Iran has more oil than anyone besides the Saudis, so they want a nuclear energy program? Bull, they want nuclear weapons, which they can make easily once they have the infrastructure for energy. This would be awful, since it would set off a weapons race in the mideast.

i think more countries should have nuclear weapons. the world especially needs a muslim country capable of sending nuclear missiles to the us. then we would have more balanced situation in the middle east

either everyone has nuclear weapons or no one does."i dont know what the third world war will be fought with but the fourth will be fought with sticks and stones"

Well, I think you've identified part of the problem here. You can suspect that Iran is making weapons, but without proof you have no justification for war. I think this is what the US is struggling to get around right now.

However, the Bush Doctrine certainly provides a way to do so. And we are seeing it.

Iran has signed the NPT (unlike another nation with nukes). This provides them the right to pursue it for peaceful purposes. The US is trampling this agreement by accusing them of building weapons without proof. Again, see the Bush Doctrine.

I'd rather Iran not have nuke weapons. I'd rather Israel not have them either, but they do. So where's the equality? And do you not think the world sees the clear, unequivocal bias here?

@alamothe: I like your pov.

@Darwyn:
When you have a fision energy plant working, it naturally creates a radiactive plutonium isotope, wich can not be controlled. That's what the bombs are made with. So, Darwyn's comment is not entirely true, since the same process that produces energy produces, as a by product, the elements you need to make a bomb.

@McCain
If I were Iran, anyway, I'd be more than happy to sell my oil, wich is highly polluting, at the incredibly high prices it's selling it, and using that money to build cleaner, cheaper, and more lasting energy sources. It's not terrorism, it's smart planning. USA is scared because with the by-product they can make bombs... I'd say, get over it, or disarm your nuclear power first.

Israel has been invaded by its neighbors 3 times in its very short lifetime. It is a small nation of less than 7 million that could be obliterated if its neighbors decided that they were serious about doing it. For Israel, nuclear weapons are an insurance policy. For Iran, where is the threat? The only nation to invade Iran in the last 40 years is Iraq, which won't have that capability for a generation at least, if ever. Iran has a huge population to draw on, insurance in the form of oil, and many nations indebted to it. Iran does not need weapons to survive, and it isn't just the Bush administration that believes that Iran is creating a bomb.

The United States spent almost half of the last century with nuclear weapons and has shown that it is highly unlikely to use them except as a last resort. Iran hasn't even shown that kind of restraint. Nor does Iran care about pollution.

and yet you still want to attack iran. this is precisely why it does need nuclear weapons. look what happened to iraq. the country would not have been devastated if it had had the nuclear weapons to threaten its attackers

i didn't know the usa cares about pollution?? :-)

A few points I thought of as I read the responses...

1) The US are the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons.
2) Oil is used for powering cars, not powering electricity stations.
3) The President of Israel has never threatened to wipe Iran "off the face of the Earth"

Oil is used in power plants, at least in the US.

@McCain:

The USA is the only country ever to fire an atomic bomb against a foe. It is also the country that invented the concept of "pre-emptive war". You can sit on your bombs for another half century, I will still think they are in the wrong hands, and someone else better be capable of responding accordingly if you use them.

And for you to say "for Iran, where's the threat?"...

Well, for starters, Irak was a country that was pointed out by Bush and his staff as a dangerous regime with WMD's.

Then they went to war.

What were we talking about here?

Sure, Iran is a dangerous regime that has and is seeking weapons of mass destruction. However, the US is not going to war with Iran. We don't have the manpower or the money to do it. Its not going to happen.

nukes may come in handy in case of world-ending meteors!

and of course, the USA is not going to destroy its nuke capacity until we're the only ones left who have it.

americas a dangerous regime that has weapos of mass destruction with a president who has shown he will go to war on false pretences ie oil grabbing, iran has oil how ever the usa dipolmaticly put it they want that oil if i was iran i would be arming double quick.and my final point america has nuclear weapons and has used them give me a legitamet reason why iran cant have nuclear weapons?

Blackheath Wanderer, Iran's president do not talk about wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, he told that about sionism. It´s cleary not the same. And maybe is better to judge the actions of a country, not the words of his president. Iran condemn Israel attacks, but is not attacking anyone, as well as yesterday all the south american presidents condemn Pando's (Bolivia) genocide, but they are not attacking Pando.
You can't invade a country just becasue you don't like his president's words. And it's not the best to form opinion just reading the news. For example, all of the acts of racial violence since 1980 are suspected by external influence (Africa, Serbia, Irak). You never thought why Irak's people is still killing each other just for his diferences? You don't suspect external influence? In "Zeitgeist movie" they talk about english groups in Irak using local clothes and making racial attacks. You really think that Irak's people don't want peace? You never suspect, in this eternal violence, a bit of influence from the big weapon's factories or the oil enterprises? You really think that they are bad people and USA is giving they the possibility of a real democrartic life? Or is it "just business"?

Ahmadinajad talked of wiping Israel off the map.

McCain... Whoever thought that Hussein's Iraq had anything to do with September 11th?!

And yes Iraq had weapons of mass destruction... They were tested on Iraqi civilians too. The thing I don;t understand is why Hussein was so macho that he couldn't bring himself to admit that they were all found and destroyed by the first wave of weapons inspectors in the 1990s!

