In a speech Wednesday, Ahmadinejad denounced Israel and said a new wave of Palestinian attacks “will wipe this stigma from the face of the Islamic world.” Citing the words of the founder of Iran’s Islamic revolution, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Ahmadinejad said: “Israel must be wiped off the map.”
Both Iran and Israel are member states of the United Nations. What do you think the UN should do in response to Iran’s stated position that Israel should be wiped off the map? Remember that Iran refuses to abandon its nuclear program and aspirations.
I think the UN should revoke or suspend Iran’s membership status until it renounces this position in favor of an affirmation of Israel’s right to exist and dismantles its nuclear program. I think the UN should impose severe and immediate economic sanctions to coincide with the revocation of Iran’s membership status.
What will change our realationship with Iran is when they join the Nuclear Arms Society. It’s the club you think you want to be in until your in it. When the nukes warm up they will be held under the MADD theory and our entire nuclear arsenal will be held to their head.
The countries I fear least are the ones with nukes.
"When the nukes warm up they will be held under the MADD theory and our entire nuclear arsenal will be held to their head. "
I’m not sure that’s so. It would certainly be the case if they were threatening to bomb us with nukes, but is there really any expectation that we would use nukes in response to a nuclear attack on someone else? For example, would we nuke Pakistan if they nuked India? Would we nuke Iran if they nuked Israel? Maybe. Maybe not. Certainly there isn’t the level of threat of reciprocation in those cases that there was with the USSR when their nukes were pointed squarely at us. The idea of Mutually Assured Destruction only works when the two parties in question are trying to destroy eachother, not some third party.
Let me clear up what I said a little bit. I don’t fear nation states with nukes. Rouge groups like Al Quida on the other hand scare the shit out of me.
As far as the power to decide who can have them and who can’t the guys with the power do. If I can stop your weapons program before you can start it, Isarel and Iraq for example, I will do it. If I am the big kid on the block you will play by my rules.
Iran will get nukes and we can’t stop them because we have destroying out intellegnce systems since Bush 1. If it where as easy to stop Iran as and air strike I would say bomb away but odds are we don’t know everything about their system so what we need to do is sit down and have a long talk with them.
“Welcome to the club. We now have four boomers off your coast and many MXs with your number and one wrong move we make you country glass.”
“Makers of Modern Strategy” edited by Paret. Very, very dry stuff and very big book. If you want to know all about the childhoods (ad infinitum) of Machiavelli, Clausewitz, Jomini, et al., then I recommend it. For a better read, try “The Transformation of War” by VanCreveld.
If you have a ganglion cyst and need to whack it with a book, though, Paret is the way to go.
What concerns me is that countries like Iran may be more likely than others to give rogue groups nukes or nuclear capabilities. Thus, Iran with a nuke may very easily mean Hamas with a nuke which then means the US or Israel being nuked with a potentially very difficult trail back to Iran. Then against whom do we or Israel retaliate? The deterrent effect of retaliation is only present if the instigator can be identified.
“The idea of Mutually Assured Destruction only works when the two parties in question are trying to destroy eachother, not some third party.”
Exactly. We must and do view every country with nukes as a threat to us first. If Iran nukes anohter country our response would have to be based on what is going on then. My point is we need to lay a heavy hand down on Iran and scare the shit our of them. One of the ways we could do this is draw up agreements with states like Isreal and Pakistan that says is Iran nukes one of them or the US the other will join in on the response and broad cast these agreements far an wide.
Iran is nuts but they are a fuctioning country and history shows that at the end of the day leaders like to keep their countries nuclear explosion free.
I’m not sure we would even have nuked the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact if they had overrun Western Europe. I know that was our stated policy, but would we have had the will to actually do it?
“I’m not sure that’s so. It would certainly be the case if they were threatening to bomb us with nukes, but is there really any expectation that we would use nukes in response to a nuclear attack on someone else? For example, would we nuke Pakistan if they nuked India? Would we nuke Iran if they nuked Israel? Maybe. Maybe not.”
I do think the U.S. would support Israel in such a situation, and furthermore agree that it would be a maybe yes, maybe no nuclear response (but I lean towards no). However, I think it is a maybe response for different reasons with respect to Israel. Israel is already a significant nuclear power in its own right. Any nuclear attack by Iran or other Islamic state would clearly result in an overwhelming response by Israel, probably before any decisions were even made in Washington. Furthermore, given the history of multiple Islamic countries participating in wars with Israel, I wouldn’t be surprise if the Israeli response would be to target non-nuclear Islamic neighbors (Syria at least, maybe Egypt?) simultaneously in a pre-emptive effort to block any subsequent invasions. The question at that point would be, would Israel use nukes against non-nuke states or conventional weapons?
Of course, the Cold War historical perspective was the concern that such an exchange would draw in Russia (U.S.S.R.) and the U.S. on opposite sides. GIven Russia’s current state of military readiness and it’s own difficulties with Ismalic extremists, or Chechen rebels depending on your POV, I think Russia, and the U.S. would prefer to sit this scenario out and simply try to clean up the dust and rubble after the initial exchange and chill out the parties to prevent future nuclear exchanges.
Now, back to the real world: The U.N. response to Iran will no doubt be a verbal rebuke on the level of dissing a third grader for saying something rude to a fellow classmate. That response along with this week’s news about the 2200 companies paying kickback to Saddam capping off the whole oil for food/medicine debacle pretty much characterizes the weakness and ineffectiveness of the U.N. in general. So, yes I think it’s great that Bush pushed a real pain in the ass nominee (Bolton) into the UN position, and that countries like France and Germany that want to handle everything by “UN sanctions” should just stay home and sit on their hands.
I believe that Saddam was a meglomanical, power hungry leader, but he was never a religious zealot. He would do crazy stuff, but I don’t believe he would take any action that would knowlingly result in his demise.
These religious crazies on the other hand I worry about. Iran is full of them, as is Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Saddam would never share power with them, he might aid them but he would sooner kill them than help them if he thought it would give him more power.
I think Saddam was smart enough to know if that we ever connected him with a major terrorist action in the USA that he would be a heap of ash before the next sunrise. That’s why I don’t think he was the terrorist threat that he was made up to be. I believe his will to live far exceeded his desire to kill Americans, unlike some of these religious nutjobs.
“I think Saddam was smart enough to know if that we ever connected him with a major terrorist action in the USA that he would be a heap of ash before the next sunrise. That’s why I don’t think he was the terrorist threat that he was made up to be.”
The reason Saddam wasn’t deeply involved with any terrorist plot to attack the U.S. isn’t because he was afraid of the consequences of such an attack. I think it’s pretty well documented that he was paranoid to the point of keeping his military leaders in the dark so they couldn’t know too much and plot against him, and refusing to work with outside terrorist groups because they might be spies.
I’m sure all the Ayatollahs in Iran and their ninja followers (which is practically the whole nation) will lose sleep if Iran loses membership in the UN.
