Thursday, August 19, 2004

Look who's feeling froggy

Aggressive imperialist rhetoric has forced Iran to go postal.

Iran warns of preemptive strike to prevent attack on nuclear sites

DOHA (AFP) - Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani warned that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.

"We will not sit (with arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us. Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly," Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV when asked if Iran would respond to an American attack on its nuclear facilities.

I'm not sure why, but this brings to mind images of Egypt's predident Nasser screaming "Death to the Jews! We'll throw them into the sea!" at TV cameras in 1967 (and while I'm thinking of it, thank you Nasser for inspiring great t-shirts, however inadvertantly).

Even though I have trouble taking this seriously - which could admittedly turn out to be a grave miscalculation - it does provide food for thought. Would a pre-emptive attack by Iran finish polarizing the split between the new west and the neosoviets?

1 Comments:

Blogger Doug said...

You're spot on - and why not? The arguments supporting the theory are every bit as good, I think.

7:53 PM  

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