World Offers Iran Negotiations For Nukes...Again

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**WarOne**

So we're back to the negotiating table yet again over the nukes we think they are building.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/03/iran-nuclear-negotiations-us-europe-russia-china.html

REPORTING FROM LONDON -- The U.S., China, Russia and key European nations have offered to restart talks with Iran over its controversial nuclear program, the European Union announced Tuesday.

The EU's foreign minister, Catherine Ashton, said Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Beijing and Moscow were now willing to reopen negotiations as the result of a letter from a senior Iranian official last month expressing Tehran's readiness to come back to the table.

"I welcome your suggestion to resume dialog and your readiness to address the international community's concerns about your nuclear program," Ashton wrote in reply to Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. "Our overall goal remains a comprehensive negotiated, long-term solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, while respecting Iran's right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy."

A date and venue for the talks should be decided "as soon as possible," Ashton wrote, adding that progress was possible as long as Iran was sincere in its intention to reengage "seriously and without pre-conditions."

Although Tehran insists that it is interested in nuclear energy only for civilian purposes, Western and other international officials are convinced that the Islamic Republic is trying to enrich uranium in order to develop nuclear weapons.

The two sides have been at a diplomatic impasse for months, since previous talks in Istanbul, Turkey, broke down in January of last year.

Ashton's announcement came a day after President Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House and stressed the need to use diplomacy first to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions. Israel has argued that the window for meaningful diplomacy has practically closed and that military action, such as an air strike, is increasingly the only realistic solution.

The West has already imposed various sanctions on Tehran, including an embargo on imports of Iranian oil. Some analysts say the measures have begun to hurt Iran's economy, which could help explain Tehran's willingness to return to the bargaining table.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague expressed his country's support for talks.

"We all agree that the international community should demonstrate its commitment to a diplomatic solution by acknowledging Iran's agreement to meet, by testing its desire to talk and by offering it the opportunity to respond to our legitimate concerns about its nuclear intentions," Hague said. "It is time for Iran to choose a different path and to show the world that it wants a peaceful, negotiated solution to the nuclear issue. It is for Iran to seize this opportunity and we urge it to do so."

**AustonT**

It's time for China to step up to the plate and become the world's new policeman in Iran. Good luck with your superpower boys: Invade Iran.

**Samus_aran115**

I hope they'll settle this peacefully. The last thing we need is another decade of policing in the bum-hole of the world...

**Vulcan**

I'm of the opinion that we should let Iran go ahead and make their nukes, if it makes them happy. Then we take their ambassador aside and explain to him exactly what happens to his country if they ever get used. We could turn their country into a sheet of glow-in-the-dark glass and they know it. They aren't stupid, after all.

And don't give me any of that 'they'll give bombs to terrorists!' bull. They could have been giving terrorists chemical weapons for, what, 40 years now? Yet they haven't. And chemical weapons are a) much cheaper, b) less prone to malfucntion, c) easier to smuggle into America, and d) vastly harder to trace back to Iran, than a nuclear weapon would be.

**Frazzled**

Vulcan wrote:I'm of the opinion that we should let Iran go ahead and make their nukes, if it makes them happy. Then we take their ambassador aside and explain to him exactly what happens to his country if they ever get used. We could turn their country into a sheet of glow-in-the-dark glass and they know it. They aren't stupid, after all.

And don't give me any of that 'they'll give bombs to terrorists!' bull. They could have been giving terrorists chemical weapons for, what, 40 years now? Yet they haven't. And chemical weapons are a) much cheaper, b) less prone to malfucntion, c) easier to smuggle into America, and d) vastly harder to trace back to Iran, than a nuclear weapon would be.

What happens if a nuke goes off in Tel Aviv, or NY, and Iran says "hey we didn't do it." Is Obama still going to nuke them?

EDIT: NOTE. If we have strong border security then I am ok with Vulcan's plan.

**chaos0xomega**

That would be a very dumb decision Frazz (to try to give the nukes to terrorists). Nuclear weapons have their own form of "DNA" for lack of a better term, you can analyze the signature and determine their country of origin, not very wise to have a weapon go off that says "Hey, Iran made me!" when it does.

