by Patrick Lang (bio below)
“We won’t be intimidated … You don’t even want us to do some research,” said Ahmadinejad. “That’s not fair. Even if you bring in the international community, we’re still not going to listen to you the way you want. You are just tricking us, and this is not fair. You’re not going to stop our research.”
He accused the Western nations of using the threat of referral to the U.N. Security Council as a “stick” to threaten Iran. “Every day, they bring in a stick and tell us either we have to listen to them and do what they want or be referred to the Security Council … You are using it as a stick, you are threatening us with it.” Yahoo News
“And I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down…” (wolf to little pigs) It appears that the Iranian government (the one that Michael Rubin et al say is unpopular in spite of its recent election) has decided that our bark is worse than our bite. They are probably correct. There is a lot of “action” just now in the blogosphere concerning Western “plans” to raise hell with the Iranian “nucular” program with commandos or a massive air campaign. Forget the commando thing. Iran is a large, hostile country. There are literally millions of people there just waiting for an opportunity to help the “authorities” hunt down a commando force. You could get in, but how would you get out? The complex itself is composed of a large number of facilities, some of them hardened against attack. This is not a suitable target set for special operations forces. Could a US air campaign set back the Iranian program enough to be worth considering? Yes, but a fruitful result would require a maximum effort on the part of US Air Force and US Navy world-wide. We are talking about something in the nature of a thousand strike sorties of aircraft and cruise missiles using platforms deployed from all over the planet. One could do this with nuclear weapons at a fraction of the effort and cost, but the rational among us know that this will not happen.
The Israelis? With what set of imaginary assets could the Israelis do anything more than anger the Iranians? Their smallish air force lacks the strength, range, tanker capability, targeting capability, etc. The target set would require numerous waves of re-strikes after bomb damage assessments were made. The Izzies would have to overfly Jordan, Iraq, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia. All of these countries would object loudly. They are all allies of the United States. Think about it! Would the Shia run government of Iraq give its assent to overflight or, better yet, to use of Iraqi air bases by Israel? Ignore them? Hey! They are the SOVEREIGN government of Iraq. We made them that, and they become more entrenched in government by the day. A talking head host observed last evening that the Israelis have “THE ARROW…” Say what? The Arrow is an anti-ballistic missile weapon with an engagement slant range of about 100 km. Arrow-Iran strike? Duh!
Oh yeah, Osirak. That always comes up in a discussion of Israel and the Iranian program. It is true that Israel struck the Iraqi nuclear facility at Osirak long ago. The facility was one single set of undefended above ground buildings and the Israelis struck it with half a dozen planes. Not the same thing at all.
So, what is going to happen? … continued below …
Probably not much. We and the Europeans will eventually go to the UN for sanctions against Iran. The Iranians will continue with their program and eventually weaponize. The Iranians will seek reprisals against us all in Iraq and elsewhere. With nuclear weapons in hand Iran will become the dominant local power in the Gulf. They will have no pressing need to use these weapons because their mere possession will ensure that everyone in the region, including Israel, will have to deal with them as a major power.
What do I think of that? I think that an Iran armed with such weapons will be a major rallying point and supply source for jihadi forces everywhere. The possession of such power by Iran will greatly undercut the goals of modernism and democracy which the United States has embraced (for good or ill) in the Islamic World. The probability of a major war in the region will have been greatly increased. What will be the posture of the United States if the Iranians have nuclear weapons and we still have forces in the Gulf and in Iraq? Should Europe feel safe? They should contemplate the ranges of ballistic missiles which the Chinese have previously sold to Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia for example). Who knows what China will sell in the future and to whom.
People will ask if it is not “just” that Iran should have nuclear weapons. I don’t care if it is “just” or not. A nuclear Iran is too dangerous to be tolerated.
Pat Lang
Refs: Yahoo News and CNN
Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. Col. Lang was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point. For his service in the DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann (interview), CNN and Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room (interview), PBS’s Newshour, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” (interview), and more .
Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV
Recommended Books || More BooTrib Posts
Novel: The Butcher’s Cleaver (download free by chapter, PDF format)
“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2
Prosecute all those associated with Halliburton and any US affiliated politician/corporation that has enabled Iran to acquire components needed to pursue those weapons. That might be a decent start if we’re serious about the threat they present.
those who are not part of the solution, is still part of the problem.
What do you suggest go on now!!??
dubya has opened his can of worm, now what? I hate this rhetoric, if you don’t mind. Can we not try for a peaceful resolution, for once in our lives here??!! I do not like that you take the stance of war, over other ways and means to get the job done…unless I misunderstood your arguments here. I always am and will be suspect of the spook side of the argument, if you will beg my pardon.
It doesn’t help that the US specialist on Iran in the defense department has pleaded guilty to passing classified information on Iran to other countries or that the admin’s favorite, Chalabi was working both Iran and US against each other.
…I’m not eager to see another nuclear state in the world. Especially one that might hand over that technology to some non-state bad actors. But, let’s face it, there’ll be 10 more by 2020, maybe sooner. Is the U.S. going to bomb them all? Until Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is taken seriously by the U.S. and the other nuclear signatories, why should any of the non-nuclear signatories take the rest of treaty seriously?
And, as the Iranians have noted, they’re not violating the NPT by enriching uranium.
Iran with the Bomb doesn’t raise my optimism level. But the approach hinted at by Mr. Lang doesn’t lower my blood pressure either.
The truly intolerable component here is a U.S. imperial govt. bent on taking us along for their ride.
A George Bush lead U.S. is too dangerous to tolerate.
Under what set of principles is the Security Council going to deny Iran the chance to get nuclear weapons?
And how do those principles apply to India, Pakistan, and Israel?
First things first. I really don’t want Iran to develop nuclear weapons. But I also really wish that Pakistan and India and Israel did not have nuclear weapons. If we say that India and Israel at least have some civilian control over their weapons, we still have to consider the case of Pakistan.
Take it another way. Would we be as fearful of the Shah having nukes? Today’s Iran is more democratic than the Shah’s Iran. Can we make it a principle that only our allies can have nukes?
I think the Establishment agrees that Iranian nukes are too dangerous to tolerate, but this is a problem of the nature and goals of the Iranian government. We seem to think that the Iranian people are much better disposed to us than the Council of Guardians. And that is probably true. But the people support, very strongly, the nuclear program and will deeply resent sanctions, and/or a 1000 aerial attacks on their country.
Perhaps the best solution is to work quietly to empower the people of Iran and to help them strip the Guardians of power. A truly democratic Iran would be much less hostile to us and might even become a valuable ally against the so-called jihadis. And then we might not worry so much about what they do with some nukes.
The alternative appears to be bomb the crap out of them, and that will make the people our permanent enemies.
well said, Booman…I appreciate that sincerely, I do.
Booman I was with you until you got to the part about quietly empowering the people of Iran. I think they’re more nationalistic than that. How could this be acheived anyway? More backing of groups like we did with the so called Iraqi resistance? Puppets all molded in our craven image. No. It’s too late for us to have much influence in any regard I think.
Asshole has us between a rock and a hard place now. We’ll have to come through the fire first…or not.
we could do a number of things. Mainly we would work to discredit the mullahs by exposing their corruption and hypocrisy, giving support to dissidents, empowering student groups. All the stuff we have done in the past.
It doesn’t have to involve anything really nasty. In this case we would be supporting a liberalization of the country’s politics and constitution. I’m sure we are doing some of this already.
The idea is to win over the populace, while also strengthening the anti-clerical majority, so that we can undermine the crazy bastards that worry us so much without turning the people against us.
It’s a better alternative than the kind of air strikes that Pat describes because that will only turn the people against us. The people of Iran are not crazy jihadis and they are very unhappy with how the Islamic Revolution turned out, and they are sick of being seen as an international pariah.
They are not exactly pro-American or our natural allies, but it would not serve our security interests to totally alienate them. It might set back the nuclear program a few years, but it would be better to cultivate our relations with the people than it would be stir up their jingoistic passions.
