Iran Unrest Requires Monitors, Most Recent NIE Wrong?
Email This Post
- 
Print This Post
-
Iran is worried over rising political and ethnic unrest. Of course senior officials accuse the United States of helping foment protests by labor unions and students. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has recruited 12.5 million people to “monitor” the behavior and opinions of other Iranians. Not since the darkest days of Stalinism and Maoism has any regime mobilized so many citizens against fellow citizens; neighbor against neighbor, children against parents. Accused are watched; usually interrogated; often threatened, sometimes roughed up, and often arrested and imprisoned or worse. Some are reported to have disappeared.
Iran resumed its nuclear weapons program in 2004, Israeli intelligence says. The release of the US National Intelligence Estimate last December announcing Iran had ceased its nuke program in 2003 without disclosing it restarted it. It is now believed Iran will have enough enriched uranium and/or plutonium by next year to make nuclear bombs six months thereafter. “The NIE has clearly weakened international support for tougher sanctions against Iran, and it closes off any military option for the Bush administration,” the Israeli report said. “The NIE has sent a signal to Teheran that the danger of external sanctions has ended.” American strength and resolve are the only things that can stop a nuclear apocalypse.
Iran is convinced that an Obama or 2nd Clinton presidency means America will withdraw from Iraq and de facto the region and leave Israel increasingly isolated and mortally vulnerable. As evidence Iran twice suspended talks with the U. S. about Iraq, and no new talks are scheduled — why should they do anything except await a U. S. retreat. Iran’s DEPENDS moment is a McCain Presidency with Senator Joe Lieberman, a Jew, as Secretary of State.
In late January, 2008 Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) held its first exercise to test a response to a nuclear accident or strike.
Comment by sharon on 6 February 2008:
I would like to say that I agree that a nuclear Iran is no good for the safety of Isreal. We have all heard the Iranians say they would like to see the Zionist regime of Isreal be wiped off the Map. So, we can only assume that, given the opportunity, that’s what they would do.
However, I believe that after the U.S. failed to find weapons of mass distruction in Iraq that the world chooses to believe that Iran isn’t seeking nuclear weapons. In my opinion, after listening to the average citizen talk about war and politics these days, the majority believe that the U.S. (Bush Administration) exagerates Iran invovlement in Iraq and Iran’s nuclear program.
Is it better to sit back and let the world watch as Iran builds up it’s Army and nuclear arsenal as it watched Hitler build his war machine. Or, is it better to strike early and prevent Iran from launching a Nuclear attack on Israel.
One would assume that most people would now say that the world should have attacked Germany to stop their military build up. But now, after Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, are we to believe 100% in this countries intelligence. It seems like most people throughout the world will not believe U.S. intelligence. Perhaps instead of striking without world support America should say what are you going to do about it.
It’s time for the rest of the world to take responsability for the Evil Dictators of the world and stop making America look like the bad guys.
Comment by dwayne on 7 February 2008:
iran with nuclear wepons oh my :-0 the US has 12,000 nuclear wepons and you truly think you (the people) control them? even after the suppositly S.A.L.T. treaty? and last i saw our government mis uses its CIA and funding to influance other countries to manipulate and use thier resourses/people. our forgien policy better change for new millineum,(remembers shaw of iran puppet government)and we gave saddam those wepons to fight iran olly north ring a bell(use as excuse to sell wepons)only threat there is that american companies don’t control market share or distrabution. seem weird that america dosen’t side with counties that have oil and similar nuclearer development(iran,iraq)than a country that use to be a good place to put missiles aimed at russia,man that forgein policy working really good doh cant make money nuking places for long term but storing missiles and war what was that again oh several trillion dallors over last 50yrs and dont forget if iran wants to say um they want to start trading (thier oil) for euro dollar like iraq wanted too, mabey they have nuclear wepons too, the old mighty euro…err dollar oops amazing how through all this distubances i mean decades of it oil dosen’t really get that disturbed and as far as (evil) dictators go i dont see those countries using thier CIA to misrepresentate or use billions to manipulate US citizens, yeah Castro still a threat, as for the real bad guys (look within) lets say for every war after world war 2 even dictators have to run a country….
