Iran "Kicks It Up A Notch"

I thought they said their nuclear program was for peaceful reasons?

I'm wondering if Trump didn't rescind the previous agreement, would this nuclear weapons program have accelerated.

I'm thinking their intentions are to possess nuclear weapons, and they would have pursued such whether in the Obama-Kerry agreement or not.

Israel must feel better with Trump at the helm, as opposed to his predecessor Obama. (in case of a military conflict)

Although I don't know who's calling the shots in Israel.

 

Is there an article?

 

Just heard it on the news about 1 hr ago. Impeachment news drowning it out.

 

Who what when where how?

 

Google fellas! Its in The Guardian among others.

 

id rather watch a rerun of Andy Griffith show

 

George Washington is washing his wigs more news at nine...

 

LOL.....OK , point taken.

In other news: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

 

iran was never going to give up on having nukes

 

Agreed. Would they have honored the Obama-Kerry Accord, and then resumed its program after expiration. Or would they have given it "lip service" and duped international atomic inspectors. These are moot points, but, IMO, interesting speculation.

 

nope we show them pictures of B 52s lines up on a runway and tell them that we will not allow them to obtain nuclear weapons .. then if they want to start behaving in other areas( stop supporting terrorism) then we talk about lifting sanctions and welcoming them into the international community.

 

B-52? The US sent B-52s to an American air base in Qatar, publicized their presence, when it also sent other forces along with the Abraham Lincoln to the region back in May. At the time, it warned Iran that if the US of US allied interests anywhere were attacked b Iran, it would unleash "unrelenting force" and would "devastate" and "obliterate" Iran. A lot has happened since May, but lets say one of those things is that the US then began taking out its bombers (and even the Centcom HQ) out of Qatar because they were deemed vulnerable to attacks from Iran

This time America is relocating its forces in Saudi Arabia, to bases deemed farther away from Iran and less vulnerable because Iran has fewer longer range missiles than shorter range ones to saturate US air defenses. Several thousand US troops, with a couple of squadrons of F-22 Raptors, a large number of air defense systems, as well as a B-1B bomber have now been flown there. This time, America has lowered the rhetoric, but has actually tried to improve its force posture and leverage in case of a war with Iran. A war that isn't about Iran building nukes, but about Israel. And not about defending Israel if it sits there and doesn't act irresponsibly, but defending Israel as it continues to act irresponsibly.

At the end of the day, the actual dynamics haven't changed though. A war with Iran would leave the global economy in a tailspin, destroy much of the region, including America's colonial outposts which dot the maps of the Middle East. The biggest one being Israel itself.

Footnotes:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-middle-east-in-message-to-iran-idUSKCN1SG0TQ
MAY 10, 2019 / 12:27 PM / 6 MONTHS AGO
U.S. B-52 bombers reach Middle East in message to Iran
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...d93834-e216-11e9-be7f-4cc85017c36f_story.html
Amid tension with Iran, U.S. Air Force shifts Middle East command center from Qatar to South Carolina
https://www.news.com.au/world/middl...n/news-story/490c19ad1ddf735cc90c8b187cfd8d7f
‘Beating the drums of war’: Photo reveals ‘devastating’ Iran plan

 

Your drivel about Iran building nukes is tiresome and so is much the folklore that seems to pass as information among Americans as it relates to Iran. On this issue a folklore that has partisan overtones but on many other issues and ridiculous ideas about Iran, a folklore that has been treated as 'facts' about Iran for those on both sides of America's political divide.

In the meantime, though, ever since the Israelis began to question if the emperor has any clothes, they have been fretting and worrying publicly whether the US will come to help them out in case their actions lead to war with Iran? Most recently, in an piece by Israel's former ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, where he lays out in as much detail he is allowed to lay out what could happen to Israel in case of war with Iran? He then asks what if Israel needs American assistance going beyond the assistance that the US ordinarily offers Israel? Would America come to Israel's aid? Unfortunately, I believe US would intervene directly despite the best message to Israel from the US being the opposite, in hopes that the opposite message will cause them to stop their irresponsible behavior.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/israel-preparing-open-war/601285/
The Coming Middle East Conflagration
Israel is bracing itself for war with Iranian proxies, as Tehran escalates its provocations. But what will the United States do if conflict comes?

NOV 4, 2019
Michael Oren
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States

p.s.
Michael Oren mentions in some detail how a war with Iran might see much of Israel destroyed, but never seems able to question the Israeli actions that even in his own scenario would trigger and cause such a war are really necessary.

 

Yawn...... you missed my point entirely.. I do not want war with Iran and i am not sure moving assets closer to Iran is a good idea. All i am saying is that all Iran needs to know about American foreign policy is that we want them to be a productive member of the international community and that the US will not allow them to obtain nuclear weapons. No nuclear deal needed, and that America should remove sanctions on Iran based on how they behave in other areas such as supporting terrorists, namely Hamas.

 

In that case, too bad actual US policy isn't determined by you! This could be all over quickly. While I prefer to develop nuclear weapons, that is not Iran's policy. The argument against nuclear weapons in Iran is that building nukes will only give a pretext for a nuclear attack on Iran and that Iran doesn't have the resources to engage the US/Israel in a nuclear arms race. And that conventional capabilities are sufficient to deter any aggression against it and devastate Israel beyond recognition (and wreck the global economy and a lot more) in case of war with Iran. Since that is the actual position in Iran, backed by a religious edict that prohibits building nukes and which would make anyone engaged in that endeavor (as opposed to developing Iran's civilian nuclear program) subject to not only international opprobrium but also severe domestic reprisal, at least until Iran's current Supreme Leader is alive, there is no chance of Iran actually developing nukes.

