Originally Posted by radind

We are dealing with an ambiguous situation since Iran refuses to cooperate with the IAEA,
I would not have an issue with Iran developing nuclear power. But you cannot know where they will stop and Iran continues to fan the flames by making threats. It seems to me that one must be prepared in case Iran is serious about their threats.
I don’t want another ‘war’. I was opposed to the Iraq invasion and opposed to nation building in Afghanistan.
Iran could open up and put an end to the speculation, but chooses not to. Just as Russia could help, but chooses not to.
If Iran does proceed to develop a nuclear weapon, I expect that there would be a major Middle East nuclear arms race.
Given the level of uncertainty, the USA must remain vigilant and prepared to respond as necessary.

Since we have been the only ones to ever have actually incinerated thousands of people with an A bomb, I wonder if we would allow another country to come and inspect our arsenal?

I will post later about other reports explaining why Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Even the secretary of defense, Panetta, has indicated that often over looked information.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

I know that Iran has been an obsession of U.S. imperialists for the better part of a century (and British ones for a century before that). I also know that the last false WMD scare was used to advance the Twin Pillars strategy for controlling the Middle East.

I also know that U.S. propaganda is powerful, and that a majority of people will believe what they are supposed to believe, despite any lack of evidence or serious claims coming from credible people.

The "best case" result of "we'll see" would involve another massive US invasion, hundred of thousands dead, large cities reduced to rubble. The worst case is that Russia and China have already drawn a line in the sand, and those who see the goal in their sites have become blinded to the true risks of this road...

Sorry, but none of that has anything to do with whether Iran decides to make a bomb.

Maybe you don't know about the process. This may help -

Last week's report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicated Iran had significantly stepped up its enrichment operation, adding centrifuges used to process uranium at its Natanz and Fordow facilities and producing far greater quantities of 20% enriched uranium.

If Iran continues to enrich uranium to that level at the current expanded rate, nuclear experts say Iran would have enough material to further enrich to make a crude bomb, at the very least, by early next year. To do so, Iran would have to go another step and further enrich to the 90% level to make weapons-grade uranium, but analysts believe that is not a technically difficult achievement for Iran.


Government officials as well as nuclear scientists and experts agree the most difficult part of the enrichment process is getting to the 20% level. Achieving 90% enrichment would be much quicker and easier. Although one expert said it could take as little as a couple of weeks to enrich to weapons grade, several nuclear scientists said it would most likely take two to three months. The greater the quantities of lower-enriched uranium, the less time is needed to produce weapons grade.

IAEA inspectors visit Iran on an average of once every two weeks. As the time frame for making fissile material shrinks, Iran potentially could take the next step and produce weapons grade uranium during the weeks when the IAEA inspectors are not in country.

Further -

Government officials and nuclear experts agree that developing fissile material - in this case, weapons-grade uranium - is the most difficult and time consuming part of the process to make a deliverable nuclear bomb. Developing an explosive mechanism and a delivery system for a nuclear weapon is less complicated.

Have they made enough low-enrichment material to make enough high-enrichment for a bomb? Yes
So they have already done what is considered the hardest step? Yes
Could they take the next step without our knowledge? Yes

Have they/will they? Only they know.
Do I personally think they're building the bomb? Yep

Will anything you've brought up deter them? I doubt it, but only they know.

Does their attempting or getting the bomb justify our going to war with them? I personally don't think so.

Does that justify Israel going to war with them? Not my call.

Do I have any skin in the game? Yep, my son is a US Marine.
Do you? I doubt it.

I guess we just go to war over what they might do?

Panetta: Irannot building bombs yet – USATODAY.com


WASHINGTON (AP) – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb ...

Originally Posted by Weave

Looks like the meme that Repubs are demoralized isnt quite true...seems the Dems lack voter enthusiasm more than the Repubs, a huge change from 2008. In 2008 it was Repubs were at 44% enthusiasm during the primary, now the Dems are at 44% the Repubs are at 53% and will rise once Romney is the nominee.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/153038/GO...nthusiasm.aspx

High gas prices, faltering economy this summer wont help Obama.....

