US rattling the saber

[Shroom Man 777]

The only occasion on which the Iraqi government used weapons of mass destruction against another country was against Iran from 1981/82 to 1988. The use of mustard agents had a devastating impact on Iranian troops in the first years of the war, and the civilian death toll from the use of sarin and tabun numbers in the thousands. However, it should be noted that the use of chemical weapons was undertaken with the compliance of the rest of the world. The US Secretary of State acknowledged that he was aware of reports of Iraqi use of chemical weapons from 1983, and a United Nations team confirmed Iraqi use in a report of 16 March 1984. Nevertheless, the US administration provided "crop-spraying" helicopters to Iraq (subsequently used in chemical attacks on the Kurds in 1988), gave Iraq access to intelligence information that allowed Iraq to "calibrate" its mustard attacks on Iranian troops (1984), seconded its air force officers to work with their Iraqi counterparts (from 1986), approved technological exports to Iraq's missile procurement agency to extend the missiles' range (1988), and blocked bills condemning Iraq in the House of Representatives (1985) and Senate (1988).

Most crucially, the US and UK blocked condemnation of Iraq's known chemical weapons attacks at the UN Security Council. No resolution was passed during the war that specifically criticised Iraq's use of chemical weapons, despite the wishes of the majority to condemn this use. The only criticism of Iraq from the Security Council came in the form of non-binding Presidential statements (over which no country has a veto). The 21 March 1986 statement recognised that "chemical weapons on many occasions have been used by Iraqi forces against Iranian forces"; this statement was opposed by the United States, the sole country to vote against it in the Security Council (the UK abstained).

Ryan's all so fucking focused on trying to limit the fucking Iranians that you can't seem to stop for a fucking second and think "Hey wait what are the implications of this (besides our usual IRAN FUCK NAH bullshit?)"

(The implications of American action against Iran being, actually, the justification of anti-American sentiment in Iran, and proving that the militants were right in seeking defense against American aggression. This would lead to increased support of a WMD program AND increased support for the theocratic authoritarians - and a curbing of reformist efforts!)

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Has it ever occurred to you that theocracies are bad? Don't we abhor religion in government here?

So why are you arguing that they should have nukes? Because its going to reduce America's sphere of influence. Why is this more important than denying nuclear weapons to a motherfucking theocracy?

Oh plllleeassse. Oh by the way, Israel's tilt towards increased religiousity, justifying many of their policies with religion itself is a mark of Theocracy. Shall we remove weapons from them too?

Just because it's a democracy, doesn't mean they are free from theocratic inclinations, no?

[Flagg]

Why shouldn't a theocracy be allowed nukes?

It's the other way around: why should a theocracy be allowed nukes. Nukes happen to be very dangerous and its up to the regime to demonstrate rational behavior (e.g. not claiming its legitimacy comes from Alah) sufficient to be allowed nukes. Of course when I say "allowed" the implication is that they can be stopped. It may very well be that no one can reliably force Iran to give up its nuclear program and we'll just have to live with it.

It doesn't work like that here, dickhead. You're making the assertion, now you need to provide evidence for it.

And Israel has repeatedly rattled the saber against Iran, threatening air-strikes. Also, when was the last time Iran invaded it's neighbor countries on a whim? When was the last time Israel did? You think Israel would be able to throw it's dick around and bomb it's neighbors at will with the sword of Iranian Damocles hanging over it's head?

Israel threatened air-strikes to eliminate Iran's nuclear development. Israel has a surface area of 20,000km2 half of which is desert. That makes it extremely vulnerable to nuclear attack. Israel has no "weigh" to throw around. It's a 7 million nation with surface area of 20,000km2. This is as powerful as it gets. Iran is a 1.6 million km2 nation with 70 million people. Combine that with nukes and it gets more dangerous than Israel could ever dream to be.

Israel probably has enough nukes to bomb the ever loving shit out of Iran should they launch weapons at Israel. It's called MAD. It's the reason the US and the USSR never threw down.

Why shouldn't a theocracy be allowed to have nukes? You say it's wrong as if it's a fact and not your stupid opinion. What in Irans past makes it inherently dangerous for it to have nuclear weapons? Are they actively conspiring with a superpower to launch strikes against Israel? No? Then shut the fuck up.

Theocracies are irrational and nukes blow up cities. Those are the facts. It is my opinion that nukes and irrational governments who sponsor terrorists shouldn't mix. You may disagree. Also not everyone is at the same risk from Iran's hypothetical nuclear weapons. US is very far away and a very dispersed country so Iranian attack with 10 nukes would only cause limited pain but no lasting damage. Israel would cease to exist. Hence they are worried.

