I think he stated a clear opinion that was supported by what he could find in terms of information about Iran. I don’t buy the nonsense that Iran is a threat of any more strength than Iraq prior to 2003. It has a strong, stable government, clear policies toward the nations nearby and an interested, politically-active population. Its military leaders, supreme leadership, and even its president are sane enough to understand their strength relative to the strength of those that might attack. This leads to the logical conclusion of making noise and little else.
Their behavior with respect to their nuclear program reminds me of Saddam, but maybe they actually have the ability to build viable nuclear weapons in the next 10-20 years.
As you said before, its probably a threat toward the planned protests, but Dick Dastardly’s analysis makes sense too. What doesn’t make sense is a military strike on the part of Iran.
No, it was supported by ignoring the actual information on Iran. That’s not exactly what’s meant by “support”, mind you.
The Lebanese government might disagree with you. As might the Israeli. And any number of other regional powers who’ve started/are starting their own nuclear programs.
Wow.
It has a dictatorial regime that brutalizes its own people to clamp down on dissent, clear policies of being willing to dominate and interfere with its neighbors, and a politically active populace who were brutalized in the streets. And those are all reasons to have faith in the Iranian government? The spin is astounding.
That’s a non sequitor that’s falsified by even a cursory knowledge of history. They understood the same exact things back when they planned, armed, directed and set in motion the bombing of the marine barracks or the Khobar Towers.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel, Haaretz magazine reveals in an article on Livni to be published tomorrow.
Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears. Last week, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy said similar things about Iran.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/916777.html
Seventeen years ago, in January 1992, the U.S. Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the House Republican Research Committee, asserted that there was a "98 percent certainty that Iran already had all (or virtually all) of the components required for two to three operational nuclear weapons.” That same month, Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset that "Within three to five years, we can assume that Iran will become autonomous in its ability to develop and produce a nuclear bomb… (The nuclear threat) must be uprooted by an international front headed by the U.S.” In that same year, Robert Gates, then director of the CIA, asked, “Is [Iran’s nuclear program] a problem today?” He answered, “Probably not. But three, four, five years from now it could be a serious problem.” Three years later, a senior Israeli official declared: “If Iran is not interrupted in this program by some foreign power, it will have the device in more or less five years.” Officially, both the United States and Israel now agree that Iran is unlikely to be able to produce a bomb until about 2013 or 2014—the same five-year window that was being predicted seventeen years ago in 1992.
A nuclear-armed Iran would not be capable of destroying Israel, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday in remarks that departed from long-running Israeli arguments about the threat posed by its foe.”Right now, Iran does not have a bomb. Even if it did, this would not make it a threat to Israel’s existence. Israel can lay waste to Iran,” Barak said in a transcript of a newspaper interview obtained by Reuters before publication Friday.
A general who was once in charge of Israel’s nuclear weapons has claimed that Iran is a “very, very, very long way from building a nuclear capability”.
Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, 75, a war hero and pillar of the defence establishment, believes it will probably take Iran seven years to make nuclear weapons.
The views expressed by the former director-general of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission contradict the assessment of Israel’s defence establishment and put him at odds with political leaders.
“Late 1991: In congressional reports and CIA assessments, the United States estimates that there is a ‘high degree of certainty that the government of Iran has acquired all or virtually all of the components required for the construction of two to three nuclear weapons.’ A February 1992 report by the U.S. House of Representatives suggests that these two or three nuclear weapons will be operational between February and April 1992.”
“February 24, 1993: CIA director James Woolsey says that Iran is still 8 to 10 years away from being able to produce its own nuclear weapon, but with assistance from abroad it could become a nuclear power earlier.”
“January 1995: The director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, John Holum, testifies that Iran could have the bomb by 2003.”
“January 5, 1995: U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry says that Iran may be less than five years from building an atomic bomb, although ‘how soon…depends how they go about getting it.’”
“April 29, 1996: Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres says ‘he believes that in four years, they [Iran] may reach nuclear weapons.’”
“October 21, 1998: General Anthony Zinni, head of U.S. Central Command, says Iran could have the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons within five years. ‘If I were a betting man,’ he said, ‘I would say they are on track within five years, they would have the capability.’”
