Iran is no longer trying to build nuclear weapons, just nuclear power rhetoric. All third-world dictators talk big, so did Saddam. They should be ignored. Israel and Pakistan already have nukes, are they holding the Middle East hostage? The problem with nuclear weapons is that using them is committing national suicide. Iran is realizing that the "status" of being nuclear power is not worth the extreme expense, when they are impossible to use without receiving a retaliatory strike that devastates the country. The only time it was safe to use a nuclear weapon was when there was only one country that had them.
So you believe that Iran is using those reactors for powering homes? You realize this same thing has happened before with Iraq and Saddam right? OK, come back and see me in 10 years when Iran has a nuke. Maybe you can advocate sending Albright over to get a treaty from them.
You don't understand how the world works....I can see that. It's not about using the nukes dude. There is no negotiating with a kook who has bombs. The leverage is gone. Example: Iran sends in hit-squads into Iraq to start car bombing civilians in an effort to destabilze Iraq. What can we do? The kook in Iran has a nuke.......military options are all off the table from the beginning for fear that the guy will use it. He never would but it has to taken into consideration......you don't see that options are limited for leverage in any way if the guy has a nuke? Man, now I know why our country is so screwed up. People just don't get how countries negotiate from a point of power to get what they want.....not weakness. If a madman has a nuke, there is no negotiating from a point of power with Iran. Sanctions work on N. Korea because they have no resources. Iran is sitting on the world's largest oil field. Sanctions won't work either. Man, it's like explaining international diplomacy to my infants.
Hate to say it, but I do agree with LsuCraig's last two points: 1) You can't assume that Iran is not actively seeking to be in possession of nuclear weapons. Even if it is true that they aren't, it is always better to err on the side of caution. I personally believe what an ex-career Special Ops Officer I know mentioned to me -- that we have Special Op teams in Iran right now evaluating the situation to make damn sure they aren't aggressively seeking to be in possession of nuclear weapons. And so we should. 2) You can't assume that Iran's leadership will act logically if they do obtain nuclear weapons. Sure, any country that hits another nuclear-weapon country with nuclear weapons will face nuclear retaliation. But Iran is run by a pretty extreme right-wing government, and as we see from LsuCraig, extreme right-wing people aren't always logical. Even if it is true that the Iran leadership doesn't have the same death wish as suicide bombers and the terrorists piloting the planes during 9/11, it is still better to err on the side of caution.
Not sure exactly what you are referring to, but I do want to point out that the US military and intelligence agencies were all over the Iraq situation just like the Iran and North Korea situations -- and every other situation that threatens our interests. Before the current war on Iraq started, the CIA, military, etc. gave written reports to Congress explaining that Iraq had indeed quit their pursuit of WMDs (in response to military and economic responses to Iraq from the U.S. and U.N.), while explaining that both Iran and North Korea were still pursuing WMDs. If we were truly serious about waging a war on nations pursuing WMDs, we would have gone after Iran and/or North Korea, not Iraq. The entire war against Iraq based on WMD was misleading, I could have easily shown that to you well before the war started. (Side note: to you people that believe in a "liberal" media -- they were misleading the US population just as much as our government was -- had they been "liberal anti-Americans," then the rich Americans in charge of the media wouldn't have played along with our government's misleading of the general US population regarding a war on a country pursuing WMDs). I don't blame the Republicans, because the Democrats knew it just as well, and they went along with it just like the Republicans did. My guess is that the big picture is that our military is reliant on oil (tanks, jet fighters, etc.). My guess is that we invaded Iraq (who has the #2 oil reserves in the world) because it was a lot easier than invading Iran (who has the #1 oil reserves in the world). By invading Iraq and re-building them into a country "friendly" to the US (like Saudi Arabi), it gives us a crucial long-term connection with a very oil-rich state so that we can supply our military with oil in the long term until we can figure out how to keep our military the #1 military in the world without having to rely on oil.
I agree with that. It takes an extremist to understand how another extremist thinks, just like it usually takes a criminal to catch another criminal.:lol:
What I'm talking about is this exact scenario has happened before. Iraq, under Saddam sought, bought and had constructed a nuclear facility from France. Saddam at the time said the exact same thing Iranians are saying....that it was for nuclear power....not bombs. Israel knew, as did anyone with a brain, that Saddam was making a nuke.....just as Iran is doing right now. The Israeli's sent three jets in secret and blew the hell out of the facility. As CIA operatives have said about the incident, Iraq and Iran are sitting on fields of oil. What do they need much more expensive nuclear power for? You know what runs power plants right? Oil, natural gas, coal...........they have huge oil reserves. Nuclear power is complicated and expensive to design, build and maintain. But they are doing it......to make BOMBS. Anyone who says different just needs to read a little because it is incomprehensible how anyone could actually argue this point.......Iraq did the same thing 30 years ago.
IMO, us right-wingers make liberalism possible. Without us working and paying for all this BS, you and your Code Pink friends couldn't turn the lights on.
Another uneducated liberal folktale. My friend, if the wars we have had were over oil, the US would be the world's foremost owner and operator of crude. We could have had the oil in Kuwait if we wanted it. We could have the oil right now in Saudi, Iraq, Iran....anywhere we want. Do we do it? No. We free these people and then turn the oil reserves and money back to their people. I'll never understand people who hate their country so much that they'll fall for Code Pink propaganda. We went to Saudi in the 1950s and showed them how to get the oil from the ground and then turned it back over to them to charge us $100 a barrel and raise terrorists. That's the truth. You and your Cheney hating buddies can find a new conspiracy to latch on to......
There is no long term oil-rich state out there that is a Western power, somebody we can trust because we are cultural brothers and have been Allies so many times in the past. You'd be a fool not to have a long term plan to create a "friendly" situation with a long term oil-rich state until we are realistically certain we can keep our military and economy #1 without oil.