Again with the "Theocracies=Too Dangerous for Nukes" shit without any evidence to back it up. And why exactly is Israel of such special concern? They and their allies are the aggressive powers in the region, not Iran. Iran hasn't launched air-strikes on its neighbors virtually destroying their infrastructure based on the flimsiest of excuses. Iran hasn't invaded their neighbors based on lies. So again, what is so special about Iran that it shouldn't be allowed nuclear weapons? Is it just because you've a hard-on for Israel and think they should be allowed to break international law at will without the threat of any sort of repercussion and a nuclear Iran would prevent that?

[mr friendly guy]

You know we could use anti atheist arguments and it would have the same logic as "Iran is a theocracy" argument.

Christian : Richard Dawkins is bad.

Others : Why?

Christian : he is an atheist?

Others : Whats wrong with that? Has he sexually abused kids like Catholic priests? Has he advocated bombing people because he disagreed with their views?

Christian : No, but he's an atheist. He is bad.

In fact the America Fuck Youcrowd use this variation with every country they don't like not just Iran. I am willing to bet with the atheist example they can see straight away whats wrong with it, but when it comes to American Fuck You they suddenly develop cognitive dissonance.

[Simon_Jester]

My question is, how is this decision enforced? Because I really don't feel like paying for another invasion.

That too. I mean, if we could get everyone in the world to agree on it (the way that pretty much everyone in the world agreed on shutting down Iraq in 1991)... maybe. But we aren't going to, because most of the world's major nations simply do not care whether Iran has a nuclear arsenal or not. Or do care, but consider it a secondary priority.

Surgical air strikes and possibly some mild spec-ops work. Basically, the sort of stuff you're doing in Pakistan, only without the permission of the government in power and with far higher risk to the sorties (which will need human pilots. You can't really use UAVs for this yet.)

...I really question whether this will be enough. It sounds like more wild optimism about the Power of the Air, which has been going on since Douhet and is only slightly smarter now than it was then, as far as I can tell.

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty, to which Iran is a signatory. All the the NPT signatories that have nukes (US, Russia, France, Britain, China) got theirs before the treaty was created. North Korea was a signatory, but withdrew in 2003. All the world's remaining nuclear powers were never signatories to begin with.
Mind you though I have never been a big fan of the NPT and will not shed any tears if it dies in the near future (which it very well may), but if Iran truly wants nukes before then, nothing stops them from withdrawing from the treaty.

Exactly. Therefore, the treaty does not stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, nor does it require Iran to seek permission from other nations. Iran agreed not to do that in the past, but can change its mind, and no other nation gets a veto over its decision, any more than they did over, say, India's.

For practical purposes the Non-Proliferation Treaty is a nonbinding agreement in principle; as far as its actual enforceability goes it's right up there with the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

The existing nuclear powers, and the nuclear powers that have existed, have so far used their nuclear weapons responsibly since we're not a postapocalyptic wasteland full of Humunguses and Thunderdomes.

Those existing nuclear powers, and nuclear powers that have existed, have not demonstrated themselves to be that better or worse, or that different than Iran at all. The whole point of mentioning the shitload of American atrocities is to show how, despite this, America - and other morally bankrupt nations - have acted responsibly with their nuclear weapons.

No one of the anti-nuclear Iran crowd has shown what makes Iran so different.

I understand the argument. Here's the problem.

Nuclear wars can happen on purpose because some chimpanzee of a government decided to fling nukes instead of shit. That's never happened, and we can at least hope it never will. But nuclear wars can also happen by accident, because one side fakes the other out by mistake, or because somebody detects a blip on their radar and mistakes it for a missile. That's never happened, too, but it's foolish for us to think it can't.

So for any given nuclear war that could happen (US vs. Russia, Pakistan vs. India, and so on), there is some chance per year that the war will happen on purpose, and some chance per year that it will happen by accident. We can hope that the on-purpose chance is zero, that no one in charge of a national government would deliberately use nukes aggressively... whether that's true or not, I'll accept it for the sake of argument.

But the chance of a war happening by accident is NOT zero, however small it might be. And every time we increase the number of possible nuclear wars that could happen in a given year, we increase the risk of accidental nuclear war.

In the short run, Iranian nukes increase the number of possible nuclear wars by two: Iran vs. US and Iran vs. Israel. Either (or both) of those wars could happen not just because one side launches a premeditated attack, but because one side makes a mistake, thinks the other has launched, and presses the large red nuclear button while browning their collective shorts.

On top of that you have the other nuclear wars that could realistically happen involving Iran if their more powerful neighbors decide they need their own deterrent: Saudi Arabia vs. Iran and Turkey vs. Iran. Or if the nuclear powers on their other borders start experiencing more tension and hostility towards Iran: Russia vs. Iran and Pakistan vs. Iran.

So Iranian nukes increase the number of potential nuclear wars by anywhere from two to six. That's a big increase in the per-year risk of nuclear war happening by accident, even ignoring any possibility of a deliberate nuclear attack.

Which is why I worry.

