It is? What is it about the thought of Iran getting a nuclear bomb that makes you nervous?

Because Iran is led by ultra-religious nutjobs.

Ultra-religious nutjobs who believe in reward in the afterlife. Is there a more dangerous mentality on earth than the "true believer"? It's what led Bush on his Crusade in Iraq.

This is the grand difference between Iran and Iraq that Greenwald never once considers. Saddam Hussein was a secularist with very rational actions (fleeing Kuwait in 1991, for example). He was always, first and foremost, interested in self preservation -- his own ass.

I don't trust ultra-religious people with military power. I didn't trust it with George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfield on their holy mission to convert the infidels, and I don't trust it with the holy Mullahs in Iran either.

This is the biggest difference. I never once saw Saddam Hussein as delusionally self destructive. Ultra religious fanaticism is always a danger, because it's predicated in a "reward" in another world that can cause massive violence and danger in this one.

You still support the allegedly "rational" government of Israel which purposely and admittedly slaughtered hundreds of innocent men, women, and children just to teach "those Palestinians" a lesson.

I don't support the current government of Israel at all right now. Avigdor Lieberman is a disgrace. The turn to the hard right by the Israeli government is relentlessly depressing for me, but somewhat understandable in a reactionary sort of way in light of the last decade of attacks on Israel's streets and neighborhoods. If we could lose our mind from one terrorist attack and invade the wrong country, Israel's response to thousands of attacks over years from across its border still strikes me as historically muted (how would any other country respond in Israel's place? Can you name one would would respond with less militarism than Israel?)

I support the right of the country of Israel to exist without mortar attacks and suicide bombers blowing up on its streets. I support the right of Israel to respond to Hamas's provocations. I support the right of Israel to go after Hamas, even when Hamas fires mortars from civilian neighborhoods and hopes Israeli's bombing of innocents will help win Hamas credibility in the court of public opinion. I believe Hamas is often complicit in civilian deaths caused by Israel, seeing it as politically beneficial. I do not support the right of Israel to wantonly kill random innocents. This is contemptible, and their actions in Gaza went above and beyond what should be acceptable. However, the response itself was justified. Only in Greenwaldia, was it an "ATTACK!" It was a justifiable response, the same one we would take.

I believe Israel made every effort to give back land that no other militarily victorious country has been asked to give back, in the 1990s, and were shit on by Arafat. America has yet to give back Texas to Mexico, and we would laugh at any world body that asked us to do so. Google America's "Mexican Secession of 1848" for a little history on our own Palestinian land occupation. Or just read up on the Native Americans sometime.

I do not believe the Palestinians have coherent leadership to negotiate with, or any cohesive internal structure, and I do not believe the Palestinians are capable of negotiating a real world settlement due to the vested interests of neighbors who are using the Palestinians as pawns in their propaganda campaigns against Israel.

Back on topic, I believe Iran is led by retrograde reactionary religious cultists, akin to the megachurch nutbags we have here at home that turned George W. Bush into their Prophet.

I don't believe the Iran/Iraq situations are comparable, and I think Glenn's attempts to equate them seem like someone who's started with his conclusion and is now working backwards. As he did about Israel's "attack on GAZA!" in December -- that the press and government can't criticize Israel due to pernicious hidden forces at work.

I hope this clarifies. But carry on calling me a NeoCon or a liar, or whatever else helps make you sound like a Hannity cultist.

You implicitly trust the Iranian government that was shooting its own citizens in the streets for protesting an election hijack a few months ago? This is who you want to defend as a rational actor?

Link please.

Glenn cited Iran's need to import gasoline at great cost as proof that I didn't have command of "Basic facts" about Iran's energy needs.

This is about as clear as it gets that Glenn believes there are plausable explanations for Iran building civilian nuclear power reactors. Another commenter pointed out that nuclear power doesn't power cars, proving Glenn's inane argument the laugh riot it is to anyone with critical acuity.

Iran wants the bomb. You actually make a good point, Baldie, that this is rational. It is. It is also rational for us to be highly suspicious of this facility, rather than give it the benefit of the doubt, due to Iran's high gasoline import costs.