Re: Suing each other over Iran :-)

From: Thelasian (thelasian_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 10/16/04 

Date: 16 Oct 2004 09:38:17 -0700

Mark Fergerson <nunya@biz.ness> wrote in message news:<oB3cd.50258$Lo6.8469@fed1read03>...
> Maleki wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 07:09:13 -0700, Mark Fergerson wrote:
>
> >>Some posts not getting through; retry:
> >>
> >>Maleki wrote:
>
> <snip MADness details among other things>
>
> >> > Anyway, about similar issues in the middle east, it is
> >> > obvious to me that the key to the peace for any country in
> >> > that region, including Israel, is a nuclear weapons capable
> >> > Iran.
>
> >> This is exactly what Hanson meant, but he satirically assumes anyone
> >>who claims not to have them actually does. If this were the case,
> >>there'd be a lot less "conventional" violence though because that can be
> >>seen as provocation to go nuclear depending on how sane one's leaders
> >>are. The word for this in the sixties was "escalation", and that's the
> >>truly scary part.
> >>
> >> I tend to agree with your statement above ASSUMING neither party
> >>manages to sneak nukes into the other's territory. That would bypass the
> >>detection-launch trigger, you see.
>
> > Ohhohoh :) Then "it is obvious to me" that MAD is already
> > defunct.
>
> Not necessarily. Having a WMD secreted within enemy
> territory, but not triggered, is equivalent to a "delivery
> system", and ISTM that all parties have the capability to so
> emplace them; no need for big hairy boosters. Who announces
> first becomes the interesting thing, because the second to
> announce has a severe credibility gap. But then,
> professional wargamers think it reasonable to take their
> word for it just in case. Then the haggling starts in
> earnest, with spies gaining greater importance than ambassadors.
>
> >> So far Israel has managed to resist the temptation to use theirs, but
> >>that may just be because they have a limited supply and too many
> >>potential targets. If they fired pre-emptively on say Saudi Arabia, they
> >>know they'd be overrun immediately afterward by everyone else.
> >>Conversely, no particular Arab country wants to be first.
> >>
> >> OTOH your analysis depends on _which_ Arabs acquire WMDs. If they're
> >>the extreme fanatics causing so much trouble currently, they just won't
> >>care if they die or who else they take with them as long as the hated
> >>Jews go down.
>
> > No, Jews aren't hated. Iranians are. Arabs (extremists or
> > non-extremists) have Iran as their main issue, not Israel.
>
> Doesn't look that way from here, but that's hardly
> surprising. Thanks for the "ground truth".
>
> Actually that's irrelevant MADwise if more than two
> participants are similarly armed and capable of inserting a
> conventional WMD or nuke, because the first to fire will set
> off _all_ the others. This ought to be adequately
> frightening to long-range thinkers to keep MAD alive so to
> speak.
>
> > It's just there's nothing they can do about Iran at the
> > moment and therefore some of them busy themselves with the
> > tiny issue of Israel. Also Israel and Judaism are two
> > separate things. Judaism is an integral part of Islam.
>
> We've already agreed on this last point before.
>
> As for "nothing they can do about Iran", well, ISTM it
> depends what the extremists might consider an acceptable
> outcome.
>
> > Shi'ism on the other hand has "messed with" Islam, so the
> > Arabs think. It is actually what Islam was at the outset
> > programmed to expand and become, but Arabs tried to arrest
> > the development at the fetal stage and exclaimed, "that is
> > Islam". That's why they call it "Sonni" Islam, which means
> > "traditional" or "original" or "initial" Islam. What it was
> > at the outset rather than what it was to be and become. They
> > have some point, but so do Shi'ites.
>
> Hence the labeling by Western media of Sunnis as
> "Fundamentalists". I can't wait for some CNN idiot to call
> the Shi'ites "Reformed Muslims" or some such. That ought to
> make thing even more interesting.
>
> > Arabs' struggle with Israel is not religious in nature, but
> > with Iran it is.
>
> I never thought it was, but it sure is played that way in
> the Western media. Damn all media fools anyway.
>
> ISTM that the Arab/Israel thing is strictly political in
> the sense of controlling access to resources. There's no
> sensible reason for Israel to have been created where it is
> except to limit Arabs' access to the Mediterranean, and I
> can see why that's pissed them off for half a century.
>
> The Arab/Iran struggle you describe is largely religious
> indeed,

Complete BS. The "Arabs" are not the borg who think collectively. Iran
has excellent relations with many Arab nations, both before and after
the 1979 revolution. It also has problem with some Arab nations, both
before and after the revolution - which are NOT religious issues at
all. The largest Iranian-Arab dispute currently is over the ownership
of a few islands in the Persian GUlf. That is a territorial dispute
which is common in many parts of the world, and has nothing to do with
religion, and dates back to the days of the SECULAR government in
Iran. The other major Iranian-Arab dispute was with IRaq over
boundaries of the Shatt-al Arab waterway, which again went far back
into the 1970's and again has no religious nature. Of course Iran is
not liked by extremeists list Al-Qaeda. However, Al-Qaeda can't be
labelled an "Arab" group. In fact, the whole usage of the word "Arab"
is questionable and vague. There are lots of people in the world who
speak Arabic and like other people in the world, they have a variety
of views and cultures and attitudes.

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