Stevebmeyer

'I think the danger of terrorists getting their hands on Iranian nukes...'

So should we get together a coalitional and invade or allow and support Israel to attack the soverignity of Iran ... as is their usual practice? Hah! bound to fail and futher isolate Israel in world opinion.
Especially when we look at what happened in Lebanon where Israel was forced into a hummuliating withdrawal and where it failed to achieve any of it's propaganda or military aims?
Then remember what was part of the reasoning the coalition invaded Iraq. ... to prevent Saddam's regime from supplying WMD's to terrorists. At the time I like just about everyone else supported the idea.

This time I am going to be a little more sceptical and will question the motivation of people suggesting such possibilities and solutions.

So with the west actually having prevented terrorists launching further 9/11's and you agree it unlikely Iran will initiate nuclear war who exactly do you think will be threatened by Iranian nuclear weapons?

And yep addressing the genuine greivences of the Palestinians in a sensible manner would go a long way to solving mid east threats to peace.

Bushbred

Friday, 28 September 2007
You wrote
“Reckon Bismarck would have thought about it, as he used his Realpolitik to work in ways to suit. As when he was annoyed by the persistent war-mad French in 1778, assembling his brand new long range guns on the French border and firing them all the way to Paris”
and
“Bismarck died in 1908”

Iran is clearly working towards building nuclear weaponry. Your assertions that they can be trusted are plain wishful thinking. Ahmadinejhad has made his feelings about Israel very clear. This is a man who believes he communicates with a 1200 religious figure who lives in a well. That is a fact. Iran is the primary backer of terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Allowing Iran to pursue their nuclear program will lead to more fighting in the Middle East, not less. It is not just Israel that feels threatened either. Many of the Sunni Arab states surrounding Iran are equally fearful of a nuclear armed Iran.

The UN has been a failure as a global diplomatic initiative. Its failure stems from Russia and China’s inclusion in the Security Council. These two countries have used their positions to protect the world’s worst dictators, including Jong IL, Mugabe, the Junta in Burma and others. They knew that the best way to protect themselves was to retain friends no matter how despicable.

Your ‘PEACE IN OUR TIME” stuff is just as ridiculous today as when Chamberlain first uttered it. There is NO negotiating with terrorists; they simply aren’t interested in talking. In any case, pandering to tyrants just encourages them. Hitler is a perfect example.

Do you really think these fundamentalists are going to give up on their caliphate if we ask nicely?

Keith,

Are you seriously suggesting that Iran isn’t trying to produce nuclear weapons?

There will be no invasion of Iran, air strikes will be the worst case scenario.

Solving the Palestinian mess will not help, it will only encourage the Islamo-Fascists in their belief that they can achieve all of their goals because we in the West are SOFT.

PaulL

Where ever did you get the idea I think Iran isn't intent on nuclear weapons? Are you deliberately misreading my posts?

All I am suggesting is that Israel and Iran are treated equally. And you don't believe that should happen...do you?

And tell me what would your reaction be if I suggested Iran should negate Israel's nuclear advantage by launching, as a worst case, airstrikes targetting Israel's nuclear development?

There is no need for an answer for you'd simply begin a screeching whining campaign and you'd end up alledging I'm anti-semitic.

The mess in Palestine is continued by the Israeli's and it is also their mess. It is an Israeli mess. Why do you think the rest of the world's thinking and positioning should be equated with Israeli thinking on the issue? We 'softies' in the West have long realised that 'the eye for an eye', military adventurism and military occupation never solve any problems. We've long realised they only cause and accentuate problems. You Israeli supporters need to adopt the true western values of our 'soft' Liberal Democracy if what you want for Israel is our continuing support. I would have thought you'd have learn't that simple lesson after the debacle in Lebanon.

Keith

Mate I'm reasonably happy with the state of affairs. I would suggest that the whining is coming from you.

You're arguing that an unstable dictatorship should have nuclear parity with Israel. And why? So Iran can, by some overt offensive act, force Israel to adopt a solution acceptable to the Islamic world, and you.

Well aren’t you a hypocrite. I thought you were against ‘military adventurism’, but it seems that’s only the case when you’re not getting your own way. Iran’s whole strategy is military adventurism of the highest order. It could plunge the Middle East into war, yet Iran is banking on the soft-left support in the western world to evade the consequences.

