I'm all for talking to Iran. And I agree we have plenty to talk about.

But is the goal of the talks simple communication? Or should we have specific outcomes in mind like limiting Iranian enrichment to power reactor levels and making the Iranians give up supporting terrorism?

And I like the idea of a quid pro quo re: Iranian soverignty. I wrote about it here in March:

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2006/04/14/random-thoughts-on-iran-how-about-a-quid-pro-quo/

You might recall we did something similar with negotiations during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Posted by: Rick Moran at August 26, 2006 05:34 PM | Permalink to this comment

Now that we've managed to totally emasculate ourselves with our messy little adventure in Iraq, we're going to try to go for Round II with Iran? Feh.

The bottom line is: nobody trusts the US to negotiate in good faith. (Nobody really trusts the Iranians to negotiate in good faith either, but that's the other side of the problem.)

When I read about the US trying to start its own collection of sanctioning countries outside the UN process, I can't help but feel "you and what army?" Unless we get a sizeable percentage of the countries who are presently trading with Iran on board, this will be about as useful as a squirt gun. And will show even more the limits of any power we have.

Japan's already seeking to exempt oil from sanctions. I think this is dead-in-the-water.

Posted by: tzs at August 26, 2006 06:33 PM | Permalink to this comment

That's basically what I recall being Kristol's reluctant agreement; I sort of recall him also mumbling it won't or has never worked, they previously lied, can't be trusted, etc. It just strikes me as unfathomable that there is no dialog or desire for it (from the US side). It's like we're standing in the corner with our arms crossed shaking our head and refusing to talk. I can't understand how that is a strengthening posture in any way; at the least I'd think dialog would be useful for keeping a better/useful eye on subtleties and undercurrents, even if no agreements were ever reached. Though I gather our current team isn't so into subtleties and grey areas. Maybe it's some non-obvious foreign policy negotiation tactic that's just beyond my understanding.

It seems the current crew in charge still doesn't quite understand [or maybe give a sh*t] PR/media and public perception around the world, and how it affects our actions (or lack of) and outcomes. Like they've taken their "we don't govern from polls" [BS] mantra and projected it on the world, deciding it doesn't matter how any of their actions are perceived anywhere in the world, we can just spin it for cable news and it will be forgotten by next week. And while nobody would advocate US decision-making by foreign publics, it seems apparent that those viewpoints should be factored in, as they do have an effect on outcomes (support by allies, buy-in, etc.), or at the very least how those outcomes are perceived (Israel-Hez) and their repercussions. And in general our maneuvering just seems very clumsy or ignorant in this regard IMO.

Posted by: TG at August 26, 2006 07:01 PM | Permalink to this comment

I wonder what Kristol thought about Reagan talking with Gorbachev.......

Posted by: Daniel at August 26, 2006 07:27 PM | Permalink to this comment

Here's the Charlie Rose show with Kristol and Holbrooke:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8281753702222990054

I don't think there's anything we can do to stop Iran getting nukes if they want them.

What we're really debating is which American talking heads get an income boost from this "crisis."

Posted by: monkyboy at August 26, 2006 07:56 PM | Permalink to this comment

I think Chris Hill, who worked on Bosnia and is now our envoy to the North Korea situation would be a good candidate, if he is given the clout and maneuvering room he needs. A non-partisan, hard-nosed public servant with no discernible political agenda.

Posted by: praktike at August 26, 2006 08:58 PM | Permalink to this comment

Dumbies?

Actually, should direct talks with the Iranians begin knowing exactly what we want out of them would be pretty important. Listing the issues is not the same as answering this question. Knowing the state of play within Iranian politics so that divisions among Iranians about what they want can be exploited would be pretty important too.

So, does the administration know what it wants out of talks with the Iranians? Do we know the state of play within Iranian politics as to what the Iranians want? Can we identify the point at which talks with Iran will have to be broken off, or are we excluding that as a possibility? Do we know what American government spokespeople should be saying about issues under negotiation while talks are being conducted? I'd think you'd want to have good answers to all these questions before beginning any negotiation with any foreign government about anything. In this case I suspect that the answer to the second question is probably "no," which presents a big problem, John Bolten or no John Bolten.

