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An Inside Look At Iran's Nuclear Program
NotBornYesterday writes "On April 8, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited his country's secretive nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz for a photo op. What came out of this visit is a series of photos which have caused a fair amount of interest among western scientists. Shown in the photos are not only some of the inner workings of the plant and current generation of enrichment centrifuges, but also key components to newer generations of more effective centrifuges. Analysts are 'intrigued' not only by the technical revelations in the pictures, but also because Iran's Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar accompanied Ahmadinejad through the facility."
Way before the invasion of iraq we heard alot of how bad iraq was with their WMD:s and their connections to terrorism. And now what? No WMD:s no connection what so ever to al'quaida and what is the answer now? It was to bring democracy to Iraq.
And now it's irans turn, well you know what; this is a war that america can't afford. The dollar isn't worth salt so just turn the fucking propaganda machine of again.
We have a choice:
Risk the death of 100,000 people and do nothing.
Ensure the death of 100,000 people and bomb Iran.
You morons!
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
See this? It's the world's smallest violin, playing just for you. Feel special yet?
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
Because Iran has not attack any of it's neighbors for hundred of years.
I once attended a lecture where the speaker said that the best thing to do with Iran was to force them to produce uranium in a consortium. Europeans do this by sharing the same enrichment plant, and it lets them keep tabs on how enriched each country is making its uranium. With Iran's new centrifuge technology, I'm sure they would be welcome at an international plant, especially if it allayed fears about a weapons program.
Nuclear engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
Signatories to the NPT are allowed to enrich Uranium as part of a civilian program. Perhaps if Iran had not been the target of US sanctions since 1979 (when they overthrew the brutal western-backed Shah and his CIA-trained SAVAK secret police), they would be more trusting about getting their nuclear fuel from outside. As it is, they have a mentality of being as independent and self-sufficient as possible.
Iran is not in violation of the NPT, but the major nuclear powers are, since they have not disarmed and have no intention of doing so. In fact new nuclear weapons systems are being developed right now. Why then does the media not focus on the NPT violations of the big 5? Perhaps people feel the big 5 are so responsible that it's ok for them to posses them, but frankly the historical record does not back that up. Hiroshima and Nagasaki aside, Richard Nixon is on tape suggesting a nuclear strike on North Vietnam and before the Iraq war, UK Minister of Defence Geoff Hoon threatened Iraq with a nuclear strike (crazy I know).
The big 5 want to maintain a permanent nuclear apartheid whereby they keep their weapons (and threaten others with them, explicitly or implicitly) while preventing any other country from developing them. It's not a sustainable situation. You can't wave your gun about and then expect everybody else to refrain from acquiring guns of their own. It is the major powers themselves that are putting us all in a huge amount of long term danger due to their failure to disarm. That should be the real focus of media attention.
Some of the sites are buried and hardened to the point that trying to destroy them with conventional weapons might not work. Planners have been drawing up plans to use B61-11s, nuclear bunker busters. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh had a source tell him "...whenever anybody tries to get it [the use of nuclear weapons] out they're shouted down.".
A groundburst is the most fallout-inducing thing you can do with a nuclear weapon. There are dozens of sites involved, all with people living downwind.
He wanted to make sure we knew that Iran's Defense Minister went on tour of the facility with Mahmoud.
More to the point, that's not even something that ought to raise suspicion. In a region where terrorism is a real, daily threat, you want the military to be looking after security issues at an enrichment plant even if it is only being used for civilian purposes - you want them to be making absolutely sure that the facility is not open to abuse by those who would use it for more nefarious purposes.
That's not to say this is evidence that the enrichment plant is not being used for military purposes, it's just that the presence of the Defence Minister is not evidence for or against.
Iran like any other signatory of the NPT has a right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. They also have a right to develop, purchase and sell said technology freely and without any hindrance as long as they abide by the NPT. Iran unlike other countries such as India, Pakistan and Israel (which are not signatories of the NPT) intends to use its nuclear technology for generating energy as a way to decrease dependence on oil exports (as any sane country should be doing now).
