So do we impeach Bush (and Cheney) before or after the bombs fall?

From the article:

"I call on the world that did not stop the Holocaust to stop investing in Iran to prevent genocide," [Netanyahu] said.

Ugh. I've always been disgusted by our administration's shameless invocation of "9/11" in every context. Now I realize they are mere amateurs at making loathesomely irrelevant connections.

But who speaks for Dead-Eye-Dick?

One of the things that puzzles me about GWB is what perhaps is a need for instant gratification. The early switch from Afghanistan to Iraq was one.

The Iranian nuclear threat is another. From IAEA data and what seems generally accepted in discussions involving the Europeans, Iran has on the order of 3,000 centrifuges, and I believe that Ahminejad was talking about an upgrade into the low tens of thousands. This may seem like a lot of centrifuges, but you need a lot of centrifuges to come up with meaningful quantities of fissionable material.

We know some characteristics of the Iranian missiles. They may have some fairly decent tactical missiles, and there's some indication they have better guidance technology at medium and intermediate range than North Korea. Still, getting a nuclear weapon into a package that can be carried by a Shahab-3 is not a trivial exercise.

Optimistically looking at enrichment, they can have material for fewer than 5-6 bombs in several years. Since they seem to be emphasizing uranium rather than plutonium, the South African program is a fairly good parallel. I would note that South Africa's potential targets were in places without strong air defense network, so a larger bomb, which can be carried by a fighter-bomber not as weight- and volume-constrained as a missile, was plausible for them. Israeli air defenses, however, are very tough, and getting a non-stealthy aircraft through them would be an event of very low probability. A submarine-delivered bomb at a port is a possibility.

I am simply missing, and I'm not trying to be political here, what Bush sees as an immediate problem.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Who is the real "fanatic" here?

First, the fact that there's absolutely no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082201447.html ), and the Iranians have very good reason for developing nuclear power, which is why the US encouraged and supported Iran's nuclear program in the first place.

Second, in fact it is the US that has explicitly threatened Iran with nuclear attack, in blatant violation of international law.

Third, the Iranians - far from "sacrificing their own people on the alter of fanaticism" - have repeatedly made significant offers of compromise with the US, that have been summarily dismissed by the Bush administration:

In 2003 they offered to cease supporting Hezbollah and suspend enrichment. The US castigated the Swiss ambassador for communicating the offer to the US.

During a speech to the UN, the "fanatical" Iranian president offered to open Iran's nuclear program to international investment, thus preventing any diversion of nuclear material to nukes - something the IAEA itself had recommended. The US ignored the offer.

Some Iranian offers of compromise weren't even reported in the US media
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB07Ak01.html

Here, read some more of these offers - all of them ignored, unreported and rejected.

http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Iran_Nuclear_Proposals.asp

and

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-zarif30dec30,0,3490645.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Better yet, considering that the US is the only nation to have dropped nukes (on civilians, mind you) - twice - and has illegally invaded another country (to topple a tyrant that the US once armed with chemical weapons) not to mention all the nun-raping death squads it has armed and backed, and has explicitly threatened Iran with a nuclear attack in blatant violation of international law...when should the rest of the world attack the US?

“During an impromptu April 18 press conference, President George W. Bush was asked if his assertion that 'all options are on the table' regarding Iran included the possibility of a nuclear strike. Bush reiterated, 'All options are on the table. We want to solve this issue diplomatically, and we’re working hard to do so.' In no uncertain words, the president of the United States directly threatened Iran with a preemptive nuclear strike. It is hard to read his reply in any other way.”

While I really hate to be in a position that could give the appearance of supporting the appalling Administration, I also hate the use of grandiose claims about the eeeevilness of the United States.

US is the only nation to have dropped nukes (on civilians, mind you)

the US once armed with chemical weapons

has explicitly threatened Iran with a nuclear attack in blatant violation of international law

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Howard,

I don't think I agree that Bush is driven by a need for instant gratification. I posted the following on Matthew Yglesias site recently, but i'm going to repeat it here because it seems apropos of this discussion.

Based on journalists' interviews with Bush and other administration officials over the past 5-6 years, and a few more recent interviews including those by NBC and CBS, it is clear that George Bush views himself and his presidency in grand, world historical terms. He will not allow himself to be confined by the kinds of prosaic facts about current capabilities that appeal to those in the "reality-based community".

Bush believes that the public and the military are always unwilling to see the true nature of the greatest threats, and are deeply reluctant to respond to them, and that it is thus the role of great national leaders to pull countries into conflicts they need to fight. And Bush and his associates have stated many times their view that the conflict with Islamic Whateverism is the "defining ideological struggle of our time". Cheney made much the same point this weekend, alluding to a long 30-40 year war against the forces of darkness. They mean it. They believe they, and we, have a rendezvous with destiny to defeat the monstrous global spread of the powerful New Caliphate.

My assumption is that Bush therefore thinks that he most do what Franklin Roosevelt did, and create the conditions that force our hands, and pull the public and the military into a fight that they don't want. He is confident that, once the country is in a situation in which it is forced to fight because we are already in a fight from which extrication is unthinkable, Americans will rise to the challenge and commit the full weight and force of US human and economic potential to the conflict. And the more isolated Bush becomes politically, the more he grows convinced of his visionary acumen and the fatal inevitability of his heroic solitude.

Some Americans persuade themselves that Bush would never escalate the current conflict in Iraq into a regional or broader war, simply because we currently don’t seem to have the troops or resources needed. But the United States emerged from a depression to fight World War II, and in fairly short order mobilized the entire country, raised a huge army, and built a war machine that transformed the country into the dominant power in the world for half a century. Don't you think Bush believes we could do that again?