Posted by: Zathras at August 26, 2006 10:56 PM | Permalink to this comment

Heh, yeah 'dumbies'. I saw that too. Also on that note, it's 'Bolton' with an 'o' ;-)

So if I count your listing of questions and subsequent index into them correctly, you're saying the US does not have any [good] answers to "Do we know the state of play within Iranian politics as to what the Iranians want?" -- or am I counting wrong?

If we don't, why not? I'm not sure how an air attack would get the answers -- actually I take that back, an attack would pretty likely get most of Iran on the same page and we'd know for sure the play of things there; are you saying we've fallen down on gathering any intelligence on such matters up to this point? A whole lotta people seem to think they know for sure what's going on... they were also pretty wrong last time they thought that.

Are we working backwards? Lacking clear insight on the state of things there, we're gonna clarify them real quick by uniting Iran in opposition by sanctions/attacks? Oh wait I'm being sarcastic. But at the same time it almost wouldn't suprise me unfortunately...

Posted by: TG at August 26, 2006 11:28 PM | Permalink to this comment

Until January 2009, things can only get worse.

The real problem is that we have a bunch of madmen involved in America's foreign policy decisions. The Bush regime has painted itself into a corner on Iran (not to mention North Korea) and has no good way out of the mess it has created.

Iran is going to continue to persue the "peaceful" use of nuclear energy that can produce fuel rods from which weapons grade plutonium can be easily extracted -- and there's not a damn thing the US can do about it. It has the right to do so under international law (and the fact that it did so "secretly" can be justified by the fact that Israel has already bombed facilities dedicated to the "peaceful" development of nuclear power in the Middle East.)

Nor is Iran going to accept any kind of "deal" --- they saw how right wingers in Congress made it impossible for the US to fulfill its obligations under the "Agreed Framework" with North Korea, and that was with an executive branch that actually wanted to work with NK to prevent nuclear proliferation. Iran knows that the US cannot be counted on to uphold its end of any bargain, so why should they accept any deal whose preconditions require Iran to stop developing its own nukes?

Does that mean that the US should not engage in direct talks with Iran? Of course not. One of the smartest things the US could do is to negotiate a withdrawal from Iraq with Iran's co-operation/participation. A very big factor in the continuation of the Sunni based insurgency is US antipathy toward Iran --- the Sunni's figure that as long as the US sees Iran as a big threat, there is always the chance that there will be a return to the "good old days" before the first US-Iraq War when Iraq was an American client state run by a Sunni despot. If the US were to signal to the Sunnis that it accepted the fact that Iran was going to "run" Iraq, there would be no reason for the Sunni's to believe that its resistance would yield any positive results.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at August 27, 2006 12:43 AM | Permalink to this comment

If sanctions or the threat of attack will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear weapon program, why do you think diplomacy will do so? What is it in the talking that will influence Iran to shift its policies on any of the issues you instance? You may long for a diplomatic superhero, but if he is only paper covering a weak hand--by your argument--what can he hope to accomplish? Diplomacy is not magic or wish-fulfillment.

If the US has not the power to convince Teheran it will suffer greatly for acquiring nuclear weapons in the first place, how will the US be able to convince Teheran of the same thing as an aspect of a policy of containment once the Iranians have the bomb? That the US has no power to prevent Iran from getting the bomb means the US has no power to contain Iran either. I take Perkovich's point that the neighbors' will find their minds concentrated wonderfully, but that hardly means they will rally to a coalition of deterrence. Some will follow our lead and make their accomodations with Iran; others will look to their own deterrence and follow Iran's lead to devise their own bombs. Perkovich's sanguine expectations of cooperation in containment are unwarranted.

