Iran Catch-All | Economy teeters as its proxies weaken in Middle East

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Caribou said:
I understand why critics of Israel want to ignore the Islamist ideologies of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah which drive basically everything they do because it's an inconvenient aspect of the "Israel bad" mantra, but just because you ignore it doesn't mean it isn't true. Likewise, the settler movement is also based around the beliefs of Jewish Supremacists, who distort their religion as a way to give themselves permission to use violence for their ultimate goal of ethnically cleansing all Arabs from Palestine.

To say what's happening in the region (and what's been happening for hundreds of years) isn't about religion is just nonsensical.
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It's really not been 100s of years .Back when Jews were being kicked out of Christendom throughout western Europe in the 14-1500s, they were welcomed in Muslim lands as being also People of the Book. Even when the Zionist movement started, mostly in eastern Europe, the Jews and Muslims didn't have a lot of conflict. Land and power is a large part of it. The use of religion to claim an ancestorial right to land and use that as a lever to muster Western allies against the Muslims was when religion came into play.

Remember that the Balfour Doctrine ,established after WWI , which established the idea of a homeland for the Jews, was a direct reward to Chaim Weizmann who was the chemist who basically created industrial fermentation to make explosives during that war when Britain was cut of from natural sources. That greatly endangered their war effort. In return, Weizmann, who was head of the Zionist organization asked for his reward. He earned it but it was a quid pro quo.
 
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The reports of impacts from the IDF and journalists is not matching the video record. Seems that both Tel Nof and Nevatim got hit. Wonder about impacts to the aircraft there. Regardless, I think attrition of ballistic assets is going to come in to play quickly. CIA estimates only gave Iran 1200 BM and they just used 1/8 of them. They can't reproduce them quickly. Likewise, the BMDs are already near critical for the IDF. They are reliant on the US and Germany for replacements.

In hindsight, Iran would have been better off to have unleashed Hamas and Hezbollah all in back in October. With them neutered, Iran is now entirely open for the IDF's full range of options. I think this gets much worse before it gets better.
 
How much of Iran's military supply has been sold off to Russia? One positive to Iran getting drawn in to this mess is they won't be able to supply Russia with weapons as effectively I would assume.
 
Caribou said:
I understand why critics of Israel want to ignore the Islamist ideologies of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah which drive basically everything they do
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It's not ignoring them to point out that Islamists are always a minority.

They do have power in Iran right now, but part of the reason why they do is because of western hypocrisy wrt Muhammad Mossadegh. Hamas has power in Palestine too, and again, part of the reason why is the refusal of Israel to provide basic infrastructure to the people in Gaza, and their predilection for cavity searches in the west bank.

Muslims, Jews and Christians lived for centuries in relative peace under Ottoman rule. This isn't about religion.
 
TarSpiel said:
It's not ignoring them to point out that Islamists are always a minority.

They do have power in Iran right now, but part of the reason why they do is because of western hypocrisy wrt Muhammad Mossadegh. Hamas has power in Palestine too, and again, part of the reason why is the refusal of Israel to provide basic infrastructure to the people in Gaza, and their predilection for cavity searches in the west bank.

Muslims, Jews and Christians lived for centuries in relative peace under Ottoman rule. This isn't about religion.
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I've mentioned on old ZZLP threads that my dad was in Iran in the early 70s with the DoD. He came away in awe of the Persian people, especially their poetry. He fell in love with the people and culture. So sad what the mullah's did and continue to do to them and no doubt we share a large part of the blame.
 
TarSpiel said:
Muslims, Jews and Christians lived for centuries in relative peace under Ottoman rule. This isn't about religion.
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That is a poor conclusion. Bosnians, Serbs and Croatians lived in relative peace under Yugoslavian rule. Then the old grudges resurfaced and ethnic cleansing resulted.

