Iranian uranium

[bas_I_am]

[Deckard]

Well yeah, that's the fairness thing with which we're probably all already familiar. Hypocritical Israel, illegitimately created, imperial outpost of the US/UK, blah blah blah... and I may agree with some or all of that.

But when it comes to security, do you honestly feel no less safe at the prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons compared with the status quo of Israel possessing them?

Does the fact that one is a pro-western Parliamentary democracy and the other an anti-western Islamic theocracy-cum-democracy not give you any cause for concern? Are you yourself a westerner?

[Deckard]

Still on Iran... One thing I will admit to is a nagging suspicion about how everything has turned out (or seems to be heading) given that some of us were chattering about Iran and Syria being next on the list back in 2003-4 following the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Back then I was seriously convinced the whole war on terror was a pretext for a longer term plan to rebuild the Middle East in a way more favourable to US and UK interests. I distinctly remember thinking 'look out for the casus belli on Iran in the coming years....'

What's disconcerting (and I'm making claims no more concrete than that) is that this suspicion about Iran was at least 18 months before a hardline but relatively unknown figure called Ahmadinejad entered the presidential campaign and emerged the winner.

No doubt being cast as a member state of the Axis of Evil led in no small part to that victory.

[Strangelet]

i need it explained why pakistan doesn't pose a bigger threat to the US before I would ever consider supporting military action in Iran. It just isn't possible to effectively strike Iran and it consequently not take focus off Pakistan. We've seen this before with the Iraq war. Afghanistan would be the 51st state by now if it we hadn't invaded Iraq. That's the deal breaker and it boils down to that simple truth. A vastly less stable regime with nuclear war heads that actually exist, dealing with its own internal civil war, filled to the brim with the crazies that escaped from Afghanistan, the same people that trained and supported the 9/11 terrorists? Do we even need to think about this?

And this is where I really do have trouble with the whole Israel thing. Saddam was not a threat to the US or Europe. Iraq was a threat to Israel. A nuclear Iran is not a threat to the US and Europe nearly as much as it is a threat to Israel. Can we speak of these things and keep them in the realm of geopolitical strategy? I hope so, because its a mathematical truth.

[Deckard]

Good point about Pakistan Strangelet.

That's the deal breaker and it boils down to that simple truth. [Pakistan is a] vastly less stable regime with nuclear war heads that actually exist, dealing with its own internal civil war, filled to the brim with the crazies that escaped from Afghanistan, the same people that trained and supported the 9/11 terrorists?

I've asked myself the same thing, and presume these things don't have a single answer, but rather the case is made by the weight of several factors (same with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan)

Pakistan is quite clearly less stable, but do their leader and our leaders have a certain understanding (be it on security, trade, whatever) the details of which would shed light on those reasons for the softly softly approach? A problem there is that the fraught relationship between ourselves and the Iranian leader appears to be a consequence of our pre-existing attitude to Iran rather than a cause of it - though these things quickly become feedback loops.

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.)

Is it a factor that Pakistan is the country of origin of the bulk of the UK's (and Europe's?) Muslim immigrants, many of whom have families living there or shuttling back and forth all the time - and going to war with that country (or rhetoric leading to it) would pose a serious threat to the stability of much of Western Europe? You go to war with a country, a million of whose relatives are living in your own country - that doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

Not saying I believe these to be the reasons - just ideas.

And for the record, the conspiraloon in me still wonders about the relationship between our intelligence agencies, their intelligence agency, and al Qaeda - particularly with regard to the killing of Daniel Pearl and the funding of 9/11 - but time has dampened my appetite to get back into any of that stuff.

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...

[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.

[//\/\/]

pakistan - population 180,000,000 - genie already out of the bottle as far as nukes are concerned - far too big a country to take on - too big a regional player to put offside (see genie)

iran - population 70,000,000, smaller country, not nuclear-armed (yet) so no need to fear the genie.

you do the maths... if "we" can't successfully invade iraq - a desert state - then what form is action against pakistan supposed to take?

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by //\/\/

you do the maths... if "we" can't successfully invade iraq - a desert state - then what form is action against pakistan supposed to take?

this sounds like you think I'm arguing we should take military action against pakistan. we *are* taking military action against pakistan, at least a portion of it, in accordance to another portion of it. if that accord withers, however, then no, its not possible. I'm just saying we should stop acting like we're saving the world beating up Iran

[//\/\/]

totally agree.