[URL]http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/20/iran.europe/index.html[/URL]

[QUOTE] "We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region," he said. "We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt."[/QUOTE]

here we go....:what

Re: HOLY CRAP did he really just say this>?!?!

nothing new... :roll:

Re: HOLY CRAP did he really just say this>?!?!

Yeah, just wanted to post a thread about this. Actually Ben, it IS something new. The EU has always taken a slightly pro Palestinian position (especially during the PLO era), but now that we refuse to talk with Hamas and have suspended the aid programs, Ahmadinejad starts making threats...

At this point I'm not worried at all about Ahmadinejad trying to impress us tbh. Yes, the region is much closer to the EU than to the US, but that only means that our jets and cruise missiles won't have to travel a long distance if there's an act of agression against one of the EU member states.

All NATO members (or at least most of them) have nuclear weapons on their territory (back from the days of the Cold War) and we'll have our military ready to strike in no time. Rapid deployment is something a lot of EU members have been specializing in during the past years.

So if Ahmadinejad feels like pulling a dirty trick on us, we will have leveled Teheran in two shakes of a lamb's tail...

What does worry me is that it seems that the EU has lost its position as an "impartial" negotiator. In the past most of the diplomatic effort was done by the EU and if these contacts go to shit, the path to an armed conflict will be wide open...

Re: HOLY CRAP did he really just say this>?!?!

your right, but it seems that outside of egypt and the saudis the official governments in the middle cannot grasp the fact that the entire planet is rapidly growing tired of the shit, and is seething at the teeth because we keep trying to give them 'one.more.chance.'' every time they do something like , say, kidnap soldiers, call for death, etc

its going to eventually reach a point where the world leadersship grows tired of it, gets hurt in one way or another, and simply wrecks the region.....

Re: HOLY CRAP did he really just say this>?!?!

That's probably what it will come to yes.

The problem is that the invasion in Iraq and the US foreign policy made us lose our pole position. No matter what we do, we're per definition "the bad guys" in the region. Good news for recruiting fundis, bad news for anyone who wants to try to stop the rise of fundamentalism.

If there will ever be another large scale war (call it WWIII if you want), the ME will be the place where it will start. And this time the tables will be turned as our troops will be regarded as agressors rather than liberators.

Re: HOLY CRAP did he really just say this>?!?!

the hard part for them, is that they truly begin a world war, they will face it from all sides, cornered into a geographic reagion that, in times of real war (not the iraq shit, that aint war, thats fighting), again, in times of real war where rules are thrown out and you do what it takes to win, thier region will be thier end. its conducive to mass bombings from the outside. and for the most part, the region lacks allies outside of its regional borders. only chavez would be for them, and he rapidly losing worldwide support.

Re: HOLY CRAP did he really just say this>?!?!

Truthfully, the EU has been caught between the financial ties many of them have to the arabic region (and the money they're owed by many arabic countries) and their guilt over the holocaust and it's the balancing of these two interests that gave the impression that they are "impartial". Now that the palestinians have a gov't that the people voted for in place that's being quite vocal about non-recognition of the state of israel, the guilt wins out...

Edit: this should've been a response a few posts back ;)

Re: HOLY CRAP did he really just say this>?!?!

I hear you on that sean, but where do you think the asian countries will align themselves if a true world war were to erupt. Some of them find themselves islamic and others find themselves just anti-west, which leaves a lot of questions as to the middle east actually being boxed in.

Re: HOLY CRAP did he really just say this>?!?!

personally, i think asia would understnad that long term peace and goals for the entire planet would be in favor of the so called western nations side. they have seen the true benifits of peace and global economies even with thier varying political and economic structures. china, japan, south korea, india, the phillipenes, all have came into the global view at one point or another and benifitied. while anti west to varying degrees, the true value of peace and prosperity should, i hope, outway the idea of half the world fighting the other half.