The Iranian nuclear problem will not wait

hass

The only "problem" with Iran's nuclear program is that Israel is opposed to it. That's all. Otherwise it is perfectly legal and much more transparent than Argentina and Brazil's nuclear programs.

John

Is this the same program that is 10 years away from making a bomb or a different one?

Andre

Hass
The problem with Iran's nuclear programme is that its avowed aim is to wipe out Israel. Britain and USA are on that list, depend upon it.
John
Iran is one year away from having a bomb.

Mitch

I would imagine that Iran is closer to getting a bomb than even they think and this one will work.
If you know what I mean.

Muller

The only problem with Iran nuclear program is it will give a fanatical theocratic regime determined nuclear weapons with which to spread their so-called "islamic revolution"

Jenny

John, this Iranian thinks it's pretty urgent: "The Islamic Republic also has started a nuclear program, not for peaceful purposes, as they claim, but only to prolong their unwanted existence long enough to get their hands on the bomb so that they can feel invincible and continue their control over the armless Iranian people and ultimately export their version of Shi'a Islam and terrorism around the globe."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/chaos_crisis_and_terror_serves.html

hass

Andre , as much as Israel likes to monopilize the victim status, the fact remains that Iran's nuclear progrm dates from the Shah's time, and can't be used to "wipe out" anyone. Meanwhile the people who ARE being wiped out are the Palestinians, at the hands of the same Israelis who proclaim so loudly that they're the victims.

Hass

Iran has been "just 2 years" away from making the bomb for the last 24 years, if you believe the constant hyped coverage.

Herbert Thornton

The Iranian clerics, Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists all - and not without justification - see western countries as increasingly divided and morally weak and vacillating. They also note with especial satisfaction that anti-semitism is being whipped up to such a degree in the west that a great many westerners are is beginning to regard Israel as expendable.

Is it any wonder that Islamists are now coming to believe that the complete destruction of Israel is within their reach?

G Lauti

The time for talking is over, ultimadum time, quit making nuclear material or we carpet bomb evry nuclear site till it resembles the moon. Quite simple really!

Walsingham's Ghost

At the risk of being pelted with rotten fruit by other Coffee House readers, is it not conceivable that this programme is indeed viewed by the Iranian Administration as a replacement for its (distinctly finite) oil supplies?

One can accept that there is always a potential danger if the current, relatively moderate regime should be replaced in the future by a more hard-line version, but surely we have had this in Pakistan already (and they also have a hated enemy on their doorstep in the shape of India).

Iran simply will not stop its quest to become a nuclear power, so we should stop deluding ourselves that negotiation will have any effect. If Israel decides that ‘enough is enough’ and launches airstrikes against the Iranian development facilities, they risk making Iran the 'martyr' of the piece (highly symbolic to the Muslim world) and also runs the risk of such action setting-off a nuclear incident into the bargain.

Active involvement by the West in supporting their development of nuclear power might be a better way of ensuring that such development is indeed focussed on producing nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

Iran’s oil supplies are dwindling and will eventually run out – what does a country that, aside from oil, has little else other than sand, camels and date-palms do then?

Iran has no choice but to go nuclear – there is no alternative unless it wants to regress back to the stone age and go back to living in tents (interestingly, a fate faced by other Mid-East countries watching with growing concern as the developed world siphons away their oil reserves at an ever increasing rate).

A potential bonus to such cooperation would be that it would begin to sideline the Muslim fanatics as Iran and the West were seen to be working together ever more closely.

I suspect that having Israeli technicians as part of the deal would be a step too far, certainly to begin with, but further down the road?

Would such a proposal be seen as fantasy? – Probably.

Is such a proposal radical? – Undoubtedly.

Would such a proposal appeal to an Israeli sitting in Tel Aviv and within missile range of Iran? – Probably not.