“January 17, 2000: A new CIA assessment on Iran’s nuclear capabilities says that the CIA cannot rule out the possibility that Iran may possess nuclear weapons. The assessment is based on the CIA’s admission that it cannot monitor Iran’s nuclear activities with any precision and hence cannot exclude the prospect that Iran may have nuclear weapons.” http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/08/24/bad-intelligence-but-in-which-direction/
**We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that bring it closer to being able to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.
2010 Iran NIE
**Iranian leaders say they will halt plans to increase uranium enrichment if they receive higher-grade fuel from abroad, reports Iran’s Press TV. Iran would also require amendments to an IAEA plan regarding Iran’s ability to receive enriched uranium from abroad.
[INDENT]"Earlier, we made it known that Iran has a preference to buy fuel for the Tehran research reactor from abroad. The results were very disappointing since they were not willing to cooperate with us in this area,” he pointed out. “The basis for the proposal was to open the door to cooperation rather than confrontation. We waited for more than seven months and today (Sunday), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the AEOI to begin production of 20-percent [enriched] uranium that can be used to power the Tehran medical reactor,” he added.
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran said on Tuesday it was ready to send its uranium abroad for further enrichment as requested by the U.N.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the decision in an interview with state Iranian television.
He said Iran will have “no problem” giving the West its low-enriched uranium and taking it back several months later when it is enriched by 20 percent.
The decision could signal a major shift in the Iranian position on the issue.
Still, it was unclear how much of a concession the Ahmadinejad comments represented, even though he appeared to be saying for the first time that Iran was willing to ship out its enriched uranium and wait for it to be returned in the form of fuel for its Tehran research reactor.
Interesting, the word “existential” appears exactly one place in this thread and that’s your post Dick. I’m blanking, but I’m pretty sure there’s a word to denote the fallacy of ‘rebutting’ an argument that hasn’t been made. Along the same lines, you’re now claiming the fact that we can’t verify the absence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program and we don’t have solid enough intel to say exactly how advanced their program is is a reason for, what, total non-concern? That we should figure that Iran bulldozed a site that the IAEA wanted to visit, and has blocked the AP’s, and we can’t verify non-diversion of nuclear material as a reason why we should not have any rational concern?
Well, let’s look at how the current situation developed. In 1951 Iran’s democratically elected secular government decided they’d like to make more than 16%, or tip money, of the market price of their oil and nationalised their oilfields, booting out the Anglo/US firm that controlled their oil. We didn’t agree with that and overthrew their government, installing a brutal dictator who in less than 30 years in power managed to kill or torture at least one member of every Iranian family. He had a really repressive secret police force whose favorite trick was to pour boiling water up the ass of anybody they pulled in for whatever reason.
In 1979, tired of having boiling water poured up their asses, the Iranian people rallied round the only unifying institution in the country, their religion, and overthrew the dictator. The new government was obviously strongly opposed to America, as were the people who’d seen America prop up the dictator for the previous few decades. America didn’t like the new government very much either, and enacted strong economic and financial sanctions against Iran, supported dissdent movements inside the country and an anti-Iranian terrorist group outside the country. A couple of years after the revolution we encourages our regional clients to start a war against Iran, King Hussein of Jordan firing the first shot in the war from a tank, and we got involved in a naval action against them during it although the vast majority of the fighting was done by Iraq, who we gave military aid and intelligence to throughout. Iran, the aggressee in the war, lost over a million people. We also shot down one of their civilian airliners around this time, but hey, small potatos compared to everything else.
Despite all this a reformist movement started to break through a little in Iran. The real old guard weren’t too keen on it and with the advent of George W and his axis of evil got the opportunity to consolidate power. Hearing that once we’d taken Baghdad we were going to go north to Damascus then turn right for Tehran brought back 1979 memories for the Iranian population and they turned so far back they elected Ahmadinejad. Since then they’ve watched the 2008 presidential candidates from one party on stage in a debate dividing into two camps, those who would bomb Iran and those who would nuke it. And then the guy that won sang a song about bombing Iran. How well do you think that sort of thing goes down with Iranians when they watch it on TV? Imagine how nuts this stuff sounds to the average Iranian when he’s watching the news.