Ah, the GOP is in the most heated primary race in a long time, and the Dems are yet to pay attention since there's no doubt who their guy is, and your hanging your hat on enthusiasm polls??? Worst, you're looking to Romney to stir up enthusiasm. Really? Have you been paying attention?

Whatever you're smoking, you really should share.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Ah, the GOP is in the most heated primary race in a long time, and the Dems are yet to pay attention since there's no doubt who their guy is, and your hanging your hat on enthusiasm polls??? Worst, you're looking to Romney to stir up enthusiasm. Really? Have you been paying attention?

Whatever you're smoking, you really should share.

Its no more heated than in 2000 with Bush vs McCain or 1980 with Reagan vs Bush or 2008 Hillary vs Obama. Romney has the moderate Repubs locked down, he is lacking with conservatives. We will rally around him given the disatrous choice of another 4 years with Obama. If the Enthisuasm is 53% now with a "heated" primary then its going to go much higher once Romney can focus on Obama.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Since we have been the only ones to ever have actually incinerated thousands of people with an A bomb, I wonder if we would allow another country to come and inspect our arsenal?

I will post later about other reports explaining why Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Even the secretary of defense, Panetta, has indicated that often over looked information.

Panetta says not yet. What do you think about the threats from Iran? I say be ready they may be serious.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Do I have any skin in the game? Yep, my son is a US Marine.
Do you? I doubt it.

Ridiculous, do you end all of your writing with a non-sequitur? I don't need a blood relation to care about someone's life, and right now the threat posed by the US against the Iranian people is a hundred times more serious than any threat Iran poses against American soil.

And yes, low-enriched uranium can be used to make a crude bomb. It is also called "reactor grade" because almost all of the world's nuclear power plants use low-enriched uranium. So we can't just say they have a right to use nuclear power or pursue science, and then say they can't enrich uranium, or that they can only enrich it to X%!

Originally Posted by playwrite

Ah, the GOP is in the most heated primary race in a long time, and the Dems are yet to pay attention since there's no doubt who their guy is, and your hanging your hat on enthusiasm polls??? Worst, you're looking to Romney to stir up enthusiasm. Really? Have you been paying attention?

Whatever you're smoking, you really should share.

There is in fact a good piece in today's NY Times about how good Romney's campaign is at whipping up negative enthusiasm. You can already see from his comments about Obama that he's going to run one of the most abusive campaigns in history if he's nominated. And remember, FDR did not have to do that--he just had to offer hope for the future.

Originally Posted by radind

Reduced oil prices would be nice, however I am more concerned about potential conflicts involving Iran. I don't know what Putin will do, but my sense is that he enjoys seeing the USA in a jam. Although Russia could help , I am not optimistic.

Russia seems to be in for some changes. It may never happen , but I would like to have Russia as an ally.

Russia's presidency: The beginning of the end of Putin | The Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21548941

..."Mr Putin has made extravagant pre-election promises, adding up to as much as $160 billion to the budget, which will push this ratio even higher. His promises include large pay and pension increases for the armed forces, teachers and doctors. In 2012 alone he has pushed through a 33% rise in defence, security and police spending. The federal budget, which in 2007 achieved balance with oil prices at less than $30 a barrel, will soon need a figure closer to $130."...

Originally Posted by playwrite

That is only relevant if one believes the Iranians are NOT developing a nuclear weapon. You buy that? If so, there's this bridge to Brooklyn you might be interested in acquiring.

The IAEA and the various intelligence agencies around the world all buy it.* Really, you're not going to get much better than that.

Plus there's the fact that Iranians seem at least marginally more inclined to take their Magic Sky Fairy seriously than Murkanz do. And according to what passes for the Iranian authority on the matter, even having atomic weapons is a sin. That's tenuous, to be sure. But a concrete sort of tenuous, if you dig.

In any case, the only things of any kind of concrete whose stopping is being proposed are quite clearly related to power generation, rather than weaponry.

And if you want to play 'not taking chances', consider that you are weighing the possibility that known, confirmed, repeated liars on that very subject are not lying this one time against the certainty that the course of action the liars want to take will be the murder of hundred, if not thousands or higher magnitudes of people. Kind of a no-brainer, really...

