Dear DK,

This may sound simple, but the only way that nuclear Countries like America, England, France, Russia, and China can ever legitimately require other non-nuclear Countries to stop seeking nuclear weapons, is by first agreeing to get rid of all their own nuclear weapons in the process.
The perception put forth by the nuclear Countries that they are responsible enough to have nuclear weapons, and the other non-nuclear ones are not, is a condescending attitude that no Country with any spunk will ever accept. The incredible double standards that now exist between the haves and the have-nots will continue to be the catalysts for wars and the rumors of wars. It is also promoting the use of terrorism as an attempt (however wrong) to level the playing field.

Kind Regards,
Stan

Dear DK,
My conception of sovereignty includes the right for a country to pursue technological advance, and therefore even the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

That said, in an ideal world all countries -- including the United Nations' member states -- would gradually disarm and collaborate to ensure global peace, and the elimination of the numerous problems affecting mankind. Is this an utopia? I don't think so. For example, during the time when black people were leaving the coast of Africa on ships heading to America, the elimination of slavery would have sounded utopian as well.

All things considered, though, I still hope that, as a sign of good will, the Iranian government will desist from building a nuclear arsenal. And I also hope that the incentives package is a really tempting one.

Love,
Donatella

Well being objective the solution is simple the 5 + 1 can cut a deal to eliminate their nuclear weapons in exchange for an agreement Iran does not create any or the capacity to do so.

Other than that if I were Iran, I would say what do you think you all are something special?

Look at your countries, do you really think we can trust the US CHINA etc. with Nuclear weapons?

Absolutely not, in the US the population's will is not reflected by government, there are a bunch of individuals subject to falibility making the decisions. The US has a president (he is not a leader from what I have seen) that represents the same "concern" the world has with Iran having nuclear capability, a religious fundamentalist that believes a bunch of religious hype.

Danger Danger Will Robinson....

You make the connection.

“Danger, Will Robinson!” is a recently-popularized English catch phrase derived from the classic 1960s American television series Lost in Space. The phrase characterizes the relationship between two of its regular characters, the Robot and Will Robinson over the course of several episodes of that series. The autonomous (and nameless) robot takes a protective attitude toward Will, and alerts him thus to dangerous situations, expecting Will to take immediate action to protect himself. The robot cannot do everything, even though its sensors are amazingly sensitive:

“Warning! Warning! Alien spacecraft approaching!”
In hacker culture and in English-speaking society generally, this catch phrase currently serves as a facetious method to inform an associate that they are about to make a stupid mistake—that there’s a factor he or she overlooked which ought to be taken into account.

When given in person, the vocal warning is more-often-than-not accompanied by a brief and careful waving of one’s arms left and right and up and down, parodying the body language of the original chrome-plated character.

Despite the popularity of the phrase in everyday culture, it was only said once on the show during episode 11 of season 3 "The Deadliest of Species". The Robot frequently throughout the series gave warnings to Will and the other crew members of the Jupiter 2, in the form of expressions "Warning!" and "Danger!".

DK, Stan brings out the obvious but excellent point. This is a display of hypocrisy at the highest levels. Especially considering the US was the first to produce the Nuclear weapon and the first and the only one to use it against another country.
And seems like everyone has conveniently forgotten it...or is it a case of selective memory loss?
US and Russia together have 1000s of Nukes enough to obliterate millions.
Leaving aside the hypocrisy, in Iran's case, the UN should at least give them the benefit of doubt (that they are trying something positive). It seems like an explicit attempt to curb anything that doesn't fit the US version of democracy. A classic case of US demonizing the opponent with pure propanganda. We all know how 'Iraq built WMDs to destroy the world' and how excellent US intelligence reports are.
World policing works only if the 'police' abide by the law.
Bottomline: Nuclear disarmament is/should be global in nature with every Nuclear country disarming to the last active warhead.

Let's parse this down, shall we?

The United States wants, very badly, to destabilize Iran.

By United States, I mean the Neocons, because no one else matters in this country when it comes to shaping foreign policy.

There is, in my opinion, one and only one reason we haven't invaded Iran, and that reason can be completely accurately expressed by one word: Iraq.