When other nuclear powers (lead by a country where its own president can't even pronounce the word nuclear properly) get in the way of this process it sends a clear message to other countries that are signatories of the NPT they it may not be as easy as they think to develop peaceful nuclear technologies within their own countries. As a result black-markets start popping up making ratifying the NPT all that more difficult.
If the US and UK just abide by the terms of the NPT then the majority of problems they are now seeing will all but disappear.
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
I wonder if you'd say the same thing if I killed (and raped, before AND after) your daughter and you have the choice of informing the police or staying silent.
... do you hide my crime ?
... because they can make bombs with it.
Remember, before you answer : violence only creates more violence. You obviously know the police will use violence against me.
So
Peace man. Where do you live ? Is your daughter pretty ?
(this post is fiction, obviously, and only meant to illustrate the utter stupidity of this fake "pacifism", the fake "salvation" that non-violence supposedly provides).
Violence against Iran may prove to be a VERY good idea, it may prove to be a very bad idea. We don't know.
One thing is for sure however, Iran is using heavy water reactors, less efficient and more complex than light-water reactors. They make this uneconomical decision for a reason
Do they want bombs for defense ? Why don't you answer this question for yourself. Is it reasonable to assume they need deterrence ? Or do they want to attack ? (little detail : like they've done before, with MASSIVE casualties, they lost 500.000 people, most of them children in an attempt to expand into Iraq)
The president of Iran visits a top secret (!) nuclear facility, taks his defense minister along, and everything they do there (give or take...) is photographed and published.
Umm... am I the only one that wonders about the only question worth asking? I.e. why?
He is not dumb. Doing a tour to an uranium enrichment plan with your minister of defense and going public about it is not really what you do if you have a nuke program running and want to keep it secret. The very first reaction is, well, the reaction it caused. That's a no brainer. So the only logic conclusion is that this reaction was wanted.
And that again starts another round of asking why.
There are now two possible reasons. First, there is a nuke program and they are trying to create some sort of deterrent for an immediate strike, to show that they are able to retaliate. Second, there is no nuke program, but they want everyone to think there is one. Now, there is no strike planned (at least none that I know of), so the first reason makes little sense.
The second starts another round of why.
Personally, I could see a plan. The US will start a new ralley for nuke inspections in Iran, finally Iran will grudgingly agree, they will poke and prod and find nothing, and Iran can do another finger pointing at the US as some aggressor, which only thinks the worst of any country they can't control, discredit the US internationally.
And then start a nuke program. Who'd call for inspections?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The anti-Israel position has become a point of nearly complete cultural blindness. If you seriously believe that Iran would use nukes in a first-strike scenario , you've been horribly mislead by propaganda. Get a grip. The anti-Iran propaganda that pervades the American life is a subterfuge in support of the corrupt and autocratic government in United States.
The anti-Iran position has become a point of nearly complete cultural blindness.
I believe they are taking a page out of the N. Korean playbook, taunting the world with images and tests, and then laughing when the world, particularly the US, can do nothing about it. Of course nothing can be done about it because they probably do have something, and any force would be risky. Compare this to Iraq where there was little risk as iRaq has little, and unlike the some other countries in the region, apparently had relatively little influence in global events.
Of course if the US like, like the British empire in it's waning day, had not deployed it's forces so willy nilly, and has not spent itself to the brink of bankruptcy, there might be something we could do with Iran and N. Korea. As it is we can't even take care of the real and present threat, Afghanistan and Pakistan, so little else matters.
In the end though I think it is just PR. Just because you have the toys does not mean you know how to use them. And, unlike the end of WWII, two or three big bombs, with threats of more to follow, it not enough to win a confrontation. In any case, one can hardly argue that fanatical religious states with nuclear weapons are inherently dangerous. Israel, which ranks very low in freedoms granted by the modern state, and appears to be controlled by fundamentalism as any country in the region, has had nuclear weapons for years with little negatve effect.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Funny you should mention Chamberlain. People tend to assume that he avoided going to war with Hitler because he was a wimp. Thing is, when Hitler first emerged as a threat, the UK was in no position to challenge him. On top of that, there was a lot of anti-war sentiment that didn't go away until Hitler showed his true colors — several times. By playing the wimp, Chamberlain bought the Allies time to rearm. Of course, they squandered that advantage when the war actually started, but that's another issue.
