Chris, excellent analysis, really good, except where you dump everything on Bush. The US has coveted control of Iran, and taken actions to implement it, for over fifty years. It's nothing new. The Middle East, according to US doctrine, is to be controlled by the US and any nation like Iran that disputes that simple fact must pay the price. It's the Monroe Doctrine transferred to places where other people live over our oil.

There was the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953, an event that the CIA participated in, the Carter Doctrine, the aid to Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war, etc etc. Currently the Bush administration has initiated war against Iran with sanctions, warships off its coast, a highly-funded Farsi propaganda program, and according to Sy Hersh and others the US has agents inside Iran causing mayhem. There is all kinds of 'evidence' that the wicked Iranians actually have an interest in their own area, and are even acting on that interest. How foul! The Dems are even more hawkish on Iran than Bush is--Lieberman is now telling us that Iran has declared war on the US. So it's not just Bush's way it's unfortunately Washington's way.

Hold on tight--the bugles are blowing and the flags are waving. Anything could set it off. It'll be an excellent case study for future generations, if there are any.

But, "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" as Rice put it.

Great rebuttal, Chris. I would only add that if we are going to act militarily on every possible, prospective, potential potentiality, we had better institute a military draft now.

Why is Iran having a nuclear bomb an existential threat to Israel but not visa versa is a question the raises doubts about the seriousness of your entire piece. When has Israel actually threatened any country with nuclear or any other annihilation? The Iranian President has denied the Holocaust and has called for the wiping out of the Zionist entity. Iran has also supplied arms to Hezbollah and Hamas. Is Israel supplying weapons to anyone that wishes to exterminate Iran? That is why not "visa versa."

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Iran has called for elimination of the government of Israel. Israel has called on the U.S. to attack Iran many times. It's all he said, she said. Israel has attacked almost all of its neighbors at one time or another. Just last summer, it waged war on Lebanon, including bombing civilians. When was the last time Iran invaded another country?

P.S. At the risk of overstatement: Iran does not have and will not have in the foreseeable future nuclear weapons. Israel does.

Finally, a decent post on Iran here at TPM Starbucks.

jexster, you're correct--the potential control by Iran of the US military's main supply (and evacuation) route is their ace in the hole.

The fact is, the Bush Administration is not really concerned with a nuclear threat from Iran

Not only did Bush reject Iran's 2003 offer of negotiations (and chastised the Swiss Ambassador for forwarding it, and Condi Rice & fellow Bush officials lied by pretending that they didn't see nor realize the importance of Iran's offer) but the US has consistently rejected all of Iran's several other offers of compromise over the nuclear issue that 1- were in line with suggestions by the IAEA officials and 2- would have addressed any genuine concern about nuclear proliferation. In fact, everytime Iran has shown any flexibility over the nuclear issue, the US has simply upped their demands or imposed preconditions on negotiations that they knew the Iranians would not accept.

The Inescapable Conclusion: The conflict with Iran has NOTHING to do with nuclear weapons. Nukes are just a convenient excuse and justification for a war. AND every time that we talk about the nuclear issue with Iran, we're missing the point and falling into the framing trap by the Bush administration.

We in Iran don't need this quarrel
Javad Zarif The New York Times
THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006

NEW YORK The controversy over Iran's peaceful nuclear program has obscured one point in particular: There need not be a crisis. A solution to the situation is possible and eminently within reach.

Lost amid the rhetoric is this: Iran has a strong interest in enhancing the integrity and authority of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It has been in the forefront of efforts to ensure the treaty's universality. Iran's reliance on the nonproliferation regime is based on legal commitments, sober strategic calculations and spiritual and ideological doctrine.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, has issued a decree against the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.

Let me be very clear. Iran defines its national security in the framework of regional and international cooperation and considers regional stability indispensable for its development. We are party to all international agreements on the control of weapons of mass destruction. We want regional stability. We have never initiated the use of force or resorted to the threat of force against a fellow member of the United Nations.

Although chemical weapons have been used on us, we have never used them in retaliation. We have not invaded another country in 250 years.

Since October 2003, Iran has accepted a robust inspection regimen by the United Nations. We have allowed more than 1,700 person-days of inspections and adopted measures to address past reporting failures. Most of the outstanding issues in connection with uranium conversion activities, laser enrichment, fuel fabrication and the heavy-water research reactor program have been resolved.

