What should be done about Iran?

[SlipperySlope]

Any feel here for what (if anything) should be done about Iran?

I don't mean what should the United States do, I mean what should the world collectively do. Does anything even need to be done?

Is the path that the Euro-3 on going to work?

Am I even right to be concerned about what is going on inside Iran?

[SmokingJacket]

1. Diplomacy, diplomacy, and more diplomacy.

It's all we can do. Sanctions, and god forbid, military attacks kill innocent people, who should not have to die because their leaders want the same weapons we have.

[satya]

2. IMHO, it's nothing to be concerned about now.

They're at least 5-10 years away from having a nuclear weapon, if that is their intention (and as long as the BFEE is running things, what country wouldn't want nukes?)

If we want to worry about something, there are plenty of other countries that already have nukes.

I think the "Iran question" is a red herring, meant to keep us focusing our attention there while the neocons attack Syria or somewhere else.

[Tempest]

9. Agreed, the real threat is Pakistan and India

Both of those nuclear country's governments are skating on thin ice with their Islamic majority population and could very easily go the way of Iraq or Palestine before Iran gets nuclear capabilities.

[Ohio Joe]

16. hmmm

I would agree with your statements about Pakistan but India ? I work with a large number of people from there and have for many years now. The impression I have from them is that there is no way that India will be anything like Iraq or Palestine, certainly not anytime in the next ten years and none of them expect ever.

[Tempest]

17. Latest developments in India

Bush tried to blackmail India into voting against Iran at the U.N., using the latest nuclear agreement India and the U.S. are working on as leverage.

The Islamic parties in the Indian parliament were incensed and demanded the government tell Bush to stick it up his ass. The government, who had originally intended to stay low key, was forced to confront Bush's attempt at blackmail.

[Ohio Joe]

19. Well

If you interprate that as India becoming like Iraq or Palestine.... I guess I just don't see it. I'll speak more with some of the guys I work with that keep up with the political landscape in their homeland and see where that leads my thoughts on this.

[radwriter0555]

3. Iran is bush's distraction from his scandals. He will not invade Iran,

it's not a threat.

Turn the teevee off.

[BushOut06]

4. Well, if they ever attack us, it's simple - hit them back

But until that happens, why are we so friggin worried about what they MIGHT do? Because of what their lunatic leader says? Shit, world leaders have made stupid and insane comments like that for years! If we were going to fly off the handle and attack countries based on that, we would have been at war with the Soviet Union long long ago.

[tatertop]

5. make peace with them

it can be done

[whosinpower]

6. Your being neoconned

I have absolutely no faith whatsoever any words that come out of Bushco mouth in regards to Iran.

I have not forgotten all the trumped up threats of WMD from Iraq. And that was totally, absolutely, completely utterly wrong.

Any info they forcefeed us should be disregarded as it has no basis of credibility.

If Al Baradhei comes to the conclusion that Iran is a threat - then I would tend to agree - but he has not and all the posturing, saberrattling is a smokescreen of neocon supremacy of the region.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Nothing

I absolutely cannot blame them for trying to develop nukes, if that's indeed what they're doing.

Think of it this way:

1. Bush declares Iran, Iraq, and North Korea "the axis of evil."

2. Bush invades and occupies Iraq.

3. Iran and North Korea (but especially Iran, which is right next door), look at the situation and think, "Hmm, maybe we're next. We'd better get ourselves a deterrent..."

Just lay off. Iran has been a human rights violator under the ayatollahs since 1979 (and even longer than that under the Shah), but all of a sudden we're getting a spate of Iran human rights horror stories in the news, exactly as we suddenly got a spate of Taliban horror stories just before 9/11, even though the Taliban had been in power since 1996 and only "crazy leftists" objected to them.

[Tempest]

10. The funny thing about those Iranian human rights stories

Everywhere in the world but in America's "Liberal" media, the U.S.' human rights violations are being reported on.

The Iranian human rights stories are only reported in the U.S.

[Tempest]

8. There is only one rational and realistic course of action

NUKE 'EM!

Just kidding.


Working with the U.N., as much as Bush hates to, is the only option available. And the only option within the U.N. is to ensure only nuclear power for energy production is developed within Iran.

All other options, including sanctions, will turn out badly for the U.S. and the world.

Iran will have nuclear capabilities for energy production, and later possibly for weapons and there's nothing the U.S. or the world can do about it.

