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Originally Posted by spence
That's it? Blame the messenger?
What did I blame Zakaria for? Annoying me? I think I am allowed to be annoyed.
He doesn't claim Iran scaled their capacity to spite Bush, they did it because they had no reason not to. Had the deal been made it likely would have been different.
He said that Iran's scaling was a "result" of Bush's failure to give Iran what it wanted, not that it had no reason not to. If Iran's intention was never to develop the "bomb" as it has always claimed, then it never had a reason not to "scale" their capacity. Bush or no Bush.
Then he tries to make a seemingly irrefutable claim that if Bush had not vetoed Iran's offer things would be different today. That Iran would not be months away from making the bomb. Or wait, he did modify that with "likely."
How likely? Well, Zakaria doesn't mention what Obama's spokesmouth referred to in 2010 as "Iran's repeated failure to live up to its own commitments" He doesn't mention deals made and broken after Bush was gone. Not the 2009 deal to have Russia enrich its stock which Iran backed out of. Not the 2010 similar deal with Turkey and Brazil which the Obama administration rejected. Not the timeline of Iran's consistently not complying with the IAEA's demands followed by the "international community" gradually caving in toward Iran's desires: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-world-powers/
And during it all, without any pressure by Bush, but by pressures and broken negotiations with everybody else, Iran, according to Zakaria, is months away from the bomb. But, somehow, we're supposed to believe that it was all Bush's fault for not agreeing to the 2002-05 deal. That if he had agreed, it would be "likely" that Iran would not be months away from the bomb.
Who is it, exactly, that is in never-never land?
What about the facts in the story? How about Netenyahu's repeated claims of impending doom? |
What facts? The assertion of something being "likely"?
I can understand, very well, Netenyahu's concern over Iran's threat to annihilate Israel. And the reality of being able to achieve that threat with a nuclear weapon.
If Iran is telling the truth, that it wants nuclear power only for peaceful uses, not nuclear weapons, then there is no point to the incessant back and forth attempts at negotiations to restrict or allow Iran's capacities. Nor is there a need for Zakaria to be concerned about Iran's ability to have the bomb in a matter of months.
If Iran is not telling the truth, if it really does want the nuclear capability of building the bomb, and had that desire all along, AS MOST EVERYONE ELSE ASSUMES TO BE THE CASE . . . if Iran is lying, then asserting that if Bush, way back when, had agreed to some deal we would not "likely" be at a point where Iran was month's away from that bomb, is, as Zakaria puts it, never-never land
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