Do think the whole "Iran is trying to get nuclear weapons to use" meme has any merit?

[shadowknows69]

Really like to know how DU breaks down on this one.

ETA: Thank you Scarletwoman. To clarify when I say "Use" I meant to imply as a first strike weapon or a deterrent. The existing "propaganda" is that they intend to use it. It was too ambiguous and not enough space in the header to write it that way.

[shadowknows69]

1. Other? I'd like to hear your opinion. I tried to be thorough in this poll

But I know I missed some obvious angle.

[aquart]

2. Other. We don't attack nations with nuclear capability.

Therefore it is only common sense for any reasonably nervous nation to step up production of nuclear arms. And I think being included in Bush's "axis of evil" made the nervousness completely reasonable. Bush was an idiot on so many levels...we aren't used to stupidity with complexity and depth.

[shadowknows69]

4. Well said and good one aquart.

[bananas]

27. So your answer is "Yes".

And your statement about "We don't attack nations with nuclear capability" is wishful thinking.
The US and USSR almost engaged in Mutally Assured Destruction by accident several times.
Martin Hellman estimates the failure rate of deterrence at roughly 1% per year www.nuclearrisk.org

Iraq had chemical weapons in the 80s, that didn't stop us from attacking it in the first gulf war.
It wouldn't have stopped us if they had nuclear weapons.

There are many cases of attacks on countries which have nuclear weapons.
Argentina attacked Britain when it attacked the Faulklands.
India and Pakistan have numerous border clashes, and they threatened to go nuclear a few years ago.

This is also true of other weapons of mass destruction.
Iran and Iraq both used chemical weapons against each other in their border wars.

The famous Doomsday Clock considers nuclear weapons more dangerous than climate change http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview

In his Senate appearance last year, Al Gore placed global warming "alongside the potential for some nuclear exchange" as a challenge "that could completely end human civilization" and pointed out "as one strategic analyst in the Pentagon wrote in a landmark study of why Pearl Harbor wasn't presented he said 'we as human beings have a tendency to confuse the unprecedented with the improbable; if something's never happened before we tend to think, well, that's not going to happen', the problem is the exceptions can kill you and this is one of them". http://www.prmia.org/Weblogs/General/Odette_Gregory/2009/02/risk_perception.php

Even a small nuclear war can result in severe climate change: "Nuclear war between India, Pak could spell climate disaster" http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/Nuclear-war-between-India-Pak-could-spell-climate-disaster-Report/articleshow/5501247.cms

[bananas]

29. "It's sheer damn luck that we have succeeded as a world in surviving...a major nuclear catastrophe"

The 230-page report can be downloaded from www.icnnd.org

http://www.sabanews.net/en/news204132.htm

Risks of nuclear catastrophe are "real" - weapons expert
25/January/2010

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 25 (Saba) -- Professor Gareth Evans of Australia on Monday warned that the risks associated with existing nuclear weapons, including the risk of nuclear terrorism, are "real" and that it is "sheer damn luck" that a nuclear catastrophe did not happen since World War II, according to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).

Evans, co-Chairman of the International Commission on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (ICNND), presented the December 2009 report "Eliminating Nuclear Threats" during a press conference and warned that "the risks associated with existing nuclear arsenals ..., with new countries joining the list ..., with nuclear terrorism, are real".

"It's sheer damn luck that we have succeeded as a world in surviving ... a major nuclear catastrophe since 1945. It was not a function of good policy or anything else rather than luck," he added.

He noted that the world has come "hellishly close to a (nuclear) catastrophe on many occasions during the Cold War, which only now are beginning to come to light after all these years".

He warned that one "cannot make any assumption at all that the status quo will continue, that we can live with 20,000 or more nuclear weapons without (the risk) of nuclear catastrophe".

<snip>

The 230-page report, the most comprehensive of its kind yet produced, is the unanimous product of an independent global panel of fifteen commissioners, supported by a high-level international advisory board and worldwide network of research centres.

