At least for Russia they consider Iran to be a potential enemy. They have conducted military drills in the Caucasus recently simulating an attack from the south against the oil fields.

Funny thing to me is you see some so many people concerned over Iran who does not have a complete program and one way or another probably never will when you have a nation not far away from Iran called Pakistan which does have nuclear weapons and is not exactly stable I mean it would not take much to go wrong in Pakistan for the wrong people to gain control of Pakistani nukes.

Dont get me wrong Iran very much is a very serious threat in the region but it seems to me that an rather unstable nation that really does have nukes and really does have groups within that would like to get those weapons into the wrong hands should be what people are concerned about.It is like watching the suspect looking guy down the street but not seeing the guy right behind you about to hit with a baseball bat.

To allow Pakistan and NorthKorea developing nukes was one of the biggest mistakes in modern history. The region and the whole world pays the price especially over Pakistan. And it could become worse.

The point now is not to let Iran become a second Pakistan. ;) Must we allow to make the saame mistake twice? I don'T think so. In case of Iran, the consequences would be even worse, with a nuclear arms race starting in the most irrational region and one of the most unstable regions in the world. Religous hysteria, racism and supremacist attitude - spiced up with nuclear arms and proliferation threats?

No, thanks. The world can do without an Iran. Whether the world can do with an Iran having nuclear arms - is a very uncertain hope. And hope is no political strategy.

The only casus belli Iran could impose to Russia, is economical, mainly European oil supply. IMHO of course. Russia has been pretty evil with putting the squeeze on its neighbors. Interrupting gas and oil flows over disputes with ex satellite nations.

I honestly do not even understand why "we" even have a dispute with Iran, outside of butthurt over Jimmy Carters cowardice in letting our friend the shah fall.

They do not harm America honestly. Sure they bruise our ego with stupid diplomatic crap, but we are America, and they still stone people to death.

It goes deeper than you've mentioned, but we're in it mostly to protect Europe, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, who would be more in danger with a nuclear Iran. We also wouldn't put it past them to hand off a nuke to terrorist groups that want to hit us.

Iran has killed American servicemen through their proxy Hezbollah, and they spend a lot of time looking for a fight with the US. They've made it clear they want to be in charge of the middle east, which makes the Saudis nervous, which makes oil prices nervous, which makes us nervous. The United States (and western civilization in general for that matter) benefit directly from a stable, mostly status quo world, especially in the Middle East. Iran is a direct threat to that stability, which makes them a threat to Western prosperity.

Notice the area of the crash.

All of the areas it could have crashed in and they found a nice place near Iran's first nuclear plant.

Air wing for protection of Iranian nuclear program perhaps :yep:

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Not much protection. We built the damned things we know how to destroy them. :D

Yea but the Tomcats are based out of Bandar Abbas (their main navy base and home of their Kilos)

Bushehr is home of some of their ship building and their naval academy ( 28°53'48.34"N 50°51'2.79"E). This is the layout of their air defenses around the city:
http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/4255/bushadef.jpg
The Purple Triangle is an SA-5 Site, the Green Square is a SA-6 Site, Yellow are HAWKs, the Red is a HQ-2 (SA-2) site.

Remembered reading that Iran had managed to procure some Russian-built SA-10s from Belarus. In the event of hostilities. I should think those things are of greater concern to the USAF and USN aviators than a meagre fleet of poorly maintained F-14s with equally neglected AIM-54s.

Well they managed to produce some trucks with 55 gallon drums on the back made to look like SA-10s. Not sure how much of a threat they are... :hmmm:

:doh: Do you have pictures of those "missiles" and their "launchers"?

No missiles just launchers...

http://defensetech.org/2010/04/19/ir...lded-together/

Thanks... I agree. That "launcher" setup doesn't look genuine when compared to pictures of real S-300/400 series missile launchers.

were also assuming that they've done this to all their tomcats. That kind of stuff is expensive to do, and very time consuming...and something I'm wondering if they have the technical expertise to do on an air frame that needs high G-loading. A C-130 is great and all, but lets face it, those air frames get a lot less loading on them than a fighter jet. Heck we still have the B-52 G which was introduced in 1961.

The Iranians obviously have the unguided version of the S-300 :DL