I mean, there's a sense in which you are right that it's not about religion. It's not a theocratic debate by other means. But it's about religion in the sense that the various groups who are fighting are defined by their religion, and they define themselves and their enemies in religious terms, or at least in terms that are about membership in a religion.

I just can't see how one can say it's not about religion when Bibi is doing his thing in large measure to placate the religious fundamentalists who are pushing for a Greater Israel.
 
superrific said:
That is a poor conclusion. Bosnians, Serbs and Croatians lived in relative peace under Yugoslavian rule. Then the old grudges resurfaced and ethnic cleansing resulted.

I mean, there's a sense in which you are right that it's not about religion. It's not a theocratic debate by other means. But it's about religion in the sense that the various groups who are fighting are defined by their religion, and they define themselves and their enemies in religious terms, or at least in terms that are about membership in a religion.

I just can't see how one can say it's not about religion when Bibi is doing his thing in large measure to placate the religious fundamentalists who are pushing for a Greater Israel.
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In my opinion, the conflict itself is not about religion. However, there are parties on both sides that have used religion in their justification of their actions and to drum of support. It's also funny that many that are using religion in their justification are not truly religious themselves.
 
RaiGuy said:
In my opinion, the conflict itself is not about religion. However, there are parties on both sides that have used religion in their justification of their actions and to drum of support. It's also funny that many that are using religion in their justification are not truly religious themselves.
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I'm not sure exactly what qualifies as a conflict "about religion." I mean, you could say the Counter-Reformation and 16th/17th C strife in Europe was about religion, but it was also about a lot of other things too.

I would say this conflict is inseparable from religion. They might not be fighting over whether Ali was the true Caliph, but this is a conflict between self-identified Islamists funded by a theocratic state and a government that is beholden to the religious fundamentalists in its coalition. Israel consistently frames the conflict -- not just this war, but the entire conflict dating back 50 years -- as whether the Jewish people have a right to a Jewish state. And of course, the main precipitating event was the migration of Jews to the area after Germans slaughtered them because they were Jews, and the ensuing conflicts.

If this war isn't "about" religion in that sense, then no war is about religion.
 
superrific said:
I'm not sure exactly what qualifies as a conflict "about religion." I mean, you could say the Counter-Reformation and 16th/17th C strife in Europe was about religion, but it was also about a lot of other things too.

I would say this conflict is inseparable from religion. They might not be fighting over whether Ali was the true Caliph, but this is a conflict between self-identified Islamists funded by a theocratic state and a government that is beholden to the religious fundamentalists in its coalition. Israel consistently frames the conflict -- not just this war, but the entire conflict dating back 50 years -- as whether the Jewish people have a right to a Jewish state. And of course, the main precipitating event was the migration of Jews to the area after Germans slaughtered them because they were Jews, and the ensuing conflicts.

If this war isn't "about" religion in that sense, then no war is about religion.
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To me, a conflict about religion is when two sides are fighting because of a difference in religious beliefs. In this situation, they aren't mainly fighting about that. The issue is colonialism, inequality, and land. If Israel was a Muslim or Christian country but still acting the same, the conflict would still exist.

For instance, if Israel was created on land that was empty but happened to be in that area, the conflict would not exist. The current problem was created when Europeans decided to give an already populated land to someone else. That is the core problem. The religious differences became another layer in the conflict, and it plays a part, but is not the root cause, in my opinion.
 
RaiGuy said:
In my opinion, the conflict itself is not about religion. However, there are parties on both sides that have used religion in their justification of their actions and to drum of support. It's also funny that many that are using religion in their justification are not truly religious themselves.
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Religion has been used I guess for millennia to justify behavior. The KKK used the Bible to give cover to their horrid beliefs and actions.
 
Batt Boy said:
I've mentioned on old ZZLP threads that my dad was in Iran in the early 70s with the DoD. He came away in awe of the Persian people, especially their poetry. He fell in love with the people and culture. So sad what the mullah's did and continue to do to them and no doubt we share a large part of the blame.
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For anyone who hasn't already read it, the graphic novel, Persiopolis does a very nice job of covering the pre-and post revolution fallout, in particular the way the Islamists co-opted what had started out as a fairly secular revolution.