So I take it that you don’t support nuclear non proliferation then, since it would be appallingly hypocritical of you to do so.

The mess in the ME was caused by TWO protagonists and anyone with any sense knows it will take concessions from both sides to solve it.

Israel doesn’t need the support of the loony-left. If you had any sense you would know that the loony-left have virtually no political power or support anyway. Israel doesn’t even need the Western worlds support to survive and prosper in the Middle East and its not as if they are in ANY danger of losing it any way.

Israel is a democracy. Iran is a dictatorship where they torture, imprison or murder anyone who doesn’t follow the program, Homosexuals, female activists, opposition politicians. But then I suppose you lefties don’t mind a bit of purging in support of the greater good.

The left thought the Communists were good blokes and howled down Reagan as a liar and a propagandist when he tried to tell the world about the evils of Communism. ALL of his claims were borne out in the end when the wall came down.

Ho Chi Minh called the leftist supporters of North Vietnam his 'useful idiots’. No points for guessing what Ahmedinejhad would make of you and your western lifestyle?

So do you think Hamas should get nuclear weapons too? How about Hezbollah?

Keith wrote:

>>Then remember what was part of the reasoning the coalition invaded Iraq. ... to prevent Saddam's regime from supplying WMD's to terrorists. At the time I like just about everyone else supported the idea.>>

That puts me one step ahead of you. I never bought that argument. If the issue was Saddams's nukes, assuming he had any, there were other ways of dealing with the threat. One way would have been to destroy any site that even looked as if it might contain nukes. We could also have put a much more robust inspection regime in place.

The WMD story was an obvious fabrication from start to finish.

But the issue with Iran and Pakistan is different. I do NOT think they will intentionally hand over nukes to terrorists.

My fear, and I think it a reasonable one, is that they are both so unstable, and so drenched in an Islamo-fascist ideology, that they will be UNABLE to prevent their nukes falling into terrorist hands. In the light of what we now know about the AQ Khan network you can hardly deny the danger.

In the case of Iran and Pakistan Juvenal's old question, who shall guard the guardians themselves,* has new relevance.

* Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Whatever you may think of Israel, it is unlikely their nukes will end up in the hands of terrorists who want to blow up Melbourne. The same CANNOT be said about Pakistani or Iranian nukes.

I think you are willfully ignoring the dangers posed by nukes in the hands of such unstable dictatorships.

BTW I suspect the Indian Government has contingency plans in case Pakistan implodes. At least I hope they do.

My guess is that if Pakistan implodes India with US help will destroy nuclear sites.

PaulL

Your grizzles:

‘Israel is attacked daily by rockets supplied by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.’
’Israel has recently provided evidence that the Syrian regime has North Korean nuclear material. But you call Israel a threat to peace. Are you MAD.’
’Israel has been fighting to protect itself, whilst surrounded by enemies, for 60 years. Yet they are still attacked daily. I would like to know what you would do if extremists lobbed missiles into your home day after day.’

You claim:

‘Mate I'm reasonably happy with the state of affairs. I would suggest that the whining is coming from you.’

Now you show me my whining?

You really are behaving the blustering clown with such outlandishly incoherent and demonstrably false comments.

Iran may be a dictatorship but its far from unstable … as you claim. It could be claimed logically it is far more stable than Israel as it doesn’t indulge in military attacks, invasions and illegal occupations of it’s neighbours. Unlike Israel it at least confines it’s dictatorial ambitions to inside it’s own borders and media comment.

The mess Israel has exacerbated will only be solved when Israel gives up its claims to the illegally occupied Palestinian territories. But you’ll never agree with that.

Israel may be a democracy in name but it is ruled currently by a coalition, in fact I’d go so far to say it is now very much a one party state. The electors really have no choice when it comes to Foreign Relations and Defence.

Just where are you getting your information on Iran? It is quite wrong and if you were to read a bit more widely you’d have a less propagandised view of Iran, how it functions and it’s people. You really do need to open up your mind to the way we liberal democrats in the west think.

Reagan is one of my heroes. He didn’t just warn people about communism…he defeated it when he won the cold war. He was much more liberal than you think. And his opinions on the Mid East would astonish even you.