Iran's Ahmadinejad Requests Meeting With Pope

[kujo]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1554198' date='Jun 2 2008, 12:39 PM']Ya, that kinda cracks me up. The entire area is swimming in oil, but he claims that they need fuel. Nuclear fuel.
...right.[/quote]

Haha. Never thought of it like that.

[geauxsaints26]

Iran getting a Nuke is not so much a concern for me. It's their influence in Iraq that has my attention, and I'm not talking about them solely supplying Anti-American Shiite groups with weapons. They have such a huge influence over Iraq in major areas of the Iraqi Gov. The Iranians have almost as much influence on how Iraq sets policy, whether its economic policy or foreign policy, as the U.S. does if not more. When you read about alot of these Iraqi top guys they were in previous years Iranian sympathizers. It's the whole reason Saddam went in and had to kick Iranian butt in the 80's. They were meddling too much in Iraq when Saddam was in power. They had Shiite resistance groups in Iraq back during Saddams time and were trying to covertly influence the gov back then.

The Ayatollahs have had imperialistic aspirations for 20 plus years. It's a perspective that the entire shiite region belongs to them, there are no national borders only religious ones, and even those borders are destined for an expansionist policy. I really don't know how we could limit their influence in Iraq other than propping up a strong Sunni dominated central gov ala Saddam, or if the Iraqi people would go through a miraculous national pride episode that supercedes each Iraqis religion or tribal background. Iran is in some sense pitting the faith of Iraqi Shiites and tribal loyalties against Iraqi nationalism. Sorry for the rant

[kujo]

[quote name='geauxsaints26' post='1556447' date='Jun 3 2008, 08:10 PM']Iran getting a Nuke is not so much a concern for me. It's their influence in Iraq that has my attention, and I'm not talking about them solely supplying Anti-American Shiite groups with weapons. They have such a huge influence over Iraq in major areas of the Iraqi Gov. The Iranians have almost as much influence on how Iraq sets policy, whether its economic policy or foreign policy, as the U.S. does if not more. When you read about alot of these Iraqi top guys they were in previous years Iranian sympathizers. It's the whole reason Saddam went in and had to kick Iranian butt in the 80's. They were meddling too much in Iraq when Saddam was in power. They had Shiite resistance groups in Iraq back during Saddams time and were trying to covertly influence the gov back then.

The Ayatollahs have had imperialistic aspirations for 20 plus years. It's a perspective that the entire shiite region belongs to them, there are no national borders only religious ones, and even those borders are destined for an expansionist policy. I really don't know how we could limit their influence in Iraq other than propping up a strong Sunni dominated central gov ala Saddam, or if the Iraqi people would go through a miraculous national pride episode that supercedes each Iraqis religion or tribal background. Iran is in some sense pitting the faith of Iraqi Shiites and tribal loyalties against Iraqi nationalism. Sorry for the rant [/quote]

One of the many reasons Iran's power in the region must be checked. You can bet that nukes would increase their power beyond what they already enjoy. Good analysis dude!