Extreme ignorance about the Middle East is a pronounced characteristic of most Americans, and most Canadians but perhaps to a lesser degree. But deceptive news stories would not be planted so frequently in the North American newspapers if public opinion were not so important. The Israel lobby is strong in both countries. By contrast, the Cuban lobby in the US is strong, but not a factor in Canadian politics (for obvious reasons).

Are you planning to at some point respond to my post at
July 27, 2010 at 2:52 pm, or can I consider this discussion as over?

That’s a lie and I beleive you know it. Most Canadians don’t give a damn how many Afghans their government kills, and you won’t find any criticism of that war in any Canadian media. The only national party, the NDP, to support withdrawal is still hovering in third or fourth place, and the current leader of the Liberals is an Ivory tower hawk who argued passionately for the Iraq war, which is largely why he staged a coup to cancel the planned ndp-liberal coalition. At least two set dates for Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan have come and gone, with no consequence. Canada’s got a fruit basket of a political system which is even more structurally dysfunctional than America’s, it’s just that it’s people are too dumb to care or do anything about it.

Masoud

What retards ‘resistance to immoral policies’ is naivety wielded by a people who are ‘dumb as fuck’.

The majority of Americans who believed, and still do, that Saddam was behind 911–dumb as f**k.

The majority of British who believed the ‘dodgy dossier’ which alleged that Saddam could launch a WMD attack on them within 40 minutes–dumb as f**.

The majority of Canadians who like to brag that their country ‘did not support’ the Iraq war, even though the US could not have freed enough troops for that operation if Canada had not purposefully escalated it’s deployment in Afghanistan for that very purpose–dumb as f**k.

It would be a mistake for anyone to believe that these populations could be reasoned with or otherwise convinced to make their leaders act in any kind of sane or moral fashion. Their just too dumb for that. End of story. Whether or not that hurts your feelings is entirely irrelevant.

Masoud

Well, I think he’s never said – but perhaps has implied – the first sentence. All he has really said is that he thinks Iran implementing the AP would “calm the waters” – whatever the hell that means in the real world. He’s never said for HOW LONG would it “calm the waters”, or what would come NEXT? Or why the Iranians acceptance of the Turkey-Brazil deal – which he has studiously ignored – didn’t “calm the waters”.

In other words, he’s being deliberately vague because he has no legitimate argument. He has some sort of hidden agenda, but I can’t tell whether he’s pro-Israel or just full of cognitive dissonance about an Iran war.

Or he just likes to argue for the sake of arguing. A LOT of people are like that.

A better question: “Should the US double – or quadruple – its costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and hence double or quadruple the amount of taxpayer dollars going to war versus domestic spending – in order to prevent Iran from obtaining technology that could make it capable of building a nuclear weapon if it left the NPT”?

A lot of Americans don’t have relatives in the military. But most pay taxes. If the US electorate knew that an Iran war would probably cost two to four times or more the cost of the extant wars, I think the US electorate would say to hell with that, in preference to domestic spending. Especially if it was made clear that an Iranian bomb couldn’t threaten the US in any way even if Iran had one, and couldn’t really even threaten Israel, given Israel’s second strike capability.

I find it less amusing than irritating. It’s becoming almost troll-like.

I personally don’t find the idea that Iran’s adopting the AP would actually impose any more costs on Iran to be persuasive. That is, Iran already KNOWS the US is full of it. So I think the reason Iran does not currently adopt the NPT is because it already KNOWS it doesn’t matter, therefore why subject its nuclear program to any further intrusions (although you are correct that Iran has to worry about US intelligence, just as Saddam did – justifiably when it was discovered UNSCOM inspectors WERE passing Iraqi info to the CIA).

