Centerfield

Tully,
The Europeans can offer incentives until they are blue in the face. A reactor isn't going to happen. They have tried this before and where did it go? Chavez will try selling F-16s to Iran before Europe ships or builds Iran a reactor.

Let's see, what has happened lately? Iran sends a nutty letter to Bush attacking the principles of Liberal Democracy. Iran threatens Israel for any US pre-emption and the Mullahs quickly approve a declaration denying such intelligent retaliation. Iran declares it will not confront UN sanctions with oil hikes and then reverses its position a week later. Iran rejects all future incentives before hand which Europe might offer Iran in exchange for a stop to its enrichment. IAEA has found higher level of fuel enrichment. Putin declares he knows where the US "wolf" wants to feed as his administration continues to sell missile batteries to Iran while attempting a clandestine shuffle of advanced missiles to Iran via Belarus.

The collision course has not been averted but perhaps Bush's problems have made the politics of force insurmountable. Is this the future?

No, let's not give Iran a reactor. Saddam wasn't offered one. The approach being suggested now is rather embarrassing. Fortunately Iran is too myopic to take such bait.

Remember that the big barrier to nuclear proliferation is NOT building weapons from uranium, it's enriching uranium. Reactor-grade uranium is far less enriched than weapons-grade uranium. It isn't even close.

Therefore, proliferation of reactor-grade uranium is of minimal concern. That's why people keep trying to offer states going nuclear reactors and uranium - just in case they aren't lying about wanting to build reactors for power.

You're right that it probably won't work. If it was going to work, then it probably would've worked when Russia made a similar offer. And I believe Iran does want nuclear weapons.

Reactors are quite useful for enriching uranium, and in producing plutonium. Light-water reactors are much less useful for this than other types, but are still not useless for it.

In any case, the point is that North Korea rattled the nuclear heavy-water & breeder-reactor sabers and suckered Clinton into providing two light-water reactors. And as soon as they had them in hand, they went right ahead with their nuke weapons program, a clear two modern reactors ahead of the game. Now Iran is rattling the sabers, and the proposal is to buy them off with a light-water reactor, an approach that worked so well with North Korea. And if Iran actually gets that reactor as part of some deal, they'll still be enriching uranium for their own purposes, with a reactor in the profit column.

A light-water reactor itself is not as much of a concern, it's the transfer of cross-applicable advanced nuclear technology that could hurt. That, and the fact that giving them a reactor (instead of them having to build their own) doesn't do a thing to derail their ongoing heavy-reactor efforts. It's a high-tech bribe, but you can't trust them to stay bribed. Heck, you can't trust them, period.

One of my favorite Clash albums is "Give 'Em Enough Rope." Perhaps there's something else we can give Iran instead of a nuclear reactor?

POr maybe we can give Iran somethging that looks like a nuclear reactor, something that WE have a remote control for?

Now there's a suggestion I can get behind, Brian! Give them a nuclear reactor, and give our President a button labelled "Push here to initiate China Syndrome". Anybody have globe handy? What exactly is directly on the other side of the globe from Iran? Someplace in the Pacific Ocean?

Pat, that's why I said "looks like a nuclear reactor." Think wile-e coyote and his pen that's really a stick of dynamite. You give them the fake reactor, and then wait for them to get all their best nuke weapons people working on it.

Just a joke anyway. But think about what would happen if some unscrupulous group started floating fake soviet nuclear missiles that exploded when you opened the control panel. What can you bitch about? "We were just trying to smuggle this missile across the border to sell it to some terrorists, but those bastids gave us a fake missile." Sympathy might be hard to come by, and it might put a hitch in the stride of black market arms traders...

We shouldn't do such things for a variety of reasons including because innoncent people would be bound to get caught up in such subterfuge, but it's fun to speculate on... . Let's face it, this guy front-running Iran is a an unscrupulous, lying, self-serving psycho. Hopefully when he reaps what he's sowing as few innocent peoiple as possible are harmed.

As I said, Iran seems to want confrontation -perhaps for domestic consumption. Now this IS a situation Karl can chuckle about provided our capabilites have not been diminished by Iraq. Would military action occur if the Democrats take the House? I think if the military is on board, action will come before the next election. I wish Dean and others would state their plan. Or does their silence say enough? McCain has had a number of tough words both for Iran and for Russia. This might be where Clinton and others like Biden might separate themselves from the pack. Still, not a word about the recently discovered high level enrichment traces found by the IAEA. If Germany, France, UK and others simply demanded a Russian halt to weapon and technology transfer to Iran, Putin would blink. How the hell does he plan to build and protect all those imagined pipe lines? His plan I suspect is not to restart the Cold War but to make new smaller ones and leverage everything Russia has got on playing the various sides against each other.

This foolish game the West is playing shows about where Clinton or Gore would have gotten with extending Iraq sanctions. In fact, any nervousness Iran may have now comes from the US record of military action, not the threat of sanctions. Yes, they are hurting economically, but many Iranians will see strikes as a consequence of Mullah radicalism. Israelis and Arabs will have something that they both seek. At this point, little short of either a South African kind of full IAEA inspection or military strikes will divert the Mullahs from their grail.

My fear is that a weaken Bush pressures Israel to do our bidding. Many don't see the military scale required to deal with Iran once weapons fly. Then you can bet the NSA will be checking anything Iranian-related..........

It seems to me that if you want to build a consensus for military force as a (potentially last resort) option for dealing with the emergence of Iranian nuclear power, the first thing you would have to do is establish the parameters by which an overwhelming majority of Americans would (a) support the use of force and (b) oppose the use of force.

