A Tipping Point In Iran?
A dangerous world just got a lot more dangerous:
Defying its European partners and the United States, Iran reopened its vast uranium enrichment complex today, resuming nuclear activities that it suspended 14 months ago, according to the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency.
A spokeswoman from the agency said that its inspectors were present this morning when Iranian officials began removing seals at a nuclear facility at Natanz.
The move brought swift condemnation from the United States, Britain, France and Germany, while Russia, which had been making a last-ditch attempt to head off a showdown over Iran’s nuclear program, expressed concern. Iran’s sudden announcement last week that it intended to resume nuclear research had thrown those negotiations into disarray.
This is sad news indeed for anyone who desires peace in the Middle East, because it brings military strikes against Iran ever closer.
To those who say we cannot, must not strike, with Iraq in the situation it is in, I have two questions:
(1) Can we sit by and let the Holocaust-denying Iranian president, who has taken public anti-Semitism to heights unheard of in recent years and has vowed to destroy Israel, get nuclear weapons without fighting it with every tool at our disposal?
(2) In the absense of the Iraq conflict, would military strikes against Iran be on the table? If so, does the right decision become the wrong one just because our military is involved elsewhere?
This is going to be one tough nut to crack…
Breaking the Seal
Ali Akbar Dareini writes in this morning’s Washington Post that Iran has broken the seal at several nuclear facilities and is in breach of its obligations to the international community. In Vienna, the chief U.S. representative to the IAEA, Gregory
Those who say we cannot, must not strike Iran fortunately don’t have a seat at the table where the decision will be made. Today, that table is in the Pentagon where, fancy that, Rumsfeld and Pace are hosting a super-slurg of all our commanders in the field. Look for an airstrike against that enrichment facility–the timing is anyone’s guess who isn’t at that meeting, but certainly within the next month barring some sudden about face.
Scary, yes–and the outcome is uncertain, but I think we know where we’re headed if we don’t do it and that is, in my opinion, scarier still.
The IAEA is once again downplaying what’s going on in Iran. El Baradei has said that the uranium enrichment is only on a “small scale”. I’ve come to the conclusion that the IAEA needs to be publicly and officially condemned. Cow-towing to this particular international body has become suicidal. NGO intransigence needs to be addressed before any concrete action can go forward.
Speaking of terrorism, check out this little news item that was buried by the MSM over the weekend:
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=93048
Now, who keeps calling the NYT the pre-eminent paper of record these days? Cripes.
Whoops, posted this in the wrong storyline – it should have gone in earlier.
russia continues to amaze.
a riddle inside an enigma inside a puzzle.
what country with muslim terrorists on its’ southern borders would build (i.e. give the blueprints knowhow, yada yada) a nuclear reactor for an islamist terrorist state?
i guess those russian nuclear engineers let go at the end of the cold war couldn’t get jobs at starbucks.
They should nuke the complex. One small, 10 kiloton cruise missile warhead. They could claim it was a work ‘accident’ at the plant, like the Iranians were assembling a weapon that prematurely detonated. Utterly implausible and nobody would buy it, but the message would be out: Islamic terrorist states that try to get nukes get nuked.
It’s not like they’re flattening a city or something, one small weapon, 10 kilos, no more research complex, and bang go alot of their top scientists too.
Fundamentalist islam yes.
President likes to say funny things yes.
But terrorist? ridiculous
And who cares if they have nuclear weapons anyway. Just because you have a nuclear weapon doesn’t mean sh**.
You have to have a delivery system, otherwise its just a bomb sitting around waiting to blow up in your face.
Even if they had a delivery system they’re not going to use it. Nuclear weapons are militarily useless. They are nothing more than political swords that you can wave around in the air.
Why?
Because it is impractical to use them. Every sovereign country understands quite clearly the consequences of using them. It is, in effect, a grand form of suicide. Thats one of the reasons spending all these billions of dollars on missile defense is silly. Its also the reason Earth survived the Cold War.
I think nuclear proliferation is great. Hell, the US has too many nukes. We’re destroying them as fast as we can and we still have thousands of extras. We should just give them away to random countries instead of having them sit around at the Pantex plant in Texas. I think it would make the world a safer place.
The only problem with proliferation is the chance that they fall into the hands of someone who WILL use them. Someone who doesn’t have anything to lose (aka a suicide bomber). Someone who has no national affiliation, because who would you retaliate against?
In most nations that have them, and the ones that want them, I think that chance is very low for a couple of reasons. Its in the best interest of the country who has them to guard them and keep them for themselves. They are extremely expensive to build and maintain. If one was detonated somewhere else it could probably be traced which would end up badly for Country X. If you give them away thats less you have for yourself.
So yeah.
“Even if they had a delivery system they’re not going to use it. Nuclear weapons are militarily useless. They are nothing more than political swords that you can wave around in the air.”
How nice, but your view of a benign world in which fanatical regimes have an ounce of logic doesn’t quite jibe with the latest and the greatest from the madman of Iran – witness the supposed “robbery attempt” on his life recently. All evidence suggests that his own people were behind the assassination attempt, which proves that the hierarchy in Iran knows he’s nuts, and are extremely worried about what he’ll do once the nukes become operational.
The problem is that Iran projects power through it’s funding of Muslim terrorists and subversion of it’s neighbors. If they had nukes they’d be immune to retaliation, and Iran would effectivly become an impregnable terrorist camp.
As for delivery, they have missiles capable of reaching Isreal now and the new ones will be able to reach Europe.