Nuclear power is sold as clean and efficient. Reactors in the open air in the West and Russia have become money pits, though, because of long-term maintenance problems. They and their support facilities probably should have originally been placed in deep bunkers so that when the time comes to decomission them, just lock the door and fill the access corridors with concrete.Snort. Yup wasting lots of money on uneconomic power generation has been a real winning idea when it has been tried historicly.
The Middle Eastern saying translated as "Me and my brother against my cousin, my brother, cousin and I against the world" comes to mind. None of them really like Western imperialists come to do them the favour of ruling them for their own good.And when you have an arguement to put forward about why backing Iran would be in their neighbors best interests, get back to us.
Oh, look, Iran has an Export Development Bank.
http://edbi.org/en/news3.htm
Iran, Armenia ink seven cooperation deals
Iranian and Armenian economic delegates signed seven deals on energy cooperation between the two countries.
The other deals are related to mutual cooperation in the fields of power supply, the building of a wind farm in Armenia, procedure for customs agreement, financing the construction of a 40 kilometer gas pipeline and the third power transmission line in Armenia.
Export Development Bank of Iran (EDBI) and Armenian Sabir Co., are expected to finance the gas pipeline project in Armenia.
Iran-Iraq Trade Exchanges To Reach 3-4 Billion Dollars
The Iran-Iraq volume of trade exchanges is expected to reach between $3-4 billion annually because of the high economic potentials of the two countries, IRNA reported.
The Director General of the Iranian Export Development Bank said the Export Guarantee Fund of Iran (EGFI) and the Iraqi Trade Bank signed an agreement earlier this week, which lays down incentives for bolstering Iran-Iraq economic cooperation.
Under the terms of the agreement, Iranian banks will facilitate the opening of letters of credit for Iraqi tradesmen in Iranian banks.
The official added that trade exchanges between Iran and Iraq are set to undergo pivotal development with the help of their banking systems compared to mere border market transactions.
tharkûn wrote:
That's kind of tough to pull here in the west, and we've been at it for a few hundred years and every now and then human rights and democracy become notwithstanding corperate interests, religious fanaticism, political corruption, and general ineptitude and stupidity.The unrest reaches across all social strata. Many of the most vocal dissidents are the university students who would happen to like little things; like human rights and real representative democracy.
Iran wants to learn how. Russia needs hard currency. I'm sure they can work something out, and Russia won't be an overwhelmingly dominant partner.Irrelevent. I said Iran is becoming dependent on Russia. Russia is supplying and will continue to supply the high technology needed to run its nuclear reactors (Iran simply lacks the facility to build many of these parts). Iranian arms for the foreseeable future will either be Russian built or crappy Chinese knockoffs of Russian arms. Politicly Iran is isolating itself from the EU over this very issue and has only Russia and China who might back it.
What are you talking about? The present world economy now is not reflective of 1939, and throughout WWII the US was victorious across Europe and the Pacific and benefitted from having its industrial and civillian infrastructres on US soil and safe from attack. They did not screw themselves by entering WWII against Japan, and none of their allies had a friendly stake in the Japanese empire.
The US can turn all the screws it wants; the world economy is so becoming so tightly interlinked that it would only be screwing itself.
Like that has stopped the US from doing so before. I refer you to WWII and Japan.
Yes, hang the US out to dry at the earliest opportunity while saving their collective economies from manic unialteralist administrations who can't be counted upon to honour the simplest details of a free trade agreement on softwood lumber, let alone the principles international law and responsibility in warfare.The rest of the world can play along or watch their economies implode, I think I know the choice they would make.
Did I miss a recent Guardian Council issuance of a Fatwa against the US? How about this guy:It just happens to be run by theocrats who like to call for the obliteration of the United States.
http://www.ict.org.il/articles/fatwah.htm
Darn, I forgot, his verbosedness Osama Bin Laden is a rich Saudi Sheikh.Text of Fatwah Urging Jihad Against Americans
Published in Al-Quds al-'Arabi on Febuary 23, 1998
Statement signed by Sheikh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin; Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of the Jihad Group in Egypt; Abu- Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, a leader of the Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan; and Fazlul Rahman, leader of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh
Praise be to God, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said "I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped, God who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders." The Arabian Peninsula has never--since God made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas--been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies now spreading in it like locusts, consuming its riches and destroying its plantations. All this is happening at a time when nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.
No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:
First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.
The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
So now they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.
Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.
The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.
All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al- Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al- Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said "As for the militant struggle, it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life."
On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."
This is in addition to the words of Almighty God "And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated and oppressed--women and children, whose cry is 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"
We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.
