Why is a nuclear Iran more dangerous than a nuclear Pakistan?

[Toucano]

Or a nuclear India, China, Israel, France or United States?

I'm not advocating Iran develop nuclear weapons, of course, but isn't that cat already out of the bag?

I can't help thinking that this ASSUMPTION that somehow Iran will suddenly start nuking everybody is absurd. Especially considering that the people making that assumption are the ones who called our nuclear missiles (and Europe's) "peace keepers".

For 58 years we've been told that the THREAT of nuclear war maintained peace. Is it such a stretch to think that a nuclear Iran could bring peace to the Middle East?

[mmonk]

1. Because our politicians provide the rules

on such things.

[Toucano]

4. Yes, and peace in the middle east puts a crunch on weapons sales. n/t

[Beelzebud]

2. I'm more concerned about OUR nukes.

Hell they seem to just be able to do cross country trips across America without anyone knowing what they are.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. I think Pakistan is VERY unstable, but Iran has lots of OIL!

Iran isn't anywhere near there yet but it is soaked with oil.

[bdamomma]

19. it is all for the oil in that region, Cheney is all behind this

stupid man, too busy worrying about his money and his oil companies.

[Toucano]

24. I am inclined to agree with that however

France appears to be on board. Russia, China, and Germany aren't moving to stop the saber rattling.

I'm sadly recognizing that the threat to Iran is greater than the power of Cheney.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

34. France has Sarkozy the neocon, another oil grabber

[leftchick]

5. just a hunch but

Israel seems to be the determining factor.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stillcool]

7. Or a nuclear Jordan?

Jordan and US sign new deal (nuclear program)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2993481

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Beats me! I guess because our 'Decider' calls Pakistan an ally and Iran a member of the 'axis of

evil'. And it's either his 'gut' or 'God' that helps the fool decide.

[peacetalksforall]

9. We can't begin to know all that is going on in Pakistan - but I will

not be surprised if our baron-leaders are stirring something up so that they can take Pakistan, also. From the Himalayas to Israel. Every little piece of it.

Water lines paralelling oil lines - all privatized.

[leebert]

10. Brinksmanship

How many times did India & Pakistan nearly nuke each other when their Mexican standoff almost went hot? OK, how about a showdown between Tel Aviv & Tehran with Hezbollah egging them on?

AQ Khan was seriously pursuing proliferation w/ Libya, N. Korea & who knows who else. Are the Persians trustworthy with such tech? I'd feel a lot better about Iran having a nuke program if they weren't such open belligerents with Israel, and the animosity is strictly cultural / theocratic.

[Toucano]

11. Okay. But Israel isn't blameless in the matter.

Why not level the playing field and force both sides to the table?

Mutually Assured Destruction was internationally accepted policy since the Soviets got the bomb. East/West animosity was cultural, theocratic, and economic. No one fired a missile.

Am I supposed to buy this idea that the Persians such demons that they would risk their destruction more than the Bolsheviks?

[leebert]

13. Good question...

Well, what did it take for Pakistan & India almost nuke ea/ other... twice? It took heavy US & Russian intervention to get them both to cool it.

I see the relationship between Iran & Israel as far more volatile than between Pakistan & India in the 1990's. If Iran joins the atomic club, I see it as more likely to destabilize the region than reify a stabilized stand-off. If Iran would drop Hezbollah & publicly renounce the "Push Israel into the Sea" rhetoric, I think there'd be less concern worldwide at Iran's intentions.

As it stands, Iran's surreptitious centrifuge program has been ongoing since the 1990's which IMO belies a certain go-it-alone, consequences-be-damned attitude. It's Iran's prerogative, I suppose, but then isn't Iran a NNPT signatory? What are the penalties for breaking such a treaty?

[Toucano]

17. India and Pakistan came to the brink.

The USSR and the US came to the brink over Cuba.

No one launched.

I'm not saying that MAD is better than non-proliferation. I'm just saying that the people who have always advocated MAD have abandoned it in regard to Iran, and I don't necessarily accept that there is any quality in Iran or Persians that accounts for this change in the conventional wisdom - on the part of those who defined the conventional wisdom.

I don't see the relationship between Iran and Israel as far more volatile because I don't buy the domonization of Iran. They have their interests, like every other state, and seek to protect those interests and prosper. The destruction of Israel is not an actual goal. Threat of war tends to drive oil prices up sharply, which can help when you have a shitty economy. The revolution is wearing thin in Iran and pro-western reforms WERE imminent until they found themselves surrounded by oil-hungry, hostile, military forces that declared them "evil".