<snip>

[shadowknows69]

3. Should I include India in with Pakistan. I know we don't consider it as potentially "unstable"

But if India and Pak ever go at it, it would be a colossal shit storm too.

[Hippo_Tron]

5. Nothing is certain, there's always some probability that they want to use them

But I think most serious analysts believe that probability is a small one.

[shadowknows69]

7. I suspect, like the elite in this country. The leaders in Iran

Wouldn't so gladly condemn themselves to annihilation along with the radical followers they talk into blowing themselves up. True faith seems to dwindle the more worldly power one gains, in my limited experience anyway.

[Hippo_Tron]

13. Iran's leaders don't talk anybody into blowing themselves up (that I'm aware)

But if you're talking about Al Qaeda's higher ups then yes I would agree. The leadership would never be willing to sacrifice their own lives for the cause.

[shadowknows69]

16. I meant Iran's support of terroist organizations and our own DOD's claims

That they were mucking about in Iraq and even Venezuela at one point. Because they're tight with Hugo and all.

[Hippo_Tron]

18. They probably are mucking around in Iraq

If you had chaos on your border, would you not be inclined to intervene?

[shadowknows69]

21. We have on theirs from Iraq so yeah, why not?

And I have no doubt Iraqi insurgents get weapons from them, because that's what an occupied people do. Take help from anyone.

[shadowknows69]

19. Iran was more closely tied to Hezzbollah aren't they? I know we'd love them to be buds with AQ.

But I doubt its the real case.

[Hippo_Tron]

23. Yes they are friendly toward Hezbollah, they aid Hamas as well

Hamas is a Sunni organizations so there are different points of view among their members about whether or not they should be accepting aid from Iran. Al Qaeda is an extremely militant Sunni organization who is definitely hostile to Iran and vice versa. Iran, I believe, actually provided us intelligence to help us with Afghanistan in 2001 because it was good for them to get rid of the Taliban and Al Qaeda's safe haven.

I guess your point is correct if you consider aiding groups who use suicide bombers to be the same thing as using suicide bombers. I was noting the difference in that Iran does not, itself, use suicide bombers.

Also I would add that terrorist organization is really just a label that those in power brand on resistance groups that they don't like. I don't sympathize with Hamas or Hezbollah because they're governed by a bunch of 13th century religious nutjobs. But the ANC was also named a "terrorist organization" by the Apartheid government and the rest of the world for quite some time. The Contras in Nicaragua would've been branded a terrorist organization but they were on our side.

Resistance groups or "terrorist organizations" aren't inherently good or bad and arming them isn't inherently good or bad. In the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, I don't think they are a good resistance group by any means but the United States has certainly armed equally reprehensible groups in the past.

[Iggo]

6. To be honest, I vacillate over "Yes, they have every right"...

...and "Yes, Israel and Iran should both disarm."

And I think it's because I have a feeling both are true.

Back when I led a certain life and before I was a convicted felon, I had every right to own a gun and still I knew that I and everyone else around me was way better off if I didn't.

So I didn't.

I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it's hard to totally subtract my life experience from the way I feel about the bigger questions in life.

[shadowknows69]

10. Heard Iggo. Thanks for sharing that.

Frankly, I wish we'd never invented the damn things in the first place. Throw all the WWII arguments you want at me DU, but I think it's pretty clear that we're not an evolved enough species yet to hold the keys to our own destruction. Weapons that exist get used. Somehow. Somewhere. The only uncertainty in my mind is the when.

[stray cat]

8. Iran leadership is utterly peaceful and has great civil rights and only threatens to burn

its neighbors in hellfire as a gesture of peace.

[shadowknows69]

12. So I take it you voted for one of the yes answers?

Thanks for the editorial as well. Make sure you check under your bed every night for the terraists.

[scarletwoman]

9. "to use" how? If you mean "to use" as a deterrent against attack, that's one question.

If you mean "to use" as in unilaterally dropping a bomb on another country in a first strike, that's another question altogether.

I believe the answer to the latter question is, absolutely not. Iran's government isn't suicidal, and positing that they would engage in a first strike is absurd and paranoic fear-mongering.

