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Reply With QuoteConsiderably more, I'd say. Consider the processes involved.Originally Posted by Castellano
I cited that piece of data like I could have cited some other, just to point out that there was a reasonable question mark about the 'peaceful' intentions of Iran's nuclear program from the get go, since they have all this much cheaper energy available. Is not proof by itself of a military program, but there have been other findings that render absurd ElBaradei statements about this issue.
So is not hugely relevant other than to contextualize, but actually I'm not sure about CO2 emissions per Kwatt natural gas vs nuclear plants.
Considerably more, I'd say. Consider the processes involved.
I looked it up. It seems that efficient nuclear power indeed has a much lower carbon footprint than natural gas.
But you are not telling me seriously that the Iranian nuclear program possibly was started out of concern for climate change, are you?
"Dropping a bomb" has zero relevance to your original post concerning the law in question.
If a convention is not enforced, the convention is worthless. I don't see how a person can logically argue otherwise. So why should a country obligate themselves to something that others will not?It's not up to signatory nations to live up to their obligations, they don't have obligations other than to comply with the conventions. Whatever obligations they have in 'enforcement' are moral only.
Last edited by rj1; 04 Oct 09, at 19:12.
Of course not. However, it is a valid reason to have a nuclear power program. I was discounting one of your statements.
I based the numbers according to Operation Opera against Osirak in which 14(?) fighter/bombers were involved.
The operation you are suggesting will be at least 2000 miles farther away (round trip) without the element of surprise. So I presume some sort of SAED operation will be inevitable, other wise half of the planes might not make it home.
No, you were not. I remind you that we are not talking about Norway, we are talking about Iran.
I know that. You were giving a list of reasons for duplicitous spin, I was arguing that one wasn't all that relevant.
I was contextualizing, not giving a list of all the information uncovered in the last years which run counter to a peaceful program. I meant that the suspicions about Iran's intentions arose well before ElBaradei became the IAEA director.
Gentlemen, it needs to negotiate with Iran, he will come on serious & responsible behaviour at the end.
HA!
ElBaradei says nuclear Israel number one threat to Mideast: report
TEHRAN, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported.
At a joint press conference with Iran's Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran, ElBaradei brought Israel under spotlight and said that the Tel Aviv regime has refused to allow inspections into its nuclear installations for 30years, the report said.
"Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses," ElBaradei was quoted as saying.
Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear capabilities, although it refuses to confirm or deny the allegation.
"This (possession of nuclear arms) was the cause for some proper measures to gain access to its (Israel's) power plants ... and the U.S. president has done some positive measures for the inspections to happen," said ElBaradei.
ElBaradei arrived in Iran Saturday for talks with Iranian officials over Tehran's nuclear program.
Leaders of the United States, France and Britain have condemned Iran's alleged deception to the international community involving covert activities in its new underground nuclear site.
Last month, Iran confirmed that it is building a new nuclear fuel enrichment plant near its northwestern city of Qom. In reaction, the IAEA asked Tehran to provide detailed information and access to the new nuclear facility as soon as possible.
On Sunday, ElBaradei said the UN nuclear watchdog would inspect Iran's new uranium plant near Qom on Oct. 25.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...t_12181647.htm
This he says from Teheran....
HIJO DE PUTA
The Corner on National Review OnlineElBaradei as Metaphor [Victor Davis Hanson]
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei is a living metaphor for all that is wrong with post-Western society. He now proclaims that Israel — democratic and constitutional — is the "number one threat" to the Middle East. That he made this comment from Tehran — after his hosts have serially promised to wipe Israel off the map, and after his own agency missed an entire weapons facility run by an autocratic theocracy — says it all.
ElBaradei, who was educated in the West, and much of whose family lives in the safety and prosperity of the West, has made a career of appeasing Iran, lecturing Westerners about their assorted sins, and saying nothing about the dictatorship in Egypt (for which he once worked). Indeed, beyond Egypt, he has said nothing about the Middle East's self-induced pathologies — from tribalism, gender apartheid, and statism to dictatorship and religious intolerance — which are a far more significant cause of the region's economic stagnation than is Western colonialism.
That ElBaradei has been showered with awards from Western governments and universities — among them the Nobel Prize — reveals how well he understands the West's timidity and lack of principle. He knows that he and his family are safer and freer outside Egypt than they are inside Egypt, and he knows that Israel is not going to nuke its neighbors or announce that it would like to wipe Syria or Egypt off the map. He also knows that elites in the West like to be chided by Westernized non-Westernizers about their assorted sins — it allows those Western elites to alleviate their guilt at very little cost.
In short, if ElBaradei didn't exist, he would have to be invented.