David Joslin

Posted by: David Joslin at August 27, 2006 08:47 AM | Permalink to this comment

To arrive at an effective strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it is first necessary to understand the nature of the danger we face from that country. That danger must be seen in the context of the nuclear danger in general. Let us consider where we stand.

A period of more than 60 years has now elapsed since the last use of a nuclear weapon. As a result, we are suffering from a false sense of security. The fact is that nuclear weapons will be used in the future. It is merely a question of when, not if. The nuclear flash might not appear for a hundred years, or it may happen tomorrow. It will happen.

The world already has massive stocks of the special nuclear materials (SNM) necessary to make nuclear weapons, primarily plutonium and U235. Any country or terrorist organization that gets its hands on 4 kg of Pu239 or 25 kg of U235 (the unclassified amounts considered adequate to make a nuclear weapon) will have the bomb, period. Many of us, including our own Department of Homeland Security, have bought into the Hiroshima fallacy, the notion that any nuclear weapon must necessarily be at least as technically sophisticated as the gun-type bomb that was dropped over that city. This is nonsense. The greatest nuclear threat we face at the moment is the threat from terrorists, and any weapon they use will hardly need to be as sophisticated as that. Starting with a critical mass of SNM divided into two chunks, the simplest form of attack would simply be for a suicide bomber to drop one on top of the other in the center of a city. No explosion would result, and, perhaps, no fatalities would occur, but the effect would be the same as detonating a big “dirty bomb.” The immediate area would be poisoned with radioactivity, and the economic impact would be great. The political impact would be incalculable. Proceeding from greater to lesser sophistication, the critical masses could be accelerated together with a strong spring, or a small explosive charge. One might add a crude gun barrel to enhance the effect. At each stage, more radioactivity would be released, and distributed more widely. Eventually, the device would explode. The size of the explosion would be unpredictable. It would all depend on when a stray neutron happened along.

The implication here is that all the expensive radiation detection equipment that DHS is setting up at chokepoints in the stream of commerce, such as at heavily traveled border crossing points, is utterly useless, a complete waste of money. Terrorists could carry the only detectable part of a weapon, the SNM, on foot in backpacks, on ATV’s, in personal submarines, on light aircraft, whatever. Assembling a complete weapon at the target would be a mere matter of putting the SNM in place.

As for weapons with a yield as great or greater than the Hiroshima weapon, here, again, the picture isn’t rosy. Again, one could easily import all the parts of such a weapon other than the SNM, or build those parts in place at the target, with a negligible chance of detection. The final step would simply be putting the SNM in place, so the task of placing the weapon at its target is, again, simply a matter of transporting 4 kg of Pu or 25 kg of U235. Gun-type weapons are easy to make. Plutonium weapons, which require implosion of the SNM, are harder, but are still well within the capabilities of a terrorist organization, not to mention a country, assuming they have the SNM to begin with.

It is unlikely that Iran will directly attack Israel or any other country with nuclear weapons. It is much more likely that they, or Pakistan, or North Korea, or some other nuclear capable country, will simply supply a terrorist organization with the necessary SNM. That, in reality, is the nature of the danger we are facing from Iran. In my estimation, it is a danger incomparably greater than any we ever faced from Iraq. Given the level of the danger, our wisest course may be to issue a general ultimatum that any country not yet in the nuclear club that tests a nuclear weapon will be subject to immediate US attack. I realize this is now a laughable idea to some. It will be come less laughable after the first nuclear attack. Nuclear attack will come whether we issue such an ultimatum or not. The first thing we need to do is stop fooling ourselves that such an attack is merely hypothetical. Then we need to start preparing for its aftermath.

Posted by: Helian at August 27, 2006 12:27 PM | Permalink to this comment

Helian goes way overboard -- are we going to nuke even stable democracies that decide to acquire the Bomb? And are we going to respond to the threat of a relatively minute radiological weapon attack that may not even cause "any fatalities" with a nuclear strike that kills hundreds of thousands? (To say nothing of the fact that radiological weapons -- like biological and chemical ones -- are so tremendously easier to acquire than genuine nuclear weapons that there is no effective way to prevent any nation from acquiring them, or even to detect their acquisition.)