The answer to the first question is, it would be a rational act to acquire nuclear deterrence, and I believe they have that right. Even so, considering that Iran's Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against acquiring nuclear weapons, one ought to at least consider taking them at their word.

Your poll questions also do not clearly define which "use" you mean.

sw

[shadowknows69]

14. Yeah, I realize I left that one kind of ambiguous. Sorry.

I think further answers sort that out. I intended to mean it as both technically. Thanks for calling me on it SW. Sincerely.

[scarletwoman]

22. Thank you for responding so graciously.

Honestly, it was not my intent to "call you out", I was really just looking for clarification. :) And I thank you for providing it, both here and in your OP.

Btw, I voted "Yes, but they have as much right to have a nuclear deterrent as Israel, Pakistan and India."

Peace,
sw

[stray cat]

11. Where is other: Lets just give them nuclear weapons because we know they love peace?

[shadowknows69]

15. Holy shit, do you get paid by the word or your adherence to the script?

[shadowknows69]

17. Ok. I suck at polls. Sorry everyone.

:(

[scarletwoman]

25. Oh dear! Don't be so hard on yourself!

Were I to devise such a poll, I would have stated the question as: "Do you believe Iran is working to acquire nuclear weapons?" And then left the question of "use" within the poll choices.

I think I've attempted to post a poll only once in all the years that the option has been available. It's really not at all an easy thing to do!

Peace,
sw

[timeforpeace]

20. Continuye what we're doing and let them have them and take the chance.

[shadowknows69]

24. Well if we've learned nothing, and we probably haven't

We should know you can't force it at the point of a gun. You can't win hearts and minds by bombing cities to dust, and you can't liberate a people for them, or you get the heartbreaking quagmires we're already in. Yes, Europe was happy to have us help free them from Nazi tyranny, but we let them go back to being Europeans. You can't just park your army in a culture that is 180 degrees from your own and ever expect to be accepted. There will always be a resistance to what is viewed by some as an occupation.

[timeforpeace]

26. Not sure what that has to do with letting them have nukes and taking that chance.

[shadowknows69]

30. I meant in the event we decided to tussle with Iran.

If people think it will just end with a "shock and awe" air campaign I think we're badly underestimating Iran as an adversary. Thanks to Bushco's constant sabre rattling I'm sure they've been taking measures to defend themselves as effectively as possible.

[timeforpeace]

35. I'll try again. You agree we should let them have nukes and take the chance?

[shadowknows69]

36. I voted for choice number four.

[madrchsod]

28. no matter the cost--we must stop the Achaemanid Empire from expanding

[shadowknows69]

31. They've been invading other countries lately?

They're nearly on the edge of their own civil war. I doubt they have the time to worry about wiping Israel off the map right now.

[shadowknows69]

32. Negative recs for what I think is a pretty balanced poll compared to some here?

Get your minds out of elementary school will y'all?

[KonaKane]

33. I ask this of anyone who froths at the mouth about Iran

Compare and contrast Iran and the USA on the following items of concern -

* Number of times given country has used nukes on another nation

* Number of times given country has militarily attacked, invaded and or occupied a neighboring nation or a far away one.

* Number of times given country has overthrown the democratically elected government of the other.

* Number of times the intelligence agencies of a given country has interferred with or attempted to manipulate the government and the sovereignty of the other.


Now....who is the real threat? Who does not deserve to have a nuclear defense like so many other countries do?

[Robb]

34. Other: it doesn't matter a whit.

To say again what I've said before: the White House needs to damage Iran's existing political structure. It doesn't matter which tack does it, they just need it weakened. If Iran continues to stabilize, it will further cement its economic and political ties with Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Turkey, and China. Far too much energy in the hands of, well, not the West.

Conversely, an unstable Iran will provide a weak link in the above chain. It is *not* in U.S. policy interest for Iran to be stable. Right now the formula for that is supporting the opposition and pointing the "OMG NUKES!" finger at them. :shrug: