Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Is war with Iran imminent?


       




       Iran has been belligerent and disingenuous in its compliance with its nuclear ambitions. Its president has repeatedly made contentous statements about the United States and Israel, once calling the nation 'a stinking corpse' and even denying the Holocaust. However, not many remember that in 1953 the U.S. government with the assistance of Britain organized a coup against the democratically Iranian government Mohammed Mossaedgh and installed a dictatorship. Also that the nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950's with help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program. This support discontinued after the Islamic revolution toppled the Shah (U.S. installed dictator) in 1979. This chain of events eventually leads to 'supreme leader' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. 
                Maybe the U.S. should be worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions,maybe they want revenge?  Isarel definately has the right to be worried after Ahmadinejad threatens to 'wipe Israel off the map', but, Gulf Arab states are also worried. Many of the gulf monarchies are seriously woried that the Iranian conflict will lead to an armed conflict and increased the number of their joint military meetings. Prime Minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu has stated that he would leave all options on the table in dealing with Iran and so has the U.S.. Just recently satellite photos were released of two locations showing that Iran indeed may be hidding its nuclear facilities. One allegedly shows a hidden uraniam enrichment plant and the other seems to show a heavy water facility used to make plutonium, some say that the two sites together could be capable of creating atomic bombs. A day or two later, Iran test fires two long range missles capable of carrying war heads and reaching Israel, Gulf Arab States, Europe and U.S. military bases in the Middle East. All this coming before top U.S., China, Russia and European officials sit with Iranian officials on Thursday.
              These talks would be the first face-to-face talks with the U.S. and Iran in 30 years. So will anything contructive come out of these talks? Many say no, that at best they will lead to more talks, and president Obama has said that if the talks lead to no agreement, the U.S. will push for new sanctions aginst Iran. The Iranian regime has not been persuaded by the threat of sanctions before so why would they be now? Sanctions in my opinion would only hurt the Iranian people, most of whom do not support the current regime. On Monday, Israeli media reported that Netanyahu secretly visited Russia. The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper alledges that Netanyahu's visit was to discuss new weapons deals between Russia and Iran, the paper also quoted an 'informed Israeli source' who requested to be anonymous as saying, "Such a visit could be related to new information and could threaten the Iranian nuclear program. It should not be ruled out that Israel may be ready to move on to decisive actions with regards to Iran, and Netanyahu has decided to inform the Kremlin of this."
             Does all this and more mean that war with Iran is immminent? I definitely hope not. The turbulent region does not need another war.

4 comments:

R V said...

I hope there is no more war between America and Iran. I hope peace prevails.

Patrick said...

The prospect of Iran havign a nuclear warhead doesn't trouble me nearly as much as the one country that has a ridiculous excess of atomic weapons and has demonstrated that it can, and will, use them aggressively and indiscriminately against unarmed civilians: The United States of America.

Shawn De Costa(ubuntusl) said...

I hope that the wars will stop for ever.
good to watch mj's heal the world song and learn from it.
http://www.slubuntu.blogspot.com
clicked your ads also.
thanks

Amy said...

I hope not!! No more!!

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