Iran's promise: '80 seconds of hell'

Let's begin by looking at some facts.

On Saturday, June 26, only a few weeks ago, two security guards at the Iranian U.N. Mission were expelled from the United States, and allowed to sneak back to Tehran. The State Department says that they were "engaged in activities inconsistent with their duties." Sure. They were spies.

The pair had been observed by the FBI for months moving around Manhattan videotaping landmark buildings and other infrastructure. It took an alert transit police officer to arrest them when he saw them taking video images on the subway tracks. They claimed diplomatic immunity and were not charged with any crime.

In Tehran, as August began, the Islamic Republic's supreme guide Ali Khamenei, was answering questions from a hundred or so Islamic guidance officials, home from foreign postings for retraining. Most of his answers were trite slogans, but when he was asked, "Is our Islamic Republic at war against the United States," he paused before replying. "It is the United States that is at war against our Islamic Revolution."

However, Khamenei's own newspaper was even more direct. Writing this July, it said, "the White House's 80 years of exclusive rule are likely to become 80 seconds of hell that will burn to ashes. Those who resist Iran will be struck from directions they never expected."

To these facts add that an Arab newspaper published in London and Beirut reported that an Iranian intelligence unit has established a center called "The Brigades of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening," controlled by a Revolutionary Guards intelligence officer, Hassan Abbasi. The newspaper has a tape recording of Abbasi when he spoke of Iran's secret plans, which include "a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization."

Missile strikes

To bring this about, Abbasi said, "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." This Revolutionary Guard officer continued by saying, "Iran's missiles are now ready to strike at Western targets, and as soon as the instructions arrive from Ali Khamenei, we will launch our missiles at their cities and installations."

These are facts. Now let's consider the information coming in from Iraq where, day after day, our troops are being killed.


Most of the killing is now being done by Muslim militia -- Shi'ite Muslims -- in the cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Najaf. This militia appears to have some loyalty -- but not much -- to the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, but he is equally obviously not their paymaster.

The militias need weapons, ammunition, gas for their vehicles, food, water and everything else to fight the Iraqi police and our military. Just remember that these are Shi'ites. The Iranians, just over the border are also Shi'ites. So we needn't be surprised to learn that the word on the streets of Baghdad and Tehran is that they are providing millions of dollars every month for the "hot" war against the Americans.

The Iranian Shi'ites have during the past few weeks established relations with the Kurds in the north of Iraq and with the main Arab Sunni rebel group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. And, every alliance is cemented with dollars.

25-year war

Iran has been at war with the United States since the mullahs ousted the shah's forces in 1979.

Iran's war against the United States has gone on for 25 years. It is past time that the ayatollahs, mullahs and imams begin to understand that there are limits to our tolerance and that our military might is by no means exhausted?
www.iranian.ws...

Sorry wrong Link to story above... correct link:
www.iranian.ws...

I highly doubt Iran will make a move, at all. This is just them blowng hot air to make the Extremist feel better about themselves. Extremist probably threaten the governments for not giving any action, once in awhile they say 'America is bad' and the Extremist shut up.

To launch a missile attack on any U.S. city that would actually be devistating would have to be launched from their home land or an allied land. And you could probably count on the worlds biggest parking lot being built from where ever the missile launched. Especially a country with an amount of oil this Administration would love to bite their fangs into and suck dry.

Don't we get these kind of threats every time we are at war with some country?

But instead of talking about launching ballistic missiles, they could be talking about those heat-seeking missile sort of weapon. Forgot what they are called? May be hand-held missles launchers.
We are very vunerable if they ever shot those missiles at us.

Yeah. I highly doubt Iran has missles that are cappable of hitting us, Nukes or not.

And if they did, there would be no Iran left.

Any country that uses a nuke in a hositle attack like what you said Iran was going to do would be destroyed by not only us, but any other country worth a **** on this planet.

A scenario more likely is something similar to what happened in The Sum of All Fears. Missles, on the other hand, is just not realistic for them as of yet. Maybe someday in the future, but not now.

The link isn't working, but I found the report here too :-

www.memri.org...

The threats are old news. The MEMRI article was on 28th May. They don't represent the views of the Iranian government. In fact they were made in a speech criticizing the Iranian President.

