Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘nuclear’

The Wall Street Journal has an analysis of Iran’s provocation of the West with President Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric and – more importantly – nuclear ambition. And the conclusions it reaches are disconcerting, to say the least. Among the points it makes are that:

• Iran chose now to press the nuclear issue, figuring the U.S. can’t do much because of Iraq and the rest of the world couldn’t ever do much about it.
• The U.N. is powerless to stop Iran from going nuclear, and no Security Council sanctions – even if agreed upon by Russia and China – would be strong enough to get Iran to cave.
• U.S. Intelligence estimates that Iran is “very close” to mastering nuclear weapons technology, perhaps as close as a year.
• Unlike with Iraq, the world cannot count on Israel to stop Iran from going nuclear, as it has neither the range nor the capacity to prevent disastrous reprisals for an attack. It would likely come down to the U.S. to take military action, if it were to come to that, and at the moment this seems unlikely given the war in Iraq.

All in all, the analysis paints a very bleak picture in which Iran is marching steadily towards acquiring a nuclear bomb that it may have every intention of using to wipe Israel off the map.

If North Korea was the number-one threat to the world not too long ago, Iran has suddenly jumped up a few positions. However, I don’t believe we’re headed towards World War III tomorrow. There are still steps that can be taken, if the world recognizes the dangers in allowing Teheran to acquire nuclear technology. I only hope that these steps are taken, and that they are effective.

Most despots who use virulent antisemitism as a political tool are really much saner than they seem. They know that redirecting people’s hatred against the common enemy of the Jews and Israel is shrewd: it saves them from revolting against the leadership, or from attacking one another. Somewhat.

But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spewings are ironically worrisome precisely because he seems to believe them. Unlike many Arab leaders who frequently call for Israel’s destruction when in truth it’s the last thing they actually want, Ahmadinejad actually seems crazy enough to put pragmatic or political concerns aside in favour of his virulent hatred.

Ahmadinejad knows that nobody in the world will stop him from going nuclear. He knows he can say the most hateful things possible and all the world will do is shake their heads and scold. And he knows that if he ever unleashes nuclear weapons at Israel, the Israelis would – and probably could – retaliate by wiping out Tehran.

The problem is, he may actually hate Israel so much that he doesn’t care.

If suicide bombers are so dangerous because they have no regard for their own life, then Ahmadinejad is the king of all suicide bombers; unpredictable and possibly likely to sacrifice his entire country to satisfy his blood lust. And it may well be too late to do anything to stop him from acquiring nuclear power.

Ahmadinejad has engaged the rest of the world in the ultimate game of chicken, and the rest of the world swerved first. The only question now is, can the Iranian forces for moderation and change respond quickly enough to rein him in? I’d like to think so, but it’s not looking good.

Iran has resumed its nuclear activity because it knows full well that the U.N. will always swerve first:

Iran has begun processing a new batch of uranium despite Western pressure on it to halt sensitive atomic work, possibly harming attempts to defuse a standoff over its nuclear aims, a diplomat said on Wednesday.

[ . . . ]

Western countries suspect Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic program, which Tehran vehemently denies, saying it only wants to generate electricity.

Yeah, right. And hell is just a sauna.

Somehow I don’t think Iran is planning to wipe Israel off the map using mere electricity.

That’s my sentiment about today’s announcement of an agreement in principle on the part of the world’s most despotic regime, North Korea, to abandon its nuclear weapons program:

North Korea promised to give up its nuclear weapons program on Monday, defusing a high-stakes crisis, but skeptics said the deal hammered out in Beijing was long on words and short of action.

South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China — the other players in the six-party talks — in exchange expressed a willingness to provide oil, energy aid and security guarantees.

Washington and Tokyo agreed to normalize ties with the impoverished and diplomatically isolated North, which pledged to rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The People’s Democratic Republic of Death Camps probably sees this as a golden opportunity to milk the West for all they’re worth, while pretending to give up weapons it has no intention of parting with. Or – worse – continuing to develop such weapons and then selling them to terrorist groups all over the world.

It’s important to give diplomacy a chance here, especially since there doesn’t seem to be any alternative. So I’ll try to be cautiously optimistic for now… or at least fake it. But with an unstable dictator like Kim Jong-Il at the helm, though, who knows what North Korea will do next?

Iran’s going nuclear… openly and brazenly, not even bothering to try to sound convincing in their line about “peaceful electricity generation”.

