Wow, is Iran calling the bluff of the Euroweenies? Their reaction should be quite interesting.

If Tehran acts in complete defiance I will be quite surprised.

The Iraq strategy was to stall and prevaricate (lie) and such. Of course what Iraq was doing while stalling is now the big question.

If Iran decides to go this route, an open confrontation, any sophisticated wild assed guesses about what happens next?

Bombs on ALL of their Nuclear facilities .... except the one in Tehran.

That one will require something else.

Three cheers for the power and effectiveness of multi-lateral action and the indispensible influence of the international community, including our undying friends, the French and the Germans!

Hurry, let's hear what Kofi the Asinine has to say! Quick, let's get the considered opinions of Hans Blix-Fix and Inspector Mohammed "Clouseau" El-Baridei! Perhaps they're preparing to sue the Iranians before the International Criminal Court? (I know you don't sue people in Criminal Court, Don, just go with it).

This really is a great day and thank the Lord of your choosing that the UN and the EU are here to show us how to get it done and how John Kerry really does have the better plan.

When ("if" is no longer an issue) this goes badly, I just hope the French and Germans are made to pay as dearly as the rest of us members of whatever "fraudulent coalition" comes together to fix it.

In all seriousness, this has turned into a race -- Iran is betting that, between our need to see things through in Iraq and our unbelievably poisonous political season, we will not be able to muster the needed men, materials and will necessary to confront them before they can get their bomb built. If the CIA was ever going to earn its clandestine ops money, it is now.

Actually, I see it a little bit differently. Mullahs are at the end of their rope and need to conjure up an enemy to unite Iran and reassert their power - everyone knows Israel will bomb their nuclear sites at first provocation...

The one thing I cannot fathom is why Iran is being given so much latitude, euroweasel approach notwithstanding. Iran sits atop one of the largest crude deposits in the world and they need nuclear power to generate energy? 1+1 does not equal 2 here, they must be using Gore math...

The Iraq analogy is false. Unlike Saddam, who agreed tio disarm as a condition of his cease fire, the Iranians have every right to develop nuclear weapons, the same as Israel, the same as Pakistan, the same as us for that matter.

rdelephant

Are you really that stupid or just that clueless?

Chads

That's not very respectful and more importantly it doesn't address the fundamental point. Iran has proposed that the entire Middle East be declared a nuclear free zone. Maybe you can explain why Israel has a right to nuclear wepaons and Iran does not, but you have failed to do so thus far.

I'm not a real big Israel fan, but I can't recall Israel attacking any of its neighbors during Muslim holy days or its government calling for the eradication of Muslims or driving any of its neighbors into the sea. I also don't recall Israel being a state sponsor of terrorism or terrorist groups.

Given that Israel's existence is openly threatened by all of its neighbors other than Egypt (and that's only on paper), all of whom sponsor terror and have openly proclaimed the eradication of Israel and Israel being at a severe population disadvantage, I'd say Israel, annoying as they can be, needs nuclear weapons if only to protect itself from the Religion of Piece.

I am not questioning Israel's right to its nuclear weapons. I just don't see that being a sponsor of terrorism necessarily forfeits a nation's right to nuclear weapons. Pakistan has certainly been in bed with terrorists and it has nuclear weapons.

You don't see that states that sponsor terrorism should be denied nuclear weapons, if possible? I really don't have a civil or respectful answer to such an utterly asenine remark.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons because it developed them surreptitiously before we could prevent them from doing so. A severe choice recently laid before them by Bush & Co. has turned them to cooperate with our anti-terror efforts, at least to some extent. We have the ability to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power and possibly re-opening the nuclear Kwiki-mart we recently closed down with Pakistan. Are you really not able to see the argument in favor of preventing that at whatever cost?

When Iran tried to develop nukes in the past, Israel bombed their program into oblivion. i wouldn't put it past them to do it again.

Sorry, Mr. Khan, but the reactor that the Israelis blew up was in Osirak, Iraq, not Iran.