As for Hamas, they are a Sunni group that fought the opposite side of the Syrian civil war, allied to the Sunni jihadists who were trying to unseat Assad. Iran's relationship with Hamas deteriorated substantially at the time. While that relationship has improved lately, with Hamas sending a delegation and receiving some new support from Iran, ultimately Iran does not have ideological kinship with Hamas. Their ideology is inherently prejudiced and biased against Iran. So if Iran cutting off Hamas is what would end US sanctions, the US could have that easily. No problem. But if the US continues calling everyone in Iran and outside of Iran with ties to Iran's government a 'terrorist', then I am afraid will be supporting 'terrorists' and there can be no deal with Iran.

If you meant Hezbollah, as opposed to Hamas, then that would be a problem. Iran is not going to abandon Hezbollah. It has too much invested in the organization and they serve as an important component in Iran's deterrent posture.

 

That's two odd statements in a single sentence.

 

How so?

p.s.
My statement should have read: "While I prefer Iran to develop nuclear weapons, that is not Iran's policy.

 

If Iran develops nuclear weapons, in contradiction to its international promises
and its religious position, then its security is not enhance one iota.
In fact it will find that having nuclear weapons will create a super-dangerous
Middle East as its enemies will gain nuclear weapons also. Check mate.

Yes, at some level of government, acquiring nuclear weapons IS Iran's policy.

There's a lot of desperately poor people in Iran. Why don't its "religious" leaders
take care of them instead?

 

Let's not forget how hard the previous admin makes it to negotiate with countries trying to get nukes. They see what happened to Gaddafi after he stopped his program and I bet Saddam wondered if he would still be in power if he would have restarted his program soon after Israel bombed his facilities.

 

Don't worry about the people of Iran or, if you are worried at all about them, worry about the kind of sanctions that are imposed on Iran. A fraction of the same type of sanctions on any other country without Iran's resilience and self-sufficiency, and any of those countries would be in even more desperate shape than you imagine the people of Iran to be.

 

So why are they having sanctions on Iran if it's not about nuclear weapons?
Sounds like a circular argument.

 

That is entirely false. The product of drivel and propaganda you are exposed to and not much else.

Lets assume for the moment that Iran has a secret program that it hasn't shown to the outside world. Lets factor that out of the equation. Just based on what Iran has actually shown to the IAEA, with every part of its "declared" nuclear program under the most rigorous inspection regime ever, Iran was only a few weeks away from developing nukes when it negotiated the JCPOA. And it had been in that position for some time (several years). It had amassed enough enriched uranium that it could build a bomb quickly if it ever decided and intended to do so.

What should that tell you? That if Iran really had a policy to develop nukes, it would already have a huge arsenal of such weapons. That is because regardless of whether you believe Iran has shown everything it has, just based on everything it had actually shown and installed, it was already for several years in a position to develop nuclear weapons. Now, if Iran was hiding anything, than presumably it would already have those weapons and a lot of them by now.

 

True. But it's not the whole truth.
What these nukes do for small despot nations is it gives them
enormous power to carry out despot acts.
It's bad enough that the USSR got The Bomb, and then China.
Just see how Russia and China have done little to nothing in
stopping North Korea - the end result could be that neighbors
could lose faith in America's ability to control the situation and
develop their own nukes. Thus Japan, Taiwan and Sth Korea
go nuclear. And that isn't what Russia and China want.

 

1- Because it is US/Israel policy under PNAC to seek an implosion in Iran, to remove the strongest country that can stand in the way of US/Israel hegemony in the region.
2- Because Iran is considered by Israel a threat to its freedom to act as it wishes and its security even without nukes. Just by virtue of its conventional program and the allies it has on Israel's border. (Just read the piece by Israel's former UN ambassador, Michael Oren, published yesterday which I have cited in this thread on what Iran will be able to do to Israel in case of war even without nukes).
3- Because Iran is a rival to the US in the region (and a standard for what you can accomplish even resisting US hegemony) and the US does not want Iran to be seen as a successful model for anyone else to emulate. (That is why so much of what people actually believe about Iran is simply preposterous. Why anyone who visits Iran finds himself/herself shocked by the disconnect between reality and the propaganda. If nothing else, Iran clearly being a much more modern, advanced and even to some extent affluent society than they would have ever thought).
4- Because both past history (e.g., hostage crisis, the bombing of US marine barracks, etc), and the pro Israel lobby and its propaganda arms, in cahoots with Iranian dissidents (some of whom are legitimate voices and others such as the MEK/National Council of Resistance terrorists who have found their latest foreign backer in the neocon circles and in Israel) have made it politically fashionable for people in the US to believe in unsubstantiated drivel about Iran, inciting both unreasonable fears and yet giving them unreasonable assurances of what a hostile policy against Iran would accomplish. (While worse among those exposed to right wing media, the drivel about Iran is prevalent across the political isles in the US). This makes taking anti-Iran positions in the US politically expedient as well.
...

 

Iran has LONG had a covert nuclear weapon program.
The position of the Trump administration and the Israeli
govt is that the Obama deal enables Iran to develop the
bomb after a period of time - ten years I think. That's
Nothing to the Iranians.

Personally, I find the threats to nuke Israel a harbinger
of what is to come - not only the destruction of Israel
but the extinction of Iran.