[lit-ideas] Re: Worst Case Scenarios
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:57:27 -0700 (PDT)
--- Teemu Pyyluoma <teme17@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> John, what Eric wrote was pretty much what I had in
> mind, and I most certainly do not WANT this to
> happen
> but am afraid it will. Garton Ash's piece posted
> previously is a pretty good assessment of where this
> is heading.
*I wonder if anyone noticed that Eric's response to
the Ashe piece makes pretty much the same argument
that was made previously for coolness about Iran's
potential nuclear weapons; there would be horrible
retaliation etc., Iran would never try it unless
pushed completely to the wall. How come the argument
works one way but not the other ? Does it make sense
to suggest that Iran would not dare to retaliate even
to an attack on its own facilities, while maintaining
that it would be prepared to aggressively use nuclear
weapons without provocation ?
> Nuclear power nor nuclear weapons makes no sense
> what
> so ever to Iran
*It might make sense in terms of energy security
because Iran hopes to export its oil and natural gas,
since this brings more money. Militarily, I would
think that Iraq as well as the recent threats
demonstrate that it makes good sense indeed. The main
reason the US has not invaded Iran yet is that its
ground troops have been bogged down in Iraq.
For weaker states to renounce such means of defense as
might be available to them in favour of wishful
thinking has not proven a very good way of deterrence
historically. I don't believe that I need to invoke WW
II and all that. Even a partial balance of fear is
better than none.
> - politically, they already were offered pretty much
> everything they can reasonably hope and declined.
*I honestly have no idea what you mean by this. As far
as I know, the only thing that was offered to Iran was
to unilaterally renounce any nuclear programs.
(snip)
>
> It's really all up to Iran. There is no reason to
> believe that any White House (or EU, Russia, China
> in
> order of conviction...) would be willing to simply
> live with nuclear armed Iran, nor do I think they
> should be.
*I don't see why not, just as the US lives with
nuclear Russia and China, China lives with nuclear US
and Britain etc.
As for the obvious counter-argument,
> North
> Korea isn't in the Middle-East. USA will not budge.
> Barring a change in leadership, Iran will not budge.
> To further complicate things, like you know who,
> Ahmadinejad reportedly is an honestly stupid man.
> How
> does the saying go, like watching a train wreck in
> slow motion?
*I don't think that Ahmadinejad is very smart, but the
nuclear program wasn't his idea. It is said that
Ayatollah Khamenei continues to make the important
decisions and Ahmadinejad is more like a spokesman. I
admit that he hasn't done very well in that role, but
then he was elected so might be a bit difficult to
sack.
Also, Iranian diplomacy recently has not been quite so
catastrophical as you think. Iran has been received
into Shanghai Co-Operation Organization , which
strongly indicates that China and Russia would not
endorse an attack on it.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD18Ad02.html
India would probably not like it too much either, and
Iran's relations with Indonesia and Malaysia have also
improved recently. (I am not sure about Europe, but
then Europe's constantly shifting positions these days
are pretty irrelevant anyway.) But I am not sure that
all this would prevent an attack.
O.K.
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