[POL] Persian hide-and-seek

[Platapus]

Let's take this piecemeal...

Originally Posted by Kloef

A president publicly denying the holocaust

My response is "who cares?". So President Ahmadinejad is wrong about the holocaust. There is no uncertanity about it. There is ample evidence that he is, pure and simple, wrong. Clearly I would never hire Dr. Ahmadinejad to teach history. So what? How does the holocaust which happened 1943-1945 affect policy towards Israel when the First Aliya becan in 1881? Do not think for a moment that Israeli history in the region began in 1948.

and publicly treatens Isreal to 'wipe it of the face of the Earth'

Not exactly what he said. There is a very nice discussion about his speech at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud...22_translation

...should not be trusted with this technology, inspections or not.

President Ahmadinejad really has nothing to do with it. After the 1989 revision of the Iranian Constitution, President Ahmadinejad has zero control over the military. He can no more order an attack on Israel then Senator McCain can order the Bomb Bomb Bombing of Iran.

As for Iran (as a country) wanting to destroy Israel, I would highly recommend two books

Treacherous Alliane: The secret dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States by Trita Parsi

The Iran Agenda by Reese Erlich

Both do a pretty good job of describing the history of the relationship between Israel and Iran. Like many international relationships, what is publicly said is different from what happens in reality.

soundbyte answer: Iran needs Israel and Iran's national agenda would not be served by attacking Israel (even if Iran thought it could defeat Israel).

A most complicated and complex relationship indeed.

[Platapus]

It is extremely hard to enrich Uranium to above 92%. This is why many nuclear countries choose to go though the Plutonium route for nuclear weapons, despite the added difficulties as the North Korean's have found out the hard way.

[Kloef]

To my knowlegde Iraq never got to that level, and they had the technology at the time i remember..

Thanks for the interesting reading, i removed my previous comment because it didnt seem relevant anymore.(i asked him if one nuclear technology needs the other..)

I think we can agree that this problem is more uncontrollable then ever?

[Platapus]

If we can not prevent a country from obtaining nuclear technology, perhaps the wisest path is to take steps such that the country chooses not to misuse the nuclear technology?

[FIREWALL]

China is wise in the path their takeing with Iran.

They know the Western powers don't have the leadership right now to standup to them.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Platapus

If we can not prevent a country from obtaining nuclear technology, perhaps the wisest path is to take steps such that the country chooses not to misuse the nuclear technology?

What makes you think that choice is up to us (short of completely rejecting ourselves, that is) ? If that would be an option open to us, we would not be where we are.

The danger from Iran is not so much that they launch nuclear missiles at Israel or Europe, but proliferation, attempts of political blackmailing of Europe, and also a nuclear arms race in the region. I do not expect to see nuclear missiles from the Me exploding in europe or the US, but conventional truck or suitcase bombs with nuclear material set free.

The more players there are, the less stable and predicatble the match becomes, the less options we have in defending our own interests in the region (oil). See Pakistan. To seriously threatening war on them, they are immune. Every needle's poking needs to be well-dosed and well calculated - and therefore will not really achieve what is hoped it would.

It is not in our interest to have a second Pakistani situation located right on top of a vital vein of ours - the Gulf. One Pakistan already is bad enough.

but obviously Iran was able to hide the existence of the second facility until just 6-8 weeks ago, at max.

NBC News' Andrea Mitchell reported that the info was known last September and tht Mr. Obama was briefed on the 'secret' site during the transition.
Also there is this........

News media played up the statement by the senior administration official that U.S. intelligence had been “aware of this facility for years”.
But what was not reported was that he meant only that the U.S. was aware of a possible nuclear site, not one whose function was known.

Now what we see is drawing back lest technical aspects are revealed.

[Skybird]

Now even the IAEA and the UN officially consider Iran having all needed knowledge to buold nuclear weapons, revealed in an official report that was kept secret for months, but in all the time it's existence has been rumoured. Al Baradei has always taken psioitoon against confronting Iran, and defended a position of trading words for time, and leave it to that. now his own staff is against him, as well as most Wetsen governments and their intel service's conclusions.

One most wonder if maybe he gets payed by the Iranians.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/wo...gewanted=print

Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.
The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations.
But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States.
Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed.
A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions.
The atomic agency’s report also presents evidence that beyond improving upon bomb-making information gathered from rogue nuclear experts around the world, Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to fashion the components of a weapon. It does not say how far that work has progressed.
The report, titled “Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s Nuclear Program,” was produced in consultation with a range of nuclear weapons experts inside and outside the agency. It draws a picture of a complex program, run by Iran’s Ministry of Defense, “aimed at the development of a nuclear payload to be delivered using the Shahab 3 missile system,” Iran’s medium-range missile, which can strike the Middle East and parts of Europe. The program, according to the report, apparently began in early 2002.

On a bad day like this, with the Irish EU referendum finally giving the EU feudalists what they wanted, and the german "day of open mosques" impertinently held at the same time with the German holiday of German Reunification Day as if Islam has had any merits in this event or in German culture in general, I must ask myself if maybe it is just racism of ours to think that Iran is building nuclear weapons?

Storm, low clouds and rain over here. At least the weather matches the events. Three times bad news today, and this on a saturday. the rest of the weekend is cancelled, thank you very much.