As someone posted in Open Salon, I agree with the thought he should decline the honor and say something to the effect of "I am humbled but I want to live up to the idea of this award". Not to mention the right wingers will have a field day with this and it just fits into their meme that he's a messiah and such. Clearly not something he needs right now.

But then I think about this issue with "he hasn't done anything yet" to warrant this award, but what about others? True he hasn't done much yet, but is that what the peace prize is? Al Gore gave a few speeches on global warming and shared the prize. Should he have not won either?

I think the idea here with the Nobel prize is to put a stamp on the ideas and direction that people are taking in the world for peace. It's a clear political statement of course but I'm not so sure it requires a resume of accomplishments to earn. The panel thought global warming was important and awarded people who brought that cause out to the forefront and were to fight more for it. Obama, at least internationally, has done everything I expected him to on this front and his stance on nuclear weapons is something I am hugely supportive of. This is a good award to represent the issues the world should be paying attention to and Barack Obama is the best person to do that today.

What state that opts out is going to want to pay for states that opt in? There is no way that Oklahoma is going to be OK with their tax dollars paying for Massachusetts' health care.

They don't want the public option in any form because it's "government run health care" or "socialized medicine". It doesn't matter what polls you cite or information on reducing costs - It's not in the cards. Without overwhelming evidence to the contrary (like many polls showing a substantial majority when the question is phrased in different ways - not just one with the 60% we keep hearing about) there is nothing that is going to change their minds. In fact, even with such evidence it's not going to matter.

This idea, along with the trigger, is DOA. Tomorrow you'll hear all about how this is just a wolf in sheep's clothing or any variation of the same phrase.

There are two possibilities right now - it goes in, or it doesn't. I don't think there is the window of opportunity to get it passed right now. The problem is, 10 years from now when the health care system is still hosed up - do we say "we told you so"? or accept the GOP version? Because democrats sure aren't going to have anything to run on.

'Latency' or 'Lead Time' capability can be in several different stages, not just one fixed point in time.

Iran has more lead time capability to build a weapon than many countries right now. They can enrich uranium and if tomorrow they decided to pull out of the NPT and make weapons grade uranium, they could.

Japan also has this capability. Their technology in nuclear power is some of the best in the world. They know how to enrich uranium and separate plutonium and they do so regularly. The fact they don't have stockpiles of material ready for a weapons program means little. The point is they don't need to start from scratch to build a program. This is what Juan is trying to argue. Iran isn't looking for a bomb but they are getting all their ducks in a row in case they want to change their minds.

As far as Juan's analysis, do they want the bomb? Yes. I personally think they are testing out how far they can push the international system with regard to nuclear technology in the hopes of getting as close as they can to the bomb. They are not concerned about "extreme danger to national autonomy [rearing] its ugly head", they already have enough enemies to worry about. Your note of threats to Natanz makes this clear. They aren't waiting, they are trying to do whatever they can under the legal terms of the NPT until they need to withdraw from it.

Why? Well here are a few reasons I take this position. One, they don't completely comply with the IAEA and they do not allow unfettered access to inspectors under the Additional Protocol, so the IAEA is limited in detecting hidden facilities. Secondly, you need at least 12 reactors in your country before enriching your own uranium becomes economically advantageous. Apparently they have plans to build 12+ reactors but they have yet to finish their first in Busher. As far as building fuel assemblies for those reactors, they still haven't shown they have that technology although it is possible they will work directly with the Russians on this and ship their enriched uranium to them for fabrication since enrichment is the most expensive part of nuclear fuel. Third, building a uranium bomb isn't difficult. If the Iranians have figured out enrichment, they probably have the technology to build a simple gun type weapon like the one used on Hiroshima. In fact, they probably still have the plans they bought from A.Q. Khan.

Iran is testing the limits of the NPT and the IAEA. They want a bomb for the reason everyone else wants it - no one is going to risk attacking you if you have one. It's a simple deterrent but you only need to look to North Korea to see how effective it is.

A small note Juan, you might want to say "close the fuel cycle" differently. That to me means that they want a closed fuel cycle, whereby you enrich, use the fuel in a reactor, then separate and reprocess the spent fuel which you can get plutonium from. Japan and France have a closed fuel cycle but Iran is no where near this capability yet.