Bloodless Coup

Well of course there is that argument out there that there are several voices in the administration that want the NPT and other treaties, international institutions and arms control dead because they are icky and have cooties and are basically heretical to the international relations beliefs of neocons and the like. So if that's the point of view some are coming from ...

How is this India-US deal any substantially different from the Iran-Russia deal that the US keeps trying to block?

Iran is overflowing with natural resources that can be used to make energy. India emphatically isn't.

Hey, you asked.

Iran is overflowing with natural resources that can be used to make energy. India emphatically isn't.

I don't disagree. I'll only note, however, that the state of Iran's (or India's) resources isn't relevant to the deals being struck. In other words, the Russia-Iran deal looks like the US-India deal irregardless (did they make that a word, yet?) of the level of natural resources in either country.

That being said, Iran turns out to not be able to refine all that petroleum, and has a gas shortage this summer.

And if anyone believes this debate on reactors is all about energy, and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, I've got some oceanfront property in West Virginia for you.

Hey, enough nuclear weapons and that WV property will be oceanfront. :-P

I have to agree with Baltar here. This whole deal was clearly some horribly misguided attempt to balance against China. I don't believe this debate is about energy at all. And any foreign policy decision made by the crack team employed by Bush should automatically be assumed to be ill-concieved. As I believe Baltar suggested before, his dog could do a better job.

I'm not actually disagreeing with Baltar, I'm just poking him. :-)

I too would feel better if Milo was the head of the NSC instead of Hadley.

"That being said, Iran turns out to not be able to refine all that petroleum, and has a gas shortage this summer."

I guess Mossadegh should have waited to nationalize British oil facilities until they were further along, eh? I can't help but think that if they hadn't done that fifty years ago, there would be plenty of local refineries so that the oil wouldn't have to be shipped somewhere to be refined, then shipped somewhere else to be sold, incurring both costs. But they were greedy socialists.

And if India never had the opportunity to have natural, local energy resources and India did have that opportunity, as such it's a distinction. So the deals only look the same if you blind yourself to that distinction. Besides that, it's an easier culture to live with because they're not as interested in being the ruler of the world (like China) or in bringing it to an end (like Iran).

Yep, Morris is TRULY back ... ;)

Ummm - what, you think the oil laws stayed the same after we helped get rid of Mossadegh? They didn't - they went back to essentially the old system, except that instead of just the Brits getting preferential treatment and access, the US got a cut too.

Sure, it's a distinction - but one that should not be of the slightest importance if what the US government really cares about is protecting the US from the spread of nukes, and blocking the Iranians from getting those. We could help India with wind, solar, sawgrass, hydrogen ... hell we could ship them coal if this was all about energy.

And since when are the notoriously self-involved Chinese interested in ruling the world, or the rather cosmopolitan Iranians interested in ending the world? Culturally generalize much?

I would debate that Iran wants to "bring the world to an end;" China might want to rule the world, someday. They don't seem to be much in a hurry about it.

Touche - I'll give you that. But if so, they want to do it in their own way and on their own terms. Terms that don't necessarily fit with what the phrase "rule the world" typically means to the citizens of a state that explicitly commits itself to worldwide military hegemony - or who delight in Mike Myers' work as Dr. Evil.

Armand writes:
"Sure, it's a distinction - but one that should not be of the slightest importance if what the US government really cares about is protecting the US from the spread of nukes, and blocking the Iranians from getting those."

Okay, so you want to ignore the distinction and focus on another. But if we truly focused on that distinction between an Iran with nuclear weapons and an Iran without nuclear weapons, how is it that we're continuing in a policy of economic sanctions, sanctions from which the power elites (like the Guardian Council) are the last to suffer? How is it that we shouldn't make plans for taking out their nuclear facility?

Lord knows that bit of industrial sabotage was genius, and maybe it is wise to wait until we have a better missile defense up to defeat the Iranian threat, or to wait until our super duper uber bunker busters are rolling out more reliably. But if we listen to what Iranian leadership says, it's obvious they intend to stay the course with regard to nuclear development. So it's just a question of when to use force, not if we must to prevent a nuclear Iran.

