Obama: "I'm ready to negotiate with you, Iran." Iran: "Fuck you."

[classicman]

Don't start that again!

I mean that no matter whether it is or isn't, it will be portrayed as America's fault.
In that regard we are such an easy target.

[TheMercenary]

Fuck off.

[Undertoad]

1. Wikileaks information says

A 2009 American government cable released Sunday by the WikiLeaks website quotes Defense Minister Ehud Barak as telling visiting American officials that a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities was viable until the end of 2010, but after that "any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage."

But that can now be delayed, because

2. Wired reports that

In what appears to be the first confirmation that the Stuxnet malware hit Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that malicious computer code launched by “enemies” of the state had sabotaged centrifuges used in Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program.

And how! The code was written to slowly change centrifuge speeds, so that nobody would notice until it was too late:

Stuxnet targets only frequency drives from these two companies that are also running at high speeds — between 807 Hz and 1210 Hz.

Frequency-converter drives are used to control the speed of a device. Although it’s not known what device Stuxnet aimed to control, it was designed to vary the speed of the device wildly but intermittently over a span of weeks, suggesting the aim was subtle sabotage meant to ruin a process over time but not in a way that would attract suspicion.

“Using nuclear enrichment as an example, the centrifuges need to spin at a precise speed for long periods of time in order to extract the pure uranium,” Symantec’s Liam O Murchu told Threat Level earlier this month. “If those centrifuges stop to spin at that high speed, then it can disrupt the process of isolating the heavier isotopes in those centrifuges … and the final grade of uranium you would get out would be a lower quality.”

Could this also be why N.K.'s tests have fizzled so nicely?

3. Wired also repeats the earlier news from today about a Bond-esque assassination:

...assassinations on Monday could indicate that whoever targeted Iran felt the malware was insufficient to halt Iran’s nuclear program.

According to news reports, the scientists were targeted in separate but nearly simultaneous car bomb attacks near Shahid Beheshti University. Majid Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi, along with their wives, were driving to work when assailants on motorcycles zipped by their vehicles and slapped magnetized explosives to the cars, which were detonated within seconds.

Shahriari, who was head of an unnamed Iranian nuclear program, was killed. Abbasi, a high-ranking Ministry of Defense official who reportedly holds a Ph.D. in nuclear physics, was wounded. Both wives were wounded in the attacks.

Two other Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in recent years. A senior physics professor at Tehran University was killed in January, when a bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded near his car as he was leaving for work. A second nuclear scientist died in 2007 from gas poisoning.

Ahmadinejad blamed it on the US. The rest of the world yawned.

[classicman]

similar deaths were carried out in the previous weeks against targets elsewhere in the world. I posted the links somewhere on here...
I was thinking that the others were sort of like practice for these two.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Remember, the Iranians aren't Arabs, they're Persians and traditional enemies.

I'm sure economic incentive is lower on the list, if on at all, of reasons why Arab countries would want to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Being surrounded by nuclear power Israel and a probably soon to be nuclear power Iran is not making them feel secure. I'm just curious if there is any economic incentive behind it.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Don't forget, Iran has very limited production for domestic oil by-products, specifically, gas. They would be cutting off their nose to spite their face. A few well placed cruise missiles would cripple their country in a matter of days.

Good point. Despite how their politicians come off, I don't see Iran as a suicidal country but I do feel they could do some damage if they really wanted too. We could easily beat them one on one but I really doubt they would choose to fight that way.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Iran is already doing damage through their support of Al-Qaeda, The Taliban, Hezbollah, and who knows how many other terrorists.

[TheMercenary]

During a conversation with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in 2008 about encouraging China to sign a resolution condemning Iran, Gates said the Saudis "always want to 'fight the Iranians to the last American,' but that now it is time for them to get into the game," according the cable.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah repeatedly urges the U.S. to "cut the head off the snake." The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates says "Ahmadinejad is Hitler" and told one U.S. top State Department official that "the threat from al Qaeda would be minor if Iran has nukes."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/official-wi...ry?id=12263971

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Iran is already doing damage through their support of Al-Qaeda, The Taliban, Hezbollah, and who knows how many other terrorists.

True, but this all a balancing act on a very unstable board. Yes, Iran is doing damage right now and yes it will be bad for US and other interests if they get the bomb. But we have no idea how they will react to an attack or if we can actually stop their nuclear bomb program and that needs to be taken into consideration.

[xoxoxoBruce]

If I had my druthers, I'd druther we not attack Iran.

[skysidhe]

The government had to know WAY before toppling Hussein ,that Iran was always,THE problem.

If I stopped to think about it, I could get very pissed off. I could see this could be a problem for our future,and the future is upon us, to waste our resources going on a wild goose chase, and have nothing, for when the time came to clamp down on Iran, but I am a simple minded person, and apparently great minds call the shots.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

What, Bruce? Are you actually happy, rather than enraged, that the Mullahcracy exists and is a despotic oligarchy?

No wonder I think you need a better set of values than one that would permit you to write such drivel as that.

Totalitarian regimes do have one great value to democratic Mankind...

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yeah yeah, we already know you made up your mind when you were eight years old.

[tw]

30 years after the Iran hostage crisis, we're still fighting Reagan's war
Ted Koppel, in his usual insightful manner, reminds us how we got here. How many times we literally encouraged the Iranian relationship that 'we all but wanted'.

In their approach to the United States in the decade that followed, the mullahs provided chilling evidence of how closely they had studied the influence of the media and public opinion on U.S. foreign policy. ...

Iran watched and learned. They realized that the fixations of the American media could lead to shifts in U.S. policy. ...

Far from punishing the Iranians, Washington arranged for Israel to sell weapons to Iran. The Israeli stockpiles would be secretly replenished by the United States, which was legally prohibited from selling directly to Iran. In return, Iran would free some hostages. ...

Ultimately, Reagan's broad-shouldered bravado was no more effective in dealing with Tehran than Carter's mild-mannered diplomacy. ...

Here we are, 30 years after what we thought was the conclusion of a crisis, still wondering if the end will ever be in sight.

[piercehawkeye45]

ISTANBUL – Talks meant to nudge Iran toward meeting U.N. Security Council demands to stop uranium enrichment collapsed Saturday, with Tehran shrugging off calls by six world powers to cease the activity that could be harnessed to make nuclear weapons.

Announcing the failure of two days of negotiations, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said no new date for another meeting had been set. She blamed what the six consider unrealistic demands by Iran — an end to U.N. sanctions and agreement that Iran can continue to enrich — for the disappointing results.

Proposals by the six for improved U.N. monitoring of Iran's nuclear activities were rejected by Tehran, as were attempts to kickstart dialogue by reviving discussions on Iran's shipping out a limited amount of its enriched uranium in exchange for fuel for its research reactor, Ashton said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110122/...u/iran_nuclear

[TheMercenary]

"She blamed what the six consider unrealistic demands by Iran"

Imagine that.