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The United States Just Might Be Iran's Favorite New Nuclear Supplier
Lasrick writes: Nick Gillard from Project Alpha points out that for more than 3 decades, Iran has purchased goods for its nuclear program largely from the shadows. With the Framework Agreement, that will almost certainly change: "According to the US State Department, one of the agreement's provisions creates a dedicated procurement channel for Iran's nuclear program. This channel will monitor and approve, on a case-by-case basis, the supply, sale, or transfer to Iran of certain nuclear-related and dual-use materials and technology." That is terrific news for US companies, because Iran is known to covet US-made parts required for their program, most of which are "dual-use."
Diplomacy, old definition:
"The art of saying 'Nice Doggy' until you can find a rock". - Will Rodgers
New definition:
"The art of handing rocks over to the doggy until it can bury you, while hoping that it is nice".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Obama President (LOL)
Hillary Clinton Secretary of State (ROFL)
John Kerry Secretary of State (ROFLMAO)
Really you have people whose goal in life is to martyr themselves running rings around these idiots, and Russia is resurgent. Good job.
Rubbish.
Nukes are a thoroughly shit offensive weapon. If you throw a nuke at anyone you will get stomped out of existence. Even if Iran had ICBMs and nukes on a scale of the US or Russia they would not attack anyone with them. That is the whole concept of M.A.D. If Iran nuked Israel the nukes from the US, UK, France and the distributed nukes of Israel would completely destroy Iran within days. Nukes, chemical weapons, biological weapons, they are all weapons that change the status quo too far. If you deploy any of them against an external party it is game over. As a result they are useless for offence.
Defensively though they are brilliant. The make your borders essentially inviolate to other state actors. Yes you can have rebel or guerilla actions (think Pakistan) but you are safe from someone like the US or Russia. And given the US and Russia have a history of invading countries in that region it seems like a fair incentive to want them.
For Iran to start WW3 after obtaining nuclear weapons would require them to have the drive and the motivation to fight against major obstacles to get them combined with a desire to eradicate themselves from existence. Not normally the sort of thing you get in the one person.
All we have to do is nothing. The sanctions are working, it's greatly slowing progress they are making to obtaining nuclear weapons.
If we lift the sanctions, we CANNOT restore them (the Iranians have said repeatedly it's absurd to think we could). They will absolutely have a nuclear weapon inside a year, probably much sooner.
The real assholes are the people like you willing to put the world to the torch because of your imaginary fears of invading Iran, which no-one wants to do. It makes no sense because what do you invade? The people are generally friendly to the U.S., it's only the rulers that are not - and they will use the entire populace as a human shield (that is also incidentally why they rightfully think they can use nuclear weapons against enemies without similar reprisals).
If the sanctions are lifted and millions die I hope you have the decency to at least feel a tiny bit guilty.... but then people like you so often rationalize all repercussions of your mistakes away.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Even if we didn't nuke Iran in response to an attack on Israel, you really don't want to be using high-yield nuclear weapons on someone that close to you - fallout blows in the wind quite a long way. The USA, Russia, India, and China are all good targets for strategic nukes, but smaller countries are likely to end up not containing the effect and Iran would be very unpopular if they covered their neighbours in radioactive dust. Given that they're already quite unpopular with their arabic neighbours, they'd likely expect a fairly large conventional response if they fired nuclear weapons anywhere in the middle east.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There is no guarantee that we'll nuke Iran just because they nuked Israel.
There doesn't need to be. Israel is certainly capable of destroying Iran completely in a retaliatory strike.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
>The reality is that we're not just trying to keep nukes out of the hands of the Iranians, we're trying to make sure that the rest of the ME doesn't enter an arms race which puts nukes in the hands of other countries.
And who exactly appointed you to do that ? Americans elect an American government to govern America. It has no jurisdiction anywhere else and "protecting your interests" should have been unconstitutional. Unless somebody actively asks for your help, stay the hell out of everybody else's business and America would be a lot less hated.
Do I like the government of Iran ? Hell no, I live in a free country and I despise autocracies, but I also don't believe I have a right to interfere in Iran's business unless Iranian people ask my help.
Seriously - the US should watch a lot of Star Trek and simply replace their ENTIRE foreign relations doctrine with the prime directive and not only would the rest of the world be a lot happier, the US would be too.
You fear chaos ? I am quite confident that there will be a lot less suffering around the world for which you are (rightfully) blamed, and thus a lot less people who want to kill you. If you believe the Iranian style theocratic autocracy is primitive, fine, believe that, but stop interfering in their natural development - they won't thank you for it, nobody has EVER thanked you for it.
America has more than enough problems to solve at home - like when you're going to do SOMETHING about Puerto Rico - either give them statehood or given them back their independence but right now you're conquering overlords there - no better than Iran's government.
Let me put it very simply: because I have no power to vote for or against American politicians, they should have NO power to influence my life.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Let me put it very simply: because I have no power to vote for or against American politicians, they should have NO power to influence my life.
So, should China have had any power to influence the lives of people in Japan when Japan started its whole Pacific Rim debacle some decades ago? Should the people of Eastern Europe have considered it just too rude to think about modifying the capabilities or behavior of their friendly neighbors, the Ottomans, as those neighbors gathered up a head of steam and sought to spread their friendly culture westward?
Do you live in a country that begins its legislative sessions with group chants about the destruction of other countries? Does your country aggressively support groups that state their objective of slaughtering others specifically because of their religion and/or heritage, and then indeed actually go and help them do it? Do you really think that the world isn't connected, and that people bent on an apocalyptic world view aren't a good fit for having the leverage of nuclear weapons as they seek to control, among other things, major global shipping lanes?
Do you think that just because you don't think someone else should be able to impact your life, that that will actually stop someone who thinks you should be killed for allowing your daughter to read, or for trimming your beard, etc., from not exactly seeing the world in a way reciprocal with you? Being an isolationist doesn't work when someone trapped in a brutal, medieval, theocratic mindset thinks you're suitable only for death, and thinks that isolationism by others is for the weak, and is to be exploited.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
What you're missing though is that unlike Iran, no one leading the US or Russia gets up on TV talking about countries who have "no right to exist" and should be "wiped off the map". These are not rational people. If you're not part of Islam you are of the great satan and need to die. If they kill you their reward is in heaven. This is their perspective. Would you really like to see these people holding nuclear weapons?