Decius wrote: Mike the Usurper wrote: Bush was speaking a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has resisted Western pressure to toughen his stance over Iran's nuclear program, made clear on a visit to Tehran that Russia would not accept any military action against Iran.
This is getting ridiculous. Not that I have any special love for Iran, but from everything identifiable, they are holding up their end of non-proliferation. If we're that damn worried about it, we can set something up for standing watchdogs from IAEA at the Iranian nuclear sites. Of course, that's not the plan, the plan is to blow the crap out of Iran and start a holy war.
I think the rattling over Iran's nuclear ambitions has more to do with their support for Hezbollah and now the Iraqi insurgency... I think you are somewhat falling for their ruse by accepting their argument that they are complying with non-proliferation requirements. The whole purpose of the program is the fuck with the geopolitics of the middle east. This has nothing to do with energy or science. They are playing a game with the U.S. wherein the best bet (which for some reason Saddam didn't get) is to constitute a totally civilian program, allow all inspections and pass all inspections. Obviously they don't need this program; we don't need a space program - it serves political purposes, not energy purposes, and the west knows this. Iran can build it, and discredit the west by passing inspections, and it does actually get them closer to obtaining weapons capability, but they can argue that it is innocent and they have a right as a nation to do it, and they'll win. The west cannot let up pressure, for if they do they'll create a window through which a bomb could be obtained, but they'll find it increasingly difficult to justify the pressure over time. Iranian operatives helped coax the United States into war in Iraq, they maintain the insurgency there, they support hezbollah, who drew Israel into a deeply myopic and failed military action recently, which, combined with a policy of domestic assasination politics, has whittled the democratic government of Lebanon to the point where it may fail. All of this is performed with the implicit support of Russia and China, who are basically engaged in a long term bid to control access to energy resources. There are some people in the US who would like nothing better than to march into Tehran and blast the people responsible for this game to kingdom come. There are many problems with that idea, including what precisely what was announced here: That Russia and China will retaliate and you've got WWIII. Thats been obvious for a long time. Unfortunately, I think Iran has shrewdly played the west like a fiddle for the past few years and we're loosing at every turn. I don't think playing these military games with them is the path to success. I think we need broader cooperation in economic sanctions against Iran because of their support for terrorism. The people of Iran are well educated and worldly and the people of the world ought to be showing them that they do not tolerate financial support for murderers. Furthermore, I think we need to invest more in international energy research projects.
Their "ruse" may be to create a nuclear program by going through all the legitimate steps under NPT, but if they're following the rules under NPT then we need to change NPT. It is gamesmanship? On some levels yes, on some no. Prior to finding the Bushehr field in 2002-3, the Iranians were looking at their fields being tapped out around 2020 making a nuclear program a fully legitimate way to go. With that discovery, it is less so, but since they had already started the investment, what the hell, may as well finish. What is fundamentally wrong here goes in multiple directions. We care about NPT when it comes to Iraq, but not India. Russia on the other hand is playing along with Iran because it gives them a better oil position, while we have no oil position with Iran, and Iraq has turned into a mess so their oil isn't going anywhere. The Chinese have their own agenda, the Japanese are getting involved, and the only people considering a strike on Iran is us (the Israeli's would like to do it but don't have the range to get there). In the meantime, we have a domestic press beating the drums, a national leader whose foreign and domestic policy is a throwback to Benito Mussolini (and Bush has been about as successful as well), appears to be of roughly equivalent sanity as well, and with all of that put together, you're looking at the Richard Nixon Madman strategy, except this guy appears to actually BE off his rocker. You're right, Ahmadinejhad has played this one like a fiddle. If we had an administration that didn't have their cranium fully ensconced within the posterior terminus of their alimentary canal, I don't think we'd be in this mess, nor the mess in Iraq, nor the mess that the balance of trade with China has become, nor the debt/deficit issues, nor... I could go on but the bottom like isn't that they're playing this game brilliantly (they are), but that we're playing it like a bunch of monkeys fucking a football. RE: Bush: Threat of World War III if Iran goes nuclear - Yahoo! News |
