The overwhelming consensus is that people want fewer posts that just link to interesting things I've read on the internet, but Trita Parsi's article for The Nation outlining eight principles for thinking about Iran is too good not to link to.
« Obama: Generational War! | Main | Our Mystery Aid »
Iran Assumptions
07 Nov 2007 05:38 pm
Comments (24)
You should post the most interesting paragraph from the articles you link to, and put a [More] link at the end of the quote.
I too appreciate the short, linky posts. They can't take much time to write, and those who don't like them can skip them, so keep them coming.
I also am in favor of the short posts with links to experts. In this case, though, it sure looked to me like there were only 7 principles there and not 8, unless one wasn't numbered or specified.
I think the Klein compromise -- where there is a sidebar that includes your del.icio.us feed or some such -- is a good one.
Size doesn't matter, Matt. It's the quality that counts.
I am not sold on which way to handle Iran by any side. Attacking Iran certainly has serious serious problems. Making a grand bargain with the Mullas also has serious problems. Isn't that the same strategy that we used with the gulph state dictators that led to the rise of al-qaida and hated against america? Wouldn't such a bargain turn the Iranian people against us as well?
Some other thoughts
1.
"Iran often conceals its real objectives behind layers of ideological rhetoric, with the aim of confusing potential enemies and making its policies more attractive to the Muslim nations it seeks to lead. At times it even simulates irrationality as an instrument of deterrence, the calculation being that enemies will be more reluctant to attack Iran if Tehran's response can't be predicted and won't follow a straight cost-benefit analysis."
I think this is not so obvious a point, especially comming from a regime that buries women up their heads and stones them to death for adultery
http://indymedia.ie/attachments/aug2006/sangsar.jpg
and hangs teenagers for being gay.
http://www.farisqc.observationdeck.org/farisqc_images/hanging.jpg
These are not simply rhetorical signs of irationality.
Not to mention their former president contemplated nuking Israel and stated he did not see mutually assured destruction as a deterent. Is this just rhetoric? Certainly a large gamble considering the cost if you are wrong.
"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran."
http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2001/dec_2001/rafsanjani_nuke_threats_141201.htm
2.
"Yet these inspections can only take place as part of a package deal with Iran that includes some level of enrichment. This makes reassessment of the zero-enrichment objective all the more important."
What makes the author think Iran would accept such a deal. This is a conclusion not an argument. What is Iran going to do with the highly enriched uranium we allow it have? How easy will it be to simply throw out inspectors at that point and make a bomb. She is assuming a world of good faith with no precedent.
4.
"an Islamic state that would not recognize Israel and would occasionally criticize it but would not directly confront the Jewish state. Iran and Israel would simply recognize each other's spheres of influence and stay out of each other's hair"
This is just absurd. Iran has created Hezbollah and Hamas. Are they simply going to cut them off? The only way to do this would be to weaken Hezbollah to the point it lacked influence in Lebanon and that simply will not happen.
Dave:
Isn't that the same strategy that we used with the gulph state dictators that led to the rise of al-qaida and hated against america?...What is Iran going to do with the highly enriched uranium we allow it have? How easy will it be to simply throw out inspectors at that point and make a bomb. She is assuming a world of good faith with no precedent...
Iran has created Hezbollah and Hamas...
I see there's someone trying to challenge Chris Ford for the title of Cliff Clavin of the Blogs.
chalk me up as another to vote IN favor of short linky posts. i rarely click through, but it's nice to have the option and nice to get a heads up on an interesting article if it happens to be a subject i want to konw more about.
that said, i also agree that posting a bit of the article itself should be mandatory. i hate that atrios will post pieces in which the entirety of the post is a hyperlinked, "Indeed." that's just rude. i have to click on it just to see what the hell the issue is and half the time it turns out to be somehting i don't care about.
Well, I didn't weigh in because I basically like the blog as is. I suspect this is typical behavior, so your previous responses were probably skewed toward people who want to complain. Or should that be against? Skews confuse me.
That said, I personally could do without the sports stuff, because I'm not interested, and the music stuff, because your taste is crap. But please do make sure to continue keeping us all on edge by occasionally posting something incredibly stupid.
