Politically, it will be interesting to see if there will be any fallout for the Dem Congressional leadership for approving this.

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Originally posted by Sven:

Is there still hope for a diplomatic solution? Or, is a military conflict inevitable?

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Well, Saddam Hussein refused all diplomatic solutions to his WMD program, so military conflict became inevitable.

Likewise, the Taliban refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden (except to another Muslim country), so military conflict became inevitable.

Iraq had a somewhat better approach. They acknowledged the clown show for what it was, but they tried to play the same part as America. Remember Iraq's information minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf? He would deny everything and blatantly make things up, even when history and fact were knocking on his doorstep. Even as U.S. tanks were rolling into Bagdhad, he was told that the Americans already controlled parts of the city. He replied: "They do not control anything! They do not even control themselves!"

But again, Iraq thought they could play the same game America was playing, even though America had made the rules. Iran (and Cueball, I think, has said somewhere how he thinks war with Iran will turn out) will not play by America's rules. There will be no "shock and awe" or "liberation" or "mission accomplished." These are lies Iran will not acknowledge, I am sure. This time it will be America who thinks the rules are laid out--two nation states for the road, for old times' sake. One old rogue against another. But those aren't the rules that Iran will play by, and America will learn the lesson she should have already been taught.

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Originally posted by remind:
There is NO solution needed, the USA government is simply being socio-pathic.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

Is Europe wrong in not wanting Iran to obtain nuclear weapons?

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If Europe were trying to divest Pakistan, India, China, the U.S., France, U.K., Russia, and Israel of real nuclear weapons, then it might find time to worry about Iran's (apparently) peaceful nuclear program.

But then again, with Iran's record of unprovoked aggression against other countries, maybe it deserves "special treatment".

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Their brazenness about this reached its apogee when they publicly thanked France, in the diminutive form of Nicolas Sarkozy, for the decisive help they had given them (we ourselves gave them the heavy water technology) to enable to build their nuclear arsenal.

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Those brazen Iranians and those dastardly French...no wait. Israel thanked France. Whew. The world is a safer place.

[ 02 July 2008: Message edited by: Jingles ]

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Originally posted by Sven:
Is Europe wrong in not wanting Iran to obtain nuclear weapons?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:
Because, to the EU, the issue isn't about WHO has new nuclear weapons, it is a question about proliferation right now. Which other countries currently have nuclear weapon development programs that aren't being targeted by international pressure?

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edit:: Also, I think you should probably notice the words "nuclear weapons development program". A nuclear weapon is a big, expensive, infrastructure intensive and expansive, piece of technology. A nuclear weapon requires the development of countless auxiliary technologies. It isn't like a video game where you press "build nuclear weapon" wait a few hours and boom! you have one dropping on some sprites. It takes years of policy, training, and various other methods to get from point a to point b. Iran had began going down the many paths that eventually converge on the capability to produce, store, maintain, transport, and militarily deliver a weapon.

[ 02 July 2008: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

[ 02 July 2008: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:
The reason why there is high international pressure against Iran is because of a historical precedent of attempting to create nuclear weapons. They built the infrastructure, and regardless of their current intentions, continue to upgrade it to the point of having the capabilities to further proliferation. Countries with similar nuclear capabilities, like Bulgaria or Lithuania, aren't being targeted because of the lack of any history of attempting to build the necessary infrastructure and putting resources into development programs for nuclear weapons technology. Therefore, a variety of countries (like Russia and especially China) or organizations like the EU are applying pressure on the Iranian government to clean up their act. I'm fairly certain if another nation with advanced nuclear capabilities (say, Canada, Germany, Japan) were to attempt to acquire a weapons development program, there would be international hell to pay.

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I found Cueball's entirely too-believable analysis of the situation in Iran, which he wrote back when Hersch's last piece on Iran came out.

Here's Hersch last October:

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The revised bombing plan for a possible attack, with its tightened focus on counterterrorism, is gathering support among generals and admirals in the Pentagon. The strategy calls for the use of sea-launched cruise missiles and more precisely targeted ground attacks and bombing strikes, including plans to destroy the most important Revolutionary Guard training camps, supply depots, and command and control facilities.

“Cheney’s option is now for a fast in and out—for surgical strikes,” the former senior American intelligence official told me. The Joint Chiefs have turned to the Navy, he said, which had been chafing over its role in the Air Force-dominated air war in Iraq. “The Navy’s planes, ships, and cruise missiles are in place in the Gulf and operating daily. They’ve got everything they need—even AWACS are in place and the targets in Iran have been programmed. The Navy is flying FA-18 missions every day in the Gulf.” There are also plans to hit Iran’s anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile sites. “We’ve got to get a path in and a path out,” the former official said.

