With all these media reports regarding Iran and nuclear materials, including the most recent objections Iran has with the latest plan, I'm distinctly thinking they're doing everything they can to buy themselves time. Time until they have a nuclear weapon ready? Time for something else? What are they trying to do?
whats going to happen if they keep stalling?? The UN writes a strongly worded letter? /thinks about Hans Bric in Team America Of course the're stalling. Imagine that your the leader of a under developed country and you have the potential to create nuclear technology, granted you countries past history has put you in a bad image with the rest of the world, and you have the "PTB" (the powers that be) namely the USA, practiclly breathing down your neck, demanding that you cease all research, and want to see everything.......of course you would stall, big bully has confronted you and is threatening you.......they have more bombs than they need, and they dont want you to have the same.
Just playing devils advocate here. Another nation in your backyard, was given nuclear weaponary, completely breaking the NPT. You now feel in danger due to this. The balance of power in the area is out of kilter. So if they can have nukes, why can't you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_nuclear_weapons Israel constructed its first nuclear weapon in 1967. You would have a point if Israel had very recently stated its desire to construct a nuclear weapon and to wipe out Iran, but they have neither. Its 32 years after 1967, so saying they are reacting to that is a bit absurd. Also regarding your comment about the balance of power in the region. While Israel undoubtedly the strongest military in the Middle East, its worth pointing out that Iran is a very large country (18th in the world) with a population of 74 million - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran. Israel has a population of 7.5 million - nearly 10 times smaller, and is so small that a column of tanks can cut Israel in half in 15 minutes. So I wouldn't go overboard in describing Israel as a goliath to Iran's David. In response to the original question, Iran has a lot to gain via encouraging the US to attack it. Why? Because: 1) It is likely to bring other Middle East countries onto its side and shift away from the US 2) Inflame public opinion round the world and illicit sympathy for the Iranian state 3) Allow the ruling Iranian regime to crush internal dissent - the elections demonstrated that a huge swathe of Iranians detest the current system of government and want a more open society
To make it more explicit, the nuclear controversy also allows Ahmedinajad to distract his own turbulent electorate's attention from his other failings, notably the disputes over his election and his economic policies. Most other Middle Eastern dictatorships have tried the same thing at some stage; think of; Saddam Hussein battles Iran to suppress internal dissent. Colonel Gadaffi gets into bed with the IRA and espouses revolution to distract his own populace from their terrible situation. Almost all Israeli leaders lead crackdowns on Muslim terror, strangely close to election times. The entire leaderships of Hezbollah, Hamas and the old Fatah espouse the destruction of Israel as a means of not having to answer to their people's demands for food, sanitation and other human rights. It's not nice but it's not new.
To return the favour, your exactly right. Most of the time, countries seek confrontation to hide from their own failings. In WW2, Hitler's invasion of Russia forced the Russian populace to support Stalin when a huge proportion of the population detested collective farming and the lack of freedom of speech. Any attempt to criticise Hitler during WW2 in Germany was portrayed as un-patriotic and un-German. Just like in America, criticism of the Iraq policy was portrayed as unAmerican and that a true American should simply blindly support the invasion. And in exactly the same way, the Iranian government uses Israel and the US to bang the drum to try to hide those domestic failures. Have you seen the demographics of Iran? A huge proportion of the country is under 30, and they don't want to be leading the same kind of traditionalist lifestyle, they want to go to nightclubs, listen to western music and buy western products. This is why it is students in Iran who are the most opposed to the current regime, which is one reason why the government in Iran is in a difficult situation as the very people who brought them to power are now trying to topple them.
Maybe I should have stated this more clearly in the beginning... but what I meant is, if they're stonewalling, what exactly are they delaying the world for?
-This. Israel and the Jewish people, have had to fight off overwhelming numbers and near extinction enough times in to have the sense to develop a nuclear weapons program. In fact they may be the only nation wise enough to pre-empt Iran before things get really nasty. I can remember reading a year or two ago a quote from the President of Iran saying how he would love to bring a tidal wave of destruction to Israel and wipe it off the planet.
Let's look at this from a behavioural learning perspective. Iran does not like the US or the Western world as a whole. It has a long history of messing in Iran's affairs, most blatantly in 1953 when the US (with a little help from its gimp, the UK) overthrew a democratically elected, secular, Western-oriented government and levered a tyrant in charge (the Shah. It also levered a tyrant in place in Iraq: Saddam Hussein). Eventually under the firebrand fundie rethoric of the Ayatollah Iran revolts, overthrows the tyrant Shah and the tyrant Ayatollah muscles in --but at least it is a tyrant marginally chosen by the people. He takes some US hostages, burns some Stars & Stripes, pisses off rednecks all over the US. The US then funds Iraq in waging one of the most bloody and drawn out wars in Middle East history with Iran. The message is clear: the US and Iran are not friends. Now, let's pause to look at a list of "Countries that Piss Off the US and What Happens to Them": Eastblock: got WMD. Nothing happens. China: got WMD. Nothing happens. North Korea: got some WMD and a big-ass army. Nothing happens (working on those nukes though). Lybia: got no WMD: gets bombed. Afghanistan: got no WMD. Gets invaded. Iraq: got no WMD. Gets invaded. See a pattern here? If anything at all has taught Iran the importance of having WMD recently it is US foreign policy. If you got the big bombs, all you get served is militant rethoric. If you haven't, you get served. So yes, Iran is stalling for time to make nukes. Not to nuke Israel, but to keep itself from being next on the US' **** list.
There's also a convenient bit of regime strengthening that comes out of having nukes; nobody wants to see a government fail that is in possession of nuclear weapons.