I too like the short, linky posts as well as the longer ones.
Short posts with links are good for me.
I personally prefer long links to short posts.
Re: Not to mention their former president contemplated nuking Israel and stated he did not see mutually assured destruction as a deterent. Is this just rhetoric?
Yes. It wasn't followed up with an act of war was it? That means it was just rhetoric. Good grief.
And for some perspective: Ronald Reagan once joked about nuking the USSR, Krushchev said he would bury us, and Mao mused openly that China had so many people it could sustain a nuclear attack and still survive. If people had taken all those satatements with the same bellicose extremity the Neocons insist of inflating every rant that comes out of Teheran the world would be a radioactive cinder today.
As an Iranian, I can point out on error in an otherwise great article: Ahamdinejad and co. don't work the masses through appealing to anti-Americanism; poll after poll has shown Iran to be the most pro-American country in the middle east after Israel (around 70%). They work through making people fear an invasion and Iraq-style post-invasion chaos. The irony is had the US attacked Iran first, Iran would have probably been a functioning democracy right now (maybe the old shah's son would be put back into place for ceremonial reasons) and Iraq would have much less chaos. Just throwing it out there.
Dave: "Not to mention their former president contemplated nuking Israel and stated he did not see mutually assured destruction as a deterent. Is this just rhetoric? Certainly a large gamble considering the cost if you are wrong."
This is an entirely incorrect reading of the statement made. In fact the statement made is exactly what I have been saying here and elsewhere for some time, to wit: that if Iran or other Arab powers had nuclear weapons, the US and Israeli policy of regime change could have to be taken off the table, because Israel cannot absorb a first strike, even if it has a second-strike capability. His statement has nothing to do with any notion of conducting a first strike on Israel ABSENT the immediate threat of an attack on Iran.
This was not Rafsanjani "contemplating nuking Israel".
Not to mention yet again that Iran has no nuclear weapons program at this time, nor is there any real evidence that Iran wants nuclear weapons.
Dave: "How easy will it be to simply throw out inspectors at that point and make a bomb."
Not easy at all.
Not to mention that "throwing out the inspectors" would be a big red warning sign to the rest of the world.
AFTER that was done, it would take the Iranians at least a year - even assuming they actually had the plans for a functioning nuke AND a delivery system - to process enough uranium to make ONE bomb.
And well within that time, the international community could take whatever steps were necessary to stop them from doing so. They could even ignore the fact that ONE BOMB is basically a waste of everybody's time, since it's only possible function would be defensive in the sense I have indicated - that it would only be used if Iran were under attack.
Israel has at least 100 and possibly up to 400 nuclear weapons - not to mention the US arsenal which also would come into play. If Israel or the US even thought that Iran actually HAD a nuclear weapon and was even HINTING at the thought of a nuclear first strike on Israel, Israel would nuke Iran so fast your head would spin.
Iran is not going to attack Israel with a nuke. It's a fucking fantasy.
Period.
Dave: "Iran has created Hezbollah and Hamas. Are they simply going to cut them off? The only way to do this would be to weaken Hezbollah to the point it lacked influence in Lebanon and that simply will not happen."
Iran could easily cut off Hizballah and Hamas. The latter is not relevant anyway since it is likely that Hamas doesn't get that much support from Iran, but more from Syria.
As for Hizballah, it is a Lebanese nationalist resistance force - not a puppet of Iran. They get a lot of support from Iran, of course, but Iran has stated in the past that Iran's national interests come over Hizballah's (and Nasrallah has said vice versa.) If Iran thought a "grand bargain" would be in their interest in securing Iran from regime change by the US or Israel, and allowing it greater influence in the region, they probably would severely reduce their direct support of Hizballah.
In any event, it is irrelevant because Hizballah could function quite well without Iran. It might take them longer to build up their arsenal after a fight with Israel, but that's about it.
Good post--we need more info and less hysteria on Iran. On posts, short and linky is good for me to. Ditto godoggo on skew.
The Lady Trita is wrong on one thing: Iran is inherently anti-American.
Not quite. To Iran anti-Americanism is a means, not an end.
