[Adak]

Originally Posted by tw

That's only one part of the problem. As has been posted here long ago, Turkey said they too will need nuclear weapons if Iran has them. Pakistan is rumored to have set aside some nuclear weapons for Saudi Arabia should Iran build one. Khan (of Pakistan) has successfully created a new market for Pakistani exports.

Yes, Saudi's have already ordered their first nuclear package from Pakistan. I'm sure others will follow, if Iran is able to keep theirs.

Nobody in the Middle East trusts Iran not to get nuclear weapons, if it has nuclear facilities hidden in the mountains, and without any inspectors from the international community.

Does not help that George Jr blew a giant hole in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by offering nuclear material to India. And that Iran and N Korea both need nuclear weapons because of his 'Axis of Evil' speech that said we will unilaterally attack both nations.

We had to get India into nuclear arms, because it had two threats that were very real:

1) China was ready to annex a large part of Northern India.

2) Pakistan was ready to annex all of the Kashmir region.

And both of the above already had nuclear weapons, and aggressive nationalistic policy leaders in place.

North Korea HAD already been working on a nuclear bomb, long before we knew about it, or George Bush Jr. was president. When that became known, THEN they became part of Bush's "Axis of Evil", and it is hard to say he's wrong.

OK, the "Axis" part is wrong, simply because there is no unity between these countries. No Treaties to support each other, etc., are known to exist, so there is no axis. Sorry George!

When a country swears it will wipe you out, and works hard to develop nuclear weapons to make it possible, in secret, it's only logical to put them on your Evil list, isn't it?

How much more evil do they have to be?

These nuclear proliferation problems were created, in part, by an American government that even invented Saddam's WMDs because they (ie Cheney) only saw solutions in military actions. It is a legacy we and the region must now live with. And a lesson on why problems must be solve diplomatically.

Many problems can't be solved diplomatically. Iran for instance, won't budge "one iota" from it's position. North Korea has negotiated, but only to go right back to working on nuclear weapons, again. Still threatening to wipe out South Korea, the U.S., and our friendly nations. ("puppets" in their words).

The only reason the Cold War came to an end, is because the Soviet Union ran out of money - they were utterly broke.

There WAS no "diplomatic solution" until they couldn't feed their people, and prepare for war, anymore.

Concepts even explained in "The Art of War" were violated by Cheney who could only understand military solutions - with contempt for the American serviceman. He never understood the power or need for diplomacy (which explains his contempt for Colin Powell).

Cheney routinely violated those and many other well understood concepts. And so we have these now serous nuclear problems.

Iran is now stuck in the nuclear development pipeline because we said we would unilaterally attack Iran. And inadvertently may have created or encouraged a region wide nuclear standoff. It may not only be Israel and Iran. Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia will also need those weapons. Pakistan will be happy to provide them.

We have to include Iran in the Evil category, not because they are developing nuclear facilities, but because they sponsor (HUGELY) Hezbollah. You may recall that Hezbollah was the group that bombed the Marine barracks when they were in Lebanon, trying to keep the peace in that countries civil war.

I would call Iran many things, but a peace loving nation is not one of them. Nuclear ambitions aside, they do NOT seek peace. They sponsor terror.

Iraq didn't have WMD, when we invaded, but they had them previously - we know, because we sold them specialized equipment for creating poison gas, decades before. Saddam had the program terminated after the outcry over his gassing of the Kurds in a few villages, reached the media.

Saddam never had nuclear weapons, or facilities to create them, but he did have a LOT of mobile missile launchers, aimed at Israel. Before the advent of the better Patriot Missile defense system (and now Iron Dome, etc), those would have been devastating, if used. We had a hell of a hard time finding and destroying them, btw.

If you're hunting for outrage or sympathy for Saddam being deposed in Iraq, you won't find it here. I wouldn't have done it probably, but I don't have the benefit of intelligence briefings by the CIA, etc., either. The world is not a worse place, because Saddam and his topmost regime, are gone from Iraq.