That would lurch them to the right, and right into the arms of the Guardians. Let’s focus on the Guardians, not on the nukes….in other words.
what ya say, we just step out of their country’s business and let them do what they want to do politically. I think they are smart enough to take the rational way out of this if given enough support diplomatically. in other words, let them do their own revolution without our help…support in words only but not any fashion of guns or armorment or help from our cia, etc.
well, that’s one option.
It won’t happen. And if we decide to go down that path we might as well get rid of the IAEA, the UN Security Council, etc., because we will have just given up on nonproliferation. You see the Europeans are with us on this one, unlike Iraq, because nonproliferation is a real security issue, unlike Saddam’s phantom weapons programs.
Realistically, we almost have to slap sanctions on Iran. But, that is not a productive way to improve the situation or to address the threat that Iran’s crazy government poses.
We pay our intelligence services a lot of money. Maybe they can earn some of that money by helping the people of Iran get the government they deserve, and one the international community can trust, rather than bombing them and starving them?
Like I said, between a rock and a hard place. No matter what we do we’ll be seen by Iran, and in turn, the rest of the Islamic world as the influence behind whatever course is chosen. You know and i know that Bush will bomb their facilities. It’s just a matter of what level of technology will be employed.
Hirosima and Nagasaki. Who financed the rebuilding of Japan? Remember the auto industry taking a dive? The recession? (As I am from MI, I remember it vividly, as people in my family were hit hard.)
Just in time for the mid-terms? How convienient!
Are we fucked or are we fucked?
I’m sure that whatever the civilian body count that ensues, some War Party official will tell us that it was “worth the price.” Time to re-read Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
Hi, Mr. Benjamin. Have missed you here at the pond. HOpe all is well for you..could you tell me some about the book, please?
Other than the fact that some extra work I’d counted on fell through, leaving me a few hundred bucks short of where I needed to be to get by this month, I and the family are okay.
As for Arendt’s book, it’s main focus is on the Eichmann trial of the early 1960s, which shows just how strikingly ordinary the perpetrators of horrible crimes against humanity typically are. I have no doubt that Eichmann’s neighbors would have considered him a “nice” guy, much as the neighbors of those who plan the bombings of civilians in the Middle East and South-central Asia are “nice” people.
sorry to hear about the finincal situation…join the club…:o)
Thanks for the book review in short.
This is why I love this place so much. I do learn more than I could imagine…hugs and welcome back…good to have you here again…
Yeah, the civilian body count is, what’s that phrase again? Collateral damage? Fucking justifiable when compared to the profits the corporations will rake in. It’s all about money and fuck everything else. Can’t stop thinking about the irony in my sig.
There’s a few of us who will do our level best to put a human face on the “collateral damage.” From my own blog just a couple of those voices:
****************
Imagine a regular day. It’s winter so it’s cold. Other than that, it’s a regular day. Your children are running around. The little one is still coughing so you make sure he puts his hat on. You worry about how to keep the house warm. You go about your business.
Except some people in the other side of the planet have sent a personless machine to kill you and your childern. And that’s that.
Read the rest at Under the Same Sun. A related perspective from Lenin’s Tomb:
My emphasis added.
*
**************
The truth shall set us free.
applauding!!!! thanks for the roundup..I absolutely agree..and help me remember just how many times now we have killed that man! Can you just imagine what a sanction from the UN would be like for the USA??!! Bolton would be farting from now till Christmas 2048! let alone hsi red face bulging from the neck veins around his ugly upper torso…
I happen to disagree with you, there, booman…thanks, but I just do. I really feel the nonproliferation of the world would go a lot easier without the kinds and like what we have now in the line of ordering/dictating to others.
The likes of bolton is not gonna get it and they know it. Let me propose a question, if for some reason, we could get into a dialog with the rest of the world about nuclear weaponry and and nuclear energy for the public, then we just might open up a dialog of worthiness. I do not like nuclear anything..it is too hard to rid the waste from it, almost impossible, as far as I understand it.
For all practical purposes (but one) we already have abandoned the NPT. The US never made any of the weapons reductions the treaty called for, is conducting research to develop forbidden weapons, and first-strike capablitites are seriously contemplated against non-nuclear countries.