"And yes Iraq had weapons of mass destruction"

The only WMD's Iraq had were the ones the US gave them under the guise of "research" to fight Iran with in the 80's. At the time Bush declared that Iraq had them in 2002, no evidence of WMD's existed. The Bush Doctrine at work.

And the Downing Street Memo and Niger forgeries prove that WMD's was the excuse used to invade and occupy Iraq.

Lying to start a war is a war crime...punishable by a first class hanging. Period.

"Who thinks a nuclear Iran is a good thing?"

Obviously the Iranians think it is a good idea and they are not taking a poll on the matter in the international community.

did any of other the other nuclear powers?we have no right to tell them what to do when we have them pure and simple and tbh i would trust nuclear weapons in the hands of the iranians far more than in the hands of america and russia

OY... do you really think that there are rights in International Power politics...and yet you play this game>?
The Americans and the Russians have 60 year history of being able to fight wars and restrain each other from the use of nuclear weapons. do you think the Iranians would?

Well it has to be taken into account that none of the nuclear capable nations in the world today have fought a war which actually threatened to encroach on their home ground and there is nothing to say that we would not use our nukes if we were at a disadvantage in conventional war.

wow. that was 1 sentance. I need to sleep so I can write coherently in the mrning without great thought required

MCain, iran faces no htreat? hmmmm they were invaded and controlled by the british last century, american organised a coup and help keep in power that dictator the shah and now america has 140,000 troops in iraq on one side and ...30,000?(not sure of the number here) in Afghanistan on the other side, the US a proven record of invading smaller, weaker countires (iran has never engaged in offensive miltary actions ) and the President and Vp talk of `all options` are on the table...
basically iran would be mad NOT to develop nukes. look at north korea, safe as houses because they have some.

as for the iranian president saying he wanted to wipe isreal off the map, i thought everyone knew that was a mistranslation that the americans and isrealis have used to justify their own aggressive stance.

no, nobody but the iranian elite want iran to have nukes, but lets understand what is pushing them towards getting them

War with Iran is completely impractical. If Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons, the U.S.A. can't stop them. I suspect that as time goes on, more and more countries will obtain nuclear weapons as a means to gain some international respect.

Colour me an unrealistic optimist, but I believe that there will not be a nuclear war, even when many countries deemed extreme are in possession of nuclear weapons. Everyone would rather possess nuclear weapons than use them. It's the possession that gives you political leverage. It's my foolish prediction that any games of nuclear chicken a la Cold War will diffuse before any nuclear detonation.

Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons because Iran is a rogue state.
Most countries are sane enough not to use nuclear weapons even if they get them - Iran isn't.
If Iran is allowed to build nuclear weapons, we'd be staring at a nuclear showdown between Iran and Israel.

And nuclear anyone is bad. Too late now.

> Iran has signed the NPT (unlike another nation with nukes). This
> provides them the right to pursue it for peaceful purposes. The US
> is trampling this agreement by accusing them of building weapons
> without proof. Again, see the Bush Doctrine.
The NPT means they need to declare all their nuclear activities to the IAEA. The reason Iran is being denied access to nuclear power is because they allegedly began their enrichment program without informing the IAEA as agreed, and so broke the treaty and gave up their right to nuclear power.
They still maintain that they didn't begin their program in secret, but the IAEA found radioactive traces in centrifuges they bought from Khan. Iran says the radioactive traces must have come with the centrifuges, everyone else is very skeptical, and Pakistan isn't letting the IAEA interview Khan to find out.

Nuclear power is good though, and should be promoted. It's also a much further distance from nuclear power to nuclear bomb than most think, by the time Iran is developing a nuclear weapon it'll be completely clear what their objectives are and there won't be any ambiguity.

Also there are different levels of "nuclear bomb". If Iran built a fission bomb that would be very concerning of course, but as long as they don't develop a thermonuclear bomb they could still be taken down with conventional weapons without a "nuclear war" in the traditional sense. It's the difference between kilotons and megatons, and I'm not even sure if fission bombs can be put into ICMBs. Luckily the technological distance from a fission bomb to a thermonuclear bomb is huge

> look at north korea, safe as houses because they have some.
Not sure if you're kidding, but they don't have any (their one attempted test was a dud). North Korea's safety is thanks to China, the US remembers too well what happened last time to let that happen again. Before China didn't want the NK regime to fall because it was an ally, but since NK's economy has collapsed China doesn't want to have to deal with a massive influx of NK refugees which it would get if NK suddenly opened up. If Kim Jong-il's stroke kills him or makes him unable to rule the regime will still be propped up because of China's interests


Also I agree with Chrispminis that it's hard to see it reaching a point where nukes could be used, but I still think it'd make things worse.
Suppose everyone had a "nuke" button in phpDip, and when it gets pressed everyone loses. What do you do when someone takes one of your SCs? (It's not a great analogy I know)

Spartan: when you say "we would not use our nukes if we were at a disadvantage in conventional war" I thinks that's very remarcable, but you are not the one who will make the decision. Anyway, conventional or not, the big problem is war.

Sean, you are right, Iran must be scared. It's not an USA invasion from Afganistan or Iraq, it's USA attacking Iraq, USA attacking Afganistan...why not USA attacking Iran.

youradhere: you say that most countries are sane enough not to use nuclear weapons even if they get them, but Iran isn't. And you really think that USA is sane? USA is the only one who dropped the fucking bomb, please never forget that.