From: Adam Flinton 

Gene McAloon wrote:

> On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 09:04:03 -0500, "Robert G Lewis"

> wrote:
>
>
>>Actually I WOULD expect the Iranians to have increased troops along the
>>border. One reason would be to keep the border secure from US and from any
>>refugees. Another would be to help supply the Shia in Iran.
>>
>>I doubt they would plan to fight the US but things do have a tendency of
>>escalating.
>
>
> I would not and there is not evidence that they have.

There is such evidence. The seizure of the UK boats on the shat al arab was
part of the process. The Iranians are postioning themselves for the day the
Coalition leaves. The border is in places poorly defined & they are
planning to take advantage to Iraqi weakness to make sure the border
definition is theirs.


> There is not refugee
> problem the Iranians have to deal with, so that is out as a reason. There is
no
> threat from the US in Iraq invading Iran. The boobs cannot even control Iraq.
> Nor does giving support to Iraqi Shiites require massing troops on the
border.
>
> On the other hand, massing troops on the border is provocative under the
present
> circumstance at a time when Iran is already under considerable international
> pressure concerning its alleged nuclear weapons development. The last thing
it
> needs is taking an aggressive stance by massing troops along its border with
> another country. That is the kind of thing that initially got Saddam in
trouble,
> especially when he used those troops to invade a neighbor. You can be certain
> Iran is not going to make those obvious mistakes.
>

What crap. Iran knows the US is fully tied down in Iraq & Afganistan
& it is keen to make sure that is as unpleasant an experience for the
Americans as possible such that their public gain an allergy to such
military adventures in the area.

They were helpfull in Afganistan but frankly the US were simply unpleasant
& unhelpfull in return so the Iranians have concluded that there is no
point in being nice to the Americans.


As for massing being provocative....so? What is the US going to do while
it's bound down by the lillipution iraqi insurgents?

I can see that widening the war to the much larger country of Iran &
thus threatening what little stability there is in central asia,
afghanistan & pakistan will be a real vote winner.

BTW that last paragraph was sarcastic.

Adam

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