‘torturing political dissidents?”…you got to be kidding right…..

What was it that the great white father US was doing……playing ‘footsies’ with their tortured prisoners…..

What the hell do you care about women anyway….it isn’t as though you respect your own….hell, you can’t even allow them to do what ever they wish to do (ref. abortion) should they wish to do so.

You enjoy having women and young babies on welfare for life while bitching about them at the same time????!!!!!!!

You people need to get a life of your own and quit interfering in the lives of other people.

Germit Singh is right…..you are nothing but a bunch ‘know nothings’

Pay attention to your own country - its going down in debt and will undoubtedly become a ‘needy nation’ expecting the rest of the world to ’supply you with your needs’.

“Patriotism” is exactly how Amadenajad, like Chavez in Venezuela, manage to coerce thier citizens into accepting thier leaders failed economic and social policies. Not surprisingly, Iran and Venezuela have the luxury of a “money tree” (oil revenues), which gives them the flexibility to so badly bungle so many policies.

Iran may be a “proud” nation, but pride is no substitute for prosperity; something that Iran is in very short supply of (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/04/america/tehran.php).

“Solid values”? Give me a break. Subjugating women and torturing political dissidents sounds anything but “solid.”

Iran is NOT iraq and USA is much weaker compared to when attacked Iraq and world support is Zero. It is hard to swallow the truth but thats the fact. Iran is a proud nation built on solid values and not like western style (children don’t even know who is father and who is mother and what is patriotism).

How exactly do you think Iran is supposed to so “easily,” if at all, make the Strait impassable? Do you know anything about past attempts to do even disrupt oil tanker traffic throught the Strait, namely during the Iran-Iraq War? PS, none of them worked.

Making the Strait an “unpassage” is not only nearly impossible, it could quite possibly be completely impossible (Not to mention the fact that Iran, is entirely dependent on oil revenues for national survival, also uses the Strait for exportation of its oil). The Strait is too big to successfully sink even a large oil tanker (even if sinking one was plausible) to block the channel, a threat Al Qaeda has made in the past. Indiscriminate mining of the Strait has not worked either.

Basically, even if closing the Strait was possible, it would be national suicide for Iran not only because of the aforementioned oil revenues,, but also the fact that if they did do so, they would be bombed into the stone age by the U.S. (not to mention galvanizing the support of the plethora of other countries that depend on the Strait in thier energy supply chains).

There are physical/military limitations to closing the Strait as well as economic ones. In this case, “economic” factors also deal with Iran’s national security interests. If Iran cannot sell oil, it’s people will starve, as it has no other viable source of revenue.

One must be careful when falling into the trap of inflammatory rhetoric and the threat inflation often associated with popular theories. Iran, as well as many terrorist groups, rely on grandiose, frightening prepositions that often times have little grounding in thier actual capacity to carry out these threats.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter how many empty threats Iran makes against the Strait. The U.S., and world oil markets, just need to see just how exaggerated many of these threats are and stop falling for Amadenajad’s chest-thumping rhetoric.

-John