The Amazon link above lets you read the first few pages to get a feel.
 
RaiGuy said:
To me, a conflict about religion is when two sides are fighting because of a difference in religious beliefs. In this situation, they aren't mainly fighting about that. The issue is colonialism, inequality, and land. If Israel was a Muslim or Christian country but still acting the same, the conflict would still exist.

For instance, if Israel was created on land that was empty but happened to be in that area, the conflict would not exist. The current problem was created when Europeans decided to give an already populated land to someone else. That is the core problem. The religious differences became another layer in the conflict, and it plays a part, but is not the root cause, in my opinion.
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OK, but why was Israel created where it was, and not in, say, Wyoming? And why won't the Palestinians go elsewhere?

It is my understanding that a big sticking point in the Oslo/Camp David was the status of Jerusalem and the rights of different groups to visit holy sites. That seems to me to be about religion. I remember when Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount and the Arabs lost their fucking minds (which was the intent, Sharon being a worse Bibi). Was that about religion?

And why exactly does Iran give a fuck about the Palestinians? The Palestinians are Arabs. Iran is Persian. Iran is a thousand miles away. You can say that Iran wants influence in the region, but that's question begging. Why does it want influence in that particular region? For that matter, why do the Arab states care about the Palestinians? The real answer, of course, is that they don't because they are monarchies who don't really give a shit about anything, but they feel compelled to put on a show.

I understand that it's not all religious; I understand that the Nakba refers to the taking of land, not the taking of land by Jews in particular. But this is a war where the partisans are 100% divided on religion. On one side there are Muslims and essentially no Jews. On the other side, there are Jews and essentially no Muslims. The United States has typically favored Israel, which can be explained almost entirely by a) Jews having more power in the US than Muslims; and b) Christians root for the Jews for a number of reasons, but most of them have something to do with religious affinity or religious prophecy. So I just don't know how it is possible to say that this war isn't religious in nature.
 
Batt Boy said:
I've mentioned on old ZZLP threads that my dad was in Iran in the early 70s with the DoD. He came away in awe of the Persian people, especially their poetry. He fell in love with the people and culture. So sad what the mullah's did and continue to do to them and no doubt we share a large part of the blame.
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At the funeral of a friend's father, a Southern Baptist missionary spoke about when he was preparing for a mission trip to Iran in the early 1960's. He said my friend's father told him to treat everyone he met in Iran as if they were one of the Three Wise Men who came bearing gifts to the infant Jesus. The man said he followed that advice and his time in Iran was filled with meeting interesting and knowledgeable people who wanted to hear what he had to say. Long ago and far away.
 
RaiGuy said:
In my opinion, the conflict itself is not about religion. However, there are parties on both sides that have used religion in their justification of their actions and to drum of support. It's also funny that many that are using religion in their justification are not truly religious themselves.
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Yea, this is a pretty succinct and accurate expression of my view as well.
 
finesse said:
It's really not been 100s of years .Back when Jews were being kicked out of Christendom throughout western Europe in the 14-1500s, they were welcomed in Muslim lands as being also People of the Book. Even when the Zionist movement started, mostly in eastern Europe, the Jews and Muslims didn't have a lot of conflict. Land and power is a large part of it. The use of religion to claim an ancestorial right to land and use that as a lever to muster Western allies against the Muslims was when religion came into play.

Remember that the Balfour Doctrine ,established after WWI , which established the idea of a homeland for the Jews, was a direct reward to Chaim Weizmann who was the chemist who basically created industrial fermentation to make explosives during that war when Britain was cut of from natural sources. That greatly endangered their war effort. In return, Weizmann, who was head of the Zionist organization asked for his reward. He earned it but it was a quid pro quo.
Click to expand...
 
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