More importantly, Iran is operating on a quid pro quo basis – give us something, we’ll give you something. But the US is a bully, not a negotiator. So Iran simply said, “OK, screw us once, shame on you. Screw us twice, shame on us.” So they withdrew from the AP and continue to do so. Brill wants them to say, “Screw us any number of times, no shame, no blame.” Why? Because he has this fantasy that the US is NOT interested in regime chance, is NOT interested in attacking Iran, is NOT interested in suppressing Iran in favor of Israel, etc. He can’t point to any reasons for this belief system, it’s just there. OR he doesn’t WANT to point to his reasons for this belief system.

Either he’s closet Zionist who wants to see Iran suppressed in favor of Israel, or he’s just loaded with cognitive dissonance about what the results of an Iran war would be, and therefore can only believe that Iran must comply with any amount of nonsense from the US in order to avoid it.

Either way, we’re not going to get anywhere discussing it with him. He’s impervious. I’m beginning to feel like I’m attached to a Tar Baby.

“Arnold and those who agree with him say the US must live with the bargain they’ve struck. Iran has every right to build “fuel free” nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver them, and then withdraw from the NPT, insert the fuel and launch the bomb. Arnold doesn’t necessarily recommend that Iran push it that far, but he believes Iran should establish the same useful ambiguity that Japan has achieved (though without making any of the additional disclosures that Japan makes).”

Complete ruminant evacuation. While I personally believe Iran’s leadership has no desire for nuclear weapons at all (and in fact, even if attacked, wouldn’t bother developing them even if they could under wartime conditions), the issue is not whether Iran, Japan OR Brazil WANT a “Japan option”, the fact is that the NPT AS WRITTEN AND IMPLEMENTED ALLOWS FOR the “Japan option”. The Additional Protocol was designed and implemented to improve the detection of a nuclear weapons program BEFORE any nation, such as North Korea, could withdraw from the NPT and manufacture nuclear weapons. But the NPT was never designed or intended to PHYSICALLY PREVENT ANY nation from developing and deploying nuclear weapons, which is proved by the cases of Israel, India and Pakistan. It was intended as an “alerting mechanism” to enable the international community to intervene diplomatically and under international law in the case where a nation developing nuclear power decided to make nuclear weapons. Its only “enforcement” mechanism is the ability to refer a country’s case to the UNSC in the event the country in question violates its obligations under the treaty. The UNSC in turn really can’t authorize any actual physical enforcement of the treaty short of imposing sanctions, absent any actual treat to use nuclear weapons against another nation.

It is the FACT that the NPT ALLOWS FOR a “Japan option” that bothers people. But short of developing a dictatorial One World Government, there is no way the international community can change the facts of technology. If you master the nuclear fuel cycle, you can build a bomb. It’s that simple. There is nothing to be done about that, disclosure or no disclosure.

If the international community wants to re-negotiate the treaty, that is their right. So far, even though many nations have signed on to the AP, not all that many have implemented it. So a comprehensive re-negotiation of the NPT would involve probably a decade or more of work. And the Non-NWS would demand more disarmament of the NWS in return.

Further it is a red herring to even discuss the “Japan option” in this context, given that no evidence exists that it applies in Iran’s case, other than as stated above, i.e., it is INHERENT in the NPT. Once again, the bottom line is that there is ZERO EVIDENCE that Iran has or ever has had a nuclear weapons program, aside from a possible nuclear weapons research database. The NPT was NEVER DESIGNED to prevent a country from acquiring the KNOWLEDGE to build a nuclear weapon, but merely to provide a warning if a nation ACTUALLY DECIDED to build a nuclear weapon.

The entire discussion over Iran is the US attempt to extend the NPT beyond what it was intended to do as justification for beating down Iran as a regional influence, and preferably for regime change.

And anyone arguing for “more disclosure” by Iran is inherently allied with that US intention. This means you, Mr. Brill!

