U.S. Intelligence on Iran Seen Lacking

Iran Forum

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....storyID=7586008

Same ****, different package...

That's really sad....alot of people's fates depend on accurate intelligence.
So many people have left the CIA recently and are testifying and writing books about how inept the "organization" is.

Call in the Mossad.

Intelligence? Who needs intelligence? What Bush needs right now is another attack on US soil. It wouldn't need to be as big as 9/11, just something that gives him carte blanche to ignore all dissenting voices as unpatriotic.

What is obvious and Blix has just said it, is that any attack on Iran would galavanise the people of Iran against the US (and lets face it, they hardly have much reason to like the USA). Does the US have the volunteers willing to join the forces if America does go to war with anyone else?

At least this time we know for sure that the Iranians aren't going to throw pettles at us if we pound their country into oblivion.

h@ts said:
Does the US have the volunteers willing to join the forces if America does go to war with anyone else?"

How about all of these gas bag war mongers on this forum and so many others like them in the States....why don't they volunteer?...they sure enjoy watching their sons and daughters go over there and fight for them. Time to pay back, I'd say.

And I don't want an attack on our soil, thank you very much.

"America is actually more popular in Iran than we ever were in Iraq" - now there's the statement of the day.

Here a brief snapshot of Iranian/US history:

DEMOCRATIC Iran nationalised their oil industry in 1951, much to the disquiet of Britain and America.

Iran, being a DEMOCRACY, you'd think they could do whatever they wanted with their own oil. But no, so annoyed were the US at this that a couple of years later, the CIA helped overthrow the DEMOCRATIC Iranian government, replacing it with a brutal dictatorship - the Shah of Iran!

So you have to ask yourself why would the FREEDOM loving and DEMOCRACY loving US put a SADISTIC and BRUTAL and UNDEMOCRATIC ruler in place in Iran? Well the very next year, the Shah was doing oil deals with American, French and British oil companies. How's that for a coup!

btw, You may have noticed Bush travelling round old Europe at the moment, olive branch in hand, trying to get support for his little adventure in Iraq. You may also have heard that there is soon to be military action against two more cities in Iraq, just like the Fallujah attack that flattened the city a couple of months ago.

There is some support in Iran for an american intervention since a fringe of the population is very hostile to the mullahs. Iran used to be a country with a western-style way of life in biggest cities and not all opponents have fled the country when Khomeiny and his henchmen seized the power there. What's more a significant part of the youth, the educated one studying in universities, is willing to live in a free society.
But this being said, just look at Lebanon now. Clearly this country is divided into a part of the population hostile to Syria's dictatorship while the other one, under the auspices of Hezbollah, is praising it. All of that in a country that has been through years of a bloody civil war not so far ago - and yet it used to be before this war one of the most, if not simply the most modernized, open-minded society of the middle-east. There are a lot of similarities with Iran.
So an attack on Iran would at least destabilize the whole area even more. With good and bad side-effects - who knows, I am not a fortune teller.

Best solution:

Pro democracy reform from within.

Given the attitudes of the Mullahs, probably a fantasy at best.

Mullahs and democracy are just like matter and antimatter. Put the two of them together and ... you get anhihilation.
The regime is impervious to democratic changes - other than token ones - for it relies on other bases to sustain itself.
Democratic changes might only come from a popular uprising supported by western democracies.

Could the Mullahs live with democracy?

Could they live with a President or PM if they still had some power?

Or do they need all the power?