Iran Is Now A Top Threat To America

[86Dùde]

They haven't even passed 20% enrichment yet and he's worried about them hurting us. It would be a pinprick for and they'd surely be leveled. It makes no sense.

[86Dùde]

For the idiot who insists on getting his political information from YouTube vdeos.

Which part wasn't true asshole?

[Guido]

Some honesty from Noam Chomsky. (America has about 5 well known public intellectual who are capable of intellectual honesty.)

Let us turn finally to the third of the leading issues addressed in the establishment journals cited earlier, the "threat of Iran". Among elites and the political class this is generally taken to be the primary threat to world order - though not among populations. In Europe, polls show that Israel is regarded as the leading threat to peace. In the MENA countries, that status is shared with the US, to the extent that, in Egypt, on the eve of the Tahrir Square uprising, 80 per cent felt that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons. The same polls found that only ten per cent regard Iran as a threat - unlike the ruling dictators, who have their own concerns.

In the United States, before the massive propaganda campaigns of the past few years, a majority of the population agreed with most of the world that, as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has a right to carry out uranium enrichment. And even today, a large majority favours peaceful means for dealing with Iran. There is even strong opposition to military engagement if Iran and Israel are at war. Only a quarter regard Iran as an important concern for the US altogether. But it is not unusual for there to be a gap, often a chasm, dividing public opinion and policy.

Why exactly is Iran regarded as such a colossal threat? The question is rarely discussed, but it is not hard to find a serious answer - though not, as usual, in the fevered pronouncements. The most authoritative answer is provided by the Pentagon and the intelligence services in their regular reports to Congress on global security. They report that Iran does not pose a military threat. Its military spending is very low, even by the standards of the region - minuscule, of course, in comparison with the US.

Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it. If Iran is developing nuclear weapons capability, they report, that would be part of its deterrence strategy. No serious analyst believes that the ruling clerics are eager to see their country and possessions vaporised, the immediate consequence of their coming even close to initiating a nuclear war. And it is hardly necessary to spell out the reasons why any Iranian leadership would be concerned with deterrence, under existing circumstances.

The regime is doubtless a serious threat to much of its own population - and regrettably, is hardly unique on that score. But the primary threat to the US and Israel is that Iran might deter their free exercise of violence. A further threat is that the Iranians clearly seek to extend their influence to neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, and beyond as well. Those "illegitimate" acts are called "destabilising" (or worse). In contrast, forceful imposition of US influence halfway around the world contributes to "stability" and order, in accord with traditional doctrine about who owns the world.

It makes very good sense to try to prevent Iran from joining the nuclear weapons states, including the three that have refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty - Israel, India and Pakistan - all of which have been assisted in developing nuclear weapons by the US, and are still being assisted by them. It is not impossible to approach that goal by peaceful diplomatic means. One approach, which enjoys overwhelming international support, is to undertake meaningful steps towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, including Iran and Israel (and applying as well to US forces deployed there), better still extending to South Asia.

Support for such efforts is so strong that the Obama administration has been compelled to formally agree, but with reservations: crucially, that Israel's nuclear program must not be placed under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Association, and that no state (meaning the US) should be required to release information about "Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel". Obama also accepts Israel's position that any such proposal must be conditional on a comprehensive peace settlement, which the US and Israel can continue to delay indefinitely.

This survey comes nowhere near being exhaustive, needless to say. Among major topics not addressed is the shift of US military policy towards the Asia-Pacific region, with new additions to the huge military base system underway right now, in Jeju Island off South Korea and Northwest Australia, all elements of the policy of "containment of China". Closely related is the issue of US bases in Okinawa, bitterly opposed by the population for many years, and a continual crisis in US-Tokyo-Okinawa relations.

Revealing how little fundamental assumptions have changed, US strategic analysts describe the result of China's military programs as a "classic 'security dilemma', whereby military programs and national strategies deemed defensive by their planners are viewed as threatening by the other side", writes Paul Godwin of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The security dilemma arises over control of the seas off China's coasts. The US regards its policies of controlling these waters as "defensive", while China regards them as threatening; correspondingly, China regards its actions in nearby areas as "defensive" while the US regards them as threatening. No such debate is even imaginable concerning US coastal waters. This "classic security dilemma" makes sense, again, on the assumption that the US has a right to control most of the world, and that US security requires something approaching absolute global control.

While the principles of imperial domination have undergone little change, the capacity to implement them has markedly declined as power has become more broadly distributed in a diversifying world. Consequences are many. It is, however, very important to bear in mind that - unfortunately - none lifts the two dark clouds that hover over all consideration of global order: nuclear war and environmental catastrophe, both literally threatening the decent survival of the species.

Quite the contrary. Both threats are ominous, and increasing.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...013358391.html

[Cyclone Ranger]

For thirty years, no one threatened them until they decided to build a nuke.

[Cyclone Ranger]

Which part wasn't true asshole?

Probably every word including 'is' and 'the.'

[Cyclone Ranger]

They haven't even passed 20% enrichment yet and he's worried about them hurting us. It would be a pinprick for and they'd surely be leveled. It makes no sense.

They were warned.

[Šñøü†ê®]

Cowpunk, isn't this a great window of opportunity for the zionist terror state to turn over its nukes to the UN as a sign of goodwill? Or do you support those satanically racist psychos having unfair advantages over the natives?

[Cyclone Ranger]

I'm not Cowpunk

[86Dùde]

They were warned.