Well, thank goodness so far Iran hasn't really announced any intention or desire to gain nuclear weapons.
That might change, you know, if the USA actually attacks Iran - THEN they'll REALLY fucking want those nuclear weapons.
And you know what's the other consequence of this US intervention? Those hardliner theocratic assholes will have their positions strengthened, because it turns out that they were right all along. They'll gain the public's support. And those people who want to bring reform to Iran, those people who are actually fighting for change IN Iran, the reformist parties? They'll end up having to shut their mouths when this happens.

Aiaiaiai. Look, I know this, and that's why I don't think a US attack on Iran would be a good idea. I just... worry, OK?

[Lusankya]

Keep in mind, though, that not all nuclear wars are equal. A hypothetical US-Russia nuclear war would end up with lots of people dead everywhere, and manatees that glow purple. A hypothetical US-Iran nuclear war, on the other hand, would end up with a very flat Iran that was so sterile you could eat off the ground, and ... I dunno. Some stained US pride or something. An Iran-Israel nuclear war would probably look a bit dirtier, since it would involve a flattened Israel as well as a flattened Iran, but once again, it would be on a small scale. Nobody's going to nuke Paris just because Iran and Israel are having a tiff.

And then, of course, a nuclear deterrent is quite likely to reduce the probability of conventional war, which means that on some levels we can worry less.

To use an example that we might be more familiar with:

A nuclear war is a plane crash - violent, explosive, spectacular and immensely worrying due to the number of lives lost.

Conventional wars are car crashes - violent, small and woven strongly enough into our worldview that we don't actually notice how many lives are lost due to them or the risk we face.

How much of your worry is due to the fact that nuclear war is a large risk to a large number of people (larger than the risk created by conventional war), and how much is due to the fact that nukes are essentially an unknown?

[Simon_Jester]

Keep in mind, though, that not all nuclear wars are equal. A hypothetical US-Russia nuclear war would end up with lots of people dead everywhere, and manatees that glow purple. A hypothetical US-Iran nuclear war, on the other hand, would end up with a very flat Iran that was so sterile you could eat off the ground, and ... I dunno.

That's a very expensive way to get your hands on some Fiestaware, though.

Any nuclear war, even one between small nuclear powers, is liable to result in millions or tens of millions dead. In terms of the actual amount of destruction it will deserve the title World War Three simply because it's up there with the World Wars. In terms of the effect on the world at large, not so much, but... it's not something to look forward to.

A nuclear war is a plane crash - violent, explosive, spectacular and immensely worrying due to the number of lives lost.

Conventional wars are car crashes - violent, small and woven strongly enough into our worldview that we don't actually notice how many lives are lost due to them or the risk we face.

How much of your worry is due to the fact that nuclear war is a large risk to a large number of people (larger than the risk created by conventional war), and how much is due to the fact that nukes are essentially an unknown?

A lot of it is due to the fact that everything I've heard about nuclear war scares the hell out of me. It can cause so much destruction so fast: faster than the decision cycle of national governments. Once the first bomb drops, there isn't time to step back and reconsider, or to negotiate for a cease-fire. If the shooting goes on long enough (as in, a few hours, a few days at most), there may not even be anyone left with the authority to surrender in the first place.

Even if that "only" results in one country being blasted into the Stone Age, it's too much. We're talking about nations with populations on par with that of the European powers during the World Wars: if Iran gets flattened as badly as Germany did at the end of World War Two, that's still one of the largest disasters in the history of mankind even if no one beyond their borders gets their hair mussed.

So yeah, big risk to a large number of people.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, we can take consolation over the fact that even with not-so-risky conventional weapons, Iran hasn't launched unilateral deception invasions nor has it launched air strikes into other country's infrastructure. This is a mark of a responsible and trustworthy nation, and I would want this responsible and trustworthy nation as a nuclear power to counter-balance the shoddier and less reputable nuclear powers we currently have.

[Lusankya]

Well, it depends: which would you choose? A 2% chance of a million people dying quickly or 25% chance of 100,000 people dying slowly? (These numbers are completely made up - in fact, history has shown that in any given year, there is an infinitely higher chance of conventional war than nuclear war. Having the stats show a nuclear war being whole 8% as likely as a conventional war is FAR overstating the likelihood of that happening.)

[Shroom Man 777]

You know what people should argue for? They should argue that non-American lives are worth less than American lives, and that America must retain the capability to murder Iranian people with minimal American casualties. Because Iranian people aren't even people. They should say that it would not be acceptable if Iran made killing Iranians harder, because the easy killing of Iranians is in America's foreign interests. They should say that it's not desirable for Iran to get nuclear weapons, or any weapons at all, for self-defense. They should say that, ideally, Iran should not be able to defend itself from a US-sponsored Saddam who's nerve gassing Iranians and Kurds left and right. Because that would be the perfect state of affairs to be aspired for.

