Slashdot Mirror
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."
Wow. Talk about a runaway argument. Iran's developing nuclear weapons is a threat to Israel, so the only alternative the Israelis have is to prematurely attack, so it's the Iranian's own fault they got bombed. They are "demanding" to be attacked? This is the kind of logic best seen in wife beaters.
Simply having nuclear weapons is not the same as having them on a missile currently flying through the air towards Tel Aviv. There's a significant difference. Frankly, the Israeli first strike policy has in recent years become a belligerent one. Perhaps it works when you're bombing Hamas militia men in the Gaza strip, but international warfare is a different game. Israeli jets flying 2000km to strike targets in another country because they might be a threat sometime in the future is not going to go down well with most reasonable people in the world. Who would be the real rogue state at that point?
It's clear that Iran's goal in gaining nuclear weapons is to gain greater military influence in the middle east, including Israel. But we should all ask ourselves how it came to this point. Has everybody really been as diplomatic as they could have been? What is bombing Iranian sites likely to accomplish in the long term? Is Iran having nuclear weapons really that much worse than their current chemical and biological arsenals? Might we not in fact be better off with a mutual nuclear deterrent in the Middle East region, akin to the MAD policies during the cold war?
People need start thinking rationally about issues like this. This black and white, us and them mentality is taken too extremes these days by people that ought to know better. When did we lose our ability for reasoned debate?
May the Maths Be with you!
that's such an american way to think. You really believe America is able to defeat Russia, alone? or China, alone?
I've no idea about China, but as for Russia - heck, yes, in conventional warfare, U.S. would roll over the wreck that is present-day Russian army in the matter of weeks. Just witness the mess that South Ossetian conflict was - Georgians were relatively poorly trained, but even to the extent that they were, they were trained by U.S., and supplied with U.S. weaponry - and the result is that Georgian casualty rates were comparable to Russian ones, and not the typical 1-to-10^n you see when e.g. U.S. goes to war.
That's why it's so important for Russia to maintain nuclear parity - there's simply nothing else to hold U.S. (and NATO in general) at bay
Israel probably has 50-100 nuclear warheads, likely for more than three decades. Yet in the numerous times that it was attacked by its neighbors, had its borders violated by suicide bombers and terrorist kidnappers, and having suffered tens of thousands of rockets launched from the West Bank and Gaza over the years, it has not used one.
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
....in the face of world indifference and even hostility to its' continued survival,...
Israel's survival is guaranteed by none other than God Jehovah himself. Ancient prophecies foretell that these people, the Jews, would be scattered among the nations of the earth, to be regathered as a nation not too long before the return of Jesus Christ to earth. Innumerable attempts have been made by despots and dictators, both recent and ancient, to exterminate the Jewish people. They have been terribly persecuted and murdered, but God has never allowed their extermination throughout all these centuries. In 1948, the modern state of Israel was re-created and Jews from all over the earth have migrated there.
Israel today is a secular state, but nevertheless protected by God. Israel will not attack Iran or anybody else, but will eventually, once again, be attacked by a confederation of states which includes Iran. Isn't it amazing that such a tiny nation on such a small speck of real estate can make such big waves on the world scene? Doesn't it strike you as amazing, that an inconsequential city, such as Jerusalem, should make recurring headlines the world over?
Except for the backing of the United States, Israel stands alone in the world. Could it be that what Jehovah said about Israel in Deuteronomy 32:8-12 thousands of years ago is still true today?
All theory is gray