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Crazy-land sense. Mostly the people who don’t want a dialogue with Iran have fundamental ideological issues that won’t be swayed. We don’t negotiate with terrorists, or the sort that think that any negotiation that might improve the lot of an arabic power is implicitly anti-semitic.
Come now, BG - your faux shock is unbecoming. You know as well as I that many people believe that Iran is unlikely to make any concessions, and that it sees negotions as a ploy to give it time to complete its nuclear program. You may not agree, but it’s a perfectly reasonable point of view.
I’m anti-semetic and so is my wife!
It makes a change from the ‘axis of evil’ playground approach to international politics. If Bush seemed bizarre in real time, it sure seems even stranger as time passes.
I think a more important question is: Is Iran building an atomic bomb? Given that the IAEA has said “No” and that Iran has not started a war for over 200 years, I lean toward allowing them to have civilian nuclear power. I don’t see the problem. Iran is a sovereign country and shouldn’t be subjected to any more or less scrutiny than other countries. Frankly, if we go after Iran, we should go after North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, and India. None of these countries need nuclear weapons and their continued possession of these weapons threaten stability in the Middle East and the World.
I’m an Obama supporter, but I never liked his pandering toward American’s inherent distrust of Islamic countries. Everyone who has a brain realizes that even if Iran were to build a nuclear weapon, worldwide condemnation would be swift and merciless. If you think otherwise, please let me know what you’re smoking as its clearly more potent than that Amnesia Haze I smuggled across the Atlantic Ocean from Rotterdam.
Who cares about worldwide condemnation when you have nukes?
Frankly, I don’t see why Iran *wouldn’t *want nuclear weapons - they aim to be the predoiminant regional power, and nothing does that better than nuclear weapons. If I were them I’d do whatever it takes to get my hand on nukes, including conducting as many bogus “negotiations” as I need.
(Incidentally, I see you forgot to list Russia, France and the U.K as nations the U.S. should, hypothetically, go after and remove their nukes. Or are white people allowed to have nuclear weapons?)
A half-truth that avoids the real issue, which is that Iran indeed started unprovoked hostilities against Lebanon in an attempt to spread Khomenism and, even now, has infiltrated Lebanon’s telecom system so as to spy on Lebanon’s populace and link up Iranian proxy military forces through the region. That Iran attacked non-combatant US peacekeepers in Lebanon at that time. That Iran attacked invited US troops in Saudi Arabia later on. That Iran collaborated with Al Quaeda after AQ’s goals and methods were well know, etc.
The only reason that the Khobar Tower bombing or the Marine Barracks bombing didn’t start wars is because we chose not to, not because Iran didn’t launch unprovoked military attacks against another nation. Ignoring that fact is… odd.
Once, just once, can we please have a discussion on this topic without people feeling that the facts aren’t cool enough and that fiction would be nicer?
I do notice it. I’d imagine you are more attuned to it than I am, being from Israel and all. I find it to be quite a distraction from the real issues, perhaps intentionally so. It seems far easier for some to fault Israel than it is to actually address the issue at hand.
Not talking to Iran has nothing at all to do with Israel and everything to do with the fact that Iran is a noted supporter of terrorism, a fundamentalist theocracy, and a country with a history of considerable enmity towards the United States (which is perhaps justified in some ways).
I’m not saying that people can’t change or that our foreign policy is set in stone, but why should we talk to a country that is going to do whatever it wants to regardless of what we say or do? Why lend them an air of legitimacy? More to the point, why let them accuse us in an international forum of interfering with their country and its affairs? Let them do so in a vacuum.
I’d much prefer to let them do whatever they want to, ignore them to the greatest extent possible, and let others deal with them. Take the “Great Satan” out of the picture and they soon have to deal with what they are doing rather than shifting the blame to us. I think that had we ignored their posturing after we got the hostages back the theocracy would have collapsed long ago.