Almighty God said "O ye who believe, give your response to God and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that God cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."
Almighty God also says "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things."
Almighty God also says "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."
The example of the Iraqi Occupation is hardly going to convince the Iranian leaders the US is not the Great Satan, let alone that their own authoritarian methods are wrong. The theocrat's weren't making threats; the secular rep, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadas, did, and secular leaders don't command religious authourity.
Iran's mind-numbing stupidity arises from the fact that it is a theocracy founded on an ignorant religion... Never mind; my knee-jerk dislike of religion is not relevant here.Iran never was contained. From the beginning Iran was making deals with Israel no less, if Iran weren't so mind numbingly stupid relations with the US would already be going back towards normalization.
The Iranian people are quite bright, and perceive that US policy demands a level of submission and compliance unacceptable to their terms of Iranian independence. US sanctions included penalties for other sovereign nations that dealt with Iran, including buying its oil. Maybe Iran was never fully contained, but neither was it easy for them to participate openly in the world ecomomy.
The loss of major industrial and cultural centres, and educated elites, would mean the end of Iran as any kind of viable nation. Israel can count on a much more extensive diaspora to replace any losses.Isfahan, Qom, etc. Iran may well survive a nuclear exchange with Israel. Severely weakened, but the country may not hit the rock bottomed envisioned in most US-USSR exchange scenarios.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only instances of real appled nuclear weaponry, and they were offensive strikes. You suggested the possible use of hypothetical Iranian nukes.You are a moron. Nukes are almost never "offensive" they allow you to undertake conventional actions with lesser risk of retaliation. Iran wouldn't need to nuke Azerbaijan, just march the army in and threaten to close Hormuz if anyone makes a huge deal out of it (which nuclear weaponry would allow it to do).
I don't think nukes allow a state like Iran to undertake conventional actions with lesser risk of retaliation. They might function more like a poison pill, a spoilsport in the event they are facing a pre-emptive nuclear strike, or losing a conventional fight against an invasion and need to negotiate something short of an unconditional surrender, and then, this will only work against targets they can reach, with weapons and delivery systems surviving to that point. Not a very good insurance policy.
Most rulers let the peons do the dying, and the mullahs are no different. Martyrdom is not an ambition of the Iranian ruling elite. They are not walking around in their burial shrouds like the kids they sent to the front during the Iran-Iraq war.In other words Allah receives many glorious new martyrs.
Iran's differnces with Israel began well before Iran implemented its nuclear program. The entire Islamic world was upset with the establishment of Israel on Arab land, and the fact that the crusader state is called Israel instead of Outreamer and colonized with European Jews rather than Christians dosen't mean much to them at gut level.Cut the sophistry crap. Iran bankrolls terrorists as defined by the people most likely to get upset and bomb Iran for funding these people. The semantics games are irrelevent to the fact that Iran is seeking proxy conflict with those most likely not to trust Iranian declarations of peaceful nuclear intent and most likely to bomb Iran. It is confrontational, deal with it.
The supreme nutcase leader in this case would have to be el Shrub; if the US attacks, the Iranians will martyr themselves as effectively as they can for as long as they can. Their period of formal resistance in uniform might last a little longer than Iraq, after which they will don civvies to use IEDs and make dynamite fashion statements. Unlike Iraq, the Iranians do not have significant minorities who want their own state. They are the heirs of what was once the core of the Persian Empire, and they will fight more fiercely and effectivley than the Sunni Iraqis, heirs to a scribble of Western imperialist mapmakers.No really? Are you going to tell me water is wet next? Of course the Supreme Leader or other nutcase on top will do the foisting, that still doesn't mean that Iran has many people in a position of authority who may well think mass matyrdom is good thing.
BTW:
http://journals.aol.com/bloomingtoncp/news/entries/2092
Iranians won't be alone in this martyring party.
The Iraq war is over, and the winner is... Iran
Hamstrung by the Iraq debacle, all Bush can do is gnash his teeth as the
hated mullahs in Iran cozy up to their co-religionists in Iraq.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Juan Cole
...
The Iranians hold a powerful hand in the Iraqi poker game. They have geopolitical advantages, are flush with petroleum profits because of the high price of oil, and have much to offer their new Shiite Iraqi partners. Their long alliance with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani gives them Kurdish support as well. Bush's invasion removed the most powerful and dangerous regional enemy of Iran, Saddam Hussein, from power. In its aftermath, the religious Shiites came to power at the ballot box in Iraq, bestowing on Tehran firm allies in Baghdad for the first time since the 1950s. And in a historic irony, Iran's most dangerous enemy of all, the United States, invaded Iran's neighbor with an eye to eventually toppling the Tehran regime -- but succeeded only in defeating itself.
