Stop building the bridges.

Iran CANNOT have nuclear weapons; it will be the end of the world. So it’s useless to build bridges anymore…

The world has managed not to destroy itself since the invention of the bomb. But let’s put that into perspective: The world is 4,500,000,000 old and has been inhabited by homosapien’s just a few thousand years. And the bomb is just 61 years old.

We have managed to avoid nuclear annihilation during this time. Even the “crazy” people who have acquired the bomb have shown enough restraint to avoid making do on its threats. But this new proliferation is something new, something that we haven’t seen before. This time it’s backed by faith. And not just powerful faith, but radical nation willing to die for that faith.

Faith has driven war and violence for thousands of years, but the participants have been limited to weapons of small or moderate effectiveness. This will be the first time in the history of man that a fanatical religious power will have the ability to destroy the infidels by the hundreds of thousands at the push of a button. This cannot happen.

Link

Feynman was convinced man had finally invented something that he could not control and that would ultimately destroy him. For six decades we have suppressed that thought and built enough history to believe Feynman's pessimism was unwarranted. After all, soon afterward, the most aggressive world power, Stalin's Soviet Union, acquired the Bomb, yet never used it. Seven more countries have acquired it since and never used it either. Even North Korea, which huffs and puffs and threatens every once in a while, dares not use it. Even Kim Jong Il is not suicidal.

But that's the point. We're now at the dawn of an era in which an extreme and fanatical religious ideology, undeterred by the usual calculations of prudence and self-preservation, is wielding state power and will soon be wielding nuclear power.

We have difficulty understanding the mentality of Iran's newest rulers. Then again, we don't understand the mentality of the men who flew into the World Trade Center or the mobs in Damascus and Tehran who chant "Death to America"--and Denmark(!)--and embrace the glory and romance of martyrdom.

This atavistic love of blood and death and, indeed, self-immolation in the name of God may not be new--medieval Europe had an abundance of millennial Christian sects--but until now it has never had the means to carry out its apocalyptic ends.

And a particularly scary bit about the president of Iran from the article:

…It is not just that its President says crazy things about the Holocaust. It is that he is a fervent believer in the imminent reappearance of the 12th Imam, Shi'ism's version of the Messiah. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been reported as saying in official meetings that the end of history is only two or three years away. He reportedly told an associate that on the podium of the General Assembly last September, he felt a halo around him and for "those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink ... as if a hand was holding them there and it opened their eyes to receive" his message. He believes that the Islamic revolution's raison d'être is to prepare the way for the messianic redemption, which in his eschatology is preceded by worldwide upheaval and chaos…

Read it all.

Well, it’s put up for shut up time for the world. Iran has been given (and quickly denounced) 30 days to clean up its act. In 30 days the ball will start to roll, not war in 30 days, but the road to it.

So, if Iran gets to keep its nukes, what’s the purpose to build new bridges?

So Skip.... shall we launch our nukes now or shall we wait for Tehran to parade theirs first?

skippy, one question. Did you live through the dangerous years of the Cold War? The 50's and 60's?

I guess that 2 questions.

I lived through the days of the Cold War, a goodly portion of it on various bits of ground Zero. I've no great desire to see a return to those days, quite frankly. If preemptive action is what is needed to prevent Iran from proliferating these things than so be it. Or do we wait until they nuke Israel, or Turkey, Malta, or Cairo, or the US military in saudi arabia and Iraq?

Our choices of responces seem somewhat limited, at least to me. We can allow Iran to build these bombs and possibly sell or give them to other countries, and pray really really hard that no nut ball terrorist gets ahold of one and lofts it at his/her enemy of choice. Or we can act through the auspices of the United Nations and proactively nuetralize the threat. Diplomacy is the third and final responce, and hopefully the one that works, though that does seem unlikely at this moment in time. Though one never can tell. If there is a fourth choice out there I sure don't see it.

Obviously, diplomacy is the best choice, but we have to be ready to utilize military means in order for diplomacy to have any meaning at all. Carrot and the stick if you will.

Or we bury our heads in the sand and hope that the problem solves itself. Most problems don't do that, at least in my experiance.

Israel is the "fly in the ointment" here. They won't be willing to play the waiting game I'm afraid. They won't stand for Iran getting a nuclear bomb and I suspect they already have the plans drawn up and the planes ready to go at a moments notice. You have to think of them as a cornered animal - they have the "ultimate weapon" and they see that as their insurance policy to keep the wolves at bay. As soon as one of their many enemies gets the same weapon then the balance slips - the safety net is gone. Israel is convinced (rightly or wrongly) that Iran would wipe them off the map if they got A-Bombs - you cannot underestimate how strongly they feel about this. They will not shy away from preemptive action (they never have) and will try and take matters into their own hands if they feel the UN is allowing Iran to stall for time.

Oh yeah they do. They'd be fools if they didn't. If they hit Iraq, back in the 1980's, they won't hesitate to hit Iran here in the opening days of the 21st century. Who would blame them, other than Iranian apologists, for doing so? They certainly have the right to do so as a soveriegn nation surrounded, as they are, by sworn enemies.