There's also the little detail that many leading politicos in Chamberlain's Conservative Party considered Hitler a hero. These were the guys in the House of Commons who booed Churchill the first time he entered the House as Prime Minister. Eventually, they became politically irrelevent, but until they did, any Conservative PM who had gone against Hitler would have been out of office faster than you can say "jackboot".
Now, we don't have a lot of Islamists in U.S. politics, but aside from that, we're pretty much in the same spot now the Brits were then. It's true our armed forces are way better than theirs were, but between our global committments and the Iraq tarbaby, we've nothing to spare. Even if we did have the troops to spare, we've gone and used up all our credibility with our recent fuckups. Starting another war would turn us into absolute pariahs.
And here's one thing that really bugs me: how can we tell Iran that they can't have nukes when we have thousands. Which we are not only making no move to draw down, we are actually planning to increase
One other thing: are you willing to pay all the extra taxes it would take to cover a third war? It's true that we've been running the first two on credit, but that's playing bloody hell with the value of the dollar. So I think we should assume we're at our credit limit.
So don't bash poor Neville. At least he knew his limitations.
There's a lot about this fabled US vs Iran rivalry that does not add up and it almost makes me think that to a large degree the Bush Administration is covertly fostering the rise of Iran as a middle eastern superpower.
Motive
1. Geopolitically, US foreign policy is to create regional checks around the globe so that she can use her weight so swing a balance of power one way or the other but without having to be overtly committed. A strong Iran creates enormous problems for Russia and China both. China has no domestic oil whatsoever, and Russia is well within range of Iranian missiles.
2. Money. We often talk about the US petrodollar as a product of Saudi Arabia, but what's often overlooked is that the USA still possesses a fairly sizable proved reserve of oil in her own right. In essence, the dollar is not just backed by US influence in the middle east but also by the USA's own oil reserves. Yes, the USA does not pump enough of its own oil, but, if we were to throw the environment into the dumper, we could drill Alaska, drill offshore, grind up all the shale in Colorado, convert to coal to liquids, drill the Bakken, and we'd wind up with trillions of barrels of the stuff. So, in the long run, high oil prices benefit the United States, because ultimately, the USA has that money in the bank. Let's put it this way: ANWR alone is worth a trillion dollars.
Supporting Evidence
1. Whose benefited. Everything the Bush Administration has done has benefited Iran from a security perspective. The Iranian foreign minister even pointed this out on NPR. Bush knocked off Iraq and Afghanistan both, and neither regime supported the USA. On the flipside, the high oil prices that exist partially because of the war in Iraq and the bellicosity with Iran actually are proving to be lucrative for nearly every traditionally Republican constituency. Oil men, miners, agribusiness, chemical, even US manufacturers have all benefited from rising oil prices and a devalued dollar. If Iran and the USA are enemies, both sides are laughing all the way to the bank.
2. History. Republicans, in particular, despite their bellicosity with Iran, have a long and fabled history of actually dealing with the Iran in pragmatic terms "behind the scenes". Ronald Reagan was nearly brought down because of a complicated deal which actually saw the USA supply weapons to Iran during the Iran - Iraq war. I mean, while Democrats talked rapproachment with Iran, Republicans were already making deals with them and hiding it.
Later on, administration officials from both Reagan and Bush I would both admit that they did, in fact, have a back door in communications to Iran. It's reasonable to think that a Dick Cheney who was an integral part of all of those administrations might actually have a back door to Iran himself. We do know, right away, that the government we work with in Iraq travels to Iran rather frequently. It's almost inconceivable that the USA would not be using the Iraqi leadership as the most covert sort of conduit.
3. Careful rules of engagement. The USA rightfully complains about the Iranians funding and helping anti-American insurgents in Iraq, but at the same time, the USA is also helping anti-Iranian insurgents in Iran. This is a sort of a standoff. Despite proclamations against Iranian leadership, the Administration has bent out of its way to say, for the most part, that Iranian leaders are not directly implicated in this and they actually might not be.
