Nakash...
I'm afraid that what you're saying doesn't make sense to me. What good is all the gold going to do Iran if their country is being trashed? It
makes more sense to me that they're trying to sabre-rattle and not look like a pushover. Iraq, remember, suffered under many years of sanctions -
which had a big effect, despite the oil-for-food programme - and bombing raids every week which, defying the Geneva conventions, targeted, amongst
other things, their fresh water delivery system.
Iran ... has perhaps signed a secret deal with it's Sunnis rivals in Saudi Arabia
Ok. The Saudis, as far as I know, are actually Wahhabi. Secondly, if they are rivals, why sign a deal? And what is the nature of this deal?
One nuclear bomb from a ship in the Atlantic could virtually shut down the ENTIRE U.S. economy with an EMP effect. The Arab states have been preparing
for untold ages for when the Western economies collapse. They buy up all the Gold, they hoard all the oil, they foster extremely tight protectionist
policies which makes them less dependant on trade and bolsters near immunity to crippling sanctions.
I'm not really sure, on a technical level, how wide-ranging EMP effects are. The US certainly conducted atomic underground tests within its borders
for many years... but more to the point, as another poster here has said, it would be just asking for an attack.
As for the Arab states (and Iran is Persian - I believe they think there's a difference) 'hoarding all the oil', well, actually, this is partly
what the whole nuclear argument is about. They say that they want to be able to SELL their oil and that therefore they want nuclear power so they can
generate electricity. There is, as I understand it, a big difference between enriching for generating purposes and for weapons-grade. A recent CIA
estimate suggested that Iran was at least 5 - 10 years away from getting a nuclear weapon.
-Iran's President is mentally ill. He doesnt care if Iran is destroyed as long as his General scheme doesn't faulter. That scheme is the destruction
of the West and Israel, followed by an Islamic empire. Hear his predecesors own words (and he was "moderate" compared to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) :
"If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists' strategy will reach a
standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. . . .
It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."
- Former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
He might want to destroy Israel, but they have (in violation of the NPT) around 200 nukes which they acquired with US and UK help.
I would interpret your quotation frm Rafsanjani as being simply that if an Islamic ME country gets nukes, then there is a stalemate as an attack by
the 'imperialists' means Israel gets nuked. This is no more and, indeed, no less, irrational than the standoff that the US and USSR had for
years.
As for the link you posted, I'm afraid that all that fundamentalist end-times stuff is an approach I don't find terribly rational. Sorry to diss
your sources and all that... I clicked on the link where it said Iran could produce 'dozens of nuclear warheads per year' and nothing happened.
I'd hitherto heard a fairly convincing explanation of why it will be difficult for Iran to get warheads (the design of their reactor militates
against it, apparently) and while I'm prepared to entertain another view, as the link didn't work I was left with a lot of vague rumour and little
else.
I think the US is going to 'deal with' Iran this year, for many reasons.
1) Residual resentment of a country that stood up to the US and succeeded: they got rid of the old puppet Shah
2) to stop them creating an alternative oil market in euros
3) to make the ME safe for Israel (and continue the plan laid out in Rebuilding America's Defenses)
4) as a warning to other nations that might be stepping out of line (notably in South America.
Most of the wars that the US has fought over the last fifty years were started with 'manufactured incidents'. The Gulf of Tonkin incident in
Vietnam, the kidnappings in Grenada, Gulf War 1, Gulf War 2 (manufactured evidence although no WMDs were found). This whole thing follows the pattern
that established the idea that it was ok to invade Iraq. It's distressing to see everyone swallowing the absurdity whole without thinking, hey, they
got me over the Iraq thing... not falling for THAT one again.