This is what Shep would say. I think there's even a graph of it. This argument is morally reprehensible, and thus irrefutable.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, we can take consolation over the fact that even with not-so-risky conventional weapons, Iran hasn't launched unilateral deception invasions nor has it launched air strikes into other country's infrastructure. This is a mark of a responsible and trustworthy nation, and I would want this responsible and trustworthy nation as a nuclear power to counter-balance the shoddier and less reputable nuclear powers we currently have.

The flip side: Iran has supported insurgencies against foreign powers that it openly declares hatred for. And we all know what you think of the other nuclear powers that do that.

I don't actually expect Iran to behave worse as a nuclear power than the US or the USSR did, but I also see no reason to expect it to behave better, which is not reassuring.

Well, it depends: which would you choose? A 2% chance of a million people dying quickly or 25% chance of 100,000 people dying slowly? (These numbers are completely made up - in fact, history has shown that in any given year, there is an infinitely higher chance of conventional war than nuclear war. Having the stats show a nuclear war being whole 8% as likely as a conventional war is FAR overstating the likelihood of that happening.)

I'm skeptical. See, the fact that no nuclear war has happened cannot be proof that no nuclear war can happen, only (at best) that such a war is improbable.

And yes, conventional wars are vastly more probable. But without strong reason to believe that nuclear war is practically impossible in the Middle East... I keep worrying. Because of all places on Earth, the Middle East has the one of the highest densities of really bad leaders who pay at least public lip service to "fuck you, even if it means fucking myself!" ideologies.* The kind of thing that makes the neighbors jittery and causes them to mistake light reflecting off high clouds for a missile launch or something.

*And yes, I include Israel in that statement. They are definitely part of the problem there.

[Shroom Man 777]

The flip side: Iran has supported insurgencies against foreign powers that it openly declares hatred for. And we all know what you think of the other nuclear powers that do that.

I don't actually expect Iran to behave worse as a nuclear power than the US or the USSR did, but I also see no reason to expect it to behave better, which is not reassuring.

Oh yes, that is pretty bad. But then, everyone does that kind of thing. It's totally not morally correct, but it's not something super-bad that only Iran does, nor is it something especially horrible that's unique to Iran and sets it apart/makes it worse than all other powers. Since I don't think Iran's insurgency-support is anywhere near as broad as the USA's, and dictator-support > insurgency-support.

[Phantasee]

Holy shit Ryan, your posts are reading like they were written by some kind of fundamentalist...American? So much circular reasoning you're making me dizzy. And the broken record? Seriously? Your self-evident truths aren't going to convince anyone, just like quoting from the bible doesn't convince anyone. There is plenty to discuss, but if you don't open your mind to someone else's perspective even a little bit, then you have no place in the discussion.

[Lusankya]

Well, yeah. I didn't mean to imply that nuclear war was impossible - just that it was vastly less probably than conventional war.

Though you seem to be missing the basic argument if nuclear proliferation reduces the chances of a conventional war occurring by a certain percentage, then from a game theory point of view, more lives are saved in the long run through nuclear proliferation. Taking the numbers I chose above:

If nukes are present (assuming 100% prevention of conventional war)
Chance of nuclear war in next 50 years: 2%
Casualties in event of nuclear war: 1,000,000
Lives lost on average: 20,000

If no nukes:
Chance of conventional war in next 50 years: 25%
Casualties in event of conventional war: 100,000
Lives lost on average: 25,000

As you can see, even with the increased chance of massive damage in the case of a nuclear war, ultimately scenario one (with the nukes) is the one likely to result in the lowest amount of casualties. That's what I'm talking about. You just keep on saying "but it can potentially cost a lot of lives" and you seem to be missing the fact that it is far more likely to save a lot of lives (though this would be harder to measure, because you can't exactly measure the bodycount of a war that never happened).

Of course, there are other things to take into consideration here - such as how risk-averse you are (in which case you'd put more weight on the number of lives lost in the nuclear war than the number lost in the conventional war), the chance that a nuclear deterrent will not decrease the probability of a conventional war to zero and the possibility that you don't value Iranian lives as highly as you value the American hegemony in the region, but to determine exactly how those fit into the picture, you'd want to be using more accurate numbers than the made-up numbers up there.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh, Game Theory! Didn't Herman Kahn like that?

And doesn't it stand to follow that by reducing the likelihood of conventional war, you also reduce the likelihood of nuclear war? Precisely because nuclear war is a logical outcome of conventional war (between two nuclear-armed nations) - and since nuclear-armed nations actively want to avoid confrontation, thus the likelihood of nuclear or non-nuclear conflict is overall decreased? Atoms for peace!

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Holy shit Ryan, your posts are reading like they were written by some kind of fundamentalist...American? So much circular reasoning you're making me dizzy. And the broken record? Seriously? Your self-evident truths aren't going to convince anyone, just like quoting from the bible doesn't convince anyone. There is plenty to discuss, but if you don't open your mind to someone else's perspective even a little bit, then you have no place in the discussion.

He's a Canadian who thinks America is great.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, yeah. I didn't mean to imply that nuclear war was impossible - just that it was vastly less probably than conventional war.

