[lit-ideas] Re: Peak Oil - More disturbing than OBL
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 15:51:45 -0400
Simon: Iran was subjected to the most stringent
inspection and ongoing serveillance. The IAEA
found no evidence that Iran was moving its nuclear
research towards a weapons programme. Even
assuming this to be the case, most estimates put
the time scale at ten years. Iran's nuclear
programme is not an imminent threat.
Eric: Anthony H. Cordesman, whose work I have been
citing [Cordesman & Al-Rodhan: Iranian Nuclear
Weapons, The Options of Diplomacy Fails 4/7/06
Page 40] explains the policy in a piece for ABC.
Iranian Nuclear Weapons: Options if Diplomacy Fails
War May Not Be Inevitable
Analysis By ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN
April 9, 2006 — A great deal of new speculation
has developed over the nature of United Nations,
United States, and Israeli options if Iran
persists in acquiring nuclear weapons, and how
Iran might respond.
Some reports rush to judgment, implying that the
United States or Israel is on the edge of war.
Others discuss sanctions and other measures design
to coerce Iran to comply in halting proliferation
and options like containment. Still others push
for conventional diplomacy.
A close analysis does not predict any rush to war.
No one can rule out some "smoking gun" by way of a
new discovery about Iran that might lead to such
action, but there are incentives to wait as well
as to act.
U.S. intelligence takes the position that Iran
will not have a weapon until after 2010. Israel
officially uses a "rolling three year deadline"
that essentially says Israel must plan for Iran to
have a nuclear device within three years as
prudent planning. This deadline was recently
rolled forward from 2008 to 2009.
Playing the "bad cop" by tacitly threatening Iran
probably makes good sense in pushing it to accept
diplomatic options. Preparing the international
community for possible action also makes sense.
Waiting for diplomacy to succeed or fail, however,
gives the United States a number of major
advantages: International credibility, more
allies, avoiding the stigma of rushing forward as
in the case of Iraq, time to target and assemble
operating facilities, and waiting until Iran
invests massively in high cost facilities.
Rushing into action would be terrible politics
without a smoking gun that was credible on the
U.S. and international level. It would probably
also do far more to unite the Iranian people
around the current regime than weaken it, and
could trigger major new problems with the Shiites
in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Hezbollah, and
Iranian support of Hamas and the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad.
full article at:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1823327&page=1
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