Who Would Support A War In Iran?

What troubles me about Bush is that it appears he wants to gather support in Europe to have the Iran nuclear issue addressed by the U.N. security council and a resolution drafted that would tell Iran to dismantle it's whole nuclear program. If that didn't work, he would try to get the U.N. to impose sanctions. Then, if and when sanctions didn't work, he would then say that an airstrike or invasion is warranted. To the Bush administration, the U.N. is just a formality to go through to justify military action. He did the same thing with Iraq. It was a quick, half-ass attempt at a diplomatic approach. Most people have seen from Bush's track record of comments about the U.N. and international law that he is not serious about working sincerely with those institutions.

 

The Iraq facility was not buried underground, if I remember correctly. Don't quote me.

On that mission, Israel flew a squadron of aircraft in a slow formation that appeared on radar to be a large passenger jet. They even tricked the Iraq airport system into thinking there was a commercial flight coming in.

There were reports last year that one of the military programs whose funding was being debated was actually considering putting warheads on low orbit satellites. I'm sure the military would love to have such a system. You could quickly take out a facility without having to fly planes over the area. I haven't heard much about that topic in the news.

 

Your right on one point. Pres. Bush did go through the U.N. for about 18 months prior to invading Iraq.

In 1936 Hitler invaded the Rheinland. The best news he recieved during the crisis was the matter was to be reviewed by the League of Nations. It was at this point Hitler knew the Rheinland was his.
A year earlier Italy invade Ethiopia. Emperor Haile Salassie made an emotional appeal to the League of Nations. This was good news to Mussolini. What ever may have occured in the League of Nations didn't really matter. Italy kept Ethiopia, maintaining control until the liberation by English forces in 1941.
This style of Brinkmanship Diplomacy works. Its success is dependant by aquiescence by nations, refering urgent matters to international committees. Resolutions passed within International forums usually has no force backing them up, but it does maintain the illusion of action. One of the rare successes of resolution with force is the Korean War.
For over 10 years, the noncompliance of Iraq (Hussien) with the U.N. resolutions were additional U.N. resolutions condeming noncompliance. After a suffiencient passage of time and resolutions, the U.N. gifted Iraq with the "Food for Oil" program.
Iran currently is playing Brinksmanship Diplomacy along with North Korea. They condem their respective international conferences, join them, then flee from them. Time is on their side and they are buring as much of it as they can. Each of these countries desire Nuclear capabilities with long range delivery systems. If given enough time, they will obtain them.
Iraq may not have had Nuclear Weapons, they did have a burning desire for them. They did demostrate their willingness to use a weapon of mass destruction. In 1988 (?) about 5 thousand civilians were gassed to death in villiages located in Northern Iraq. Years earlier, Iraq used these same type of weapons against the Iranians during the Iran/Iraq war.

If North Korea and Iran don't alter their desire for Nuclear weapons, they will get them. U.N. resolutions won't make any difference in the long run. Unless the change comes from external forces.

P.S. Dam, I'm long winded! Didn't realize my response was this long.

 

Yeah, and unfortunately the U.S. and Britain vetoed the U.N. resolution in 1988 that condemned Saddam's use of WMD on these people. It was also suspected that he used chemicals sold to him by U.S. companies such as Dow that were dual use, although Saddam claimed they were used for fertilizer. Not to mention the fact that the Reagan administration provided Saddam with strains of anthrax, botulism, and west nile virus through the CDC, and Saddam's meetings with Special Envoy to Saddam, Donald Rumsfeld (yes, that was his title). These were some of the reasons the Bush administration didn't want to hark back to 1988 for reasons to oust Saddam, but instead relied on 'arguments' such as 'he tried to buy aluminum tubes from China that might be used later for a centrifuge', and Bush's use of implanting seeds of fear in the minds of Americans in his State of the Union Address in 2003 (the giant mushroom cloud rising over the U.S.)

With respect to Iran, one has to question if they are really as bad as people like Hitler and Mussolini (are they?). What kind of argument can Bush use to put sanctions on Iran or justify a strike against them? That they might want to produce nuclear weapons? Right now he doesn't really have a good argument and has produced no evidence that they have such weapons or materials. On top of that, he has already smeared his own credibilty with his bungled reasons to go to war with Iraq

 

And why all this focus now on Iran, which doesn't even have nuclear weapons or materials, when rogue states like Pakistan that already have them are never mentioned?

You know that people in the U.S. government are still ticked off at the Iranian govt for those incidents that happened in 1979, much like they were with Saddam. Iraq and Iran both embarassed the U.S. govt. good. What a coincidence it is that these two countries decades later become the focal points for airstrikes and invasions. They are two old scores that need to be settled as far as the U.S. govt is concerned.

 

For precisely that reason: Pakistan already has them.

If diplomacy, sanctions, or air strikes can possibly stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons (and I'm not 100% sure that they can), I'm all for them.