Though you seem to be missing the basic argument if nuclear proliferation reduces the chances of a conventional war occurring by a certain percentage, then from a game theory point of view, more lives are saved in the long run through nuclear proliferation. Taking the numbers I chose above:

I'm aware of this, but there are two three problems:

1) Having a nuclear arsenal does not necessarily stop you from getting involved in conventional wars. Or supporting insurgencies that themselves fight conventional wars and still kill people. We know this to be true from observing the examples of the US and the USSR.
2) The probability of nuclear war is not estimable. It's going to vary from country to country: nations with good control over their nuclear arsenals and with relatively stable, rational leaders will be less likely to launch for stupid reasons. It's going to vary from time to time: the odds of a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia are now very low, whereas they were very high during the 1960s. So we can't really guess what the likelihood of a nuclear war is.
3) The casualties of a nuclear war are going to be very large, even compared to the kind of conventional wars Third World nations normally fight. A million is probably on the (very) low side; a single nuclear attack on a major metropolitan area with a modern bomb could easily cause a million casualties all by itself.

It's certainly possible in principle that the conventional wars deterred by a nuclear arsenal more than outweigh the risk of nuclear war. For the math to work out the way you describe it is, again, possible. I believe that for at least some nations, it will work that way- India is an example.

But for Iran? I simply do not know... hence my worrying.

[Phantasee]

Holy shit Ryan, your posts are reading like they were written by some kind of fundamentalist...American? So much circular reasoning you're making me dizzy. And the broken record? Seriously? Your self-evident truths aren't going to convince anyone, just like quoting from the bible doesn't convince anyone. There is plenty to discuss, but if you don't open your mind to someone else's perspective even a little bit, then you have no place in the discussion.

He's a Canadian who thinks America is great.

I know he's a Canuck. I was going to say he sounded like a fundamentalist Christian, but I realized there could be such a thing as a fundamentalist American (believe the Constitution is God's own word and anything they don't like is in violation of it, despite not having read it themselves). It was amusing so I wrote that instead.

I wish we could deport him to the US. I hear there's a shortage of patriots willing to spill their blood on the tree of liberty or something.

[Ryan Thunder]

Holy shit Ryan, your posts are reading like they were written by some kind of fundamentalist...American? So much circular reasoning you're making me dizzy. And the broken record? Seriously? Your self-evident truths aren't going to convince anyone, just like quoting from the bible doesn't convince anyone. There is plenty to discuss, but if you don't open your mind to someone else's perspective even a little bit, then you have no place in the discussion.

He's a Canadian who thinks America is great.

I know he's a Canuck. I was going to say he sounded like a fundamentalist Christian, but I realized there could be such a thing as a fundamentalist American (believe the Constitution is God's own word and anything they don't like is in violation of it, despite not having read it themselves). It was amusing so I wrote that instead.

I wish we could deport him to the US. I hear there's a shortage of patriots willing to spill their blood on the tree of liberty or something.

Well, that's pretty clever, for an imbecile. I hear that if I don't like theocracies, I must love America.

It's a pretty typical mindset for the posters who come to these sort of threads. Somebody mentions "nukes" "Iran" and "airstrikes" in the same sentence and then Shroom, Stas, and Siege go off on an epic tangent about how evil the Americans are and try to turn it into a discussion about that.

I suppose you thought it was a good thing when North Korea got them. Now there's no fucking way anybody's going to dislodge that motherfucker Kim Jong-Il short of pure chance.

[Shroom Man 777]

Are you saying that the only way for the Iranian theocracy to change is for American/Western/foreign intervention? Are you saying that the Iranians have no say at all in how their country does shit, and that they'll never change their country at all if America/the West doesn't come in and blow the fuck out of the Ayatollahs of Rock and Roll? Because, despite what you think, Iran is NOT North Korea.

According to your logic, because the USSR had nukes, then American/Western intervention would be impossible and thus the USSR would never ever change at all - and they'd always be evil Stalinist oppressive purge-happy communists. Despite the fact that without the Amerikanskis invading Russia, the Russians themselves were able to institute drastic changes in their own fucking nation, to the point where they ended up becoming a capitalist democracy themselves without America/the West coming in to "knock it over on a whim".

Why must your sole criterion for improving countries be "knocking it over on a whim", eh? Were the democracies in Europe and America developed by foreign powers knocking over the Americans and Europeans on a whim?

Of course, without the glourious intervention of America/the West/Mars, Iran will ALWAYS be a theocratic shithole! The salvation of Iran depends on the West/America/Mars knocking Iran over on a whim! Because the brown people will never know better, and will never ever change their system of governance for the better!

[Ryan Thunder]

Are you saying that the only way for the Iranian theocracy to change is for American/Western/foreign intervention? Are you saying that the Iranians have no say at all in how their country does shit, and that they'll never change their country at all if America/the West doesn't come in and blow the fuck out of the Ayatollahs of Rock and Roll? Because, despite what you think, Iran is NOT North Korea.