The real danger from nuclear proliferation comes from shaky states (such as Pakistan) and dictatorships that acquire it, since:

(1) The latter live in fear not just of attack from outside but of an eventual internal revolt in which a sizable number of the current tyranny's officials may get massacred by their own enraged people -- and so they are willing to run risks with nuclear weapons which would be utterly insane for any democracy, in order to try to extort the cash to stay in power indefinitely. (That, however, does NOT make it very likely that such a dictatorship -- unless it suffers from a level of religious suicidal lunacy which Iran's does not -- will try to sell its Bombs on the black market, let alone simply hand them over to terrorists. Obviously, if they do that, they'll never know when one of their own weapons might come back to bite them.)

(2) When a dictatorship DOES collapse, its nukes can fall into God knows whose untraceable hands during the ensuing chaos.

By the same token, however, one point we should definitely and publicly make is that, once Iran becomes a verifiably peaceful and stable democracy, we will no longer oppose its acquisition of nuclear weapons. Play this right, and we might even be able to use it as leverage to encourage the Iranian people (and some of their officials) to put additional pressure on their government to reform.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at August 27, 2006 02:51 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Helian goes way overboard -- are we going to nuke even stable democracies that decide to acquire the Bomb? And are we going to respond to the threat of a relatively minute radiological weapon attack that may not even cause "any fatalities" with a nuclear strike that kills hundreds of thousands?"

This comment reflects the level of reasoning in the rest of your post. Would you care to point out to me where, in my comment, I have advocated the use of nuclear weapons for any reason in any way, shape or form? I have no objection to people like you living in a dream world. You can't help it. But don't attribute things to me that I never said and don't believe.

Posted by: Helian at August 27, 2006 03:21 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Given the level of the danger, our wisest course may be to issue a general ultimatum that any country not yet in the nuclear club that tests a nuclear weapon will be subject to immediate US attack."

Next question, Helian?

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at August 27, 2006 08:00 PM | Permalink to this comment

Ah. You meant "immediate NON-NUCLEAR US attack". My mistake; sorry. My only excuse is that it's been a long night. But are you going to apply THAT philosophy to democracies that decide to acquire the Bomb -- starting with, say Japan (in response to North Korea) or Taiwan (in response to both NK and China)?

And -- as Djerejian pointed out back on May 14 -- even in the case of Iran, do you have any confidence that our current governing clowns won't botch such an attack disastrously? (If Seymour Hersh is to be believed, they're already leaning toward an attack in which most of the bombs we drop won't even be aimed at possible nuclear-related sites, but will instead be part of a general attempt to destabilize the current Iranian government, using the brilliant reasoning that the Iranian people will just be itching to side with the nation that is bombing the shit out of their country at the time. According to Hersh more recently, they gave exactly the same advice to Olmert, encouraging him to bomb Lebanon in general rather than just the pro-Hezbollah portion of it, thus supposedly goading non-Shiite Lebanon to turn against Hezbollah rather than Israel.) With such fools in charge, delaying any action against Iran as long as possible -- simply to allow a President to take power whose IQ has a fighting chance at three digits -- may be the best course of action.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at August 27, 2006 08:11 PM | Permalink to this comment

"With such fools in charge, delaying any action against Iran as long as possible -- simply to allow a President to take power whose IQ has a fighting chance at three digits -- may be the best course of action."

For that matter, it would be short sighted to see a nuclear exchange in a wholly negative light. It would, for example, somewhat reduce the coverage of Jon Benet on the nightly news, at least temporarily, and greenhouse gas emissions would likely fall, at least once the nuclear winter has run its course.