We turned a blind eye as Israel, Pakistan, & India developed nuclear weapons. Who knows what program the Saudis have. A. Q. Khan has been protected, as have almost all the companies (many western) & individuals involved in that network. Soviet bloc nuclear sites & materials have not been secured. Now India has been rewarded with contracts for its nuclear power program.
The only use the US has for the NPT is to flog our ‘enemies’ with — in this instance Iran — & it is the height of hypocrisy to deny them enrichment which they are entitled to under the treaty. If you’re going to express any piety for the NPT, Iran is not the place to begin.
Then too, there’s this piece of “Intelligence” brilliance from Risen’s new book:
Sactions won’t be productive & we certainly do NOT “have to”slap” them on Iran; nor do we need the intelligence services trying to destabilize another fledgling democracy under the sham of “liberalization.” Maybe we need to learn how to compete in a world which we can not continue to dominate.
Who does one align themselves with when calling for sanctions?
Not all ex-intelligence services people are establishment-thinking parrots. Bill Christison, a former senior official of the CIA, who served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis; and Kathleen Christison, a former CIA political analyst who has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years and is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession, have a provocative challenge for anyone opposed to nuking Iran, It’s More Important Than Slowing Nuclear Proliferation: Let’s Stop a US / Israeli War on Iran:
I’d go further than they do & suggest that much more pressure needs to be brought on Israel, not only to forgo military adventures, but to engage in a regional process to make the middle east a nuclear free zone & to force the Israeli’s to negotiate in good faith for once, a just settlement with the Palestinians.
Lastly, I’d beg you to consider whose story line you are playing into when using phrases like “the threat that Iran’s crazy government poses.” Despite much offensie rhetoric from the president (common throughout the middle east), those “crazies” have been remarkably calm & shrewd while another set of crazies terrorizes that part of the world. That kind of language ultimately supports the drive to war, though I understand that’s neither your position nor intent.
More from Mike Whitney:
Thank you for the excellent review. Very well researched and written.
BBC
and
more
and this
ALL of the neocons are fucking insane!!!!
simply are not as grateful for CIA ‘help’ in getting the kind of governments that Washington wishes them to have.
And I am not really optimistic that Iran will be an exception. The CIA has been doing its best to ‘help’ Iran for decades, and I’m just not sensing the gratitude.
Frankly, it’s the same level of lack of gratitude one sees in Iraq, in Afghanistan.
Let’s face it, these countries just don’t deserve it.
Let US concentrate its ‘help’ on Europe, since they seem to be more receptive and grateful.
All the stuff we have done in the past.
Going back to history now–it didn’t work in Vietnam.
The problem, Booman, is that there was a process of liberalization of Iran’s politics and civil life in the wake of the election of Khatami in 1997, and this was continuing with his re-election in 2001. There were numerous points in the period between 1997 and January 2002 when Iran and the US could have started the process of a negotiated rapprochement which would have altered the strategic environment that is the key determinant as to whether Iran will choose to develop a nuclear weapon.
Unfortunately, the axis of evil speech has completely polluted the situation. The Iranians have correctly interpreted it to mean that the US intends to perpetuate its hostility to Iranian sovereign autonomy, and is looking for ways to act to return Iran to its clientist status during the 1953-79 era. I suspect that the US’s refusal to accept Iranian intelligence cooperation on Al Qaeda, under the hastily instituted Hadley rules, and the refusal to accept a substantial dossier of information ( which was passed on to the UN ), would have reinforced the perception that the so-called war on terror that was to take down AQ, was more of a pretext for settling old scores and positioning for the emerging era of energy resource conflict.
The political developments within Iran since 2002 are all comprehensible as a “national security” response to the renewed US threat.
As regards the larger picture – it is clear that there is no realistic military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. It’s a testament to how skilful the Iranians have been in the past 3 years, and how correspondingly inept the US has been, that Iran holds such a good hand in the game. There can be no military action without serious economic consequences, larger political repercussions in the Gulf region, the potential for oil supplies to be interdicted, and seriously high body counts for all concerned – including the US military. In short there is no tactical solution to this, only a strategic one – and this means either war, or a real peace deal.
