	Generational Dynamics
	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Jan-06
Europe resigns itself to a nuclear Iran

Web Log - January, 2006

Europe resigns itself to a nuclear Iran

Defiant Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to lead Iran to be the regional superpower, as he incites regional antagonism to Israel and insists on developing nuclear material.

Early this week, Iran broke the seals on its once-secret nuclear facility at Natanz, after a two-year voluntary moratorium on developing nuclear material, and restarted its nuclear fuel enrichment program.

This situation represents a significant political failure for Europe and the UN, and an equally significant vindication of American policy. Following the extremely bitter split between Europe and America over the Iraq war, there was a unanimous desire to handle the Iran problem in unified manner. Thus, America left it to the EU3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- to negotiate with Iran to resolve the nuclear issue.

The complete failure of the EU3 in those negotiations has sent shock waves through Europe, which now faces the possibility of a hostile nuclear superpower on its doorstep. Thus, Europe now has to consider a series of disaster scenarios for international crisis. The gist of these scenarios is that the Iran situation is referred to the UN security council. The various ministers at the Security Council then bloviate for a few days and either do nothing because Russia and/or China wil block any economic sanctions against Iran, or else some economic sanctions are imposed, but they really do nothing to resolve the situation, especially because Iran is rolling in money from oil.

On Sunday, Iran said that the resumption of nuclear research was "irreversible," so only the giddiest politician could possibly believe that anything short of military action will stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Iran says that it wants nuclear development only for peaceful purposes -- to build nuclear power plants -- but many in the international community doubt this since Iran's huge reserves of oil mean that Iran doesn't particularly need nuclear power. Furthermore, Iran kept it's nuclear development project secret for almost 20 years, before exiled dissidents exposed it in 2002.

In fact, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), doesn't believe Iran either. On Sunday he said that he cannot confirm the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program. He added: "And if they have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponization program along the way, they are really not very far -- a few months -- from a weapon."

Thus, we see yet another unstoppable confrontation occurring on the world stage, to add to the mounting confrontation between China and Taiwan, and North Korea's own inexorable nuclear weapons program.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad added fuel to the fire this week by announcing a plan to host a "holocaust conference": A conference to look at "scientific evidence" and determine whether or not the holocaust was "a myth."

On the Sunday morning talk shows, American lawmakers took time off from calling each other names to appear to unite on a policy for Iran.

Moderate Republican Senator John McCain said, "There's only one thing worse than the United States exercising the military option; that is a nuclear-armed Iran. The military option is the last option but cannot be taken off of the table."

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein agreed with McCain that the military option must remain on the table. "Iran has much more opportunity to create devastation in the Middle East than Iraq at this time," she said. "I think it's a very serious threat."

One after another, Republicans and Democrats said the same thing -- Iran is an enormously dangerous international threat, and must be stopped by diplomatic means or, failing that, military action cannot be foreclosed.

It's great to see this love-in between Republicans and Democrats. We haven't seen anything as heartwarming as this since Republicans and Democrats all agreed that we should go ahead with the invasion of Iraq.

It's well to think of this when we see someone like Congressmen John Murtha make an outlandish claim (see previous item, below) that "mounting pressure from constituents in this election year will force Congress" to withdraw from Iraq this year. No such pressure will occur, even in this election year.

America is now in a "generational crisis" period, a time of increasing willingness to use confrontation and retribution for problems, rather than compromise and containment. The same is true for Europe and Israel.

There seems to be no turning back now. Iran will not back down from nuclear development. Period. America and Israel will not back down from a willingness to use the military option. What France and Germany will do is anyone's guess. So it seems that a military strike on Iran will occur.

This appears to be President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's plan, as I've previously discussed. Ahmadinejad seems to me to be following this plan:

Inflame the Mideast Muslims by a continuing series of inflammatory statements about Israel;

Inflame the West by continuing nuclear development;

Goad Israel or America to make a nuclear strike on Iran's nuclear development facilities.

Retaliate in some way unknown to us -- for example, he may provide nuclear weapons to Hizbollah to use to strike Israel.

If possible, trigger a major Arab-Israeli war that would engulf the region. Iran would stay out of this war except to supply weapons, and would come out of the war as the "last nation standing."

Let Iran take its place as the major regional superpower in the entire Mideast region.

This vision of a future great Iran is exactly the kind of plan that makes sense for a youthful, vibrant leader of Iran during its own generational awakening period.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, there will be a major new genocidal Arab - Israeli war, refighting the genocidal wars of the late 1940s. Generational Dynamics also predicts that we're headed for a new "clash of civilizations" world war. As I've said many times, Generational Dynamics tells us what our destination is, but now how we'll get there. We can only look at day-to-day news stories to help us guess exactly what that route will be.

Since the election of Ahmadinejad, we see a new possible scenario emerging. In this scenario, Iran plays a key catalyst role in bringing about the inevitable regional war in the Mideast. Furthermore, we can easily imagine a alliance between Iran and China, linking them together in a new plan to emerge with China the major superpower in the Pacific and Iran the major superpower in the Mideast.

It's a frightening plan, and right now it's hard to see what can be done to stop it. (16-Jan-06) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Jan-06 Europe resigns itself to a nuclear Iran

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Jan-06
Europe resigns itself to a nuclear Iran