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bananas

(27,509 posts)
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 05:01 AM Jun 2013

Netanyahu: Iran seeks nuclear arsenal of 200 bombs

Source: Jerusalem Post

In 'Washington Post' interview, premier rejects importance of Rohani win, says he's ready to engage in talks with Palestinians.

<snip>

“The sanctions were often dismissed because it was said [that] they would get the Iranian people to rally around the regime. Some rally,” Netanyahu said and added that, while the elections reflected deep public dissatisfaction with the regime, the results did not have the power to change Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

<snip>

Netanyahu warned that Iran was not seeking one or two nuclear bombs, “but 200 bombs. They’re building ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) parallel to developing their nuclear weapons program. The ICBMs are not intended for us, they’re intended for you. Within six to eight years, they intend to be able to reach the continental United States.”

Netanyahu was diplomatic when asked whether he believed and trusted US President Barack Obama, who has said he would not accept a nuclear Iran.

“I believe that’s his goal,” Netanyahu said, adding that “we’re all (being) tested, all of us. And the jury is out on all of us, on whether we muster the resolve to prevent this from happening.”

<snip>

Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Netanyahu-Iran-seeks-nuclear-arsenal-of-200-bombs-317409



If Iran is working on a nuclear deterrent, then that's what they need - around 200 warheads with delivery systems.

But are they working on nuclear weapons? Or do they just want nuclear energy?

A report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Federation of American Scientists concluded:

"No sound strategic energy planning would prioritize nuclear energy in a country like Iran"

"Instead of enhancing Iran's energy security, the nuclear program has diminished the country's ability to diversify and achieve real energy independence."

Links to the report at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014442782

http://blogs.fas.org/blog/2013/04/new-report-analyzing-irans-nuclear-program-costs-and-risks/

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bananas

(27,509 posts)
1. Also, they don't need a nuclear deterrent.
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 05:04 AM
Jun 2013

Their non-nuclear capabilities deterred the Bush administration from attacking,
proving they don't need a nuclear deterrent.

Cicada

(4,533 posts)
3. just like Saddam Hussein was developing nukes to kill us
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 05:39 AM
Jun 2013

Netanyahu saw us fall for the Saddam Hussein lie so he figures it can work for Iran too. The leader of Iran is a religious leader who has issued a formal religious ruling that possession of a nuclear weapon violates the Koran. He has officially decreed that anyone in Iran trying to create a nuclear weapon shall be executed - as a matter of religious law. I don't think he would issue a formal religious decree, given his roll as top religious leader, which he was personally violating. Not one of our intelligence agencies, who are not exactly doves, agrees with Netanyahu. But Netanyahu knows that we Americans are easy to trick so he's giving it a try.

bananas

(27,509 posts)
4. Iraq was developing nuclear weapons, also biological and chemical weapons.
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 06:13 AM
Jun 2013

That ended with the 1990 Gulf War and the strict monitoring that was imposed afterwards.

bananas

(27,509 posts)
7. Iran was the first country to bomb a nuclear reactor: Iraq's Osirak reactor
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 07:03 AM
Jun 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiraq#Iranian_attack

Iranian attack

Iran attacked and damaged the site on September 30, 1980, with two F-4 Phantoms, shortly after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War.[45] At the onset of the war, Yehoshua Saguy, director of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate, publicly urged the Iranians to bomb the reactor.[45][46] This was the first attack on a nuclear reactor and only the third on a nuclear facility in the history of the world. It was also the first instance of a preventive attack on a nuclear reactor which aimed to forestall the development of a nuclear weapon, though it did not achieve its objective as France later repaired the reactor.[17][46][47]

Trita Parsi, in the book Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States, writes that a senior Israeli official met with a representative of the Khomeini regime in France one month prior to the Israeli attack.[48] The source of the assertion is Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli government employee. At the alleged meeting, the Iranians explained details of their 1980 attack on the site, and agreed to let Israeli planes land at an Iranian airfield in Tabriz in the case of an emergency.[48]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Blix

Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (1981-1997)

Blix became Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency between 1981 and 1997 after Sigvard Eklund.

