Posted by Damozel | Having recently been warned by Bush that unless we crack down on Iraq we will find ourselves staring in the face of World War III, I'm naturally quite worried. It's a sort of Hobson's choice, isn't it? Either---if "you're interested in avoiding nucular war"--- take on the Iranians or, as Jon Stewart helpfully framed it, prepare for a thermonuclear war that will bake your shadow into the sidewalk. Since I'm already extremely uneasy about Iraq, global warming, and health care, I really need some help prioritizing. Should I, or should I not, be panicking about the Iranians' development of, or fixed intention to develop, nuclear capability? I'm too polite and guileless to allege that Bush and Cheney lied---for all I know, they believed every word they said about Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass distraction"--- but that someone has been gravely mistaken once, or frequently, or even habitually is, after all, no guarantee that they won't sometimes get it right. I for one take Bush's concerns seriously, given that the UN appears (to a point) to share them.
According to McClatchy Washington Bureau, experts "in and out of government" differ whether Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons capability.
Apparently there are differing opinions even within the Bush Administration. "While Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney speak of an Iranian weapons program as a fact, Bush's point man on Iran, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, has attempted to ratchet down the rhetoric.... Iran is seeking a nuclear capability ... that some people fear might lead to a nuclear-weapons capability," Burns said in an interview Oct. 25 on PBS." (McClatchy) So the question, it appears, isn't whether they would like to go forward in due course with a weapons program, but how far along they are now.
Most of them seem to think that they are interested in building a bomb, but not yet in the process. Another U.S. official, quoted anonymously because of the issue's sensitivity (translation: he didn't want to lose his job), said, "I don't think that anyone right today thinks they're working on a bomb."(McClatchy) I guess the question is whether you wait until they start before intervening. Other experts---frankly, it would help me prioritize my panicking if I could know their credentials---think, based on "a great deal of circumstantial evidence" but without "definitive proof" that Iran "may" have tried to create nuclear weapons capability in the past and still "could" break out of their current uranium enrichment program to start a weapons program.(McClatchy)
"Bush's rhetoric seems hyperbolic compared with the measured statements by his senior aides and outside experts," snarks McClatchy. According to them, Bush is saying that the Iran-O-Meter is set to Code Reddish Orange whereas it's really stable Code Yellow if not Code Green? Well, it wouldn't be the first time the Administration has exaggerated a threat. It's practically a Bush Administration policy: It's always Code Red. Unfortunately, the public has built of a tolerance for living in the Red Zone. To scare us now, they'd need a level of threat outside the visible spectrum. And it's because I've built up a tolerance to being terrorized by my government's dire warnings of imminent catastrophe if I don't go along with what I want that I'm so worried. As I said, even a stopped clock is right twice a day---the trouble is there's no way to know when unless you compare it to another clock. And the McClatchy article points out that if Bush and Cheney have concrete evidence of a program in progress, they ain't sharing.
I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," he said Oct. 17 at a news conference.
"Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions," Cheney warned on Oct 23. "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
Bush and Cheney's allegations are under especially close scrutiny because their similar allegations about an Iraqi nuclear program proved to be wrong. (McClatchy)
The last time we listened to Bush and Cheney about the existence of the threat of mass destruction from another country, we got this
so I honestly don't understand why he's so offended that everyone's not buying into the "Iran: going nucular on your watch!" warning. (Side note: One of the many things that saddens me about Bush is that he so clearly missed his calling. He has killer stand-up skillz plus way better timing and delivery and a much lighter touch than right-wing ranter/"comedian" Dennis Miller.)
To get back to Iran and its putative weapons program: McClatchy says that "new light may be shed" on the question of just how far developments have proceeded when the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency reports on whether Iran is complying with an August accord "to answer all outstanding questions about the nuclear-enrichment program it long concealed from the U.N. watchdog agency." (McClatchy)
Aha! But how will we know they are telling the truth? Doesn't experience demonstrate that Iran isn't---any more than Bush and Cheney----given to candor in these matters? (McClatchy) After all, the reason they are being called to account for themselves now is that they concealed their doings in the past. So how will we know? It's not much reassurance to be told by a proven prevaricator that he intends to tell the truth now.
The article goes on to canvas some of Iran's past concealments and prevarications concerning its nuclear enrichment program. The UN obviously has some serious concerns and a number of US and European officials are suspicious about what Iran is up to. It's not just Bush.
Many U.S. and European officials dispute Iran's claim that it needs to enrich uranium for nuclear power plants. They point out that the only Iranian nuclear power plant under construction is being built by Russia, which has an agreement to supply it with low-enriched uranium fuel for 10 years(McClatchy)
But of course, even it if were proved to my satisfaction that they are trying to develop weapons, it seems to me that it's still not for the US to intervene unilaterally. Note that I say this with much less certainty than I'd have brought to any such discussion pre-911. Apparently we are now a nation which invades other sovereign nations to stop them from building weapons (real or suspected) of mass destruction. Which is the issue I'd like to see discussed more directly.
Check out the shouting at Memeorandum. All of those people seem to know much more about the situation than I do and to be way more certain about what should be done.
You might also like to check out this guy.
RELATED BN-POLITICS POSTS
NewPoll: Majority of Republicans Support Strike Against Iran
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Experts: No evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons program (McClatchy)
'Link Iraq to Iran,' Rumsfeld argued before proof (Raw Story)
These are all tough questions and no wonder so many people are filled with doubt...it seems difficult to know what is going on.
On a slightly different note but it relates...is that the Iranian people do not want war, do not want to attack America...and most of them feel that the leader is a complete jackass. The reason he was brought into power was because Iran has a lot of corruption...paying off politicians etc, sort of like New Orleans, Chicago and other big international cities.
So the people wanted corruption stopped and that is how he got elected, he was kind of like Rudy Guliiani in the 90's NY. Meanwhile... power plays were supported by other countries to help him get elected and now there is a force to encourage a blending of faith and state something Iran has fought to not encourage...dominant cnations are sending money to Islamic groups who oppose this leader in Iran...
It is not easy for me to describe, I shall try to find some reading material that relates to this...but it is very tricky indeed. All is not what the newspapers promote about Iran...they are a surprisingly tolerant country and although they do not want to live just like America...they also do not want to fight America...although all the press regarding their leaders visit to Columbia a few weeks ago(the media and his speech about homosexuals etc)...the coverage and laughter began to isolate many citizens and take his side...because they did not like being laughed at by Americans.
Most of the countries in Middle East enjoy many things about American culture and products...but want to have their own way of government. They don't want to be told how to live and that is where the threat comes in feeling they have to defend their own beliefs and way of economies.
anyways interesting stuff...sorry to ramble...
Posted by: Candy Minx | November 05, 2007 at 01:34 PM