Perhaps the Blogosphere should pool its resources and knowlege to start building nuclear reactors. Then we can accept one of the EU's generous offers, and watch the money roll in...

Iran's in for it now. The EU is going to write a letter to the mullahs, telling them just how angry they are.

I wonder how much the French & Germans said it would cost in Bribes to keep quiet and forget about the Nukes in Iran. Watch for a Nuke-for-food program coming.

Fritz's Thoughts

TEAM AMERICA! F--- YEAH!

Not be sound hopelessly naive, but can someone tell me why an oil-rich country like Iran wants to go nuclear (power, that is) anyway?

Not to sound hopelessly naive, but can someone tell me why an oil-rich country like Iran wants to go nuclear (power, that is) anyway?

CL:

I asked a Muslim friend who is from the mid east the same question. He replied, quite sincerely, that it was mostly for environmental reasons. Iran doesn’t want to experience the air pollution and acid rain that plagues the west. And everybody knows that the oil won’t last forever. And Iran doesn’t have much else that it can export, so it would be better economically for them to export oil to generate hard cash, and use nuke power inside the country as much as possible.

Well, being exceedingly generous, I might concede that there could be something barely plausible in there. But, really......

This came from a seemingly intelligent guy: electrical engineer, born in Egypt, lived in the US for 35 years, and even served in the US Army with a top secret clearance.

So I asked him where he gets this kind of information. He said he would send me a link to a good news site. He sent me a link to Al Jezeera. Being open minded, I at least went and checked it out. I can’t look at the guy the same way anymore.

"Not to sound hopelessly naive, but can someone tell me why an oil-rich country like Iran wants to go nuclear anyway?"

So they can rain nuclear death down on Israel with ballistic missiles. Iran is an energy powerhouse. They don't just have oil, but also huge natural gas resources as well. The idea that they need nuclear plants is a poor sham.

Well, that's not _quite_ fair, Mr. Green. The Iran negotiations have always been a good cop/bad cop thing, with the Europeans saying, look, just let the IAEA in, or we'll have to let the Americans go screaming to the Security Council ... and so on. This has as far as I can tell been done with our State Department's blessing, and it's not a bad strategy. So it's not quite that the Europeans have been appeasing Iran like they appeased Germany --- they've been telling Iran, look, take this nice tasty offer while it's still available, or I'm not going to be able to tell my crazy Uncle Sam no. So as long as they are willing to back us up when we say, look, you've had your chance and it failed, now let's talk sanctions --- I'll give Europe a pass.

Of course, just to clarify, I somehow DOUBT Europe will back us up when we play the "bad cop." It's just that, _that's_ the time to bitch about them (at least vis-a-vis Iran). Not now.

The Iranians will take whatever the Europeans offer them and then do what they please. Threats by the U.N. are hollow,and with elections in both the U.K.and U.S. nothing is going to happen soon.The Israelis know this and are just waiting.The Iranians are watching what the U.S. does in Falluja. If we act strongly and take care of business,they will slow their development until the atmosphere is again favorable to them

I won't insist on this but...

I wonder to what extent nuclear proliferation is about little countries wanting to be "grown up now." Seriously... how annoyed would I be if I thought I was all grown up and everyone else kept telling me that I wasn't, and couldn't be trusted to wipe my own nose or use sharp sissors?

On a smaller scale of human behavior, I know and have known girls who had babies primarily to force the status of adulthood for themselves. On a larger systemic scale the same motivation makes sense. (Isn't this also one of the main reasons Americans resent the French? Who likes to be treated like a child with no maturity or culture?)

To be a "nuclear power" is to be fully adult in the world.

Julie:

Would YOU trust Iran with sharp scissors, let alone a nuke?

All kidding aside, I have no doubt that your rationale is used by citizens of many a psychopatic regime (Iran, Pakistan, NKorea) to rationalize existing or planned nuclear programs. But turning a blind eye won't make the world any safer.

A funny aside (that is only tangentially related to your argument): When I used to to try the old "But Timmy's parents let him do so and so" plea on my mother, her response was "Well, I guess Timmy's parents love their children more than we do." I never had a good comeback to that one.

IRAN: Give us the tools we want to destroy our enemies (U.S. and Israel) and we promise not to destroy them.

FRANCE & GERMANY: OK.

A LOT OF SMART THINKING PEOPLE EVERYWHERE: Please, four more years of Bush, and then 8 of Condi Rice. Then just maybe the world will be a safe place.

TEAM AMERICA: F--- Yeah!

Sooner or later the the tribe in the other valley will aquire FIRE, THE WHEEL, THE THUMB. Moreover some misguided do gooder within our midst will enable them. What shall we do? How the hell should I know.

Julie,

The simple fact of the matter is that Iran isn't and "adult country (at least, they don't have an "adult" government), and treating them like they are would be phenominally stupid.

Besides, just as getting pregnant to "prove" you're an adult actually proves you're not one, the same applies to nukes.

Remy,
Outstanding!!! Can't wait am casting my early ballot now!

"I have no doubt that your rationale is used by citizens of many a psychopatic regime (Iran, Pakistan, NKorea) to rationalize existing or planned nuclear programs. But turning a blind eye won't make the world any safer."