With Pakistan, it's unlikely that they would ever consider disarming their nuclear weapons unless India does so too. I'm not saying that the rest of the world should abandon nuclear talks with Pakistan / India as a lost cause (Pakistan's incredible irresponsibility in dealing with A.Q. Khan is a disgrace to humanity), but I do think that such talks would be much less effective, whereas I think there's a semi-good chance of disarming Iran.

 

Disarming Iran from what?

In any event, I don't see Iran giving up their nuclear power program completely. There's too much of a practical need for it and there's also an ego thing about not wanting to be forced to give it up. The fact that the U.S. was working on about 23 nuclear facilities in Iran in the 70s is a testament to the need for that type of power for their growing population.

Regarding Pakistan, I sure hope the U.S. govt has a contingency plan in place in the event that we wake up one morning and Mushareff is gone and some other group is in place over there.

 

this I think would be the most unfortunate result of action taken by the US and the most counterproductive to thier desire to see the democratic process in action in many of these countries. The population of Iran is extremely young due to the extended war with Iraq which managed to kill off a load of their population..I think in Iraq with the insurgency you see the results of this youth and you would probaly see the same in Iran. The funny thing is the older people I have met who have lived under all the regimes and situations in Iran are the ones who do the most to encourage their children to liberal western ways of thinking that still manage to not abandon their own culture...it would be a shame to go in there and reduce these people efforts to nothing.

this is something which bothers me a lot....fair enough that Pakistan and other rogue nations as the US likes to call them already have nuclear weapons but the history of thesxe situations is I think clouding a lot of the judgements being made....

the people or the leaders? sorry not sure which you mean but if you mean the people...no, they are same as you and me...as far as I have discovered...beautiful people with a beautiful country and a beautiful traditions....it makes me sad to think that after such a rough trot they may be made to endure more.

 

Pakistan was on the list of terrorist nations, until just after the 911 incident when Bush removed them from the list.

 

I was referring to the leaders. I was mainly raising the question to others if they think Iranian goverment leaders are comparable to people like Hitler.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the fewer nuclear weapons in the fewer number of hands, the better. This is especially true with nations with ties to terrorists, such as Iran.

You're right, Iran does have a growing need for power. Unfortunately, the things produced in nuclear power plants can also be used in nuclear weapons. I hope that some kind of compromise can be reached. For example, maybe Iran could be allowed to complete its nuclear power plants, with the condition that UN weapons inspectors be allowed to observe everything that goes on inside. I don't know if something like that would be feasible, but it's a thought.

I highly doubt Iran is only interested in nuclear power for peaceful purposes though...

I think it's virtually a certainty that he'll be assassinated or overthrown within a year or two. You're right, it'd be a very messy situation if there's suddenly a fundamentalist Islamic regime with nuclear weapons. At least with Iran, the rest of the world has time to prepare. Not the case if Musharaf's regime collapses.

 

I think that worrying about nuclear weapons in the hands of anyone would make your argument more credible....muslim, christian, fundamentalist or not they are still dangerous things and have been used in the past and I am not sure that there is anything anyone can do to prepare for them.

Who have the Iranians got terrorist ties with? Do you mean such groups as Hezbelloah (scuse the spelling). If you do why are the people on one side of the argument allowed to keep their nuclear weapons and the others not allowed to?

 

nope...I think a better comparism would be if the religious leaders in our countries got control of the government...mmmmmm.....:X

 

They're a bad thing in the hands of anyone. But it's a lot easier to prevent a nation from acquiring nuclear weapons than it is to get a nuclear nation to disarm.

Right. The fewer fingers on the button, the less likely it is the button will be pushed. That's why nuclear proliferation must be stopped.

Are you kidding? Name a terrorist group, and I bet there's a link to Iran.

For one thing, Iran is VERY likely to give their weapons or know-how to terrorist groups.

But in the bigger picture: it's not a question of "being allowed" to keep nuclear weapons, it's a question of stopping proliferation. Israel already has nuclear weapons; Iran (probably) does not.

 

I thought they already did.

 

I just hope this issue could be worked out diplomatically this time. There may be a way of supplying Iran with the fissile material for powering their plants without them producing it themselves with their own centrifuges. Even that's a touchy situation, though.

 

If there are so many more terrorist ties to Iran compared with, say, Iraq, we have to wonder why Iraq was invaded first. Iraq was never shown to have major ties to terrorist groups when Saddam was in control. The only example I keep hearing is that Saddam provided a few thousand bucks to some Palestinian bombers. It's hard to justify an invasion based on that type of terror argument.

 

From what I understand, the technology exists for a type of nuclear power plant which would be very difficult to derive weapons grade nuclear material. As I understand the situation, Iran choices not to go in this direction.
They also have been interested building a delivery system, a missile capable reaching Isreal.
By their actions and statements, they want to build nuclear weapons. Until they change this desire, negotiations are pointless.

 

Disagreements are why we have negotiations.

Delivery systems are another topic. That issue can be dealt with without shutting down Iran's entire nuclear power system. From what I understand, the Bush administration wants Iran to shut down its entire system.

 

Ahem. If I were Iran, I'd be building fucking weapons too. A country has a right to defend itself, ya know.