Iran has gone beyond its international obligations and allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to repeatedly visit military sites - and to allow inspectors to take environmental samples. The agency has concluded time and again that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Last September, it concluded again that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."

Another point that has been obscured: Iran is ready for negotiations. Since October 2003, Iran has done its utmost to sustain and even resuscitate negotiations with Britain, France and Germany, the three European countries responsible for negotiating with us.

Since August 2004, Iran has made eight far-reaching proposals. What's more, Iran throughout this period adopted extensive and costly confidence- building measures, including a voluntary suspension of its rightful enrichment activities for two years, to ensure the success of negotiations.

Over the course of negotiations, Iran volunteered to do the following within a balanced package:

- Present the new atomic agency protocol on intrusive inspections to the Parliament for ratification, and to continue to put it in place pending ratification;

- Permit the continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at conversion and enrichment facilities;

- Introduce legislation to permanently ban the development, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons;

- Cooperate on export controls to prevent unauthorized access to nuclear material;

- Refrain from reprocessing or producing plutonium;

- Limit the enrichment of nuclear materials so that they are suitable for energy production but not for weaponry;

- Immediately convert all enriched uranium to fuel rods, thereby precluding the possibility of further enrichment;

- Limit the enrichment program to meet the contingency fuel requirements of Iran's power reactors and future light-water reactors;

- Begin putting in place the least contentious aspects of the enrichment program, like research and development, in order to assure the world of our intentions;

- Accept foreign partners, both public and private, in our uranium enrichment program.

- Iran has recently suggested the establishment of regional consortiums on fuel-cycle development that would be jointly owned and operated by countries possessing the technology and placed under atomic agency safeguards.

Other governments, most notably the Russian Federation, have offered thoughtful possibilities for a deal. Iran has declared its eagerness to find a negotiated solution - one that would protect its rights while ensuring that its nuclear program would remain exclusively peaceful.

Pressure and threats do not resolve problems. Finding solutions requires political will and a readiness to engage in serious negotiations. Iran is ready. We hope the rest of the world will join us.

Javad Zarif is the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations.

SOURCE: Int'l Herald Tribune

Actually, the US has formally and openly threatened Iran with a nuclear weapons first-strike and US candidates for office casually refer to attacks on Iran as merely an "option on the table", which constitutes a violation of international law as well as a war crime (link). So who is an "existential threat" to whom?

Sincere thanks, Mr. Floyd!
i feel as though you've brought me through a few loopholes to a more sane and grounded understanding of the Iran intrigues,
these available loopholes were previously covered in the soapy-reflective bubble water of rhetoric.
and it was a windy day, so there were a lot of rhetorical bubbles swishing about.
cheers!

Iran has been predicted to be "just 2 years away" from building nukes for the past 20 years:

Other predictions regarding Iranian nukes:

Late 1991: In congressional reports and CIA assessments, the United States estimates that there is a ‘high degree of certainty that the government of Iran has acquired all or virtually all of the components required for the construction of two to three nuclear weapons.’ A February 1992 report by the U.S. House of Representatives suggests that these two or three nuclear weapons will be operational between February and April 1992.”

“February 24, 1993: CIA director James Woolsey says that Iran is still 8 to 10 years away from being able to produce its own nuclear weapon, but with assistance from abroad it could become a nuclear power earlier.”

“January 1995: The director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, John Holum, testifies that Iran could have the bomb by 2003.”

“January 5, 1995: U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry says that Iran may be less than five years from building an atomic bomb, although ‘how soon…depends how they go about getting it.’”

“April 29, 1996: Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres says ‘he believes that in four years, they [Iran] may reach nuclear weapons.’”

“October 21, 1998: General Anthony Zinni, head of U.S. Central Command, says Iran could have the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons within five years. ‘If I were a betting man,’ he said, ‘I would say they are on track within five years, they would have the capability.’”

“January 17, 2000: A new CIA assessment on Iran’s nuclear capabilities says that the CIA cannot rule out the possibility that Iran may possess nuclear weapons. The assessment is based on the CIA’s admission that it cannot monitor Iran’s nuclear activities with any precision and hence cannot exclude the prospect that Iran may have nuclear weapons.”