Imagine if Iran had invaded, bombed and then spent the last eight years militarily occupying Canada and Mexico and spent before and during constantly threatening the US with bombing campaigns and invasion, only for the Iranian government and media to keep insisting that it was the US that was the rogue state run by aggressive fanatics who threatened world peace. When you compare our policy on Iran with our policy on North Korea, you wouldn’t think about building a bomb?
Most of your previous post is irrelevant smoke and mirrors. If you punch a tiger in the face sure the tiger has a reason to fuck you up, but you’re still dealing with a pissed off tiger. Going on at length about how you fucked with the tiger first does not get at the fact of whether or not someone should be concerned about the tiger. It’s also an interesting dodge, as your gloss doesn’t help explain why Iran has up to the modern day been attempting to do things like dominate Lebanon. But that’s what happens when the narrative takes over the analysis.
This fiction is interesting, as it’s got the benefit of being repeated endlessly until people assume it’s true. It’s not. Iran offered a somewhat amorphous but hardly “digging in” bargain to the US in May of 2003. The “Axis of Evil” speech was in January of 2002.
Further, as the NIE’s timeline gives credence, the best-fit for the facts is that Iran mothballed its nuclear weapons program after Bush’s military adventurism and posturing instead of ramping it up.
P.S. good dodge of your use of a silly strawman. Of course, you refuting an argument that nobody even thought of making is because we’re existentially threatening Iran. Which is proven by the devastating response to any of their direct attacks against our military. Oh, those didn’t happen. We did nothing. Whoops, facts again.
In post #7 he seemed to be saying that Iran is not making anything more than the typical verbal threat because they are showing off their space-skillz. He made a statement which can be paraphrased as “Do not worry” and then showed where he got his idea from. You also made an assessment which made some sense as well.
So I, in the USA, have nothing to fear then. We should assist Israel and Lebanon in defending against Iran’s proxies, as we have done for a long time now.
Ok, please give an example of how these features lead to a strong probability of an attack on the USA by Iran?
So Iran will act through its proxies both before and after the time they develop a nuclear weapon. Got it. I trust that our continued support for the Lebanon, Israel and any other threatened state in the region can mitigate this problem.
The fact that Iran has attacked the US military, more than once, before suggests that it’s not out of the realm of possibility. The fact that it’s a dictatorial regime that has tried to dominate the legitimate government of Lebanon does away with the all-too-pat narrative of a purely defensive Iran that would never attack anybody else without provocation.
MAD eliminates any real reaction and despite Dick’s dodge, a threat doesn’t have to be existential to be pretty fucking awful. (Nor is the posturing of some Israelis proof positive that Iran is not threat to Israel continuing to exist in a recognizable form. I leave it up to you if Dick would uncritically quote Israeli politicians if their views didn’t already agree with him.)
What, do you think, our responses could be if Hezbollah kicked up its campaign against Lebanon? And what would the result of a nuke hitting Tel Aviv be on Israel’s ability to continue as a functioning nation with a modern economy, should we respond?
My luke-warm concern is not of a direct military assault on any of our forces nor of a missile launch - If there is a danger I would think it’s more likely something that was imported some time ago and has recently been activated. Am I bat-shit paranoid about it, no, but can’t reject the possibility completely either. Tis a crazy world…
No, I’d think about how I could avoid looking like a bunch of radical fanatics to the world at large, especially if I had a big aggressive power in the neighbourhood who could kick my ass in an instant and might readily do so if I looked to threaten them seriously.
And, being rational, I’d look at why the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and make damn sure that I didn’t give them any reason to look at me because of similar issues.
Lots of countries can look like radical fanatics to other countries. It’s all in the eye of the beholder on that one. You’ve got to expect that when you subject a country to brutal repression that you could empower a really radical response, and that’s what happened in Iran. The problem is then how to deal with it. Should you try diplomatic means, not recognise the country but encourage your regional allies to make contact and agreements with the radical regime with the understanding that if their beaviour is moderated they might be gradually allowed entry into the community of nations kind of thing but further radicalisation will lead to consequences, sticks and carrots, that kind of thing. Or should you put them under immediate sanctions, encourage and give support to your regional allies to make war with them, shoot their civilian planes down, support terrorist groups and internal dissident groups to act against them? Which method is going to further inflame the problem you created and which method is going to help a return towards normality, which before the US intervened was a democratically elected secular government?