They are growing, though, in a controlled manner more like China under Deng than Russia under Yeltsin. They fear the cultural changes that come with explosive economic growth, the bad things like urban alienation and bureaucratic and political corruption and independent elites using newfound economic power to benefit themselves before the state or old guard ruling elite.Such weak rates of growth under the best oil market in literally decades clearly show Iran's economic failings.
They obviously had the connections and clout to get away with it.The tanker war endangered a far greater proportion of the world's oil supply than when Saddam rolled into Kuwait. Sinking neutral ships in neutral waters tends to be an act of war.
That must be why Iran isn't seriously preparing for a fight. Trash talking Israel and the US to the media, yet not making preparations to defend themselves obviously means they have decided on using other means. Perhaps Bush should stop trying to make a case for using a weapons he can't use against weapons he can't find and develop a more effective and constructive policy for Iran. Simply keeping his mouth shut during the Iranian election might have given the Iranian moderates a better chance against the conservatives.Because arming to the teeth is meaningless. If they present a conventional target the USAF can destroy them.
Well, if Iran isn't posturing for war, maybe the Bush administration should stop their chickenhawk cha-cha; it looks stupid.Trenches just make it easier to napalm the defenders to death. Tanks and AA guns are little more than signs saying "drop bombs here". AK chicks aren't useful until the enemy actually gets in country and then you kinda want them to be irregular fighters who can blend in with the civillians.
If Iran's proxy warriors are contained, then Iran is left with only peaceful means to ensure the continuation of its regime.Because many of them have been infiltrated, killed, or dismembered. Syria doesn't do as much state sponsorship, so much as the Syrian border is porous as hell and central government control of the border sucks arse.
If their proxies are all dead or in hiding, who are they sponsoring? Al Qaeda isn't Iranian in origin.In real terms Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.
Rising GDP, regular elections, a restive electorate debating issues with mullas who don't shoot first, all indicate a nascent democracy under authoritarian leaders enough of whom care enough about their country to let the process take place.Evidence, let's see the numbers.
Rising public debt? The number of anti-democratic measures in the Home Security act? The number of privacy-rights violations desired by the Bush administration? The number of human rights violations committed against the numbers of innocent people they carelessly labelled a terrorist? The numbers of illegal immigrants with no stake in the American way of life gaining social legitimacy and power because the desire for cheap labour outstrips any sense of national pride, law and security? I could Google all night.Evidence, let's see the numbers.
They boycotted an election? How unusual. Like that could never happen in the west. Until the last election, voter turnout in the United States was nothing to brag about, and that was due to apathy and ignorance, not protest.They happen to be a joke for a large body of the Iranian public who made a precipitious decline in turnout.
They are also all still alive and working at promoting political reform. Parliamentry delegates are the showmen of the political process. For most, the primary concern is getting elected, and interfacing with constituents, not researching and formulating policy.Because Khatami was term limited and all his successors were barred from running.
The Iranian parliament isn't missing sitting members. The Guardian Council can deny a candidate, but apparently can't name their own candiates in replacement. The reformers therefore lost on their platform, not because they couldn't field a reformer. Not a whole lot different in principle than the US electoral college or Canadian senate, which in their day were bodies intended to thwart the wrong-minded decisions of the commoners.It may be discouraging that the Guardian Council disqualified some 2400 of 8000 candidates, but that did not impact on the final result; the people wanted a more conservative regime.
Awful hard to tell when virtually every major reformer seeking to run was kicked off the ballot.
Who in hell were these?Replacement reform candidates apparently did not make the cut
A closed ballot; who can say who voted for whom? Voters more likley boycotted, and were not intimidated. This 'official party line' was repeated in Western news services, with some additionally reporting that Bush's election-eve denunciation of the election probably swayed votes away from reformers.I see we read the official party line, not look at the turnout numbers and voter intimidation.
The people always seem to know what is really going on and not media illusions, when they are forced to develop their own grapevine. They may not know as much aboout the outside world, but their own internal issues become less of a mystery.Ain't it wonderful having a government monopoly on news, all the demonstrations don't have to be covered and the opposition can't go mud-slinging, because hey we can just close down the presses.
As if nuclear research facilities can be constructed just anywhere at any time in complete secrecy anymore. I trust the IAEA to know what it is doing.Unless of course Iran has yet more undeclared facilities, like Natanz and all the other facilities they only declared after being "outed" by an opposition group (the same group which maintains they are pursueing nukes BTW).
You do realize you are contradicting yourself as this is the time period in which you claimed Iran was contained and isolated? Both cannot be true.
