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Paul Mason's Idle Scrawl

Some web links on the Iran nuke issue...

  • Paul Mason
  • 10 Apr 06, 09:03 AM

There's only one big talking point today: Sy Hersh's story on the alleged consideration of a . Elsewhere on the web Professor Paul Rogers of Bradford University has produced of how/ why it might happen - or not happen. Meanwhile if you want to follow the Iranian response from the horse's mouth, it is worth checking every so often.

Comments  Post your comment

  • 1.
  • At 02:23 PM on 10 Apr 2006,
  • Carino Risagallo wrote:

Have I got this right, the only country in the world that has used nukes in anger is thinking about deploying them again in order to stop another country from acquiring them, because it thinks this second country might use them if it had them?

  • 2.
  • At 10:58 PM on 10 Apr 2006,
  • kim wrote:

I suspect and fear that the "Iranian" affair is a sign of things to come.

The side issue which seems likely to prevent multilateral diplomacy from influencing the rhetoric (and possibly real intentions) of the backward regime currently running Iran, is economic.

There's another buyer for the oil, it's big, increasingly powerful and certainly has no need to be cowed by the Western World (which increasingly relies upon it as much as it might loathe or dread it).

China.

The competition for vital resources to power economic growth is just the beginning of the quite natural and inevitable struggle to determine economic, political and military superiority.

Even these early consequences (will they in future be seen as the first skirmishes ?) could be more intense and destabilising than the ideological and territorial skirmishes of the Cold War.

It allows those with the resources to name their price, both political and economic. Two super powers will compete for access.

Energy, metals, food....all much more important than the remote parts of the world which we used to squabble over with the former Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had the resources (albeit horribly mismanaged), China does not.

It's time for cool heads. Oh dear...

kim

There has been somewhat of a buzz over the past few days here in the US -culminating with yet another ground breaking article by Hersh- of an imminent nuclear strike against Iran. However two of the administration's top officials have gone out of their way to reject the possibility, including the president himself today. That they are rejecting it with such consistency and effort tells me that it will not be an option.

The USA know that a bombing the reactors in Iran would cause a huge diplomatic crisis and could lead to isolationism from the rest of the developed world. Secondly at present Iran has not breached the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and so as long as they comply with the IAEA, diplomacy is the only way a deal can be reached. I think the main concern is what the Israelis will do as they may well decide to use nuclear weapons to deal with the perceived threat coming from Iran.

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