Iran signed the treaty in 1970 under it's former puppet government. I suspect they would give the 90 days notice required for withdrawal if a member faces threat to "the supreme interests of its country".

Additionally, I am troubled by the fact that diplomatic efforts to avert a nuclear Iraq have been dishonest. The United States has insisted that they shut down enrichment facilities BEFORE sitting down to discuss shutting down enrichment facilities. That's not an example of sincere negotiations.

[yodermon]

21. Iran & MAD

Good point on Iran and MAD. I think it extends to the meme of "Oh no Iran's gonna supply nukes to terrorists/Hezbollah/etc". If a nuke goes off anywhere in the world, the US would immediately nuke Tehran under the assumption that they had supplied it. It is therefore in Iran's interest to keep nukes out of the hands of terrorist orgs.

The last thing Iran wants is a nuke going off somewhere.

[rockymountaindem]

20. Nuclear standoffs aren't easy to control

I heard one person who was in the Pentagon during the Cuban Missile Crisis say that when they modeled the situation on computer decades later, the simulations predicted nuclear annihilation 97% of the time. The scene with Pakistan and India is little better. So, although we in the US value the ideas of fairness and equal opportunity, often it is when one side dominates completely that stability is easiest to achieve. If Iran felt that it could take on Israel instead of being forced to work through Hezbollah and Syria, that could destabilize the situation in the Mideast greatly. I know you're probably thinking it's already unstable, which it is, but I think a nuclear armed Iran would make it much worse.

[Toucano]

23. That's true, they aren't.

It would be best if everyone disarmed.

But I don't see what is so different about Iran than any other nuclear power.

"If Iran felt that it could take on Israel..."

No nuclear armed state has ever launched a pre-emptive attack just because they had nukes. India developed nukes in 1974 and didn't attack Pakistan despite Pakistan not having nukes until 1998. India developed nukes in a response to a border dispute with China, yet never attacked China.

Relations between Pakistan and India have steadily improved since coming to the brink of nuclear war, and I guess that's part of my point. Balance brought peace.

Iran being "forced" to work through Hezbollah is not desirable, in my opinion. I think it might be vastly more productive if they worked directly with Israel from a position of strength.

Basically, I don't accept the characterization of Iran as international boogie man. I suspect that France, Russia, China, and the United States are more concerned with Iran's oil than a legitimate threat they might pose to peace if they possessed nuclear weapons. I am rejecting the boogie man scenario because it doesn't comply with historical precedent, previous actions, nor policies of those world powers in regard to nuclear proliferation.

[rockymountaindem]

35. You have good points but I have to take issue with your last paragraph

You might not see Iran as an international boogie man, but Iran's neighbors, particularly Turkey, do. So right now, Iran may be nervous but other states in the region feel relatively secure since Iran doesn't have nukes. If Iran gets them, then Iran may feel safer but other countries will become tense and more likely to seek their own nuclear programs, which then turns the whole region into even more of an armed camp than it already is.

[nealmhughes]

27. India's nukes were aimed as much at China as they are Pakistan.

We tend to forget about the bad blood in the 60s and 70s over the Himalayas between China and India.

[OwnedByFerrets]

12. Because,

they are sitting on a bunch of oil.:sarcasm:

[Nimrod2005]

14. Israel

[warren pease]

15. Because you need oil to grease missiles so they slide out of their silos properly?

And Pakistan doesn't have any, so they're exempt from the axis of weevils list?

That's also why diplomacy worked so well with North Korea, while diplomacy is a sure loser with Iran.


wp

[Toucano]

18. Right. No oil in N. Korea. n/t

[cali]

16. Yes, it's a stretch.

I don't particularly care if Iran develops a nuke, but it's a stretch to suggest it could bring peace to the ME.

And the thinking behind the opposition to Iran developing nukes is that it would spur proliferation by setting off an arms race in the ME. Turkey, etc.

[John Q. Citizen]

22. iran isn't building a bomb, at least not yet. The cat you refer to is propaganda.

However, the more knowledge Iranian tecnicions gain, the more likely that at some point the Iranians will be able to produces a bomb.

I can't see how the bush policy of intimidation and massive violence solves the problem of nuclear proliferation. In fact it undermines the whole conceptual underpinnings of non-proliferation.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

25. Because it's less unlikely to initiate nuclear action, of course.

I am not happy about any of the countries you list having access to nuclear weapons.