You've made a very common mistake. That is, that you assume that accepting a reasonable motivation means that one can no longer be in opposition. No, I wouldn't trust Iran with sharp scissors. I don't find that in the least incompatible with considering that perhaps the *desire* for scissors is something I can sympathize with.

This was not an argument in favor of allowing nuclear proliferation.

Cards in 7! Cards in 7!

(Sorry Stephen. There's no Cards thread)

I want those responsible for Iran 'going nuclear' thrown in the slammer and forced to watch 24 hours of 'Yentl'.

I know it's cruel and unusual, but we need deterence here.

Oh, geez, the children are dreaming again, via Bros. Judd:

thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/9983705.htm

Europe Seeking New Role in World Affairs

...The EU's outreach program to sometimes dangerous places beyond its borders marks a dramatic shift in Europe's perception of how it can play a key - perhaps central - role in world affairs: The strategy is one of exploiting economic clout to both achieve influence on the world stage and shape the rim of Europe. Perhaps Europe might even school America - and its many Euro-cynics - in the merits of persuasion rather than force.

"We want to strengthen the instruments available to us to become a dynamic protagonist in the world. The EU has a leading role to play in securing human rights and democracy," said Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who is set to take over as the EU external relations commissioner on Nov. 1.....

Other than Mother and a few distant cousins, I'm not really willing to go back in during the 21st century.

3x in the 20th was enough.

I've hung out a little at Iranian blogs. It appears to me that the desire for nukes cuts across political lines. They want it. They think they deserve to be treated as a grownup nation. In fact, they take an inordinate amount of pride in their history and consider the US to be a mere 230 year old upstart compared to their millenia old civilization. When I counter that their millenia old civilization was conquered by the the Muslim hordes some 1300 years ago and has been ruled as an Arab satrapy since, they explain politely (and not so politely) that I should shut up.

Iran is going to get nukes. There is nothing, short of military invasion, that will stop them. If we start accepting that reality, maybe we can formulate a counterplan to contain them. If the Mullahs can somehow be brought down, it really wouldn't be such a concern.

At the very least, let's stop imagining that there is any reason for energy rich Iran to want nukes for any other purpose. That is so ingenuous, I'm embarrassed on behalf of the people making the argument.

I should have mentioned that we here in the west tend to discount the trauma of the Iran-Iraq war. Never mind the rights or wrongs of Iran going beyond trying to defend itself to trying to wrest the treaures of Najaf and Karbala from Iraq at the cost of tens of thousands of the flower of their youth. The Iranian people are bound and determined that they will never suffer such humiliation again.

Iran is going nuclear. Soon.

Iran ain't going nuclear as long as there is an Israel.

Was sup with the 'humiliation' thing? Didn't they kick Saddam back into Iraq?

They had to capitulate in Khomeini's vow to take the Shia holy sites of Najaf and Karbala. They lost something like 5 times our losses in Vietnam in a country 5 times smaller.

Israel cannot take out Iran's nuclear capability. It is too widely dispersed and, an attack would draw a terrible response from Iranian backed Hezbollah in the North.

Iran will go nuclear within two years, tops, maybe sooner. Bank on it.

That's 5 X smaller in terms of population.

Although the war was initiated by Saddam, the attacker became the attacked and, Iran was on a roll to defeat Saddam, until we stepped in and started giving Iraq information on Iranian troop movements, so that Saddam could position his overwhelmed forces for optimum defense (using chem weapons unfortunately but, that wasn't our doing, despite the myths that the left has tried to peddle).

Some reports claim that Khomeini only capitulated after we warned him that our support of Iraq would be significantly ramped up. The Mullahs reckon that, if they had nukes, we would not have intervened and, they would have won.

The left likes to remove all context and claim that our support for Iraq means we allied ourselves with Saddam and, therefore, are complicit in his crimes. This screwy point of view fails to take into account the radical nature of the Mullahs and the fact they are little, if at all, better than Saddam. In typical naive fashion, they imagine that moral purity is superior to choosing the lesser of two evils.

An Iranian victory would have been a disaster for the entire region and a victory for the greatest sponsor of terrorism worldwide.

I'm not that old, really, and I remember when the Shah was deposed, though that's about all I understood about it. My tiny little, Scandinavian only, public school in central Minnesota actually had exchange students from Iran. The surgeon in the little hospital in the neighboring town who removed a tumor (not cancer) from my five year old sister without payment was Iranian. The very nice people who lived across the street from me in California just a few years ago were Iranian.

Because of that I'm predisposed to think of Iranians as nice people, even while I wonder if that's just the ones who live here because they weren't safe in Iran anymore.

Iranians are wonderful people, Julie. Salt of the Earth. It's the Mullahs in power who are hateful, and who are in turn hated by the Iranian people.

second that.. Iranians (I like to call them Persians) are great..
the only people in the mid east who are pro american.. many wildly so (OK I am biased because I am American).
Their government is another story.
I yearn for the day when Persians are free.

I agree that "Persians" sounds better to western ears. But, I have been chewed out for that. "Persia" was a name someone else gave them (maybe the Greeks? Can't remember - getting old). Anyway, I was told in no uncertain terms that "Iran" is the more ancient and preferred name.