[devilgrrl]

11. I think we should attack them and kill everybody!

We need to fight them over there and not here!

:sarcasm:

[The Stranger]

12. WMD lies and invasions based on them -- like deja vu all over again.

We need to refrain from polluting DU with Right Wing propaganda.

[REDKING]

13. Iran wants nuclear power...

Not weapons,even if it was nuclear weaponry they were after it would take at least ten tears to get their first bomb.One point to consider is that Iran has at no time threatened the US.Backed by the US Saddam Hussein waged war against Iran in a long and bitter war.I believe this is just another excuse by the current shameful government who think they have the right to everybody on the face of the planet what to do and how to di it.Israel built WMD in secret breaking all the international laws regarding WMD.NO-ONE said a word.If the US want to go to war,lets go to war on hunger,poverty,disease all worthy adversaries.I want peace in this world but I fear that it is allready too late.What I find so hypocritical is the fact the US has every type of WMD under the sun and a fundamentalist has his finger on the button...."tell me when lord,tell me when?"

[kenny blankenship]

14. What in retrospect should we have done about Iraq?

I propose a simple rule: if you don't want to get fooled again, don't be a fool.

[yurbud]

22. you know what's ironic? GOP claimed Dems wanted to do nothing and

even though that wasn't true, if we had done nothing, Saddam might have weakened the dollar by trading oil in Euros, but he wouldn't have ever been a direct threat. If you are a drug dealer, you don't kill 25% of your potential customers.

It is amazing how often we have been convinced that countries we can take over with a jeep and a couple of baseball bats are about to overrun us and make us their slaves.

Consider Russia and China. They spend a fraction on defense of what we do. Have they been overrun by other countries lately?

No.

It is a pain in the ass to occupy another country, especially when you are the aggressor. Imagine someone trying to occupy us with all the guns we got laying around here. We would make their life a living hell, and on top of that, they would have long, exposed supply lines over the Atlantic or Pacific.

I wish some elected official would say this, but I won't hold my breath.

[underpants]

15. pssst it's not about nukes (runs away)

http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0127-01.htm

9. Iran’s New Oil Trade System Challenges U.S. Currency

The Bush administration has been paying a lot more attention to Iran recently. Part of that interest is clearly Iran's nuclear program—but there may be more to the story. One bit of news that hasn't received the public attention it merits is Iran's declared intent to open an international oil exchange market, or "bourse." Not only would the new entity compete against the New York Mercantile Exchange and London's International Petroleum Exchange (both owned by American corporations), but it would also ignite international oil trading in euros. A shift away from U.S. dollars to euros in the oil market would cause the demand for petrodollars to drop, perhaps causing the value of the dollar to plummet. Russia, Venezuela and some members of OPEC have expressed interest in moving towards a petroeuro system. And it isn't entirely implausible that China, which is the world's second largest holder of U.S. currency reserves, might eventually follow suit. Barring a U.S. attack, it appears imminent that Iran's euro-dominated oil bourse will open in March 2006. Logically, the most appropriate U.S. strategy is compromise with the EU and OPEC towards a dual-currency system for international oil trades. But you won't hear any discussion of that alternative on the 6 o'clock news.

Source: "Iran Next US Target," William Clark, www.globalresearch.ca, Oct. 27, 2004.

[anakie]

18. stop buying their oil

n/t

[Cleita]

20. I think we should leave them alone.

They are a young population that likes Western culture. If we leave them alone and maybe help them enter the world markets, they will probably become democratic by their own design.

[yurbud]

21. consider the worst case scenario: Iran gets a handful of nukes

why should we believe they would commit suicide as a nation and use one on us?

Given the woody Bush has to invade them, if a terrorist group set one off here, the Bushies would blame Iran anyway and invade.

If they launched one directly at us, before the mushroom cloud cleared, Iran would no longer exist.

There might be such things as suidical groups, but not suicidal countries.

We are being led to fear this to excuse invading and taking their assets.

Our reaction is a little like a cop seeing somebody with a gun in his waist, shooting that guy dead, then moving into his house and fucking his wife.

The shooting by itself may seem only questionable, but what happens after clears up what the motive was.

[enigma000]

23. the frog and the scorpion

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?" Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."

I fear the Iranian mullahs are driven by their nature and may not act as rationally as we expect. Ahmadinejad talks like a man who believes the apocalypse is coming, and he has a part to play.