As such, while they may represent extremist feeing, they should not be taken to represent the Iranian position. It sounds more like a right-wing/anti-west rabble rousing exercise to me.

"'(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].'

"After [H.A.] harshly attacked Khatami and the reformists, he said in his speech: 'The West sees us as terrorists, and depicts our strategy as terrorism and repression. Had our youth agreed to Khatami's teachings and interpretations, it would never have fought the arrogance, and would never have defended the holy places � because Khatami speaks always of being conciliatory, of patience, and of rejecting terrorism, while we defend [the line of] toughness and war against the enemies of revolutionary Islam. I take pride in my actions that cause anxiety and fear to the Americans.

"'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 civilizationand 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. Our motto during the war (in Iraq) was: Karbala, we are coming, Jerusalem, we are coming. And because of Khatami's policies and dialogue between the civilizations, we have been compelled to freeze our plan to liberate the Islamic cities. And now we are [again] about to carry out the program.'

It seems like the extremists in Iran are a bit annoyed with their Governments pesky dialogue, and attempts to build peaceful conciliatory diplomatic links with the west. The Moderate Khatami government is in a tricky position, with an ever growing pro-democracy movement on the one side, and a desparate but still powerful extremist element on the other..

I guess what I'm saying is don't always take statements like these as :-

1. The truth
   
2. Representative of the Iranian government
   
3. Representative of the Iranian people
   

IMHO I'd say these threats are none of the above.

Originally posted by The Big O
Yeah. I highly doubt Iran has missles that are cappable of hitting us, Nukes or not.

And if they did, there would be no Iran left.

Any country that uses a nuke in a hositle attack like what you said Iran was going to do would be destroyed by not only us, but any other country worth a **** on this planet.

A scenario more likely is something similar to what happened in The Sum of All Fears. Missles, on the other hand, is just not realistic for them as of yet. Maybe someday in the future, but not now.

Why would they want to use nukes against us? The chance of hitting us would be next to none. We have a defense system against ballistic missles, it's called AIRBORNE LASER. They also have ground version. WIth a little of thinking, they could hit us with conventional weapons from inside the US. They could blow up another building or train staion with ease.

Originally posted by jazzmaster
Why would they want to use nukes against us? The chance of hitting us would be next to none. We have a defense system against ballistic missles, it's called AIRBORNE LASER. They also have ground version. WIth a little of thinking, they could hit us with conventional weapons from inside the US. They could blow up another building or train staion with ease.

Could you please provide a link to verify the operational status of these systems? I would like to sleep soundly tonight.

ITs kind of funny hearing people tout about how an attack on the U.S would result in the attacking country being blown to peices. I dont think so. One reason is U.S wether they like it or not have to be the "better" people and not attack civilians. Also people tend to forget how confused and how bad communication and response time was during september 11th, no one even the military had a freakin clue of what to do or where to go, even though they new there where still hi jacked planes in the air.

A 2 way assualt would put a whole in the U.S like you could never imagine, imagine 3 buildings and 2 train stations getting hit from inside, then quick missle attacks (and u.s missle defence truly is not that great, they cant shut enough missles down to stop the attack completely.) You underestimate other forces and over estimate your own. Not to mention you have no idea which country is pushing iran to do this, North Korea maybe? Or china, making your troops consentrate so much on the arab /persian world and then invading tiawan and making America look like idiots becouse they can not aid an allie.

And stop with the whole war on the white people thing, there IS white skinned Iranians, its from the aryans, go to north iran, just past tehran and you will find iranians who have pale skin and osme time pale eyes to. My full iranian grandmother has natrual dark blond hair and green eyes with light skin.

Originally posted by zi2525
ITs kind of funny hearing people tout about how an attack on the U.S would result in the attacking country being blown to peices. I dont think so. One reason is U.S wether they like it or not have to be the "better" people and not attack civilians. Also people tend to forget how confused and how bad communication and response time was during september 11th, no one even the military had a freakin clue of what to do or where to go, even though they new there where still hi jacked planes in the air.