Remember the character Bat Guano in Dr. Strangelove? Guano was a man so confined by his "frame outlook" and conventional views of reality, that he couldn't recognize that something unique was happening, and couldn't grasp the urgency of the situation. That's what Bush and Cheney think of the "reality-based community" with their petty reservations about current troop strengths and budget limits. In the Bush worldview, that community suffers from an impoverished imagination, and is confined within a mental prison of merely convential reality determined by assumed facts of life and limits that don't really exist. The Bushian true believers see themselves as more like Colonel Mandrake, who acutely and resourcefully sizes up the situation, grasps its emergency nature, siezes the initiative, solves the puzzle and (almost) saves the day. (Of course, a lot of us think we're Colonel Mandrake, and that Bush is the mad General Ripper.)

So I think that’s what Bush has planned for us. He plans to start something that we can’t get out of, a situation in which the consequences of failing to fight all-out are so bad, that even the skeptics will be forced to climb on board for the big win in his great cause. Bush looks out over the country and sees a vast untapped army of G.I. Joes and Rosie the Riviters, just waiting for mobilization.

In the NBC interview, Bush indicated that he is looking 80 or 90 years ahead, and is staking his legacy on that imagined future - not what people think of him now. I'm convinced that when Bush looks into the future, he sees his face on a lot of the money. He sees a marble memorial on the mall, with the great Decider staring out with steely and furrowed brow, and pointing the way forward into Destiny. He sees schoolchildren memorizing his speeches. He seems the great Arab and Muslim masses paying him homage as their own Great Emancipator.

I know many people are disposed to find my interpretation of Bush's intentions to be an outlandish. But I believe this is really happening, and stopping it will require more than an objection here, a hearing there and a few negative sound bites from emerging presidential candidates. One thing that is clear is that a lot of congressional Democrats are completely unprepared for how they will respond to significant moves in th direction of full-scale conflict with Iran - and where the choice between a Great War and peace is concerned, they don't even know what side they are on.

I'll assume you saw this Reuters piece:

"You're talking about a war against Iran" that likely would destabilize the Middle East for years, White told the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington think tank.

"We're not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of targets inside Iran. We're talking about clearing a path to the targets" by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability, White said.
Three times is a charm for the Bush family. This is Iraq 3.0, and this time W thinks he won't make the same mistakes he AND his father previously made in the desert. And I don't think there's anything we an do to stop this train.

I'm not sure what your point is about Nagasaki and Hiroshima

Here's a start on the chemical weapons item (remember that the US REMOVED saddam's iraq from the list of terrorist nations in 1982)...
authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague....

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

But will the JCS defy him if he orders an attack on Iran?

Ah, Rocket Science, you also dwell down here among us mere ordinary people in the reality-based community. You lack the unclouded moral clarity, farsightedness and resolve of the Decider.

Obviously American won't go along with a draft now. So ... Bush asks himself ... under what condidtions would they go along with it? How does he get the country to supply him with the troops he needs to defeat the Death Star Evil Global Caliphate? There surely are some dire conditions under which the country would support a draft. So Bush needs to create those conditions to achieve his ends.

What if by attacking Shia militias, and also targets in Iran, Bush provokes a widespread Shia uprising in Iraq, and our soldiers suddenly find themselves pinned down in a life-or death struggle for survival in Iraq, trapped between two equally hostile insurgent armies, and in desperate need of reinforcements and rescue?

What if the entire Middle East catalytically erupts in a chain reaction of civil insurrection and war? What if as a result oil exports slow to a trickle and oil prices shoot through the stratosphere? What if the economy tanks and the American Way of Life is threatened?

What if at the same time, the resurgent al-Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan sieze the oportunity offered by a distracted and bogged down America to move against the Pakistani and Afghan governments, or to launch a new round of spectacular attacks on Western targets? What if a revolutionary wave sweeps the region and the present governments are toppled in favor of a string of militant America-hating regimes?

What if Israel suddenly finds itself in a desperate war with a coalition of Middle East states and paramilitary groups. Who is going to say "no" to entering that war on Israel's behalf? The US Congress???

We could easily find ourselves embroiled in a number of simultaneous fights, with inadequate forces to win but with failure or withdrawal simply not an option. Many Democrats have already put themselves into a rhetorical corner by calling repeatedly for a larger military - some even for a draft. They are going to have a hard time backing off of that position once the shit hits the fan in half a dozen hot spots at once, and it becomes clear that we cannot win with our current force levels. And at that point it will no longer be a "war of choice". The interests at stake will be so massive and substantial that no Washington politician will have any room to maneuver out of the situation. What are Democrats going to do at that point? Will the party that represents minority voters say: "let's just get more black and hispanic kids to enlist"?

What if the Chinese, suddenly understanably terrified that global war and insecurity will curtail the energy supplies essential to their expanding economy, embark on a newly agressive campaign of militarization, and begin to assume a more agressive posture toward the protection of strategically vital sources of energy in key regions.

It's 1913. We're all bungling toward disaster.

"And liberals wonder why they get accused of hating America."

No, we don't. We know there's no shortage of hysterical McCarthyites like yourself that will resort to any available argument, no matter how unreasonable or dishonest, to advance their agenda.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty made sense in a Cold War framework, where virtually every nation was under the protection of one of the superpowers' nuclear umbrellas, and proliferation would just increase the number of flashpoints that might lead to all-out war. However, under the current situation, it's just an updated version of Hilaire Belloc's old doggerel: "Whatever happens/We have got/The Maxim gun/and they have not." The NPT committed the nuclear powers to eventual complete disarmament; no one seriously believes that is going to happen, and if we won't follow our treaty obligations, why should other nations follow theirs?