It's both as nexo and Roto have said: A morale booster, and a deterrent against to not be next to be obliterated. On the main point, it's blatantly obvious they're stone-walling, if they weren't they'd have done something wayyyyy back.
Very good point. People must remember that Iran is not adverse to diplomatic relations with the US on principle. For all their fundamentalist rethoric, the leadership in Iran is much more pragmatic than you think (which is why it would never actually attack Israel). After 9/11 Iran was eager to dissociate itself from terrorism and offered to open diplomatic relations to co-operate in the war on terror in the Middle East. A week after fruitful discussions with US diplomats, to everybody's surprise, Bush included Iran in his 'Axis of Evil' speech. Diplomats later admitted that Iran was included just to pad out the list, because including just two countries (Iraq and North Korea) did not make it look terribly conspirational and it would also make it too obvious that Bush had already been planning to invade Iraq since before 9/11 and was just looking for pretexts. After the invasion of Iraq, Iran again offered the US: - full cooperation on nuclear programs - acceptance of legitimacy of Israel - the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups Basically, everything was on the table. The US ignored it. In fact, it sent a humiliating letter of complaint to the Swiss ambassador who had forwarded and endorsed the proposal on behalf of the Iranian government, effectively for spamming them and wasting their time. Why? The Bush Administration was being cocky. It had just handed Saddam his own ass within a matter of weeks weeks (or so it thought), so it was feeling good about itself. It saw Iran's gesture as consequential as the fearful whimpering of the dog you are about to beat with a big stick. When the testosterone rush had worn off a year later and it became obvious that Iraq was going to be a resource- and life-sucking wound that would take years to stem the bleeding of, some American diplomats started wondering if they hadn't blown a golden opportunity. Too late, too late said the White Rabbit.
QI general ignorance that could very well be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmou...2Vanish_from_the_pages_of_time.22_translation So I would avoid jumping to conclusions based on what snippets of information the media feed you. An article recently says that tevez was thinking of retiring what the media didn't add was from international football. Big difference.
Er, the rhetoric basically says that it is not possible to compromise in any way with the Israeli government, as it constitutes an unacceptable defeat to all Islamic nations in the middle east, so it can be inferred that their government must be destroyed. I think that pretty much constitutes the original media "nutshell" statement we had before, unless I'm wrong?
The problem with the middle east is the US/Europe/Israel. If we hadn't spent the past 100 years dicking about every middle eastern country we wouldn't be in this mess. Israel is the product of the guilty concience of Europe. Europe persucuted the Jews and to make it right we take land from the arabs. No wonder the Arabs are pissed at us. I'm pissed at us and I'm a Irish/English/German cross breed. The sooner the west stops forcing entire nations to do what we demand and start propper negotiations and reasoning the better. IF we go in fighting all we do is embitter nations, that will only create trouble. If you want to know how to solve a problem look to northern Ireland. While not trouble free, The 1st steps forward are to renounce violence and start talking. For a simple potted history of whats wrong. List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel List_of_United_Nations_Security_Council_resolutions_concerning_Iraq For those to lazy to Clicky Israel has 221 Iraq has 28 Of course we invade the worst offender.......... The whole middle east problem is a F()ckup of massive proportions, going back to the crusades. The worst part is we're to f'in stuck up to say sorry. thats the 1st step.
no what you said could be contrued as an intention to commit genocide, iran is stating that the current government isdangerous to the cultures in the middle east and islam itself. They only both [iran and israel] display a them and us rhetoric and wont meet compomise til that resolves itself.
Holy massive generalization, Batman! Do I really need to point out that the UN's resolution history is hardly the most objective way of determining who is the biggest 'offender' in the international community? Note that the UN has a bit of a preoccupation with those pesky Zionists; That's shown in a number of ways, the first and foremost of which could be the fact that the only UN Resolution ever revoked concerned condemnation of Israel. A good follow-up would be the strange disparity regarding the UN Human Rights Commission and Israel. In the past three years, the UNHRC has tabled 25 condemnations of abuse - 20 of which were directed at Israel, and none of which addressed the genocide in Darfur, the oppression in Iran, the starvation policies of Zimbabwe, nor the plight of the Tamils. Is the fact that 80% of the condemnation lands on Israel recognition of the fact that Israel perpetrates 80% of the world's human rights abuses? I think purely on the basis of scale this is unlikely. This may be something to do with the fact that those damn Jews are outnumbered 47-1 Muslim-Jew in terms of representatives at the UN, and you need a majority to get tabled Resolutions passed. Worse, the 221 figure you quote does not consist of 221 condemnations of Israel, so those 'too lazy to click' are getting some pretty skewed facts. There's plenty of condemnation, sure, but there's also Mandates and ceasefires for wars that were started against Israel, rather than by Israel. I note with interest, for example, that Wikipedia doesn't even have articles for me to quote regarding UN resolutions against some of the world's worst human rights abusers (places like Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, China etc), because there isn't enough material to go on. I'm not denying that Israel deserves a goodly portion of blame, and I am reluctant to support invading Iraq, but in terms of invasion targets, come on. The UN's Resolution history is a stupid way of making that stupid argument. Yours is not a 'simple potted history' but a 'simply potty history,' or perhaps a 'pointlessly oversimplified misrepresentation of facts masquerading as historical evidence.'
Blaming Israel for a lack of peace in the middle east is rather insane as well. The Middle East has done plenty of peace-squandering without even touching Israel itself in its history. Granted, they often fought over Israeli policy, but the various strife between nations, the squandering of regional influence through local wars and the disenfranchisement that has resulted from those conflicts are very large contributors to unrest in that area.
