Iran, Europe and the US

Callimachus over at Done with Mirrors has created an excellent essai on the European and American reaction to the Iran situation. It goes very well with the rest of my work on the subject, and I hope to get the time to respond fully to his points. Go check it out now.

Update:

Some thoughts:

I agree with Callimachus that Europeans don't mind Iran going nuclear.

I've come to realize that many Europeans think it would be a good thing if Iran got a nuclear arsenal, because, as my friend puts it, "Israel wouldn't be happy to have to deal with Iran on equal terms, but frankly this might even benefit the region." He thinks it would make the Mideast, and the world, more stable.

I suspect that the Euro-elite wants Iran to go nuclear, because they view a nuclear Iran as a counter to US and Israeli actions in the Middle East. They figure that they are so far down on the target list that they don't have to worry about the Iranian bomb. The fools, they don't realize the noose they are letting the Iranians have is wide enough for America, Israel and them. Iran wants nukes for many reasons, which I have outlined in greater detail earlier.

1) Nuclear Weapons help protect Iran from overt regime change
2) Nuclear Weapons provide Iran with extra cover and protection, enabling it to interfere more openly and actively with its neighbors.

The idiotic Euro-elite have no long term vision, all they care about is the short term future, a future where they pocketbooks and egos can be padded. They will gladly bring the Romans into Greece, blind to the fact that the Romans have no intention of leaving (Kudos to whoever can get that).

If I have to, I can accept these ultimate weapons in the hands of the Soviet Union, the U.S., Britain, India, modern China, France: more or less stable, conservative, secular, self-interested states. The dreadful balance of power implied in "mutually assured destruction" was sufficient to restrain the Cold War powers when simple human sanity was not. Even without the threat of retaliation, they operate with sufficient restraint. In 1982, a nuclear power, Great Britain, went to war. Nobody worried that Thatcher would nuke Buenos Aires.

But we're talking about Iran. We're talking about a nation whose leadership class considers suicide attacks not just an acceptable tactic but a religious duty. A country whose quasi-independent military openly recruits its citizens to be car-bombers to kill foreign construction workers building sewage plants in Iraq, or blow up Israeli buses full of school children.

Counting on the sanity and rationality of religious radicals is a dangerous risk at best, and inevitable catastrophe at worst. While I don't think that Iran intends to openly nuke Israel now, that may change, and ensuring that Iran doesn't have nukes precludes from having to worry about that problem.