The Chicago Tribune decided to weigh in on the Iran situation by making a comparison to the ongoing chicanery in North Korea. Just a couple problems: the situations are vastly different and their claims about Iran are downright ludicrous considering the facts we possess on the country.
It begins with a strange declaration considering the whole situation:
On the day that Iran declares to the world that it has defied Western red lines and is capable of building its first nuclear bomb, the Middle East will become immensely more dangerous and unstable.
Right on target!
So, objectively speaking, nukes in the hands of a country led mostly by proponents of one religion makes a region dangerous? If that’s the case, what about Israel’s nukes? Is it the fact that nukes are in the region and are inherently dangerous regardless of who holds them or is it just when they’re in the hands of Iran that makes them dangerous?
Actually, the growing body of evidence on nuclear proliferation and war points to the contrary. “When a nuclear monopoly exists between two states, and their opponent does not, there is a greater chance of war. In contrast, when there is mutual nuclear weapon ownership with both states possessing nuclear weapons, the odds of war drop precipitously.” Not that anyone is cheering for Iran to begin building nuclear weapons but history and research is not on the side of the Tribune’s position.
The latest round of international talks with Iran to discourage its nuclear program has fizzled. A decade of these talks has produced nothing.
A very slick way to word the argument and slide a factual piece of info past the reader. A “decade” of “nothing” ignores the reality Iran, according to U.S. intelligence, stopped its nuclear weapons pursuit in 2003. By my amateurish math, that would be roughly…oh, surprise, surprise! One decade ago. Again, slick way to word it but hugely dishonest to the reader.
Iran could have that capability (enough material to make nuclear weapons) by mid-2014 or earlier.
Yet another claim Iran will have a nuclear weapon at a stated date in the future. The problem with the media doing this is it becomes an instance of crying wolf and becomes a ridiculous claim to anyone paying attention. We have heard it so often and the claims have been so scattered (Israel now says 2015 or 2016, by the way) it is impossible to take any of them very seriously without some type of harder evidence being given. Until some semblance of proof is shown, this fantastical claim should no longer be made by anyone in the media.
For the better part of a decade, the U.S. and its allies have tried to prevent a nuclear Iran in two ways: bribes of increased trade or other incentives to stand down. And strangling economic sanctions.
So, is it only incentives or only sanctions that we’ve used in dealing with Iran? I’m guessing one would make them interested in working with us and the other not so much. In the case of the incentives, they seem to be nothing more than showing we are “trying” without actually trying by continually offering the same package Iran repeatedly rejects. That’s not really working just in case the Tribune hasn’t noticed.
