!!! IRAN DOES *NOT* HAVE NUKES !!!

[Zhade]

Just thought I'd point that out for the clueless/lying trolls among us who keep insisting, despite the utter lack of evidence, that Iran currently has nuclear weapons.

The Iranian government does not possess nukes. They MIGHT get them in 5-10 years, best case scenario. Please stop spreading lies/your uninformed wrong conclusions that they do (you know who you are).

Thank you.

[burythehatchet]

1. Trust me, they aren't convincing anybody.

The more strident they become the more people see them for their intentions.

[Zhade]

2. I'm just trying to ensure no political newbies fall for it.

:)

[Zhade]

3. delete

delete

[kestrel91316]

4. That's why we HAVE to turn Iran into a parkng lot - so they won't

ever have them, silly!

[Zhade]

5. So thinks this criminal administration, anyway!

That "IWR for the whole Middle East" thing is freaking me out.

[PassingFair]

6. Why do you defend EVIL?

:sarcasm:

[Zhade]

10. *blink*

Woosh, right over my head.

[davekriss]

9. After all

Bush can then claim success because nothing will have happened to us at home. No new 9-11. Next he will send troops to New Jersey, just in case, just to make sure nothing happens. That's just the kind of great pResident Pretzdunce is. Gawd bless Dubya! Without him bombing the sh*t out of the world, it's 9-12, 9-13, 9-14...






:sarcasm:

[davekriss]

7. Iran? Nukes?

So THAT's where Saddam put them before we invaded! Ha!

[Solo_in_MD]

8. What is the basis for your 5-10 years best case claim?

Given that the knowledge and the material is already widely available?

[Zhade]

11. The UN and the IAEA.

Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#IAEA

and read the documentation (the external sources, I mean, not the wiki article).

[oldtimecanuk]

12. Ok I will bite.. But only for the sake of argument....

How do you know this for certain? I think that I agree with you, but don't know for a fact that they don't. Hell, Russia may have provided them with Nukes by now based on the saber radeling going on by the US Administration. (Spelling, yeah I know one of my short comings)

ww

[Zhade]

14. Already answered, just above you.

Read the external sources in the wiki article.

[porphyrian]

13. They do so have microwaves, liar. And Hot Pockets.

;)

[Zhade]

15. LOL!

Thanks for the kick-n-laugh combo! :D

[porphyrian]

17. Just in that kind of mood. - n/t

[Jcrowley]

16. Stop pointing that out

America with 10 zillion nukes GOOD, Iran who has none and hasn't invaded anyone in the past century BAD.
You need reprogramming good citizen.

[Igel]

18. I don't think that Iran has nukes.

But I also don't think that they're not developing them.

Iraq in 1991 was shown conclusively to have made scant progress with their nuclear program. The CIA was convinced that Iraq had made little progress. Then a 'defector' came along and told he IAEA inspectors where to go; the progress that had been conclusively proven to be negligible was found to be much greater than anybody thought. The CIA problem was a lack of humintel, and Saddam's disguising what could be seen from space.

It's now customary to refer to a minority CIA report from the late '70s saying that the USSR was teetering on the edge of dissolution; it's now uncustomary to point out that it was a minority report that was widely considered to be lunatic, both within the CIA and among Sovietologists, and that this report was contradicted by numerous other reports.

There was marked confusion about how far along the North Koreans were in their nuclear program. A few months before there was a report from the North that they had nuclear weapons, there was an intelligence estimate that they were at least 5 years away from having one. Before that, there was the assumption that they were cheating a bit, but not significantly; then it was found they'd been working on them for years before * took office.

At the risk of sounding Rumsfeldian, you simply don't know what you have no information about, and when there's sketchy information you make guesses. The IAEA is sure that Iran isn't developing nuclear weapons, and the CIA is sure that Iran is 5-10 years away. But a defector tomorrow could show both of them definitively wrong. But this isn't grounds for an attack.

But it is grounds for avoiding dogmatism in intelligence estimates. They've been seriously wrong in their guesses before, links to Wikipedia notwithstanding.

[scarletwoman]

19. Well, why shouldn't they be allowed to have nukes? They are an effective deterrent against aggressor

states. The U.S. is the ONLY country to have ever actually used nukes against another nation, and that's only because no one else could effectively strike back.

Every other nation that has nukes has them for deterrence. I cannot blame Iran in the least for endeavoring to improve their security through a nuclear deterrent. It only makes sense to look to protect one's sovereignty when there's a rogue state like the U.S. rampaging through the world determined to reshape other peoples' governments to our liking.

sw

[Zhade]

21. Your disingenuous dismissal of my "wikipedia" cite doesn't bolster your case.

I specifically referred posters to the external sources referenced in the article. At no point did I claim the wiki article itself was evidence; your reply doesn't take that into account, and paints a false picture of the sources I offered.

Here's the real kicker: paranoia doesn't warrant a preventative attack. And let's be clear - by your own words, the lack of knowledge of what they're doing with their NPT-guaranteed nuclear energy program (interpreted, on your part, as ominous) places any attack squarely in the "we're guessing we should attack, so we will" category.

Perhaps I should have titled this thread "Where's the evidence for Iranian nuclear weapons?", so as to avoid the tangential nitpickery of posters wishing to focus on my admittedly self-assured assertion instead of on the real issue: the evidence of nukes is so lacking that an attack on Iran is currently completely unjustified.

[Igel]

23. But all the external links don't matter.

Moreover, I wrote I didn't think the speculation warranted an attack.

We love to dwell on the false positives, and try to say in many casese that footnotes are the report, that the minority formed an overwhelming majority, or what was known and not said was more salient and eloquently spoken than what was said. False positives lead to horrible outcomes.

But false negatives also can lead to horrible outcomes. So it pays to be cautious. This is distinct from paranoia. In the case of Iran, we can assume that all that's said is empty rhetoric--and there's been no shortage of empty rhetoric. We see some of that: every horrendous statement must be taken as hyperbole, mistranslation, western disinformation or misinformation. The assumption that it's all hot air is only warranted if all the rhetoric's been empty; this is not the case, as Lebanon shows.

And, lest you miss it again, this is not grounds for an attack.

[Luckyduck]

20. THANK YOU!

:applause:

[Rex]

22. Actually, we have no idea if Iran has nukes and probably could get

one from Russia if they wanted to. I think the real problem is the notion that the US has the authority to invade other countries, on a whim and with no regard to sovereignty or international laws.

Truly, who gave us the power? I didn't get that memo.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

24. Of course they don't; no-one is claiming they do. But they probably will soon.

I haven't seen anyone claim that Iran *already* has nukes; I'm sure such exist but not in sufficient numbers or of sufficient stature to merit a serious rebuttal.

Your "5-10 years", though, is far longer that the shortest estimate I'm seen proposed by potentially-respectable sources; try "a year". Obviously, it could be a lot longer; 5-10 years or more; but that certainly isn't the worst-case scenario.

I don't think anyone can seriously debate that Iran is trying to aquire nuclear weapons, or that the chance of them succeeding in doing so in in the next few years, while not 100%, is very high indeed. Only the terminally lacking in perspective can claim that if/when they do it will be a very bad thing indeed. I have yet to see any proposals for preventing this happening other than "bomb Iran", which I think would clearly be a cure worse than the malady, but I think that coming up with such plans would be a very good thing indeed and should be one of the chief priorities of the next US president.