This is a wonderful object lesson on the dynamic that pervades these debates. Not only was the quote not distorted, not only was it not modified, Ahmadinejad’s own translators certified that it was accurate.
This is, in a nutshell, the entire situation with debates about this subject. Here we have a political leader say something and his own official translator say “yep, that’s the correct translation.” Others are falling over themselves to claim that it’s wrong, that it’s Zionist/American propaganda, etc… after it’s been confirmed by the guy’s own translators. Is there any doubt that they’d offer an apologia for other similar situations? If France released a statement in French and produced a certified English translation, would we see quite so many people, quite so ardently, claiming that what France said and certified they meant isn’t what they reaaaaaaaaly, double-pinky-swear meant?
Why the difference?
Could it be the political dynamic that Iran has placed itself in?
One wonders what the point even is behind such apologetics. Iran’s presidential figurehead has virtually no real impact on its foreign policy. Rather than this game whereby his defenders reveal that their credibility should be significantly lowered, they could simply say “Yeah, but he’s a wacko, he’s bread and circuses, he doesn’t make the calls and so his ravings can be safely discounted.” Instead we get “He didn’t say what his official translators say he said! That speech looks shopped. I can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few shopped speeches in my day!”
P.S. XT, the relationship between H&H and Iran is… complicated. I’ll see if I can’t elaborate a bit on it in the near future.
If Israel attacks Iran without approval by the US, I can’t see that Iran will accept that there was no approval. However, they don’t have any nuclear weapons to put on a missile, so I’m not getting how your scenario is possible.
I’m still wondering what exactly Iran has done to try to make peace with the US.
I’m also fascinated by the psychological process which leads people to deny that Iran (collectively) wants to get rid of Israel. Is it really so hard to admit?
My impression is that Iran’s hatred of Israel is more intense. But I think that ultimately, the prevalent Weltanschauung in most Muslim-dominated countries is that Israel is a stain on their honor; that non-Muslim, non-Arab sovereignty in an area which used to be part of Dar al-Islam is something which is hard for them to accept.
They do, and I’m not disputing this. Honestly, maintaining current stockpiles could be argued either way, and I don’t think any signatory party expected the nuclear nations to just throw the things away overnight.
However, these nations don’t do just that - they also continue to produce weapon-grade materials from their nuclear plants and build new warheads, as well as exciting new way of delivering their existing ones. Not only does that, in my opinion, is absolutely in contradiction with the very concept of nonproliferation, but it seems like a pretty clear case of hypocrisy and double standards here. If Iran cannot produce even a gram of plutonium or build a single new nuke, then we cannot either, yes ? We did sign the same treaty, did we not ?
As for further non-compliance, the wiki cite I pasted earlier quotes the International Court of Justice (which I think we can agree is not Joe’s Shack of Shooting the Shit when it comes to interpreting treaties and international law) as unanimously agreeing that implicit to the treaty was an effort at effectively reducing stockpiles under the strict supervision of international commission. AFAIK, no such commission exists, nor is planned to exist at any point, because nuclear nations have enough clout at the U.N. to nip the very thought in the bud.
Meet Trident II. Developped in the mid 80s, commissioned in 1990, UK’s getting themselves some of them suckers as well. That’s not old junk, unlike Russia’s mnogo rusty rockets (though they, too, are coming up with the shinies). France will not be left behind. Subs is the new silos, baby.
Well, in a sense, you are right than UN inspectors would be wholly unnecessary in this case, because we don’t even pretend to hide that we have active nuclear weapon production facilities, and they’re working just fine thanks for asking.
True enough, but then again Israel’s maybe-we-don’t-maybe-we-do-but-seriously-we-do-guys nukes are just as much of an existential threat to Iran, and there’s not much love for Iran coming from Israel either.
Even absent the religious aspect, which is kind of a thing, the two of them would still be at each other’s throats simply because along with Saudi Arabia they’re the big local shakers, movers and influence mongers. Competitors.
But while this is absolutely true, and I’m quite certain Iran’s leadership would love nothing more than for Israel to pop out of existence, I don’t think that translates to any *actual *threat. China would probably be ecstatic if Japan sunk into the ocean or Russia froze over, or Taiwan stopped being so darn independent all the time. North Korea would gobble South Korea for a stale hamburger. Europe would soil its federal shorts if the US were to vanish, and vice versa. And you know the Brits and French still want to go at it, deep down :D.
And yet nothing much is happening on any of these fronts except for underhanded, deniable sneakfuckery and proxy conflicts & manipulations. Because each front is thoroughly well armed and protected, and the consequences of even looking at the neighbour funny would overshadow the benefits of eliminating the competition by orders of magnitude.
What makes Iran/Israel any different ? Don’t you think Iran launching on Israel, or vice versa, wouldn’t immediately result in a shitstorm of Biblical proportions ?
Or for that matter, what’s the big difference viz. Saudi/Israel ? They too are an oppressive de facto theocracy, they too would like nothing more than to wake up to the sight of an Israel-shaped crater, they too fund and support unsavoury groups when their nationals are not pulling terrorist acts themselves (including 9/11), they too have a nuclear program (and apparently partly funded Iraq’s), and they too have ballistic missiles that could reach Israel.