The US cannot use nuclear weapons against Iran without accepting that the Iranians, with numerous solid-fuelled mobile medium range missile systems at their disposal, will retaliate against US forces stationed at Balad, Taji, Baghdad airport and elsewhere; these missiles, if armed with chemical warheads, have the capacity to kill tens of thousands of US troops.
Asshole has us between a rock and a hard place now. We’ll have to come through the fire first…or not.
You nailed it! IMO, that is what the whole damn invasion was about to begin with. That asshole wants to finish up daddy’s war and the hell with everything else.
Apparently the Bush people think low yeild Nuclear Weapons will do the trick. They want to use them to show the “power of America “….or something along those lines….
It looks like to me that is where it is going. That’s where they are headed and they are now backed by Germany. Of all countries……
Yeah, we’re still working on getting Japan to come along and support it.
…do WHAT trick? They might kill some troops, some civilians. They might take out some aboveground facilities. But they will do nothing to take out underground nuclear operations. The NAS reports that it would take a nuke with 67x the yield of “Little Boy” dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 to destroy a facility a mere 1,000 feet undergound.
Oh, they have a bunker buster nuke. They are eager to use it.
It’s really safe, kids love em’.
http://www.ananuclear.org/rnep.html
…buster nukes. Not yet, anyway. Publicly the Administration says it’s given up the idea, mostly due to congressional opposition, but there is some evidence – including a scheduled “sled test” this year using a mock warhead against a huge block of concrete to test impact – that the program is continuing under a new name.
C’mon….they have bunker busters….they have nuclear weapons…..all you have to do is put a low yeild nuclear weapon on them. That’s not something they have to invent. That’s something they simply order to go…from the take out menu….whenvever they want. The technical problems are nothing.
And you said it right…publicly….they said they gave up on total awareness too , they just shift stuff around, give it another name.
I’m sure they have the program and it’s ready to go.
we don’t have to capability to blow up the Iranian bunkers with anything less than h-bombs. the so-called bunker busters can only penetrate 20 feet or so.
If we want to destroy bunkers that are 60 feet deep we will have to go there and blow them up on site.
…about bunker busters. “Low yield” nuclear weapons will not do the trick. In fact, the bunker buster yield that is being talked about is 1.2 megatons, nearly 100x the power of the Hiroshima Bomb. And even then there is a good deal of expert suspicion about their potential effectiveness.
Assuming they were effective, here’s the scenario for an attack on Isfahan, Iran:
100 x Hiroshima?…..I can’t believe that…That’s not low yeild. The article you refer to is an artilce that refers to as you say a 1.2 megaton bomb. That’s not the kind of low yeild they would use. It may be a small bomb compared to what’s out there today but I am sure they are thinking about something very, very small.
I don’t think the government is interested in using a bombs on people right now, but on nuclear and strategic facilitiies.
Don’t think just becuase it’s a ludicrous idea that they wont use it. I didn’t mean to say “it would do the Trick” in seriousness, that was sarcasm, I have no doubt it would be a disaster in every way.
But still they are going to present this as something rationale, they don’t want to use anything anywhere near as big as Hiroshima and only on targets they imagine might have something they want to destroy.
I anticipate that they will screw it up. But that’s not the point. Think about not the logic of this but of thier pattern of presentation for the consumption of the public. ……..
Here’s an article that talks about a bomb 1/200 the size of the one used at Hiroshima.
looks like we’re in a situation that’s tighter than a crab’s behind as we’re railing to do asshat follies.
Haven’t yet learned that military might has built-in deficiences so I fear a strike on Iran, to teach a lesson of consequences, has been carved. Bolton is still at the UN ready to beat ploughshares into swords. Never mind the hyprocrisy and overlooking that Iran has been at this nuclear knitting for 18 long years.
So you don’t think they have nuclear weapons? That’s not a bet I’m willing to wager. In fact,imho, they may have just bought a pile as the old Soviet Union disintegrated. Recall when there were all those free-for-all unprotected nuclear materials and weapons, soldiers in the business cos they hadn’t been paid? Oh my, does that sound familiar? Still wanna go do a strike?
