Iranian uranium

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Is it a strategic move to tread gently with Pakistan by virtue of the fact that it is so potentially, and literally, explosive? That they already have the weapons and/or have already reached a level of instability? After all, treading carefully may not sound like the style of the Bush administration, but they were willing to do it with North Korea. (Or maybe not, since NK was added to the axis of evil, while Pakistan - to my recollection - wasn't.)

Its fun to pretend CIA analyst so let me give this a shot. The upshot about the pakistan situation is we can work with their government, a recent example being the 15,000 strong joint operations in the tribal regions currently underway. But we talk about the pakistani government as a monolithic entity at our peril. We might route the taliban only to be outflanked by a coup. At which point it will be softly softly, because there seems to be a process of different stages of agression and we are much more willing to invade/bomb countries before getting the bomb than after.

Does Iran pose a bigger threat to the stability of western economies given its significant role in the export of oil? Maybe that's another one that shifts the balance...

I don't think it does in this respect. If Iran were to choke all oil exports, it would probably only mean that american corporations take a vacation from leaching off iraqi oil fields and actually develop them.

The problem, I think, is centered around the bomb, not oil. Use 9/11 as a template. You have a country that is hostile to the west, but doesn't have the means or will to attack, it does however, have the resources and inhabitants who do have the will to attack. And, because being able to deliver a bomb successfully is luckily so difficult, they are going to want to blow their wad on target #1. For Iran that simply isn't Europe or the US. Its Tel Aviv. For the fucktards in pakistan, its New York.

Its not so much that I resent America fighting Israel's wars for it, mostly I just resent the way its portrayed in the media. The Bush administration did a great job billing Iraq as an "existential threat" to the U.S. and it simply a case of projecting Israeli strategy onto our own. And the reason I don't resent fighting Israel's wars is because after establishing that Iran poses no threat to the US you start to wonder what threat it poses to Israel.

Israel bombed Syria's nuclear reactor in 2007. No response. Was it because the Syrians just had an aw shucks attitude and decided to start a camel polo league instead? Or is it because they know they can simply get the bomb later from papa yabadabadoo over in Iran. If you're Israeli intelligence you basically have to assume that if Iran gets the bomb, then Syria gets the bomb. And if Syria gets the bomb, then Hizbollah gets the bomb. And that means there's an ominous looking box the size of a fridge 60 miles from tel aviv.

That is, to wit, an existential threat. They'll have finally found themselves in a situation where their expression finally, truly, applies.