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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (162047)	5/14/2005 10:34:36 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Some facts about Iranian politics 1. Rafsanjani used to be president 2. Rafsanjani said a year or so ago that Iran should build a "muslim bomb" and use it to nuke Israel because the Muslim world is big enough to survive the retaliation but Israel isn't 3. In the last military parade in Tehran, the missiles had "Israel must be destroyed" written on them 4. Rafsanjani is running for president again. 5. He's favored to win. 6. Iran will have a nuclear bomb soon, probably within a year. What would you do about it if you were President of the US or PM of Israel?

To: bentway who wrote (162047)	5/14/2005 10:38:25 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Your view is more shaped by propaganda than reality. Since I don't have the time to write a 3 page essay on this, here are items of note in point form: (1) Iran has no monopoly on nut cases. I hear plenty of nuke talk in America and doubt some neocons are any more sane than Islamic fanatics. (2) If you get the images of early revolutionary Iran out of your head and look at Iran as it stands today, you will see that it is far from being a fundamentalist or even a highly conservative one. For example just a few days ago one of the former hostage takers was released from 3 years of prison for pushing too hard for normalized relations with US (nor is he the only one of the hostage takers who has turned against the regime (Google for "among the hostage takers", I think). Incidentally, the Iranian public was the only population in ME who held a candle vigil for 9/11 victims at once. But of course neocons prefer you to confuse them with the dancing Palestinians. (3) I've watched some documentaries on Israeli extremists and Israeli authorities who keep an eye on them and I have not ever seen a bigger bunch of violent whackos. Now if a country like Israel with so many nut cases and an even larger bunch of sympathizers can have several hundred nukes, then I can't see Pakistan and Iran being much of a problem. (4) Can you tell me the last time that Iran invaded another country? Feel free to go back as many decades as you wish. I got this perspective from an Israeli professor who wrote for Ha'aretz. I wish I had kept the article. (5) The whole point of NPT was so that other countries will have free reign access to nuclear technology in exchange for not developing atomic bombs (see Blix's recent comments on this). So why should any country remain in NPT if their access to the technology is not assured? Keeping too hard of a line on Iran may actually break the NPT. (6) It is not the level of armaments that causes problems but rather the amount of significant inequality. US and USSR found other ways to settle their score rather than attacking each other for this reason. Ditto for Pakistan and India who have since decided hot tempers makes no sense when they both have nukes. On the other hand, I do hear plenty of talk among nuclear powers about how they should nuke the have nots if they are just pissed off too much. (7) This brings us to the real reason behind why US/Israel/UK do not want Iran to have nukes, while Russia and Pakistan who are the Iranian's next door neighbours don't have an issue with it: nukes would be a major hindrance to threat of military strike...doesn't make sense that if Iranians were unstable as you are led to believe, then Russians and Pakistanis would be the first to object to their activities rather than helping them out? ST PS People/regimes don't live forever. Iran used to be a close US ally. Who is to say that 30 years after the revolution the new generation will not make amends again? 30 years time frame will coincide with the earliest estimate of Iran developing nukes if there is no international oversight. The date will be moved a lot further with it. PPS I wish Teevee would explain what is so wrong about Israel moving back to the border it got from UN.