Try using the Golden Rule for a moment and put yourself in Iran's shoes. Your nation has been named as part of the "Axis of Evil" by the world's most powerful nation, and one of the nations on that axis has already been invaded and its leaders overthrown. The other nation on the list has escaped this fate primarily because it does have working nuclear weapons. Your archenemy, Israel, bristles with nuclear weapons and is not even subject to the NPT. Furthermore, neither your archenemy nor its hyperpower supporter is willing to even discuss the issue with you; instead, they issue a blunt ultimatum to surrender even the peaceful use of nuclear technology, despite the fact that the NPT explicitly permits it.

Seriously, now; if you were an Iranian leader, how would you react to this set of circumstances?

I don't see a nuclear Iran as a disaster. Quite the contrary, I think it will serve as a stabilizing force, much as the US/USSR nuclear standoff prevented the Cold War from leading to a full-scale military conflict between the two superpowers. A nuclear Iran will not affect the national interests of the United States in any way. It will probably hurt the national interests of Israel - but (call me crazy) as an American, I am more concerned with the national interest of my own country than that of a foreign land.

Howard,

Have you come to believe that there is a reasonable chance that the US might actually get into a situation as a result of our conflicts in the Middle East that it might need an army large enough that a draft would be required?

BradTheDad,
You seem concerned that some people would be unwillingly to use military force against Iran no matter what. That some people are so focused on the bad aspects of US use of military force that they are blind to real dangers from the rest of the world.
I think those are valid concerns that should be addressed.
I for one am not willing to see the Iranians get nuclear weapons, both because of the danger to Israel and because Iran's neighbors would be forced to follow suit and a Middle East full of nations with nuclear weapons is a recipe for genocide.
However, I do not think the Iranians are that close to getting nuclear weapons (unlike North Korea). What I am banking on is having a government whose basic competence and common sense I can trust in Washington from January 2009.
For me to support our nation taking military action against Iran, I would need to be convinced that
1) There was a reasonable chance that the Iranians were close to acquiring nuclear weapons (not years away).
2) That other options had been exhausted and military action was the only reasonable alternative left.
3) That our current government in Washington could be trusted handle the issue with integrity and competence.
In my opinion, none of these three conditions are being met now.
1) The Iranians are years away from getting the bomb.
2) Many of the peoples of the nations allied with us in the Middle East seem not really sure if they want to be part of the modern industrial world. If they saw a way to stay more traditional, even though that would look backward to us, I think most of our allies would take it. But the Iranian people actually want to join the modern world. They are like the Chinese just before Deng took over. Yes, the government is dominated by people who dislike our world and us and that government has real roots in Iranian society. But the majority of Iranians are now post-Islamist. They have seen the Islamicist paradise and they know it means poverty, backwardness, corruption, and hypocrisy. The Iranians are the one people in the middle east who are now innoculated against Islamicism. A post-Islamicist Iran following something like the Chinese path would do more for US security than any amount of military spending or action.
It may take 5 or 10 years for this to show up at the government level, but it will happen. The only thing that can stop it is if we attack Iran and allow the discredited, corrupt, incompetent Islamicist regime to play the role of the defender of the 2500-year old Persian culture. I would offer the Iranians a deal: they give up their nuclear power plants and in return we give peaceful technology and help them build some world-class industry. Maybe automotives, IT, something that would give Iranians better lives and be good for the rest of the world.
I am not being Barney here and saying all we need to do is join hands and sing "I love you, you love me" or Kumbaya or whatever and all the tyranny in the world will vanish. What I am saying that there is a unique moment about to happen, a moment when there is an unusual opportunity to help a significant nation shift away from poverty and aggression toward prosperity and peace. Iran is not Germany 1938. Iran is China in 1978 or Eastern Europe in 1988.

3) Many people consider the way Iraq was handled after the initial military success and the way that mishandling was hidden by the media and necessary analysis prevented to have been and still be so bad for our interests as a nation and so contrary to values shared all the way across the entire political spectrum that we would not trust the current administration with anything serious.

Brad,

Aside from your appeal to the authorty of John Kerry and the New York Times, you didn't respond respond to any of hass's actual points.

Uprated.  This post is not spam, it does not make personal attacks, and it is a good-faith contribution to the discussion.  

Try using the Golden Rule for a moment and put yourself in Iran's shoes.

OK, let's do that. 

If I'm the president of Iran, it seems to me I have a choice.  I can continue on my present path and run the risk of a catastrophic confrontation with the West (and however much the West may suffer, believe me Iran would suffer more in such a confrontation).  On the other hand, I do love the way the nuclear issue whips the people into a nationalistic frenzy.  It certainly is convenient how it makes them forget what a complete mess my economy is and the fact that the country is run by a bunch of criminal fanatics who seek to export instability and revolution whenever and wherever they can.  Yes in fact if it weren't for the nuclear issue I might run out of distractions and actually have to govern the country competently.

And I do like the way my nuclear sabre-rattling keeps those Arab dogs off balance.  They love my talk of wiping out Israel but are scared shitless of our glorious Persian Shi'ite culture becoming dominant in the region.  Everyone talks about an arms race but really, when was the last time Arabs were able to pull off something as complicated as a nuclear weapon?  All their technology is imported.  They'll have to steal the ability, the way the Pakistanis did.  Of course, that ship has probably sailed by now.

