http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World- ... 0986?f=rss

You know, there's a lot of countries that if they said were developing/adapting a nuclear programme, you probably wouldn't really give a stuff... And that's probably because a lot of those countries aren't run by full-on lunatics

"Hello? Is that Israel? We have a mission for the Israeli Air Force" - sincerely, Barack Obama.

Israel is a serial deceiver of the International Community, has secret facilities, consistently ignores the UN, oppresses peoples within its borders and could not be described as inherently stable.

IMO if Israel's allowed nuclear weapons then so is everyone else.

The difference of course is that Israel has the support of the US of A, Iran does not.

And that being anti-Zionist somehow automatically makes me a rascist, anti-Semitic, Nazi schweinhund.

Wha' wha' wha'?

I don't think that argument follows. I don't think Israel should be allowed nuclear weapons, I don't think anyone should be allowed them frankly - they're far too indiscriminate and have such long term consequences of use I can't see a good reason anyone would want to use one; from a military point of view let alone tactical or strategic one. Personally, I've been of the view that even though Israel has them it could never actually use them because that's the one thing its sponsor government could simply never condone. If Israel nuked even an unpopulated part of Iran or Syria, the US would be forced to withdraw all support; so to use a nuke would effectively be to doom Israel anyway.

But that's by the by. Israel has them and, essentially, there's no direct way we can take them away. All we can do is apply economic and diplomatic pressure to make them disarm themselves of them. Much in the same way as we apply diplomatic pressure to Pakistan and India to do the same and as was done to South Africa (who had nukes, but dismantled it's programme some years ago). What we must also do is make sure the situation doesn't get any worse i.e. that the number of nukes in the world doesn't significantly increase. In this case, Iran is not being persecuted because it's Islamic, it's being persecuted because of what it's doing; it's pure realpolitic. If, I dunno, Belgium was doing what Iran is reported as doing, they would be getting exactly the same treatment.

The problem with Iran's nuclear programme is its not just upsetting America, which Iran has been doing for years and people have pretty much accepted will go on, its also upsetting Russia and China. They don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons either, they're just not as obvious in their statements about it. Essentially the opinions of China and Russia are what holds the Americans in check - they'd be bombing Tehran tomorrow if they thought the other two would sit quiet as they did so. That's not likely to ever happen but the nearer Iran gets to a deliverable long range nuclear weapon, the more Russia and China are likely to not object too much to a limited 'surgical strike' kind of mission on Iranian soil to remove that threat.

Iran wants to sit at the big table politically but frankly it simply doesn't understand how the game works - the big three are quite happy with things are they are carved up between them and none of them will look kindly on someone trying to push in. If Iran thinks Russia is it's friend and will bring any influence to bear if it came to a critical moment it is mistaken. Russia is very much more likely to side with America if it thinks Iran is any sort of threat to itself. If Iran fixates around the notion of 'we must have nukes because Israel does' it's missing the big picture about how global politics works. Russia, China and the US don't trust each other. But they trust everyone else even less.

Jon

and that makes me feel safer already … [/sarcasm] …

the Israelis within Gazza they have managed to create a containment camp
with might of military by land, sea and air, the Israelis must have learnt a few lessons from the Nazis


and just for the record i am part Jewish …

If anything should make you feel "safe"(r), it's this:

If anything should make you feel "safe"(r), it's this:



if that is one of ours then its more likely to blow up when launching any missiles
and if its a Yankee job then they are more likely to hit 'us' then 'them' …

Odds are if it is one of ours then only one is out there the rest are in repair or on training missions. If Gordon gets his way and scraps one then the odds are that there will be patchy defence and pointless.

What a good idea. Give nukes to every idiot out there. That's only going to increase the chances that one of them will actually use them.

It's like in the USA: more people have guns -> more people get shot.

If you don't believe there are idiots out there, see the http://www.x404.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2990 thread.

That was exactly my point.

We hear a lot about Iran and possible invasion but we have no authority because we support (or at least don't denounce) Israel's possession of nukes. As long as Israel has their nukes their neighbours will want the same. If we're to stop Iran getting nukes we first need to stop Israel having them.

However, as I said earlier, as soon as one ventures any opinion that doesn't fully support Israel, one runs the risk of being labelled a racist.

Not by me, there's a world of difference between not liking a country and the politics it represents and racism.

However I do think you're being naive over Iran's nuclear programme. I have a feeling we'd be in the same position if Israel didn't exist. The Iranian government want nukes because having nukes gives you a certain amount of power and status. South Africa didn't develop nukes because they felt threatened by Israel.

The one thing you can be certain of about politicians, whatever skin colour or religion or nationality, is the one thing they really want is to pump up their egos.

Jon