Posted on 04/30/2018 10:31:31 AM PDT by Mariner
Israel has had nukes for decades. It’s not a very well-kept secret.
The difference is, Iran wants to dominate the world. Israel only wants a sliver of land between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean.
Yep. Troll is busy this morning too.
Verified
As he shut down till time to dust Great China, Mike said thoughtfully, "Man, I don't think we had better hit that mountain again."
"Why not, Mike?"
"It's not there any longer."
From "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress".
Don’t give a rat’s patootie about Russians with nukes; if they were ever going to do anything with them, it would have been Nikita setting them off. I pooh-poohed them throughout the latter decades of the Cold War; NEVER buying into the media-pushed notion that “those crazy Russians” would push the button on any given day. I remember the left wetting their BVDs over Reagan: “That trigger happy cowboy’s going to get us into a nuclear war!”
It was bullshit then; it’s bullshit now.
The Russians running that country today haven’t forgotten the Cold War years; as tough as it is economically, they’ve little desire to return to having their storefronts look more like those in Venezuela. If they think they need to accomplish something militarily in the world, they’ll do it the way we do: conventionally.
China has since their acquisition of nuclear capability, entered into FAR more massive and active participation in the global economy, and their fortunes — and their muscle — lie very much more along the lines of working that angle than anything else. And they know it. Their ideology remains concerning, but — considering that the bloody, top-down imposition of communism has interrupted a centuries-long pattern of successive upheavals wrought by warring dynasties coming and going, replete with the requisite burning and pillaging — the now-lengthening era of Chinese domestic peace, though not unblemished, is actually welcomed as a refreshing change of pace. China is an historically fractured, and fractious, country, and their present relief from that pattern leaves them ill-disposed to ruin the present calm over any but the most egregious of external aggression.
Of the trio you mentions, it’s only Paki’s who are concerning. On that front, the concern is not in stasis, but increasing, as Pakistan becomes less and less aligned with past Western interests. If that Muslim State was ever in the “ally” category, that status is nearly worthless at this present hour, and their transition through the DMZ of “neutrality” is in progress as they come into alignment more and more with fundamentalist Islam.
The Great Iranian Nuclear Heist
I think generally your analyses is correct. My point is — we have no right to tell any other sovereign nation what they can do anymore than those bastards can tell us what TO DO unless we are just a bunch of quivering women. With Trump that is not the case. The Russians only have 180 million folks. The Chinese 1.3 billion. It is imperative that we align ourselves with with the Russians to survive any conflict short of nuclear exchange.
Clip:
“Everything the Obama administration told us about the Iranian nuclear program was a lie,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak on record. “They assured us that we knew everything about Iran’s nuclear weapons program, that it was put on ice, and that the intelligence community had full insight into what was going on.”
https://www.israelrising.com/u-s-confirms-authenticity-secret-iran-nuclear/
Mostly I think we agree. I do think there is a prevailing international interest in ensuring that combative states like Iran, which regularly spews malevolent threats against Israel and the West, do not achieve a militarily functional nuclear capability.
How best to do that is open for ongoing discussion, but the elemental goal is sound, in my opinion.
It doesn’t matter what collective global consensus is in Iran anymore than it applies to our country. To free flying hell with “global consensus”. We are a sovereign country with a constitutional republic. Totally reject “global consensus”. Do you think I give a tinkers damn about Germany who have desemated their country with 2 million moslems?? Are you nuts?? Iran did not attack this country like Sunni Saudi Arabia did on 911!!! LEAVE THEM ALONE. Israel and Sunni Saudis are not going to get us in a war with Iran FOR THEIR BENEFIT, Not our lives and Money— but THEIRS!! If that is what they want. Have at Iran with its strong alliance with Russia and actually CHINA ( oil and gas), I dont give a crap what you do— Iran has done NOTHING TO THIS COUNTRY. It is all bs narrative and lies!!
It was Bothan spies who brought you this intel. Of course, many of them died to bring it to you.
Crispy Critter Fried!
Woah, slow down, ...