Posted by: Helian at August 28, 2006 12:47 AM | Permalink to this comment

Take it up with Greg, Helian. He's the one who pointed out on May 12 that -- if ever there was an administration capable of bungling an air campaign against Iran's nuclear capabilities -- this is the one. (Just as Rummy, according to the book "Jawbreaker", was directly responsible for Bin Laden escaping from Tora Bora AFTER we had him so thoroughly surrounded that he could be heard over Coalition radios apologizing to his fighters for getting them into the trap).

As for my living in a "dream world": our disagreement seems limited to my saying that (1) we shouldn't bomb every stable democracy that's about to acquire the Bomb; and (2) that it is impossible to prevent nations from acquiring radiological (as opposed to nuclear weapons). Which, of course, is true.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at August 28, 2006 03:11 AM | Permalink to this comment

Back to Gregory's original thoughts on this. A question for all, with regard to the notion of 'security guarantees':

Why does Iran feel threatened?

They're the biggest regional power. They have a military that, while it can't stand up to America, can handle any other regional military force. The Mad Mullahs™ have a pretty firm grip on the country right now. The odds of internal rebellion in the forseeable future are low, and the risk of being attacked, particularly if they were just to mind their own business, are also low.

But there's the rub. They don't mind their own business.

They sponsor terrorist groups. They sponsor terrorist attacks not only in the region but around the world (remember Buenos Aires?). They fund these groups, provide arms, training and guidance. They seek to destabilize neighboring regimes. They build alliances with other destabilizing figures in the world (e.g., Hugo Chavez). They threaten Israel's existence (even if you don't like Israel, a threat to exterminate that state is destabilizing).

And now they're near completion (one year? ten years?) of a long-term, sustained effort to possess nuclear weapons.

Few people think Britain's nuclear weapons are destabilizing, because the Brits behave in a way that suggests clarity, normalcy and stability. Ditto France. Even the Russians are clear in their actions. But Iran is not.

So why does Iran feel threatened? Because they threaten others; in particular they threaten countries that don't cotton well to being threatened.

Now then, why in the world would we provide 'security guarantees' to such a state? First off, it won't be believed by the Iranians. But more importantly it's irrelevant -- even if the U.S. gave Iran such a promise, the Iranians would continue in their behavior and at some point the security guarantees would be either revoked or would become moot.

Security guarantees won't modulate the behavior of the Mad Mullahs™. Security guarantees don't get at the heart of the issue -- Iran's threatening behavior.

Posted by: Steve White at August 28, 2006 04:23 AM | Permalink to this comment

"an attack in which most of the bombs we drop [...] will instead be part of a general attempt to destabilize the current Iranian government, using the brilliant reasoning that the Iranian people will just be itching to side with the nation that is bombing the shit out of their country at the time. [...] they gave exactly the same advice to Olmert, encouraging him to bomb Lebanon in general rather than just the pro-Hezbollah portion of it, thus supposedly goading non-Shiite Lebanon to turn against Hezbollah rather than Israel."

Finally, a sign of competence. Instead of jsut rushing in, they try out a small-scale test case first, using an expendable patsy. If it appears not to work maybe they'll change their minds.

Posted by: J Thomas at August 28, 2006 05:30 AM | Permalink to this comment

I have always believed in the power of dialogue to dissuade murderers from commiting murder, by proxy or otherwise. A little chit chat always does the trick.

Gregory knows there's a lot to talk about, a revelation worth remembering, thanks Gregory. But the existence of issues and their availability for discussion does not justify a presumption of solutions.

Gregarious Greg is dubious even of sanctions,so apart from bribes what exactly do we put on the table? Blathering is fun and inherently self congratulatory but once in a while substance in the form of strength/force must be present. A terrible thought for the sophisiticated to entertain, bad manners you know, but Iran , it seems, already has this propensity for violence and chatter over tea and crumpets won't impress them.

As an exercise both in vacuity and cliche of classic proportions Gregory finishes with things like "root causes" [ their violance is the root cause],and "intelligent [ structure of which is left unspecified] direct high level[ Gregory Dear, what else woud it be?] dialogue".