And it doesn't end there!

The Iranians may have an atom bomb within two years, the authoritative Jane’s Defence Weekly warned. That was in 1984, two decades ago.

Four years later, the world was again put on notice, this time by Iraq, that Tehran was at the nuclear threshold, and in 1992 the CIA foresaw atomic arms in Iranian hands by 2000. Then U.S. officials pushed that back to 2003. And in 1997 the Israelis confidently predicted a new date - 2005.

SOURCE: Ever a "threat," never an atomic power, Iran points up challenges of nuclear technology
by Charles Hanley, The Associated Press
Published: Monday, February 27, 2006

Jan, the Dems, most of them, supported Bush in Iraq all the way and continue to fund war against the wishes of the majority of the populace, which is more than 'rhetoric'. On Iran it's the Dem rhetoric and actions that tell Bush that he has nothing to fear from the Dems so don't discount it. The Dems have been bowing and scraping to AIPAC just like the neocons, taking any prohibition against attacking Iran out of the spending bill and recently passing the 'do more' hawkish bill I posted above. Actions trump dreams. And any Dem that advocates a pull-out from Iraq would send those troops to Afghanistan, that sinkhole of invasion armies.

I'm not so good with 'what-ifs' but I do know that Gore was the resident hawk in the Clinton administration which was noteworthy for its aggression against Yugoslavia and Iraq, the latter of which (with the sanctions) killed hundreds of thousands.

As for the past, the Dems got the US into every major war in the past century except the Gulf War. Historically, until the neocons took it over, the Repubs have been isolationist.

Regarding the future the Dems are preparing to pick up the tattered neocon war banner and carry it forward. Check out the DLC/Clinton aligned Progressive Policy Institute (Will Marshall) and the Truman Project (Rachel Kleinfeld) for the new marching orders. It'll be the same hawkish imperialism, but they'll do it 'smarter', and they'll try to do it with universal national service or some other such cover story for a draft, based on their literature.

There's too much money in it, after all.

The death of the high-tech bloated military has been mis-reported.

The FY 2008 proposed budget, which no doubt will be rubber-stamped by congress (keep in mind that there is no military threat to the US):

The Bush Administration is requesting $481.4 billion for the Department of Defense in Fiscal Year 2008, which begins on October 1, 2007. This is $49 billion more than the current level of $432.4 billion, an increase of 11.3 percent, and inflation-adjust ("real") increase of 8.6 percent. This figure does not include funding for the nuclear weapons activities of the Department of Energy, which is considered part of total Defense Department spending. Nor does this figure include the costs of ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Missile Defense - The Administration is requesting $8.9 billion for the Missile Defense Agency in FY'08, down roughly $0.5 billion from the current $9.4 billion. Missile defense continues to receive more funding than any other weapons program in the annual Pentagon budget. This total does not include $1.1 billion for the SBIRS-High satellite program.

Shipbuilding - The request includes funding for the continued development of the Aircraft Carrier Replacement Program and procurement of one vessel ($2.8 billion), the DDG-1000 [DD(x)] Destroyer Program ($3.0 billion), and the Littoral Combat Ship ($0.9 billion for three vessels). It includes $2.6 billion for the purchase of one SSN-774 "Virginia" class nuclear attack submarine.

Aircraft - The request includes $2.6 billion for 24 of the Navy's F/A-18E/F "Super Hornet," $2.6 billion for procurement of 26 V-22 "Osprey" tilt-rotor aircraft, $6.1 billion for 12 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and $4.6 billion for 20 F-22A "Raptor" fighters.

Army and Marine Corps End Strengths - Starting in FY'08 the active Army will grow by 7,000 annually through 2012, for a total increase of 65,000 troops, for a total end strength of 547,000. The active Marine Corps will grow by 5,000 annually through 2011, for a total increase of 27,000 and an end strength of 202,000. Combined, the Army and Marine Corps will grow by 92,000 by FY'12.
http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/archives/002273.php

The leading Democratic presidential candidates have promised to expand the military beyond the 'Bush defense budgets'. This will maintain US primacy in the production of war machines, while Chrysler announced today that they will begin production of cars in China. Why not?