The Neocons shot their wad on Iraq. Iraq was supposed to be the low hanging fruit, the first step in a plan to remake the Middle east in the Neocons image. Syria and Iran would have been next.

And we would have left Palestine and Lebanon as spoils for the Israelis.

But things are so screwed up in Iraq, that it's physically impossible for them to invade Iraq.

And all the same tired lies they were going to use to invade Iran (they have stockpiles of WMDs, the smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud, the people are waiting for us with flowers to liberate them, etc, etc) have all been exposed during Iraq-nam.

They are simply having trouble getting "Extreme Middle East Makeover" Act II off the ground because Act I was such a humongous box-office dud.

As for the nukes, just ask a simple question:

Which is the most likely to happen first?

A. Iran nukes Israel with a big mushroom cloud bomb.

B. Israel nukes Iran or South Lebanon

C. Al Qaeda nukes the USA

D. North Korea nukes Alaska

E. The USA launches nuclear tipped bunker buster attacks on Iran.

You can see that A-D, while possible, are not high probabilities.

The most likely probability is that the next nuclear attack will be by the same country that launched the very first nuclear attacks.

My personal belief is that the Neocons are feeling pressure to launch these attacks before Bush is out of office (i.e. - before the Republicans might possibly lose the White House).

I think they'll do it. I think they will try to justify it, and then when their justifications ring hollow, just as in the buildup to the Iraq invasion, they'll do it anyway, regardless of what the Public thinks, and just as with Iraq, in spite of massive worldwide protest against it.

Why?

Because it has been shown that the personality types of these men are authoritrian social dominators-types. These types of people do not listen to others, do not obey any orders except their own and those of the authority figures they worship, have very little or no social conscience, and fully believe that the ends justifies the means, even if it means breaking the law or killing other people.

The neocons have had aplan for the Middle East for at least 15 and more likely 20 years. The invasions of Iraq and Iran were in the plans even in those days.

I think they are sensing that now is their time. If they don't take the actions they need to complete their plans while W is in office, they know they may not ever be able to.

No doubt there is a plan for Presidents following W, but since things have gone awry, and the Dems might actually take back Congress and maybe the White House too, they have to shoot the big guns while they can.

Don't think their conscience will stop them. And they have already shown with Iraq that public opinion doesn't matter to them either.

They have nothing to lose. They no longer have to pretend like they need votes, and they are running out of time. It's now or never. They've been hiding and plotting and building up their moment of glory ever since Watergate, and now they know the must act or lose their opportunity forever.

Expect to see some real cornered-animal type agression coming from these guys.

Forget about deer-in-the-headlights. We are going to be dealing with a cornered three headed hydra. The heads are Rove, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.
The backbone is named David Addington. The body is made up of the mega-corporations. It's arms are the Conservative Christian Church.

It's a hell of an animal. It's been badly wounded by a thousand scandals, huge deficits, and the Iraq fiasco, and its going to be in full survival mode as 2008 approaches.

Hello DK and Everyone,

Should Iran have nuclear weapons? Hmmmmmmm

The President of Iran states, very publicly, that one of his neighbors should be wiped of the map, this being a figurative or literal statement, I do not know, he says it is figurative, his actions point more to the latter (his willingness to supply weapons to groups in conflict with this neighbor is not the promising sign of a Nation with a "live and let live" perspective on dealing with people you strongly dislike.

Does this Government have the same mindset and belief system that nurtures Radical Islamic Extremist martyrdom? How far is it willing to go for their religious beliefs?

There was a time when you heard the words "if God willing" and you thought nothing of it, so many people of all different religions uttter those words without thinking. Now, when you hear men like the President of Iran say and repeat often, even in his respone to the UN concerning the nuclear issue, "if God willing," you think, "oh no, who and what is he planning to blow up now!" That once harmless statement has become the rallying call for death and destruction and usually that death and destruction is directed exclusively to the US and Israel.