Thats it?

Posted by: johnt at August 28, 2006 02:07 PM | Permalink to this comment

Johnt, I think you got it right with your first paragraph. The hope is to use the power of dialogue to dissuade the murderers in our own government from committing more murder in the next couple of years.

Posted by: J Thomas at August 28, 2006 07:43 PM | Permalink to this comment

The Mullahs aren't mad. They are very pragmatic. Everyone forgets that Israel had a relationship with Iran that started in the time of the Shah and lasted at least until the early nineties long after the Mullahs came to power. Iran wants to be the dominant power in the middle east. With our help she is well on the way. There will be no serious sanctions because Russia and China supported by many others and for a mixture of economic and geopolitical reason does not want them. The USA meanwhile is hamstrung both diplomatically and strategically. Despite the armchair generals spluttering all over the Right there will be no military attack on Iran because the economic consequences for a country that consumes 25% of the worlds oil and has an industrial and financial system that is heavily dependant on stability are simply untenable. Stop worrying and get used to a nuclear armed Iran. This is substantially if not entirely due to the completely inept foreign policy management of the past five years. Thank George, Dick, Condi and Don.

Posted by: Charlie at August 28, 2006 08:32 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Stop worrying and get used to a nuclear armed Iran. This is substantially if not entirely due to the completely inept foreign policy management of the past five years. Thank George, Dick, Condi and Don."

What, me worry! Apparently we've moved on from the, "Yes, I thought a war would be a great idea, but who could have possibly predicted how incompetent our leaders would be" argument to the, "George, Dick, Condi and Don are incompetent, so put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" argument. Cool, but it will probably be rather less fashionable after the first nuclear attack.

Posted by: Helian at August 28, 2006 09:25 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Cool, but it will probably be rather less fashionable after the first nuclear attack."

I really don't think they'll do it.

I mean, The USA is the only nation that's ever made a nuclear attack, and I don't think we're about to do it a second time. Sure, Bush will talk tough, but he just isn't really going to do it. Or if he does, the orders mostly won't be carried out. We've had 60 years for our military to think about what they'll do if they get an insane order to do a nuclear attack, and they're ready to die for their country disobeying that order.

But I could be wrong. I'll be very unpleasantly surprised if we start a nuclear war.

Posted by: J Thomas at August 28, 2006 11:20 PM | Permalink to this comment

"But I could be wrong. I'll be very unpleasantly surprised if we start a nuclear war."

We won't "start a nuclear war." We're much more likely to use a bunker busting nuke "for humane reasons," such as making sure that biological or chemical agents are destroyed in place, or to engage targets that can't be destroyed with conventional munitions, such as hard and deeply buried targets. This is really the chief danger we face. If we use a nuke for some such hare-brained reason, we will set ourselves up for the counterpunch. We will have handed our enemies the moral authority to retaliate with nukes.

At the moment many in the weapons community are in favor of building a "mini-nuke." According to the conventional wisdom at DOE, if we had such a weapon, our enemies would consider it much more credible that we would actually use it, and would, therefore, be effectively deterred. Of course, we would also be much more likely to use such a weapon. IMHO, development of any new nuclear weapon would be a very bad idea.

There is also a great deal of agitation to resume nuclear testing. This would also be a very bad move. There is no question of the "safety and reliability" of our stockpile. Our capacity to model nuclear weapons on computers, as well as the availability or near availability of experimental facilities that can approach some of the physical conditions encountered in nuclear weapons, such as Z at Sandia or the NIF at Livermore, is unequaled. If we resume testing, we will simply give this advantage up, by encouraging the rest of the world to follow suit. It is unlikely that it will ever be in our "supreme national interest" to resume testing. There is no doubt that our nuclear arsenal will "work" if we need it (forget the "best if used by December 1959" caveat mentioned on "The Simpsons"), and our potential enemies know it.