4. A total pass on WMD proves cooperation. The USA had absolutely no problem launching a unilateral war on Iraq because of WMD that didn't even exist, but Iran has 9000 centrifuges spinning and there's not been a shot fired. Even the claim that the Iraqi invasion has weakened the USA abilities to conduct airstrikes doesn't wash. The Navy and Air Force are certainly not tied down. The USA has, since the invasion of Iraq, conducted airstrikes in Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan... rumoured to have conducted airstrikes in Oma
This is my sig.
This is a little silly on the face of it. There is little doubt that Israel could obliterate them right back and that is BEFORE we chuck a MIRV or two in their general direction. Israel has reliable delivery systems and there is very little doubt they have nukes of their own. And more than one or two nukes. It's probably more like 30. Israel can annihilate the cities of any Middle Eastern state of their choosing and still have a stick to wave afterwards.
One Defense Intelligence Agency estimate puts the number of Israeli nukes at 65 to 85 weapons.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
If Iran were so foolish as to attempt to "obliterate" Israel, Iran would cease to exist within hours of the attempt.
Middle Eastern leaders talk of destroying Israel because it plays well to the masses and the Iranian leadership are crazy like foxes in this regard. These leaders themselves live comfortable privileged lives and will not act like the young suicide bombers they employ as cannon fodder. The mad-dog Arab who will do anything is a propaganda tool meant to scare the shit out of the West. And it works.
Everything belongs in context. In this context it's not about individual violence. A better description than the really over-the-top example you used would be:
You daughter gets raped and murdered. The crime gets reported. The person who is suspected of doing the crime lives in a run down apartment building that everyone knows houses nothing but criminals. Instead of arresting the suspect at work (imagine they know where he works, and no he hasn't ducked out) they decide instead to organize a SWAT raid on the whole building. During the raid the police enter 12 seperate residenses and make 18 arrests for other crimes (drug possesion that sort of thing). The police during the raid injure 9 people (2 placed in ICU) and one person is fatally wounded. During the confusion, no one manages to arrest the murder/rape suspect. In fact he's wasn't home at the time of the raid, he was at work. Later, in a press release, the Chief of Police explains to the press that the raid was done to catch the man suspected (photo given out, if you know his location please call (bet you money he skips town at this point)) and they show a photo of the girl that he supossedly raped and murdered. And the photo of the concerned father. You live a mile from the location of the raid.
Now, that's a better analogy, and if it were up to me I'd prefer that instead of what I just outlined that they arrest him at work.
Do you get it yet?
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
I've lived there, and I've seen them. The people who least believe in any imaginary being in the sky are the same people who preach most about its existence, and themselves being his representatives on earth, the latter of which is the reason they need religion.
These people are only there for business, they are businessmen.
I start by more familiar examples, say Dick Cheney. Does anybody believe him to be a true Christian or a ruthless businessman who'll do anything for the sake of profit? Or when he talks of supporting troops, is he telling what he truly means?
In Iran we have our own businessmen. Since the 'Islamic' revolution of 1979, these people have taken over the government in a country where 90%+ of the economy is owned and operated by the government.
A clear example, is the largest of these business entities: Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), most recent bogeyman on CNN/FOX. While the American media focuses on the 'military' part of IRGC's operation, they neglect to mention the much much bigger side of IRGC.
Revolutionary Guards is the single biggest business entity in Iran, they build all the dams, bridges, tunnels and roads, railroad, they operate civilian airports all across the country, they do the largest mining operations, they own many of the largest and most profit generating financial institutions in Iran and this list goes on forever.
Almost half of the members of the current parliament are former IRGC members, Ahmadinejad himself made his way to being Tehran's Mayor and later, Iran's president through IRGC.
Then there's Mesbah Yazdi, a mid-level clergy, known as the mentor of Ahmadinejad, the biggest fucking piece of shit I know in Iran. Plays the same role to Ahmadi Nejad as Dick plays to Bush. But there's another side to this guy, he is also known as "Sultan of Sugar" in Iran. He controls import, distribution and sale of all Sugar in Iran. Believe me, in a country of 70 million population a monopoly on sugar is better than a monopoly on gold mines. He also says that the 'Zionist regime' of Israel is doomed, however nuking them means end of the sweet sugar business for him.
Former president Rafsanjani, former parliament speaker Nategh Noori and many others are businessmen too. They don't give a fuck about religion unless in public when preaching people.
