Do our Moslem neighbors, individually or collectively, possess the requisite emotional maturity to handle nuclear weapons without causing a disaster?

* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *

Do our State Department, CIA, and Pentagon managers individually or collectively, possess the requisite emotional maturity to profusely apologize for their disastrous decisions on Pakistan?

If not to us, then to the Hindus.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at May 7, 2007 7:59 AM

Honestly the "senior European diplomat" is a pussy. The NPT taken hostage by Iran? No shit, Sherlock!

Someone give him a spanking and send him to bed without supper. With guys like him representing us, it's no surprise that Iran just do as they please.

Posted by: Vagn Henning at May 7, 2007 8:13 AM

"The gathering, due to run two weeks to May 11, was meant to set priorities to flesh out at follow-up annual meetings leading to the next decision-making NPT Review Conference in 2010."

...2010?....action is needed now...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at May 7, 2007 8:13 AM

The Bush Adminstration has made an utter mess in Iraq. It has a solemn duty, made more difficult by its Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf business in Iraq, and made more difficult by the palpable incoherence and nonsensical goals in Iraq (what the hell are those goals? How do those goals further the interests of Infidels? In what way are those goals being furthered better by remaining in Iraq rather than withdrawing from Iraq?) to do something about Iran's military project. The American soldiers in Iraq are potential hostages to Iranian retaliation. That is not the only reason, not even the main reason, they should promptly be withdrawn from Iraq, but they are a good and sufficient reason Their presence does not make more, but less, likely, freedom of Western maneuver in dealing with Iran.

Furthermore, Sunni Arab states, pusillanimous and treacherous as they are, will nonetheless find their own hysterical criticism of an attack on Iran's nuclear installations more acceptable if, at the same time, there is Sunni-Shi'a warfare in Iraq, open warfare, warfare in which, without the inhibiting American presence, the Shi'a militias will go back into action, and every Sunni attack will be met with a revenge counter-attack. The Sunnis left in Baghdad will consequently be pushed out until the fabled capital for 400 years of the Abbasid Caliphate, the madinat al-salaam, is in the hands of the "Persian Shi'a," those "Rafidite dogs" whom the Sunnis of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, not to mention Sunni Arabs everywhere, with their history-haunted exaggerated belief in that Glorious Islamic Past, will pour in money, men, materiel.

And will not Iran be doing the same? Can Iran afford to let the Sunnis, though smaller in number, nonetheless better organized and more ferocious (so far) than the Shi'a, attempt to repossess Iraq? Of course they can't. And so, however different some Iraqi Shi'a may be, however differing in their views of religion and the state (Al-Sistani prefers for the clerisy to be the indirect, not direct rulers as Khomeini favored) from the Iranians, they will not reject such aid.

Now think for a moment. What are the idea conditions in the neighborhood for an attack - not a land invasion, but an attack by air -- on Iran's nuclear installations? Are the ideal conditions for such an attack those in which Sunnis and Shi'a in Iraq are being prevented from harming each other by American troops who attempt to capture or kill "the extremists on both sides (and while Sunnis almost unanimously, and Shi'a by a very great majority, share a common approval of attacks on those same Americans)? Or are the ideal conditions, for the attackers, those in which the Islamic Republic of Iran's rulers are distracted by the need to help co-religionists in Iraq, and at the same time to counter the appeals to Kurds in northern Iran by largely-autonomous Kurds in northern Iraq and appeals to Arabs in Khuzistan by Arabs in southern Iraq, and to worry, more generally, about the chaos and confusion in Iraq that can only be bad for Iran?

Surely the latter.

Surely there are those who understand that Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons -- not under this regime, and not under any other. Surely there are those who are not so blind as the Bush Amdinistration, obstinately wedded to a course that does not weaken the Camp of Islam but would, if successful, avoid its weakening, surely there are those who, at long last, have gotten over whatever loyalty -- blind loyalty -- they offered the Bush policy because they were animated more by a determination to oppose whatever Cindy Sheehan, or Michael Moore, or John Kerry, or others deserving and entirely undeserving of scorn might favor.

Surely that that is a foolish basis for making policy. Surely the folly of the Administration should now be clear to all -- and to those who still cling to the wisdom of squandering men, money, and materiel to "bring freedom to ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East, cling to the wisdom of preventing, rather than welcoming (no need to encourage, merely a need to stop making enormous and heroic efforts to prevent) the fissures, sectarian and ethnic, that always existed in Iraq, and which were no longer kept forcibly in check by the iron rule of Saddam Hussein and his Sunni Arab despotism.

Posted by: Hugh at May 7, 2007 9:17 AM

"The American soldiers in Iraq are potential hostages to Iranian retaliation...."

.....American soldiers are already being killed by Iranian weapons, explosives, and technology....The Iranians are already active participants in the killing of American soldiers...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at May 7, 2007 3:53 PM

At least we have soldiers on the ground to counter Iranian troops when or if Iran takes a kicking. They’d be all over the oil fields in days if we weren’t there.

Posted by: Mert at May 7, 2007 6:12 PM

True exsgtbrown:

90% of the weapons are documented to be coming from iran (by surge captures & seized computer drives).
90% of the terrorists in iraq aren't even iraqi.
If it weren't for
1) irans weapons pipeline, and
2) syrias personnel pipeline,
neither of which are a secret at all...
iraqs terrorism wouldn't be anywhere near this degree of operation, not even close.

Regardless,
iran IS taking the npt hostage...it's so obvious they're using the issue to try and defang Israel(we'll disarm...if they do too!) to make it easier to wipe them out a blind man can spot this a mile away.
That's no secret, either.

Posted by: jcom972 at May 7, 2007 7:14 PM

I concur Hugh, Now is the time for the Administration to be clear I mean really make it clear for the last time!!

Posted by: MZ at May 8, 2007 4:00 AM