..mmm another thread about basically its Israel's fought..again it will be the US that will have to deal with this..so be it .. The UN is a collegiate debate society nothing more...disband it send them home .. Iran would be fore warned the cowboy Americans are pretty po`d right now. It might not be in their best interests to provoke us...

rdelephant

I thought after I posted that it wasn't a very respectful comment, but your position warranted it. From recent history do you really want regimes supporting terrorrism armed with nukes? That has got to be the worst foreign policy of all time. Maybe they have a right to them maybe they don't, but they sure don't need em. As for Israel Whenever the threat is past they will probably unilateraly disarm. However, at this point, with most every country in the region hostile to them,(and undeservedly so) having nukes seems a pretty good bet. And, Israel won't be threatening it's neighbors if it's neighbors would just stop trying to eliminate Israel. Nope, Nuclear Islamic nations is just a bad Idea all around. And yes, Pakistan, is nuclear, so is India. But that's very bad indeed. At least by now being "engaged" with Pakistan, we have some semblence of control over their one or two bombs. It's not good when the survival of a good chunk of the planet falls to two third world countries with open animosities and a penchant for shooting at one another.


Chads

I would seem to me that Rdelephant has chosen to be dead right. So, he'll be right, but he'll also be dead. Sure Iran may have a "right" to do whatever it pleases, but what it pleases is to see us dead.

His position can only be based on the Jimmy Carter school of foreign policy. You know: The one that lead to the nuclear arming of N. Korea? The one that lead to increased Soviet adventurism all over the globe? The one that lead to the on going hostage crisis in Teheran?

surely this poster cannot be that completely feckless. Surely not

Actually, skip, redelephant isn't even right. But you're correct. He, and the rest of us, will be dead.

The reason why is simple, rdelephant. Iran is not a representative government. Iran is 99.9% of the population held hostage by the other 0.1% Barring the other moral equivalence nonsense, the other staggeringly obvious reasoning for prohibiting Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is their obvious ties to international terrorism, and their brazen threats to use them against their neighbors and enemies.

Until tinpot dictators quit being empowered to punch above their weight by being given moral equivalency with representative governments by people like the Left and the UN, we will continue to struggle with problems like these, continue to hear ludicrous apologetics for things like Iran's "right" to pursue nuclear weapons, and millions of people will continue to live in destitution without liberty.

I never said I wanted to see Iran with nuclear weapons. I don't. I didn't want to see the Soviet Union or China with them either, but it happened. Not wanting to see something is very different than going to war to prevent it, which is what I presume you all are talking about. I do not see how we can justify an attack on Iran for doing something that eight or nine other nations have done, including us. The alternatives are obvious, negotiation, engagement, deterrence. While I am sure we would prefer to be able to continue just treating them as a pariah nation, the cold shoulder is no longer an option, either it will be hot war, or it will be the above alternatives.

Among the problems with saying that terrorist-sponsoring nations are not entitled to nuclear weapons is that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. By that standard we might have to give up our weapons, since we sponsored Osama bin Laden and pals against the Soviets and the Nicaraguan Contras were nothing but terrorist thugs, to give just two examples.

rdelephant

Is there any reason to beleive that negotiations with Iran would go any better than with N Korea? Or Saddam?

The sad truth is that any "negotiations" with the current regime in Iran will be pointless.

Chads

I am sure that Rdelephant thinks these are cogent arguments for doing what amounts to nothing in the face of this growing threat.

if the techniques the he outlines were effective they would have worked by now. but they haven't so some other alternatives must be pondered.

Negotiation with mad men? good luck

Engagement? What exactly does that mean? Is it something like the behavior of Clinton toward Arafat that brought a rain of death to the israelis? is that the "engagement" you suggest?

Deterrence only works if you're dealing with rational people. the Iranians aren't rational and their policy goal (the destruction of my country) is not rational. Deterrence is based on the premise that a country won't do something belligerent because the consequences would be disaterous. What if the consequences are 72 virgins in paradise? So much for detterence.