Oh, did you hear the Moral Police Chief of Tehran was recently arrested in a brothel with six girls and they were mocking muslim prayers, naked? That screams of the hypocrisy of the current situation in Iran.
I just want you to think, what benefit does nuking Israel which guarantees a much much harsher reaction from Israel bring to these ruling businessmen? See, that's why Iran, even with nukes is no threat at all to any other country?
All that matters to these people is survival of their business, they are not religious zealots, they don't believe in the second coming or afterlife or crap like what they preach to people. If a day comes where wiping their asses with pages of Quran helps them keep control of their business, then that's what they WILL HAPPILY DO.
for sure? the main reason for a heavy water reactor is that it can run on natural uranium. It is one way to start a nuclear program when there is no enriched fuel. Sure it can do some neat tricks for bomb making, but also for research and industry. You seem to be confused like a few others here on history, Iraq invaded Iran to start the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq even used chemical weapons. Iran has invaded no one for centuries.
If you think no one would want to attack Iran you haven't been watching the joint sabre-rattling in the news from the US and Israel. Who did we attack, Iraq, the relatively stable country with no nuclear weapons, or North Korea, the ticking time bomb of regional destablization who already had them? Nuclear weapons seem like a fine deterrent again.
Security?
Yes, if I was Ahmadinejad I would be trying like hell to get me some deterrence to avoid being bombed. I mean imagine if you are Iran, look east, look west and then shit yourself. And our (USA) decision to *not* invade North Korea gave him what he could logically see as a possible solution. Did we force Iran's hand? I believe so, even if indirectly. (and Ahmadinejad knows this, as he's a civil engineer) I guess the old saying "MechE's make weapons, CivE's make targets" applies then?
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
dude, unclog your brain. It's heavy water reactors that can run on un-enriched fuel, they can even run on depleted uranium (= 0.7% u-235)
there are numerous useful isotopes for industry and medicine and research that can be produced by a heavy water reactor. do some research before spewing your ignorance all over the internet.
a heavy water reactor is one way to start a nuclear program without having a stock of enriched fuel on hand
I said that they wouldn't use it as a first strike weapon; I'm sure if they were in danger of being overrun, they'd use them. But you say that you believe they act in their own self-interest. Do you realize how small of an area we're talking about? A nuclear strike by Israel into Syria or Iran would almost surely lead to radioactive fallout blowing through Israeli cities and polluting Israeli water-supplies as well.
Both Israel and US take substantial pains to minimize casualties--as much as possible short of avoid hostilities all together. Perhaps you consider risking even one innocent death ruthless, but I do not. I think the US substantially values the lives of foreigners and human life in general.
and i will say it again. their nuclear program is most likely as they said, civilian. they are a oil/nat gas exporter that also use's it's own production for domestic use including making electricity. they are smart and know that as their domestic consumption increases their income decreases as there is less available to sell/export. so why not use nuclear power to satisfy their internal demand at least for natural gas there by increasing the amount for export and thus the money they will get. though the reason this get's the ire of this country is because the people they would be selling it too would not be us but china who can now most likely out bid us.
- You compare calling the police to violence, whereas normally, in a civilised country the expected outcome of a (successful) intervention of the Police, will finally end up in court in a fair trial, with the criminal being subject to what punition has been deemed relevant by the law (which law itself should preferably have been voted democratically by the population).
Pacifism is not about inaction. Pacifism is about trying to reach results while resorting to more modern and less barbaric means.
- You compare a situation where the horrible crime has been committed, with a situation where one might encounter a menace and is resorting preventively on violence. The more exact parallel would be beating the head of some random person into pulp, on the grounds that there's a doubt that maybe that random person could have planned to rape twice and murder your daughter.
- Why are you resorting to violence *for* in the place ? What was the goal of you action ? You wanted to make the world a better place ? A better place devoid of "Evil Guys" who might use nukes against you ? And what do you do against them ? Drop bombs on their country ? How is that different from being an Evil Guy ? If you resort to violence to solve your problem, you end up being not different from the guys themselves which cause said problems.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Dick...is that you?