The question is, who is left to stop the nuclear ambitions of one of the most dangerous theocratic thuggeries in the Mideast? Not the UN, which has never had the ability to do anything. Not the EU, which will hold an emergency session to see if they broke an agreement that was impossible to enforce in the first place. Not the US or, which after Iran have no political capital left to do anything even if they wanted to. Even Israel, which everyone is secretly hoping will play bad guy and repeat Osarik and then get chewed out by the world, can’t take that kind of risk to its security this time around.

North Korea’s already nuclear; it’s too late there. Iran is steadily marching toward that point of no return… and there’s nobody left to stop them. I fear that future generations of humanity will be paying the price for our spineless world for a long time.

Can anyone imagine a world in which this backwards statement would not obtain the support and agreement of most of the countries of the world? Me neither.

The United States and Israel represent the real nuclear threat to the world, not Iran, Tehran’s chief envoy to the United Nations said on Friday after an abortive conference on controlling nuclear weapons.

Now we can watch the United Nations do what it does best: pander to Iran and condemn the US and Israel.

Sometimes I feel like Alice in Wonderland, reading this stuff.

Check out the opening paragraph of this news story on North Korea’s nuclear announcement:

North Korea is to strengthen its “atomic potential” in response to Washington’s hostile policies, Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency quoted the president of its parliament as saying Thursday.

The article then continues to expand on the quotes from the Dear Leader of Death Camps for – count them – ten paragraphs, before bothering to mention that “Washington’s hostile policies” don’t really exist except in Kim Jong-Il’s mind:

On Feb. 10, North Korea said it possessed nuclear weapons and was dropping out of six-party talks aimed at ending its atomic ambitions. It blamed U.S. hostility for the decision to pull out.

About six weeks later, the North said it was forced to increase its nuclear arsenal because it saw the U.S. military as a serious threat.

U.S. officials have repeatedly said Washington has no plans to invade the North.

Frankly, I’ve given up expecting fair media coverage from Reuters.

Russia signed a nuclear fuel deal with Iran.

With Russia trying to re-establish a toehold in the Mideast, and Iran trying to develop the kinds of weapons that will reduce Israel to a radioactive pile of rubble, all I can do is wonder whether there’s anything the US – or the rest of the world – can do to stop them.

The People’s Democratic Republic of Death Camps has admitted its nuclear program and refused to return to talks on nuclear disarmament, claiming it needs the weapons for “defence against the United States”:

“We … have manufactured nukes to cope with the Bush administration’s evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Sadly, the international media is playing right into the horrifying regime’s hands, painting this as more of a political issue for Bush than a legitimate threat to the security of the world:

The statement also poses a challenge to Bush, who has long backed a diplomatic solution to the crisis but now faces two nations he once named as part of an “axis of evil” being openly defiant about their nuclear programs — North Korea and Iran. He went to war with the third axis nation, Iraq.

While most people have known for years that North Korea was building up its nukes, this official announcement signals that the “Dear Leader” has been emboldened by the world’s refusal to do anything about Iran or really anything about much of anything lately. Even if North Korea has had the nukes for a while, the announcement is a signal that they might be willing to use them.

This is not good news, to put it mildly.

If we can go so far as to attribute logic to a madman, we might suggest that Kim Jong-Il knows full well that the United States is the only country who might even try to do something and that the rest of the world hates the U.S.’s guts. He’s probably banking on the fact that most people will assume that America is more dangerous than a regime that sends children to prison camps that have gas chambers reminiscent of Auschwitz, that starves its own population en masse, and that ranked dead last in the Index of Economic Freedom for the umpteenth year in a row.

But never mind all that, of course the world would be safer if we just got rid of Bush. Suuuuuuuure.

FreeNorthKorea.net has plenty of reading material about the kind of things that are going on in North Korea even as we speak. I challenge anyone to read it and not be legitimately terrified at the idea that this country could launch nuclear warheads.

The latest threats from Iran:

“We are able to say that we have strength such that no country can attack us because they do not have precise information about our military capabilities due to our ability to implement flexible strategies,” the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Shamkhani as saying Tuesday.

“We can claim that we have rapidly produced equipment that has resulted in the greatest deterrent,” he said, without elaborating.

Elaboration isn’t really necessary. We get the point. And none of us is fooled by the “deterrent” nonsense either.

The real question is, who will do anything to prevent Iran from going nuclear? The US is posturing but it’s doubtful if they will be able to get the support to mount a military intervention. The rest of the world probably either doesn’t care, or supports Iran’s ambitions. As for Israel – who has more motivation than anyone – a repeat of Osarik is unlikely if it puts Israelis at serious risk.

This is not good news.