So which way will the coin fall?

[Toad]

War or Peace?

I'm thinking ego and posturing and fear almost guarantees this will end with bloodshed.

Israel: Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons

"Under no circumstances, and at no point, can Israel allow anyone with these kinds of malicious designs against us [to] have control of weapons of destruction that can threaten our existence," Olmert said at a Tuesday news conference.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sparked widespread international condemnation in October when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Israeli officials have said they hope to use diplomacy to diffuse any possible nuclear crisis with Iran, and only to use military force as a last resort. An Israeli attack ordered by Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1981 destroyed a nuclear reactor in Iraq.

[beet1e]

War. Or at least to the very brink.

The Sunday papers were grim reading, and there was a strong suggestion of armed conflict around August 2007.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/01/15/do1502.xml This article was written by a professor of history at Harvard university.

Extract

With every passing year after the turn of the century, the instability of the Gulf region grew. By the beginning of 2006, nearly all the combustible ingredients for a conflict - far bigger in its scale and scope than the wars of 1991 or 2003 - were in place.

The first underlying cause of the war was the increase in the region's relative importance as a source of petroleum. On the one hand, the rest of the world's oil reserves were being rapidly exhausted. On the other, the breakneck growth of the Asian economies had caused a huge surge in global demand for energy. It is hard to believe today, but for most of the 1990s the price of oil had averaged less than $20 a barrel.

A second precondition of war was demographic. While European fertility had fallen below the natural replacement rate in the 1970s, the decline in the Islamic world had been much slower. By the late 1990s the fertility rate in the eight Muslim countries to the south and east of the European Union was two and half times higher than the European figure.

This tendency was especially pronounced in Iran, where the social conservatism of the 1979 Revolution - which had lowered the age of marriage and prohibited contraception - combined with the high mortality of the Iran-Iraq War and the subsequent baby boom to produce, by the first decade of the new century, a quite extraordinary surplus of young men. More than two fifths of the population of Iran in 1995 had been aged 14 or younger. This was the generation that was ready to fight in 2007.

[Hangtime]

yup.

big question is... would the whitehouse support a pre-emptive israeli strike? Can't see how israel could pull off a smackdown without our knowledge... which to the rest of the world would be 'our support'.

[beet1e]

On the scale of severity, I think this Iranian nuke debacle could be on a par with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. If avoided and we all survive, we'll all remember where we were that day.

[Nash]

There are no options wrt Iran.

None.

Talk of it is pure 2006 politics.

[Rolex]

Well beet1e, I think your Cuban missle crisis analogy is a little off the mark.
The reason is left as an exercise for the student.

I agree to it being a coin toss right now, Toad. Since it's all up in the air, can we talk about something else? You're a reader of history, so I'm curious about your take (a few simple paragraphs) on how things got this 'interesting.' Don't worry, I'm not laying any traps.

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

There's going to be a parking lot in the Middle East, just not sure where yet.
-SW

[soda72]

>>israeli strike

I don't see us supporting any Israeli strike while we are in Iraq.  


Hopefully we have learned from our mistake with NK.   Just having inspectors present was not enough.  I think the Russian proposal is worth looking into, but it must 'guarantee' Iran will not be able to produce a bomb.  Anything else short of that should not be acceptable...

[storch]

there is no way we could support an israeli pre-emptive strike.  we have too much at stake in the region and the result would be galvanizing to the moslems.  besides that there is nothing to bomb yet.  I predict a negotiated settlement.  the euros seem to be taking the lead in this one. the good news is the euros are resusitating neville chamberlain.  he will soon return from tehran in a vintage lockheed electra waving a piece of paper above his head on a blustery day.  look for france to pre-emptively surrender some time next week and allowing more moslems to emigrate to the french calphite.

[weaselsan]

but it must 'guarantee' Iran will not be able to produce a bomb.  Anything else short of that should not be acceptable...

Iran's purpose behind this "Is to produce a bomb" so obviously it will be unacceptable.....Your Move.

[lasersailor184]

Israel **WILL** take out Iran's reactors.  And soon.

The real question is, "Will the Euro's be as fed up with Iran as Israel is by that time?"

[Sandman]

Originally posted by beet1e
On the scale of severity, I think this Iranian nuke debacle could be on a par with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. If avoided and we all survive, we'll all remember where we were that day.

Not even close.

I'm fairly certain that the U.S. can survive without Israel.

[SkyRock]

Without a doubt we would support and Isreali strike.  Why do the work when you can get someone else to do it?  

[Toad]

Originally posted by Rolex
your take (a few simple paragraphs) on how things got this 'interesting.' Don't worry, I'm not laying any traps.

Paragraph One: The Israelis have a not too distant history of genocide. You had a dictator in Germany proposing and trying to complete the "Final Solution". You had the numerous Arab/Israeli wars (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 plus other conflicts that were not perhaps full scale wars) where various Arab leaders proposed and tried to "wipe Israel off the map". You now have Ahmadinejad repeating the "wipe Israel off the map" proposal and simulataneously moving to enable Iran to have nuclear weapons with which to do so. Despite Iran's denials, I doubt there's very many in national leadership anywhere that think Iran isn't working towards having nuke weapons rather than "peaceful" use of nuclear power.

Paragraph Two: The Israelis have a not too distant history of preemptive reaction towards attempts to reinitiate genocide against them. Six Day War and Osirak as cases in point; they've acted premptively before when they felt threatened. Additoinally, the US sold them "bunker buster" bombs in April of 2005, a time when talks between the Europeans and Iran were deadlocked over Tehran's refusal to give up uranium enrichment. Israel is already assumed to be a nuclear power and they have a further history of improving US weaponry without bothering to ask or tell the US what they are doing (usually required under the terms of the agreements) and being reluctant to explain what and how they did to the weaponry later (Bekaa Valley).

Paragraph Three: Ahmadinejad has picked up the "Jihad against Israel" flag that pretty much had fallen with the Egypt-Israel agreement. IMO, this is one more attempt to focus a population's view on an external problem so that the population doesn't focus on internal problems. We all know this is a pretty standard technique of politicians everywhere. Additionally, the Iranian government is probably the most rigidly Islamic of the Arab powers. Iran has a government that is probably the closest to what some call "radical Islam"; jihad isn't an unknown concept there.

Paragraph Four: By focusing his population on "wiping Israel off the map" while openly enriching uranium, Ahmadinejad has attracted serious attention from Israel's politicoes who are understandably alarmed when yet another Arab country proposes to "wipe them off the map".

The End.

But we both know it won't be.  

[ChickenHawk]

Israel has taken out a nuclear facility before, they will have no trouble doing it again.  Where it goes from there is anyone's guess.