A Pentagon consultant on counterterrorism told me that, if the bombing campaign took place, it would be accompanied by a series of what he called “short, sharp incursions” by American Special Forces units into suspected Iranian training sites. He said, “Cheney is devoted to this, no question.”

A limited bombing attack of this sort “only makes sense if the intelligence is good,” the consultant said. If the targets are not clearly defined, the bombing “will start as limited, but then there will be an ‘escalation special.’ Planners will say that we have to deal with Hezbollah here and Syria there. The goal will be to hit the cue ball one time and have all the balls go in the pocket. But add-ons are always there in strike planning.”

The surgical-strike plan has been shared with some of America’s allies, who have had mixed reactions to it. Israel’s military and political leaders were alarmed, believing, the consultant said, that it didn’t sufficiently target Iran’s nuclear facilities. The White House has been reassuring the Israeli government, the former senior official told me, that the more limited target list would still serve the goal of counter-proliferation by decapitating the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards, who are believed to have direct control over the nuclear-research program. “Our theory is that if we do the attacks as planned it will accomplish two things,” the former senior official said.

An Israeli official said, “Our main focus has been the Iranian nuclear facilities, not because other things aren’t important. We’ve worked on missile technology and terrorism, but we see the Iranian nuclear issue as one that cuts across everything.” Iran, he added, does not need to develop an actual warhead to be a threat. “Our problems begin when they learn and master the nuclear fuel cycle and when they have the nuclear materials,” he said. There was, for example, the possibility of a “dirty bomb,” or of Iran’s passing materials to terrorist groups. “There is still time for diplomacy to have an impact, but not a lot,” the Israeli official said. “We believe the technological timetable is moving faster than the diplomatic timetable. And if diplomacy doesn’t work, as they say, all options are on the table.”

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And here, if I may, is Cueball's analysis in this thread on Bread n' Roses:

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The problem here, with Hersch's analysis, is that it is typically Amerocentric. Hersch as usual, sees everything from the Washington perspective, and fails to take into account Iranian perspective.

Already, military leaders in Iran have stated quite clearly that they are not going to sit down and take it. What we will see is a series of tit-for-tat exchanges.

The plan as outlined in grand terms by Safavi, who is currently the Supreme Leader’s senior advisor on military affairs, in the Tehran Times, is not to sit down and take it, but rather to engage in "extra-regional war."

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Pointing out that U.S. officials once thought that they could surround Iran by occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, he said, “Now, the Americans should realize that the 200,000 troops they have deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are in Iran’s firing range.”
[SNIP]

“Currently, at a time when we feel the threats of extra-regional powers such as the U.S. against the Islamic Republic of Iran, we have revised the structure of Iran’s armed forces. The training methods, war strategy, and military doctrine of the armed forces, and especially of the three branches of the IRGC, have been revised. We have designed arms and equipment suitable for extra-regional warfare. We have named this strategy comprehensive defense, Alavi battle, and asymmetrical warfare,” Safavi explained.
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What this says to me, is that the Iranians fully intend to export the war outside of Iran by infilitrating specially trained IRG guerillas into Iraq, using their already established contacts with the Badr brigades inside Iraq. This startegy in my mind is the only concievable way that Iran can hope to inlfict enough loses as to bring an end to the war overall.

I think this process of infiltration has already begun, so there is truth to the US position about incursions into Iraq by the IRG. In fact in many senses the war has already begun.

Waiting for "the war" to be announced is not going to do the Iranians any good at all. And sitting in Iran while the US airforce slowly takes them apart is not a winning strategy. Therefore the Iranians must take their war to the enemy, where they can be found, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iran may do one all-out push, as in a direct attack on Iraq, more or less immediatly, or a slow guerilla type inflitration over time, while keeping their more conventional military assets intact for later use. Either is possible.

This will likely mean Canadian involvement in the war, with or without an annoucement, or a vote in parliment, or any of that, because we are talking about a slow escalation over time, and I see no reason why the Iranians will respect any of the territorial boundaries presently in force, in the case of direct US billigerence. This is the Afghan jack-in-the-box that Harper is not talking about, and the NDP is just too naive to foresee.

Hanging onto the fig leaf of retaliatory measures "short of war" will even give the US the opportunity to blame the war on Iran, even though they know full well that at some point Iran must attack the US military and their allies outside of Iran directly on the ground since they can not match the US capability in the air.

I don't think the Iranians will sit on their hands.

I foresee a region-wide war covering the whole region, from which no nation allied with the US will be exempt. What we have here is war on the installment plan.

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Originally posted by remind:
Yep, and it is none of the USA's business what Europe wants or does not want, nor is Iran.

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Okay. So, nuclear proliferation is no one's business.