///I do not see how we can justify an attack on Iran for doing something that eight or nine other nations have done, including us.///

This is exactly why people should not vote for Democrats this year. Not any year, mind you, but just this year. There is too much at stake to leave it the hands of people who cannot bring themselves to accept such simple truths.

Notice how rdelephant includes "us" in comparison with Iran, putting a dictatorship in the same category as the majority of nuclear armed nations, which are democracies; utterly ignoring what I wrote above.

We can justify an attack on Iran for developing weapons for the same reason we can arrest my next door neighbor for developing nuclear weapons. These people are individuals, and do not represent the people they claim to. Because of that, it cannot be considered a "sovereign nation" that is developing them, but rather individuals, who I might add, have established themselves as a threat to the international community at large. Thus an attack, while not preferred, is certainly justified. An attack on a representative government developing nuclear weapons would be by any standard unjustified, unless, in the case of Germany, for example, that representative government becomes a threat to its neighbors. Representative governments, as a whole, are far more responsible than dictatorships, and should not, should not, be treated as if they are on equal footing.

So, by that same logic, an attack on China would be justified, but for obvious reasons not feasible. Regardless, the goal is to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of those who could not or would not be responsible with them. That time for China has passed. But no one would argue that in an ideal world, that if one nation in the world had nuclear weapons; that they would prefer it to be China instead of the United States or Britain.

"The alternatives are obvious, negotiation, engagement, deterrence."

Okay, smart guy, if this bumper sticker buzzword b.s. is so "obvious" as the answer to the situation, what do you propose to deter Iran with? Bad breath, colorful language, feather duster? How do you "engage" a regime whose official slogan is "Death to America" and whose nickname for us is "The Great Satan"? How can we compete with the French who can't lie down on their backs fast enough if there's a Franc or Euro to be made in getting shafted like the skinny dweeb in a B prison movie?

What do we have to negotiate with, if the credible threat of force is not plainly on the table. We negotiated with a similarly situated fellow for decades and got virtually nowhere until he saw Saddam bombed into his spider hole. Suddenly, Col. Qadaffi couldn't cooperate fast enough or be more forthcoming and . . . SURPRISE . . . he had a lot more than we thought he did and was a lot further along than anybody had guessed. Had Qadafi managed to actual build a bomb, we never would have gotten anywhere with him because he knows we wouldn't risk having our military vaporized and if Iran gets that far, we will never be able to effectively deal with that part of the world again.

This is a serious situation that calls for more than buzzwords and sloganeering.

The way you deter Iran is you tell them that if any unexplained nuclear weapon explodes anywhere on the planet, Tehran disappears. They may hate Israel, but I see no evidence that they are suicidal.

I also reject the notion that only democracies are entitled to nuclear weapons. As great as democracy is, we are not the only nations who enjoy the priviliges of sovereignty. I also reject the notion that only a tiny fraction of Iranian society is holding the rest hostage. Maybe the mullahs couldn't win an election (maybe they could) but I think their popularity is not nearly so narrow as you suggest.

The Iranians have a moderate President in Khatami. They condemned the 9/11 attacks and sent their condolences after the attack. They agreed to permit U.S. overflights for search and rescue missions during the Afghan war. All of this despite being labeled part of the Axis of Evil by our President. Clearly, their support for Palestinian terrorism is troubling, but the Israelis are not without fault in the hardline approach they have taken to the negotiations since Sharon took office. It is here that I was suggesting that negotiations need to be focused, not on the sacrifice of the nuclear option, which I agree is not something the Iranians are likely to give up. There is no reason that we should not be pushing Sharon to put the Barak/Clinton peace plan (which the Palestinians say they now want) back on the table.

There is no reason that Israel should enjoy a nuclear monopoly in the Middle East and it has no God-given right to act unilaterally in imposing its will on the Palestinians.

So you would be willing to take one or more "unexplained" nuclear punches and then eradicate an entire city rather than take the proactive step of preventing "unexplained" nuclear explosions from happening in the first place?