Which of us is the tiger and who is punching the tiget in the face? If Iran is a tiger it’s a toothless tiger. I don’t think we need be worried about being gummed to death.
And I was talking about the reformist movement that in Iran in thhe 1990s under Khatami. Once Bush had done his axis of evil thing and invaded two countries next door the mood in Iran went from leaning towards reform to voting for Ahmadinejad.
And my silly straw man argument was just mocking your ridiculous fear of big bad Iran and your even sillier idea that your big daddy military can come along, dry your tears, bomb Iran and make the boo boo go away for you.
The Swedes look pretty radical. No? How about Canada? Do we look radical? Japan? Australia? India? Germany? I suggest it isn’t hard to tell the radical countries from the non-radical ones. Want to not be classified as radical? Do what those countries do. Sabre rattling just gets the other guy to pull his sabre in response.
There is no reason Iran can’t act as a good neighbour in the region and still disagree with the US. There is no reason they need to fund terrorists other than they choose to do so. It is not always up to the West to cater to fundamental whack jobs. Israel will continue to exist regardless of what Islam says about what is Islam’s will always be Islam’s. They choose to act in the way they do and can change it at any time they like.
They have to take responsibility for their own actions regardless of their history and the forces that caused them to come into being.
:smack:
You are aware that Iran’s President is a figurehead, a bit of ‘bread and circuses’ for the masses and that while Khatami had some influence that the real policies are far above that pay grade? That Khatami’s attempts at real reform of the Iranian political system were shot down by the Guardian Council? Likewise, while your argument relies on tried-and-true narratives, the claim that the “mood” turned against reform is simply fictional, and I suppose that it’s believed because it’s repeated so very often. The facts of the matter are that the Guardian Council eviscerated the reform movement during the 2004 election cycle. And they then did the same in the 2005 presidential election. Despite your rhetoric, there was a popular outcry for the reformists to be included that was so strong that the Supreme Leader ‘encouraged’ the Guardian Council to include them. And Mehralizade, who was expected to do quite well, ended up not doing well at all. But we know that in Iran elections are always fair.
And again, despite your rhetoric, this was after Iran’s response to the Axis of Evil speech was to offer greater concessions than ever before.
Pointing to a largely impotent position is par for the course of the narrative, but it’s absurd since I just pointed out that those who wield the actual power in Iran proved that they were more willing, not less, to make concessions after the Axis of Evil speech and that the very same people who were beaten to a pulp for supporting democracy now, did not then turn away from reformist candidates.
Your narrative is fictional, deliberately ignores datapoints it cannot explain and has no use for nuance. It’s useful as rhetoric and bombast, useless as analysis.
Simply for the record as well, just in case anybody reading along hasn’t read the whole thread, the claim that I argued, stated, implied, hinted at or transmitted via telepathy the idea that we should bomb Iran is a pure fabrication. Pure fiction, invented, manufactured and applied to me because the facts are at odds with the narrative some people use. And the only real response that the narrative has is to ignore facts that show the valid reasons for rational concern over Iran’s posture/history and to allege that anybody who doesn’t cleave to the narrative must be a warmongering neocon intent on bombing the hell out of Iran, or what have you. It’s good rhetoric, it’s bad analysis.
Of course, I have said nothing that could even possibly be interpreted or misread as advocating bombing Iran. I have said no such thing in any thread, ever.
As has been pointed out to you, Iran has been exporting arms (such as rockets) to terrorist organizations such as Hamas for years. There is nothing toothless about their activity.
There should be no doubt that Iran will construct a nuclear weapon. The only question is when. When this happens there will be a grand announcement of the test in some form given the history of the media vitriol displayed.
It should also probably be pointed out that Iran gave Al Quaeda safe haven and explosives training as well as collaboration with Hezbollah. And that was after Bin Laden’s goals, methods and ‘target profile’ were all common knowledge.