Also, given Iran's internal politics, it would be unwise to arm such an uncontrollable entity. Hell, it would even be dangerous for the Iranian government to trust the Quds force/Revolutionary Guard with something like that.

**biccat**

chaos0xomega wrote:That would be a very dumb decision Frazz (to try to give the nukes to terrorists). Nuclear weapons have their own form of "DNA" for lack of a better term, you can analyze the signature and determine their country of origin, not very wise to have a weapon go off that says "Hey, Iran made me!" when it does.

The analysis could take several days.

Would the US be willing to nuke Iran a week after Tel Aviv goes up in smoke? Would President Obama be willing to kill innocent Iranian citizens for the actions of the government?

**dogma**

chaos0xomega wrote:That would be a very dumb decision Frazz (to try to give the nukes to terrorists). Nuclear weapons have their own form of "DNA" for lack of a better term, you can analyze the signature and determine their country of origin, not very wise to have a weapon go off that says "Hey, Iran made me!" when it does.

Also, given Iran's internal politics, it would be unwise to arm such an uncontrollable entity. Hell, it would even be dangerous for the Iranian government to trust the Quds force/Revolutionary Guard with something like that.

Well, isotopic tracking isn't really that reliable, but otherwise we agree. You don't give nuclear weapons to non-state actors because, well, you don't know what they're going to do.

That being said, to answer Fraz's question, no, I don't think Obama would press the red button. Realistically, the only reason to do it is rhetorical, we could accomplish the same thing by conventional methods, and would probably have huge amounts of international support.

**chaos0xomega**

Also, depending on the timeframe we're talking about, at that point we may have the means to basically do the same thing using large-yield conventional/kinetic effect weapons so....

**Vulcan**

Frazzled wrote:
Vulcan wrote:I'm of the opinion that we should let Iran go ahead and make their nukes, if it makes them happy. Then we take their ambassador aside and explain to him exactly what happens to his country if they ever get used. We could turn their country into a sheet of glow-in-the-dark glass and they know it. They aren't stupid, after all.

And don't give me any of that 'they'll give bombs to terrorists!' bull. They could have been giving terrorists chemical weapons for, what, 40 years now? Yet they haven't. And chemical weapons are a) much cheaper, b) less prone to malfucntion, c) easier to smuggle into America, and d) vastly harder to trace back to Iran, than a nuclear weapon would be.

What happens if a nuke goes off in Tel Aviv, or NY, and Iran says "hey we didn't do it." Is Obama still going to nuke them?

EDIT: NOTE. If we have strong border security then I am ok with Vulcan's plan.

It isn't all that technically demanding to trace where the fissionable material for the bomb came from. And getting the material is actually pretty easy, once the bomb goes off that material is called 'fallout' and will be everywhere.

As far as whether Obama would do it... He'd demand an explanation first, and demand the culprits be brought to justice before he did it. But it's pretty clear that if Iran got away with it even once without any sort of retaliation they'd do it again. It would be better in the short run to nuke a city or two (including any nuke production or storage facilities we knew about) then to send the wrong message by letting them get away with it.

If I'm not mistaken, geiger counters are already in place at most cargo facilities. I'm not sure how much or how thoroughly they get used, but they're there. You're sure not going to pack a nuke in through the Sonora Desert. And if a nuke went off in America that was traced back to Iran, erasing Iran would pretty much be the expected response.

But simply put, they won't do it. They haven't given terrorists chemical weapons to use in Israel, where the relatively small size of the nation would mean massive casualties and probable elimination of their ability to resist conquest. I assume the Egyptian, Jordainan, or Syrain military could have done the same thing in the wars of the '60s and '70s. But again, the threat of American retaliation remains. Using WMD means we nuke you wherever we can find you.

**FabricatorGeneralMike**

Let the Israeli's go in there and take it out. They know how to get gak done. They did it before bombing suspected Heavy Water manufacturing sites.

As long as it doesn't affect the oil flow to China or Russia neither should not care much.

**Mr Hyena**

How many times must we come back to the negotiation table to realise it doesn't work with Iran?

biccat wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:That would be a very dumb decision Frazz (to try to give the nukes to terrorists). Nuclear weapons have their own form of "DNA" for lack of a better term, you can analyze the signature and determine their country of origin, not very wise to have a weapon go off that says "Hey, Iran made me!" when it does.