It would be better to have a unified coalition confronting the Iranians, but a nation must reserve the right to unilaterally act in its own defense.

Iran withnuclears is not as scary as the us with nuclears! i mean you have a moron for leader so why should rest of world accept that u have nukes.

DOUBLE STANDARD!!!

I'm sorry Skippy, but I have to disagree with your proposition, if I understand it correctly.

I understand you to be saying that war is inevitable, so we may as well get this show on the road.

I have very little notion that we can just talk Iran into playing by our rules because
1. They don't trust us, nor do they have much reason to.
2. They think getting nukes is in their best interest, and they seem to believe they can get away with it.
3. They've got two major powers more or less on their side.

That's not to say that a crisis can't be avoided without starting a war which would
1. Threaten America's ability to maintain a volunteer military
2. Kill several thousand American troops.
3. Kill tens of thousands of Iranians.
4. Considerably harm American relations with the Chinese (and this is not a good thing, because in case you haven't noticed, we are on thin economic ice, and they shall be beneath us when it breaks).
5. Probably result in the interruption of global oil supplies if Iran has any sense at all (if I were them, I'd launch every missile I had at Saudi's oilfields and ports as a "gotcha last", the minute America came).


If we get China and Russia on our side, this gets resolved peacefully. The Chinese and Russians are holding all the cards here. They've got the technology Iran wants, they're economically entangled with Iran, and they make or break any UN resolution affecting Iran.
They've got no vested interest in nuclearizing Iran beyond decreasing Iran's oil dependence and thus increasing Iran's exports.

They've got plenty of other interests outside of Iran, some of them much more important than Iran.
So what do we do?
We strike a bargain.
We sit down at the table and we level with them.
We don't want a nuclear Iran, but we don't want a war either.
Whether or not Iran gets the nukes, whether or not there is a war, and how bad that war will be is pretty much under your control.
So, you can go our way and get some concessions on other issues from our side, or you can not go our way, then war it is.

This is nothing new. We've had to talk turkey with the Russians before... with a capital T sometimes. It's doable. This is our offer, this is when the shooting starts, please make a reasonable counter offer promptly. It's the lost art of diplomacy. We did a lot of it before the Wall fell. Might be time to revive it... seeing as China, OPEC each have us by the economic short and curlies.

Sarkazmon. The United States has had in it's possession sufficient nuclear weapons to iradicate a goodly portion, if not all, life on this globe for the better part of three quarters of a century. We haven't done so because...(drumroll, please...)we are the stable ones here. The world has no reason to fear the US using the weapons unless something of the sort is used on us first. Notice I said used on us first. It is stated policy of the United States that any use of WMD's (chemical, biological, and nuclear) would result in a response using nuclear weapons, meaning (gas is a nuke, a bug is a nuke) said country using WMD's against the US would suddenly sprout mushrooms, and glow in the dark.

I'm fairly certain that that policy is still in effect. It certainly should be, IMNSHO.

As for your attack on Mr. Bush...sorry to burst your bubble there, but...
Mr. Bush is many things, moron ain't one of them.

Wow, I didnt know this planet was that old.. Wonder when it'll get rid of us for causing so much problems?

And great post The Vagabond, said it all WATS for you!

This do-it-yourself eschaton dealie is starting to upset me, too. The leader of Iran is clearly a crazy man, and while I am ordinarily 100% behind a little subjectivity of cognizance, combining such with nuclear weapons and a belief that one is responsible for ushering in a new age of strife and destruction is a little much.

I guess there's some small comfort in knowing that while Iran may have nukes, and they may be bonkers, at least those warheads won't be getting much further than a few dozen miles. To be honest, that part of the world (being as it is such a hotbed of faith-based zealotry to begin with) could use a healthy dose of fissioning.

For anyone wanting to know more about skippy's source:

FrontPageMag.com is a neoconservative online blogging journal edited by David Horowitz and published by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a nonprofit in Los Angeles, California established by Horowitz. Dedicated to conservative advocacy, FrontPageMag.com criticizes the Democratic party, liberal press, environmental movement, affirmative action, feminism, human rights organizations, labor unions, and pacifist groups, and commentators and politicians who are critical of the Bush administration's War on Terror.

After conservative author Ann Coulter's column was dropped from National Review Online, FrontPageMag picked up her column.

en.wikipedia.org...

And, this quote seems to subvert most of the conjecture in the article"

We have difficulty understanding the mentality of Iran's newest rulers.

Ok, so then why should we listen to you if you even state you don't know what you are talking about?

skippy:
Even the “crazy” people who have acquired the bomb have shown enough restraint to avoid making do on its threats. But this new proliferation is something new, something that we haven’t seen before. This time it’s backed by faith. And not just powerful faith, but radical nation willing to die for that faith.

No, it isn't new. Tell me what country isn't backed by some kind of faith in the superiority of their beliefs?

[edit on 1-4-2006 by Jamuhn]