A 2 way assualt would put a whole in the U.S like you could never imagine, imagine 3 buildings and 2 train stations getting hit from inside, then quick missle attacks (and u.s missle defence truly is not that great, they cant shut enough missles down to stop the attack completely.) You underestimate other forces and over estimate your own. Not to mention you have no idea which country is pushing iran to do this, North Korea maybe? Or china, making your troops consentrate so much on the arab /persian world and then invading tiawan and making America look like idiots becouse they can not aid an allie.

I hope Iran leadership does not think like you or they are in for a rude awakening. People might think america only fights like the "better" people and not attack civilians.

What was the only country to use a nuclear weapon in war?

Push America too far and they will not be restrained with such thoughts of being the Better person.

How many nukes will Iran shoot down when they face a response from such a action?

I know there are white-skinned, green-eyed, blonde Iranians because I dated a girl who fits that description when I lived in Washington, DC. I was surprised. She was the one who taught me about Farsi, and from whom I learned my first bits about Iran. There are lots of Iranian-Americans in the Northern Virginia area. It drives me insane reading about the stereotypes of Iranians and gross misunderstanding and Axis of Evil BS people have in this country. Iranians would love to have trade relations with US, in late 90s this was brought up as a possibility. Not only oil, but some of the world's best rugs and caviar.

Originally posted by Mirthful Me

Originally posted by jazzmaster
Why would they want to use nukes against us? The chance of hitting us would be next to none. We have a defense system against ballistic missles, it's called AIRBORNE LASER. They also have ground version. WIth a little of thinking, they could hit us with conventional weapons from inside the US. They could blow up another building or train staion with ease.

Could you please provide a link to verify the operational status of these systems? I would like to sleep soundly tonight.

The ABL is still under testing - however, it would be allowed to go into use early if there were to be a conflict (can't find the link for this, but I assure you it is the case). The problem is, if Iran were to preempt us, we wouldn't have time to get it up and operational. The closest thing I can find to it's status is this:

The goal of the Missile Defense Agency, which has overall management responsibility for the program, and the Airborne Laser System Program Office at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., is to have YAL-1A ready to shoot down a threat-representative ballistic missile by December 2004.

www.de.afrl.af.mil...

The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) is working great, but not yet in deployment.

During a recent test conducted on Aug. 24, 2004 the system shot down multiple mortar rounds, demonstrating potential its battlefield application for to protection against common threats. The test represented actual mortar threat scenarios. Targets were intercepted by the THEL testbed and destroyed; both single mortar rounds and salvo were tested.

www.defense-update.com...
Kind of makes you wish we had Space based lasers doesn't it (if we don't already)?

Originally posted by zi2525
ITs kind of funny hearing people tout about how an attack on the U.S would result in the attacking country being blown to peices. I dont think so. One reason is U.S wether they like it or not have to be the "better" people and not attack civilians. Also people tend to forget how confused and how bad communication and response time was during september 11th, no one even the military had a freakin clue of what to do or where to go, even though they new there where still hi jacked planes in the air.

If Iran were to attack the United States with conventional arms (ie no WMDs just plain old missles and bombs) They would be bombed into the stone age. Think Iraq X 100.

If they went nuclear on us, well, let's just say the world wide demand for glass would go to an all time low.

As to our response time, you forget one thing. Those terrorists hijacked planes - thus NORAD wasn't able to simply identify the threat and neutralize it. If Iran were to launch missles at us, we would see them the moment they were launched. In fact, our missles would probably hit them before theirs hit us (US ICBMs can hit any target in the world in about 45 minutes or less).

A 2 way assualt would put a whole in the U.S like you could never imagine, imagine 3 buildings and 2 train stations getting hit from inside, then quick missle attacks (and u.s missle defence truly is not that great, they cant shut enough missles down to stop the attack completely.) You underestimate other forces and over estimate your own. Not to mention you have no idea which country is pushing iran to do this, North Korea maybe? Or china, making your troops consentrate so much on the arab /persian world and then invading tiawan and making America look like idiots becouse they can not aid an allie.

OK - assuming this isn't a nuclear attack, because if it was then we automatically go nuclear on them - 3 buildings, 2 trainstations? so we loose a few thousand civs. Then the missles come, lets say for your sake 100 missles. Say we only get 20 of them. Of the 80 left, only 50 hit their targets/cause damage.

Total loss of life - 10,000-30,000, depending on the targets.