“This, Arnold believes, is the only way to keep the US at bay. The US will worry that Iran might already have nuclear weapons or might be able to finish them even after the US attacks – even if it takes another full year. He even speculates that Iran may already have progressed this far, and that that is why the US has not attacked it.z”

And I disagree with Arnold on those points (to the degree he holds them). I believe Iran will never construct nuclear weapons, even after an attack on Iran, nor do I believe Iran can or will construct nuclear weapons within a short time of being attacked, nor do I believe the US thinks Iran has done so and that this has anything to do with the lack (so far) of an Iran attack.

“If the US attacked, it wouldn’t muddle around on yet another “regime change” crusade. It would understand that the attendant delay would only increase the risk that Iran would finish up and deliver a nuclear weapon. And so the US would pummel Iran, quickly and forcefully, pausing for breath just briefly to give Iran a chance to surrender. And Iran would surrender, within two or three weeks at most.”

The first part of your point is probably correct. For strategic and tactical reasons, any US attack on Iran will probably be massive.

The second part, that Iran would surrender within a few weeks, is ludicrous. It completely ignores Iran’s political and social nature and history. While the US could no doubt easily damage Iran’s economic and physical infrastructure, to say nothing of its conventional military forces, within a couple months of aerial and naval bombardment, the notion that Iran’s political leadership would just surrender is just nonsense. That leadership is not Saddam Hussein. No lessons about the outcome of an Iran war can draw on the Iraq war because the situations are completely different, both in terms of political, social, economic, and military circumstances.

“As any sensible people in Iran’s situation would do: how many Iranians, after all, will want to accept no electricity, water, fuel, food and medicine, and bombs raining down on their heads, for up to a year while a few determined scientists hunker down in deep underground laboratories, powered by gasoline generators, to put the finishing touches on a nuclear bomb that most Iranians will not want them to finish.”

This is just ridiculous speculation on so many levels. First, as I said, it is unlikely Iran would be trying to develop a nuclear weapons under these conditions because a) it would be too difficult under the immediate circumstances, and more importantly, b) one or more nuclear weapons which cannot be delivered are useless – and Iran would know this.

Second, the Iranian population would immediately rally behind the government. One of the most serious problems with a US attack on Iran, as virtually every observer has noted, is that it would definitely turn the mostly pro-American Iranian population against the US in a big way.

“And suppose those die-hard scientists succeed, and manage to lob their feeble bomb at Tel Aviv, or maybe at some US troops in Iraq or Afghanistan? How might the US react to that? Is that reaction likely to improve the lot of the long-suffering Iranians? Is the US likely to acknowledge what a mistake it made and plead for a negotiated settlement?”

And Iran ALREADY KNOWS THIS. If YOU do, then THEY do. The Iranian leadership is not ignorant or stupid. Which is precisely why Iran would not bother to manufacture a nuclear weapons EVEN UNDER ATTACK, as I said above.

“I don’t think the US wants to pull the trigger, but it very well might if Iran leaves it no other way to find out what Iran is up to.”

Once again, THIS IS COMPLETE BULLCRAP! The US KNOWS Iran does not have a “secret nuclear weapons program” and KNOWS that Iran stopped whatever “nuclear weapons research database program” (which is quite different from a “development and deployment program”) it had in 2003 (if it ever really had one). So the notion that the US is somehow dependent on Iran “disclosing more” is just complete nonsense.

You’re truly a pathetic debater, Brill. No amount of careful reasoning makes any impression on your fanatical devotion to the idea that if Iran just “disclosed more”, everything would be just fine. And given your innumerable attempts to ignore the reasoned arguments here and your constant circular reasoning and mantra-like refrain about disclosure, it’s clear that your motivations are something other than seriously discussing the Iran issue.

This is why it’s a waste of time arguing with Brill. He goes round and round and always ends up circularly claiming it’s all Iran’s fault for no “disclosing” (whatever) more but never addresses the fact that Iran DID THAT and got nothing for it. He completely ignores the US trashing the Brazil-Turkey deal and what that implies.

He ignores what he cannot answer, then circles back to repeating “disclose more” like a mantra. He’s not a serious debater.