I’m finally done fighting with my brand new Christmas smoker. I got it up to temperature and it’s smoking a 4lb. brisket. Now I can get back to blogging. One thing I feel is likely to come to a head in 2012 is the situation with Iran’s nuclear program. I’m pleased to see that new sanctions and threats of even more sanctions have finally brought Iran back to the negotiating table. The invasion of Iraq freaked the Iranian government out for a while and they stopped working on a nuclear weapon. At least, that’s what our intelligence community concluded, much to the neo-cons consternation. But it appears that they started it again once it became clear that we were bogged down in Iraq like a dinosaur in the La Brea tar pits. As Iraq marks today as a new national holiday, signifying the official end of the U.S. occupation, Iran can no longer count on America’s overextended military for protection. They can threaten to close the Straits of Hormuz, but they can’t think they’d be able to do it with impunity or that America would be stretched thin by their response.
The Obama administration does not want a military conflict with Iran, and it may not need one to stop Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
Top negotiator Saeed Jalili has said Iran is ready to rejoin EU-led talks with major powers on assuaging Western concerns over its nuclear programme even as tensions with the United States soar in the Gulf.
“We will give a resounding and many-pronged response to any threat against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Jalili told Iranian diplomats gathered in Tehran in comments reported on Saturday.
But both he and other officials left the door open to resuming long-stalled talks led by European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton on Western concerns over Iran’s nuclear program me.“We officially told them to come back to the negotiation based on cooperation,” Jalili said.
The thing to worry about is the possibility that these talks fail. And that could be a big story in 2012 that has a big impact on the U.S. presidential elections and on the government and stability of Iran.
The thing to worry about is the possibility that these talks fail. And that could be a big story in 2012 . . .
Right. Be afraid, be very, very afraid? Um, no. In fact f*ck no. Same bullsh*t war-mongering, saber-rattling, and threatening rhetoric from a new batch of dipshit f*cking chickenhawks. Fallon was right in ’08 when he was in charge of CentCom, and he’s still right today:
I guess your point is unclear. At least, to me.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/iaea-report-is-a-dud-and-moon-of-alabama-says-its-confused-nanodiamond
-production-with-nukes.html
Your casual assertions about Iran’s alleged nuclear program are wildly irresponsible. I’ll leave it at that before I start spitting fire.
You never read about this? Is this the first you’ve heard of it?
There should be sanctions against booman for this nonsense.
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‘US Edited’ IAEA Iran Report A Dud
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I think you’re misreading the post. The “worry” in that sentence is that, if talks fail, that the US will carry out a military strike and things will go from there, not that the Iranians will nuke Tel Aviv or New York.
That’s how I read it, anyway.
Yes, I meant that failed talks could lead to war, which would be very unfortunate.
In such circumstances, Bomman, if the US launches an attack on Iran because “the talks failed,” whom would you then hold responsible for the war? Iran?
Also, can you please elaborate on Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon? Is just one of those things that “everyone knows?” Just like everyone knew Iraq had WMD? IS Obama really going to lead us into a war much worse than anything Bush did?
In Short, Iran is a signatory of the NPT. The IAEA has verified time and again the non-divergence of nuclear material. Iran has every right to enrich uranium. The US has no right to stop her from doing so.
Lastly, given that the US has recently invaded/bombed both Iraq and Libya without provocation, it seems to me Iran would be stupid NOT to pursue nukes. And yet, all the evidence shows that they are not.
Not only that, Lysander, the report Booman referred to so blithely, suggesting that “The invasion of Iraq freaked the Iranian government out for a while and they stopped working on a nuclear weapon” dangerously suggests that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon despite a complete lack of convincing evidence that they were ever working on one.
And am I the only one who sees the striking similarities between the fearmongering over Iran’s most-likely-nonexistent nuclear weapons program and the lies that they used to sell the attack on and occupation of Iraq?
Oh, yes, and let’s not forget the fact that unlike the United States Israel, the two most militarily aggressive countries on earth, Iran has not attacked or invaded another country in nearly 300 years.
So, you’re quoting the IAEA when it says what you want to hear, and denouncing its credibility when it doesn’t.
Off the top of my head, I’d say that the rather obvious differences between the situations of Iran and Iraq include 1) the Bush administration repeatedly falsified evidence to make their case, while there is not even a whiff of this happening today, 2) the international inspectors never supported the Iraq-WMD theory, while they are saying the opposite about Iran, and 3) there was copious evidence of Bush administration figures actively pushing for an invasion of Iraq for whatever reason (think Rumsfeld’s comments about “no good targets in Afghanistan” and “not only OBL, but also SH) while there has been no similar push from people in the Obama administration.
But if you’re going to lump together things as disparate as the UN protective mission in Libya with the Iraq War, then it’s clear that you’re not looking at the question at this level of detail.
I think you’re missing the point. We all know Iran is enriching uranium. They do it openly and they have every right to do it. under the NPT, there ONLY obligation is to let inspectors account for the whereabouts of all fissile material, and to inform them 6 months in advance of enrichment in a new location.
That’s it. They don’t need to do anything else. The IAEA continues to confirm they are doing this. There is nothing the IAEA could say about Iran that it can’t also say about Brazil, or Argentina, or Japan.
The dispute is that the US insists that Iran must stop doing what it has every legal right to do.
