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Boon Mee

A nuclear Iran will be the end of Israel's world and once some of those mad mullahs sell off a few suitcase nukes to terrorists...bye, bye western Europe...

sabang

^ Wrong again, but we're going round in circles.
Israels long term security is best assured by a positive outcome at the Annapolis summit.
Iran, if it actually goes nuclear armed which is highly questionable anyway, will be such a puny nuclear power that they will only of deterrent value- I doubt the nation has a suicide wish.
The end of the world is not nigh booner and the 'politics of fear' are sold only to the weak.

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Clockwork Orange

I hope you are right, Sabang.

I don't fancy any country's leader - with a belief that suicide murders lead to heaven - having the ability to fire a nuke.

It only takes one country to launch & they all will.

sabang

^ Sure, right back at the country that fired the first one!

And, contrary to popular opinion, Terrorists cannot carry nuclear devices in suitcases.

keda

Have not been following the Annapolis scam but that's smoke and mirrors anyway, by two camps that each know the value of a promise by one.

As to Iran being a 'puny' nuclear power, I'm surprised at that coming from a normally controversial but intelligent poster. What is a 'puny' nuclear weapon...is it one that when set off in Picadilly Circus will go by unnoticed, does it kill only midgets, or is it so puny that the global Jihad wouldn't bother setting it off in capital cities of the world?

Do explain, because Google could do with an education.


That's true because the deletion of even something like London and or New York would not signal the end of the world, but it helps does it not, if we take collective steps to prevent WMD from falling into hands commanded by puny minds filled with delusions of religious grandeur?

Or has complacency so numbed you into believing all is fine at the farm because the world can survive without London, that you are prepared to chance it as a reality? Reminds me in a roundabout fashion of proof that an insect's ears are attached to it's legs, because if you train it to jump on command then pull its legs off and command it to jump, it won't.

keda

Crikey, so when Iran fires off its available nukes, hopefully to destroy Israel and then wherever else in the free world in line with Allah the Brightest and most Merciful and Compassionate's command, the event triggers a Western response which fulfills the same rabid god's will to rewind Iran a few centuries....talk about killing two birds with one stone....gosh he must be a real clever god, one for the brainless to follow and others to run the fvck away from.

sabang

Well lets just make a few bullet points, 'cus like a lot of Issues this one just carries on in circles-

1- Iran has no territorial ambitions, and does not occupy other countries. Truth be told, the US should've let them depose Saddam when they had the chance, but that was then.

2-Iran is offering to work with the IAEA under full scrutiny. This means all fissile material accounted for, down to and including duct filters.

3-Assuming they still developed nukes unnoticed (an almost fantastic supposition) they are many years away yet, and there would be very few of them. That plutonium does not exactly grow in the desert, neither can you mix it up with a big blender.

4-Iran has the largest Jewish population of any ME country save Israel. They are unpersecuted, happy there, and even have a seat in Parliament- as do the Zoroastrians. It is not the nest of fierce jihadists you are being sold. In fact, as Shiites, they hate Jihadists.

5-Iran has extremely sound economic reasons to develop nuclear energy, extremely. They also had a research reactor in the Shahs time- it is not a primitive country.

6- Israel has one of the most sophisticated missile defence systems in the world, and it is getting better. Assisted no doubt by the fact it is a small country. No conventionally fired nuke would make it to its borders, and the response would be swift and united. Just a reminder- you can't carry a nuke in a suitcase.

7- The widely touted quote of Whackjob about the destruction of Israel was so mistranslated it rather gave away the agenda of the translating agencies. He was bollocked in Parliament for it anyway, not least by the Jewish MP, and backtracked. Predictably, this was hardly reported in the West- as the same Jewish Iranian MP pointed out.

8- Whackjob is overhyped anyway. He does not have real power, and will be out of office before Iran even gets nuclear power, nevermind nukes.

9- I'll not even bother repeating the reasons why a missile strike would be ineffective and economically and politically catastrophic. Nothing to be gained, unless you sell weapons, short the Dow or buy oil futures.

So I'll just sit here and smell the roses. There are enough insecure and paranoid people in the West- they don't need my help. To them I would just say 'Hey, we got the Bombs'.

blackgang

Have you seen this??

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/ISISIssueBriefIran15Nov2007.pdf

AntRobertson

This point, seemingly no matter how often it is highlighted, is always lost on some people for reasons that I can only guess at.

But as sure as night follows day someone will misrepresent/mistate his importance and influence in the grand scheme of things.

sabang

Good reference actually bg. They refer though to the fact that Iran needs to observe an 'additional protocol' which is not spelled out in the document. I'll try and check what this is.
Other than that, the IAEA reports that Iran's centrifuges continue to produce about 22 kg of low grade enriched uranium per month (no panic there), in spite of UN Security council demands they stop. Well no news there, and we all know who the Security Council is.

Because of the stand off, the IAEA's knowledge is actually becoming less, they say. I think that this is where this brinkmanship game is not really serving our purpose- to me it's best to be in there observing proceedings.

blackgang

Fuk yes you have to watch the fukers,, damn, like turning a bunch of miners loose at the sluice boxes when you are running hi-grade muck

You never know what they are packing off..

raycarey

ummmm.......no he doesn't. because he doesn't have them....and his country stopped trying to get them back in 2003...three years before you started this thread.

U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work - New York Times


this is a clear slap down of the neo-cons by US intelligence agencies.

cheney's office must be livid....they had such big plans for starting another war.

Boon Mee

^
Well, let's look at what exactly happened in '03 to persuade Iran from their nuke program shall we? And, the events that have followed.
Saddam getting topped seems to have been a powerful incentive to postpone their WMD program but anyone care to bet that little nuke bomb factory getting snuffed in the Syrian desert isn't a portent of things to come?

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Sir Burr

Hmmmm......seems the US Intelligence agencies have now done an about face. They say that Iran gave up it's military nuclear program in 2003.

Seems the US was wrong again through faulty intelligence.

chinthee

^This seems to me to be perhaps a big propaganda move. The premise of invading Iran has lost its legs, and this is a way to back out saving face maybe.

raycarey

conventional wisdom has is that cheney's office had been delaying the release NIE because they didn't like the results.
however, adults are back in charge of foreign policy and intelligence analysis...finally.

chinthee

Iran welcomes new US intelligence report

Iran welcomes new US intelligence report - Yahoo! News
Well, I'll be buggered. This makes Bush look like a hair-trigger fool again. I would think any republican presidential candidates would try to distance themselves greatly from him for the election. I think he's done a disservice to the Republican party and to the country with his sabre rattling and unfounded war mongering, if this report is to be believed.

raycarey

have you been watching any of the republican debates.....his name is rarely (if ever) mentioned.

just a few weeks ago he was talking about world war 3.

the man and his administration are a menace.

raycarey