Thinking Dove:
Of Course, Iran working towards Nuclear weapons.
Can you blame them for it? Two national governments on their borders have been overthrown. Israel has threatened them with air strikes…
According to both the IAEA and the U.S.'s own NIE on Iran, there is no evidence that Iran is working towards nuclear weapons. More than that, Iran voluntarily suspended its (IAEA-safeguarded, civilian) uranium enrichment program for two years. The U.S. government didn't even acknowledge it.
And the U.S. administration knows that Iran isn't persuing nuclear weapons. That's why the administration's position has shifted to the stance that Iran shouldn't be allowed to have the mere knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons.
The nuclear issue is pure pretext.
Thinking Dove:
A Nuclear Weapon is a defensive weapon.
No, it isn't. The use of an atomic weapon unavoidably results in the deaths of innocents. It is therefore not a defensive weapon anymore than 'traditional' terrorism is a defensive weapon.
Thinking Dove:
Ever notice that North Korea and Pakistan can resist the United States,,, What do they have in common? They are both Nuclear Powers.
It is simple bigotry that Iran is not being allowed to develop atomic weapons. Why shouldn’t an Islamic hereditary theocracy be allowed to build I.C.B.M.s?
[...]
Iran is not and never was developing nuclear weapons. The adminstration's beligerence toward Iran is no more about "weapons of mass destruction" than the invasion of Iraq was. Note that the Democratic politicians, swept into power on a wave of antiwar sentiment, have managed to do less than nothing to restrain the political objective of a permanent occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces. And more telling is the complete lack of a challenge they have posed to the administration about what the real objective is in Iraq anyway. It has nothing to do with any threat it posed to the United States, and it certainly has nothing to do with the promotion of democracy in the region. The Iraqis themselves (not to mention the voters in the U.S.) overwhelmingly want the U.S. out of Iraq. Democracy this is not.
Here's what's really going on:
Iraq was invaded because they had switched to the euro over dollars for payment of oil, and (contrary to the lies told in the U.S.) they had proven to U.N. weapons inspectors that they had disarmed, thereby robbing the U.S. of the excuse for the trade sanctions put in place by the Clinton administration. In other words, Iraq was about to become an economic force beyond the control of the U.S. dollar hegemony.
And this is exactly what Iran is becoming as we speak. They are right now working out a deal to sell a whole lot of natural gas to India, with China's and Pakistan's potentially well-rewarded cooperation and assistance. If the U.S. dollar hegemony can't stop them now from Iraq via the Bush administration, they will stop them later from Afghanistan via the Obama administration.
The real goal is—and has always been—economic control, and failing that, economic paralysis.
Anyway, I filed this under "economic questions" as an open challenge to find the flaw in my economic analysis of the situation. This does not mean replaicing the analysis with ideological motivations. Many of the actors are clearly motivated by ideology in one form or another. This doesn't by itself disprove that they or others aren't taking advantage of the situation to their own massive personal gain.