Cheney on Iran: "All Options are on the table"

Bloomberg:

Vice President Dick Cheney said the U.S. is committed to a diplomatic course to resolve a nuclear dispute with Iran and warned that "all options are still on the table'' to halt the country's atomic aspirations.

Shut up. Cheney may think, in his little twisted fantasy of a political situation, that "all options are still on the table" but that's like saying that Britney Spears could get in to politics. Possible, but highly unlikely. In reality, the Bush-Cheney administration is pinned up against a wall, by the angry mob of America brandishing torches and Baby Einstein DVDs. Short of handing out free chocolate popsicles to Congress, there is no way that it (being Democratic) would approve of going to war with Iran, or general bombardment of military targets. The Dems are too worried about how that would affect their upcoming presidential bid to do a stupid thing like that, and thank God!
Bombardment of military targets is a bad idea a) because it puts our fighter pilots in harms way and b) because it can be used by the government to turn the mostly moderate Iranian people against us
War is such a bad idea that it makes me puke thinking about it.


P.S sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been really busy

Ahmadenijad: “We are rapidly becoming a superpower, the language of sanctions belongs to the past.”

Here's an excerpt from a The Week piece on Ahmadinejad:

International inspectors this week confirmed that Iran has begun installing 3,000 uranium-gas centrifuges, bringing the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran closer than ever. Iran continues to insist its goal is peaceful nuclear power, not nuclear weapons, as the U.S. charges. Either way, the installation of centrifuges—which spin uranium into a grade suitable for energy or weaponry—is a flagrant violation of a U.N. resolution that gives Iran until Feb. 23 to suspend enrichment or face a new round of sanctions. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shrugged off the impending deadline. “We are rapidly becoming a superpower,” he said. “The language of sanctions belongs to the past.”

It seems as though average Iranian does not want to become a super power, as there is growing pressure on Ahmedinejad to step down his radical goals for the emerging country. In a rare, and Hitler-esque move, many Western figures of influence from reporters to diplomats were invited to tour on of Iran's nuclear facilities which was frowned upon by Washington. “Suspending [nuclear activities] would build confidence,” said Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “Showcasing them does not.”


The situation in Iran, is extremely delicate. We cannot anger Iran lest we endanger our ally Israel and turn the entire Muslim world even more against us than it already is. I don't really know what to say about this one, its an extremely difficult issue. So I'm going to turn it to you. What do you think?

North Korea and Iran: Part Two

Welcome back to my multi-part series on Iran and North Korea. There are just around three options to eliminate the problems posed by these countries that I outlined in the last post.


1. Going to war.

• Personally, I don't think that there is really an option of going to war with these two countries. I think it would be like Iraq, but worse. We don't have the troop levels, the international support or the domestic support. It would cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides and really just wouldn't be worth it at all.

2. Sending in specialized strike teams to eliminate the enemies nuclear facilities.

• To me, this doesn't particularly solve anything in the long run. First of all, anything that we destroy can and will be rebuilt, so it is not a long term solution. Secondly, destroying something on North Korean or Iranian soil will just give these leaders more of an opportunity to turn the population against up, and bring about hatred in the form of national unity.

3. Eliminating the leaders of these countries.

• This is against U.S policy, and would have to be done very sneakily so as to make it look like an accident. This is because if it does not look like an accident or natural causes, it could unite the country under an extremist successor and we would be worse off than when we started.
  

I think that in the long run, a combination of the second and third courses of action are what is best for U.S interests. If we destroy their nuclear facilities, and eliminate their leaders, either through intimidation, taking away their porn collections or killing them in a mock accident, and then line up a successor that is actually fit to rule, everybody would be much better and we would only have to China and Russia to deal with and oh yeah Osama bin Laden. But seriously, any sort of assassination or "shock and awing" out of power should only be used as a last resort when peaceful negotiations fail, and a threat to U.S interests seems very imminent.

North Korea and Iran: Part One

In this multi-part series, I am going to be exploring the many facets of the problems posed towards America by North Korea and Iran. You may ask, why am I doing this? And I would tell you, because I can!

From my standpoint, the way things are looking right now, an alliance between a nuclear North Korea, and a wanna-be nuclear Iran is potentially hazardous to our country. This is for a few reasons.

• Both dictators have no regard for their people's well being, and run a state of ultra-security, meaning no information about the state goes in or out unless it is smuggled.
• Their propaganda machine can pin all of their problems on the U.S and its allies, meaning that it could stir its people into a war frenzy against the "rorld", or the "infidels."
• North Korea is nuclear, and Iran is a nuclear wanna-be.
• North Korea has ties to Russia and China, both of whom have uneasy relations with the U.S.
  
• Iran has ties to a Muslim world that openly does not like the U.S (for the most part).
• These leaders do not really have a sense for the impact that some of their actions may have on their county and the rest of the world, i.e they are somewhat irresponsible towards their peoples needs.

So how do we deal with these problems?

You can find Part Two here.