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Originally Posted by spence
What about the facts in the story? How about Netenyahu's repeated claims of impending doom?
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Spence, the story by Zakaria was clearly a hit job against Bush, Netanyahu, and the West in general. Nuclear nonproliferation has been a U.N. policy since the 1960's. The IAEA was established by the U.N. in 1957 and specified in 1968 to ensure no expansion of nuclear programs designed to create nuclear weapons. This was all well Before Bush.
Iran, under the Shah, had started a nuclear program which was for energy purposes only. It hired outside Western contractors to build it. They operated under IAEA regulations. There was no secrecy, no attempt to build nuclear weapons, no hidden violations. After the revolution, under control of an Islamic State, the nuclear program, which had been discontinued during the war with Iraq, was restarted, but this time strictly under control of Iran, with Iranian contractors to design and build it. There were, very shortly, IAEA concerns about the ultimate purpose.
And the agents who came to Iran's aid this time were not from the West, but from Eurasia. Russia and China, mainly. And IAEA suspicions gradually heightened. For example, China agreed to prevent new cooperation and halt existing projects with Iran in the nuclear field, and to cancel a project to help Iran with a blueprint for the plant. But China continued its aid anyway. Iran, in Nov. 2003, entered into an agreement with Britain, France, and Germany to suspend enrichment, but it continued building the centrifuges anyway. And it has continually advanced enrichment, before, through, and past the Bush era to its present ability. Iran has refused to have its program of enrichment done by outside commercial sources with no political objective, as was done by the Shah, but maintains its own program, in constant secrecy, violation of agreements, and uncooperativeness with IAEA. Even Obama says that if there are no guarantees that Iran will not build nuclear weapons, we will walk away from the negotiation. Long after Bush, there are still no guarantees. If Iran simply wanted peaceful use of nuclear power, it could have gone about it the way the Shah did. Something else is obviously going on, and Bush didn't cause it. And at this point at which Iran is about to have the ability to build the bomb, any "agreement" would be highly suspect, and its "guarantee" by a regime which has continuously broken agreements may not be worth the paper it's written on.
Your query to me to talk about the facts of Zakaria's story is amusing. You often dismiss "stories," simply by sneering at the source, and avoid any further discussion. Which you did with the article that is the subject of this thread. You claimed to get "lost" by one of the initial sentences (which I pointed out was not relevant to the rest of the review), and that was that. No further discussion. No "what about the facts in the story?" At least I expanded my discussion of Zakaria's hit job.
I don't know if you actually did go ahead and read the rest of the article I posted. If you did, you might have seen and discussed what are and have been growing alliances that are not wholly, if at all, interested in alliance with what we call the "West." They, in varying degrees among its participants, actually tend to be anti-Western. And the alliances, including SOC and BRICS comprise half the population of the planet.
The article certainly sheds some light on what is actually happening in Ukraine. And why economic sanctions have had little effect. The alliances afford partners to ameliorate the effects of U.S. or European opposition and sanction. They want to neutralize the power of the West. And to replace the dollar as the go-to currency with their own currency. They see Israel as an extension of Western power into their Eurasian sphere, so tend to back Iran and care little for Israel's security. Iran wants to be part of their alliance, and they will eventually officially accept it, but will back it for the time being. Here's the Wiki entry for SOC and BRIC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangha...n_Organisation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS
The SOC, Shanghai Cooperation Organization is strictly Eurasian and won't allow European countries or the U.S. entry. The U.S. had applied for observer status but was denied. Russia and China are the most important members.
The BRICS expands from Eurasia to include the African and South American sphere, but its main members, Russia, China, and India, are Eurasian.
There are many "observer" nations who attend SOC and BRICS conferences, most being potential members and will be wholeheartedly welcomed into the alliance. If numbers and statistics mean much, the combined alliances will have a much larger population than a U.S./Euro alliance.
Interesting how wagons are circling around the U.S./Euro zone, no? How Russia and China are quietly expanding their influence in the rest of the world? And they already have a powerful influence among our own alliances by being two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.