Not quite, and, quite back at her - A foundation of the Islamic Revolution is anti-Americanism. "Death to America" chanted by rote the last 28 years every day - is not without meaning. When a duck quacks anti-American, walks anti-American, engages in sporadic killings of Americans, most recently in Iraq....you have an anti-American duck.
And for some perspective: Ronald Reagan once joked about nuking the USSR, Krushchev said he would bury us, and Mao mused openly that China had so many people it could sustain a nuclear attack and still survive. If people had taken all those satatements with the same bellicose extremity the Neocons insist of inflating every rant that comes out of Teheran the world would be a radioactive cinder today.
Posted by Jonf
The difference, JonF, would be if Mao, Khrushchev, Reagan etc. had made one statement about killing off a nation..then they and their successors had regularly kept it up over 28 years, with occasional butchery to show others their commitment to "ill-will".
*********************************
Not to mention yet again that Iran has no nuclear weapons program at this time, nor is there any real evidence that Iran wants nuclear weapons.
Posted by Richard Steven Hack
Lets hope that the Iranians are at least paying Hack for his repetitious shilling that Iran has no nuclear arsenal designs.
However, the facts are that the only things Iran is spending money on in their nuclear program is aspects that have nuclear weapons program utility. Fuel enrichment with no plans or money to build the needed billion-dollar fuel assembly fabrication infrastructure. Nuclear instrumentation electronic control ckts with weapons apps, but no civilian power apps. No money or plans to build and operate their own nuke power plants or train the people to operate them.
And worse, Iran's ICBM program continues. The Shahab-3b has a 1-ton inertial guidance warhead that can reach lower Germany, Parts of India, Egypt. But with only a 5Km Circle of Error probability. The utility of that weapon is almost non-existant for conventional 1 ton worth of HE that will fall God knows where in or around a city.
And Iran has tested an ISIS solid fuel booster that is to be mated to future ICBMs - the Shahab-5 with a 5,000 KM range and the 3 stage Shahab-6 based on the NORK Taepdong missile that can hit anywhere in the US and may be operational by 2010.
But, obviously, just as Iran's pell mell rush to get long range missiles is militarily useless if they plan on a TNT warhead - such missiles become a military deterrent when Iranian nuke bombs are the intended cargo.
Only if you assume that Iran wants nuclear tipped missiles does the billions they have put into SRBM, Cruise Missile, MRBM and ICBM development make sense.
Dave: "How easy will it be to simply throw out inspectors at that point and make a bomb."
Hack as Iranian spokes man : Not easy at all.
Not to mention that "throwing out the inspectors" would be a big red warning sign to the rest of the world.
Just like Saddam throwing out the inspectors and refusing to let them in until a 250,000 man invasion force forced his partial cooperation was a big red flag he had WMD and nefarious intent, Hack?
I wrote in favor of the long posts, but that doesn't mean I don't like it when you put up a one liner with links. I argued in favor of your consciously setting aside time to do focused research for specific longer posts, but hell, if you read something really good, no harm in the 2 minutes to link us all to it!
"Only if you assume that Iran wants nuclear tipped missiles does the billions they have put into SRBM, Cruise Missile, MRBM and ICBM development make sense."
For whatever reason, many of Israel's enemies enjoy dropping poorly guided conventional explosives on it. That explains the SRBMs and MRBMs. You may claim that it is an illogical pursuit, and I would agree, however, it is empirically an acceptable explanation.
Iran's cruise missile program is primarily an anti-ship missile program. This is very well documented and monitored.
Unlike N Korea, Iran is not concentrating on an ICBM. Concern about a possible Iranian ICBM stems from Iranian efforts to develop a capacity to place items in orbit. Obviously, a capacity to build ICBMs would be a by-product of such work, however, nuclear weapons are not a necessity to justify an orbital space program.
Obviously none of this is proof that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, but it does invalidate your premise that Iranian missile research necessitates an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Is there a reason everyone is referring to Trita Parsi and a woman?
Comments closed November 21, 2007.
| 
Heads in the Sand
I'm a huge fan of your long posts. I like your short linky ones too, so definitely don't self-censor on that side.
Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | November 7, 2007 5:43 PM