Iran - What Nuclear Weapons Program?

Probably. I'm not sure who all produces it. I think Australia sells it too.

India's, Pakistan's, and Israel's nukes do not violate the NPT.

North Korea's nukes are illegal, but they also face crippling world-wide sanctions because of their nuclear program.

So when Iran withdraws for the NPT then you don't have a concern, right?

oralloy says:


Yes, they do. However they were a fait accompli, and there was nothing the other powers could do about them.

As I recall, a country can only withdraw under limited circumstances.

I don't think "I wanna be a rogue nation" counts as a valid reason.

In any case, they would have had to withdraw before they began their nuclear weapons program. They cannot now legitimize an already-illegal program by withdrawing after the fact.

No they don't. Treaties do not apply to countries that are not a party to the treaty.

That is true. Somehow or other, we did aid India's program, which we were not supposed to do since they were not signatory to NPT. This was a Bush deal, by the way.

Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon
www.theonion.com
TEHRAN—Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America's uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th .....

The US has the legal right to have nuclear weapons (and we are in fact reducing our arsenal).

It is illegal for Iran to have even one nuclear weapon.

I don't understand why so many people want to trivialize the NPT, and in an effort to help a rogue nation develop nukes no less. If Iran doesn't make them come to regret it, the collapse of the NPT and eventual nuclear war somewhere on the planet surely will.

The Onion should be ashamed of themselves.

Totally humorless. I thought so.

The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur accused CNN host Erin Burnett and the establishment media Friday evening for trumping up Iran’s weapons capability and trying to start another war in the Middle East.

Uygur was particularly annoyed at Burnett placing her own assessment of Iran’s leadership proceeding to develop a nuclear weapon, despite U.S. intelligence citing that wasn’t the case.

“Didn’t we see this movie, ‘Saddam could attack the United States within 45 minutes,’” he said. “It’s war mongering, over and over again. Oh my God, Iran is so dangerous.”


Uygur later stressed that the traditional media would not cause another Iraq like situation to occur.

“You are grossly deceiving people, and we’re not going to let you get away with it this time,” he said. “We’re not going to let you drive this country into another senseless war in the Middle East with your lies and your propaganda.”

That was pretty slick there, EB, with the Onion article. I salute you.

Onion - Thinly veiled social commentary, oftentimes.

War drums or negotiation?

They are certainly getting enough weapons in place for it.

"Develop a nuclear weapon" is being defined a bit narrowly as producing the actual components and assembling them into a working device.

While Iran may not be producing nuclear weapons components and assembling them, they are doing everything they can to give themselves the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons components and assemble them. And they are doing it with illegal secrecy and illegal lack of safeguards (secrecy and lack of safeguards which has always been a clear indication of a weapons program and not a power program).





No, we didn't.

We did hear a claim (from UK intelligence I believe) that Saddam's nerve gas shells could be deployed and armed within 45 minutes, but no one said anything about those shells being able to reach the US from Iraq.





No deception. Iran's illegal efforts to hide their program from inspectors are quite concerning, especially in light of the fact that they are pursuing the specific technologies that they would need in order to produce a weapon.

Yes. But questionable social commentary in this case.

As if there were any moral equivalence between an American nuke and an Iranian nuke.

The position that The Onion took here, is the sort of position they usually poke fun at.

http://rt.com/news/iran-syria-west-policy-697/
West’s poker face at Middle Eastern grand chessboard
Get short URL
Link copied to clipboardemail story to a friend print version Published: 19 February, 2012, 20:21

The US Navy's USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier (Reuters / Tyrone Siu)
TAGS: Arms, Conflict, Military, Nuclear, Middle East, Politics, Iran, USA, Syria


The planned neo-colonial takeover of the Middle East is gearing up. As the heat rises, the West finds it increasingly difficult to proceed with its grab for dominance and maintain a brave face, says political analyst Adrian Salbuchi.
­Things are happening very fast in the Middle East. Tensions are mounting, threats are being made, and strange assassinations are taking place… Even stranger diplomatic, political, global media, military and economic strings are being pulled; sometimes so quickly, that they’re getting tangled! The atmosphere is becoming very rarefied indeed! A bit of historical perspective might even lead you to think we’re re-living August 1939: the last days before World War II.
But what is really happening over there and why? Well, to begin with, we witnessed twenty years during which the US, UK, France, other NATO members, and Israel have variously attacked, bombed and overrun Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and Palestine almost constantly and unimpaired.
Millions of Muslims have died as a consequence of these aggressions which have been based either on flagrant lies like Iraq’s non-existent WMDs, or Iran’s alleged A-Bomb program. Blatant double-standards make the media systematically ignore Israeli ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Last year we saw a fabricated and engineered social turmoil throughout the region – dubbed the “Arab Spring.”

There is consistent misrepresentation of the true nature of the Middle East conflict, the true goals of its wide assortment of players, and the true root causes of all the violence and turmoil. But now the Western powers are finally confronted with two tough cookies to crack: Syria and Iran. In these conflicts their masks are starting to fall. And when masks suddenly fall, many are caught off-guard showing their real faces.
For example, how will the Western powers now explain to the world that the so-called “Free Syrian Army” – clearly trained, supported, financed and armed by the Western powers’ covert agencies – now counts on the support of Al-Qaeda, of all people! On 15th February, Al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on “all Muslims from Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon” to come to the aide of the “Syrian rebels.”
Well, what a surprise! Wasn’t Al-Qaeda supposed to be leading “international terrorism” against the US, UK, France and Israel? Now, as James Clapper the US Director of National Intelligence told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on February 16, we learn Al-Qaeda is working with a common purpose alongside the US and UK in Syria!

Strange bed fellows you say? I don’t think so…

Lucid observers have known all along that al-Qaeda is a creature of US and British intelligence. Take it from Robin Cook, who was leader of the UK House of Commons & Lord President of the Council in Tony Blair’s cabinet in 2003, but preferred to resign in March of that year rather than support Tony Blair’s poodle-like policy of following Baby Bush to war against Iraq.

He said in an article in the Guardian newspaper on July 8, 2005 that “Bin Laden was… a product of a monumental miscalculation by Western security agencies. Throughout the 80’s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of Mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.”

This exciting article is concluded through my link at the top -

The US has screwed up so many issues concerning different countries and tribes, it's impossible for even the CIA/FBI to keep straight. When any president takes over in the White House, all the intelligence information they are provided must be so biased, it can be all lies. Nobody with any brain would be able to make sense out of all the screw-ups by our government.

Just Vietnam and Iraq are mind-boggling - to say the least.

Al-CIAda? 'US in bed with Al-Qaeda to oust Assad'
www.youtube.com
The majority of the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution this week, calling on Syria's President to end the oppostion crackdown, and give up power. Russi.....