THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY and yes your right i didn't name anybody. in case you were wondering people who work in intelligence don't exactly want their names floating out in public. you know it kinda hurts their ability to do their job. and your sources aren't from intelligence agencies and therefore well quite frankly next to fucking useless. politicians claim lots of things that doesn't mean their true.
And yet we find: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...-capability-to-produce-nuke-weapons/?page=all http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/CIAHayden-Warns-Iran-Inexorable/2012/01/06/id/423322 http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/06/cia-iran-could-be-two-years-from-nuclear-bomb/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57354948/u.n-confirms-iran-uranium-enrichment-claim/
Yes, the whole US-led agressive stance against Iran is merely an effort to keep Israel from bombing Iran and embarrassing the US and forcing it to veto world wide condemnation of that in the UN Security Council. The US has tied NATO, England, and Australia into its harasment and threats against Iran, but most of the world accepts Iran's assurances---including most of Latin America. They may be wrong, however, because we have been hostile to Iran for decades and even financed Saadam's Iraq invasion of Iran. This treatment to a nation that has not invaded other counties (as we have) is enough to make them feel the need to be nuclear armed in their own defense. Like all countries, Iran values its sovereignty and its right to build nuclear power plants. If we starve the country by cutting of its oil exports, they will be forced to sacrifice their navy in the Straits at great cost to the whole world from skyrocketing oil prices and general economic devistation. Probably nothing has already contributed more to the decline of our civilization than the US partnership with Israel. brough http://civilization-overview.com
Or they could just comply with IAEA rules that allow them to develop nuclear power plants. Then they wouldn't have to start WWIII.
America has every reason to from a eternal union with Russia, the UK, and Japan and take over the world.
Nah, that's only a temporary cost to the rest of the world, but a massive cost to the current government of Iran. I.e., in a scenario wherein Iran lashes out militarily, world opinion will turn against them and in favor of US action to assure shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Since the USA has vastly superior military forces to Iran, that conflict will play out in favor of the USA. The result will be that oil shipments resume in short order, and the Islamic Republic gets, at a minimum, isolated and humiliated. There are those who go so far as to suggest that the current sanctions regime is designed with that end in mind. I.e., it's intended to pressure Iran into lashing out and so creating a pretext to war them, as was done with Japan ahead of WWII. Of course, Iran surely realizes this, and so it's unlikely they'll initiate any hostilities if they can avoid it. But, opportunities for miscalculation always abound, especially in tense situations, so who knows. The alternatives for them aren't exactly rosy either.
And what would those reasons be? the only reason I see for them to pursue nukes is everyone accusing them of doing so and punishing for their blind hate.
at last someone who goes you know just because we don't like them doesn't mean their fucking idiots. I don't get why bright people like spider for some reason automaticily assume because they don't like someone that thier stupid.
Why wouldn't they want nukes? Most countries that have it within their grasp will take it. Also, Iran prides itself on its ability to defend itself with her military. Doesn't nukes seem like the next logical step in their efforts?
Because Iran hates Israel and the US. Iran knows it will get its ass whipped for opposing with any other conventional method. But with a nuke it would be able to pose a threat.
Surety of painful international response, for one thing. Likeliness of a regional arms race that would leave them surrounded by hostile, nuclear-armed adversaries, for another. Plus the things are just plain expensive to build and maintain, and Iran has other important things that need funding. I expect that what they want is not really actual nuclear weapons, but rather a nuclear weapons "breakout" or "threshold" capability, similar to what is maintained by Japan, Brazil, etc. I.e., they'd have enough infrastructure and knowledge to assemble nuclear weapons in a 6-9 month time frame, if they decided to. This could confer most of the benefits of nuclear weapons to them, without many of the worst drawbacks. Nah, there are literally dozens of countries that are capable of such, and have decided not to possess such arms (Brazil, Japan, South Korea, various European states, Australia, etc. etc. etc.). A big part of this is the NPT - this neutralizes much of the desire for nuclear weapons, at least for most countries. The "next logical step" would actually be assembling a military - and an economy to drive it - that is actually capable of defending Iran from attack by its obvious adversaries. A nuclear weapon might seem like a shortcut to that, but I doubt that such will really pay off in the end. It's extremely expensive (both in material terms and political terms) and, should push really come to shove, an arsenal of the type Iran can possibly field is probably not as effective a deterrent as seems to be assumed.
The problem isn't religious fanatacism (at least, not personal religious fanatacism on the parts of the leadership - the religious nationalist aspect of their political ideology does constrain them of course) so much as that the Supreme Leader is an old man who was never terribly astute at geopolitics, and who faces no checks on his decision-making, nor term limits. That's essentially a guarantee that you'll eventually end up committed to really bad strategic decisions.
Agreed- Iran's nuclear investments wouldn't protect them from extermination in the event they should choose to launch a nuclear attack. The resultant casualty ratios and permanent loss of their lands to western colonists would be vastly disproportionate to their detriment in comparison to the damage they might do to their enemies (i.e. a few tens/hundreds of thousands of dead Jews and Palestinians, comparable to Hiroshima and Nagasaki). And if they should instead decide to sit tight but retain a nuclear arsenal in a Cold War posture, sanctions against them would be even more crippling than what Apartheid South Africa faced. At least investment in conventional military capabilities would allow them to escalate a conflict in steady proportions without upping it to full-on attempts at genocide. It would give them the option of taking a beating, but still causing some misery for their opponents in turn and maybe rousing some international sympathy, which most countries would find highly preferable over the option of initiating a nuclear exchange and putting a nail in the coffin of one of the world's oldest cultures.
You could say exactly the same thing about Evangelicals in the USA. And yet, said apocalypticism never seems to exert itself in the actual decision-making. As in Iran, it's theater for the plebs.