Iran Sanctions Causing Food Insecurity & Mass Suffering
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -suffering
Iran sanctions now causing food insecurity, mass suffering
Yet again, the US and its allies spread mass human misery though a policy that is as morally indefensible as it is counter-productive
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 October 2012
The Economist this week describes the intensifying suffering of 75 million Iranian citizens as a result of the sanctions regime being imposed on them by the US and its allies [my emphasis]:
"Six years ago, when America and Europe were putting in place the first raft of measures to press Iran to come clean over its nuclear ambitions, the talk was of "smart" sanctions. The West, it was stressed, had no quarrel with the Iranian people—only with a regime that seemed bent on getting a nuclear bomb, or at least the capacity for making one. Yet, as sanctions have become increasingly punitive in the face of Iran's intransigence, it is ordinary Iranians who are paying the price.
"On October 1st and 2nd Iran's rial lost more than 25% of its value against the dollar. Since the end of last year it has depreciated by over 80%, most of that in just the past month. Despite subsidies intended to help the poor, prices for staples, such as milk, bread, rice, yogurt and vegetables, have at least doubled since the beginning of the year. Chicken has become so scarce that when scant supplies become available they prompt riots. On October 3rd police in Tehran fired tear-gas at people demonstrating over the rial's collapse. The city's main bazaar closed because of the impossibility of quoting accurate prices. . . .
"Unemployment is thought to be around three times higher than the official rate of 12%, and millions of unskilled factory workers are on wages well below the official poverty line of 10m rials (about $300) a month."
Pervasive unemployment, inflation, medicine shortages, and even food riots have been reported elsewhere.
That sanctions on Muslim countries cause mass human suffering is not only inevitable but part of their design. In 2006, the senior Israeli official Dov Weisglass infamously described the purpose of his nation's blockade on Gaza with this candid admission: "'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger." Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman justified the Iran sanctions regime this way: "Critics of sanctions argue that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that."
Even more infamously, the beloved former Democratic Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - when asked in 1996 by 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl about reports that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US-imposed sanctions on that country - stoically replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." So extreme was the suffering caused by sanctions in Iraq that one former UN official, Dennis Halladay, resigned in protest, saying that the sanctions policy met the formal definition of "genocide":
"We are now in there responsible for killing people, destroying their families, their children, allowing their older parents to die for lack of basic medicines. We're in there allowing children to die who were not born yet when Saddam Hussein made the mistake of invading Kuwait."
In an excellent Op-Ed for Al Jazeera last week, Murtaza Hussain extensively documented the devastation wrought on 26 million Iraqis by that sanctions regime - the one Albright declared as "worth it" - and argues: "that tragedy is being willfully replayed, only this time the target is the population of Iran". He explained:
"Intensifying sanctions against the country have sent the Iran's rial into an unprecedented free-fall, causing it to plummet in value by 75 per cent since the start of the year; and, stunningly, almost 60 per cent in the past week alone.
"Ordinary Iranians completely unconnected to the government have had their lives effectively ground to a halt as the sudden and unprecedented collapse of the financial system has rendered any meaningful form of commerce effectively impossible. In recent weeks, the price of staples such as rice and cooking oil have skyrocketed and once ubiquitous foods such as chicken have been rendered completely out of the reach of the average citizen."
That is a fact that should be deeply disturbing to any decent person. In 2001, the writer Chuck Sudetic visited Iraq and then wrote in Mother Jones about what he saw: namely, that the US-led sanctions regime "killed more civilians than all the chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons used in human history".
Yet as Hussain notes, the decade-long suffering of Iraqis was all futile when viewed next to the ostensible goal of sanctions: "the sanctions failed to remove Saddam from power and by many accounts helped him solidify his grip on the country by keeping the overwhelming majority of the population focused purely on subsistence." Some isolated exceptions notwithstanding, the very idea that a regime can be undermined by severely weakening the population that would otherwise oppose it - literally weakening them physically through food and medicine deprivation - is not only intuitively absurd and morally grotesque but also empirically disproven.
As Mohammad Sadeghi Esfahlani and Jamal Abdi recently documented in Foreign Policy, the sanctions regime, while devastating ordinary Iranians, is having virtually no effect on their leaders - other than to strengthen their grip on power:
"Instead of speculating from afar, we should listen to the Iranians on the ground who are actually struggling for democracy firsthand. The leaders of the Green Movement and Iranian human rights and democracy defenders have adamantly opposed broad sanctions and warned that confrontation, isolation and broad economic punishment only undermine the cause of democracy and rule of law in Iran. A new report by the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) documents how sanctions are destroying the sources of societal change in Iran. 'The urban middle class that has historically played a central role in creating change and promoting progress in Iran are key casualties of the sanctions regime,' according to the report.
