Kilrain wrote:The President of Iran (a very fundamental Muslim) has stated that it is his belief/duty to bring about the twelfth Imam... the Messiah of the Islamic sect that he belongs to. The 12th Imam will signal judgement day... or so the story goes.
I'm going to recommend that you actually learn who runs Iran. The President of Iran is #2 in power. Number 1 is the Supreme Leader, currently held by Khamenei. Khamenei has
issued a fatwa claiming that nuclear weapons are not Islamic.
Khamenei's fatwa wrote:The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office just recently, in his inaugural address reiterated that his government is against weapons of mass destruction and will only pursue nuclear activities in the peaceful domain.
Source
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/m ... efault.stm (click on the titles in the picture to see what the role of each office is).
bush deliberately chose to ignore North Korea when they obtained nuclear weapons, because NK lacks oil. What, you say? Cheap shot?
The DoE shows that Iraq is the US 7th largest supplier of crude oil. Who says we didn't invade Iraq for the oil? Fred Kaplan wrote:Unfortunately, common sense was in short supply. After a few shrill diplomatic exchanges over the uranium, Pyongyang upped the ante. The North Koreans expelled the international inspectors, broke the locks on the fuel rods, loaded them onto a truck, and drove them to a nearby reprocessing facility, to be converted into bomb-grade plutonium. The White House stood by and did nothing. Why did George W. Bush--his foreign policy avowedly devoted to stopping "rogue regimes" from acquiring weapons of mass destruction--allow one of the world's most dangerous regimes to acquire the makings of the deadliest WMDs? Given the current mayhem and bloodshed in Iraq, it's hard to imagine a decision more ill-conceived than invading that country unilaterally without a plan for the "post-war" era. But the Bush administration's inept diplomacy toward North Korea might well have graver consequences. President Bush made the case for war in Iraq on the premise that Saddam Hussein might soon have nuclear weapons--which turned out not to be true. Kim Jong-il may have nuclear weapons now; he certainly has enough plutonium to build some, and the reactors to breed more.
Yet Bush has neither threatened war nor pursued diplomacy. He has recently, and halfheartedly, agreed to hold talks; the next round is set for June. But any deal that the United States might cut now to dismantle North Korea's nuclear-weapons program will be harder and costlier than a deal that Bush could have cut 18 months ago, when he first had the chance, before Kim Jong-il got his hands on bomb-grade material and the leverage that goes with it.
The pattern of decision making that led to this debacle--as described to me in recent interviews with key former administration officials who participated in the events--will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Bush and his cabinet in action. It is a pattern of wishful thinking, blinding moral outrage, willful ignorance of foreign cultures, a naive faith in American triumphalism, a contempt for the messy compromises of diplomacy, and a knee-jerk refusal to do anything the way the Clinton administration did it.
Source There is nothing too important, nor too petty, for the bush administration to turn into partisan politicking.
In how the bush administration chose to respond to the norks, they carefully instructed everyone in the world that the US only respects power, in particular, nuclear power.
Can, or should, Iran believe bush's loud noises? The last US President to make such noises was Reagan, who was busy selling them weapons, in violation of US laws, and using that money to fund his private army in Central America. What? You forgot about Iran-Contra? The Iranians didn't. Neither did the bush administration, because they've rehired a lot of the same staff that was involved in Iran-Contra the first time. By rehiring that same staff, the message to Iran is clear: we'll make noises and make deals too, so don't believe our noises. If you read the book
The Persian Puzzle, then you'd know that.
Russia and China selling weapons to Iran? Russia is probably looking at the situation and saying "how can we exploit this vast pool of stupidity?" Selling anti-aircraft missiles, like the
Tor missiles. The US will threaten loudly, raising oil prices, so the Russians can make more money, while boosting the Russian aviation industry by selling $700,000,000 worth of stuff designed to shoot down cruise missiles, smart bombs and aircraft. Scares the Yanks, so they make louder noises, driving oil higher, so Russia can make even more money.
A pox on both your houses is what meddling in the mideast gets you.
There is nothing that the US can do to Iran that won't make things horribly worse. Iran knows it, which is why they aren't backing down. Because they don't have to. Iran is 4x larger than Iraq, and has 3x the number of people. Unlike Iraq, Iran occupies 3 dimensions: it is covered with mountains. No flat, wide open deserts to turn things into a turkey shoot. Iran hasn't gassed their minorities, so any possible attack by the US would result in the population of Iran rallying behind their leaders. They saw what happened to Iraq, so the Iranians have decentralized their command and control structure. The last time Iran's oil exports went offline, in 1979, world oil prices only doubled, and that was because Saudi Arabia could replace almost all the lost production. Today, Saudi could only replace 1/4 of the lost Iranian production, so oil costing far more than $200/barrel would be reasonably expected. Sanctions on Iran? $200 to $400/barrel oil would hurt America far more than the loss of income would hurt Iran.
Marine insurers reckon that a dozen pirate raids per year makes the waters near Singapore a warzone. Can you imagine what happens to insurance when actual shooting takes place? The tankers will stay away because they can't afford to take the risk they will be sunk.
And the recession caused by $10/gallon gasolene would probably permanently cripple the US economy. Russia and/or China will most certainly veto any UN Security Council sanctions/resolution/authorizations_for_war that the US could possibly try to get. A shooting match with Iran would have to take into account the Straits of Hormuz, and how all those delicate little supertankers have to navigate past several hundred miles of mountainous Iranian coastline, all while in range of artillery, anti-shipping missiles, speedboats armed with RPGs (the rudders would be easy targets, and damage the tankers to where they are out of operation for weeks/months) and anti-shipping mines. If bush's pissing match with Iran goes to a shooting match, then one should expect $1000/barrel oil within weeks. Could you afford to go to work if you're paying $30/gallon for gas?