The analysis could take several days.

Would the US be willing to nuke Iran a week after Tel Aviv goes up in smoke? Would President Obama be willing to kill innocent Iranian citizens for the actions of the government?

Why not? I don't see anything wrong with it.

**Melissia**

There's an old proverb about how a people that cannot control their leader tend to suffer for it...

**AustonT**

If a bomb went off in Tel Aviv you wouldn't have to wait to see what Obama does, the Israelis would nuke Iran immediately and look for answers later.

**asimo77**

Mr Hyena wrote:How many times must we come back to the negotiation table to realise it doesn't work with Iran?

biccat wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:That would be a very dumb decision Frazz (to try to give the nukes to terrorists). Nuclear weapons have their own form of "DNA" for lack of a better term, you can analyze the signature and determine their country of origin, not very wise to have a weapon go off that says "Hey, Iran made me!" when it does.

The analysis could take several days.

Would the US be willing to nuke Iran a week after Tel Aviv goes up in smoke? Would President Obama be willing to kill innocent Iranian citizens for the actions of the government?

Why not? I don't see anything wrong with it.

You don't see anything wrong with using nuclear weapons on innocent people? Just clarifying is all.

**Ouze**

asimo77 wrote:You don't see anything wrong with using nuclear weapons on innocent people? Just clarifying is all.

If Iran dropped a nuclear weapon that was state-sanctioned and was dealt a nuclear attack in retribution (from whomever), it would be an act of war and the "innocent people" label no longer really applies.

**Vulcan**

asimo77 wrote:You don't see anything wrong with using nuclear weapons on innocent people? Just clarifying is all.

A sad fact about war is that innocent people die in it. And sometimes the price of NOT fighting is much worse than the price of fighting. Two examples for you:

If the British and French had just rolled east as soon as Hitler started rearming Germanuy in, what, 1934ish, WWII would have been a footnote. Even as late as fall 1939, when most of the German army was in Poland consolidating their victory there, the Brits and French could have attacked east and taken the Ruhr, the industrial heartland of Germany, in a matter of weeks at worst.

If we had not nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we would have been forced to invade the home islands of Japan. It's quite likely that would have resulted in a million U.S. casualties, handing Hokkaido over to the Soviets, and the total destruction of the Japanese as a culture, if not as a people.

**sebster**

biccat wrote:The analysis could take several days.

Would the US be willing to nuke Iran a week after Tel Aviv goes up in smoke? Would President Obama be willing to kill innocent Iranian citizens for the actions of the government?

Who gives a gak what Obama or any future US leader would do. Israel has the bomb and would retaliate on their own behalf.

**dogma**

AustonT wrote:If a bomb went off in Tel Aviv you wouldn't have to wait to see what Obama does, the Israelis would nuke Iran immediately and look for answers later.

Absolutely.

I mean, even if they had no proof that Iran was involved, its a fair bet that they would be.

I also imagine that Gaza and the West Bank would very quickly be considered Israeli territory again.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

sebster wrote:
Who gives a gak what Obama or any future US leader would do. Israel has the bomb and would retaliate on their own behalf.

There is an argument, a very good one I think, that nuclear weapons should only be used in defense of the possessing country itself. Essentially, this isn't the Cold War, there is no evil empire to oppose, or even any possible conventional conflict that would require nuclear weapons to end (unlike a hypothetical Soviet invasion of Europe).

**AustonT**

dogma wrote:
I also imagine that Gaza and the West Bank would very quickly be considered Israeli territory again.

I actually disagree with this. At least not "quickly." Israelis by and large want peace, so do Palestinians. It would have to largely be based on the PA response, if they immediately condemned the attack and signed a mutual defense treaty with Israel they could walk out unmolested. Anything less and expect Gazans to be bulldozed into the sea, and Palestinians in the West Bank evicted if not massacred. Maybe I give Israel too much credit.

**biccat**

sebster wrote:
biccat wrote:The analysis could take several days.

Would the US be willing to nuke Iran a week after Tel Aviv goes up in smoke? Would President Obama be willing to kill innocent Iranian citizens for the actions of the government?