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by an Iraqi judge in an Iraqi court, and executed by the Iraqi government. The US supported this government, but opposed his execution (at least as quickly as it happened). Afghanistan has not had a leader executed by an invading party in recent memory; the last one to be killed was Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan, executed during a Communist coup in 1978.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
What? Are you insane? With the US threatening them the way it is now? If they tore down the defensive perimeter and opened it up to any inspector the UN cared to send, the first thing the US (or Israel, or whoever else may have a bone to pick with Iran) would do is claim they're lying and drop bombs on it. Not because it's the right thing to do (at that point it would be pretty clear that it's the wrong thing to do) - simply because they can. Because nobody would stop them. Iran not defending that site now would be like the USA leaving critical infrastructure unprotected during the Cold War, only on a smaller scale.
Whether it's peaceful or not, Iran has every reason to defend that site, and the alarmist comments about the defense minister do nothing but cloude any real information about Iran's intentions.
If the muslim world put down their weapons there would be peace.
If Israel put down their weapons there would be genocide.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
It would be much easier to believe the nukes are only for deterrence, that the silly stories currently used to justify the nuclear program.
Dark Reflection
BadAnalogyGuy, is that you?
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3762
I'll give you an extract
Then we have the illegal detention of suddam, and how his charges were created in court, during trial, and not before the actual trial. (Illegal in Iraq)
http://loc.gov/law//help/hussein/comments.html
And who's jurisdiction was the court under. It couldn't be the international courts, he was being tried for actions committed before it existed and thus outside of its jurisdiction
If it was Iraq's jurisdiction, then by Iraq law, Saddam was still president and thus had immunity from prosecution.
The summery of this post is.
The court that sentenced Saddam to death had no jurisdiction over him, was highly influenced by the controlling forces (The Iraq government, and probably the US), and freely broke the law to deliver the guilty verdict
Saddam did a lot of evil things I'm sure, and if its all true, he did deserve death in my books. But to suggest that his trial was just and fair is a bold lie, committed either through ignorance or unbridled emotion.
To avoid criticism; Say nothing, Do nothing, Be nothing.
like they've done before, with MASSIVE casualties, they lost 500.000 people, most of them children in an attempt to expand into Iraq
You fail at history. Saddam started the Iran-Iraq war, basically at our, the U.S., bidding. Of course, there wouldn't be a foreign military in the region that they might be worried about attacking them.
This also assumes that they really are secretly building a bomb, which has hardly been established, despite your intimations otherwise.
A blog about stuff.
Circumcision is child abuse.
OMG. I had no idea that Israeli chicks were so hot. It would almost be a privilege to be killed by one. Now I know why we are on their side. We can't we recruit hot girls like that into our military? There should be some sort of international law against bombing or attacking countries with a high per capita hot girl ratio. Do the arab countries know about this? Too bad about the language though. It's one of the few languages that sounds worse than German to my ear. Of course Arabic is even worse. Clearing your throat should never be used as a phoneme in any language.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
A good case for getting out of the middle east. Iran and all these other "bad guys" wouldn't give two shits of interest about us if we weren't always getting involved in their regional affairs.
Whenever one of these so-called "enemies" tries to resist our influence and encroachment, it is called "terrorism" and is used as an excuse to continue being involved and sacrificing ourselves.
The reality of this situation is:
1) Israel and the neo-conservative movement involves a lot of, ahem, Jewish people who root for their ethnic homeland
2) Commercial interests want to open new markets in places that traditionally resist western influence
3) Cheap access to oil to continue our materialistically consumptive culture
I don't think Israel should be eliminated, but it is a very natural reaction that people would begin to hate us when we take sides in their regional conflicts. This is the price we pay.
People in Saddam's own government believed he had WMD's.
US post-invasion spin. The only source the US had for its WMD claims came from a single souce called 'Curveball' - a man generally considered unreliable inside the US agencies, but, whom the Bush cabal latched onto as providing a trigger.
Why? Saddam wanted people to believe this. Most likely to keep Iran in check.
Were that true, Saddam wouldn't have released a mountain of documentation indicating they had no active WMD programs in late 2002 and offered UN weapons inspectors complete access to anywhere they wanted - including palaces.
True, they were concerned about the composition of the inspection team, but, that's understandable given their previous experiences with the now hopelessly discredited UNSCOM (who directed non-WMD intelligence reports to the US military) and their concerns of evidence being planted to justify the invasion that happened later anyway.
