Iran's nuclear weapons program was never halted says IAEA.

[snoopy369]

I think there is some belief that this is changing somewhat... Admadinejad has gained a significant amount of popularity, and has quite a lot of charisma. Other leaders in history who didn't have de jure power, or even de facto power, were able to gain such as a result of popularity and charisma.

[Kuciwalker]

To spell it out for you ,che:

Az:

to explain that the president does not hold absolute and ultimate power in Iran, is one thing.

to claim that he is similar in power to the queen of england is a joke, and this is just spouting ignorance.

You:

Does he control the military? No. Then he has the same power the Queen has in carrying out threats. None.

i.e. If he doesn't have direct control over the military, he has no power to carry out threats.

Me: that's naive.

You:

So you think Nancy Pelosi could destroy Israel if she were so inclined?

i.e., so you believe Nancy Pelosi has the absolute power to carry out threats.

A false dichotomy, an obvious false dichotomy, and the specific fallacy Siro was pointing out in the first place!

[Dinner]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


One has the ability to do so. The other is just a windbag who has no authority in his own government. If the Queen of England said she'd like to wipe Israel off the map, she'd have about as much ability to do so as the President of Iran . . . none.

Furthermore, the Jews are not Israel. Israel has 200 bombs. The Jews do not.

Britain has enough nukes to destroy a small country like Israel, not that they would. I'm going to take Iran at its word especially since building nukes would give them the ability to effectively destroy a small country like Israel. The power to influence events is enough in many cases. The Queens call for assistance in Iraq helped push Australia into joining the war after all.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by snoopy369


They do not have MAD capability, and will not any time in the near future. MAD is a term with a very specific definition in International Relations. Using it this way would be comparable to telling a chemist that water at 80C is boiling...

They would have the ability to throw a bit more weight around the international arena than they do now, certainly, by producing evidence of a nuclear weapon. They would not have MAD capability.

Not to Bushize this thread but Iran has shown time and again they're willing to carry out attacks using proxy forces. What is to stop them from handing a nuke to, say, Hezbollah and disavowing that it had anything to do with them? Perhaps claiming it was the act of traitors or criminals or something. their goal of destroying Israel would be achieved and they could conceivably escape nuclear retaliation. They could claim it was Hezbollah not Iran and it was criminals who stole the nukes.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Not sure I could really count on that especially if nukes are involved.

You can't conquer your neighbours with nukes. Unconventional power calculus just doesn't work like conventional power calculus. Your analogy therefore fails.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Not to Bushize this thread but Iran has shown time and again they're willing to carry out attacks using proxy forces. What is to stop them from handing a nuke to, say, Hezbollah and disavowing that it had anything to do with them? Perhaps claiming it was the act of traitors or criminals or something. their goal of destroying Israel would be achieved and they could conceivably escape nuclear retaliation. They could claim it was Hezbollah not Iran and it was criminals who stole the nukes.

This has absolutely, positively nothing to do with MAD capability. One of the key elements of MAD is the second word.

"Assured"

There is a vast political difference between "We have the capability of blowing up a bomb in your territory, if you don't catch us, which is sort of hard" and "We have assured that you will be absolutely destroyed if you attack us, 100% chance". MAD is the latter, and only the latter. The 'claiming' is irrelevant - and negates the main principle of MAD, that is, it is an effective defense because your opponents know YOU will attack them, and absolutely destroy them utterly, if they attack you..

Again, MAD does not refer to "MY WORDS ARE BACKED WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS", which is what you and siro are talking about. Certainly that is a relevant element in international politics, in addition to being a cool t-shirt. However, it is not MAD, and does not have the same strength as a MAD capable state does. Iran has the ability to hurt us (or our allies) if we attack it; but that's true with any war against a state with a remotely equivalent military (like, Iraq...). The ability to assure the total destruction of the US state (not our ally) is a very, very different ballgame. We might decide to pay the price of losing a couple of cities in order to take out Iran. (I wouldn't, but it's conceivable we would.) We absolutely would never choose to do so if it involved the total destruction of the US; hence MAD assured that the US and the USSR would never undergo a total war.

[Dinner]

Che, there is only one Jewish state so referring to Israel as the Jews is perfectly clear even if technically a small minority of Muslims and Christians live in Israel. Especially since the minorities have no more then token power in Israel.

[Dinner]

Snoopy, my point exactly. By claiming it was the act of a third party, even if only marginally believable, a country like Iran could plant the seeds of doubt and possibly avoid nuclear retaliation. Thus their destruction might possibly not be assured and a fanatical enough leader (and religious zealots are known for their fanaticism) might consider rolling the dice.

A much better alternative is to insure fanatics don't have access to nuclear weapons. If diplomacy works then great if not then sustained air strikes may be necissary.

[snoopy369]

MAD does not apply to this discussion. The M in MAD is 'mutually'. MAD only applies to TWO states that can, 100% chance, destroy each other. This has only applied to the US and the USSR/Russia, although China is probably going to reach this state at some point. (UK might qualify vis-a-vis China, but I don't think they do against US/Russia any more due to warhead reductions).

Assured destruction minus the mutual is an incentive to go to war, as opposed to MAD which is a disincentive.

[Dinner]

You're agreeing with me and trying to argue at the same time. I'm saying MAD might not apply to Iran in a specific set of circumstances.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
To spell it out for you ,che:

Az:

All Israelis are not the same

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Does he control the military? No. Then he has the same power the Queen has in carrying out threats. None.

the military is not the main attack mechanism

the revolutionary guards are, and the intelligence ministry is.
and ahmedinejad has lots of his own men placed there, and has a very good way to control it.

he also slowly but surely increases his own power within the government, and has only recently received and unusual blessing from Khamnha'i

the rest of your argument is mute, and silly because you fail to understand the workings of complex political systems.

You seem to do it just fine tough, when you want to blame some defense dept. bureaucrat or some US political figure, for provoking war, even though they do not control the military directly.

So I assume you either completely don't understand Iranian politics, or you are intentionally playing dumb.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov


All Israelis are not the same

I even got it right, later in the post. Sorry

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Ecthy


You can't conquer your neighbours with nukes. Unconventional power calculus just doesn't work like conventional power calculus. Your analogy therefore fails.

They don't want to conquer a neighbour. One of their leaders says they do want to destroy another small country in the region.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Oerdin
You're agreeing with me and trying to argue at the same time. I'm saying MAD might not apply to Iran in a specific set of circumstances.

I'm saying the discussion of MAD does not apply to Iran under any set of circumstances. Your statement does not make any sense in the context of MAD.