Who gives a gak what Obama or any future US leader would do. Israel has the bomb and would retaliate on their own behalf.

It matters a lot.

The implied risk of possessing nuclear weapons is that if you ever use one then there will be swift retaliation against you by other nuclear states. Of course, there's lots of benefits too, like a strong deterrant to invasion.

If the US, and other nuclear nations, don't retaliate against a country using nuclear weapons in war then it opens up the door to others, establishing the precedent that use of nukes against your enemies is acceptable to the world community.

**KingCracker**

I say let them build it, might make them feel safer or make them think they have bigger penises, I dunno or care. But agreed, we take the ones in power aside and politely tell them, just an FYI here, you can play with your bomb in the sand box, Daddy wont care. But if those fall out into the grass, Daddy is going to turn your sandbox into a fething compost heap

**Frazzled**

AustonT wrote:
dogma wrote:
I also imagine that Gaza and the West Bank would very quickly be considered Israeli territory again.

I actually disagree with this. At least not "quickly." Israelis by and large want peace, so do Palestinians. It would have to largely be based on the PA response, if they immediately condemned the attack and signed a mutual defense treaty with Israel they could walk out unmolested. Anything less and expect Gazans to be bulldozed into the sea, and Palestinians in the West Bank evicted if not massacred. Maybe I give Israel too much credit.

Who would be left to occupy them? Thats why Israel is so freaked out. One or two bombs and thats about it for them.

**AustonT**

Frazzled wrote:
AustonT wrote:
dogma wrote:
I also imagine that Gaza and the West Bank would very quickly be considered Israeli territory again.

I actually disagree with this. At least not "quickly." Israelis by and large want peace, so do Palestinians. It would have to largely be based on the PA response, if they immediately condemned the attack and signed a mutual defense treaty with Israel they could walk out unmolested. Anything less and expect Gazans to be bulldozed into the sea, and Palestinians in the West Bank evicted if not massacred. Maybe I give Israel too much credit.

Who would be left to occupy them? Thats why Israel is so freaked out. One or two bombs and thats about it for them.

It's almost like that's why they are so opposed to Iran getting nukes.

**dogma**

AustonT wrote:
I actually disagree with this. At least not "quickly." Israelis by and large want peace, so do Palestinians. It would have to largely be based on the PA response, if they immediately condemned the attack and signed a mutual defense treaty with Israel they could walk out unmolested. Anything less and expect Gazans to be bulldozed into the sea, and Palestinians in the West Bank evicted if not massacred. Maybe I give Israel too much credit.

No, you're right. It would depend on the response of the PA, and separately Hamas. I think it s fairly unlikely that Hamas would agree to any nonaggression pact with Israel, or even that Israel would offer one. I mean, it governs one of the most probable entry points for a nuclear weapon.

The West Bank is different. I think they would agree to a mutual defense pact, and would likely be pleased to be free of Gaza; assuming Israel didn't relocate Gaza citizens (Gazans?) to the West Bank. But I also think they would be alright with (or could see the wisdom in) more direct Israeli control, as it is the PA controls very little of that territory anyway.

**Ouze**

AustonT wrote:It's almost like that's why they are so opposed to Iran getting nukes.

The problem with this line of thought is that, in my opinion, it's inevitable they will get them. It's just physics, and the genie is out of the bottle.

I don't know how to deal with this, either, but I think we should start with the presumption that a nuclear Iran is inevitable.

**Frazzled**

Ouze wrote:
AustonT wrote:It's almost like that's why they are so opposed to Iran getting nukes.

The problem with this line of thought is that, in my opinion, it's inevitable they will get them. It's just physics, and the genie is out of the bottle.

I don't know how to deal with this, either, but I think we should start with the presumption that a nuclear Iran is inevitable.

Well there's two issues.
1) Iran getting nukes.
2) Iran being run by elements who are not what one would call "rational actors."

India has the bomb. No one but Pakistan is concerned about that.
UK and (reportedly) South Africa has the bomb. No one cares there either. Of course with weaponized haggis warheads nukes are almost irrelevant for the UK.