"As documented by the report's firsthand account on the ground, sanctions are not driving the working class to join Iran's democracy movement, they are doing the opposite - decimating the Iranian middle class, that has been at the center of the democracy movement, by intensifying their economic struggles. The greatest impediment for Iran's pro-democracy movement - as we saw at the height of the Green Movement protests in 2009 - has been that working class Iranians who are preoccupied with immediate financial struggles are unable to enlist in a struggle for political freedoms."
So horrific is the human suffering brought about by such sanctions regimes that some are beginning to argue that killing Iranians with an air attack would be more humane. That was the argument advanced several days ago by the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, Blake Hounsehll, who mused that he was "beginning to wonder if limited airstrikes on Iran may actually be the more morally sound course of action." He was contemplating airstrikes, he then explained, because "a couple thousand deaths" might be worth it to avoid "the livelihoods of 75 million people destroyed".
Part of Hounshell's announcement is simply the way America's foreign policy elites so casually call for actions that they know will end the lives of large numbers of innocent human beings: it may be time to cause "a couple thousand deaths", he suggested with an almost audible yawn. And part of it is what Council on Foreign Relations president emiritus Leslie Gelb candidly described as "the disposition and incentives" among America's foreign policy professionals "to support wars to retain political and professional credibility". In other words, supporting military action is what America's influential foreign policy commentators, by definition, reflexively do in order to advance their own career and make themselves relevant.
But part of Hounshell's statement reflects the difficult-to-dispute recognition on his part that the sanctions regime causes such intense, widespread human misery that - in the warped Washington world in which airstrikes and sanctions are the only two cognizable options - extinguishing the lives of "a couple thousand" innocent Iranians may actually be the more humanitarian outcome when weighed against the ongoing suffering of 75 million people from the sanctions regime. That is how devastating sanctions are.
What's most extraordinary about all of this is that the extreme human suffering caused by US-led sanctions is barely acknowledged in mainstream American political discourse. One reason that Americans were so baffled after the 9/11 attack (why do they hate us?) is the same reason they continue to be so baffled by anti-American protests in the Muslim world (what are they so angry about?): namely, most Americans literally have no idea, because nobody ever told them, that their government's imposition of sanctions in Iraq led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children, and they similarly have no idea that the suffering of ordinary Iranians is becoming increasingly substantial.
People in the Muslim world (who are relentlessly depicted as propagandized) are well aware of the human devastation US sanctions have caused, while Americans (who think of themselves as the beneficiaries of a free and vibrant press) have largely had those facts kept from them. That dynamic in part, is what often explains the irreconcilable worldviews among people in those two parts of the world.
As usual, don't look for Democratic partisan to object to any of this. To the extent that they talk about the sanctions regime at all, it is typically to celebrate it: as proof of Barack Obama's "toughness" and his fealty to Israeli interests. So just as was true during the Clinton years, when very few Democratic partisans even bothered to acknowledge (let alone oppose) the lethal devastation wrought on Iraqi civilians, few now even consider the notion that sanctions are strategically unwise and morally indefensible, and when they discuss it at all, they praise Obama for putting the clamps on the Iranian economy.
In essence, the same mentality that drives Democratic support for drones sustains Democratic support for sanctions: they tacitly embrace the unexamined assumption that the US is inevitably going to engage in aggression and kill Muslims, and then pat themselves on the back for cheering for the way that kills the fewest (I support drones because they're better than full-scale invasions; I support sanctions because they're better than air strikes). They are seemingly incapable of conceiving of a third alternative: that the US could or should refrain from killing innocent people in predominantly Muslim countries.
Democratic support for sanctions on Iran shares another attribute with the pro-drone mentality. No matter how many times it is documented that drones do not decrease the threat of terrorism but rather increase that threat - by generating the anti-American hatred that drives terrorism - drone advocates insist: we must do this to stop the terrorists.
Identically, no matter how many times it is documented that Iraq sanctions actually strengthened Saddam's regime by literally starving the opposition and making them more reliant on regime support, sanctions advocates insist: we must impose sanctions, and harm ordinary Iranians, in order to remove Iran's regime. It is exactly like showing a lung cancer patient studies that prove that smoking causes lung cancer, and then sitting back while they insist that they will increase their cigarette intake in order to combat their cancer.
