Tell Israel, "no!!!!!"

[pembrokestephen]

Well, given the number of times that Israel has been attacked by its neighbours, and indeed still is being attacked by its neighboirs, there response is quite understandable.

As are the reasons for Israel being attacked by its neighbours.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Never again is the israeli default postion
Iran facillities are so peaceful they buried them 70 feet underground and ringed them with AAA and sams yeah right utterly for peaceful nuclear generation
this as all the ingrediants of making iraq look like a good holiday spot
Israel is more than capable of pulling this off unfortunatly and the Mullahs would love it
all out holy war against the crusaders and zionists
think WW3

Well quite. Once you think past the first day or two it does become pretty obviously a very bad idea for all concerned, except maybe the hardliners in Israel and Iran.

Unfortunately it already looks like our dear prime minister has signed us up at least as an accessory, based on the stuff he's been saying about Iran and the likely use of British air bases to support the US, to say nothing of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan having to deal with the inevitable consequences, or indeed the rest of us having to deal with them if it comes to that (e.g. oil crisis, recession, more suicide bombs etc)

It might be in the interests of hard-liners in Washington, Iran and Israel, but I don't see how it's in anyone elses.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Iran apologist are we? I think that you should make your position clear.

If speaking up against the lies and distortions promoted by hysterical war-mongering propagandists such as yourself makes me an 'Iran Apologist', I'm happy with that.

Remind me again what exactly it is Iran (or it's supposed 'apologists') has to 'apologise' for? How many illegal wars of aggression has Iran launched lately?

Now, can you please point me towards a source for your assertion that:

Iran does not need an enrichment plant to fuel a power station, as has been made clear by there president, they intend to enrich to weapons grade, a grade of material that is not used in a power station.

I fully understand that you are incapable of doing much more than regurgitating crass, hysterical war-mongering lies and propaganda on this forum. What I would like to know is where exactly you're getting it from.

So again, do you have a source for this statement?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Actually, one of the key problems with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (beyond the US and UK repeatedly ignoring their obligations under it) is that it does actually permit enrichment for civilian purposes. That's a problem because there is no real way to distinguish between a military and a civilian set-up, the process is as far as I understand it, essentially the same for both, you just keep enriching for longer if you want to make weapons grade material.

The fact remains though, that nobody has ever provided any convincing evidence that the Iranians are pursuing the latter course, although given that they're routinely being threatened by nuclear powers (in violation of the NPT) you could easily understand why they might want to.

In fact last time I looked the CIA was saying that as far as they can tell, the Iranians don't have a nuclear bomb programme, much to the annoyance of Cheney and the neo-cons.

The main Middle East expert on the Vice-President’s staff is David Wurmser, a neoconservative who was a strident advocate for the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Like many in Washington, Wurmser “believes that, so far, there’s been no price tag on Iran for its nuclear efforts and for its continuing agitation and intervention inside Iraq,” the consultant said. But, unlike those in the Administration who are calling for limited strikes, Wurmser and others in Cheney’s office “want to end the regime,” the consultant said. “They argue that there can be no settlement of the Iraq war without regime change in Iran.”

The Administration’s planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House’s assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (The C.I.A. declined to comment on this story.)

The C.I.A.’s analysis, which has been circulated to other agencies for comment, was based on technical intelligence collected by overhead satellites, and on other empirical evidence, such as measurements of the radioactivity of water samples and smoke plumes from factories and power plants. Additional data have been gathered, intelligence sources told me, by high-tech (and highly classified) radioactivity-detection devices that clandestine American and Israeli agents placed near suspected nuclear-weapons facilities inside Iran in the past year or so. No significant amounts of radioactivity were found.

source

 

[likesfish]

its not normal to put civillian nuke facillities underground and ring them with military firepower
I can see this being a very very bad thing

 

[pembrokestephen]

its not normal to put civillian nuke facillities underground and ring them with military firepower
I can see this being a very very bad thing

it might be if you have two very belligerent and gunned up countries in your back yard and threatening you. It might even be an interesting kind of bluff...

 

[editor]

*Moved to appropriate forum

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

The fact remains though, that nobody has ever provided any convincing evidence that the Iranians are pursuing the latter course, although given that they're routinely being threatened by nuclear powers (in violation of the NPT) you could easily understand why they might want to.

Indeed.

It's interesting that the latest IAEA report regarding Irans activities concludes that 'Iran has been providing the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and facilities, and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with such material and facilities.'

It continues: 'While the Agency is able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, the Agency will remain unable to make further progress in its efforts to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear material...'

The talk of 'verification of the absence of undeclared' material is somewhat reminicent of Iraqs failure to provide evidence for the distruction of 'WMDs' that they claimed never existed, but which formed the 'rationale' for the invasion.

I'm sure I need not point out that no 'WMDs' were ever discovered in Iraq, despite what the propagandists would like us to believe.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Indymedia................the most biased ' news ' source on the planet. It is right up there with the old Pravda.

Although neither of them have the access to the security services and consent to act as their rumour mill in the way the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs do.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Unfortunately It would be entirely sensible for Iran to get itself nuked up - as it would be a major deterrant to an attack by the most aggressive powers operating in the region - Israel and the USA (which is of course why they are the two countries most opposed to a nuclear Iran). Israel and the US also have nukes - as does Iran's near neighbour, Pakistan (again a far more aggresive and less democratic country than Iran - as well as being country that helped install the taliban in afghanistan)

Id also like to point out that Iran has not attacked anyone in 50+ years - (Iraq started the Iran/Iraq war - with american backing ). A nuclear armed Iran is not a good thing - but Im struggling to see how it suddenly means tel aviv getting flattened.

True the Iranian president is a fucking shit stirring twat, but he is not an absolute dictator who'se about to start launching missiles in some fit of theocratic meglomania - he doesn't have that sort of power.


To be honest it would pretty stupid for Iran not to be seeking nukes - they'd be stupid not to given that they are surrounded by US forces commmanded by an adminstration that has taken anti-iranian rhetoric to levels not seen since the overthrow of the shah.

The sensible way to proceed is for the US to engage with Iran - do a deal where sanctions (in place since 1979) are dropped, a plausible nonagression treaty is negotiated and the Israelis being are reigned in. In return, Iran could agree to drop its weapons program, allow IAEA inspections in and muzzle Hezbollah in Lebannon. They could also start using their considerable influence in Iraq to try and stop the civil war. This would also help sideline the hardliners in Iran and give a boost to the more liberal progreessive elements amongst the population.

The present course is entirely counter productive - US/Israeli strategy right now is keeping the old school theocrats in power and giving Iran every incentive to cause grief for the yanks.

The option of a pro-western, not too islamic, pro israeli Iran with US control of its energy resources is not going to happen. A point repeatedly lost on the fucking zionists and PNACers.

Its either play nice with Tehran or contiune down the current path towards escalating war and a chronic global energy crisis. Weather its already too late thanks to the reverse-midas touch of Bush and Blair remains to be seen.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The Iranians might figure that right now, they don't need nukes and they'd be more trouble than they're worth, 'cos the IAEA might well catch them at it.

In military terms, Iran is a very hard nut to crack. Lots of mountains, so the US can't use its heavy armour. The ability to shut down the Straits of Hormuz pretty much at will. A massive collection of whatever anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles they've been able to get the Russians and the Chinese to sell them and 18 million men of military age at least 10-20% of whom are hardline regime supporters according to the Oxford Research Group, and the rest of whom would be fairly likely to become such if the US attacked them.