So why are they not part of the BLACK AXIS OF ROGUE EVIL DOOM, exactly ?
I never called the US a rogue state, if only because I find the term itself retarded, but that is indeed sort of my point. Every nation is a “rogue state” if and when it figures it can get away with it. As such, labelling this or that country a “rogue state” is utterly meaningless, and using that label as justification for anything is cravenly hypocritical.
Well, there’s the ICJ thing again. But hey, if you’re adamant that the NNPT or any other treaty explicitly allow the US or any other nation to build new nukes, I’m all eyes for your cite.
And we signed the same.
That being said, I want to clarify something. You stated earlier that Iran could simply officially revoke their involvement in the treaty (which I’m honestly not sure about, but let’s assume it), and that your problem is that they signed one thing back in the day and do another now.
So would you have no hangups whatsoever with Iran getting nukes if they simply officially announced “yeah, that NNPT thing, we’re not doing that any more FYI” ?
I’m not saying anything of the sort - you’re the one clinging to that rogue state malarkey. I’m just saying it’s very :dubious: of us ; having established a huge global economical and political advantage through ruthless means over the last couple centuries ; to then turn around and pretend like the existing statu quo which is thoroughly rigged in our favour should stay as is for ever ; our newfound morality should be the gold standard NOW ; and condemn anyone who’d use similarly ruthless means (be it sponsoring terrorism to hamstring rivals as Iran does, or exploiting their civilian population like China does) to try and bridge the gap.
I mean, I understand why we do it, and we have every incentive and mean *to *do it. It’s just, y’know. Bullshit.
Sheesh. Nitpicking much? Yes, I was thinking about his “wipe Israel off the map” quote. Since that is the one that the war brigade uses most of the time I think it’s highly relevant.
No one needs to swear allegiance to anything. The fact that the Saudis continue to fund schools and support those teaching the extremist Wahhabism, the same school of thought that lead to Al Qaeda, is a black mark on their part for supporting terrorism, and a black mark on the US’s part for continuing to look the other way
Lost in all this discussion is the simple acknowledgement that no one who gets nukes will ever use them. Iran with nukes would be little different from Iran without nukes, except that they suddenly couldn’t be invaded so easily by the US or Israel. Nukes are a very good defensive tool, not so much offensive unless you have a thousand of them and are willing to commit suicide
I disagree. First of all, the fact that in the 40 years it’s had nukes, Israel hasn’t even threatened to use them is a close to proof as it is possible to get that Israel won’t use nukes unless in response to a existential threat. Whereas for Iran, we have no such proof. And yes, I know that that’s circular logic - but it’s logic nonetheless.
Second of all, there’s no reason why Iran and Israel can’t be friends, especially as Israel has a clear policy of allying itself with non-Arab elements in the Middle East. Iran isn’t Arab, isn’t part of the Sunni majority, and doesn’t border Israel; those reasons alone make it a natural Israeli ally. The fact is, Israel was close with Iran under the Shah, and there’s no reason - other than the Iranians’ religious *meshugas *- that it can’t be close to any regime that happens to be ruling the country. There’s no hate here on Israel’s behalf, just self-interest. If the Iranians suddenly decided to open full diplomatic relations with Israel, we’d welcome them with open arms, and wouldn’t make a fuss about whatever weapons they may decide to acquire.
As for Saudi Arabia, we don’t like them any more, and respect them much less (after all, at least the Persians are an actual nation-state). They’re too dependent on the West to pull any shit, though, and anyway, the Saudis couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
I don’t think Finn’s source shows it wasn’t mistranslated actually. In fact as it says, he was clearly referring to a particular regime. Post-revolutionary Iran has never accepted Israel as a Jewish state and Ahmedinejad was merely reiterating that. He never called for the physical destruction of Israel.
And you should learn how to use quotation marks properly. Can you point to where I said “most of his quotes” were mistranslated.?
Labour no, but I bet he would get on famously with a Shas-led government.
Seriously, clerical Iran has never accepted the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. I don’t think Ahmedinejad was saying anything more than that. He certainly wasn’t threatening the physical destruction of Israel.
No he wasn’t threatening the physical destruction of anyone.
Incidentally here is another good pieceby Jonathan Steele which addresses the Ethan Bonner piece in the NYT which I will again note does not support the translation of Israel being wiped off the map.
It’s also worth pointing out that the Iranian foreign minister specifically denied the “wipe off the map” statement.
Spot on. And I have no reason to think Iranians are any more suicide prone than any other nuclear-armed nation in the world today. Still, this whole Iran WMD’s increasing hysteria, is quite reminiscent of the weeks/months prior to the Iraq clusterfuck.
Just because you believe I am implying something doesn’t mean you can put it in quotation marks. If you think I am being pedantic, you clearly don’t know what quotation marks are for.
Israel being wiped off the map is clearly a mistranslation of what Ahmedinejad said. The Ethan Bonner piece doesn’t really dispute this; hell even MEMRI doesn’t use that translation.