You need to face facts: The Iraq misadventure was a transparent resource war. Without resources, the US would have been about as interested in Iraq as they are in Zimbabwe.
It's hard to argue that nuking Japan was substantially different from the previous fire bombing campaigns. That aside, I think one of the best pieces of evidence that the US substantially values human life is that in the wars the US has fought since WWII massive strategic air campaigns weren't used.
If you compare US tactics during WWII to those employed more recently, its hard to escape the conclusion that the US currently substantially values the lives of foreigners. If the US didn't, Iraq would be strewn with land-mines, Baghdad and other cities, would be burned out shells and the response to mortar attacks on US bases would be to counter-battery the area with massive heavy artillery and bombing.
And who owned that land before that?
And before that?
How many different groups people have actually owned that land in the last, say, 3000 years?
How will you decide who is the actual owner of that land?
From a semi-unrelated earlier
post about Iraq :
Before that (Iraq vs. US), the USA was arming Iraq to fight Iran. Some time prior to that, Iraq went through numerous coups, a British invasion, two monarchies and a partridge in a pear tree. Prior to the pear tree, Iraq was owned by the British. Actually, two distinct regions (Basra and Baghdad) were owned by the British. To save on ink, when drawing maps, they called the group "Iraq". Before that was the Ottoman Empire, who - ultimately - can be blamed quite reasonably for most of the current blood-feuds in Europe and the Middle East. Before that were the Mongols, who can be blamed for just about everything else. Before that, the Islamic forces of Khalid ibn al-Walid decimated the area and took it out of Persian control, who in turn invaded before they even became Persians. Nothing like getting ahead of themselves! Some time before that, Alexander the Great made a royal mess of the area. Before that, there were endless wars between the Assyrians, the Akkadians, the Sumerians (who were largely obliterated), assorted other nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, and whatever culture lived there first of which there is almost no trace left.
In other words, there is no meaningful "first", unless you want to go back around 10,000 years. Almost everything that happened after that point was in direct retribution to what had happened before. That's one reason it will take a lot of effort to calm the region down - ten thousand years is a long time to build up grdudges and resentments -- and don't think a single one of them has been forgotten.
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
If Saddam had had nukes, he still would have got booted out of Kuwait, but he would have been safe from invasion.
... and lost massively. (Iran lost massively too, because they kept sending in untrained children against buried-in posities. Iran lost about 500.000 of it's children that way, that is the main reason islam is so terribly unpopular in Iran nowadays)
... all are wars that the attacker could in no way hope to win ...
No, Kuwait would have gotten nuked, after which there would be nobody left (Kuwait is really small, barely larger than Israel, with only a single city).
And there would have been no alternative to giving it to Iraq. After all, there would be maybe 10000 Kuwaiti's left world-wide.
What would have stopped Saddam from nuking them ? The common decency and conscience that mass-murdering thieves tend to exhibit in times of stress ?
Use them as deterrence? Push their will on the rest of the region, which is cowering in terror under the nuclear shadow?
Actually the region has seen a LOT of wars where the agressors KNOWINGLY attacked, even when they knew the attack would destroy them.
Take the Iraq-Iran war for example. Iraq saw Iran fall back over a mountain range, and tried to pursue. Less than a month after that the Iraqi army was in shambles, supply lines cut, barely capable of policing normal streets in territory on their own side of the border.
Are you saying Saddam didn't know that would happen ? He pushed the attack when he could have easily stopped in a quasi invulnerable position, which would have provided an ideal starting point for the next attack in 10 years.
Yet he attacked
But attacking, knowing full well that retaliation might come is not a rare event in the middle east.
Egypt's attacks against Israel. Hezbollah-Israel, Israel's independance war, Jordan versus Britain, Pakistan versus India (and even worse : Pakistan versus East-Pakistan/Bangladesh)
And this is a tradition that goes back tens of centuries. When the muslims decided to attack the crusader states, they knew it would mean they'd fall to the mongols, that over 35 million people would starve (because there are letters, preserved by the libraries of Byzantium, that literally say this would happen). The muslims attacked, "won", got massacred by the mongols, and of the remaining muslims, at least 30 million starved, but not after killing the entire city that the sultan inhabited, including the sultan himself.