For example, if Teheran capitulated-- and here capitulation is defined as abandoning their nuclear program with complete verification conducted by an agency or body acceptable to American interests, and perhaps even the removal of Ahmadinejad and the emergence of a new moderate movement in power-- then it seems to me that this (admittedly extreme) condition would satisfy criteria (b), a condition by which most Americans wouldn't support the use of force against the Iranian regime. After all, why attack them if they've abandoned their program, we have a verification mechanism to ensure they don't double cross us, and their government has changed over to more responsible men and women?

On the other hand, if the Iranian regime developed and used nuclear weapons against their neighbors (or developed the Shahab-III and fired a nuke somewhere into Europe), then I think that would clearly meet the conditions for (a), the criteria by which a large majority of Americans (and for that matter, Europeans) would support the use of force against Iran (of course, at that point, it might already be too late, but we'll get to that later).

Having established that there are extreme conditions by which nearly all Americans can agree on supporting/opposing the use of force, it then becomes a matter of focusing on the edges and determining what the left and right limits are for (a) and (b).

Thus far (to my limited knowledge anyway), critics of a military option have not established the conditions by which they would support the use of force-- is it only as a response to Iranian use of nuclear weapons-- i.e., are we prepared to sacrifice, say, Tel Aviv or Rome? Or is it further down the scale-- say, when/if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, but has not yet used it? Or is it when Iranian nuclear weapon development becomes imminent-- say, when they're six months or a year from completion? (For purposes of this hypothetical question, assume that we can know with a high degree of certainty how far along they are with their program)

Right now, opponents of the military option tend to argue that Iran is "five to ten years away" from having a nuclear weapon, and believe that a diplomatic solution still has the greatest chance of success for resolving the issue-- which may very well be true. Their opposition to the use of force, at least as stated, is based on matters of efficacy and not out of principle (although I suspect that in many cases, they would sooner see Iran develop nuclear weapons than to use force against them, but that may just be my perception). But the question still needs to be asked: hypothetically speaking, if diplomacy were to fail, under what conditions would you support military force against Iran to destroy (or more likely defeat) their nuclear weapons program?

By determining those parameters now, we would be able to eliminate what is likely going to be an eternally shifting baseline against force, and establish the conditions to act with widespread popular support if diplomacy fails and the situation becomes necessary.

I suspect your suspicions are correct. A country that openly threatens to exterminate another country and defeat Liberal Democracy, that builds a secret nuclear capacity for decades, is found to be in possession of nuke designs, is the greatest supporter of global terror, used wmd against civilians, prevents representative government, prohibits free speech, declares fatwas against critics including assassination squads used globally to murder political opposition, etc. is a prime candidate for prevention.

The bar for force on the Left must be very high if they still reject military options for such a foe. Many even resist strong sanctions and now consider consensus the Committee of Bullies. I agree that many Democrats and numerous Republicans won’t support force even if Iran is a month away from building a nuke. This makes a criterion of pre-emption difficult. Perhaps Bush was so sloppy in formulating one for Iraq because in a domestic sense it didn't matter. In some respects, this recent resigned attitude (after Kerry ran on a campaign promise to prevent Iran from getting nukes), indicates that the Left would never have removed Saddam. Their talk about extending sanctions and building consensus for force was basically B.S.

If this is true then perhaps we should focus on the acceptable criteria for the Right and Center. What are their minimum conditions for using force? From what I sense now, it is 1. giving diplomacy a bit more time but waiting no more than a year -given the new traces of higher enriched uranium and the defensive systems being built to protect expanding facilities with Russian help. 2. using force in response to any Iranian threat to oil shipping and/or regional facilities 3. using force if advanced weapons are transferred by third parties to Iran and/or any significant weapon systems are fielded in a threatening manner 4. using force if verifiable intel shows imminent manufacture of wmd 5. using force if Iran is linked to any substantial terrorism or support of insurgents in Iraq (a case the UK has made) I can't but notice that some of these conditions could be manufactured by the US and allies as a pretext for pre-emption.

I might add that what force we use is also a question. Kennedy used an embargo of Cuba first. We might strike first at conventional forces should they confront us in a threatening way. I wonder how quickly you think any use of force would rapidly escalate into a complete US attack on all Iranian force and command? Do you think a ground invasion is required to destroy the nuke sites?

In weighing the criteria of pre-emption Americans ask, "what are the possible results"? “will the oil stop”, “will terrorists attack the US and Europe”, “will Iran hurt anyone with their weapons”? Most Americans also object to pre-emptive nukes on our part.

Some say Iran will pass points of irreversible consequence within a year. They will KNOW how to make nukes and will have numerous sites to conceal their discoveries and manufacturing. To create criteria we can live with, Americans need a straightforward education in likely scenarios, costs, cost of passivity and intel. Will Americans support a pre-emption to prevent the acquisition of wmd knowledge given the presumption of malevolence by Iran?

I think I'd want to factor in some things about certainty of our intelligence assessments about the status of the iranian nukes and the likelihood of success of any sort of pre-emptive plan.

If we are sure Iran has nearly completed nuke weapons, and they have threatened to use them, I can support a narrowly targeted pre-emptive strike and a round-up of technology and experts if we think it's actually feasible and stands a good chance of successfully buying us substantial time.

But as knowledge becomes more widespread on so many frontiers, is it inevitable that we'd find ourselves mnore and more in a position of constantly trying to stop various nuclear progams? Every few months or year or so we have to conduct an intermediate scale invasion of a different sovereign nation seeking ultimate military player? How sustainable is that? If that's the case, then we have to accept that sooner or later the only way to be safe from others' nukes is to do what it takes to make others not want to use them.