First of all, as a matter of U.S. policy, we really do have to admit to the reality that — in an age of airborne weapons that can traverse the seas and strike intercontinental targets in a matter of mere hours, the venerable Isolationism of George Washington cannot be maintained. He had the luxury of an entire ocean between our fledgling nation and all the world’s most advanced potential military threats, but that ocean is no significant barrier, anymore. Washington had the luxury of a country that could be self-sufficient, and had few indispensable trade ties; we could fairly safely ignore military cataclysms beyond our shores. That state of affairs has long ago ceased to exist. We’re too tied into the rest of the world to be cavalier about ignoring every overseas conflagration.
With that as backdrop...
A) I didn’t say a thing about “global consensus”; I don’t think there’s a need for consensus on Iran, because I think it is manifest to everyone basis what sort of nation Iran is — how they act, how they talk, etc — that denying them nuclear capability is the right move.
B) I made no carve out or exclusion for Israel. Their national interest in the matter is every bit as pressing as ours, as Iran has regularly spouted rhetoric about destroying them and, slightly less frequently, the U.S. Clearly, both Israel and the U.S. are on Iran’s Naughty List, and if measures against Iran went any farther than global economic sanctions and diplomatic moves, everyone would fully expect Israel to pull their own weight.
C) I didn’t claim Iran had done anything — although they are a known State sponsor of terrorist groups that have done things here and there to ham U.S. interests, but that’s somewhat in the “small potatoes” category — I’m expressly focused on KEEPING them unable to do anything, and narrowly zeroed in on barring them access to the capacity to do anything in the way of nuclear weapons. This isn’t about past Iranian whatever; this is about their ongoing rhetoric as it evidences their perpetual desires, and absolutely preventing them coupling those deeply held desires with the nuclear capability to act on them; they’re bad enough with just the conventional weapons they throw at Israel via their proxies in the region.
NONE of that means I’m advocating the U.S. going to war against Iran.
NONE of that means I give a fig for “global consensus.”
ALL of it means that I observe this modest-sized radical Islamic State continually spitting and fizzing in open disgust at the mere existence of Israel, and repeatedly spewing vitriol about wiping them from the face of the Earth, and following that up with venom directed at the U.S. for being the most staunch ally of Israel on Earth.
I mean — you talk about stirring things up — that’s Iran to a “T”; they’re shooting off their mouths, funneling money and weapons around the region... You want to quash instability in the Middle East, subtract Iran’s destabilizing influence, and you’d see some pretty calm waters, of a sudden.
So, I’m not going to apologize for my clear-eyed position of taking Iran at their word and believing that an Iran possessed of nuclear weapons would in short order unleash them upon Israel. Nor will I retreat from the belief that, if the U.S. were to move to retaliate on Israel’s behalf, Iran would immediately light a thermonuclear fire in the heart of Washington D.C.
There is no nation on the Earth currently in possession of nuclear weapons that shares anything like the threat profile that Iran has crafted for themselves. Iran CANNOT be permitted to gain a military nuclear capability; that is out-and-out lunacy. And whatever measures are undertaken to ensure that they do not must be fully considered. If what is being done today is falling short, then tomorrow’s strategy must be more strict. That is NOT a “rush to war”; it is simply advocating a relentless full-court press on Iran, and I think that can be accomplished without a call to arms.
Your position is well articulated. I simply disagree with your premise. Saudi Arabia is by far, i.e 10 times, the exporter of terrorism that Iran is. But here is our main disagreement. I do not accept telling sovereign nations that have not threatened us ( dont give the “death to America” chant of some crowd in the street) ANYTHING unless I will accept another nation telling us what to do. North Korea has a sovereign right to nuclear weapons. What they did not have a right to do was make an official statement from their dictator ( 3 times after we told them not to) that they would actually use them to attack this nation. Do you see the difference? At that point we had every-right to preemptively NUKE THEM!! That was what is called a “clear and present danger” but we continue to avert our gaze and act like it didn’t happen. I have stated that it is my opinion that that phony fat faced jack ass is trying to play us for suckers. I believe that Trump is smart and watching him like a cowboy with a loaded gun under the poker table but I don’t think this goes anywhere. If you actually believe that NK will ever give up a single nuclear weapon or missile to deploy one you must believe in the tooth fairy, This is all about a bribe and I predict the bribe will be shamefully paid. But I see no threat to this country from Iran real or articulated. We were actually attacked by Saudi Arabia and ignored it!! I would settle that score.