----
*granted, I tend to take that as evidence against. But ymmv. And the guys claiming loudly the counter-argument have marginally less credibility. You know, Saddam's WMD; Maddox; Gleiwitz, Northwoods, Mainila, etc, etc, etc

Originally Posted by radind

We are dealing with an ambiguous situation since Iran refuses to cooperate with the IAEA.

A lie. Ira_ is cooperating damn near fully with the IAEA. At worst, they could be characterized as 'feet-dragging', since they're not-unreasonably standing on their insistence to know what they are expected to open up, to who, and when prior to just letting foreigners go wandering -- and given the openly-gleefully-murderey tendencies as regards Ira_'s scientists this last year or so of at least a couple governments that consider themselves Ira_'s enemies, nobody has any real business being surprised by that.
In any case, inspectors are allowed access; inspection do occur; and the conclusion drawn from those inspections is clearly that Ira_ has not been, nor is currently developing anything other than a power-generation nuclear capacity.

Iran could open up and put an end to the speculation, but chooses not to...

Another lie. Once again echoing practically word-for-word something said about Ira_ not even ten full years ago.

I wonder what it's like to live life having not even the historical context of recent memory... Everything fresh and new and never-happened-before. It must be exciting (although I imagine sunsets must be terrifying).

Originally Posted by Justin '77

A lie. Ira_ is cooperating damn near fully with the IAEA. At worst, they could be characterized as 'feet-dragging', since they're not-unreasonably standing on their insistence to know what they are expected to open up, to who, and when prior to just letting foreigners go wandering -- and given the openly-gleefully-murderey tendencies as regards Ira_'s scientists this last year or so of at least a couple governments that consider themselves Ira_'s enemies, nobody has any real business being surprised by that.
In any case, inspectors are allowed access; inspection do occur; and the conclusion drawn from those inspections is clearly that Ira_ has not been, nor is currently developing anything other than a power-generation nuclear capacity.
Another lie. Once again echoing practically word-for-word something said about Ira_ not even ten full years ago.

I wonder what it's like to live life having not even the historical context of recent memory... Everything fresh and new and never-happened-before. It must be exciting (although I imagine sunsets must be terrifying).

I don't lie. You are hopeless and seem to have a vivid imagination. History is very important to me .

Originally Posted by Weave

Its no more heated than in 2000 with Bush vs McCain or 1980 with Reagan vs Bush or 2008 Hillary vs Obama. Romney has the moderate Repubs locked down, he is lacking with conservatives. We will rally around him given the disatrous choice of another 4 years with Obama. If the Enthisuasm is 53% now with a "heated" primary then its going to go much higher once Romney can focus on Obama.

Again, you're obviously not paying much attention.

Those previous primaries where between candidates that were both seen as viable and able to fully represent the party in question; particularly true with Obama-Clinton.

For example, outside of a Romney payoff to Paul (or to his son), do you see even a remote possibility of one of these GOP candidates serving in the administration of another. Hillary is Obama's Sec. of State just in case you've forgotten.

The entire GOP primaries have been about Romney not being able to represent the core of the GOP and trying to find an alternative somebody/anybody that would not be completely radioactive in the General. And in doing so, they have made Romney radioactive enough to scare the 'shirt' out of people to get to the polls and stop the insanity. Nothing makes people more 'enthusiastic' than raw fear.

For example, as Alex Castellanos, a pretty accomplished Republican operative, said, "People like sex” and you are now the party that has people fearing you want to take that away. We got the video. You're so screwed.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Ridiculous, do you end all of your writing with a non-sequitur? I don't need a blood relation to care about someone's life, and right now the threat posed by the US against the Iranian people is a hundred times more serious than any threat Iran poses against American soil.

And yes, low-enriched uranium can be used to make a crude bomb. It is also called "reactor grade" because almost all of the world's nuclear power plants use low-enriched uranium. So we can't just say they have a right to use nuclear power or pursue science, and then say they can't enrich uranium, or that they can only enrich it to X%!

