Posted on 11/26/2013 7:23:47 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
“Iran’s Nuclear Triumph” roared the headline of the Wall Street Journal editorial. William Kristol is again quoting Churchill on Munich.
Since the news broke Saturday night that Iran had agreed to a six-month freeze on its nuclear program, we are back in the Sudetenland again.
Why? For not only was this modest deal agreed to by the United States, but also by our NATO allies Germany, Britain and France.
Russia and China are fine with it.
Iran’s rivals, Turkey and Egypt, are calling it a good deal. Saudi Arabia says it “could be a first step toward a comprehensive solution for Iran’s nuclear program.”
Qatar calls it “an important step toward safeguarding peace and stability in the region.” Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have issued similar statements.
Israeli President Shimon Peres calls the deal satisfactory. Former Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin has remarked of the hysteria in some Israeli circles, “From the reactions this morning, I might have thought Iran had gotten permission to build a bomb.”
Predictably, “Bibi” Netanyahu is leading the stampede:
“Today the world has become a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world.”
But this is not transparent nonsense?
In return for a modest lifting of sanctions, Tehran has agreed to halt work on the heavy water reactor it is building at Arak, to halt production of 20-percent uranium, to dilute half of its existing stockpile, and to allow more inspections.
Does this really make the world “a much more dangerous place”?
Consider the worst-case scenario we hear from our politicians and pundits — that Iran is cleverly scheming to get the U.S. and U.N. sanctions lifted, and, then, she will make a “mad dash” for the bomb.
But how exactly would Tehran go about this?
If Iran suddenly moved all its low-enriched uranium, to be further enriched in a crash effort to 90 percent, i.e., bomb grade, this would take months to accomplish.
Yet, we would be altered within hours that the uranium was being moved.
Any such Iranian action would expose Barack Obama and John Kerry as dupes. They would be discredited and the howls from Tel Aviv and Capitol Hill for air and missile strikes on Natanz, Fordo and Arak would become irresistible.
Obama and Kerry would be forced to act.
War with Iran, which would mean a shattered Iran, would be a real possibility. At the least, Iran, like North Korea, would be sanctioned anew, isolated and made a pariah state.
Should Iran test a nuclear device, Saudi Arabia would acquire bombs from Pakistan. Turkey and Egypt might start their own nuclear weapons programs. Israel would put its nuclear arsenal or high alert.
If, after a year or two building a bomb, in an act of insanity, Iran found a way to deliver it to Israel or a U.S. facility in the Middle East, Iran would be inviting the fate of Imperial Japan in 1945.
So, let us assume another scenario, that the Iranians are not crazed fanatics but rational actors looking out for what is best for their country.
If Iran has no atom bomb program, as the Ayatollah attests, President Hassan Rouhani says he is willing to demonstrate, and 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded six years ago and again two years ago, consider the future that might open to Iran — if the Iranians are simply willing and able to prove this to the world’s satisfaction.
First, a steady lifting of sanctions. Second, an end to Iran’s isolation and a return to the global economy. Third, a wave of Western investment for Iran’s oil and gas industry, producing prosperity and easing political pressure on the regime.
Fourth, eventual emergence of Iran, the most populous nation in the Gulf with 85 million citizens, as the dominant power in the Gulf, just as China, after dispensing with the world Communist revolution, became dominant in Asia
Why would an Iran, with this prospect before it, risk the wrath of the world and a war with the United States to acquire a bomb whose use would assure the country’s annihilation?
America’s goals: We do not want a nuclear Iran, and we do not want war with Iran. And Iran’s actions seem to indicate that building an atom bomb is not the animating goal of the Ayatollah, as some Americans insist.
Though she has the ability to build a bomb, Iran has neither conducted a nuclear test, nor produced bomb-grade uranium. She has kept her supply of 20-percent uranium below what is needed to be further enriched for even a single bomb test. Now, she has agreed to dilute half of that and produce no more.
If Iran were hell-bent on a bomb, why has she not produced a bomb?
Just possibly, because Iran doesn’t want the bomb. And if that is so, why not a deal to end these decades of sterile hostility?
Buchanan obviously is not a fan of Netanyahu's two decades of telling the world that Iran is on the verge of getting the bomb.
LOL. I never thought of it that way.
Israel stopped Iraq, they stopped Syria. What’s stopping them from stopping Iran?
They don’t have the political will to do it, so I guess that means they want the U.S. to have the political will to do it.
I'm no expert on Israeli politics. My guess is that Israel does have the will to attack Iran. But they are hesitating because they know that they no longer have any support from the USA.
It's tough to go it alone when no major power will stand with you.
Ugh. Sorry for the all-italics post to you, Alberta’s Child.
Israel doesn't have the political will because they recognize that the direct threat from Iran is very much exaggerated. As Colonel Kangaroo suggested earlier, it's kind of hard to maintain credibility when you spend two decades yelling that Iran is "just about to develop a nuclear weapon."
Nice to see that other FReepers have noticed this. Of course, we are all Neville Chamberlains! /sarc ;)
Why would Iran be the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world? Why would Iran provide arms and IEDs to kill US troops in Iraq? Why would Iran blow up Kobar Towers in Saudi Arabia?
Pat is all wet on this one. He doesn't understand the Iranian mentality. He thinks the Iranian leadership is rational. These are the same people who sent their children walking thru minefields during the Iran-Iraq war.
Islam, in its more rabid manifestations. Relatively few Muslims really believe the Koran from cover to cover — thankfully.
The 12th imam. Death and destruction, in their world, means their “savior” comes sooner and everything becomes heaven on earth for them.
The big shot opinion makers in Washington love the Neville Chamberlain analogy. They seem to all fancy themselves as Winston Churchill. But Churchill was a soldier from his youth who even served in the front lines when he lost his cabinet position in World War I while most of today’s prominent warhawks have avoided military service like the plague
They’re a mean and vicious bunch as the war with Iraq showed. But even in Khomeini’s day they were rational enough to call off the fight when Saddam Hussein gained the upper hand.
I lived a total of nine years in three Muslim countries and traveled to many more. You are wrong. Islam is a very demanding religion that requires a great deal of personal involvement. And it permeates every facet of their daily lives. There is no separation between the state and religion.
To be deep into that religion doesn’t mean the same thing as literally embracing all that’s in the Koran. Embracing all of it WILL result in rabid Muslims. Please do not equate the two states of affairs.
Saddam never really gained the upper hand. It was a stalemate with the end brokered by the UN. The Iran–Iraq War, lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. The Iran–Iraq War began when Iraq invaded Iran via air and land on 22 September 1980.
Although Iraq hoped to take advantage of Iran's revolutionary chaos and attacked without formal warning, they made only limited progress into Iran and were quickly repelled; Iran regained virtually all lost territory by June 1982. For the next six years, Iran was on the offensive.
Despite calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council, hostilities continued until 20 August 1988. The war finally ended with Resolution 598, a U.N.-brokered ceasefire which was accepted by both sides. At the war's conclusion, it took several weeks for Iranian armed forces to evacuate Iraqi territory to honour pre-war international borders set by the 1975 Algiers Agreement. The last prisoners of war were exchanged in 2003
Most do embrace all that is in the Koran. It doesn't make them "rabid." You are the one who is confused.
(And analogous situations exist in, e.g., Christianity. Consider how Catholics and fundamentalist Christians differ, for instance. One can be a very devout Catholic and still be getting essentially all your bible through whatever the clerical culture at hand is. You won’t be literally embracing it cover to cover like we crazy fundies do.)
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