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Originally posted by Catchfire:
So now PB has backed down from "Iran has nuclear weapons" to "Iran has shown in the past that they might want nuclear weapons, so now we're going to treat them as if they had them no matter what their current intentions are. Well, I feel better already.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

Okay. So, nuclear proliferation is no one's business.

Cool.

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I'd love to see nuclear weapons go the way of the dodo, but it simply can't happen. We've dug a hole and we need to stop digging.

[ 02 July 2008: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

Is Europe wrong in not wanting Iran to obtain nuclear weapons?

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This is an apple pie question which requires further context.
The answere is "No", but Europe has very little to do with the situation.

It is not inherently wrong "wanting Iran not to have nuclear weapons" (if, in reality, is what Iran is actually intending). The world could easily be safer without such a future possibility.

There are also those who may think that another country in the Middle East has a natural right to nuclear deterrence in the face of Israel's 150 or 300 nuclear warheads (with sophisticated delivery systems), ready to back up any actions by their advanced conventional military might. Israel, unlike Iran, has shown little hesitation for territorial expansion and hegemony at the barrel of a gun. Arguably, the world would very likely be a safer place without THOSE existing realities.

Further realities:
Although it may be safer for the world to work for a denuclearized Middle East it isn't going to happen. Israel would never negotiate away their trump card.

Negotiations with Iran, on the other hand,is not wanted by the world's uberpower (the suggestion is political poison for presidential candidate); the US, along with Israel, is the country most likely to start war of aggression against Iran.

Iran's nuclear program will be severely curtailed one way or another.
Even in the VERY unlikely event the US does not participate in the attacks on Iran, Israel will attack Iran and destroy much of its nuclear program.

The struggle for total disarmament and denuclearization will take centuries. Stopping proliferation is the first step. By the way, I'm opposed to RRW and any other sort of nuclear modernization program that undermines denuclearization.

[ 02 July 2008: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

A couple of questions:

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Originally posted by contrarianna:
There are also those who may think that another country in the Middle East has a natural right to nuclear deterrence in the face of Israel's 150 or 300 nuclear warheads (with sophisticated delivery systems), ready to back up any actions by their advanced conventional military might.

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Do you think that Iran needs nuclear weapons to deter Israel from unilaterally attacking Iran? Why, in the absence of an Iranian nuclear threat, would Israel attack Iran?

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Originally posted by contrarianna:
This, in my opinion, ultimately will make the world a much more dangerous place than if the attackers wished to negotiate in good faith.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

A couple of questions:...

Do you think that Iran needs nuclear weapons to deter Israel from unilaterally attacking Iran? Why, in the absence of an Iranian nuclear threat, would Israel attack Iran?

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To answer your question, would Israel likely to attack Iran without the pretext of nuclear weapons, in my opinion the answer is "yes"--if one is to go past behaviour and the document commissioned by Prime Minister Netanyahu and authored by people associated with the current White House:

"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm"
...
"According to the report's preamble,[1] it was written by the Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000, which was a part of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. Former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle was the "Study Group Leader", but the final report included ideas from James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser."
...
"Among the recommendations made in the introduction are:

* A repudiation of the concept of "Land for Peace," which was the basis for the Oslo Accords
* Armed incursions into Palestinian areas under the rubric of the "right of hot pursuit"
* Armed incursions into Lebanon, and possible strikes against Syria and Iran
* A repudiation of the tenets of Labor Zionism, and a change to Economic liberalism
* Removal of Suddam Hussein from power in Iraq"..."

The only Iranian government that had the support of the US since WWII was the Shah's murderous dictatorship. But he was Washington's bastard so who cared what he did too the population.

"Pentagon Warns Against Israeli Attack on Iran
Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen: 'A Third Front ... Would Be Extremely Stressful'
By JONATHAN KARL
July 2, 2008
...
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who was in Israel over the weekend, issued a strong warning today about the dangers of a military attack on Iran.
"My strong preference, here, is to handle all of this diplomatically with the other powers of governments, ours and many others, as opposed to any kind of strike occurring," he answered. "This is a very unstable part of the world. And I don't need it to be more unstable."
...
"We haven't had much of a dialogue with the Iranians for a long time," Mullen said. "It takes two people to want to have a dialogue, not just the desire on one part."

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A former CIA agent has alleged that the US intelligence agency ignored evidence Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb, a US newspaper has said.
The man's lawyer told the Washington Post that the ex-agent was told on "five occasions" to either falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction in the Near East, or "not to file his reports at all".
Details of the claims emerged after the ex-agent filed a motion in a US federal court last week asking the US government to declassify legal documents which he said described a deliberate suppression of findings on Iran's nuclear programmes that ran against the CIA's view.(...)

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