Even if it were true that sanctions produces less civilian harm than all-out air strikes on Iran, that would not justify sanctions. But as evidence of the sanctions-caused human suffering in Iran mounts, even the premise of that claim, irrelevant though it is, seems less and less convincing.
Drone terrorism
Pakistan's most popular politician, Imran Khan, was joined yesterday by 32 brave Americans in an anti-drone march to Waziristan, at which Khan said: "The war on terror has become a war of terror." Khan also vowed that if elected Prime Minister, he would shoot down US drones that invaded Pakistani air space. To see why the US drone campaign is appropriately deemed one of terror, see this excellent analysis from Digby.
UPDATE
I have one other question: if "terrorism" means the use of violence aimed at civilians in order to induce political change from their government, what is it called when intense economic suffering is imposed on a civilian population in order to induce political change from their government? Can those two tactics be morally distinguished?
Iran sanctions now causing food insecurity, mass suffering
Yet again, the US and its allies spread mass human misery though a policy that is as morally indefensible as it is counter-productive
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 October 2012
The Economist this week describes the intensifying suffering of 75 million Iranian citizens as a result of the sanctions regime being imposed on them by the US and its allies [my emphasis]:
"Six years ago, when America and Europe were putting in place the first raft of measures to press Iran to come clean over its nuclear ambitions, the talk was of "smart" sanctions. The West, it was stressed, had no quarrel with the Iranian people—only with a regime that seemed bent on getting a nuclear bomb, or at least the capacity for making one. Yet, as sanctions have become increasingly punitive in the face of Iran's intransigence, it is ordinary Iranians who are paying the price.
"On October 1st and 2nd Iran's rial lost more than 25% of its value against the dollar. Since the end of last year it has depreciated by over 80%, most of that in just the past month. Despite subsidies intended to help the poor, prices for staples, such as milk, bread, rice, yogurt and vegetables, have at least doubled since the beginning of the year. Chicken has become so scarce that when scant supplies become available they prompt riots. On October 3rd police in Tehran fired tear-gas at people demonstrating over the rial's collapse. The city's main bazaar closed because of the impossibility of quoting accurate prices. . . .
"Unemployment is thought to be around three times higher than the official rate of 12%, and millions of unskilled factory workers are on wages well below the official poverty line of 10m rials (about $300) a month."
Pervasive unemployment, inflation, medicine shortages, and even food riots have been reported elsewhere.
That sanctions on Muslim countries cause mass human suffering is not only inevitable but part of their design. In 2006, the senior Israeli official Dov Weisglass infamously described the purpose of his nation's blockade on Gaza with this candid admission: "'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger." Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman justified the Iran sanctions regime this way: "Critics of sanctions argue that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that."
Even more infamously, the beloved former Democratic Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - when asked in 1996 by 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl about reports that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US-imposed sanctions on that country - stoically replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." So extreme was the suffering caused by sanctions in Iraq that one former UN official, Dennis Halladay, resigned in protest, saying that the sanctions policy met the formal definition of "genocide":
"We are now in there responsible for killing people, destroying their families, their children, allowing their older parents to die for lack of basic medicines. We're in there allowing children to die who were not born yet when Saddam Hussein made the mistake of invading Kuwait."
In an excellent Op-Ed for Al Jazeera last week, Murtaza Hussain extensively documented the devastation wrought on 26 million Iraqis by that sanctions regime - the one Albright declared as "worth it" - and argues: "that tragedy is being willfully replayed, only this time the target is the population of Iran". He explained:
"Intensifying sanctions against the country have sent the Iran's rial into an unprecedented free-fall, causing it to plummet in value by 75 per cent since the start of the year; and, stunningly, almost 60 per cent in the past week alone.
"Ordinary Iranians completely unconnected to the government have had their lives effectively ground to a halt as the sudden and unprecedented collapse of the financial system has rendered any meaningful form of commerce effectively impossible. In recent weeks, the price of staples such as rice and cooking oil have skyrocketed and once ubiquitous foods such as chicken have been rendered completely out of the reach of the average citizen."
That is a fact that should be deeply disturbing to any decent person. In 2001, the writer Chuck Sudetic visited Iraq and then wrote in Mother Jones about what he saw: namely, that the US-led sanctions regime "killed more civilians than all the chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons used in human history".