Of course, my other choice is to give up my nuclear weapons program.  If nuclear power is such a critical issue for me, I could always acquiesce to the Russian plan to have them control the nuclear fuel cycle.  That way I could still get the power I need without risking a regional conflagration.  But really, where would that leave me?

No, the temptation to ride the nuclear tiger is just too great.  Now I've got to go plan my next Holocaust denial conference.  Maybe I can get Noam Chomsky to be the keynoter this time.  That'll be a hoot!

I'm going to speculate that Perl is trying to push an agenda, not that we're getting an inside view of future policy. He's like Brad, wondering why we're all too cowardly to take out Iran, and it appeals to our own distrust of Bush and our, correct, image of his fantasy bubble. However, let's put it in perspective.

Perl wanted an invasion of Iraq from the day Bush stepped into office. Perhaps it was Bush's dream, too, although Bush's dreams are unfocused and changeable. One day, he'll be touting the ISG, the next raising troop strengths, but only with a token increase. So did we invade Iraq in 2000? It took the amazing good fortune for the warmongers of 9/11, plus 18 more months of lying to the public to fake excuses.

And yet the public was eager to kill. Politicians were easy to roll over or afraid to speak out. They even had an actual UN inspection of Iraq in progress that could mask the intent of legislation or, if you're in Congress, give you an excuse later for your vote. And you had troops, plenty of them, if not enough to win.

And now? You'd have an easier time getting a reinvasion of Somalia the week after Black Hawk Down. Bush is like Hitler in his bunker, and he didn't start another invasion then, and neither could. All we can do in accordance with, well, physical law is drop an atomic bomb, fail to send in troops, and watch Iraqi civilians die horribly from a distance, without having changed much other than to increase every civilized human being's horror. Not even Iraq would change from it. Let's not watch Dr. Strangelove too many times. The Neocons are in a different alternative universe than that.

The wingnuts like Perl can bluster and plant rumors, and they can hope. That's what policy wonks do. Bush may even encourage it. It distracts the public and gives him flexibility to throw out fake surges and, perhaps later, fake withdrawals. It lets him better master the increasingly fragile coalition of GOP nut cases for a little longer. All he needs is to get out of office with the war in progress, so that he didn't lose Iraq, so that he's the visionary hero in his own mind, and so that someone else threw away his glorious American empire.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

1 - The fact that there were military sites in Hiroshima and Nagasaki doesn't distract from the fact that the principle and overwhelming majority of victims were CIVILIANS. Disproportionate civilian casualties = WAR CRIME.

2- As for the illegality of threatening others with nuclear attack: If you can't be bothered to actually click on the link I provided, that's your willful obtuseness. I don't get paid to educate you. But here you go, again:

http://iranaffairs.typepad.com/iran_affairs/2006/04/bush_threatens_.html

Note that threatening others with nuclear attacks is a violation of Security COuncil Resolution 984, which incidentally embodied the Negative Security Assurances that the US has violated, and a violation in general even planning to attack another country is a Crimes Against Peace and a violation of the UN Charter.

3- As for the weapons - are you seriously arguing that we were so concerned about a shortage of anthrax in Iraq that suddenly we felt that we just had to remove Iraq from the list of terrorist nations and send some "dual use" stuff over there? In fact, the US and the UK were doing more than just sending sending anthrax to Saddam - to KNOWN weapons labs. We were training his weapons scientists too for example at Porten Downs labs in the UK. Look it up yourself.

And allow me to dismissively laugh at your sad attempt to justify the sale of armaments and weapons to Saddam on the grounds that they were "dual use" items, thusly, in just the case of helicopters for example, that were sold to Saddam to be used as "crop sprayers" (over Kurds)

"Once Iraq was off the state terrorist list, export controls on dual-use technologies were less restrictive. As an example, the Iraqis were sold sixty Hughes MD-500 'Defender' helicopters, and then ten Bell Helicopters UH-IS, models which had been used extensively in Vietnam. And while Saddam's government promised these helicopters would be used for civilian purposes only, an eyewitness spotted at least thirty of them being used to train military pilots. Other helicopter sales followed, including forty-eight said to be for 'recreation' purposes, such as transporting VIPS, but which were also diverted to military uses."

and...

"In 1984, Italy's state-owned Agusta helicopter manufacturer sold $164 milion worth of helicopters to Iraq. The order was for military helicopters fitted out for anti-submarine warfare, but Rome had needed permission from Washington because the choppers were sold by Agusta Bell, which made them under license from Bell Textron in the United States. [Italian PM Guilio] Andreotti, when asked in 1993 about the sale of Agusta helicopters to Iraq, sat stiffly at his desk in Rome and confirmed with a terse 'si' that they had indeed been sold as part of a top-level understanding between President Reagan and Prime Minister Crazi to try to assist Saddam. 'Certainly the policy were all following at the time was a policy of great support for Iraq,' said Andreotti"

"The removal of Iraq from the state terrorism list also freed the Reagan administration to aid Iraq militarily in its war with Iran. The first concrete expression of this new freedom was the decision to sell Iraq sixty Hughes MD-500 Defender helicopters and ten Bell UH-1 helicopters, ostensibly for civilian purposes. It was a proposal that caused a serious division within the administration.

"The sale of 'civilian' helicopters has long been a classic way of providing military support to a favored state or ally in the face of congressional opposition, and the ploy had been used before by the Reagan administration -- with El Salvador, for example. Although exported as a civilian kit, the weaponization of a civilian helicopter requires only adding armored plating, strapping a frame to support the weapons to be attached, attaching the weapons, and ideally adding an electronic integration system, all of which takes a matter of hours. Even where they are not weaponized, the helicopters can quickly ferry troops to remote or inaccessible areas, and as such have an important utility.

