Easy Times, what we are talking about with allowing Iran to go atomic is about a principle. What political scientists call, the axiom of the balance of power.

It just happens that against non nuclear Iran we have nuclear firepower from not only Israel and the US, but the UK and possibly France and Germany. Also remember Israel's firepower in this case is from a battery that is illegitimate, similar to America's in the case of Iraq.

Anyhow, please place yourself in Iran's dangerous position, and say what Iran has done wrong, apart from rhetoric which she is entitled to use, seeing that she is being cornered like a tiger cat that has never attacked anyone else apart from a snarl.

Also, seeing the way they have been treated by Western nations, ever since the double-crossing of TE Lawrence after WW1, why should any Arab or Persian nation ever have to bow and scrape to the West?

It is not so long ago that Mubarak of Egypt when asked by a Western journalist what was the real problem in the Middle East? Without question, Western intrusion and injustice: Replied Mubarak

There is a saying in political science, EasyTimes, that the best way to find answers to international problems is not to take sides, but take the overall look. Most of us now support the Western position on Iran, or of the whole Middle East, because we have the Big League on our side. Competent political scientists are not taught to work like that, despite them sometimes called left-wing loonies or fruitcakes.

David Latimer: The augments you put forward are silly. Times change people change! During the Iran Iraq war we had bigger fish to fry AKA USSR. By supporting Iraq we may have been able to get there help in other ways if ever needed and by supporting them it would not enable them to form closer ties with the USSR.

We need a BIG reason to take any sort of deceive action today and I am sure we would have acted along time ago against N Korea if it had not been for the hippy/greenies/idiot movements!

For all practical purposes to act in the international community you have to wait until you are actually a physical victim, not potential! So until Australia suffers or one of our friends suffers another barbaric attack you purpose the “head in sand” strategy that many western governments seem to be perfecting?

We are doing what we can in Afghanistan to catch Osama. What more do you purpose we do David Latimer?

Bushbred: PRINCIPLES! According to the balance of power theory we should also give them a heap’s of money, tanks, aircraft and technology so that thing can be more “balanced”?

If Iran gets nukes it allows them to operate with almost total immunity in the international community and promote there stone age agenda. Remember the attack in Argentina on the Jewish property? When Iran gets nukes you can expect them to ramp up those sort of attack because “we have nukes what are you going to about it?”

Also remember you have a semi extremist organization in power in Iran. If the government collapsed and a group who are even more religious fundamentalist took power what might they do we a couple of nukes?

What groups might they “accidentally” give them to?

If you were in Israel position what would you do if a group like that took power in a country that wants you wiped from the map?

When it comes to Iran and nukes the worst case scenario must be considered highly likely.

Have we forgotten about Ted Lapkin and his attempt to revive the Cold War -- but without the USSR?

Like to get you in front of a team of scientific reasoners, Easy Times. Most of the stuff you are accusing Iran of is from mostly just commmon low grade street chatter. Like when you talk about someone you don't like as a neighbour. Nothing about any affection for Iran from this side, mate, just a case of a fair go, which Iran has not had very much of, ever since America moved in illegally dumping in the Shah, not long after the end of WW2.

Thus the holding of the US Embassy staff in the late 1970s was just payback, what even the CIA has termed blowback among the many other illegal incidents the US has been involved in trying to push its weight in the Middle East. Probably the most nastily ridiculous, re-shown last year on SBS, was Donald Rumsfeld's involvement in advising Saddam Hussein about tactics early in Iraq's attack on Iran in 1981.

You and many others, unfortunately, Easy Times, have been shutting your minds to what has been termed so many times by political scientists as neo-colonialism - the West still on the grab- when first it was the spice and tobacco economy, then the tea and coffee economy, now for too long it's been the oil economy, helped so much by the corporate political spin that is now propping us up, due to fall down with the real truth about a failing society through too long shutting our minds to global warming.

Pay you to read a few books on modern political economy, matey. In Murdoch University WA there is an excellent course, remodelled each year to go with the times - available for retired seniors pretty well for nix.

Easytimes.

Where did Iran and Nth Korea get their nuclear bomb technology?

Pakistan

The CIA knew about A Q Khan's little scheme for 18 years but failed to stop him.

Why? Because it suited their geo-political purposes.

You people are simply amazing. Every time I think that knee jerk anti-Americanism can't get any more irrational, you come up with something new to surprise me.

Let's recap a few of the ludicrous contentions being advanced here:

1) Steve argues that somehow America felt it was in its national interest for North Korea to get the bomb.

2) Bushbred thinks that the Iranian mullahs are pure as the driven snow - I guess he missed that little news item from last week in which a former Iranian president, foreign minister and Republican Guard chief were formally indicted by the Argentinian government for the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Bueos Aires.

That's a bit more than "low grade street chatter" about a country that "that has never attacked anyone else apart from a snarl." Dontcha think, mate?

But then I suppose Bushbred will fall back on his secondary argument - it was merely a question of "payback," and those Jews in Argentina had it coming.

Before advising others on book lists, Bushbred, you ought to be doing a bit of reading on your own. Peruse any of the material out there on Iranian terrorist links and human rights abuses - even from organisations like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. And you'll see that the Iranian regime is cruelly despotic at home, and deeply involved in terrorism abroad