Cross-posted on Texas KOS. Web coming soon!
Iran took a major leap toward a fully functional Nuclear Weapons Program according to its President:
Itan ran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark in its quest to develop nuclear fuel, hard-liner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday.
"I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries," he told an audience that included top military commanders and clerics in the northwestern holy city of Mashhad.
Memo to Bush. um, Don't you remember saying in your 2004 debates with John Kerry that Nuclear Containment was the number one foreign policy issue for your administration in the 2nd term?
Frankly, this doesn't make Iran part of the Nuclear Club (tho I'm not an expert here). But they did take a major stap forward. This is as much posturing by the Iranian President to the West as well as to hardliners at home who want Nukes.
But is anyone surprised that Iran wants to join the Nuclear (Nu-cu-lar) Club? And that they are this close to doing it sits so much on Bush's incompetent soldiers.
Why?
Why do you think Iran wants nukes when it will mean certain economic difficulties?
Well, of course there's ego & the screaming masses will want to pump their chest & act real macho - but these guys can be controlled in the right environment.
The problem is that Bush & his incompetent & belligerent Secretary of State, Condi Rice (of 9/11 fame), has created the WRONG environment & has PUSHED Iran to the extreme instead of bringing them back from the edge.
How?
1. Invading Iraq
2. That whole damn "Axis of Evil" rhetoric
How did invading Iraq push Iran to nukes?
1. How do you prevent a superpower from attacking you? You create an effective deterient. The ONLY thing that Iran has that can keep the US from attacking it are the threat of NUKES. Why do you think Bush hasn't attacked North Korea - despite it's crumbling economy?
2. By locking our forces in Iraq, what the hell do we have to attack Iran with? Till we do, we're just bluffing & Iran knows it. We are too stretched to force & threaten Iran into doing ANYTHING.
3. Our forces in Iraq are easily with Iran's reach should there be a fight. That reach comes in the form of missles (nukes?) as well as a large pro-Iranian population that will attack our forces in GREATER number than they are today.
So if the number of deaths bothers you today, imagine what'll happen if Iran orchestrates an open war against them in Iraq?
& instead of diffusing the situation, Bush & his, um, enforcer, Condi Rice, have only made it worse. They've stretched our forces too thin, made our soldiers easy targets, and stroked the extremists in Iran with their stupid enflamatory rhetoric so that moderate Iranians aren't able to stand up to their own extremists!
(Notice how similiar the situation is to ours?)
Iranian hardliners have long supported terroism & wanted nukes but moderate Iranians were able to control them. In fact, during Bush I & Clinton, moderate Iranians made significant progress to return to a modern, moderate society & rejoin the world.
Bush came in there with his arrogant, "I'm the Chosen One" attitude & shot to hell over a decade of good work his father & Clinton were doing secretly.
Bush has pushed Iran into a corner where they are more dangerous instead of understanding that diplomacy means carrying a big stick AND a carrot.
Let's see, Bush is so far responsible for or greatly worsened:
1. 9/11
2. Katrina's damage (she was only Cat 3 people at landfall)
3. Iraq war - when we didn't need to be there.
Will he be responsible for a nuclear incident too?
Here's where I throw a "Bush, yer doing a heckuva job!" snark but this shit is just too damn dangerous to be funny anymore!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...