"As the MOD's Lt Col Glasebrook told the Scott Inquiry: 'There is basically no difference between a military helicopter and a civilian helicopter except the color it is painted.' ...

"Although it was claimed at the time that the helicopters were needed to spray crops, it has been claimed since that they were used to spray Kurds with chemicals....

"Chris Cowley saw the American UH-1 helicopters in Iraq in 1988 while overseeing testing on the supergun program. He was being taken northwest of Baghdad by Iraqi officials as they continued to look for a suitable test site for the prototype. En route, they stopped off to refuel at a military base, where Cowley saw 'fifty or sixty' of them being worked on. They next time he stopped off at the base, they were gone. The Iraqi overseeing the supergun project, Brigadier Azzawi, told him they had 'gone south' (towards the Iran-Iraq War)."

Note further Howard Teichers affidavit about how we encouraged others to arms Saddam, and armed him ourselves when necessary too:

http://www.webcom.com/~lpease/collections/hidden/teicher.htm

(Ps: don't presume to lord your biology knowledge over me - in fact I have a Biology degree, among other things.)

Do we intend to bomb every country that develops nukes?

Yes, indeed. The National Security Strategy makes clear that the US is in the business of counterproliferation, for everyone except the US. It also makes clear that to achieve such a goal, it may attack a country preemptively even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack.

This is not a wise strategy, according to the brains in the Army War College. They believe it is better to ...keep your enemies to a manageable number. A strategy whose ambitions provoke the formation of an array of enemies whose defeat exceeds the resources available to that strategy is doomed to failure.

The other theory of interest is that such a strategy seems to encourage proliferation which makes the preventive threat counter productive. [I]t would be wiser to replace the goal of prevention with that of deterrence.

However, this administration does not seem to consult the experts who work for it. They tend to take the advice of neocon journalists like Kristol and Krauthammer, or Perl, none of whom have gotten strategy right, yet.

Iran is fighting them in Iraq, so it doesn't have to fight them in Iran. Heard on NPR 1-17-06.

You don't have to take the Iranian's word for anything - they've been subjected to the most intensive inspections possible, and for 2 years they allowed inspections beyond what they were legally required to allow - and the IAEA still has turned up zip, and the last US intelligence assessment has stated that Iran is 10 years away from building a bomb (any country is 10 years away from making a nuke!)

And fyi an editorial is not the same thing as objective reporting.

Here's another example of NYT editorial spin:

And again, just as in the case of Iraq, the media and the pundits are happy to go along with the official spin by casually tossing out pro forma references to "Iran's nuclear weapons programme", as if the existence of such a programme is now beyond dispute. For example, on 23 May 2005, PBS TV's News-Hour with Jim Lehrer dedicated a segment to "a report on the Iranian nuclear weapons program". On 4 April 2006, William Arkin opened his online Washington Post blog: "In the tricky world of deterrence, where the United States is pressuring Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program ..."

The New York Times is perhaps the worst offender in this regard. Though the New York Times editorial board admitted rather grudgingly to having inadvertently promoted the Bush administration's propaganda line on Iraq, the newspaper is apparently capable of simultaneously condemning the Bush administration while promoting a similar propaganda line against Iran. As media scholar Norman Solomon observed,

[A] distinct rhythm of drumming for a war dance is audible in the present. Consider a statement that appeared a couple of inches under the close of the New York Times editorial declaring on Saturday that "there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." In an editorial just below, the Times flatly stated conjecture as fact: "Iran has a nuclear weapons program."(6)

(Read more: Rhetoric of War: First Iraq, then Iran?
By Cyrus Safdari
Global Dialogue, Volume 8, No. 1-2, Winter-Spring 2006 http://www.geocities.com/csafdari/)

And PS - despite the NY Time's attempt to portray the IAEA board as being "unified" in reporting IRan in Feb 2006 (nevermind the intense US pressure on the countries involved) what the NY Times isn't telling you is that the subsquent March 2006 the Board of Governors was totally fractured.

Furthermore, the MAJORITY OF THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD HAVE SIDED WITH IRAN as evidenced by the OIC and Non-Aligned Movement statements (FYI the NAM constitutes 118 out of 192 nations of the world)

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP)–The Nonaligned Movement, the world’s biggest bloc after the U.N., emphatically backed Iran Tuesday in its nuclear standoff with the U.S., and condemned Israel for occupying Palestinian lands...

The Iranians suspended enrichment and voluntarily allowed more intensive IAEA inspections for 2 years than they were obligated to allow - and in return the US and EU simply upped their demands on Iran to permanently abandon their NPT rights.

The Iranians offered in 2003 to compromise with the US on everything including opposition to Israel and the nuclear issue - and they were blown off. In fact the Swiss Ambassador who communicated the message from Iran was castigated by the Bush administration for doing so.

During his speech The president of Iran offered to open up Iran's nuclear program to international investment (and scrutiny) and was ignored despite the fact that this was a solution that the IAEA itself had recommended.

Iran has made at least 5 other offers of nuclear compormise - and all have been ignored.

http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Iran_Nuclear_Proposals.asp

Nonsense! We can't wait for the mushroom cloud! We must attack (fill in blank) before its too late in order to (select as many as applicable: promote democracy, defend human rights, protect Americans, prevent another 911)!

