Iran works toward a nuke, while in Washington they wring their hands. "U.S. Says Iran Could Expedite Nuclear Bomb," by David E. Sanger for the New York Times, September 9 (thanks to Dan):
WASHINGTON -- American intelligence agencies have concluded in recent months that Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb.In the first public acknowledgment of the intelligence findings, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Wednesday that Iran now had what he called a "possible breakout capacity" if it decided to enrich its stockpile of uranium, converting it to bomb-grade material.
The statement by the ambassador, Glyn Davies, was intended to put pressure on American allies to move toward far more severe sanctions against Iran this month, perhaps including a cutoff of gasoline to the country, if it failed to take up President Obama's invitation for serious negotiations. But it could also complicate the administration's efforts to persuade an increasingly impatient Israeli government to give diplomacy more time to work, and hold off from a military strike against Iran's facilities..
while in Washington they wring their hands.....
Yep, and they'll still be wringing their hands when we all find out first hand that Iran has a nuclear weapon. Unless Israel strikes first, and then wait for the inevitable blaming. How many years has the government(s) had to do something about this? This ability the government has for inaction is astounding.
Great news! and more: Chavez ready to shelter duplicate Iranian nuclear facilities in Venezuela
Oh, did I mention Iran has submarines too? Some stealthy.
Obama should "talk" faster.
I will again suggest a halt to all NEW worldwide nuclear activity, civil and military, until the entire world, along with the rogue states who seek this "power", open up the access to all ongoing nuclear projects. Hide somthing, and it would be considered a act of war.
Otherwise, the heat of the nuclear fire will only continue to get hotter until it explodes.
I am open to a better suggestion, that will be as simple to understand, or control.
I will again suggest a halt to all NEW worldwide nuclear activity, civil and military, until the entire world, along with the rogue states who seek this "power", open up the access to all ongoing nuclear projects. Hide somthing, and it would be considered a act of war.
Otherwise, the heat of the nuclear fire will only continue to get hotter until it explodes.
I am open to a better suggestion, that will be as simple to understand, or control.
C'mon, Robert: the war on terror is over, remember? There's absolutely nothing to worry about ;-)
Iran might step up efforts to develop nukes
.................
But...didn't Mohammed El Baradei of the IAEA say that Iran's nuclear ambitions were "Hyped"? sarc/off
This is Israel's fault. If only Israel would ____ (fill in the blank, whatever you want).
to move toward far more severe sanctions against Iran this month, perhaps including a cutoff of gasoline to the country
Surely we'll use finger wagging, tut-tutting and a stern look first. Wouldn't want to rush things....
But it could also complicate the administration’s efforts to persuade an increasingly impatient Israeli government to give diplomacy more time to work, and hold off from a military strike against Iran’s facilities.
Yes, God forbid we share solid intel with Israel!!! He is so not my president.
Like other basically weak and ignorant persons, Barrie is either an autocrat bully or a coward (besides being a Serial Liar)
He doesn't have the belly to do the right thing with Iran which is to degrade their nuclear capacity.
Please get on with it Israel.
according to the msm, eu, un, etc, its all talk with
these iranians.. just words.. oh well a mushroom over parts of europe. l think europeans should worry a whole lot more with obambi in the white house.
Wouldn't it be wonderful news if on 9/16 Iran had a major accident in their Fuel production facilities?
"Tough sanctions"??? Like the Sanctions on Iraq??? This is a Joke right? Right???
Make sure your "emergency supplies" are on hand before you hear the IAEA is not allowed back into Iran.
When the shooting starts, ALL of our enemy's will take their shot.
Tomorrow not everybody wearing NY Yankee ballcaps will be celebrating the best record in the majors.
Yes, God forbid we share solid intel with Israel!!! He is so not my president.
Posted by: Richard
I hear ya! ...he is not my president either.
Eight years have passed since the attack that should have set many to school, to learn something about Islam. Distractions, false moves, messianic sentimentalism, ignorance that is so persistent it must often be willful and the result of fear of what might be found out and have to then be dealt with, the pieties of the age about "diversity" and "tolerance" that give rise to a diseased sympathy, procrastination, unwillingness to believe the evidence, fear of action, inertia, inability to admit to policy mistakes, especially if those mistakes have been colossal in their cost (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the entire effort to push Israel back which merely whets, not sates, appetites), and of course, the perennial favorite, whistling in the dark, whereby instead of Halford Mackinder, or John Quincy Adams, we look for inspiration to Elmo Tanner. And the result is, indeed, heartaches.
I'd rather see live hand grenades passed out to monkeys at every zoo on Earth than for the maniacs in Iran to be permitted by the anti-instinctual West to gain this Apocalyptic Terror Weapon.
The leaders in the infidel world are crazier than the mullahs if they allow this lunacy to reach its critical mass.
We are in The Age of Civilizational Suicide.
Hugh wrote:
Eight years have passed since the attack that should have set many to school, to learn something about Islam.
..............
Well, it certainly sent me to school, as well as many others here, I would imagine.
Throughout the '80s and 90's, I had become more and more alarmed about Islam, and the fact that so much of the violent insanity in the world seemed to have an Islamic element--but like most other Americans, I had other other places to put most of my energies.