Now some brethrens on the far nedder right will get themselves prepped for end times. For the rest of us, maybe we should dust off the bicycles, get out the camping gear and stockpile some basics. It’s not too far fetched to think sanctions or a strike/blockade would trigger oil price by $30/bbl per pop with $100 as history.
I fear a strike on Iran, to teach a lesson of consequences, has been carved.
See that I’m not the only one who has that thought.
after my posting the comments above I came across these two important past and days ago statements from King George and Vice Royal Cheney cited over at Thinkprogress.
“Iran is the new Iraq” http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/14/iran-is-the-new-iraq
and citing Cheney’s interview on Fox News this past Wednesday, “Iraq Deja Vu: Cheney already undermining Rice’s Diplomatic Efforts on Iran” Do read the whole piece for Cheney’s agenda. See it here http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/14/iran-cheney
Quite revealing. Scary, scary times ahead. Listen up for the SOTU. As the guy said deja vu. It’s time to begin a stockpile.
to be tolerated.
I imagine those UN security council sanctions are forthcoming.
Sanctions will be voted on just seconds before Bolton lops off 5 floors.
If our own belligerent government here in the US would have a serious dialog with the Mullahs runnng Iran in which they assured them that the US had no intention of seeking regime change there, I think such amove could go a long way towards defusing the urgency of this current flap.
One by-product of such an approach could include a “deal” of some sort where the US let the Mullahs know that if they reined in or otherwise removed Ahmadinejad from his position of authority in Iran that such a move would certainly improve Iran’s posture vis a vis most of the rest of the world, and that such a move would make possible many pragmatic benefits economically and otherwise. (I personally think the Mullahs in Iran who are running the show there are, in the end, quite pragmatic, despite the current news and rhetoric that might suggest otherwise. They haven’t maintaned power this long and this quietly by making rash and outlandish decisions.)
Of course the odds of the Cheney/Bush regime making such overtures are virtually nil; if anything they’ll deploy bolton, release him from his cage, to further inflame the situation ina way that makes it impossible for anyone to pul back from the brink for fear of losing face. And, IMHO, since I firmly believe that our own US government has no interest in a diplomatic resolution of the current situation, I remain pessimistic.
Jesus H F&*KING Christ! This is what Bush’s WAR ON TERROR policies have brought us. Bush is a TOTAL F&*KING LOSER! This guy wouldn’t know good foreign policy if it flew out of his ass in the hands of a F&*KING monkey!
How we could make such a mess out of this is mind numbing, but this pretty much is the logical result of throwing forty years of foreign policy out the window without looking at the downside.
Nuclear proliferation, just like terrorism, is not a new problem. Stopping, preventing, or controlling these problems is done by working with the UN, multinational treaties and cooperation among allies. America’s best weapon against these problems is our own peace and prosperity, and our open hand of friendship.
Should that rule out military action? No, but clearly invading Afghanistan had world support and Iraq did not. Our military’s role is to DEFEND our nation, and it’s ability to do that has been reduced by invading Iraq, a war which has little support anywhere in the world.
America is a land of generous and forgiving people. People who rally for their country when bad things happen. And Bush needed to play on that after 9/11. But the bottom line is that Bush is a LOSER. A dangerously incompetent and now we find unlawful President. More than willing to ignore the Constitution and gut the rights of the people to provide “protection”. All because he FAILED to do HIS JOB!
Our own foreign policy of “preemptive attack” has made it imperative that Iraq get nuclear weapons. You can bet that there’s quit a few other nations that are quietly doing the same thing. I’d guess that the next country to get nuclear arms is Germany. I’d be watching Japan too – they will get forced into deploying them if the whole China/Japan thing continues to warm up. Both of these countries can deploy nuclear weapons very quickly and quietly. It was UNTHINKABLE that these countries would re-arm in such a manner five years ago, but those days are past.
Unfortunately, we will continue to make some real boners with our foreign and domestic policy. The results will be an accelerated decline for our role as the dominant country in the world. (One could argue that this is increasing in the rest of the world’s best interests since we no longer represent a positive influence in the world.) We are largely ignoring China and doing nothing to correct our federal budget problems or our import/export trade balances. Our government continues to support polices which encourage a gutting of America.
