The Israelis, just like in the case of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s, don’t want the batshit-crazy Iranian leadership to get nukes. I can understand why. I nuke hidden in a suicide car bomb could really ruin one’s whole day.

However, if the Israeli leadership decides to pre-emptively take care of all suspected Iranian nuclear sites, they will be playing into the hands of both the nutty Bush administration and the batshit-crazy Iranian leadership.

Why?

Once the first Israeli airstrike inside Iran occurs, the Iranians are bound to retaliate in some way.

The Iranians have already threatened to attack shipping in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, and have demonstrated the anti-ship missiles they intend to use.

If the Iranians do attack shipping, this would be all the excuse the Bush administration would need to launch an attack against Iran, as Bush rolled out “U.S. national security” as the reason. You know, the oil.

Of course, if Israeli bombs did start dropping, Bush might just join in for the “hell” of it without waiting to see how the Iranis might respond. Or Bush might decide to do the Israelis a “favor” by hitting Iran first.

I don’t know which scenario is more likely. But I do know that, based on what’s happening in Iraq, that if one bomb drops on Iran, then we are going to be unleashing a beast on the world that will surprise many, though not me.

If my premise is correct, we will continue to see more slippage in his approval numbers between now and November — and beyond. I suspect we’ll see somewhere between another 10 to 15 percent loss overall before he hits bottom.

…its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral…

Yea, and so is strapping on a bomb and blowing up civilians at random, so they say.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..orld_news#

WTF? Rademaker needs to be called on this astounding piece of propaganda. The Bush Administration never had any shame, but this is beyond belief! It is a repeat of Condi’s “mushroom cloud”.

What a nightmare!

I’ve been thinking about some of that too. I can’t imagine that daddy Bush is too happy with his son these days. If anyone would have the “moral authority†to speak out publicly against W it would be him. Babs probably wouldn’t let him.

Bush on the couch is a very worthwhile read for those of us who would like to understand our sociopath-in-chief. Frank makes it clear that the Preznit is ‘damaged goods.’

Another point that some authors have made (Al Franken, in Lies… among others) is that Babs is exceedingly protective of her adult children. It’s a crying shame she didn’t pay better attention to parenting when her children were, well, children. We might not be in quite this mess if her oldest son wasn’t such a Freudian diasaster.

But the idea that Babs would lean on GHWB to not speak out publically against this insanity raises protective to whole different level. Maybe even to the point that it requires a new word different.

Do you think Babsie’s that loco, Deb?

BC

(1) most scientists or engineers with real-world know-how about this topic cannot readily speak up in the media, because in order to learn this stuff, they must sign open-ended nondisclosure agreements with very strict penalties for noncompliance (think “capital punishment”). Any serious work in this field requires the highest levels of clearance (e.g., a DOE Q), and virtually all information on this topic is born classified, so it’s not something knowledgeable people can speak in detail about without risking serious legal problems, or worse.

(2) reading both of Rhodes’ books on this topic is about as good an introduction to the field as one can find in the open literature. Simpler introductions can be found at wikipedia.org or elsewhere on the web. But there’s really no good reason for citizens to learn more than these basic principles. This kind of information is not something we would ever want widely-disseminated, for obvious reasons. There’s no need to know, and there really shouldn’t even be a want to know (unless graduate work in engineering physics is your idea of a good time).

(3) worrying about a handful of Iranian centrifuges is just plain silly at this point. There are far more important nuclear threats in the world today, including Khan’s network of nuclear miscreants based in Pakistan, our painfully complete uncertainty about what the North Koreans are up to these days, and the fact that there is no good accounting of Russian tactical nuclear weapons (a problem that our current UN Ambassador has his fingerprints all over). Those venues are where our worries should begin.

If our administration was serious about global nuclear nonproliferation, they’d be taking a very different tack than the one they’re on here. The fact that they’re obsessed with Iran while they’re ignoring the real threats that exist elsewhere today implies that they’re either missing the entire point, or that they’re pursuing a shadow agenda.

Or perhaps both of these are true… and that’s not a very comforting thought!

Folks, there are places to go. FAS.org. Globalsecurity.org. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The key phrase in Cole’s article is “perfectly legal.” Once you arrive there, it doesn’t matter how close or how far Iran is from manufacturing a weapon. It puts the US in the status of lawbreaker when it threatens war.

And Mash, you are spot on. George Bush denies that the Iranian people have a right to know how to build nuclear weapons. The only way to accomplish that is to kill them all.

Believe him on that. He tells the truth a lot more than he is given credit for.

Interesting viewpoint. Clear, concise writing.
Thanks