There is a very real question the World Community needs to ask, I think, and when dealing with the Government of Iran, are we dealing with sanity or are we dealing with maddness? It is a very relevant question. It is a necessary question. Why? Sanity, from a Government does not preach the elimination of another, Sanity does not nurture "martrydom" to further an ideological cause, Sanity, does not make wishes for death and destruction "God willing." Sanity knows how to live with neighbors you strongly dislike, maybe even hate, Sanity is not willing to self detonate for anyone or anything, ever, but maddness will "God willing.".peace ruth

Hello DK and Everyone,

Just thought I would share this with you since we are talking about Iran's having nuclear capability and Iran is the MAIN supporter and money and missiles to Hezbollah.

Hello All,

"Abu Hadi said Israel's overwhelming use of force after the July 12 border raid took Hezbollah by surprise. But he said Hezbollah had been preparing and training for such a renewal of fighting ever since the Israeli army withdrew unilaterally from the last section of Lebanon it occupied in 2000." (from article in the Seattle Post today on Hezbollah) Abu Hadi(not real name, he is afraid Israel might target his life if he gave it, he is an Hezbollah supporter but claims he is not a member of the organization)

Isn't is interesting how they were preparing for another battle after the withdrawal of Israeli forces, since 2000, five years ago, five years spent preparing for just this battle, not five years spent trying to figure out how to make a peace agreement. Hezbollah, the oh so innocent victims of their true desire...war!

peace ruth

Hello again,

It should be six years spent preparing for battle, not five...let see, how does that go? 1 +1=2? peace ruth

Dear DK,
Thanks for sharing this information about soft power. It's brilliant.
Love,
Donatella

Outlaw nukes, then only outlaws will have nukes.

Soft power sounds nice, but do we really want the same thing as Muslim extremists? Good luck convincing them. I'm not a big fan of the whole Jihad thing, and I don't plan on converting anytime soon. Sticks sound like our best option for now.

Want to blog with the Pres. of Iran?

Just posted the link to the Official Blog of The President of Iran-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - here:

http://spiritsinmotion.blogspot.com/

Everybody's blogging!!

I couldn't read the language though; and it looks like there is a gallop poll, top left corner of his blog.

North

Hmm, maybe someone would be so kind, as to interpret his blog posts once in a while? Let us in, on his thoughts?

And, what is the poll about?

North

Ruth, your arguments have descended into melodrama.

Yes Hizbullah has spent the past six years preparing for this attack because they knew sooner or later Israel would find some excuse to invade them again and take more land!

They knew Israel would do this because that is what Israel has done since its inception. It invaded Lebanon twice before the 80's and the 70's. The whole reason why Hizbullah was created in the first instance was not to wipe Israel off the map as you keep claiming, but it was to create a defensive militia force against Israeli aggression.

The last time Israel invaded Lebanon more than 20,000 were killed. So, in a sense, Hizbullah has been a success as the death rate is considerably lower this time and the occupation has not lasted as it did before.

I think if I lived next to an aggressive and hostile neighbour who kept breaking into my house I would consider a guard dog too. If I could afford it I would get even better security.

Of course the guard dog is trained to attack the burglar and not be docile.

DK - Hypocracy aside, I think for any developing country that has the money and resources to explore and develop new technologies, it is their right. Countries like Iran, India & Pakistan do not want to be spoon fed by the West as this places all the levers of "control" in the hands of a foreign power. Any country would prefer to learn for itself.

Although I do not believe that Iran is creating a nuclear weapon, most informed opinion is that it is at least a decade away from doing so. I certainly wouldn't blame them for wanting to, having seen the naked aggression of the United States, Britain and Israel, all card-carrying nuclear club members.

What made the Americans and Brits; captains of every country on this planet; to dictate who and who cannot protect their homeland?

If there is a terrorist regime on this planet..it has always been the American and British "force."

How many countries do they "own" now, collectively?

North

"Soft Power"?

In the old days we used to call this "diplomacy". A word sadly missing from the American psyche these days. If you need to reinvent it with a new Americanism buzz word to harness the short attention span of a clueless and politically illiterate US public, so be it. At least it will give diplomacy a chance to emerge anew.

The United States, and in particular George Bush, has done so much harm to the US in the past four years that it will take decades of diplomacy to win back any good will.

Meanwhile they have been the catalyst for harsher regimes all over the globe to prosper and grow.