According to your logic, because the USSR had nukes, then American/Western intervention would be impossible and thus the USSR would never ever change at all - and they'd always be evil Stalinist oppressive purge-happy communists. Despite the fact that without the Amerikanskis invading Russia, the Russians themselves were able to institute drastic changes in their own fucking nation, to the point where they ended up becoming a capitalist democracy themselves without America/the West coming in to "knock it over on a whim".

They're rather unusual. It took them 'only' 40 years to get to that point. 40 years is still a bloody long time, though.

Why must your sole criterion for improving countries be "knocking it over on a whim", eh? Were the democracies in Europe and America developed by foreign powers knocking over the Americans and Europeans on a whim?

Nope. And look how fucking long it took them to become the progressives that they are today; Centuries!

Of course, without the glourious intervention of America/the West/Mars, Iran will ALWAYS be a theocratic shithole! The salvation of Iran depends on the West/America/Mars knocking Iran over on a whim! Because the brown people will never know better, and will never ever change their system of governance for the better!

Or instead of the racists' assessment we could go for how it is; people either won't give enough of a shit to do anything about it or there won't be enough of them to do anything about it, or they'll be afraid to destabilize the regime because it has nukes and they don't want those to get out of control, etc, etc, etc.

[Phantasee]

North Korea has nukes? I thought they just lit a fart in a cave.

Listen, chucklefuck, your arguments aren't convincing. I'm telling you to step up your game instead of whining that Stas, Siege, and Shroom make more sense than you.

On the other hand, if you don't like the logical consequences of your position, and don't know how to cope with being a hypocrite, than maybe you should shut the fuck up.

Edit: in reply to your previous post. Quick Reply doesn't notify of intervening posts.

[Kane Starkiller]

Again, that's not really an answer to the question I asked. I asked what intervention will positively accomplish in the long term; stating that it will eliminate the Iranian nuclear program is the immediate result of military intervention (or so you hope), not a long term effect.

What does this have to do with the issue of whether Iran should be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons? It's like seeing a guy reach for a gun and you know that he might hurt someone with it (maybe even you). First order of business, if you think he can't be trusted with a gun, is to stop him from reaching it. You'll worry about your long term relationship later.

It's impossible (or rather, national suicide) to use nuclear weapons offensively, because if you do the rest of the nuclear club will come down on you like a ton of bricks, followed shortly thereafter by the rest of the world.

Says who? Why should a third country risk its own cities to defend or rather avenge a victim of a nuclear attack? This is not something around which a nation can build its defense strategy.

Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion that theocracies are inherently irrational (you know - something shown in their actions, rather than just their domestic propaganda rhetoric)? Or are you just banking on the fact that if you say "theocracies are irrational" and "they can't because they're a theocracy" enough times each post, people will just start believing you, just like they started believing that Iraq was responsible for 9/11 because the media used the two words together often enough?

Issuing threatening statements are also an action, don't try to make it sound as if this is not something to judge a government by. They have a responsibility for the statements they make. Saying that they plan to go to Jerusalem during their counterattack on Iraq was not rational. Also supporting terrorist groups that work inside Israel shows Iran is willing to take great risks for limited gain. Pointing out that Iranian government managed to stay in power or made some positive results doesn't somehow qualify it to possess nuclear weapons.

This quote is hilarious, because it means that you don't believe that the US should have nuclear weapons.

I don't believe human race should have nuclear weapons in general. But no one can take nukes from US and Russia without causing the very nuclear war we're trying to avoid. Also there is a difference in whether you are supporting terrorist organization to push out your rival (like US did in Afghanistan) or terrorist groups whose final objective is the destruction of a state (Hezbollah) or terrorist groups in order to establish additional Islamic rapublics (Shia groups in Iraq).

Fucking tell that to the Lebanese, asshole.

How does this change my statement that Israel, today, is about as powerful as it's going to get?

Wait a minute.

This implies that the international community gets to decide whether any one nation has a "right" to a nuclear arsenal, if it feels it needs one. And that skips over a huge question... because I can't think of a single time when the international community has exercised its supposed power to make this decision.

I would not phrase it as international community deciding whether a nation has a "right" to a nuclear arsenal but international community evaluating the risk imposed on the rest of the world in the case of a country getting nuclear weapons. I don't believe anyone has the right to have nuclear weapons.

My question is, how is this decision enforced? Because I really don't feel like paying for another invasion.

That is the question for Americans or any country capable of stopping Iran: how much of a threat do I think Iran will be if it gets nuke and based on that assessment how much money/lives am I willing to sacrifice in order to eliminate that threat. If the answer is "zero" then Iran gets the nukes and the world just has to live with it and hope for the best.

Why is it too much of a risk? Mutually assured destruction will "force" Iran to do the "right thing", namely the not-stupid thing like not using its nukes.

