Look on the bright side. We now know, from the linked comments, that the Iranians aren’t engaged in holocaust denial. That’s one question cleared up.
Trying to follow this from a purely non-political as a Westerner’s analysis can be: Yes the Iranian comments are scary.
If the European and U.N. Initiative on Iran fails, the next steps … well the next steps like the current will require some flexibility on the Iranians part to resolve the impasse. If the Iranian leadership truly sees itself as on some kind of religious mission from God no compromise with the UN-Europeans is possible.
The U.S. and Israel have stated flatly that an Iranian bomb is unacceptable. They have actually used those words. I take them at their word
To prevent people dying in military action of some kind something has to give. Any Iranian comments that ratchet up U.S./Israeli fear and paint the idea of compromise as “unquranic” or against God’s will or “God will protect Iran” IMHO is unhelpful and “scary” .
So, Charles Manson has been sending Joe hate mail from prison for ten years.
So, Charlie breaks out of prison, kills a cop, and steals the cop’s gun.
Charlie has been spotted on his way to Joe’s house.
Charlie makes periodic calls to Joe, saying “I’m coming to kill you.”
Joe’s neighbors are asked, “Are you frightened by Charles Manson coming after Joe?”
“Nah,” say his neighbors. “That’s just the same old, same old rant Charlie’s been doing for years. There’s nothing to fear from Charlie. Our only concern is that Joe might overreact and do something to tick off Charlie. Or worse, the cops might step in, which will only escalate the problem.”
Do you know they had a yellow cake party to celebrate their new nuclear capabilities? I honestly don’t know much about Iranian culture but wtf is up with that? Is this some sort of cultural symbolism? Can someone enlighten me?
I appreciate the link (and found out about Yellowcake) but on tv they were actually passing out real cake you know, with frosting. And it looked good. I guess this is just the big celebration on obtaining the mechanism for the bomb.
That’s all well and good, except that Joe is much better-armed than Charlie is, and Joe might go after him before he even gets out of jail and gets the gun. And Charlie knows for sure that he’d got killed if he fired a shot at Joe.
Death by metaphor, anybody? Iran’s comments are scary if you take them at face value. I just don’t see why you’d take them at face value.
If the cake was actually yellow, the Iranians may be possessed of weapons of mass humour.
WOW! That’s awesome. Thanks for letting me know.
I haven’t slept a wink since the afternoon of the 14th, when I started this thread. Lemme go and get some sleep now… as long as they’re not denying the holocaust, we’re golden…
Always happy to bring a little cheer to th world.
I thought that was the reason those masters of soft power, the Euros, were taking the lead on nuclear negotiations. What the hell has the Euro-triumvirate been doing these last five years, anyway? Meanwhile, Iran is five years closer to its goal.
Color me unimpressed so far with the vaunted European diplomacy.
You should start a thread on this in Great Debates.
I see no reason to be scared. People endlessly suggest that if Iran had the bomb, they might attack Israel or the United States or Britain, but all of those countries are perfectly capable of delivering a bomb right back to Tehran. More generally, if Iran dropped a bomb on any country, the international community would band together and dispose of the current government. It’s mutually assured destruction; we survived the Soviet Union, who were far more militant and dangerous than Iran ever will be, and the Soviets were loaded with nukes.
Not quite: that they’d give a bomb to a third party (like Islamic Jihad or Al Qaeda) who’d do it for them. Plausible deniability, you see.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/04/16/mideast/index.html
This can’t be good. I wonder how long until they pledge enriched uranium.
IMHO time: Iran only needs one nuke and it’s reserved for Jerusalem. As long as they wipe out that city, they’ll be happy, even if it means getting nuked off the map.
You should be heartened by this instead. It is an act of charity.
This is just silly. Syria, Lebanon, probably Jordan and Saudi Arabia and a soupcon of terrorist organisations are well ahead of Palestine in the queue for Iranian nuclear technology.
Given that Israel has stopped providing tax revenue to the Palestinian government and that the US/British axis has stopped with the financial aid, Iran providing the Palestinians $ bothers me not at all.
The Palestinians are still broke enough that I’m sure that money will go towards legitimate government operating expenses, although I’m sure there’s a hole in their budget the size of the chip on Iran’s shoulder…
By the best estimates I’ve seen (read: the stuff not hyped to death by the trigger-happy neocons who got us into Iraq), Iran will need at least a decade before they can amass enough material for a bomb. No rush for the Israeli Defense Force.
IIRC, the current Iranian government isn’t in good standings with its citizenry, so one could imagine that the recent bluster about its “nuclear capabilities” (3.5%?!? 
) is partially to shore up support at home.
Yeah, because an ‘arrangement’ with Al Qaeda worked out great for the Taliban.