The entire Iraq War has killed less than 20,000 people even if you use the completely unsubstantiated figures thrown out by anti-war activists. Tehran is a city of over 7 million people and you'd just vaporize them? I think that's b.s.-- you'd never do that, especially if you couldn't absolutely, positively, definitively, beyond-any-shadow-of-doubt prove that Iran supplied the "unexplained" bomb. So really, you wouldn't do anything, but you'd still allow this attack to happen.

Unreal.

This must truly be a great country because we are able thrive and succeed despite having to indulge idiocy of this magnitude.

Well truthfully I suspect I wouldn't nuke Tehran without some proof that they were responsible, but there is no way that they can know whether that proof will be available or not. The threat may as well be made broadly for maximum effect. The threat of killing millions is implied in our deterrence relationship with all nuclear powers. What is the big surprise ?

Your September 10th, 2001 mindset is the big deal. You have learned nothing. An empty threat of nuclear retaliation is just more Clintonian ass-covering on an issue where you simply are not competent. Unfortunately, it's an issue of grave importance for everybody. Someday, you'll remember that -- if you survive the first punch.

Gee, swell.

Rdelephant's magnificent rebuttal to my argument is, to paraphrase in summary:

"It is not."

Great. That's why I love this site. You don't actually provide actual evidence for your assertions other than to support my argument by saying that the mullahs couldn't get elected (as if there were something like "a free election" in Iran) all the while telling me I'm wrong.

So let's go over this again: If they can't, as you have stated, get elected, THEN THEY ARE NO MORE SOVEREIGN THAN THE GANGS IN LOS ANGLELES. "Sovereign" nations derive their "rights" from the people. So you can parse all you want about numbers, but the fact is they don't represent the people of Iran.

And as for your breathtakingly asinine idea about wiping Tehran off the map in the face of "unexplained" nuclear explosion, it deserves no further response, but I will say two things:

First, the idea is not to fight a nuclear war or create another Cold War, but to avoid one. You just answered your own question. You are making my point for me. The fact that you even bring this up as a potential scenario in sufficient explanation as to why Iran cannot be allowed at any cost to develop nuclear weapons. You seem to agree with this, yet your solution for this prevention seems to be to wait until millions of innocent people are dead. I have enough confidence in the inhabitants of the civilized world to believe that after 70 years we've learned this lesson well enough not to listen to people like you.

Secondly, you cannot even remain internally consistent within your own posts. First, you give this vague threats against millions of innocent people in Iran, talking about what you will do in the face of mysterious, "unexplained" explosions, then in your very next post, you claim that you will require "proof". Notwithstanding the fact that there may never be proof after such an attack, we have all gotten a platter full of you liberals' ever-unfolding, always increasing thresholds of "proof". The enemy sees your hollow threats for what they are, and I assure you, they would continue to attack and strike at us with impunity.

Brave New World, dude.

I sincerely hope that all those reading this who may be sitting on the fence will seriously consider what rdelephant, TL, and I have written. This is the face of foreign policy ideas that are being celebrated in Boston this week: poorly thought out, relativistic, and lacking in conviction. The stakes are just too high to roll the dice and take our chances.

yes, we simply can't trust the safety of america to those who's prinicipal agenda is some variation on tax the rich and spend spend spend.

These people, as Johnny points out are completely devoid of thought or conviction and should not be given the reins of power.

Not only should we work to deny Kerry the white house, but we should strive to improve our majorities in both houses of the legislature.

Then we should act like the majority party, GD it!!!

You need to study a little international law, Mr. Mozart. Sovereignty does not depend on the will of the majority. The Iraqis have had no elections but they are sovereign. By that standard we would not be sovereign either, since a majority of Americans voted for Al Gore. Since the advent of the nation state, the vast majority have been non-democratic, yet each was sovereign. You are the one making baseless assertions.

As for the Iranians, they have had biological and chemical weapons for some time and despite their support for terrorist groups in and around Israel, it has never provided such weapons to them. I expect that is due to the deterrence of Israel's nuclear arsenal. That same deterrence would operate with respect to nuclear weapons, only in spades.

