Iran threatens genocide yet again

thirdbasecoach

Peace in our time!!

Rob-NY

Press TV is a disgrace. Isn't inciting genocide against international law?

Tar & Feathers

No, it doesn't seem to leave much room for doubt.
Iran's president will have to learn restraint.
If he doesn't, and if he gets his big boy's bomb and uses it, he will only have minutes to congratulate himself.
This is the harsh reality of being in the big boy's club.

Roy

At least he's being open about it. Perhaps he would like the first strike to be against him, so he has a good enough reason to try the worst. We can be sure Israel will give a good account of itself, and has not been idly dozing over the last few years.

Nigel Grech

So that clear.
The United Nations should have no problem expelling Iran now.
As I though the UN does not allow its members threatening each other (again & again).

maddy1

Iran could be a suitable case for this treatment! The Nemo effect! Give advance warning that within six months itīs total military infracture, everything, will be shocked and awed and then atomised. Up to a million civilian collateral deaths would be allowed inspite of the protests, from our do gooders, because this is the total amount from the first Gulf War which people do not mention! This scenario could be the new peace in our time!

Ronnie

Time for a Predator strike. Actually long overdue in the case of this idiot.

marcus

Melanie (and a number of posters) - you need to distinguish between rhetoric designed to play to a domestic audience, and a serious intent. Ahmadinejad has been raving for years - it is meaningless bluster - playground bully stuff. Theres nothing to be scared of.

Adam B.

marcus, you can guarantee that can you? Yes, I would put trust in the survival of millions of people on "he probably doesn't mean it."

Exactly what everyone said about Hitler.

NM

Marcus, I hate to invoke Godwin's Law, but the comparison is apposite: there is a history of not taking bullies seriously. Indeed, many people were saying exactly the sort of things you're saying about Hitler. "Oh, don't worry - he's just ranting to his local audience for effect. He doesn't mean it really".

Well, soon this "playground bully" will have a nuclear weapon. We'll see how serious he is then, I guess.

Grassmarket

Marcus, don't you think it is worrying in itself that, according to you, there is a "domestic audience" of up to 70 million which laps up genocidal rhetoric?

Mladen Andrijasevic

Marcus, when Primo Levi was asked what he learned from the Holocaust, he replied: "When a man with a gun says he's going to kill you, believe him."
http://www.aipac.org/Publications/SpeechesByPolicymakers/RepCantorPC09.pdf

Ronnie

Marcus.

On many occassions I would agree with you but here we have an obvious nutter who does seem to have taken real political power through Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Not even the senior ayatollahs appear able to control him any more. I think we have moved from a point where the fanatics could be manipulated to one where they are actually in control.

This is now a real danger.

Austin Barry

This from (AFP) – Oct 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said a giant "bunker buster" bomb will be ready within months, adding a powerful weapon to the US arsenal amid tensions over Iran's nuclear program.

The 30,000-pound massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) is designed to knock out fortified sites buried deep underground, like those used by Iran and North Korea to protect its nuclear work.

"It is under development right now and should be deployable in the coming months," press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters."

Now whether "Peace in Our Time" Obama would ever have the bottle to deploy an MOP against Iran is another matter.

The US and the UK seem quite prepared to let Iranian proxies murder their troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, so what chance for Israel, a faraway country of which we know little....?

Corin

My experience of playground bullies is that when they say they will get you; they will. They only stop issuing threats when they know that there will be a fight back and that they might lose.

William Boyd

To a degree I'm with Marcus in these comments on his remarks about rhetoric. Here's a YouTube clip (caution!) of the sort of thing I have in mind at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FckLO8HcNyo and I think it is arguable that here at any rate we're merely looking at histrionics aimed at domestic consumption.

But there's no doubt at all that Iran is intent on developing a nuclear bomb (and would have had one a long time ago by now if it was a more effective state) and that Ahmadinejad is stifling domestic dissent. That does strike me as a dangerous combination and that we really must now move very swiftly to neutralising effectively the Iranian nuclear threat and which must surely now mean using the military option.

SimonP

I told you so. His name is indeed Ahmonajihad.

And what kind of a politician threatens the annihilation of a nation / people as "rhetoric"?

YA

friendly version of blood libel from Telegraph today

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/cartoon/

ahmadinejadization of British media continues

Dixon

"marcus
March 12th, 2010 8:19am
Melanie (and a number of posters) - you need to distinguish between rhetoric designed to play to a domestic audience, and a serious intent. Ahmadinejad has been raving for years - it is meaningless bluster - playground bully stuff. Theres nothing to be scared of."

Someone needs to compile a big, fat book of statements such as the above quoted. Rationalisations, evasions, sophistry and various examples of sheer stupidity. It would make jaw dropping and hilarious reading seeing years upon years and mountains of such tripe gathered together, after the events by then had shown them for what they are. In other words it would make a great coffee-table classic to release the day after nuclear war breaks out in the mid-East.

Dixon

William Boyd points out that Iran would have had a nuclear bomb ages ago were it a competent state. Indeed, it took the US only...what was it...four years, to develop and deploy the first nuclear weapons. From absolutely nothing. George ( son of Dyson ) Freeman in his superb book "Project Orion" catalogues the vast number of ways in which American scientists had turned nuclear weapon design into an exquisite art within a decade of the first bomb.

Yet, with staff trained at leading Western universities, working to plans bought from A.Q.Kahn who had stolen them from a Dutch laboratory in the Eighties, and using high engineering products also obtained from the West, Iran will have taken decades to get to their first device.

This is a country awash with oil yet which has to import petrol because it cannot figure out how to refine its own. It is a country so incompetently run that in 2008 eleven Indian scrap smelters were killed by live ammunition that was included by Iran in a consignment of exported junk.