I still believe in America, but I’m at a loss trying to figure out what Bush believes in. It’s not America. He’s screwed our country up so bad it’ll take decades to fix it.
Expose the fraud that is the current global war on terror and George will be as worthless and discarded as a used condom.
I don’t care if it is “just” or not.
You should care. It is American bad faith, and the appearance of bad faith, with regard to its own Non-Proliferation Treaty–which it has never carried out–which has led us to the present predicament. This is not a new thing. American policy has been frankly provocative for decades. Bad faith has consequences–something few Americans understand. Now we are seeing those consequences. By our own actions we undermined the (nuclear-free) reality we say we were trying to achieve. So now we live in a different reality–one that is not so nice. Screeming and throwing a tantrum changes nothing–it is too late for that.
A nuclear Iran is too dangerous to be tolerated.
Yes, and a nuclear USA is too dangerous to be tolerated. What of it?
But the real point is: This is just crazy thinking–unbalanced, lunatic. It is not ours to tolerate or not tolerate–we have not the good will, nor the authority, nor the power. Oh, yes, power. We think if we get unhappy, we can just use force to impose our will. Certainly we can try: That is the great danger of America today, why we are the world’s foremost threat to safety.
Think about it: We have never succeeded by force alone. When force has succeeded–and it has–it was used in conjunction with some form of authority–a common understanding that our cause, if not just, was at least a humanly legitimate interest. Legitimacy is precisely what we don’t have now. After five decades, the world understands that we want to keep nuclear weapons for ourselves, to threaten and coerce others according to our own bullying whims. During the cold war, when the Soviet Union was a power that many nations feared, our selfish attitude was masked by a common international concern, but since then our stance has become increasingly arbitrary and willful. So the disguise has now been shredded, and we are recognized for what we are.
Force may be tried. Then what? The enemies we make will respond–it is hard to say how: There are too many good possibilities. Really, if I were the leader of a country with conventional missle capability sitting across the world’s major oil routes and I wanted to bring the US down, I think I could do it. Or more subtly, I think a multi-national movement could be orchestrated to evict the US from Asia completely. Indeed, this latter is bound to happen anyway, unless US policy does a complete 180.
What can we do? Wave a lot of atom bombs? Yes, and we probably will, but the harm and havoc we create will not bring us any friends–nor help us toward our strategic objectives. The world will move to deal with us, and we will become the pitiful helpless giant that Nixon so aptly invoked in 1968.
Bush should be condemned for not seriously engaging Iran on this, for embarking on the Iraq farce when he knew from day one (e.g. William Langewiesche in new Atlantic) that Pakistan was helping Iran.
In northern Tehran, according to the BBC World Service, there is a building (complex?) for nuclear research dating from the 1950s which may be still in use. I could be wrong about that. But the interesting part is the source of the facilities and Iran’s first enriched uranium: the answer is..kids..you’ve guessed it already, the good old U.S. of A. That’s when the King of Kings was running the show, of course. So now how do we square this circle? The circle of Osama has been squared by not talking about him anymore. Osama is also a U.S. invention.
I find assessments of Iran, like this one, which immediately accept that the Iranians are a bunch of stark raving maniacs repugnant. They know what they are doing and they know what the rest of the world is doing. Much better than anyone in Washington, where the big shots couldn’t even get Iraq right in the slightest way.
Lang’s rant reeks of the inability of the U.S. still to accept the insubordination of Iran when it challenged the U.S. with its revolution and hostage-taking, the latter being a nasty act, for sure. But it’s not as if the U.S. hasn’t just killed some 15/20 innocent people in Pakistan and refused even to admit responsibility publicly. Let alone apologizing or offering compensation. So that’s what we have. One day soon the U.S. will be forced to reckon with Iran: I mean one day soon the U.S. will have to accept Iran as state to be recognized as equal.
Will Cheney violate these sanctions like he did with the previous ones in dealing with Iraq and Iran?