About enriching uranium to 20%? I don't remember a warning like that.

[86Dùde]

CR did you ever for once consider that anything we do do them will only make things worse for us and that even if we could we're already strung out thin and majorly dented up from a military perspective. Even the pentagram wants nothing to do with this. Your Israel can't do it alone so if we're not willing to help then it ends up being more of a colossal goat fuck in the desert for the entire planet. Don't get pissed at us because it's your beloved president who is the one dragging his feet. What about that shit?

[Cyclone Ranger]

Yes, I considered it. In my opinion, we simply have no viable alternative.

[Cyclone Ranger]

About enriching uranium to 20%? I don't remember a warning like that.

You're assuming the reports you've heard are accurate.

[86Dùde]

Yes, I considered it. In my opinion, we simply have no viable alternative.

So, in an election year with all of Obama's top people saying no and the propensity of shit to go completely wrong you still say yes? The way I see it the war party will eventually make Obama put up or shut so you'll probably get your war because Obama is too arrogant to lose a little face by not looking tough on Iran. At this point he looks like a rudderless ship. The entire situation is loaded for for fail.

[86Dùde]

You're assuming the reports you've heard are accurate.

So you're suggesting that they may be enriching passed 20%? The only reason they would do that is to build a bomb even though we have no proof they're passed that much less have the technology to produce the precisely formed ordnance to create the necessary reaction let alone deliver it.

[Cyclone Ranger]

So, in an election year with all of Obama's top people saying no and the propensity of shit to go completely wrong you still say yes? The way I see it the war party will eventually make Obama put up or shut so you'll probably get your war because Obama is too arrogant to lose a little face by not looking tough on Iran. At this point he looks like a rudderless ship. The entire situation is loaded for for fail.

Dude, it's also possible the sky could fall. It doesn't justify doing nothing but wait-and-see re: Iran.

[Cyclone Ranger]

So you're suggesting that they may be enriching passed 20%? The only reason they would do that is to build a bomb even though we have no proof they're passed that much less have the technology to produce the precisely formed ordnance to create the necessary reaction let alone deliver it.

You're not going to get proof. You just have to make the best guesses you can while millions of lives are on the line.

[Truth Teller]

Answer my question Teller. Why is the OA reluctant to bomb Iran?

Damn it Teller answer the flucking question.

Wait until I actually log in before you start baiting me.

I think it would be wrong to go to war with Iran. Iran is a much larger country than Iraq, and the Middle East is in enough chaos already.

No one is advocating going to war with Iran,we are trying to prevent Iran form going to war with us.

It was idiot assholes like you that facilitated the invasion of Iraq. Now you cocksucking retards are using the exact same logic to perpetrate another, worse disaster. You are incapable of grasping elementary lessons that life is trying to teach. You're fucking hopeless.

TROLL ALERT!

What is this world coming to? God.

I like a lot of the DK's music ,they mean the name in a irony sort of way,not in the way most people interpert it.

I get my information from many sources.

Probably all of them propagandistic.

This just happened to illustrate a point that the US Government has been fucking with Iran for 50 years.

And they've been fucking with us for the last 33 years.

Not to mention what they do to their own people who don't tow their theocratic line, but you obviously don't give a shit about them,just like your fellow isolationists in the 1930's didn't give a shit about the Jews in Nazi Germany.

It becomes our problem if the US preemptively attacks Iran because they arent stupid enough to attack us first.

No one has advocated that ,except as only a last resort.

You are not comprehending history or the situation at hand. You do realize that if we stop threatening Iran, they would probably back off from developing nuclear weapons?

NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN ALERT!

We leave them alone, and leave them to rule their land and go about their lives as they see fit

"Peace in our time"-Neville Chamberlain.

One, that's pollyannish and naive in the extreme, just to begin with.

Two, Iran is the world's leading sponsor of anti-American terrorist groups, and it's simply too risky to allow them possession of WMD under any circumstances, whether you believe they're really just a bunch of honest-hearted Persians who would never equip a suicide bomber with weaponized plutonium if we didn't provoke them or not.

100% agreement.

Nobody can be this naieve.

You are the one being naieve.

Noam Chomsky.

Pol Pot's buddy.

CR did you ever for once consider that anything we do do them will only make things worse for us and that even if we could we're already strung out thin and majorly dented up from a military perspective. Even the pentagram wants nothing to do with this. Your Israel can't do it alone so if we're not willing to help then it ends up being more of a colossal goat fuck in the desert for the entire planet. Don't get pissed at us because it's your beloved president who is the one dragging his feet. What about that shit?

[86Dùde]

You're not going to get proof. You just have to make the best guesses you can while millions of lives are on the line.

But that's just it, millions of lives aren't on the line.They'd have to make the amazing technical leap of getting a bomb together and putting it on a delivery system. It would be a uranium bomb. Millions would not be affected. You'd stand a better chance of a micro meteorite passing through your head than multiple bombs from Iran going off and hurting millions of people. It's stupid.

[86Dùde]

I still find it amazing that you 3 haven't come out and ridiculed your president. He's the 1 holding up your nuclear holocaust.

[GanjaFreebird]

Some honesty from Noam Chomsky.

The words "honesty" and "Noam Chomsky" cannot even be put in the same sentence, I mean, his nose got bigger and bigger over the last 30 years, like Pinocchio's, from bullshiting so much, ever since he defended communist China and Pol Pot. The sad part is that he's actually intelligent enough to know better;