I'd like to reverse the question too. But instead of asking about Pakistan, I'd like to ask: How many Iraqs does it take for you to realize that, judging from our history, it is more likely that we will find ourselves in a quandary than it is that we will solve whatever international problem we have at the moment by going to war? Whatever we do, every time we go to war, even if we end up "fixing" something immediate (like removing Saddam from power), we end up causing some other situation that requires a future military intervention.

Every situation suggests, of course, diametrically opposed responses, which each carry risks and potential payoffs. But by looking at diametrically opposed potential catastrophes, as you do in the first sentence of your second paragraph, you ignore the actual history of US military involvements, in other words, you ignore which of these potential catastrophes is actually more likely to occur, based on our actual previous behavior.

You write "equally it might be catastrophic to allow Iran the bomb and thereby start a broader Middle East nuclear arms race." But why are you defining the beginning of a "broader nuclear arms race" as that moment when Iran gets the bomb, and not at that moment when Israel joined the nuke club, and not that moment when whoever arms themselves in response to Iran (Syria? Jordan? Turkey?) I'm not sure that I would agree that even Iran getting the bomb would be as much of a catastrophe as some M.E. country actually using a nuclear weapon, or as much of a catastrophe as a widening conventional or insurgent war as we have now.

Finally, I don't think it is denial to recognize that Ahmadinejad is in political trouble right now; the people of Iran seem to be getting fed up with and frightened of his sabre rattling.

If your point is simply to not rule out options then I agree with you. But it seems that too often we rule out the diplomatic option, or get impatient with the slowness of its results. We decide, without asking ourselves beforehand what our goals or expectations should have been, that diplomacy has "stopped working", and that it's time for military action. But having embarked on military action, it is far more difficult to break that off and return to diplomacy, due to concerns about "how much worse things are going to get", not to mention the costs of losing face.

This is what Wesley Clark has been worrying about for some time. Arianna wrote about his worries when she bumped into him at the party for the new Congress. But commenters were far more interested in if he had dissed wealthy New York Jews who lobby for Israel's prime minister, right or wrong, than they were interested in what he had to say.

No doubt Clark's "bad manners" in alluding to New York money people was far more important than his concern that we are on the verge of bombing Iran without ever even talking to them and trying to work it out.

To all the folks who are fearful of a forceful confrontation with Iran, I have to ask the contrarian question: Just what would it take to make you support force against them? A nuclear test? Deployment? Or are you just perfectly fine with having this regime, known for it's willingness to sacrifice its own people on the altar of fanaticism, possess the most destructive weapons in the world?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I can live with that if it is strategically stabilizing, which it well may be. Turn it around -- you are Iran with 10 weapons, compared to Israel with 200-400. Your particular politics and culture considers Israel an enemy. Would you feel more or less secure if both of you have nuclear weapons -- and you know damn well you can't destroy Israel, nor avoid a second strike.

Here's a passage from globalsecurity.org's summary of the Iranian nuclear situation:

Hashemi Rafsanjani, president of Iran from 1989 to 1997, gave a speech on 14 December 2001 that was widely interpreted as indicating that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons as a deterrent to Israel. Calling the establishment of Israel among the worst periods of our contemporary history, Rafsanjani stated that, "If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists' strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality. Of course, you can see that the Americans have kept their eyes peeled and they are carefully looking for even the slightest hint that technological advances are being made by an independent Islamic country. If an independent Islamic country is thinking about acquiring other kinds of weaponry, then they will do their utmost to prevent it from acquiring them. Well, that is something that almost the entire world is discussing right now."

So in short, you have one country, Israel, run by decent democrats who need nukes purely as a deterrent, and you have another country, Iran, who make no secret of their desire to perpetrate a second Holocaust.  The only thing stopping them now is their technological backwardness.

It'll never happen, you say.  They're just engaging in a bit of harmless saber-rattling.  Maybe.  But can anyone afford to take that chance?  Your answer is, essentially, yes.  My answer is no.

RJB,

I don't know about a draft, but I worry that an attack on Iran would produce such a catastrophe that it would paralyze the Congress, the Democrats, the public in general just long enough for the Bushies to impose emergency rule (like the Colonels in Greece or the Generals in Chile). To get really edgy, perhaps Iraq and Iran are the stepping stones to the real goal - the junking of everything that's happened in this country since Teddy Roosevelt.
This is the kind of multi-level paranoic scheming that only works in Richard Condon novels, not in the real world. But I worry the Bushies both bent and stupid enough to think it could work.

LOL! A questionable interpretation of a hypothetical statement is selectively quoted as a "summary of the Iranian nuclear situation" - which of course as usual portrays the Israeli as victims and everyone else as the aggressors.! LOL! BTW Go ask the Palestinians living in terror in refugee camps about how the Israelis are "democrats". Also go ask the Lebanese civilians who were targetted by Israeli bombs.

Why not refer to all the quotes by Iranian officials which state that they do NOT seek nuclear weapons?

Here's a fact:

During the IRan-IRaq War, Iran was attacked by WMDS in the form of Chemical Weapons.

Under the then-applicable Geneva Protocol, Iran was LEGALLY ENTITLED TO RESPOND with chemical weapons.

But they didn't.

And note that the US has explicitly threatend to nuke Iran, and in that case there was no need to twist Bush's words:

"During an impromptu April 18 press conference, President George W. Bush was asked if his assertion that "all options are on the table" regarding Iran included the possibility of a nuclear strike. Bush reiterated, "All options are on the table. We want to solve this issue diplomatically, and we're working hard to do so." In no uncertain words, the president of the United States directly threatened Iran with a preemptive nuclear strike. It is hard to read his reply in any other way."