Yet as Hussain notes, the decade-long suffering of Iraqis was all futile when viewed next to the ostensible goal of sanctions: "the sanctions failed to remove Saddam from power and by many accounts helped him solidify his grip on the country by keeping the overwhelming majority of the population focused purely on subsistence." Some isolated exceptions notwithstanding, the very idea that a regime can be undermined by severely weakening the population that would otherwise oppose it - literally weakening them physically through food and medicine deprivation - is not only intuitively absurd and morally grotesque but also empirically disproven.
As Mohammad Sadeghi Esfahlani and Jamal Abdi recently documented in Foreign Policy, the sanctions regime, while devastating ordinary Iranians, is having virtually no effect on their leaders - other than to strengthen their grip on power:
"Instead of speculating from afar, we should listen to the Iranians on the ground who are actually struggling for democracy firsthand. The leaders of the Green Movement and Iranian human rights and democracy defenders have adamantly opposed broad sanctions and warned that confrontation, isolation and broad economic punishment only undermine the cause of democracy and rule of law in Iran. A new report by the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) documents how sanctions are destroying the sources of societal change in Iran. 'The urban middle class that has historically played a central role in creating change and promoting progress in Iran are key casualties of the sanctions regime,' according to the report.
"As documented by the report's firsthand account on the ground, sanctions are not driving the working class to join Iran's democracy movement, they are doing the opposite - decimating the Iranian middle class, that has been at the center of the democracy movement, by intensifying their economic struggles. The greatest impediment for Iran's pro-democracy movement - as we saw at the height of the Green Movement protests in 2009 - has been that working class Iranians who are preoccupied with immediate financial struggles are unable to enlist in a struggle for political freedoms."
So horrific is the human suffering brought about by such sanctions regimes that some are beginning to argue that killing Iranians with an air attack would be more humane. That was the argument advanced several days ago by the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, Blake Hounsehll, who mused that he was "beginning to wonder if limited airstrikes on Iran may actually be the more morally sound course of action." He was contemplating airstrikes, he then explained, because "a couple thousand deaths" might be worth it to avoid "the livelihoods of 75 million people destroyed".
Part of Hounshell's announcement is simply the way America's foreign policy elites so casually call for actions that they know will end the lives of large numbers of innocent human beings: it may be time to cause "a couple thousand deaths", he suggested with an almost audible yawn. And part of it is what Council on Foreign Relations president emiritus Leslie Gelb candidly described as "the disposition and incentives" among America's foreign policy professionals "to support wars to retain political and professional credibility". In other words, supporting military action is what America's influential foreign policy commentators, by definition, reflexively do in order to advance their own career and make themselves relevant.
But part of Hounshell's statement reflects the difficult-to-dispute recognition on his part that the sanctions regime causes such intense, widespread human misery that - in the warped Washington world in which airstrikes and sanctions are the only two cognizable options - extinguishing the lives of "a couple thousand" innocent Iranians may actually be the more humanitarian outcome when weighed against the ongoing suffering of 75 million people from the sanctions regime. That is how devastating sanctions are.
What's most extraordinary about all of this is that the extreme human suffering caused by US-led sanctions is barely acknowledged in mainstream American political discourse. One reason that Americans were so baffled after the 9/11 attack (why do they hate us?) is the same reason they continue to be so baffled by anti-American protests in the Muslim world (what are they so angry about?): namely, most Americans literally have no idea, because nobody ever told them, that their government's imposition of sanctions in Iraq led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children, and they similarly have no idea that the suffering of ordinary Iranians is becoming increasingly substantial.
People in the Muslim world (who are relentlessly depicted as propagandized) are well aware of the human devastation US sanctions have caused, while Americans (who think of themselves as the beneficiaries of a free and vibrant press) have largely had those facts kept from them. That dynamic in part, is what often explains the irreconcilable worldviews among people in those two parts of the world.
As usual, don't look for Democratic partisan to object to any of this. To the extent that they talk about the sanctions regime at all, it is typically to celebrate it: as proof of Barack Obama's "toughness" and his fealty to Israeli interests. So just as was true during the Clinton years, when very few Democratic partisans even bothered to acknowledge (let alone oppose) the lethal devastation wrought on Iraqi civilians, few now even consider the notion that sanctions are strategically unwise and morally indefensible, and when they discuss it at all, they praise Obama for putting the clamps on the Iranian economy.
In essence, the same mentality that drives Democratic support for drones sustains Democratic support for sanctions: they tacitly embrace the unexamined assumption that the US is inevitably going to engage in aggression and kill Muslims, and then pat themselves on the back for cheering for the way that kills the fewest (I support drones because they're better than full-scale invasions; I support sanctions because they're better than air strikes). They are seemingly incapable of conceiving of a third alternative: that the US could or should refrain from killing innocent people in predominantly Muslim countries.