But I'm a hell of a lot less happy about it that I am about the prospect of Iran having them, because it is, I think, not unlikely that if Iran has them then it will either use them, or supply them to proxies who will use them.

None of those countries, not even China, has a government as immoral and irresponsible as Iran's.

[Toucano]

26. If Iraq has them they will use them or supply them.

What do you base that opinion on? Elaborate if you can.

I think the most immoral and irresponsible government on that list is the United States.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

28. I think you mean Iran...

And to compare the American government unfavourably with the Iranian is laughable.

On every conceivably issue - foreign policy, gay rights, religious freedom, civil liberties, women's rights, crime and punishment, democratic mandate, etc, etc, etc the former is not merely better but immeasurably better, unpleasant as it is. Even a modicum of perspective, and even a small attempt to apply a single rather than a double standard, will make this obvious.

[Toucano]

29. Correct. Iran.

The United States government has deliberately created my death, suffering, and misery across the planet than any in the history of the world.

There is only one standard: count the bodies.

Edited to add:

Despite that, however, I would also not demonize the U.S. government. To do so makes diplomacy impossible.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

30. A misguided standard, I think.

Because it means that the leader of a small country can be very bad indeed without registering on your scale, while the leader of a large one is almost certain to score very highly indeed.

Pol Pot killed about two million people. Other leaders have caused more deaths than that, but that represents one third of his countrymen, which I think makes him a leader even worse than e.g. Stalin, despite the latter's far larger body count.

The only way to compare two leaders is to imagine them in one another's shoes.

I think it's clear that the US would be worse off if it had been subjected to the rule of the Council of Guardians and Ahmadinejad for the last 6 years, or that Iran would be better off if it had had Bush & the Republicans' policies instead of the ones it's actually had.

[Toucano]

31. I appreciate your proportional standard, but

it seems you're only measuring their impact on their own citizens.

Also, it goes beyond the individual personalities. Pol Pot and Stalin were terrible, immoral leaders, no doubt. But the United States government has a substantial and far reaching history of repeated misdeeds regardless of the personality of the individual leader. A consistent pattern exists.

I do not accept that Iran is any more prone to issue a first strike with nuclear weapons if they were to possess them than any other member of the nuclear club. There is no evidence to support that idea other than rhetoric.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

32. I'm afraid you're wrong.

It's not just rhetoric.

:-None of the other nuclear countries is so indifferent to the international community and international law - many of them break it, but none of them, not even China or the US, is nearly as contemptuous of it as Iran.

:-None of the other countries is run by religious fanatics.

:-None of the other countries is actively involved in supporting, arming and encouraging terrorist attacks on civilians.

:-None of the governments of the other countries (except China) wants to see one of its neighbouring states wiped out, and none of them (not even China) would not regard the deaths of millions of people as a moral objection to trying to achieve that.

A nuclear Iran would be a far bigger risk than any of the other nuclear nations.

Don't let the fact that Bush is opposed to Iran aquiring the bomb, or that a US/Iran war would be an even bigger catastrophe, delude you into thinking that Iran would not be relatively likely to use nukes on civilians if/when it aquires them.

[Toucano]

33. Now we're getting somewhere.

Iran is not indifferent to the international community or international law. They are not North Korea. Iran has major diplomatic and economic relationships with Japan, France, China, Italy, Russia, Venezuela, etc. How many UN resolutions is Iran in violation of? How many UN resolutions is Israel ignoring?

The United States is run by a religious fanatic. Just like the fanatic leaders in the U.S., money is more important than principles.

The United States is actively funding, arming, and supporting attacks on civilians in Iraq and probably Colombia. We don't even begin to want to look at the last 25 years. The United States is currently harboring a convicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and is refusing extradition to Venezuela. How many extraordinary renditions did the United States perform this year?

Iran put recognition of Israel on the table in 2003. The "wipe them off the map" stuff is bull shit like "smoke a camel jockey" in the U.S. Totally meaningless. Iran wants to assume it's place as a leader in the region and it will recognize Israel's right to exist when conditions are most favorable to do so.

It has nothing to do with Bush or Cheney, and I'm hardly deluded. The hype is the delusion.

The principal of mutually assured destruction kept the "godless communists" and the "capitalist pigs" from destroying the planet. It's kept India and Pakistan from destroying the planet. It's kept India from destroying China. It will keep Iran from using nuclear weapons should it develop them.

There is nothing inherently more dangerous about Iran having nuclear capabilities than any other country (with the exception of North Korea).