I'm not talking about a low-grade bomb. If you bothered to read the article, I'm talking about sufficient quantity of 90% that has no purpose other than to make a bomb more destructive than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined and being able to do so within the two week window between IAEA visits.

You can attempt your own little propaganda spew with words of "low-enrichment," "crude," "reactor grade," "power plants" and "pursue science" but anyone with half a brain understands those are obfuscations to the real issue - will they take the final step - that you have absolutely no knowledge about.

And the fact that I have real skin in the game should bring some credibility to both my concern for Iran developing the bomb and not blowing that concern off because of what some Republican con men pulled off before (which I was against). At least some sliver of greater credibility that just another blowhard at a cocktail party or on a blog taking the opportunity to show how self-righteous he is as he sits comfortable at his desk while kids from other families do the hard work.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

... cooperating damn near fully with the IAEA...

---- but that's the rub, isn't it? A technology that's going on 60 years and they have to hid it? Sure, there's been some improvements, but I seriously doubt anything in Iran wouldn't be immediately recognized by a fresh MIT graduate.

Yea, there's the espionage angle of finding out who's doing what where, but really that isn't already known - I mean know enough to take clandestine action? The occasional news would suggest it is.

It's either a mini-cold war game of chicken or its the real deal. Nobody but maybe a half dozen people in the world know for sure and that could change at any moment and 2 weeks later we get the announcement of success. Then what?

I don't think anyone on this thread is one of the 'lucky six.'

Originally Posted by Deb C

I guess we just go to war over what they might do?

Panetta: Irannot building bombs yet – USATODAY.com




WASHINGTON (AP) – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb ...

Maybe the wisest diplomatic course with respect to the Iranian nuke program is to press the Iranian government so much that it has to become a client state of Russia or China to the extent that either Russia or China can dictate what progress an Iranian nuke program is tolerated. In view of the historical unwillingness of China and Russia (to Soviet times) to tolerate a nuclear weapons program in a client state, such could be a win-win proposition for the West.

Preemption has never been a valid excuse for destructive warfare.

Originally Posted by playwrite

And the fact that I have real skin in the game should bring some credibility to both my concern for Iran developing the bomb and not blowing that concern off because of what some Republican con men pulled off before (which I was against). At least some sliver of greater credibility that just another blowhard at a cocktail party or on a blog taking the opportunity to show how self-righteous he is as he sits comfortable at his desks while kids from other families do the hard work.

Playwrite, respectfully, I do have skin in the game. My grandson is also a Marine. It concerns me greatly that Obama is now flexing his military muscle in regards to Iran and Syria. There is absolutely no proof that Iran is building a Nuclear bomb. None. Yet we have all of this chest beating and refueling the US military machine, again.

We need to move forward very cautiously with an amplified voice of diplomacy, instead of threats and treading the dangerous path that we did with Iraq and Afghanistan. We are no less safe now than before all of this needless blood was shed.

If anyone attacks Iran, it will mean a major war. Honestly, I'm very tired of watching and listening to our so called leaders, who have never been cannon fodder, or even close to a battle field, asking us to sacrifice our kids for their power, prestige and possessions.

If Iran is attacked, I guarantee that it will be a long major war that the American people will pay for in treasure, life and limb. The American Empire is in a state of over reach that will eventually become its demise. And ours.

Originally Posted by radind

I don't lie.

Not saying you do. They're not your lies; you just pass them on.
Inadvertantly, I assume (given that I tend to lean charitable in my assumptions of others' motives).

You are hopeless and seem to have a vivid imagination. History is very important to me.

Then pay attention to it and learn from it. I limited myself in my responses to you to only the most unambiguously noncontroversial documented facts. No imagination necessary.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Maybe the wisest diplomatic course with respect to the Iranian nuke program is to press the Iranian government so much that it has to become a client state of Russia or China to the extent that either Russia or China can dictate what progress an Iranian nuke program is tolerated. In view of the historical unwillingness of China and Russia (to Soviet times) to tolerate a nuclear weapons program in a client state, such could be a win-win proposition for the West.