Spot on, Eurabia and the Iranian crisis in a single breath.
Yet again Tehran spins it all to its advantage against the West
Out of all the dust and drama of the past fortnight’s struggle with Iran, I’d say the score is one point for diplomacy — and two points for Iran, in buying yet more time to advance its half-secret nuclear work. Sure, there’s yet another test of its intentions looming, on October 18, and another one six days later. But Iran has again proved world-class at spinning the West’s red lines and deadlines into more months in which to move its work forward.
“Knowing that they’re liars and cheats doesn’t mean you can’t do a deal,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, an Iran nuclear specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think- tank in London. “It makes it all the more necessary to do a deal.” I’d put Fitzpatrick, a consistent advocate for diplomacy, on the optimistic side of the argument in reckoning that we might have a chance of a worthwhile deal.
It has to be said that expectations range only from low to zero. The bleaker case — and, I think, the stronger one — is that Iran has again made a probably worthless concession to win time. “This is an ongoing contest and we’re in round, oh, about 147 in an open-ended bout,” Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said. “We honestly need to understand that these technologies are being disseminated to the point that a country wanting to have a breakout capability [can do so] or can create a structure so confusing we can’t tell if it’s complying or not.”
Of the four new jolts to the drama, the first was the revelation that Iran had a secret plant at Qom for enriching uranium, which many suspect conceals military ambitions; second, that Russia might back new sanctions; third, a “deal” in Geneva on Thursday, when Iran said it would send uranium to Russia to be enriched, and accept more scrutiny from the IAEA, the UN watchdog; and fourth, the publication of a private annexe to an IAEA report, with signs of Iran’s weapons research.
Fitzpatrick — while scathing about the efforts of Mohammed ElBaradei, the International Atomic Energy Agency director-general, to “avoid pointing the finger at Iran” — argues that the moves “take us forwards” because they “deal with the two most serious risks”: of secret, unmonitored work and of Iran piling up so much enriched uranium that it chose to break out from arms control treaties in a dash for the bomb.
But will Iran comply with the Geneva deal, supposedly a triumph for President Obama? Fitzpatrick, while expressing “no great faith” that it will, believes it’s a “step towards [Iran] accepting limits”. Cordesman is more caustic: “It’s not clear there was a Geneva deal. Is Iran going to overcomply with the spirit of that? No one else does.”
The problem, one Western official explained, is that Iran said nothing about how much enriched uranium it would send to Russia, or when. Saeed Jalili, chief negotiator, called Tehran during the talks and got the go-ahead to back a deal — in principle. Since then Iran’s officials have been saying: “Hold on, we said nothing firm”.
On October 18 Iran must tell the agency whether it will let inspectors into the Tehran reactor and, on the 24th and 25th, to Qom. Those who argue that there’s progress say that if, at the end of the year, Iran “is just messing us about” then there’ll be an even better case for sanctions.
If you look at the gains on either side in the past fortnight, the West has a promise without numbers. Tehran has a few solid more months to spin its uranium centrifuges.
Zinja,
I understand your point, but consider for a moment that the regime in tehran may be thinking about things a little differently to you. I actually think that what you are proposing is possibly the worst of all worlds. To explain.
I believe that one of the objectives of the Iranian nuclear program is for Iran to assert itself as a leader, perhaps the leader, in the muslim world. It wants to rally other muslim nations (or at least their populations) behind it. This is not easy to achieve given traditional Sunni/Shia & Arab/Persian hostilities. To an extent this happened once before when the revolution happened. This presents another chance.
The problem for the West (and those muslim nations that are none too keen about this) is that there are other ways to become heroes of the muslim 'street'. One is to get attacked by America, or, even better, Israel. This is 'insta-cred' on steroids. A thousand A-jad rants at the UN can't buy this sort of status.
There is another issue here too. Any such attack on Iran is going to rally people behind the government who would otherwise wish its demise. Iranians have a long memory when it comes to interference by the West (1953, the Shah, the Iran-Iraq war). Any attack on Iran runs the risk of doing something that has not happened for a while - unite a majority or Iranians behind the government. It will also make it possible for government purges to reach even further than they already have. I suspect that any hope of the government changing in favour of reform would be dead for some considerable time.
As a result of this I believe that any attack on Iran has to so destroy its nuclear program that it takes many many years to rebuild. Anything less could easily mean a united Iran re-doubling its efforts to get a bomb & protect the facilities making it. It would also likely see a dramatic upsurge in terrorist attacks. If the west or Israel are going to pay this price they need to exact much more for it that just bombing one facility.
Remember the last US President who used bombs to 'send a message'? he stepped down in 1968.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
Partly on health grounds though.
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