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Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
selven wrote in with something a bit offtopic for Slashdot, but I figured it's worth a discussion today. He writes "Following Iran's revelation regarding its secret nuclear enrichment plant, western leaders are banding together against it, saying that it violates Articles 2 and 3 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and suggesting serious sanctions against the country if it refuses to back down on its uranium enrichment program. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and that it's not fair for the US to be criticizing them in this way while having thousands of nuclear warheads."
The Inheritance, by David Sanger. A terrific book, I read it from cover to cover in three sittings. It's basically what Obama was sat down and told about the world and global nuclear proliferation and what his options are. It details some fascinating history, esp. around Khan in Pakistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan) that will be making you shake your fist and say "Khaaaaaaaaaannn!". (He gave the Iranians much of what they needed to build a nuclear program).
http://www.amazon.com/Inheritance-World-Confronts-Challenges-American/dp/0307407926
Posturing aside, giving the talking heads and think tankers something to chirp about on CNN - the real threat isn't Iran. Pakistan is the threat. Iran has uranium and reactors. They don't have a warhead. Pakistan has LOTS of warheads, and they MAY or MAY NOT meet your definition of "secure". They could very easily go missing, as the programs in place to account in such matters sort of don't work in Pakistan.
Again - the book lays all this out in exacting detail. I recommend the book to everyone.
I'm a bit confused about the concept of "fairness" in this context. Do we allow anyone who wants to have nuclear weapons the option to acquire them because there's some natural "fairness" law? Only a cretin would say so. The way it works is if you're a threat to us, or a region containing friends of ours, then we don't want you to have them (Iran, Syria). If you're an ally, we'd rather you didn't have them but there's not much we can do to stop you acquiring them (India, Pakistan). If you're already strong and powerful, we assure your destruction if you fire them at us (Russia, China).
You know,
Quadaffi took a different approach and has come out way, way ahead for it. He saw GWB invade Iraq and thought "that nutjob is serious!" Now the libyans have cancelled chemical and nuclear weapons research, stopped funding most terrorists, and are being let into the world community in spite of nutjob's rantings and ravings. Seems that worked pretty well. Iran would be a fucking rich, powerful nation if they gave up on their strategy of funding terrorists everywhere and instead took what the whole rest of the world views as a legitimate approach to becoming a regional and world power.
That's only because Saddam re-routed the resources to his favored buds. Plenty of resources went into the country, it's just that they were not being distributed evenly. Saddam used the sanctions as an excuse to rid groups he didn't like.
Table-ized A.I.
Because they made the Big Iraqi Gamble and are taking Euros rather than dollars for their oil.
This is an unforgivable affront. Based on the US's debts and balance of trade, the dollar should be junk currency. Its only remaining value is in purchasing oil, and the US cannot allow resource rich countries to wean themselves off of it.
Make no mistake, the US must and will find a casus belli against Iran. The only question (for Iran) is whether they can become a nuclear power before that happens.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Let's hope the Obama Administration is much more skillful than the previous administration.
I think we're already seeing the beginnings of a more deft and subtle foreign policy. I don't believe it's a coincidence that Obama abandoned the idea of European missile defence (which was a serious thorn in the side of the Russians), and we suddenly hear Russia talking about serious sanctions against Iran.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Different strokes. Quadaffi is playing his games in the middle of fucking nowhere. Libya is not in the middle of a global strategic hot spot. If we let Libya have nukes, then the only card he could have usefully played is to try to sell it to other folks, ala North Korea. That's one strategy, sure, but not one that holds a big interest in Iran.
They want to be a big, perhaps THE big, regional player. Capitulating to the Evil Americans is not the way to do it. Of course, time will tell if going head to head with the rest of the world is the right way, but it's worked so far. We'll see what happens when the Israelis get all bent out of shape and have one of their little air raid practices or if Russia decides to play nice with Obama for some reason or another.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You are talking about a country run by people who have repeatedly stated that it is the duty of all muslims to work towards being in a position to start Armageddon (or Ragnarok, basically the apocalyptic battle at the end of the world). In addition to these statements, they have also expressed their own desire to trigger said battle.
What is the source for these statements? Whatever it is, it is not an official position of the Iranian government. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons.
Exactly how does MAD deter people who wish to start an end of the world battle?
By deterring the majority of rational people who don't wish to start the end days. It should be noted that the same concerns have been expressed about evangelical Christians in the USA who want to bring about the end days. e.g. the Concerned Christians who planned terrorist attacks in Israel to try and start Armageddon. These people believe that they must destroy the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem so that Jesus can return. Some of them finance settlers because they believe this is the quickest way to start a war between the Arabs and Jews that will lead to Jesus returning. Many religions prophesize the End days, and there are a minority of followers in all of those religions who want the war to start so the Saviour will return and take them to Heaven. Hopefully, the rational people will prevail.
On the other hand Israel has a vested interest in having the bomb so they can use it as a threat in the end game scenario where the Arab world actually successfully teams up against them. There is a lot of speculation that the reason the US intervened in '67 and concocted the camp David accords to pay Israel and Egypt annual sums to avoid war was precisely because US intelligence assets saw Israel prep'ing their nukes for delivery to Cairo during the losing portion (for Israel, 12,000+ casualties is near catastrophic for the IDF). It's speculated that the US emergency equipment airlift was a concession to stop Israel from nuking Cairo (and or using the weapons tactically against the Egyptian tank forces) and the successive Accords were to prevent Egypt and Israel from doing the Tango again.