Baltar writes:
"I would debate that Iran wants to 'bring the world to an end;' China might want to rule the world, someday. They don't seem to be much in a hurry about it."

You'd make a good defense attorney. "Sure my client who has in the past committed crimes has recently spent several times as much of his money buying up. But he hasn't committed a crime in the last week, so he's obviously not in a hurry to commit crimes." If China has no interest in ruling the world, why the military buildup? Why all the military espionage? Similarly, if Iran has no worldwide designs, why does Hezbollah exist? Iran hasn't been attacked for closing in on two decades, right? Why continue to build and increase an insurgent army whose purpose is and who are trained to bring about Islamic revolutions so as to intall Islamic governments throughout the world?

Yesterday's news: In their leader's words, "The Zionist regime (Israel) and the American government are the main enemies of Iran...."

Today's news: Hezbollah taunts Israel over never releasing the two soldiers they kidnapped to begin last summer's war. They say that the only way they'll release them is through indirect negotiations and a prisoner exchange. Of course, since that release was a condition of Israel's agreement to the ceasefire, we can only assume that just as they began last summer's war, they intend to continue their savagery by failing to live up to their promises.

What will tomorrow's news be?

Morris, Iran has been attacked more recently than 20 years ago. There was a Saddam-sponsored terrorist group (the Mujahideen-e Khalq) that operated in the north-east of Iraq until we invaded (we still haven't disbanded them, to the annoyance of Iran, though we have confined them to a base). The Kurds exist in north-west Iran, and they have used violence at times in pursuit of "Kurdistan." Additionally, given the major war 20 years ago, Iran had legitimate worry about Iraq (if Iraq would get a bomb, they would need deterrence), and (more recently) about Pakistan (Iran does border Pakistan).

Of course, on top of that, the US has had a very public debate about invading/bombing them, and has publicly accused them of arming groups inside Iraq. Iran has any number of reasons to feel threatened.

Whatever you feel about Bush's foreign policy, recognize one thing: if you have a nuclear bomb, you don't get invaded (in fact, you might even be a friend - look at Pakistan and India); if you don't have a nuclear bomb, you do get invaded (Afghanistan, Iraq). That's a very simple decision calculus pushing Iran towards nuclear weapons.

As for Iran's public statements - I'm not sure they are worth anything. There is a theory in political science (Putnam's "Two Level Games") that argues that leaders are bargaining/negotiating internationally (playing one game) at the same time they are bargaining/negotiating domestically (playing a different game among domestic political opponents to keep their office/power). Thus, Iran's statements may be aimed at a domestic audience, not an international one. Look at it this way - when all the Republican candidates outdid each other to be tougher and tougher on international terrorism (wasn't it Romney who said he'd "double the size of Guantanamo" or something?), do you think that was a message for Al Qaeda, or a message for American voters? When Iran says something, who is it intended for, and for what purpose?

As for Hezbollah, I don't think one can argue that it is entirely a creature of Iran; I know Iran gives much funding, but I don't think that gets them control.

"Control" might be too strong, but Iran certainly has an influence over them. And given that that's true, and that their are (according to recent news reports) Hezbollah cells in the United States ready to be activated if the US attacks Iran ... why would we do that when 1) they are still years away from getting their own nuclear weapon and 2) that's very likely to be an extremely unproductive way to block them from building their own nuclear stockpile. Even if one manages to deal the completion of whatever they are building at the moment, you'd certainly think that they'd speed up the pace afterwards, and be much less likely to cut a deal with the US. And in the meantime they might activate Hezbollah against us, and of course attacking Iran would make the situation for Americans in Iraq about 1000 times worse than it is right now (with both Iran likely acting against US forces, and Iraq's Iran friendly government and population likely doing the same).

We are currently holding some of their soldiers and operatives, we currently have it as the expresss policy of our government to bring down their government, our military budget is something like 50 times theirs (I don't know the exact number but something in that area), we have troops on more than one of their borders and off their coast - that they are pursuing nukes in that circumstance is far from surprising.

And I'm still confused as to why it's a big deal that a China or Iran wants to rule the world, when we want the exact same thing. Does that desire make us nefarious too?

And by the way, of course we are making plans about taking out the facilities - the question is whether or not it is wise to implement those plans.