even as the nutters running the place seem to have rather detailed plans for us:

"In his speech, he added: 'The global infidel front is a front against Allah and the Muslims, and we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front, by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.'

I think for all intents and purposes we can consider this a declaration of war. Whether we should follow this up with a military response is however an issue I'm not so sure of. But all his emphasis on Britain is a bit spooky indeed. The ranting against Israel, America and the Juden is old hat, but this is something that should make us listen up a bit. I had written earlier how Iran's sponsorship of international terrorism and murky activities in Iraq are a problem for Britain, but this obviously takes the whole thing to a new level.
Of course one could say this is all a little ungrateful given that the UK has always pressured the US, and sometimes even quite successfully, to take a softer line with the Teheran nutters and we also have our future head of state dropping by. Additionally we're part of the European trio trying to defuse Iran's diplomatic trouble over its illicit nuclear weapons programme.
I'm still not happy with the idea of attacking Iran however. I don't think we or the US have the necessary forces available. As for diplomatic or popular support: forget it! So, it's a clear no to an invasion. For now.
Thinking a bout invading Iran it strikes me though that one of the advantages with Iran is that a regime change wouldn't need a large-scale occupation force like Iraq. The only problem with Iran is the current leadership. In support of this point I'll refer to Nicholas Kristof on the left and Michael Ledeen on the rigth.
Point remains that this is a very hot trouble spot to watch and as it looks quite clearly now, particularly for our own narrow national security.