Back on topic…

Assuming the Iranians are crazy leads to a need for intervention but assuming they are sane does not lead to the happy world that the other side of the debate is painting. Instead you have a bifurcated program where periodically undeclared facilities are cleaned up and declared to explain all the anomalous intelligence coming out of Iran and lead to new rounds of distraction and delay while Iran secures its independent future to do whatever the government of the day wishes.

Put yourself in the shoes of an Iranian program manager running a split nuclear program, one part secret enrichment for weapons, one part public enrichment for peaceful nuclear power. How would you divide your centrifuge production between the two? How would you divide the LEU produced by both between the two (assuming diversion is possible)?

Is there any rational, managerial reasoning to put all your early production into the public program which has to stop at LEU and none of it into the unmonitored program where you can continue to refine it into HEU and work out more bomb production problems?

The simple, logical conclusion is that there is an illegal program, complete with centrifuges that has produced an unknown amount of enriched uranium outside the IAEA process. This conclusion is driven by the idea that no sane project manager would build the program any other way. The only other viable alternative consistent with sane Iranian leadership is that there is no bomb program but that runs afoul of both the undeclared facility recently brought out into the open and a lot of anomalous intelligence pointing to something more happening than what is declared.

The experience of the Cernavoda nuclear power station which was given to Romania as a reward for coming clean on its Ceausescu era nuclear weapons program demonstrates that Iran is passing up on huge potential benefits by not opening up its activities fully. So what’s worth giving up all that free nuclear technology and power?

I can understand why the religious extremists on the Right want to defend Israel since they need it for their macabre End of Days scenario (in which they believe the Jews all go to hell anyway–jeesh!), but I’m amazed at how the not-so-fanatical GOPers don’t see how this “alliance” is toxic to our interests. The planet watches as time and time again we protect atrocities committed by one country while lambasting the SAME atrocities in others. I guess that’s what happens when you have AIPAC more/less owning Congress.

It would lead to a situation whereby not only US foreign policy lies with the Israeli lobby but also global military and political control.
Such a decision would be indefensible.

There is an absolute imperative to control NUCLEAR WEAPONS and their proliferation.

The immediate danger that President Obama has to face is the reality of the fact that his immediate predecessor helped built Israel into possibly the 3rd most powerful nuclear state on the planet - the agenda for such totally irresponsible action, being incomprehensible.

To have made Dimona in the Negev the largest secret nuclear weapons store anywhere, cannot have been to ensure the safety of America, or Europe or the Middle East - but it has virtually ensured that, under the control of a political system that has little integrity, there will inevitably be a nuclear weapons strike in the region within the near future.
The region is now so unstable and the politics so unpredictable and the hatred so fierce, in the aftermath of the massacre in Gaza, that it is a merely a matter of time. That is the danger we face, in the UK, in Europe and eventually in the US and the Americas.

It will then not be a matter of oil or carbon footprints but of human survival on a planet blind to the dangers it faces and the absolute imperative to control nuclear weapons and the ambitions of those who will kill without compunction in order to achieve their aims. I have no doubt that Mr Obama is more aware of these dangers than I am - the point is, how far will he be opposed by the powerful, Israel lobby?

Iran is not the huge elephant in the room. Whilst America, Russia, France, China and Britain are considering reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles – Israel is increasing hers.
Whilst the UK is proposing to reduce its nuclear strike submarine fleet to three, Israel is reported to be increasing its nuclear strike submarine fleet to five!

Where is the logic in this Kafkaesque scenario?

American presidential assassins are nuts who get lucky. (Fortunately) there hasn’t been enough of them to correlate them to “political climate”, but to date the only one that’s arguably like this is John Wilkes Booth. Other assassins and attempts have been of the “lone nut” variety - and their politics often has little to do with much of anything beyond nuttiness and weird fringiness.

Friedman is way too much into the “I heard from some guys at the bar” school of “first-person” journalism, where the plural of anecdote is definitely data. His column the day before said China was going to be a green superpower. His proof: he talked to a couple guys at a meeting.

As for Rick’s post, my standing take is Iran wants nukes and will get them. There ain’t squat we can do about it; the “international community” is irrelevant, if it means a bunch of Euros. The real “community” that matters is Russia and China, and they love having Iran (and Ajad’s buddy Hugo) yanking our chain.

Thank you for a good write-up and response. I’ve some thoughts on the NYT’s latest claims here:
http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2009/10/the-manjudys-of-the-ny-times-1.html
Which also addresses some of the points you raise here.
Regards, Steve