Preemption has never been a valid excuse for destructive warfare.

You make a lot of sense. Why is it that, people such as yourself, can come up with possible alternatives to war but those in Washington who are supposed to be so darned smart, frequently use the least creative path? And they do it with our money and those we love.

Maybe I'll support war when those who make the decisions, send their loved ones to be the first in the line of fire. Instead, they have safe havens for themselves and their family if America is faced with a blow back from all of our military aggression.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Again, you're obviously not paying much attention.

Those previous primaries where between candidates that were both seen as viable and able to fully represent the party in question; particularly true with Obama-Clinton.

For example, outside of a Romney payoff to Paul (or to his son), do you see even a remote possibility of one of these GOP candidates serving in the administration of another. Hillary is Obama's Sec. of State just in case you've forgotten.

The entire GOP primaries have been about Romney not being able to represent the core of the GOP and trying to find an alternative somebody/anybody that would not be completely radioactive in the General. And in doing so, they have made Romney radioactive enough to scare the 'shirt' out of people to get to the polls and stop the insanity. Nothing makes people more 'enthusiastic' than raw fear.

For example, as Alex Castellanos, a pretty accomplished Republican operative, said, "People like sex” and you are now the party that has people fearing you want to take that away. We got the video. You're so screwed.

He is so radioactive he leads Obama in the Gallup poll 50-46

The most important issue by FAR is the economy

http://www.gallup.com/poll/153029/Ec...ue-Voters.aspx



Keep on deluding yourself....

Originally Posted by Weave

Its no more heated than in 2000 with Bush vs McCain or 1980 with Reagan vs Bush or 2008 Hillary vs Obama. Romney has the moderate Repubs locked down,

Don't be so sure. President Barack Obama is moderate and competent enough that he could draw off some usual Republican voters this time. He has revived the Bush I-Clinton foreign and military policy that has proved cautious and effective. As infamous a trimmer as Mitt Romney is on domestic policy is he might have a difficult time convincing voters that he has a steady hand on foreign policy.

"Moderate" Republicans? Tell me about Olympia Snowe.

Should he endorse the reckless foreign policy of Bush II to placate "conservatives" by saying that President Obama doesn't go far enough, then that links him to something already discredited. That's before I even discuss Rick Santorum who has political ties to the largely-disgraced Dubya.

he is lacking with conservatives. We will rally around him given the disastrous choice of another 4 years with Obama. If the Enthusiasm is 53% now with a "heated" primary then its going to go much higher once Romney can focus on Obama.

Disaster? Just look at the severely-flawed process within the Republican Party for deciding who the nominee is. Those fellows can't even count the votes effectively in their own primary. Unelected Party bosses like Karl Rove and Grover Norquist have inordinate control of the Republican Party and Republican candidates are responsible to them. The Republican Party has all but adopted "democratic centralism" in practice. "Democratic centralism" is the oxymoron for an official description of the practice that ensured that one sort of political party would have no internal democracy and would tend to extreme positions if the highest leadership within that Party so desired. Initials are J S -- and "Bach" does not follow.

You may rally around the Republican nominee -- but so did partisan Republicans rally around Landon in 1936 and Goldwater in 1964 and partisan Democrats rally around McGovern in 1972 and Mondale in 1984, and often with unusual enthusiasm for their candidate and contempt for the incumbent. That was not enough in either election. Moderates, not partisans, eventually decides who wins.

Undoing the economic, military, and diplomatic disaster that was George W. Bush alone establishes Barack Obama as an above-average President. That is before the Obama campaign officially begins -- and takes the formidable campaign apparatus of 2008 out of mothballs.

Oh, by the way -- the most recent polls suggest that if the election were to be held today, President Obama would have a situation very similar to the 2008 result in the electoral college, with Arizona (reversal of the Favorite Son effect) and the four closest states of 2008 (Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, and Florida) much in doubt, essentially 50-50 propositions -- suggesting that little has changed in public sentiment since November 2008. Georgia would be closer... but Republicans will have a tough time winning back either Virginia or Ohio (now perhaps 70-30 propositions, about like Georgia on the other side) either of which would clinch re-election for President Obama. Colorado has become a GOP disaster. President Obama has done what it usually takes to get re-elected to this stage -- achieving promises to those who voted for him, avoiding scandals, getting genuine and sustainable growth in the economy, and improving the military situation, and showing a steady hand in foreign policy.

