A real quick link dump about a brewing topic that should cause everyone much concern.
Fear of Iranian nuclear arms high on Gulf states’ agenda
Fearful of a nuclear-armed state on their borders, leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states meeting in Abu Dhabi contemplated Sunday declaring the Persian Gulf a nuclear weapons-free zone in the hope that their neighbor Iran would join.
“None of the GCC states support any country having nuclear power,” said Mona Mohammed al-Hashemi of the Emirates Center For Strategic Studies and Research in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post. “As you know, Iran is a very strong country, but the GCC can say something about this issue. They can discuss and see how they should stand on this issue and see what they can do that won’t harm them,” he added
If only in terms of being caught up in a nuclear maelstrom not of their own making, the Gulf states should have a very real concern about a nuke-armed and radical Iran. Beyond that, they bear a geopolitical concern, as such an Iran would force a huge shift in recognized power in the Moslem world at the expense of the Gulf states.
According to GCC secretary-general Abdul Rahman Hamad al-Attiyah, quoted on the United Arab Emirates’ official Emirates News Agency, the summit will not issue any statements condemning Iran’s controversial nuclear program. That reflected Gulf nations’ reluctance to provoke Iran and to be seen as siding with the West in the confrontation over Teheran’s nuclear plans.
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But what worries the GCC most is Iran’s nuclear potential. Many in the West and in Arab countries believe Iran will use its nuclear energy program to develop nuclear weapons. The Arab countries fear such weapons would make Iran a superpower in the region. Iran denies the charge, saying its program is intended only to produce electricity.
“We have confidence in Iran, but we don’t want to see an Iranian nuclear reactor that is closer to our territorial waters than it is to Teheran. This causes danger and harm to us,” the Emirates News Agency quoted Attiyah as saying.
The issue has become even more important to the GCC as tensions have risen in the region following the recent anti-Israel statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Not even a statement? Despite their stake in the matter, the Gulf states are currently ranking slightly behind the Europeans in the role of an almost being a speed bump for Iranian endeavors.
Iran tells West to be tolerant of Holocaust views
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust is a matter for academic discussion and the West should be more tolerant of his views, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
Ahmadinejad last week called the Holocaust a myth and suggested Israel be moved to Germany or Alaska, remarks that sparked international uproar and threaten diplomatic talks with Europe over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi defended the president’s remarks, which also drew a rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.
“What the president said is an academic issue. The West’s reaction shows their continued support for Zionists,” Asefi told a weekly news conference.
“Westerners are used to leading a monologue but they should learn to listen to different views,” he added.
Some 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945.
Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guardsman who was elected president, also said in October Israel was a “tumour” that must be “wiped off the map”.
A statement drafted by European Union leaders described last week’s Holocaust comment as “wholly unacceptable”. The White House termed the remarks “outrageous”.
Asefi denounced international condemnation as emotional and illogical.
“The EU statement is not based on international diplomatic norms. They should avoid illogical methods,” he said.
You see, when the radical president of a bloody Iranian government seeking nukes says that Israel should be destroyed and the history of the Holocaust is a hoax, he’s merely embracing a diverse view and others should be more tolerant. Geez, with those buzzwords, how could the left fail to embrace this man?
Meanwhile, Ace at Ace of Spades begins to embrace what he perceives as a need for a new version of an old policy, mutually-assured destruction (MAD).
Iran is such a depressing topic for me I haven’t blogged about it much. Iran is mere months away from developing a bomb, their hardline lunatic leadership is quite forthright about their desire to wipe Israel off the map, and they would have few qualms about delivering a bomb to Al Qaeda.
I’d like to do the military-bluster thing and start advocating airstrikes on all their nuclear facilities, command and control sites, even their oil wells. But I don’t think that will actually solve things. Their uranium enrichment program is hidden, probably underground, and almost certainly well-dispersed. We could not end their atomic ambitions through mere airstrikes.
For those of you counting on Israel to end this problem for us– forget it. The comparison to Iraq’s reactor is inapposite. That was a big identifiable target. The Iranian sites are largely unknown, even by the vaunted Israeli intelligence organizations.
We’re not going to invade. We don’t have the troops and the nation doesn’t have the stomach.
Which means that Iran will have a bomb soon.
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It is time for Bush to spell out clearly what our nuclear policy is in regard to nuclear-armed rogue states. And this is not the time for diplomatic nicety. Bush must announce, clearly and solemnly, that any nuclear-armed nation invites a nuclear attack, and that a nuclear attack by such a nation will be met with the complete destruction of that nation by nuclear fire.
The fundamentalist religious crazies thuggishly ruling Iran may have little fear of that. They will consider giving up their own lives to strike a mighty nuclear blow for Allah a small sacrifice for greater Islamist glory.
We have to put the fear of God Himself into those who value life more than seventy-two viriginal whores in the afterlife. The Iranian citizens, the generals, the scientists building the doomsday devices.
We have to be clear on our response to such an attack, and we have to be resolved about carrying it out with clinical, murderous deadliness.
And we need to inform the world, and Iran of course, of all of this in advance. We need to be quite clear on our policy, so that the world will know that Iran was forewarned.
Ace goes on to explain his unfortunately lucid reasoning behind a devastating policy, one that could be termed as MADOIB, mutually-assured destruction on Israel’s behalf. A nuke-capable Iran could not dream to destroy the U.S. in any short- or mid-term scenario, but they could play a role in a long-term nightmare. They could, however, destroy Israel, and Ace looks at how different responses to an Iranian attack on Israel could proceed. As Ace points out, MAD is a policy that only carries weight among the rational, thus the need for the clear publication of such a policy so that external and internal pressures may be brought to bear on the history-denying, blood-craving Iranian government.
WunderKraut also gives his thoughts on the eventuality of an Iranian nuke. That’s twice I’ve linked WunderKraut in recent weeks. I really need to update my blogroll.