As clueless as I was, though, it was clear to me even during the attack that it was almost certainly "Islamic extremists" who were responsible.
I was stunned at how much of the "analysis" of the attacks took the form of hand-wringing over "why they hate us"--a sort of 'beaten woman' approach.
After I got over the initial shock of the attacks, I started to read up on Islam. I got a good copy of the Qur'an, and was shocked by how violent it was. I knew nothing about "abrogation" at the time, nor did I understand that the Qur'anic Suras were not chronological--but I understood that the enmity toward unbelievers and the hateful verses were not few, as I had assumed--but made up a very large percentage of the text.
Later I read many of the Hadith and the Sira, which strengthened my impressions from the Qur'an.
Along the way, I discovered writers on Islam--first Christopher Hitchens--not entirely perfect, but a breath of clarity and fresh air compared to the Thomas Friedmans and their ilk who generally pass for "experts" on Islam.
Through him I found the excellent writings of Theodore Dalrymple, on Islams encroachments on Europe and Britain--and through some link, which I have long since forgotten--I discovered Jihad Watch.
This is still the best single site I have found for information on Islam and the Jihad. Bravo Robert, Hugh, and the rest of the JW board.
Lets just wait till they can be sure of perfecting a bomb to EMP our asses.
Gravenimage - interesting to hear your story of how you got here.
On one level, the September 11 attack was a shock. But I wasn't in the least surprised when I heard that Muslims had done it. By that time I already knew enough about Islam to know that it was dangerous.
Thanks to books I'd read in the 1980s, I knew about the Apostasy Law: that Muslims are supposed to kill any one of their number who tries to leave. That alone is a red flag for anyone with a grain of commonsense.
And by the mid1990s, I think, I had read the Quran and - like you - though ignorant of abrogation and all the other subtleties, had still pegged it as a dangerous, violent 'cult' text. It was the overall 'atmosphere' of the thing that got to me.
It was because of having read the Quran that I was really spooked when I heard Pakistan had got hold of nukes...and that was long before I found my way to this site. The thought of Iran having nukes is even worse.
The more so because I have watched the classic documentary about nuclear weapons testing by the USA and USSR - 'Trinity and Beyond'. I *know* what nukes can do. I *know* that what is possible now, is orders of magnitude greater than what was done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. God help us if the Muslims get their claws on hydrogen thermonuclear devices, or a cobalt bomb. I don't think they could resist the temptation to use such horrendously powerful weapons, sooner or later, either in their own internecine warfare, or against the non-Muslims.
For I know that a significant subset of Muslims are insane enough, enough in love with death and the pursuit of raw power, enough maddened by sheer hatred of everyone else in the world, to NOT be put off by the knowledge of the ghastly consequences of multiple massive nuclear detonations on top of the world's major cities; and that the horrors of fallout, of mutant children, of ruined ecosystems, of vast swathes of desolation rendered uninhabitable for thousands of years, would bother them not at all. I think there are, among them, people who if they had the power to reduce the earth and everything on it to dust by pressing a single button, would not hesitate to do so.
"I *know* what nukes can do. I *know* that what is possible now, is orders of magnitude greater than what was done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. God help us if the Muslims get their claws on hydrogen thermonuclear devices, or a cobalt bomb...."
Dumbledoresarmy
It sounds like you do *know* what nukes can do. There is no reason to believe that Iran would not develope Lithium-6 deuteride (or equivalent), which is the added component to make a thermonuclear weapon. Once they have the material, it is very simple to assemble. The addition of lightweight lithium-6 deuteride multiplies the plutonium or uraninm bomb by thousands. This is a nightmare waiting to happen. But they don't need a thermonuclear weapon to destroy Israel and Israel knows this. We could be weeks away from an Israel bombing run on Iran's nuke facilities.
Russia will not support sanctions. Neither will China. Venezuela has made a deal to sell gaasoline to the Iranians. These countries support Iran because Iran is a threat to the West and to America in particular. I've read that the Soviet Union, through its Iranian embassy, was instrumental in stirring up the street protests against the Shah. Now the Russians are continuing in the same vein, protecting the regime they helped to install. The US had better forget about the sanctions track. It clearly will not work. All that will do is to provide the feral mullahs with more time to assemble their nuclear bombs. After they get their nukes, God forbid, and mount them on missles the entire game will have changed. Then Step 2 of their strategic plan will become clear. This is not the kind of world any of us will want to live in. It will be an Islamic alternate reality. Any price we pay to stop their mad ambition will be worth it. The costs later on will be so much greater. Obama looks to be riding on the siesta special, taking his sweet time while the Iranian regime uses every second to work towards their overriding goal. Again, it falls on Israel to take on the dirty job of clobbering the Iranian madmen before they go nuclear. If the reports I've read that Hezbollah is stockpiling chemical and biological weapons, supplied by Iran, are correct, this means that the coming conflict between Israel and Iran could go nuclear. Israel has said in the past that anyone who uses chemical or bio weapons against Israel should be prepared for a nuclear response. Such is the price of inaction. The ante is being raised with every day that goes by.