But if the only alternative to Iran continuing with its nuclear programme is a major Israeli airstrike (and the fear must be that it is indeed the only alternative as things currently stand) perhaps radical solutions are now worth considering…

David

Hass,
"The only "problem" with Iran's nuclear program is that Israel is opposed to it"....What a silly comment to make!
Iran is developing a nuclear capability, certain aspects of which have convinced Israel, the US (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fg-usiran12-2009feb12,0,3478184.story ), France, Germany and the UK (amongst others) that it is intending to build a nuclear bomb. Israel has also listened to Iran’s repeated threat to wipe Israel off the face of the map. Finally, they watched Iran's continued sponsorship of international terrorism and its huge arming and support of both Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are similarly sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Now, you can debate the purpose of Iran's nuclear programme, try to reposition the context and translation of Iran's apocalyptic threats and deny its involvement in terrorism. However, your armchair opinion, like mine, simply doesn’t matter one iota. What matters is whether Israel believes that its very existence is threatened because its response will have huge implications for many tens of thousands of people in the region and very possibly further afield (Try to run through the varying scenarios of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, or at least look them up on the internet).
Whatever one’s opinion of Israel (actually, your opinion is pretty clear), this unfolding crisis is extremely serious and wholly undeserving of your sneering ‘sound bites’.

Herbert Thornton

I don't think that ghosts are at all vulnerable to being pelted with rotten fruit, but neither is Islam, which understands only the language of force.

Israel - and Britain - are however both very vulnerable to being pelted with nuclear bombs. Israel is fully conscious of this danger, far more so indeed than Britain, which is why Britain needs to come to its senses.

Britain needs to both ensure that the sources of Islamic extremism in Britain are relocated to live elsewhere and to ensure that Britain is as fully prepared and determined to defend itself as is Israel.

Perhaps we shall see Israel setting an example of resolutely defending itself. Certainly something is needed that will put some heart back into Britain - but the impetus for that will never come from the current mainstream politicians.

Fortunately there is still hope - and that is that the British will realise that the only party that has the will to save them from extremist Islam's determination to subjugate them is the BNP.

Gil

Hess@10:24pm: Funny how your views on Iran's nuclear aims also link to Gaza. Do you think that your hostility to Israel might be the reason as to why you have consciously chosen to take a certain position on Iran?

cuffleyburgers

Walsingham - I think your point is the point Iranian negotiators make. Unfortunelty they ahve not yet come up with a convincing explanation of why they are not satisfired with the offers of assistance with peaceful technology and have repeatedly lied about acquisition of technolgies required for bombmaking.

Hass - you talking crap. The palestinians have repeatedly rejected sensible offers to live in peace in a two state solution. Israel's response in my opinion was clumsy, but Hamas terrorists have been killing israelis for years. To hide behind the pretence that they were democratically elected is beyond satire.

John - the market for nuclear materials has accelerated thanks larely to the paki bomb vendor. It is impossible to know how far they are away, but Iran's having a bomb will be a shockingly destabilizing event, unspeakably dangerous.

If a solution is not found to this, I should start stocking up on tinned food. The stone age beckons.

GutClean

Hass;

I think you would until recently have been right to be cynical about a bomb that has taken more than 20 years to develop but there's no question that Iran has got enough centrifuges in operation now to get the wherewithal, the enriched uranium, for a Hirishoma fission type in the very near future and quite possibly already have. The rest of it is trivial these days of high-tech electronics (and the same is true for the fusion H-bomb once they have a reactor going and suitable plutoniuum enrichment facilities).

You're quite wrong to say their program is perfectly legal.

Rather they are illegally using US (originally) and Russian (once USSR) supplied nuclear technology to develop their bomb in violation of their treaty obligations not to use the technology to develop nuclear bombs.

That it has taken so long for Iran to produce a bomb is I suggest testimony to the ineffectuality of their mullahs. It took the UK and France somewhere around 5 years each to develop their bombs half a century ago and today it need take far less time.