Iran has no obligation to submit to any foreign powers’ veto over what technologies Iran may or may not pursue.
End Of Story.
In case you haven’t noticed, we have been waging war on Iran already.
the GOP has wanted war with IRAN for forever and a day.
they just want the Iranian oil.
The US has placed sanctions on banks that deal with Iran.
This is effective in dealing with Iran. They can’t afford to be cut off.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The same people have been confidently assuring me a strike against Iran is imminent since about 2005. I remember when it was going to happen before Bush left office. I remember when it was going to happen before the US left Iraq, so we could give the Israelis overflight authorization.
Somehow, they don’t ever seem to become any less confident.
weren’t/ aren’t the hawks leaking that in hopes that it seems inevitable? iirc the us military prevented Cheney from carrying out his dream of attacking Iran
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A strike on Iran hasn’t happened. You are simply wrong in your statement “the same people as in 2005.” You don’t know Binyamin Netanyahu.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."You are simply wrong in your statement “the same people as in 2005.”
No, I am absolutely right. Precisely the same so-called-anti-war voices – the same pundits, the same bloggers, the same “activists” – that were telling me this six years ago are telling me now.
As their previous iron-clad evidence turned out to be wrong, they found new iron-clad evidence.
But what doesn’t change is the smug assertion that it is only my lack of knowledge that explains why I don’t find their certainty to be justified.
Well, one of the voices that have changed since then is Muhammed El-Baradi, whom the Bush admin tried like crazy to oust from the IAEA bc he opposed their attempts to push the Iran-nuke connection.
Meet the new boss at IAEA, Yukiya Amano:
For the record, I hope you’re right, but I can’t fathom how you can feel so confident that this war won’t be happening. We all are in serious trouble if it does.
Smoking?
This thread http://www.offcamber.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6785&highlight=smoking has going on for nearly seven years and contains everything you will ever need to know about smoking meat.
Sadly Oddly Calm died a bout a year ago, but his thread still lives
Good luck, start early, time is your friend.
We’ll see how serious a story this is when Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz. That will signal Iran going beyond handwaving.
My sense is that both the Obama foreign policy team and the Iranian response are a bunch of handwaving for internal consumption.
However, the Republican neo-cons are deadly serious about their desire to rid Iran of the ayatollahs and most likely re-establish the “monarchy”. It’s the next enemy needed now that al Quaeda has been “defeated”. And the only music McCain hears is “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb. Bomb, Bomb Iran”.
Most analysts read Iran as using ambiguity as a deterrent against regional threats. And that they are pursuing a nuclear weapons policy similar to that of the Japanese. Having the capability to create a device quickly but foregoing creating one until there is a significant existential threat.
From Iran’s perspective, the US sanctions are not intended to prevent a nuclear capability but to destabilize the regime. Experience since Bush included Iran in his Axis of Evil and pulled the rug from under Khatami is that unreasonable pressure strengthens the regime.
My read is that if Iran actually blocks the strait then the war is on. The US just released a very unambiguous statement a day or two back that any attempt to block the strait “will not be tolerated.” I don’t think they’re playing chicken, and I’m not confident at all that the Iranians will blink, either.
I wonder if changes in the IAEA power structure have anything to do with this apparent about-face regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Hold on, this all began with Iran issuing a statement that IF the world imposed a blockade on Iranian oil, they would block the Straits.
I don’t see anyone imposing a blockade on Iranian oil. The Chinese would never stand for it, the Indians would never stand for it, and it would cause a global oil price spike.
I think the Iranians quite cleverly expressed their ferocious determination to defend a line in the sand that nobody expects to be crossed.
I need to look up that statement, then. I thought the threat had to do with sanctions.
Yeah, got it. Weird situation, really. How does anybody impose sanctions on Iranian oil short of actually blocking the Strait of Hormuz in the first place? There’d have to be a consensus among buyers to boycott, and that’ll never happen. Anyhow, it looks like they’re not pursuing the threat to block the Strait as a viable option atm.
That was part of the NDAA legislation that made it “illegal” for any business to deal with Iran’s central bank. Any business that does, would be excluded from the US. That puts a lot of countries that need Iranian oil in a tough position.
What Iran is doing is saying that if you succumb to US pressure, we have the means to make it painful for you.
The US issued a warning to Iran that it will keep the straights open. But the warning was by a junior officer spokesperson for the US 5th fleet.
Probably, the US will not enforce that aspect of the NDAA until it has cooperation from a lot more countries. In the meantime, Iran will likely find a loophole to sell oil.
Anyway, I don’t think an open attack on Iran is likely (for now,) but it seems the US is trying to goad Iran into one, so as to be able to pin the blame on them.
How does anybody impose sanctions on Iranian oil short of actually blocking the Strait of Hormuz in the first place?
The same way as the sanctions against Iraq’s oil exports worked: by using naval assets to intercept ships coming out of Iranian ports, and searching them, at gunpoint if necessary. This went on for years in the 1990s.
Yep. Handwaving.
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As Ynet News explained in an article (h/t Pamela Geller of Jihad Watch) as follows: Israeli officials say IAEA’s ElBaradei an Iranian agent. For the thinking folks another analysis of “new” intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program.
by Brenna L. Schnars (Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California) September 2010 [large pdf]
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."