Democratic support for sanctions on Iran shares another attribute with the pro-drone mentality. No matter how many times it is documented that drones do not decrease the threat of terrorism but rather increase that threat - by generating the anti-American hatred that drives terrorism - drone advocates insist: we must do this to stop the terrorists.
Identically, no matter how many times it is documented that Iraq sanctions actually strengthened Saddam's regime by literally starving the opposition and making them more reliant on regime support, sanctions advocates insist: we must impose sanctions, and harm ordinary Iranians, in order to remove Iran's regime. It is exactly like showing a lung cancer patient studies that prove that smoking causes lung cancer, and then sitting back while they insist that they will increase their cigarette intake in order to combat their cancer.
Even if it were true that sanctions produces less civilian harm than all-out air strikes on Iran, that would not justify sanctions. But as evidence of the sanctions-caused human suffering in Iran mounts, even the premise of that claim, irrelevant though it is, seems less and less convincing.
Drone terrorism
Pakistan's most popular politician, Imran Khan, was joined yesterday by 32 brave Americans in an anti-drone march to Waziristan, at which Khan said: "The war on terror has become a war of terror." Khan also vowed that if elected Prime Minister, he would shoot down US drones that invaded Pakistani air space. To see why the US drone campaign is appropriately deemed one of terror, see this excellent analysis from Digby.
UPDATE
I have one other question: if "terrorism" means the use of violence aimed at civilians in order to induce political change from their government, what is it called when intense economic suffering is imposed on a civilian population in order to induce political change from their government? Can those two tactics be morally distinguished?
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
I wonder if 500,000 or more Iranian children will die as a result of these sanctions, just as they did in Iraq?
I also wonder how many Americans could give a shit, whilst convincing themselves that they're a force for good in the World?
Its very easy to just reveal their secrets and programs and their people will survive!
Thats the whole point of sanctions by the way and most of the world have supported it there bud! So dont sympathize with the AYATOLLAHS!
A man that stands for nothing....will fall for anything!
All people need to do more on every level!
No, it's America's fault when they impose sanctions that cause suffering to 75 million innocent civilians, and which have the opposite effect of tightening the screws on that countries leadership.
Though it's interesting to me that you'd defend the collective punishment of 75 million people and the potential deaths of hundreds of thousands of children.
Did you read the article I posted above?
Here, I'll post an excerpt for you. I hope it's not too long for you to read?
"Instead of speculating from afar, we should listen to the Iranians on the ground who are actually struggling for democracy firsthand. The leaders of the Green Movement and Iranian human rights and democracy defenders have adamantly opposed broad sanctions and warned that confrontation, isolation and broad economic punishment only undermine the cause of democracy and rule of law in Iran. A new report by the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) documents how sanctions are destroying the sources of societal change in Iran. 'The urban middle class that has historically played a central role in creating change and promoting progress in Iran are key casualties of the sanctions regime,' according to the report.
"As documented by the report's firsthand account on the ground, sanctions are not driving the working class to join Iran's democracy movement, they are doing the opposite - decimating the Iranian middle class, that has been at the center of the democracy movement, by intensifying their economic struggles. The greatest impediment for Iran's pro-democracy movement - as we saw at the height of the Green Movement protests in 2009 - has been that working class Iranians who are preoccupied with immediate financial struggles are unable to enlist in a struggle for political freedoms."
My question for you is, what should we do? Do we just let them build nukes and do nothing? Seriously, I am curious. I don't know what the solution is. I don't want Americans fighting in or dropping bombs on Iran, and I sure don't want children starving to death. I also don't want Iran to have nukes. What would you say is the best course of action here?
It's easy to say "let's not do this" or "this is bad" and not present some sort of viable alternative.
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Here is a thought. Perhaps Iran could stop production of enriched uranium. Their economy can rebuild, their people will no longer suffer, and the world will no longer be on the edge of WWIII.
Most Americans are ignorant of the situation. But there are some who do give a shit. One of them being Dr. Paul who wants to end the sanctions and talk with Iran.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dmz8JO9 ... e=youtu.be
...
Also, it doesn't help that the last member of the 'Members Only' club rants on with that crazy shit all the time.
Hail, Hail!!!
Godfather.
sorry, but sometimes we are not that shining country on a hill that is a beacon of freedom and righteousness for the rest of the world. the sooner that more americans understand that the better off we will be..