So let's be careful with "they won't attack if they can't reasonably win" ideas.
You make the stupid mistake to think that the Iranian government is there to defend it's people. It's not. It's there only to conquer, and to enforce islam (just read their constitution). Same with Saddam's government. It wasn't there for Iraqi's to prosper, it was there for Saddam to prosper. It attacked because of Saddam's pride.
Yeah, I agree. If we had actually been supporting democracy and human-rights for the last 50 years instead of any government (no matter how evil) who was anti-communism, then we would have been a lot better off. Here's to the future and hopes that we've learned from our past mistakes.
Qxe4
So, it's OK for Iran to pursue nuclear power (and possibly a bomb or two). Why, then, are most of the left against nuclear power for the USA, which hasn't used a nuclear bomb in 60 years?
A good number of Al Qaeda members have entered Iraq through Syria. This much is documented. Syria and Iran are friends.
I thought us and Syria were friends? (Aren't they torturing people for us? Or did we stop outsourcing that?) A good deal of actual al Qaeda (Not the pretend one in Iraq, the actual one that attacked us) have left Afganistan through Pakistan, and I'm fairly certain we're friends with Pakistan, too.
What that actually demonstrates is that Syria can't control their Iraq border, nothing more and nothing less. And considering that Turkey has been complaining about Kurdish terrorists getting into to Turkey through the Iraq border, which we in theory should be stopping, I don't know that we're actually allowed to complain about terrorists slipping over lax borders.
Sunni and Shia are not such clear dividing lines as you seem to imply, they actually do work together when it is convenient.
Yes, but 'convenient to work together' rarely describes them during civil wars when they're on opposite sides. Sorta like how Virginia and Maryland work together but not, you know, during the Civil War. Iran is not supplying weapons to al Qaeda in Iraq, because it wants them to lose and the Shia government (Or some Shia government, at least) to (re)gain control of Iraq. So Iran can then ally with them.
I like that there's some deluded universe where Iran actually wants a war in Iraq. Um, no. The majority of Iraqis have no problem with Iran. The sooner the damn war is over and the majority actually control the country, the sooner Iran can make friends. The war is, if anything, delaying Iran's plans. They were happy in 2005, now they're just sorta tapping their fingers waiting for the killing to end.
I didn't even mention Iran supplying weapons to people in Iraq.
Can you not read your post? You said:
Iran backs a number of radical groups in the middle east, including...probably Al Qaeda in Iraq.
As for supplying weapons to Hamas, there's never been any evidence of that. At all. (Hamas doesn't need weapons supplied to it, it's the fricking 'government' of Palestinian.)
Hezbollah, yes. Iran supplies the Hezbollah militia. Hezbollah is Iran's attempt to take over Lebanon, not destroy Israel.
Interesting enough for two organizations that dislike Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas have a notably frigid relation, because that Hezbollah was founded when Israel invaded Lebanon because the PLO had taken up residence there. Hezbollah may dislike Israel, but what it really disliked was Israel and the PLO fighting their war inside Lebanon, and they aren't real fond of Palestinians in general, especially Hamas. There have been signs of this dislike chilling in recent years, but asserting that Iran is helping both is probably just wrong.
If Iran wanted to help Hamas, it would ask Hezbollah to do something, as Hezbollah has demonstrated it can enter and leave Israel secretly. (And, while it's there, kidnap Israeli soldiers for fun and profit.) If Hezbollah actually were to step in and help Hamas, they could really help Hamas. But Hezbollah's is not helping Hamas, their Israel policy is (was) "wave their hand in front of Israel's face and say 'I'm not touching you'". Until Israel punched them in the face in 2006.
After a quick search, I found this lovely gem.
Oh, well, if General Petraeus says it, it must be true. I'm sure that he could read the serial numbers of the rockets in the air and track them back to their source. But, more to the point, that's a Shia militia, not 'al Qaeda in Iraq'. And, although I'm sure you won't believe it, al-Sadr is actually famous for being the one militia leader who won't work with Iran, so it's more than likely the weapons were stolen or purchased on the black market.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?