**Experiment 626**

*IF* Iran or any other 'unfriendly loony-toons' nation nuked Isreal or the US or anyone for that matter, I think the answer is simple; Kill it with FIRE!

1 nuke going off in a pre-emptive sneak attack style strike is bad enough, I don't think we really need that kind of retaliation from the rest of the civilised world when we have large non-nuclear ordinance and plenty of it at our ready disposal.
Call me crazy, but I'd rather not see any world leaders slapping their penis on the table and effectively saying, "See, we can kill you like this too!"

**ShumaGorath**

Frazzled wrote:
Vulcan wrote:I'm of the opinion that we should let Iran go ahead and make their nukes, if it makes them happy. Then we take their ambassador aside and explain to him exactly what happens to his country if they ever get used. We could turn their country into a sheet of glow-in-the-dark glass and they know it. They aren't stupid, after all.

And don't give me any of that 'they'll give bombs to terrorists!' bull. They could have been giving terrorists chemical weapons for, what, 40 years now? Yet they haven't. And chemical weapons are a) much cheaper, b) less prone to malfucntion, c) easier to smuggle into America, and d) vastly harder to trace back to Iran, than a nuclear weapon would be.

What happens if a nuke goes off in Tel Aviv, or NY, and Iran says "hey we didn't do it." Is Obama still going to nuke them?

EDIT: NOTE. If we have strong border security then I am ok with Vulcan's plan.

We wouldn't actually have a reason to. The purpose of a retaliatory nuclear strike is to disable the force projection or launch capability of the target, not just to give back a healthy dosage of civilian casualties. There are plenty of scenarios where launching a nuke could be considered logical or useful, revenge isn't one of them. We could destroy the entirety of Irans military in a week and overthrow their government in the same span of time. We could remove every road within a hudred miles of their border within a month. Nuking them back is just kinda petty, especially considering what nukes are and what they do other than just blow up.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
Ouze wrote:
AustonT wrote:It's almost like that's why they are so opposed to Iran getting nukes.

The problem with this line of thought is that, in my opinion, it's inevitable they will get them. It's just physics, and the genie is out of the bottle.

I don't know how to deal with this, either, but I think we should start with the presumption that a nuclear Iran is inevitable.

Well there's two issues.
1) Iran getting nukes.
2) Iran being run by elements who are not what one would call "rational actors."

India has the bomb. No one but Pakistan is concerned about that.
UK and (reportedly) South Africa has the bomb. No one cares there either. Of course with weaponized haggis warheads nukes are almost irrelevant for the UK.

Pakistan has the bomb, harbored Osama, has been funding a proxy war against us, has openly threatened it's largest neighbor many times, and is run in part by extremist and globally subversive elements. Why exactly do we give five feths about Iran while we give Pakistan missiles again? tell how how that makes sense? What is the big deal? North korea has them, we didn't invade them. Israel has them and has been brutally occupying one country for decades and has attacked every neighbor it has several times. We're like their best friends. Russia has like fifteen thousand of them and barely knows where they all are anymore and most Americans can't find Russia on a map. I don't understand why the hell Iran is so special.

**Vulcan**

Israel is a bit of a special case, for reasons that probably aren't entirely rational anymore.

During WWII, many American soldiers in the European theater saw the death camps. The pictures were widely shown. At the time, many of them thought we should have done more, earlier, which might have prevented the Halocaust. So when Israel was founded, in no small part by survivors of the Halocaust, America jumped in and supported them out of a sense of guilt. This quickly became government policy, and it has persisted for 60 years. Besides, the Soviets backed many of the Arab states in the area, and Israel was a convenient counterbalance. So from an American point of view, the various Israeli wars were just proxy battles between the us and the Soviets; helping assauge our institutional sense of guilt (and reassure the American Jews that we weren't going to leave them hanging like we did in the '30s) was icing on the cake.

Personally, I'm starting to think the best solution is for the Israelis to sell the land back to the Palestinians (who will need backing from other countries) for the price of the improvements the Israelis have made. The Israelis can then come to America to live much safer than they do in Israel (no terror attacks from Hamas here!), and we can really use an influx of the type of dedicated and hardworking people that the Israelis have proven themselves to be.