Ironically it's precisely this accord that got Osama and his Egyptian buddies panties in a bunch because they saw the double wammy of supporting Israel (which up until '67 the US didn't do) and supporting the Egyptian dictator who ordered the torture of many of the Al Queda higher level people before they were evicted from Egypt.
Damned if you do damned if you don't. Had we allowed Israel to go forward with the deployment of Nuclear weapons the damage both direct and indirect would have been catastrophic yet we are blamed for stopping something very very bad from happening. Of course Al Queda has demonstrated to the Arab world their willingness to sacrifice innocent Muslims to their cause and probably would have preferred that Israel use the nuclear weapons and the successive generations of damage the fallout would have caused, let alone the direct casualties.
Probably because someone thinks pointing out the double-standard for Israel is un-american or something. Anyway, the idea of sanctions is doomed unless the US can get both Russia and China to go along with them. China because (major reason) it has a permanent seat on the UN security council and can veto any sanction request and (minor reason) they can hit back at the US if they ever wish to by engaging in mildly self-harming trade war with the USA (which they own a lot of thanks to government borrowing and so can dump US dollars). Russia because it has a similar veto right and (especially) because if it wants to it has enough reserve capacity to fuel the whole of Iran and can provide it by (in order of convenience) rail, Caspian sea or road.
Anyway, the GP is right to bring Israel into this. One of the big pressures on the USA (I suppose THE pressure) is that Israel is threatening to initiate bombing raids on Iran if they aren't satisfied with it reigning in its technological progress. Israel is confident that the US would back it up in any action (indeed, Israeli bombers would need to pass over US controlled airspace to carry out the attacks as I understand it, which would make the US complicit even if it didn't supply military aid beyond the tech and money over previous years).
What the inner government of Iran thinks privately I don't think many people really know. It's quite possible that they think Israel wouldn't be stupid enough to start a war which would drag the whole region down in flames. There has to be some doubt in their minds about that - after all this is Israel - but publically, they're not showing much willingness to roll over for US demands.
At anyrate, the US will have to pay quite the price to Russia to get it to help with sanctions (after all, Russia is fine with Iran, though they probably don't want to see it nuclear-capable). The US has already backed down on Ballistic Missile Defence (alienating Poland and the Czech republic who were supposed to be hosting two of the bases, incidentally), but BMD was an over-priced failing project anyway and Medvedev pretty much said that Russia just considered withdrawing it merely a return to the negotiating table. If the US wants sanctions against Iran, other people will probably be paying the price - that will be the US giving in on pushing for greater control of Georgia and the Ukraine (or from a certain point of view, throwing them to the Bears).
If Iran is a lot closer to creating nukes (it would make sense that they are trying to do so - so would you if you were threatened by two nuclear powers - but nobody's shown any good evidence that they are)... if Iran is a lot closer to creating nukes than we think and US or Russian Intelligence know this then perhaps Russia will be more amenable to sanctions. But if Iran is not near to having nuclear weapons as everyone appears to think, then Russia's only going to help at a big old cost of some kind. After all, they hold a bargaining chip that could stave off US involvement in a long-term and very destructive war.
So that's more or less how I see sanctions and the cost of them if they come about. If we do get sanctions then (a) a lot of Iranian people will probably suffer in the same way that the Iraqi people suffered when that country was put under sanctions during Saddam's regime; (b) moderate elements in Iran (e.g. Moussavi's former supporters) will become hardline elements in droves strengthening Ahmadinijad enormously; (c) Iran will probably mine oil shipping routes causing a massive interruption in international oil supplies.
If we don't get sanctions, then we have to hope that either Iran gets nuclear weapons and everyone has to accept it and play more nicely in future, or that Israel isn't willing to plunge the whole region into a great bloody struggle. If they do, then Russia will probably sell Iran some more modern weaponry (they've been turning Iran down for years) because they see no reason why the US and Israel should be attacking a fairly non-aggressive country next door to them.
I welcome constructive criticism of the above.
Harmony.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Boy this is a hard topic to discuss without feeling like you're inadvertently supporting one side or the other.
I'll just preface this by saying this is a topic that has interested me for many years, but especially in light of 9/11, etc. I do not pretend to be any kind of expert on this (who could?)
So:
I was all set to say "how could you have missed all these news quotations saying the he wants to blow up Israel?!?!" But after doing some digging: It turns out that this is the first time I've heard anyone make a genuine distinction between what CNN / FOX / etc. keep quoting and what was actually translated from his original speech:
Source: http://wapedia.mobi/en/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel (Oct. 26, 2005)
Now: I am not supporting this guy (I can't overstate this), nor am I in support of Iran's totalitarian government, but it does appear that the press seem to have reinterpreted his speeches in words that will rile up Western populations.
His argument seems to be a common one from that region:
- Israel is a state and government which he and many others do not recognize, but which Western governments do.
- Israel as a state was created by Western governments following WWII and placed in what used to be known as Palestine, thus his (and many others) continuous reference to "occupied Palestine."
- He considers the state to be a fiction, and wants the Islamic world to work together to remove that state from the region, essentially returning it to the Palestinians.
I could only find this translation regarding his statements about the Holocaust:
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#Statement_on_Holocaust_Remembrance_Day
So again: I don't see in that quote that he's "denying" the holocaust. (And yes: I know it's out of context, and it's from Wikipedia) He's saying that an "outcome of the Holocaust" was that they made these claims for reparation and compensation, and that they achieved this (the creation of Israel within Palestinian land) via less-than-acceptable means.
The fact that you clarified this particular oft-misquoted statemen
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