Why Bush isn't wrong about Iran

Pauline Halse

How very glib and white world to think that if we just blow them up "they" will go away.It wasn't that long ago that "they" were communists, now "they" are Islamics. The label doesn't matter, what is important that "they" do not threaten "our" way of life. Even if "they" look like they might, one day, take a swing at us we are entitled to nuke them. Are you sure James you want to live in such a world?

John Austin

So it's Ok for Israel to have nukes, but not everyone else?

steve

Pauline Halse/False, 1) Preventing extremists from going nuclear has nothing to do with racism. 2) The threat has changed, Muslim fundamentalists are far more dangerous then Commies. 3) Nobody is planning to nuke Iran. 4) James Forsyth lives in the real world, you don't.

Clive C Walton

Perhaps if everybody stayed and played in their own back yard we have no need for all this.

Stephen Rothbart

Yes John it is because unless you have not been paying attention, "Islam loves death while you love life" and that is a direct quote. Also, unlike Iran, Israel has not promised to destroy a whole nation because they happen not to be Muslims.

Tim

A direct quote from whom?

Tim Calvert

a direct quote from whom?

Stephen Rothbart

Osama bin Laden's spokesman Abu Dujan al Afghani." "You love life and we love death, which gives an example of what the Prophet Muhammad said. If you don't stop your injustices, more and more blood will flow and these attacks will seem very small compared to what can occur in what you call terrorism." 2004.

Benjamin

"a direct quote from whom?" This quote came from Abu Dujan al-Afgani, a military spokesman for al-Qaeda in Europe following the Madrid bombings in 2004.

Ak

Bush is looking for nucular weapons, and the Iranians are going to fool him by developing nuclear weapons. But he might decide to go after them anyway, just in case they do develop nucular weapons.

Tarek S Arab

The issue is not about Islam, Israel or even economic advantage. It is quite simply about race. The Iranians are not white or even European and that is why it is unacceptable for them to have nuclear weapons. The Germans have started 2 world wars and were responsible for the holocaust, yet I can promise you if tomorrow they decided now was the time to achieve nuclear status, not a word would be heard from the US or its allies. All the talk about terrorism and nuclear capability from the country that history records as the number one sponsor of terrorism all over the world and the only country to have used nuclear weapons in wartime is but a smokescreen that regrettably is being swallowed by millions of gullible fools

Alan

Actually, Bush said he's worried about them making nucular weapons. So if they stick to nuclear weapons, nothing much will happen.

keith bryer

Bin Laden's own lips.

Warwick Wakefield

There is a difference between "loving death" and understanding that death is not a "cruel and unusual punishment." Whatever is the deepest understanding of the nature of humankind and the nature of this world, it must be recognized that death is the constant companion of every individual and a component of the daily life of every community, every nation. The trouble is that in the West it has been held as an article of faith that death is the ultimate horror and unacceptable. The public intellectuals and the media spokespeople in the West consider any policy that will inevitably bring about the deaths of even small numbers of citizens is unacceptable. We have become de facto pacificists. Pacificism, however, is another form of fundamentalism. If only the Islamists are able to contemplate death with some equanimity then the Islamists will have gained an unbeatable advantage in the struggle between the liberalism of Western modernity and the medieval authoritarianism of the Islamic political-religious model of society. We must be able to make a judgement that a policy that involves a certain amount of killing and dying is preferable to a policy that allows fanatical religious politicians to acquire weapons of megadestruction. It is not sufficient to say, "This course of action will bring about so many deaths." It is necessary to estimate how many deaths are likely to result if no action is taken. It is necessary to consider the possible qualty of life, with all the loss of freedom involved, if the religious/political ideology of Islamism were to triumph on a world scale. It should be remembered that when the Nazis were political outsiders in Germany, serious political players considered them to be extremist incompetents about whom one didn't have to worry. I think that the gaining of power, in early twentieth century Germany, by the Nazis, was just as improbable as the likelihood of Sharia being imposed worldwide in our time. But the improbable can happen and should be fiercely resisted.

Rob

I can understand the Israelis being concerned that some people don't like them being there. Perhaps they should have thought of this before they moved in, took over and built their state on someone else's land.

Tiberius

Didn't Churchill have a slight speech impediment? Although it didn't seem to affect his capability, I suppose he was lucky that the word nuclear was still in its infancy. My German tutor once picked me up on my accent being more like Hitler's than Hoch Deutsch - worrying indeed. And I'm glad to see self-loathing is not confined to the off-topic sections of sporting blogs.

Rez

It is about time bush changes his attitude towards islamic countries. I don't think the situation is going to improve unless USA stops playing big brother to countries on earth.

Max Kaye

Israel has - allegedly - had nukes since the 1960s. During all this time no country or nation has been attacked or threatened in the way that Iran (and some Arab/muslim counties and groups) have and continue to threaten Isreal's existence.

To allow these regimes to have nukes - or access to nuclear weapons or related technology would be, medium to long term, suicidal for the West. Luckily for us, the Israelis don't believe in suicide as a national policy.

If Israel does to Iran what it did to Saddam's nuclear ambitions in 1981, there will be an voiciferous outcry - and an almighty sign of relief from most sane people worldwide.

As the arabic proverb says: 'The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on'.

David Lindsay

Why bother nuking Israel? The most common name for newborn baby boys even within the pre-1967 borders is now Muhammad. The retention of the Law of Return has resulted in the emergence of neo-Nazi gangs among the huge number of pork suasage-munching Russians of extremely tenuous Jewishness. Meanwhile, over half of Israeli Jews are Sephardic, i.e., linguistically and culturally Arab. The more-or-less secular Zionist Ashkenazi elite cannot even be bothered to reproduce, so that the only Ashkenazim worth speaking of will soon be the ultra-Orthodox, who do not even do military service. In 20, never mind 30, years' time, and without anyone's having dropped a bomb, Israel will either have repealed the Law of Return and reverted to an integral part of a wider Levantine Arab society with its de facto capital at Damascus (and with a self-contained ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority, but no change there), or she will have retained the Law of Return and been taken over by Russian Nazis (and what will then become of the Jews there?). I know which I prefer, if the choice has to be made. Which it does.

Derek

Pauline Halse - "white world"?!

eliXelx

David, if Israel and Hatred did not exist would you have ANYTHING to live for?

Adam Smith

I love comments like these: "So it's Ok for Israel to have nukes, but not everyone else?" Yes, because Israel is not ruled by maniacs! Anyway, we all know that Iran's nuclear intentions are to mask the regimes domestic failings.

Victor

Bush is obviously wrong in assuming that one "dangerous nation" having nuclear weapons amounts to the start of a third world war. Islam may "love death", but Ahmadinejad is not stupid. No one, no matter how whacky, will start randomly firing missiles at the West once in possession of nukes. Russia didn't do it, N. Korea didn't do it. Call it "survival instinct" or just "thirst for power", it is a fact. That is just as ridiculous a claim as saying that Saddam might have WMDs, therefore he might use them on us. We all know where that got us. To quote Mr. Bush, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." Let's hope we won't get fooled again into starting a big mess, when there's a huge one already just down the road, and as it turns out, the WMDs are still as hypothetical as Mahmoud's nukes.