So, lets review: Bush, who has his finger on the launch button of a massive nuclear arsenal and has shown that he's quite willing to attack other countries and invade them illegally, has explicitly threatened to nuke Iran

Versus

Iran, which doesn't have a nuke, and which hasn't attacked anyone in over 200 years.

Who is a threat to whom here?

I've come to believe that the more elliptical a person is in making their point, the less of a point there is to make. I'll use KJ as an example. The virtual wink and nod you diplay says to me you are more focused on demonstrating some affinity or solidarity, rather than addressing a point for debate.

Upon further review, I agree with you that my comment was cheesy. My apology for coming off like the Church Lady.

On the other hand, your comment (the one to which I replied) did not seem to respond to its parent. That was the point that I was trying to make.

In the comment that I am responding to now, you do address the main point. I disagree with you, but I won't be snide about it.

Let me speak to your #1.

We have next to no available ground troops that aren't already committed elsewhere.

Another question I honestly don't know the answer to: how is our use of aircraft carrier groups affected by Iran's use of Chinese missile systems capable of circumventing defenses and destroying them? I have no idea of the relative ranges, and I'm really curious how this would play out. Is there a range factor here, where they can be out of missile range but in range for bombing runs?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

A questionable interpretation of a hypothetical statement

But wait, I thought that you were arguing that we should take what the Iranians say at face value.  After all, they have denied any intent to acquire nuclear weapons and that's good enough for you, right?  So how come when they're saying things that put them in a favorable light, we're to believe every word of it but when they say things that are not so attractive, you don't believe it?  Meanwhile of course, EVERYTHING that the US does is nefarious, immoral, illegal and so on.

Are you just naive or is your mind just cluttered with anti-American leftist claptrap?  It's got to be one or the other.

Let me clue you in to a secret.  Just between you and me, OK?  The government of Iran LIES.  When they say they are not developing nuclear weapons, it is virtually certain that they are LYING.  Why do we think this?  Because they have a long history of lying.  Most analysts say that what they are developing is dual-use technology that can be quickly converted into weapon making.  The underground facility at Natanz was only known because a defector revealed it. 

Here's some questions for you: Why the stolen plans for nukes from the AQ Khan network?  Why the hardened underground bunkers for research?  Most obviously, why would any country risk a catastrophic confrontation with the US - with a president with a known history of recklessness - over nuclear power?  What country considers nuclear power so important that it is willing to defy the entire world over it?  It just doesn't make any sense. 

Now let's combine this with the fact that they are also known supporters of jihadist fanaticism.  Malignant Iranian influence can be seen in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and of course in the Palestinian territories.  They have supported terrorism in Europe and South America.  And of course they on record denying the Holocaust (yet threatening a second one) and encouraging their people to think of Jews as "apes and monkeys". And, lest we forget, the chants of "Death of America" are practically the national anthem.

And so this utterly evil, barbaric regime, the destroyer of a truly glorious Persian culture and a blight on the human condition, this executer of children, this seedbed of fanaticism around the world, they somehow gets all your sympathy and understanding.

Talk about twisted.

The author is responsible for the misunderstanding of his words (something, on another thread, a certain Mrs. P, should learn).

Many of us post here repeatedly for months or years.  We assume that others at least vaguely know our personality.  We know, for example, that Sage is a RW ideologue before we look at his (?) post.

It would be inconsistent with my view that I would seriously propose war with anyone.  What I am proposing is that we GET TOUGH with someone, and that it isn't IRAN that we need to GET TOUGH with.  Instead, it is Bush's second most favorite dictator (I assume that the Saudi Royal family contains his favorite dictator and dictators-in-waiting).

Pakistan needs some serious shaking down, for reasons posted by someone else a few entries below.  Not war, I don't recommend war.  But, Pakistan is WHY WE HAVE a problem in any other country that isn't supposed to have the BOMB (except Israel and India).  On top of that, Pakistan is pretty clearly a hostile country that is playing nice because they think they have to.

So, yes, I am in some sense serious about Pakistan, but mostly I am putting it far ahead of Iran on the list of problem countries.  It is, in fact, equaled only by North Korea, and not clearly by them.  Bush's fixation of Iran is a distraction from these two far more troubling countries. 

Oh its not that complicated. This is an old chestnut. Its called SCAREMONGERING.

Rafsanjani did not and does not say what you're trying oh-so hard to attribute to him: that since one nuke would destroy Israel, so supposedly THEREFORE WE SHOULD NUKE ISRAEL.

The Rafsanjani quote has been stretched by the partisans of Israel as "proof" of Iranian mal intent in order to scaremonger and to once again portray Israel as the victim whislt justifying aggression. All this is due to the absence of actual evidence of nuclear weapons in Iran, so instead we resort to pulling, stretching and twising selective quotes from Iranians - while at the same time we stay studiosly silent about the OVERT, EXPLICIT nuclear threats that we've issued to Iran.

In fact, it is Israel's and the US's ACTUAL EXISTING nukes that pose a threat - to Iran and the whole region, and not Iran's theoretical and non-existent nukes.

And now to debunk the rest of your post.

Iran supports "jihadists"?? Well, if youre referring to the Hezbollah - they're FIGHTING ISRAELI OCCUPATION - and note that the US has done its share of supporting nun-raping death squads aruond the world. But in fact Iran was opposed to the Taliban when the US was backing them.

Why the stolen plans for nukes from the AQ Khan network?

The plans are for centrifuges, not "nukes" - big difference. Iran resorted to getting centrifuges from Pakistan because the US consistently prevented Iran from openly acquiring the technology TO WHICH IT WAS ENTITLED from the IAEA. (However, the fact that Iran had an enrichment program was never a secret and was even announced on the radio - repeatedly.)