What would make Iran any more different from the nuclear powers in the past? We can't count Iran to do the right thing, but we can count on Pakistan to do the right thing, and the Soviet Union, and....?

Again: you are stating this as a fact when in actuality you don't know what will happen and neither do Iran's neighbors. I don't trust any country with nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons are too destructive to exist in large numbers.

What's wrong with driving into Iraq? They wanted to depose a dictator, and it turns out back then Iraq DID have WMDs too! They actually had more legitimate reason to invade Iraq then than the Americans did in 2003.

What's wrong with supporting Hamas and Hezbollah freedom fighters?

Iran's nukes would actually limit American interventionism, so it's not destabilization... more like restabilization. A nuclear-armed power in the region would discourage conventional conflict, as per the example of India and Pakistan, etc.

Turning Iraq into another Islamic republic would not be a good thing first of all since it would likely be absorbed by Iran so you'd have an even bigger theocratic dictatorship. Also Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist groups that kill people. So supporting them is bad.

Who gives a crap about Iranian rhetoric? Does American rhetoric, with outlawings of Soviet Unions and bombings in five minutes and evil empires and actual-factual aggressive actions (like the myriad underhanded CIA shit) makes America certainly not trustworthy. Does Soviet Union rhetoric, with burying people and global revolution and Cuban missile crisises, make the USSR certainly not trustworthy and quite unstable?

These precedents show that Iran can be a workable nuclear power - because your arguments can be applied to Pakistan, can be applied to the USSR, can be applied to the US, and so on. Yet, somehow, Pakistan/USSR/US haven't done the things that you're afraid Iran will do. What makes Iran super-special?

Yes it most certainly does. Such statements cause fear because there is no way do discern "only" rhetoric from the real thing like "lebensraum" and "jews stabbing Germany in the back in WW1".

Jesus, look at Iran's history. They haven't launched an aggressive war, AT ALL, EVER. Compare that to America Fuck Yeah, that's a fucking stark contrast.

But they did rouse up Iraq's Shia groups which was one of the reasons Iraq invaded them and they did support terrorist groups in Israel didn't they? They haven't invaded Peru, on the other hand, but is that because they're nice or because they're too weak to get there and too small to have interests there? US is 25% of world GDP and 50% of military spending. Taking that into account it hasn't stirred that much trouble although, ideally, I would take nukes from US as well.

Why do you hate democracy and freedom?

I didn't say that they aren't allowed to their opinion merely that I doubt they actually thought it through. Especially since a large percentage of them think that Iran will use the bomb on Israel so they are naturally cheering it on.

It doesn't work like that here, dickhead. You're making the assertion, now you need to provide evidence for it.

By that logic government should prove that I'm incapable of driving before denying me a driver's license rather than me having to prove that I'm capable and responsible enough to drive. Nuclear weapons are dangerous and are not a divine right.

Israel probably has enough nukes to bomb the ever loving shit out of Iran should they launch weapons at Israel. It's called MAD. It's the reason the US and the USSR never threw down.

I've seen this assumption repeated many times. USSR and US never went to war. In fact in the entire history US and Russian Empire didn't go to war other than US intervention on the side of white forces during the Russian civil war. What makes you think that war without nuclear weapons was inevitable during the Cold War? Without nukes there would be no Cuban missile crisis for example. Without nuclear weapons there would be no overarching atmosphere of fear stemming from the fact your country can cease to exist in a single afternoon. Even if there was a war there wold be months in which an armistice could be signed before death toll reached anything approaching the half hour nuclear exchange.

Again with the "Theocracies=Too Dangerous for Nukes" shit without any evidence to back it up. And why exactly is Israel of such special concern? They and their allies are the aggressive powers in the region, not Iran. Iran hasn't launched air-strikes on its neighbors virtually destroying their infrastructure based on the flimsiest of excuses. Iran hasn't invaded their neighbors based on lies. So again, what is so special about Iran that it shouldn't be allowed nuclear weapons? Is it just because you've a hard-on for Israel and think they should be allowed to break international law at will without the threat of any sort of repercussion and a nuclear Iran would prevent that?

Ideally no one would have nukes as I already said. Iran has actually stirred quite a bit of trouble when compared to its power and reach. Stirring shit with Shia's in Iraq blew up in its face for example. Theocracies are irrational since they draw their legitimacy from "God" and teach new generations to do the same. Israel's or US wrongdoings don't somehow change this.

If nukes are present (assuming 100% prevention of conventional war)
Chance of nuclear war in next 50 years: 2%
Casualties in event of nuclear war: 1,000,000
Lives lost on average: 20,000

If no nukes:
Chance of conventional war in next 50 years: 25%
Casualties in event of conventional war: 100,000
Lives lost on average: 25,000

The problem is we know for a fact nuclear war would be far more devastating at least an order of magnitude. Then there is the issue of radioactivity which would make land unusable for generations. That nuclear weapons decrease the likelihood of a war by a factor of 12 or so, on the other hand, is merely an unsupported assumption.