Comment by sharon on 7 February 2008:
Well Dwayne, the U.S. doesn’t say that they will wipe Israel or any other country off of the face of the map like Iran does. In fact, America has a 60 year track record of not using nuclear weapons. If the U.S. wanted to it could have nuked Iraq, Iran, the entire Middle East and taken all of their oil. In Iraq, without the use of nuclear force, the U.S. could have carpet bombed indiscriminately without worry of civilian casualties and likely not have lost more than a few American soldiers. It appears that the U.S. governenmental morals are higher than your writing projects.
You state that, “dont see those countries using thier CIA to misrepresentate or use billions to manipulate US citizens, yeah Castro still a threat, as for the real bad guys (look within) lets say for every war after world war 2 even dictators have to run a country.”
Dwayne, how much do you know about the countries you specified above intelligence practices. How do you know where Iran or Cuba’s intelligence is spending money. It appears that we do know that Iran is funding terrorists and sending their secret service into Iraq. They are making threats to U.S. ships and they appear to be developing non UN sanctioned nuclear weapons. Just because we are flooded with American media and we know almost nothing of these other countries, we shouldn’t assume that what “we don’t” is better than America. Dictators throughout history have the ability to hide horrible atrocities from outside of their country. If all media is governmentally controlled, people are not free to come and go out of their country and people live in fear to speak out about the government, then the majority of the world has no knowledge of what that country is doing. Look at this link and think if you were aware of these things and think how the world let it happen http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html. Slightly off the topic, China is forcing millions of poor people out of their homes with no compensation to rebuild the area for the Olympics.
Have you ever stopped to think that America has the most freedom of press and widely distributed sources of Media throughout the world. It isn’t only the American government and big business that give a negative perception of America. It’s the freedom of the press that is being abused too. It is so easy to flip on the TV, computer, read the newspaper and listen to all of the negative U.S. propaganda. It’s a huge revenue source for these companies and the public buys it up. These sources feed you what they think you want to see and what will make them the most money. Yes, it has become popular to cut down the U.S. and to profit from it. Just look at Michael Moore.
The simple fact is that countries like Iran and especially Cuba sensor media and we don’t see it. Those countries lie about their crime statistics, their health care and nearly all of their private and public policy. Simply go to Iran and see how, other than the 5% of the wealthy, most of the people live in filth without any medical care or adequate shelter. Current statistics state that 90% of Iranians live in poverty http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1304 . I don’t know about you but I like not having my windows caged off in my house and I like looking through un-caged businesses windows at night. You can’t do that over there.
It’s funny that so many people in America Assume things that seem to have no clear factual base. It is difficult to understand your writing above, without the use of capitalized letters or proper punctuation. Some of your sentences are running on and multiple thoughts are tied together in confusing sentences. I am not trying to criticize your writing. I am just trying to understand what you are saying. It appears that you are writing with such passion that it’s difficult for you to get your point across. Can you please slow down and proof read your comments before you send them. I suggest copying and pasting them in Microsoft Word and running a grammar/spell check. This will help me follow your next comment.
Comment by srimbael on 7 February 2008:
Sharon, you are so right about freedom of the press and the abuses taken by so-called journalists in media. Several months ago, a poster on another web site commented that Americans think they know what is going on in the world, but that they don’t read/have access to news reports from Europe and so on, and that Americans are naive in their thinking that they are well liked around the world. Well, at the time, I thought to myself that she was naive, because anyone with a computer has access to international news reports. The stupidest thing though, is that she went on to say that she read in a Russian online news article that all people in America who opposed President Bush regarding the Iraq war were being arrested! Yikes! And they say we are naive.
BTW, while I agree with you that some comments here are atrociously bad in spelling and grammar (and unfortunately, this seems to be a widespread problem on the Web), I have to say that I had trouble making sense of the fourth paragraph of your Feb. 6 comment. I am constantly amazed and angered by errors in spelling and grammar by people who otherwise seem to be well read.