Peace On Earth
Alan J. Kuperman, the director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin, has suggested the US give Iran a rather nasty gift for the holidays. His lengthy opinion piece in today's NY Times urges the US to bomb the known nuclear targets in Iran to show we mean business, because, of course, it's Christmas and Christmas is such a good time to teach the lessons of Christianity to the heathens.
PRESIDENT OBAMA should not lament but sigh in relief that Iran has rejected his nuclear deal, which was ill conceived from the start. Under the deal, which was formally offered through the United Nations, Iran was to surrender some 2,600 pounds of lightly enriched uranium (some three-quarters of its known stockpile) to Russia, and the next year get back a supply of uranium fuel sufficient to run its Tehran research reactor for three decades. The proposal did not require Iran to halt its enrichment program, despite several United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding such a moratorium.
Iran was thus to be rewarded with much-coveted reactor fuel despite violating international law. Within a year, or sooner in light of its expanding enrichment program, Iran would almost certainly have replenished and augmented its stockpile of enriched uranium, nullifying any ostensible nonproliferation benefit of the deal. ...
Tehran’s rejection of the original proposal is revealing. It shows that Iran, for domestic political reasons, cannot make even temporary concessions on its bomb program, regardless of incentives or sanctions. Since peaceful carrots and sticks cannot work, and an invasion would be foolhardy, the United States faces a stark choice: military air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities or acquiescence to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. ...
Incentives and sanctions will not work, but air strikes could degrade and deter Iran’s bomb program at relatively little cost or risk, and therefore are worth a try. They should be precision attacks, aimed only at nuclear facilities, to remind Iran of the many other valuable sites that could be bombed if it were foolish enough to retaliate.
At least Mr. Kuperman recognizes that opening a third war would be foolhardy, as would giving Israel the green light to do our dirty work. That's something, I guess. What is so painful about his essay, however, is that Mr. Kuperman has already decided that further negotiations backed by sanctions won't work, even though direct sanctions haven't been identified and threatened in any meaningful way by the parties engaged in the negotiations.
Further, he admits that the aerial bombing may not do much, if any, real damage to the nuclear facilities because of their being embedded deep underground. Would the next step in his fantasy be the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the "bunker busters" which our military may or may not have? Or would we simply move on to other targets such as oil and gas facilities or important religious sites? That's sure to garner the US a lot of good will in the region.
And what about Iran? Will the aerial bombing, effective or not, cow that nation's leaders into submission or will it stiffen their resolve and enable them to justify retaliation, either against US forces in the region, or against Israel. Will they install blockades to stop the shipment of gas and oil from the area, thereby upping the ante?
Mr. Kuperman doesn't seem to care about any of that. All he wants to do is "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." He sounds like another American, one who lost an election last year.
Moron.
PRESIDENT OBAMA should not lament but sigh in relief that Iran has rejected his nuclear deal, which was ill conceived from the start. Under the deal, which was formally offered through the United Nations, Iran was to surrender some 2,600 pounds of lightly enriched uranium (some three-quarters of its known stockpile) to Russia, and the next year get back a supply of uranium fuel sufficient to run its Tehran research reactor for three decades. The proposal did not require Iran to halt its enrichment program, despite several United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding such a moratorium.
Iran was thus to be rewarded with much-coveted reactor fuel despite violating international law. Within a year, or sooner in light of its expanding enrichment program, Iran would almost certainly have replenished and augmented its stockpile of enriched uranium, nullifying any ostensible nonproliferation benefit of the deal. ...
Tehran’s rejection of the original proposal is revealing. It shows that Iran, for domestic political reasons, cannot make even temporary concessions on its bomb program, regardless of incentives or sanctions. Since peaceful carrots and sticks cannot work, and an invasion would be foolhardy, the United States faces a stark choice: military air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities or acquiescence to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. ...
Incentives and sanctions will not work, but air strikes could degrade and deter Iran’s bomb program at relatively little cost or risk, and therefore are worth a try. They should be precision attacks, aimed only at nuclear facilities, to remind Iran of the many other valuable sites that could be bombed if it were foolish enough to retaliate.
At least Mr. Kuperman recognizes that opening a third war would be foolhardy, as would giving Israel the green light to do our dirty work. That's something, I guess. What is so painful about his essay, however, is that Mr. Kuperman has already decided that further negotiations backed by sanctions won't work, even though direct sanctions haven't been identified and threatened in any meaningful way by the parties engaged in the negotiations.
Further, he admits that the aerial bombing may not do much, if any, real damage to the nuclear facilities because of their being embedded deep underground. Would the next step in his fantasy be the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the "bunker busters" which our military may or may not have? Or would we simply move on to other targets such as oil and gas facilities or important religious sites? That's sure to garner the US a lot of good will in the region.
And what about Iran? Will the aerial bombing, effective or not, cow that nation's leaders into submission or will it stiffen their resolve and enable them to justify retaliation, either against US forces in the region, or against Israel. Will they install blockades to stop the shipment of gas and oil from the area, thereby upping the ante?
Mr. Kuperman doesn't seem to care about any of that. All he wants to do is "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." He sounds like another American, one who lost an election last year.
Moron.
Labels: Iran, Nuclear Weapons
posted by Diane at 3:57 AM
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