[Shroom Man 777]

They're rather unusual. It took them 'only' 40 years to get to that point. 40 years is still a bloody long time, though.

Because after homo sapiens crawled out of the primordial soup, it only took the prehistoric Americans 39 years or less to develop representative democracy?

And, it turns out, even with your super-enlightened awesome perfect America/Western societies, they STILL commit the fuckloads of atrocities I've kept on mentioning to you all the fucking time.

I can let LUSY-CHAN illustrate how, gradually, China went from peasant-starving shitty Maoist conditions to awesome emerging superpower with decent living standards for its people. And, guess what, it turns out they did this without America threatening to bomb their shit!

Nope. And look how fucking long it took them to become the progressives that they are today; Centuries!

Because it didn't take America centuries to go from killing the Indians and stealing their lands, to enslaving black people to mine their cotton, to segregating them from schools and lynching them with burning KKK crosses, to electing Black Hussein Osama in office?

And yet, even that, America still engages in wars of aggression and lies in foreign lands, it still funds despotic regimes in the Third World, it still supported Saddam Hussein when he used fucking poison gas on the Iranians, it still waterboards people, Dick Cheney still has a torture manual that he masturbates to, and the American public still elected Dick Cheney who still has a torture manual that he masturbates to, America still emplaced the Marcos regime in my own fucking country, etcetera.

Or instead of the racists' assessment we could go for how it is; people either won't give enough of a shit to do anything about it or there won't be enough of them to do anything about it, or they'll be afraid to destabilize the regime because it has nukes and they don't want those to get out of control, etc, etc, etc.

Or the Iranians can reform their own country as they please, without any shit-eating Americans telling them how or who or what or when or where, and without any stupid interventions or wars of deceit? Because American/Western intervention will only radicalize the Iranian leadership, will only make the Iranian public support a stronger Iran capable of self-defense against foreign aggression. And that is something we don't want to do. What we want is for the reformist Iranians to beat these militant fundamentalists, and we want Iranian society to change.

You do NOT change societies through aggression. Because people don't become progressives when they're under fucking attack. Because when they're under attack, they'll defend themselves and become aggressive in turn.

Are you basically saying that Iran can never reform itself, and needs American intervention to do so? Why? How so? Because I say that Iran CAN reform itself while the shit-eating Americans do jack and shit about it.

[Siege]

It's a pretty typical mindset for the posters who come to these sort of threads. Somebody mentions "nukes" "Iran" and "airstrikes" in the same sentence and then Shroom, Stas, and Siege go off on an epic tangent about how evil the Americans are and try to turn it into a discussion about that.

I'll thank you kindly to not twist my words into some preposterous strawman. If you'd actually paid attention to what was being argued, you'd know that at no point have I even come close to passing moral judgement on "the Americans". What I did do was ask you a set of straightforward questions, yet instead of attempting to answer those you appear more interested in prancing about the thread, spewing the written equivalent of diarrhea all over it. If you can't be bothered to address the points raised in opposition to your opinion, maybe you shouldn't be participating in the discussion in the first place. Certainly your involvement has not improved the quality of discourse so far.

What does this have to do with the issue of whether Iran should be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons?

First off, can you please acknowledge the fact that it remains to be proven that Iran is actually trying to acquire nuclear weapons? This is by no means certain, yet you continue to treat the theoretical possibility as an incontrovertible fact.

Secondly, I would think it's obvious: stopping the Iranian nuclear program should be a goal to an end (that end being something like the improvement of the safety and stability of the region), not an end in and of itself. It's pointless to even wonder whether or not an end should be forcefully put to the Iranian nuclear program without considering the ramifications of stopping (or not stopping) them. Hence why you should be concerned about what the intervention you propose will achieve in the mid to long term. If intervention, even if successful, will serve to radicalise the Iranian leadership and stoke their fears and paranoia of the West and everyone who collaborates with it, how will that improve the safety and stability of the region? In my opinion, it won't, and therefore a strike against the nuclear program will worsen, not improve, the situation.

It's like seeing a guy reach for a gun and you know that he might hurt someone with it (maybe even you). First order of business, if you think he can't be trusted with a gun, is to stop him from reaching it. You'll worry about your long term relationship later.

No, it's like seeing a guy reaching into his jacket, assuming he's going for a gun, and shooting him in the face before even making sure he's actually got a weapon on him. Before you know it you've pumped 41 shots into the guy even though he was just reaching for his wallet. Where I come from, that's not a particularly desirable outcome.

Says who? Why should a third country risk its own cities to defend or rather avenge a victim of a nuclear attack? This is not something around which a nation can build its defense strategy.

Hold on a minute, how is pre-emptively bombing the shit out of Iran a defence strategy? Because it sure sound like an offence strategy to me.