JONNY

'The problem with Iran's nuclear programme is that its avowed aim is to wipe out Israel.'
There we go again, Andre.
Can't for the life of me understand why Tory thinking has gone so fanatically pro-Israel.
In the good old days with people like Gilmour they used to sympathise with the Arab cause. And feel a certain responsibilty following their initial Balfour Declaration, for expunging their Holocaust guilt by landing the simple Palestinians with such unwanted, bellicose and ruthlessly grasping neighbours.

paul

people all what your writing about is in the bible, read it and weep the human race cannot live with itself in peace.

Andre

Hass
Israel is not doing any wiping out as you claim. Hamas was warned repeatedly to stop firing rockets into southern Israel. Hamas is solely responsible for the horrors of war visited upon Gaza.
Iran has supplied both Hizbollah and Hamas with weaponry and said it wants to wipe out Israel Don't take my word for it look up what Ahmedinejad says. Nobody believed Hitler when in Mein Kampf he said he was going to kill all the Jews. Now when Arabs say that we believe them. I hope this clarifies Iran's promise of nuclear war for you

David Lindsay

Well said, Hass. And defending Israel is Israel's affair, not ours.

Nor America's, any more. Finally given the opportunity to vote for a candidate who had secured nomination and was now seeking election by running against the likes of AIPAC, conservative America - the people who reaffirmed traditional marriage in California and Florida, who abolished legal discrimination against working-class white men in Colorado, who declined to liberalise gambling in Missouri or Ohio, and who keep the black and Catholic churches (especially) going from coast to coast - leaped at the chance.

And why not? From America's own point of view, Iran should matter more than Israel just as Germany, then West Germany, then Germany again has mattered more than Britain even since before the War was properly over.

This is not to say that either Israel or Britain should not matter at all. But Iran and Germany are larger, more populous, and vastly more importantly located in strategic terms.

Middle America rightly views the wider world in strictly realistic terms, "not seeking for monsters to destroy". She is the land of those Republicans who called for Europe to revert to pre-1914 borders and thus end the First World War, an outcome which would have precluded both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Of Eisenhower, with his even-handed approach to Israel and the Palestinians, and with his denunciation of the military-industrial complex.

Of Nixon, who ended the Vietnam War as President Obama will end the Iraq War, and who began détente with China as President Obama is beginning détente with Iran (and beyond).

And of Republican opposition to Clinton's unpatriotic job-exportation, unpatriotic sweatshop-importation, and unpatriotic global trigger-happiness, all continued and expanded by the unpatriotic Bush Administration.

Of course, Middle America is also the land of that rural and Western half of the Republican Party which supported the New Deal, of those Congressional Republicans whose votes passed Civil Rights in the face of Dixiecrat resistance, of big municipal government, of strong unions whose every red cent in political donations buys something specific, of very high levels of co-operative membership, of housing co-operatives even for the upper middle classes, of small farmers who own their own land, of the pioneering of Keynesianism in practice, of popular fury at the bailout, and of the cry for universal healthcare.

JONNY

'Iran has supplied both Hizbollah and Hamas with weaponry'
Yeah Yeah Yeah, Andre.
And we gave the Israelis a few million dollars worth of smart weaponry pop guns in exchange.
As always I think they may have got the better of the bargain.

Linda Smith

Jonny: Your post is historically false. It is a typical antisemitic caricature depicting Arabs as "simple Palestinians" and Jews as "unwanted, bellicose and ruthlessly grasping neighbours."

Your post is reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. The difference is that today the Jews have their own State, and nuclear arms. This time Jews do not have to go meekly to the slaughter - if they are again attacked by genocidal maniacs - their enemies are going to die with them.

Andre

JONNY The difference is the Israelis do not aim to visit genocide upon their neighbors. this is not a question of both sides having merit.It is a simple call between good and evil

David Lindsay

Actually, Linda Smith, that is an interesting point.

Leaving aside the evidence or lack of it for an Iranian nuclear weapons programme, what if there were one, and what if it did wipe out Israel? What then?

Nothing could bring Israel back. And there would be no threat to any other state.

So even Bush or McCain, never mind Obama, could make all the rhetorical noises in the world. Nothing would actually happen under those circumstances, because nothing possibly could happen.