Blix personally made repeated inspection visits to the Iraqi nuclear reactor Osiraq before its attempted destruction by the Iranians, in 1980, and its eventual destruction by the Israeli Air Force in 1981 during Operation Opera. Although most agreed that Iraq was years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon, the Iranians and the Israelis felt any raid must occur well before nuclear fuel was loaded to prevent nuclear fallout. The attack was regarded as being in breach of the United Nations Charter (S/RES/487) and international law and was widely condemned. Iraq was alternately praised and admonished by the IAEA for its cooperation and lack thereof. It was only after the first Gulf War that the full extent of Iraq's nuclear programs, which had switched from a plutonium based weapon design to a highly enriched uranium design after the destruction of Osiraq, became known.

leveymg

(36,418 posts)
11. The Bush, Sr CIA knew about the Iraqi centrifuges at the time because A.Q. Khan sold them.
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 11:46 AM
Jun 2013

And, AQ Khan had been under CIA protection since the mid-1970s when the Dutch wanted to arrest him after he stole the plans from a facility in the Netherlands where he was working as a graduate student. Despite there being an Interpol want for him, Khan continued to travel freely all over the world. This is according to the Dutch PM at the time, Jan Luubers.

George Bush, Sr. worked out the deal with Prince al-Turki as part of the Safari Club arrangement that also turned over CIA black operation funding to his business partner, the Saudis. See, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/07/08/355152/-Thank-Bush-Sr-for-A-Q-Khan-UBL-and-the-Plame-Case

roamer65

(36,739 posts)
9. Netanyahu needs to grow a pair.
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 09:40 AM
Jun 2013

Get on a plane for Tehran and sit down and talk with the new president. Borrow a page from Anwar Sadat's play book.

Cowards start wars, courageous start peace.

Ash_F

(5,861 posts)
13. Kind of sounds like Israel's right is threaten by Iran's move to the center...
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 04:04 PM
Jun 2013

...making it more popular, while world opinion of themselves continues to decline from their own human rights abuses.

 

Lugal Zaggesi

(366 posts)
14. It was a great idea for the US-backed Shah
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 11:14 PM
Jun 2013

but it's a stupid idea for an independent Iran:

A report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Federation of American Scientists concluded:
"No sound strategic energy planning would prioritize nuclear energy in a country like Iran"


In the 70's, when the 'Shah' was a close US ally (the U.S. trained the murderous SAVAK so he could keep in power against a people that hated him, btw), the US sold him GE nuclear power plants,
so Iran could use its uranium to make electricity, so Iran could export more oil.

More oil to the West, so prices kept low.
Plus, $billions in sales of nuclear power technology. A win/win for Washington.
But the Shah was overthrown and fled the country in 1979, before the nuclear reactors were finished.

And now ?
Oil prices going up, high demand for exported crude. Uranium in Iranian mountains, just sitting there, which can generate cheap electricity rather than burning their oil to make electricity. Allowing Iran to export more of it's valuable oil, while developing an educated, highly technical workforce.
That's CRAZY - it makes no sense.

And when all Iran's oil is gone, it's gone.
So shouldn't they WANT to waste it making electricity every year ?

NickB79

(19,109 posts)
15. Funny, that's about how many Israel currently has
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 11:40 PM
Jun 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel

Estimates as to the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal vary between 75 and 400 nuclear warheads, with most estimates at less than 200 warheads. It is also estimated that Israel has the ability to deliver them by the intercontinental ballistic missile Jericho III, aircraft, and submarine.[2]


What a coincidence.....

thenooch

(82 posts)
16. The World..
Sun Jun 23, 2013, 11:45 PM
Jun 2013

The world would be a better place without israel.

It's just another racist theocracy that believes they are "gawd's chosen people".

In another thousand years the people of the world will read about these religious wars and shake
their heads in wonder...hell, I do it now.

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