Letters to the Editor
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not to worry, says...ANONYMOUS!
what a laugh! you aren't afraid of iran's nuclear arsenal, but you are afraid of using even a one-off screen name! what happens if your favorite city simply explodes - and bin laden or ayman zawahiri happily take credit for it, would you turn iran into a glass parking lot? or would it be pakistan - or in a few years, perhaps saudi arabia or egypt or jordan or who knows what other sunni nation which got nukes in response to iran's. iran hasn't any rational reason? did it have rational reasons beside hate to blow up the jewish community center in buenos aires? perhaps it will grow annoyed with the pope and ask bin L to blow up rome. or madrid, from a pique lasting since 1492.
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Iran could just be a Bush-motivated distraction tactic
Perhaps Bush has no intention of bombing Iran, but is hinting at the possibility to distract our attention from Iraq and to lower our expectations American foreign policy. This Iran coverage is certainly cutting into coverage of the Blackwater affair and the post-Petraeus analysis. That's buying Bush time. It may also be scaring people into a new perspecive: Relative to the horror of war with Iraq & Iran, war with only Iraq doesn't seem so bad.
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i think that's the way to think, ec513s
we really don't know what really goes on. the only thing we can be sure of is that we do not know (maybe, just maybe, in twenty years we will). i think i'll just give you all a break from david sugarman. not that i'm leaving forever, just that i share my computer with my sons (fortunately, i've done my bit as a father - convinced them *not* in any circumstances, to sign up. some knowledge, the least of which is the weather in iraq, is better to *not* have. i DREAD a "real" war, with conscription. do i only care about me and mine? sorry, yes i do.)
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Sugarman, you're out of your gourd
What difference does it make if I elect to post my equally anonymous internet handle? That's a piddling point and you know it.
Your problem is that your whole response to this issue is so bound up with your Jewish identity that you cannot for the life you begin to understand why anyone else would hold a different opinion. Honestly, you sound insane when you're talking about this. You really do. Your boilerplate response to everything is to point to a couple of attacks that happened years ago. In response you want us all to see the citizens comprising a state that may have played a role in said attacks as a monolithic block uniformly bent on our destruction. That, my friend, is fucking insane. I don't believe it for an instant. I believe the Iranians are just like any other people. I believe they are self-interested, and rationally use whatever tools are available to them to maximize their position in the world. Tell me, what nation hasn't committed heinous, murderous acts in its past? I would love to know, because I cannot think of a one. Yet, because they are Muslims, they cannot be reformed in your eyes, they can only be surrounded and contained.
You know who you sound like? Like the early Apartheid leaders who told So. African whites that a sea of black people were about to descend on them and tear them to bits unless they were put under heel. Buenos Aires is your own personal Isandlwana, and your bogeymen are only different because they are brown rather than black. In fact, if anything, you have even less cause for fear, as your people have been living amongst what seems to be your mortal enemies for eons. Cyrus, as I recall, was one of the greatest patrons the Jewish people ever had.
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Of course a nuclear Iran will be the world's primary proliferation state
They've said as much that they would be. That they would actively work to sell, barter, trade or give away a great deal of their nuclear weapons technology to any and all Islamic or largely Islamic states for the asking.
So while Timbuktom asserts that through some magical process they would be 'more' responsible, their own words betray them. In fact if a 'responsible' Iran is a good thing imagine how much safer the world will be with a nuclear Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria and Syria. And picture the response from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Russia and China. If you think this is crazy remember that Iran, Syria and South Africa have a 'working agreement' vague though it is and the RSA already has the capability to produce nuclear weapons today or could quickly restart their program. In fact the RSA had 6 working nukes and parts for 2 more 100% indigenously developed and in secret.
Sounds like a real safe responsible world to me. I can hardly wait. But hey it must be the US's and Israel's fault. I'm sure it is.
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False Assumptions
There are some false assumptions that should be laid to rest.
1) Iran wants the bomb
There is no evidence that Iran is anywhere near having a bomb or even wants a bomb
2) Iran is a threat
Iran has never attacked a neighbor in modern times (unlike say nuclear Israel - Mr. Sugarman) and so represents little threat
3) Iran can easily be defeated
Iran has three times the population of Iraq, mountainous terrain and is more homogenous and better armed than prewar Iraq.
I think there is a strong probability that Bush will attack Iran. Once that happens all hell will be unleashed. Iran will block the gulf and oil will go to $200 a barrel. US troops in Iraq will be sitting ducks as the Shia (including the police and army we have been training for 4 years turn their guns on us). The Sunni (93% of whom want to kill Americans already) will see their opportunity and join in. The end result will make Vietnam look like a pleasant stroll in the park. Three years from now I can hear Condi saying from her cell "Well nobody could have predicted....."
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thanks squiggles everyone needs allies
it was really depressing to see what had accumulated during my hiatus. anonymous likens me to apartheid - funny, that's carter's title too. we have to wait for south africa, it isn't quite ripe yet, but a look at its northern neighbor, zimbabwe, the former ian smith's racist rhodesia, shows what it could very well become. the shona LONG for those bad old racist days. pancho conveniently ignores iran's proxies, hexbollah(left the typo), hamas, islamic jihad but blames israel for aggression. the europeans already think israel is more of a threat to world peace than iran. perhaps it will be so in america too - multiple passports don't seem a bad idea. proliferation? any country can have an A Q Khan, maybe even pakistan, with new elections coming up. (both there and in the U.S.)