There is no Iranian nuclear weapons programme, nor would such a programme be any problem of ours anyway.

The only people who say that there is, or that it would be, are the same people who said that there was, and that it was, in Iraq.

Fortunately, those people are no longer anywhere near the running of the United States.

But most unfortunately, they are still at the heart of the running of the United Kingdom.

Ian C

Hass, Jonny and David Lindsay (the latter as ever)- you are all talking utter bollocks and you need to read history to understand what has really gone on. Not the version fed to you by the anti-semitic Palestinain hugging Guardianistas you talk like. The Israelis have as much right to be there as anyone who calls himself a Palestinian. They certainly have the right to protect themselves and we have the duty to protect them from aggressors, as we have to all nations who are attacked without due provocation. Yes there were mistakes in the establishment of Israel but the main and worst ones were made by the Arabs. They have palmed the consequences of those off on those who want to live as Palestinians and left them to rot while Iran stirs the pot driven by its ambition to lead Islamist domination of the world and is regards Armageddon as the definition of success.

If Israel goes down we all do. Wake up, smell the coffee and open your eyes. It might open your minds.

JONNY

Linda Smith
Please spare me this Nazi guff.
'Simple Palestinians' - yes indeed. One of the prime Israeli claims is that 'they've modernised the land', which was, by universal agreement a shade backward.(Although perhaps by the same token 'greener')

'Unwanted' It's a fact the Palestinians didn't invite them in and didn't ask to be stripped of their land.

'Ruthlessly grasping neighbours' Have you any idea of how many thousands and thousands of Palestinian acres they have 'acquired' And what they paid for it. If anything.

Actually Linda far from being a Nazi I am often citicised in these pages for favouring David Cameron's soft liberal inclusive policies.
Maybe because I have a certain sympathy for the underdog.

Linda Smith

Jonny's statement:" It's a fact the Palestinians didn't invite them in and didn't ask to be stripped of their land" is false.

The land did not belong to the Arabs. It was part of the Ottoman empire and then passed to the care of the British. Jews have always lived on that land. The term Palestinian was coined in the 1960's as an Arab propaganda tool. For accuracy, Jews living in the Palestinian mandate are also entitled to be called "Palestinian". The Jewish Agency purchased large areas of the mandate.
The British mandate of Palestine was partitioned by UN Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947 to form a Jewish State and an Arab state, with Jerusalem international. The Arabs refused to accept the Partition and declared war.

The "Palestinian" Arabs are the authors of their own misfortune for refusing to accept a state of their own in 1847.

Your statement "I have a certain sympathy for the underdog" reveals your own need to create vehicles to express your own feeling of victimhood, rather than any objective truth in the external world.

Linda Smith

David Lindsay: "Nothing could bring Israel back. And there would be no threat to any other state"

Err, have you seen the size of Israel? Any nuclear attack will obliterate all the "Palestinians" at the same time. Goodbye Jerusalem. Goodbe Dome of the Rock. Goodbye Gaza.

Could say that would be killing two birds with one stone.

Then Iran would be free to turn its attention to Europe. Have you read Tim Shipman's article "Why the CIA has to spy on Britain" on this website? "Britain is an Islamist swamp". Do you want to live in the Caliphate?

Zvi Alter ben Yissacher Mendel, Gush Etzion, Israel

Hass, for heavens sake, get real! If Sderot or Ashkelon (not disputed as being within Israel's 1967 borders) are the equivalent to Chester - how many weeks would it take Mr Brown's government to respond to Welsh Nationalists rocketing with (new and improved) Grads supplied by Iran. Israel, the only democratic country in the Middle East is threatened by Iran's jihadist clients in Gaza - even after operation cast lead. The Palestinians ARE wiped out by internal conflict between rival jihadists NOT Israel - who proclaim so loudly that they want peace.

Dr.mosavi

madaretono gaeidam.....{presian languige}
iranian nuclear is very true program to defend against the american & israel harsh nuclear! all of the american people and israel people is foolish and crazy to belive the politician men of thay goverment