Originally Posted by playwrite

I'm not talking about a low-grade bomb. If you bothered to read the article, I'm talking about sufficient quantity of 90% that has no purpose other than to make a bomb more destructive than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined and being able to do so within the two week window between IAEA visits.

Fantasy. I understand and see your panic as totally forgiveable considering your abject ignorance of the relevant subjects, but in turn, you should recognize fear-from-ignorance for what it is an at least try very hard not to give in to it.

The difference between 20% pure and 90% pure -- in particular when we are talking not about chemical or even elemental purity, but isotopic purity -- is only conceptually a small and simple thing. And really, not even that. It's like the difference between millimeter-finish and micron-finish. They both can be achieved through "grinding" with a "grinder"... but the thing that can do the one and the tool for the second aren't even close to the same thing.

In any case, the technical questions are really irrelevant to the issue at hand. Simply put, and I repeat from above here: On the one hand, the (admittedly scary) claims made by confirmed, known liars about a subject on which they have been shown to have lied repeatedly and outrageously in the recent past; on the other the clearly-forseeable murder-in-your-name of thousands or more of people who have done no one any harm.

"Gullible" only works for so long as an excuse. Eventually, you have to accept the fact that 'callous' and 'bloodthirsty' are the only descriptors that fit your pattern of choices.

Originally Posted by Deb C

You make a lot of sense. Why is it that, people such as yourself, can come up with possible alternatives to war but those in Washington who are supposed to be so darned smart, frequently use the least creative path? And they do it with our money and those we love.

Maybe I'll support war when those who make the decisions, send their loved ones to be the first in the line of fire. Instead, they have safe havens for themselves and their family if America is faced with a blow back from all of our military aggression.

Maybe that is the process among the sanest figures in American foreign policy.

One of the attractions of the arms-limitations treaties with the Soviet Union even when the thug Brezhnev was in power was that the Soviet Union did not want any of its client states with a strong scientific community -- let us say East Germany -- to gain Great Power status and real independence from Soviet foreign policy by developing nukes. Preservation of a Soviet monopoly on nuclear weapons within the Soviet bloc was good for both the US and the Soviet Union. Both sides of the debate gladly put up the pretense of kicking and screaming. The essence of the deal was that members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact were pressured into pledges of "no new nuke programs", the real bait to make the deal possible. Maybe we could pull in countries like Japan and Australia into the deal and the Soviet Union could pull in a country like Vietnam.

Allowing Iran to have a peaceful program of nuclear research while putting the cut-off switch in Moscow or Beijing might not be the ideal for American neo-cons, but it looks like a workable solution to most concerns.

The least-obedient dog will obey an order to eat a piece of tasty steak.

The piece below probably gleens more than a grain of truth.

Speaking on domestic policies in the US, Ramsey Clark defined America as a“

military-dominated society and the people are unaware of it."

‘Obama will have to back Iran strike to get re-elected’

It is not Obama’s choice to side with Israel for a pre-emptive strike on Iran. However Ramsey Clark believes that Obama will have to support the military operation against Iran for fear that “

if he does not join Israel, that will be too costly at election, and he will lose it.

”

If that is true, he will win an election based on war.

"All those countries have been victims of American aggression because of US geopolitical and economic interests,

” Ramsey Clark said. “Our foreign policy is overwhelmingly driven by the economic power the US has,” he added, comparing military operations to “business exportation.”

http://rt.com/news/obama-iran-syria-assad-599/

For a while I felt as if Obama wouldn't get relected because of the economy. But now I think it would take a miracle from the other side to prevent this, even though things really are not that much better now despite some of the positive messages which have been sent. I understand that this years campaign slogan is going to be "America is back"! This would be a very positive message to send, but for many of us we need more proof before we can really believe it. At least that's the way it is looking from my seat in the bleachers.