Jed Rothwell wrote:
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
Honestly, I do not see how the US or any what other country can
object to this.
Perhaps the fact that the president of Iran asserted that their goal
is to erase Israel from the map has something to do with it.
Of course I realize he says that, but for that matter so do many
political leaders in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other countries which
are supposedly our allies. Furthermore, Iran cannot destroy Israel using
a gigawatt power reactor.
True. And it's also true that it's not purchase of the reactor that got
the United States and Israel all hot under the collar: It's
construction of an enrichment facility, which certainly can be used to
make the materials needed for weapons. It's that facility which is the
purported target of Israel's alleged plan to drop a nuke on Iran, as
reported in the London Times not so long ago.
They might reprocess the fuel, but I am
confident that precautions can be put in place to prevent this, such as
IAEA observers in the plants. After all, the US and others are
ostensibly willing to sell power reactors to North Korea, which has
acted far more irresponsibly than Iran.
Besides, he is not a fool.
A lot of people would not agree with you on that assertion.
Is Bush a fool? I believe you have said you think so. Do you think
Ahmednejad is particularly better balanced, well informed, and
intelligent than Bush?
Even the ayatollahs in Iran are beginning to pull back from Ahmednejad.
His positions on enrichment and on the holocaust are leading a lot of
people to conclude that he is, indeed, a fool.
He knows that Israel has many nuclear weapons
and would not hesitate to use them if they knew an attack came from
Iran. The only way to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon and avoid
annihilation is to smuggle in one warhead. Nobody could launch a salvo
of them and survive more than a half-hour.
If you are going to smuggle in one warhead, why not just buy one on the
Russian black market? Why bother developing bombs, when they are
available for a few hundred thousand bucks each from drunk Russian
military officers, or possibly, available to anyone who brings a pair of
wire-cutters. (This is called the "loose nuke" problem. Many ex-Soviet
nuclear weapons are secured in weak bunkers surrounded by little more
than rusty barbed wire, guarded by drunk Russian soldiers. The US and
Russia are trying to do something about this, but the programs are
chronically underfunded and delayed.)
- Jed
