Iran vows reprisals after bombing kills dozens

“The presence of terrorist elements in Pakistan is not justifiable and the Pakistani government needs to help arrest and punish the criminals as soon as possible,” state TV quoted Ahmadinejad

...and in return will Iran hand over extremists they're helping in Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon?

Lesson to be learned here is this....

There are few nations out there that have clean hands when it comes to exploiting militant groups for their own political gain. The US using Mujahadin in Afghanistan against the Soviets, Iran with their support of Shiite groups in Iraq and Pakistan for their support of various groups.

The irony is all have suffered equally at the hands of similar groups. 911, the Taliban in Pakistan's Swat valley and now attacks in Iran.

The message is simple people. These things always have blowback. And you cannot condemn terrorists and militants in one voice while funding and exploiting them with another.

Play with fire and you get burned. All should stop encouraging this kind of militantism before it gets the better of everyone.

Lesson here to be learned is this..

If you want to justify whatever domestic measures you need to take, whether it is facing UN sanctions or imposing a new security organ called Homeland Security, you should start by blowing up a large hospital or office building. That will help you justify whatever you need to, even if you have just stolen an election.

Class dismissed.

Oh.... and don't forget to blame the other guy, obviously.

Klein2 you are a genius!! But were you one who shouted about "proof" when the Bush Admin were looking for WMD? I hope not. It's a two way street out there.

Back to square one.

I guess watching Iran getting shredded by terrorists could be considered a silver lining to this whole debacle.

I guess watching Iran getting shredded by terrorists could be considered a silver lining to this whole debacle.

Pretty much.

Play with fire and you get burned. All should stop encouraging this kind of militantism before it gets the better of everyone.

I think the better lesson is "damned if you do, damned if you don't." 9/11 didn't happen because of US involvement in Afghanistan, it happened because the US did nothing to stop the terrorist training grounds that we knew existed in Afghanistan. Call it blowback from "non-involvement."

Get involved? Then you have blowback for getting involved.

I think the best solution would be to bring that entire region into the 21st century. Or course, that would mean getting involved....

This story dovetails rather nicely with the claims that were coming out of Iraq a couple of year's ago regarding the Iranian intelligence community helping certain Iraqis build more powerful explosive devices (IEDs, etc). I guess you could call events like this a little bit of payback.

SuperLib. I have to disagree. 911 happened because we empowered Islamic militants with money and weapons and gave them the ability to achieve their first major victory against a super power. Then we followed it up by not being there to help Afghans make a real government when the war was over. All of that resulted in blowback that allowed the Taliban to come to power and gave Al Qaida and others free license to develop camps and prepare attacks.

Had we supported the Northern Alliance post Soviet war there may have been a proper government in place to help rebuild Afghanistan and to keep people like Bin Laden from gaining opportunities there. Remember Afghans don't like outside influences, with a better post war structure they may have been able to face off against and force Bin Laden to go home.

We have done the same in many other places. Bad policies lead to enabling the wrong people to come to power and we pay for it later. Iraq and the deaths on all sides there are results from bad policies. Iran may later regret its support for terror as it helps isolate them at a time where they need allies to achieve their goals.

Pakistan's tolerance of the Taliban is resulting in their losing more and more regions to radicals and setting the stage for their country to become the next Afghanistan if things don't improve soon.

And we have all lived with the decisions of the British with regards to Palestine.

Decisions have consequences. A lot of those can be foreseen if you take the effort to look forward. But immediate desires seem to always overcome common sense and long term thinking. That equals blowback later and we have paid dearly for it.

Pretty interesting post there tkoind. I agree with the analysis in the first paragraph, but after that I think you have somewhat lost the plot. Giving the recent history of Afghanistan, I doubt whether US intervention after the Soviets had been kicked out would have achieved much. Then again, if the West had more strongly supported Ahmad Shah Massoud, things might have turned out differently. If he had not been assassinated by Al Queda, the Lion of Panjshir might have been a strong unifying force.

With regard to Pakistan,I don't think the West should expect much in the way of serious support. The leaders of Pakistan who share podiums with the West have little influence in the tribal areas. The country also has some pretty significant domestic political issues that prevent it being a more reliable puppet of Western interests.

You've been lied to.

Unsurprisingly, you have that backwards.

Hope that the Jundallah will be able to do some damage to the nuclear facilities in Iran, not the peaceful ones of course.

Poor poor Iran. I feel so sorry for the govt. there.

timorborder.

Not US intervention post Soviet War, but US funding and support for the victorious parties. It is true that there would have been divisions within Afghanistan no matter what. But the vacuum that allowed the Taliban to come to power could have been overted with funding, aid and support even for regional leadership by multiple parties.

But instead the US just forgot about Afghanistan and that led to the downfall of the more rational warlords in favor of Taliban who came mostly from the refugee camps of guess where? Peshawar in Pakistan!

It was the Taliban with help by Bin Laden who removed the only other viable leaders and set in motion the events that enabled 911.

We did the same to Shiite rebels in Iraq after the first gulf war leaving them to be mopped up by Sunni rivals. And we do the same again and again all around the world. We choose someone to fight our battle then when we win we drop them to get by on their own.

Iran reaps what it sows - it helps train Hezbollah guerilla tactics against organized military. And Iran threatening to conduct military operations inside Pakistani soil would be hypocritical.

lostrune2. But this would apply to nearly any nation crying foul for this. Iran, Pakistan, the US. Nations use militants to achieve political objectives. We've seen it again and again. Then scream foul when someone else does it to them. Lesson is that this kind of sword has two very sharp edges and none of these nations crying foul are innocent of using the same tactics.

Oh.... and don't forget to blame the other guy, obviously.

It's so much easier to "blame the other guy" when the other guy issues a statement taking credit for the action.

Iran reaps what it sows

And so does every nation.

tkoind2 & yabits,

Oh, of course other nations do it all the time. Just pointing out that it's current Iran's turn, particularly with suicide-bombing.

Oh boy, another conspiracy theorist. Should the US suddenly be gone the next day, who would you place the blame on next? Isreal? and if they were eliminated off the map, who would you blame next? The UK? and if they were gone who next?

Eventually everyone has to look in the mirror to figure out where the true blame lies.

I fear conspiracy whackos from my own country more than Iran.

tkoind2: SuperLib. I have to disagree. 911 happened because we empowered Islamic militants with money and weapons and gave them the ability to achieve their first major victory against a super power. Then we followed it up by not being there to help Afghans make a real government when the war was over. All of that resulted in blowback that allowed the Taliban to come to power and gave Al Qaida and others free license to develop camps and prepare attacks.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't think your argument is very compelling. Staying in Afghanistan would have had another series of unintended consequences that you're not giving any weight to, and not only that you seem to assume uniting Afghanistan could have been done when no one has been able to do it to date. But reasonable people can disagree.

Anyway, this article is about Iran. Perhaps you have some information about Iran that you can share.

I doubt the US or UK had any direct influence on this. Pakistan? Why would they? Got any evidence? Can you show any links? I think the Iranians are just screaming to deflect attention from the fact that they have people in their country with grievences against the government that are so great that they will resort to violence to settle the matter. After all, why would any Iranian want to attack the duly elected regime?

Iran is trying to take people's eye off the ball again. I have a friend who is Iranian and lived through and initially supported the revolution but later had to flee. His comment was that the American response to the revolution solidified Iranians behind the radical clerics and strengthened their hand (as they felt abandoned and attacked by the US). If the US was dumb enough to try to foment a revolution this way it will only drive the Iranian people into the arms of their leaders even if they don't support them.