I respect the point you’re making, and — in general — I agree that we have no business bossing other countries around. I’d LOVE it if that venerable ideal were always the best practical approach, because that would mean we inhabited a world filled with nations all disposed to coexist peacefully with each other.
However, when it comes to Iran, I should remind you regarding the overtly anti-American outbursts from former President Ahmadinejad; it wasn’t just Iranian rabble in the streets chanting “Death to America” or “Death to the Great Satan”; that language was coming from Ahmadinejad himself, in very plainspoken variations. Now, with him having left office in 2013, while the open gnashing of high-level Iranian teeth against America has cooled some, I’m disinclined to buy into the notion that this indicates a meaningful change of heart at the highest levels of Iranian government. As recently as March of 2015 Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, was openly calling for “Death to America.”
Were I to contrast that inflammatory rhetoric with the more recent anti-American broadsides emanating from Pyongyang, I have to say that I take Iranian threats far more seriously, because they are backed up by a stronger, more substantial nation.
You argue in favor of a policy that leaves countries like North Korea to go about their own business developing whatever nuclear hardware they may, and bars any U.S. intervention until they actually cross the threshold, and threaten us with them, at which point we have the right (though not a mandate) to preemptively use nukes of our own against them.
The problem with this strategy is that we simply CANNOT descend to the point of an actual nuclear strike of our own; we could never permit ourselves to be pushed to step over the brink. Our response would have to be conventional in nature, and the dire question at that point would be, “Will it be enough?” and that’s a mammoth risk to impose upon the entire world just to take an idealistic, moral high road.
No, it seems to me that there are offsetting moral issues with a policy that lets that sort of precipitous worst case situation develop in the first place. If we can, by acting some other way, prevent such a globally alarming threat from materializing, doesn’t that constitute a moral imperative that we do so? I think it does.
The utter global abhorrence of the prospect of nuclear weapons being ever again actually used — the near-universal attitude of intolerance regarding the aftermath of such an event — these conditions mean that any nation that might chose to “let the genie out of the bottle” would suffer massively negative repercussions of every imaginable sort for years — perhaps decades — following. “Pyrrhic victory” doesn’t begin to describe the downside.
There is NO WAY we could respond to a cocky nation like North Korea with a preemptive nuclear strike — not even ONE, tiny nuclear device — without months and months of hugely negative press, negative economic shocks, disaster on Wall Street, perhaps sanctions, trade embargoes...we could very easily become a pariah in the Earth.
EVERYONE ELSE on the planet, save the U.S. and Israel, has latitude to f*k it up royally and get forgiven in fairly short order after sufficiently copious grovelling on the world stage. WE DO NOT ENJOY THAT LUXURY. The howling jackals of the Earth would just LOVE for us to lose our shit over a pipsqueak like Kim Jong Un spewing tripe about nuking Washington, respond by taking it as a credible threat, and nuke his lard ass to Kingdom Come. By GOD they’d have a FIELD DAY!
Never going to happen. We cannot permit it. Either we consign ourselves to using conventional weapons ONLY to keep ourselves from getting nuked, and take our God-awful chances, OR we put a little muscle to the rogues BEFORE they get that far, and actually PREVENT them becoming threats in the first place.
Frankly, I think the world is ultimately more relaxed with us doing the latter. I can’t imagine the off-scale global panic if the world had to hold their breath and see whether a U.S. conventional strike would be in time, and powerful enough to save Washington getting nuked. I’m sure the rest of the world would far rather not have to live through that sort of scenario.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
You may also find this interesting:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5428/breaking-iran-supreme-leader-death-to-america
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