In a word, my advice to our intellectual leaders is to keep this issue on the front burner, so we are not faced with a fait accompli by short sighted military or political leaders. I cannot think of any reason why we would ever want to be the first to use nuclear weapons, or to resume testing.

Posted by: Helian at August 29, 2006 12:32 AM | Permalink to this comment

J Thomas, Those wicked neo-cons can't pull the wool over your eyes can they ? Usually when one enters a website of mixed political opinion one hopes for, at best, moral equivalence, the old "we're as bad as they are" stuff . None of that namby pamby nonsense for you though, you've figured out who the real murderers are. Do you lock your bedroom door and sleep under the bed with Dad's old musket near at hand? One never knows does one?

At least, directly or indirectly, you made your preferences clear, even if in a one sided way. Hang loose and try and stay calm.

Posted by: johnt at August 29, 2006 01:03 PM | Permalink to this comment

Johnt, how about you trying moral equivalence on us to show us what we get at best.

Posted by: J Thomas at August 29, 2006 04:01 PM | Permalink to this comment

J Thomas, Equivalence, there isn't any, at least not from your side. And don't try to squeeze a compliment out of that.

Hey J, did that foiled London mass airline bombing catch your attention[?] for a few seconds? Do you ever recall the images of people jumping from the 99th floor of the WTC? How about a good, old fashioned beheading, or a nail bomb, the contents of which are driven into the bodies of women and children, or maybe those mass graveyards filled with the corpses of children, tortured before death and buried with their toys.

J, you're quite the dude, only a clever fellow like you could figure out who the real killers are!

Sorry J, but I've got to say goodbye to you, your intellectual capacities make our exchange too intense, the challenge to demanding, the moral light too blinding.

Bye Bye, and keep Dad's musket close by, the neo-cons may be making one of those midnight raids on truth seekers like you.

Posted by: johnt at August 30, 2006 02:44 PM | Permalink to this comment

Back on topic, the iranians haven't budged and the deadline is approaching.

After the diplomacy fails are we really going to do a unilateral attack?

Will the russians and chinese both accept our unilateral attack? If they don't will we attack anyway?

Posted by: J Thomas at August 30, 2006 04:34 PM | Permalink to this comment

"After the diplomacy fails are we really going to do a unilateral attack?"

It's Gregory's call as far as I'm concerned. After all, that's what he gets the big bucks for here on the blog.

Posted by: Helian at August 30, 2006 07:31 PM | Permalink to this comment

Well, see, the argument is that unless we do our unilateral attack, someday iran will get nukes and will use them and then will be utterly destroyed. So we're sort of doing them a favor by pearl-haraboring them now.

This is a weird fantasy. Why would anybody in their right mind think that iran would start a war that would get them nuked? Because they're insane religious fanatics who don't care whether they live or die. They'd be happy to sacrifice their whole nation for their twisted religiion of death. That's why. Well, but why would anybody believe that? It's a kind of groupthink, the more these guys tell each other that they would, the more they study mistranslations of the Koran and listen to the weirdest muslim hick preachers that get misquoted etc, the more they agree with each other, and the more they manage to believe it.

This kind of groupthink was what kept us in vietnam so long. This kind of groupthink is what keeps some people thinking even today that we were on the verge of winning in vietnam when we finally gave up.

So we're seriously considering a unilateral unprovoked attack on iran. The published excuse for this makes no sense -- it's something that was cooked up to scare the peasants. Is there a reason that makes more sense? Yes, an obvious one. Nobody has ever made a serious attack on a nuclear power. If we don't defeat iran before they get nukes, it will be hard to ever defeat iran.

The iranians think we're bluffing. That's understandable, an unprovoked unilateral attack on a major oil-producing nation this year looks insane. If they're right then all the lather about how awful they are will just die down the way the stuff about north korea did. Just so much hot air.

If Bush is insane enough to actually go through with it, what results are likely from there?

Posted by: J Thomas at September 1, 2006 09:27 AM | Permalink to this comment