"Sources said that when in 1983 the recommendations of an IAEA mission to Iran were passed on to the IAEA's technical cooperation program, the U.S. government then `directly intervened' to discourage the IAEA from assisting Iran in production of UO2 and UF6. `We stopped that in its tracks,' said a former U.S. official." Rebuffed by the IAEA, Iran signed an agreement with Argentina, only to have Washington force Buenos Aires to back off in 1992. Five years later, the Clinton administration got China to abandon its official assistance to Iran on the fuel cycle...When Iran openly sought to develop the fuel cycle and the IAEA was willing to help it, the U.S. intervened to stop this. Whenever Tehran signed a public agreement with an international partner, Washington worked overtime to kill it. Given this reality, the only way to build a fuel cycle programme — even if one's aims were purely peaceful — would have been to go about it with stealth.

Why the hardened underground bunkers for research?

Because of the repeated threats of bombings, and especially in light of Iran's experiences of attacks during the Iran-Iraq war.

Most obviously, why would any country risk a catastrophic confrontation with the US - with a president with a known history of recklessness - over nuclear power?

So people don't freeze to death in a few years when Iran becomes a net energy importer.
http://hir.harvard.edu/articles/1294/
But in fact Iran has made repeated offers of compromise which included suspending enrichment what were ignored and dismissed by the Bush administration.
What country considers nuclear power so important that it is willing to defy the entire world over it?

Any country that insists on protecting its rights and actually, the majority of the nations of the world support Iran, as proven by the NAM statement.

It just doesn't make any sense.

Funny, go tell that to the Bush administration since many of the Bush administration's members (including Cheney) supported and encouraged Iran's nuclear program in the first place.

Lacking direct evidence, Bush administration officials argue that Iran's nuclear program must be a cover for bomb-making. Vice President Cheney recently said, "They're already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. Nobody can figure why they need nuclear as well to generate energy."

Yet Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and outgoing Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz held key national security posts when the Ford administration made the opposite argument 30 years ago....

What possible reason would Israel have to make its nukes a threat to the region?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Some dictators must simply be overthrown.

I'll agree that Pakistan is part of the reason we have a problem, but I think Saudi Arabia is a bigger reason. I just responded above regarding my opinions on Musharraf. The only thing I would add is that he seems to be passive/aggressive as it suits his hold on power, but better him than a flat out aggressive Islamist state.

Also, see below my statements regarding a new front with Iran. I have no illusions about that country as a peaceful and peace-loving state, but this is something we can ill afford at the moment. When North Korea tested its first weapon, I took that as a sign we would have to learn to live with a nuclear Iran. Apparently Bush's inner circle are resisting that reality with one of their own.

And just in the interest of full disclosure, I don't believe the claim that Iran wants nuclear power for peaceful reasons is without merit. Oil is generally not the fuel of choice for power plants, despite the claims of the White House. Still, their insistance upon developing the technology their way leaves room for doubt that their intentions are entirely benign.

In general, I don't disagree with you that Pakistan's track record is worse than Iran's. I think you might be a little too rosy regarding Iran's standing with regard to the NPT, but that is a more recent development mostly in response to a White House that has shown itself to be less than faithful to the treaties signed by prior administrations.

That said, I don't think threatening Pakistan, even if it is out of principle, is an entirely wise thing to do. Toppling Musharraf, or even undermining him, will only embolden the Taliban allies within Pakistan and bring them that much closer to the button. I have misgivings about the general and his route to power, but I'm coming to see him in the same light as the Turkish military, as a guarantor of a semblance of strong secularism in the face of a weaker form of it--or of a strong radical Islamism. But even in the form of Musharraf, there are limits to the control of a centralized state in the region. I think Bush believes, or wants to believe, he has more power at his disposal than he really does.

And before this side discussion boxes me into a corner I don't belong in, I don't advocate threats against Iran, either. Threats and saber rattling may have played well at home for the Republicans, but there are consequences for such grandstanding, such as putting your "adversary" into an increasingly defensive position.

Note the intentional vagueness: Iran's nuclear "aspirations" and Iran's nuclear weapons "capability" etc.

When the much-touted "Iraqi WMDs" were not found after the US invasion, the Bush administration's justification was reformulated as "Iraqi WMD-programme-related activities". A bit later it was again reformulated as Saddam's "intent to reconstitute WMD". The justification for the invasion of Iraq became more and more vague with each step, to smooth over the fact that Iraqi WMD had failed to materialise. Eventually, the whole WMD pretext was discarded in favour of a post facto "promotion of democracy" justification.

[T]he absence of any actual evidence of an Iranian nuclear-weapons programme is being smoothed over through the use of ambiguities. This is usually done by conflating a nuclear-weapons programme with a nuclear-energy programme...For example, in addition to overt references to a weapons programme, there may be references to Iran's nuclear "threat", or vague statements about Iran's nuclear "ambitions", or even more tenuously, allusions to Iran's "intentions" to obtain a nuclear-weapons "capability".

Global Dialogue, Volume 8, No. 1-2, Winter-Spring 2006
[Global Dialogue is a publication of the Centre for World Dialogue, Cyprus.
http://www.geocities.com/csafdari/

Human intelligence (HUMINT) can give insights that nothing else can give, but it is fraught with error and manipulation. There's no single best intelligence discipline -- IMINT and MASINT and SIGINT and OSINT all need to be used, among others.

Just avoid RUMINT (Rumor Intelligence).

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*