Iran has effectively commited suicide. At that point we have all of the justification we need to go to nuclear war. And if we decide not to, so what - we take the country in about 3 - 4 weeks, and get to kill a whole lot more of their people then they did ours. We also get a foothold in another dangerous country in the middle east.

Originally posted by The Big O
Yeah. I highly doubt Iran has missles that are cappable of hitting us, Nukes or not.

the shahab-6 icbm will be.

Originally posted by Mirthful Me

Originally posted by jazzmaster
Why would they want to use nukes against us? The chance of hitting us would be next to none. We have a defense system against ballistic missles, it's called AIRBORNE LASER. They also have ground version. WIth a little of thinking, they could hit us with conventional weapons from inside the US. They could blow up another building or train staion with ease.

Could you please provide a link to verify the operational status of these systems? I would like to sleep soundly tonight.

I can't find the link to the manufacturer's page where they have video clips of it shooting down artilerries and missiles, but these will do:

Tactical High Energy Laser / Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser
www.cbsnews.com...

www.globalsecurity.org...

The laser could be in use in 2007

We also have the ABL (Airbone Laser) being developed by Boeing, very cool.

www.boeing.com...

The ABL is not yet operational, guys!

Originally posted by naked_turk
The ABL is not yet operational, guys!

Its not publicly known to be operational. Do you think the goverment tells the public when every military project goes operational

Originally posted by muppet
It seems like the extremists in Iran are a bit annoyed with their Governments pesky dialogue, and attempts to build peaceful conciliatory diplomatic links with the west. The Moderate Khatami government is in a tricky position, with an ever growing pro-democracy movement on the one side, and a desparate but still powerful extremist element on the other..

I guess what I'm saying is don't always take statements like these as :-

1. The truth
   
2. Representative of the Iranian government
   
3. Representative of the Iranian people
   

IMHO I'd say these threats are none of the above.

Bingo. Am I the only one who remembers a bunch of Iranian students getting their arse whooped for taking a stand against the religious radicals just a while back. (i suppose it must have been over a year now- but i still remember it and i dont think it was a momentary lapse of religious zeal. The next generation of Iranians doesn't necessarily buy the right-wing BS, even if they are monumentally upset with what we're doing in Iraq.

Especially if Afghanistan has successful elections and begins to enjoy a prosperous but religiously acceptable lifestyle in the next decade or so (the same in Iraq would be a big help) these Iranian students are going to turn on the crusty old fanatics again, just as soon as they're not pissed at us anymore. All we've got to do is help Iraq and Afghanistan succeed and not start a war with Iran unless absolutely necessary.

They're about to start launching satellites which can open up their communications and media both internally and to the outside world. They're developing a nuclear deterrent which in the big picture is going to breed security and stability as long as moderates are in control. They may soon have US puppets flourishing on either side of their borders. I really think that if they can just survive for another 25 or so years they're gonna be fine.

Of course, if there is a war it's another story. Iran is just big enough to play full contact but not big enough to have a real chance. I think that during Bush's second term he would consider using nuclear weapons against Iran. In fact I think that in a wierd way, neocons WANT Iran to have nukes so that we can get this all over with.
We start a standoff, we drop maybe 10 or less nukes on them, they fire a very few missiles back and we shoot them all down, then say that we were just pre-empting their launch. The effectiveness of a missile shield and the need to expand it are proven, Iran is out of the way, N. Korea is scared to death, and the UN knows once and for all that we aren't listening. Sounds like a neo-con wetdream to me.

Originally posted by RabidGoose
I highly doubt Iran will make a move, at all. This is just them blowng hot air to make the Extremist feel better about themselves. Extremist probably threaten the governments for not giving any action, once in awhile they say 'America is bad' and the Extremist shut up.

We must never underestimate religious fanatics. 9/11 is the product of such underestimating. All threats should be taken as serious threats. I'll never say they're blowing hot air again. We should be othe alert at all times. These people have so called "Americans" fighting for their cause. Now that should be a real concern to all red-blooded Americans!

Didn't I just read a story that said Iran was getting ready to launch its first satellite? If they can put a satellite into space they can hit us. Also how do we know its a satellite and not a tool to deliver a handfull of warheads from orbit?