You guys act like deterrence is some novel concept. Threatening to act and acting have always been two different things. So long as the threat is credible (and I think the threat to meet an Iranian nuke with one or more of our own is highly credible), you never should have to act.

RD, you must be an academic, which would explain a lot.

How do you know that Iran hasn't provided terrorists with chemical or biological weapons, and how do you know that they won't? Why would they be afraid of an Israeli response? Israel would have a hard time proving the source of any weapons, as chem and bio weapons are totally fungible.

You would think that fear of retribution by us would have been enough to keep them from assisting al Qaeda in their attacks on us, or to keep them from fomenting insurrection in Iraq that resulted in deaths of Americans, but it would appear that just ain't so. Add in the virtually untraceable delivery system of a terrorist cell, and allowing Iran to get a weapon that could turn a city into a giant, uninhabitable radioactive ruin is insanity, especially if that could be prevented by conventional military or covert means.

Israel has not been attacked with chemical or biological weapons. In fact, with the exceptions of the Japanese sarin attack and perhaps our own anthrax experience, nobody has suffered a chemical or biological terrorist attack. Thus, we can safely assume that Iran has not provided chemical or biological weapons to terrorists. If it is not deterrence, then what is it that has kept them from doing so ?? You underestimate intelligence in determining the source of a terrorists weapons.

Iran's assistance to al Queda was minimal and they may well have not known what was planned. Their role in the Iraqi insurrection is totally speculative.

Great Scott! How did I miss this?!?

////You need to study a little international law, Mr. Mozart. Sovereignty does not depend on the will of the majority.

Well, rd, don't worry your pretty little socialist head over what I might or might not need to study. You continue to long for the good ol' days when 90% of the nation-states in the world were run by despots and dictators. Things were better then, right?


Sovereign:

1 a : one possessing or held to possess sovereignty b : one that exercises supreme authority within a limited sphere c : an acknowledged leader

So you see, the parallel I drew between Iran and the gangs in LA applies here, doesn't it? Which means your and my whole argument are just semantics, aren't they? You may continue to entertain the failed notion that dictatorships and democracies should be on equal footing, which is why we have the hopelessly inept and corrupt UN and problems like Iran and Iraq all over the world, or you can believe that because their so-called "sovreignty" is by definition, limited in nature, and secondly, because that said sovreignty was obtained illegally, as is defined by current international law; dictatorships cannot be truly considered "sovereign" by the true meaning of the term. And even if it could, only a fool would argue that that is preferable to democracy and should be treated as an equal. Such is the context of the centuries old debate between socialist elites such as yourself, and revolutionaries like myself. The Founding Fathers did not think England was "sovereign" because their government was not derived from the will of the people. The whole founding of our nation was based on the idea that only representative governments can truly be called "sovereign". You historical "precedent" is meaningless. How can you be as educated as you are and not understand this? Stop presenting debatable topics as fact.

Oh, and as for the little jibe about the US not being sovereign: two words:

Electoral College.

Get over it.

///The Iraqis have had no elections but they are sovereign. ///

And here I was thinking they were "occupied". Silly me. Again, funny how the terminology changes when its convenient to do so.

You are the one playing semantic games. International law has long recognized the sovereignty of non-representative governments. It is that ACCEPTED definition of sovereignty to which I referred. I do not consider your definition to be debatable. Among other problems it would mean that there would be no sovereign power over perhaps the majority of the territory and/or population of the earth. It makes international relations kind of difficult if you don't recognize the sovereignty of your counterparts. How would you justify our intervention on behalf of the Kuwaitis in Gulf War I, for example, if they had no legitimate sovereign government. Put simply, by depriving the citizens of these nations of (an often benevolent) sovereign, you saddle them with an even worse state of anarchy, at least in relation to the rest of the world. You also ignore the fact that even without elections, many nations are genuinely supported by their citizens, whether it is through brainwashing as in North Korea, or something more benign, as in China. Do you really have any doubt that the leaders of these countries could win an election ? I don't. So in reality you have turned the ballot into a fetish. You seek to impose YOUR values on others who have no tradition or apparent desire for them.

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