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Which is what? Are you suggesting that the sanctions are helping to persuade the Iranian leadership to cease building nuclear weapons? In which case, what evidence do you have they were building nuclear weapons, and what evidence do you have that they are now abandoning this nuclear weapons programme?
Or are you saying that the sanctions were merely designed to inflict suffering on 75 million Iranians just because they're Iranian? And to what end? Did you even read the above article?
Firstly, there is zero evidence that they're building nukes.
Secondly, if we don't want countries in the region seeking nuclear weapons, then we can remove the motive for them seeking nuclear weapons. I.e, we can stop shielding Israel from international scrutiny over it's nuclear weapons program, and can pressure Israel to stop threatening and provoking it's neighbours.
what are you getting at?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Who? Me? Yeah, I do. Why?
Seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned...
I AM MINE
Many concessions, demands, and terms were offered and Iran has turned them down. Iran has given the US military complex a great reason to keep churning away. Their people are now suffering. The oil and energy markets are poised for chaos if the Straight of Hormuz are affected by a war (which will cause much more suffering world wide).
All they have to do is end the program.
this is precisely why we are hated in the arab world. we have the biggest weapons and we use the threat of using them to hold middle eastern civilians under our thumb.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
The Ayatollah issued a fatwa against nukes, and has stated repeatedly that they are only pursuing nuclear energy. No one has been able to show otherwise. I'm not one to take any 'leader' at their word (and Im not a fan of nuclear energy either!) - but I'm not sure why I should take the word of Israel and the US - two countries with a history of lying their way to war, and clear benefactors of this potential war, over the word Iran (a country that has never started one), as well as all SIXTEEN US intelligence agencies, foreign intelligence agencies, and the IAEA.
A majority, if you don't count 55% of the world population in the Non-Aligned Movement's 120 member countries who support Iran's right to nuclear energy....but then, most people don't count the people in those countries in any decision making.
The rest of your post is just....typical. "everything would be fine if they'd just submit to our will".....geez.
But, you know...Israel, that great beacon of hope and light, has been saving us from Iran for over 20 years now....it's about time we help them deal with this threat, you know...before those pesky muslims get smrt enough to build a nuke. Because we all know that they're too stupid to have built a nuke in 20 years of trying, right?
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-E ... No.-1-1992
1992: Israeli parliamentarian Benjamin Netanyahu tells his colleagues that Iran is 3 to 5 years from being able to produce a nuclear weapon – and that the threat had to be "uprooted by an international front headed by the US."
1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tells French TV that Iran was set to have nuclear warheads by 1999. "Iran is the greatest threat and greatest problem in the Middle East," Peres warned, "because it seeks the nuclear option while holding a highly dangerous stance of extreme religious militanCY."
1992: Joseph Alpher, a former official of Israel's Mossad spy agency, says "Iran has to be identified as Enemy No. 1." Iran's nascent nuclear program, he told The New York Times, "really gives Israel the jitters."
what a joke.
'The World'? You mean American politico's, their lacky's in the Mainstream media, and the Israeli leadership?
And do you really think the word of these people should be trusted? Have we learned nothing from Iraq?
Looks like you beat me to it.
Great post by the way. Those quotes are priceless.
If they wanted it just for energy, why turn down offers to have the uranium supplied by outside countries?
It would be nice if rational discussion could take place between our countries. I recall Obama extending his hand out to Iran when he assumed presidency.
No, the sanctions imposed by the U.S are what's causing mass suffering among the civilian population in Iran, just as the sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990's caused 500,000 Iraqi children to die.
protect their people, compromise, comply.
Is it because the power in place could care less about it's own people?
They are disposable to them?
My understanding is that Iran wants nuclear energy because their internal consumption of their oil and gas is increasing quickly...it's their main export and they rely on that income. If their goal is to maintain energy independence, outsourcing enriched uranium for nuclear plants defeats the purpose.
Now....why do you clarify 'in the middle east'? I assume, since you dropped the 'angry muslim' angle in this post, your answer is 'because of the tensions over there'....do you not think there is more tension caused by unipolar power and dominance? Israel possessing overwhelming military (and nuclear) power is what allows them to do what they do in the region, and THAT is the root cause of the tension!
But the real question is.....what's it to you? Why do so many Americans give lip service to quitting the role of world police....but still feel the need to stand behind their 'leaders' when they attempt to impose their will on other countries?
The Middle East has been in a state of conflict for the last 2500 years, give or take a few hundred years.