None of this detracts from the certainty that they are bumbling their way towards a nuclear weapon and that they most certainly intend to use it ( possibly only the one, given their incompetence ). My point is, rather, that even if anyone doubts the sincerity of Dinnerjackets promise to annhilate another country, soon, do we really want nuclear weapons in the hands of such a clearly incompetent and technically semi-literate bunch of idiots?

In the Cold War, not only the Left but all parties continually fretted over the prospects of ACCIDENTAL nuclear incidents. There were numerous cases of exploding subs (Russian) and lost bombs (American) along the way. And those (at least the latter) were highly developed engineering proficient societies. The prospect of Iran handling nukes is like giving nitro-glycerin to a four year old to play with.

phil

I think all of you have made apposite points but if I may pick the most pertinent for me, I must pick Corin and Mladen -Maddy I cant go along with the obliteration of so many innocents many of whom would side with the west if they had a chance .The lunatic with the dinnerjacket would have been a far better target for those who had a holiday in Dubai -do any of you own up to it? I feel a little like the John Lewis partners awaiting news of their yearly bonus -hope of course is eternal .

Dixon

Oh dear...there I go with the Spoonerisms, I meant "George (son of Freeman ) Dyson..." Not "George (son of Dyson ) Freeman..."
DOH1

Would you trust me with a nuke?

Frank P

Rob NY

'Press TV is a disgrace. Isn't inciting genocide against international law?'

Yeah! You dial 991; I'll dial 999.

phil

Dixon

March 12th, 2010 2:42pm
"Would you trust me with a nuke?"
of course I would Dixon .who better ?

Adam F

Marcus, yes it may be rhetoric. But even then it is worrying but rhetoric which calls for annihilation has a habit of transforming into actions that actually annihilate. Then again it might not be rhetoric at all but a statement of intent. If a threat of annihilation is made by a leader of a nation that is clearly attempting to mater atomic weapons technology, then I would say that it behoves us to take it seriously. I am making the assumption that you are not in Tel Aviv or any other Israeli city. It is easy enough for those of us who are out of harms way (at least lets us hope we are), to say 'Oh its just rhetoric and hyperbole' it is a lot less easy (or sane) if you are the intended target. It seems to me that in general when people make statements like this they mean it. And it necessitates firm action from the international community.

Although as for leaving no room for doubt I would be prepared to bet that there are large numbers of people on CIF and elsewhere who will try and explain away this clear and unequivocal statement of intent

Frank P

Rob NY

Sorry - wrong number - try 911, or you'll wait all day. Incidentally I dialled the right number (999) - got an answering machine: nobody available, it's Friday.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Perhaps israel will drop a small nuclear device on Iran and will say: "We didn't mean it".

Lynne T

To Marcus and William Boyd, considering the way the Islamic Republic of Iran happily sacrificed a million Iranian lives to war with Saddam Hussein, the regime is cracking down on dissenters at home today, and, in between, arming and commanding Hamas and Hezbollah whenever Iran or Syria want to divert world attention from domestic politics, your suggestion that Ahmedinejad's bark is worse than his bite is pathetic.

Lynne T

Dixon:

The reason Iran ships its oil out of the country for refining is because it hasn't spent money upgrading its refining capacity since the overthrow of the Shah. The mullahs spend whatever revenues they don't divert to themselves to operating a police state at home and backing Hamas and Hezbollah abroad.

Dixon

"Lynne T
March 12th, 2010 5:09pm
Dixon:

The reason Iran ships its oil out of the country for refining is because it hasn't spent money upgrading its refining capacity since the overthrow of the Shah. The mullahs spend whatever revenues they don't divert to themselves to operating a police state at home and backing Hamas and Hezbollah abroad."

I think we are singing fromthe same hymnal but different pages. Your song is that of greedy tyrants. My song is one of utter contempt for the Iran of post 1979. They arent incompatible but we dont need a duette out of it.

Most Iranian oil stays untouched under the ground, safe from prospecting or extraction since 1979 or soon thereafter. The Iranians cannot prospect, extract or refine it. Indeed, most of the other countries in the region rely on foreign engineers, whether from the West or the Far East. But a country that throws out live ammunition with the refuse for recycling has to be exceptionally incompetent. Just look at the Dinner-jacket tv-op visits to their N-plants, and the "experts" in their "protective clothing" of paper masks and grocers hats. Its laughable.

YA

Telegraph put another cartoon on top but old one is still accessible

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/cartoon/?cartoon=7427714&cc=7342899

worth thousand words.

Dixon

BTW, isnt it curious that for all their anti American, anti West rhetoric the Iranian nutter-ship present their announcements from a podium in front of the furled national flag...in an exact emulation of the presentational style of any U.S. government ( see photo ).

Indeed, whilst they make a big deal of not wearing neck ties...which they say is a symbol of the crusades ( mad as hatters ) why in that case do they wear "Western" style suits to start with?

They do seem to exhibit a great deal of confusion in both their sense of identity and the image they wish to project.

Mr R

Nothing form Carl, I see....

daniel maris

I despair of the wiseacres who tell us (just been reading a couple of 'em at it in some magazine called I think Foreign Affairs)that we can live with a nuclear Iran.

Dixon rightly points out that leaving aside the potential for export of weapons, use of terrorist groups as proxies, or a sudden onset of millennialist fervour, the possiblity of some sort of appalling accident is v. high. Even just a simple nuclear explosion on Iranian soil could have horrific implications.

We should not countenance a nuclear Iran. We should not have countenanced a nuclear N. Korea. We should have told China that a nuclear N.Korea would be an immediate cessation of all trade ties.

But sadly there is no solidarity among the democracies and we pay the resultant price.