What are your thoughts on Iran's nuclear program?

If they want Nuclear Power, I support that 100%. However, if they want Nuclear weapons, I am firmly against it. This is my belief for all nations.

I'm exactly with you here, but at the same time I'm not sure how useful nuclear weapons would be anyways. It should be common knowledge that if you nuke someone, you're likely to get nuked back. There's a chance that Ahmadinejad might be serious with his desire to blow Israel off the map, but it's most likely that he's too chickenshizzle to do that. I despise the concept of nuclear weapons, but don't see how anyone shouldn't be allowed nuclear power.

As I said to Downing Street on Twitter yesterday - NUCLEAR IS PUKE-U-LAR. However I just follow him to post random crap I don't mean.

If they want nuclear weapons fudge them tbh. Nuclear power is the way ahead!

If they want them then I don't see why we should stop them, if we suddenly destroyed all of our nuclear weapons then I'd agree, but it seems very hypocritical to tell someone else they can't have nuclear weapons when we have many ourselves.

But Ahmedinejad is Ahmedinebad! HE CANNOT HAVE NUCLEAR WARHEADS!

And what makes the likes of other nuclear heads of stats so different? We've already seen President Bush go to war without the correct permission, and to what extent can the Iraqi war be justified? Yet these are the same people we "trust" with nuclear weapons.

You've got quite a point here. Really, the only use of a nuclear weapon is to say "Hey, we could blow you up if we wanted to!" but everyone knows that nobody would. Still, I think it's nice to have one less nut with a nuke, when possible.


This is a bit off topic, but the only people who you get permission to go to war from is the U.N. When has the U.N. ever approved of war? I'm as much against the Iraq war as anyone, but the idea that the U.N. is significant is silly.

I suppose it's their right to have nuclear power.
I just wish there was a more "sensible" man in power.
if you can get a stable government, then i would be all for it.
now nuclear weapons? I don't want any government to have them regardless of their stability.
while we are slowly trying to get rid of them, and persuade other countries to do the same, there is no reason for other countries to start.

No it's quite within topic, I was expecting a response saying that the western nations are democratic and and are trusted enough to hold nuclear weapons. What I'm saying is look at the USA, the Iraq war, totally unjustified was declared by President bush. The president cannot declare war himself.




Now I personally wouldn't want either of these men or countries to have nuclear warheads, but one does, so the other should not be punished for wanting it too.

I love that image.

Anyway, If members of the UN want Iran to stop the development of Nuclear weapons, shouldn't the UN nations be prepared to have to do the same aswell?

Agreed, at the moment all the Western states are comfortable with doing is lessening the number of Warheads they have. The U.S would still have more than enough after the proposed cuts. I do not want Ahmedinejad to have Nuclear Warheads, but until we get rid of ours, who are we to tell them what to do on the subject?

Noone got the pun then?

It's amazing how the West would criticize Iran and it's nuclear ambitions whilst Israel over yonder holds a couple or so bombs themselves. Such hypocrisy. If they want a trully peaceful Middle East then may I suggest TOTAL nuclear non-proliferation in the entire region with no exceptions.

This is not to say I am not wary of Iran's nuclear ambitions. A Iran with warhead capabilities brings more instability to a already unsecured region. Arab governments are also wary of Iran's push to increase it's influence in Arabia, especially us over in the Gulf States. Even President Gaddafi of Libya acknowledges this. Again, I support no nation's nuclear ambitions and capabilities. No state must ever posses such dangerous weaponry.

This is a really good point. It's obvious why we allow Israel to do so, but it does just make the middle east more volatile in general.

Really I don't like the idea of any nation having nuclear power, much less Iran, but I don't really think we have the authority to stop them. We'll just have to hope Iran will be deterred like every other nation with nuclear weaponry.

Well, although the president isn't supposed to declare the war, he had permission from congress. It wouldn't make too big of a difference anyways, in my opinion.e

That only brings in another good point... would Iran really be a threat to us if Israel wasn't our best friend?

My point was that however dangerous Iran looks, we have just as bad track record and neither of us are trust worthy enough.

Yes.

We're a "Christian" nation because we have churches!!!!!! so that means we're the devil and must be destroyed.

No, seriously. That's how they see it.

I actually support Hugo Chavez on that one lol.

What's Hugo Chavez got to do with any of this?

_{edit: who the hell is Hug Chavez?!}

And we think that several Middle-Eastern countries are all populated by jihadists because there are some mosques there.

I don't.

So your example is invalid.

Muslims see the US as a Christian nation--not just governments OR people, but both.

North Korea doesn't have anything it hates with a flaming passion nearby. Plus it's surrounded by superpowers. Even Japan is a superpower, because even though its military is the size of a toothbrush built for sentient peanuts, its economy is freakin' huge.

Iran, on the other hand, is stronger than anything bordering it or close by (well, Russia is pretty close, but one can never tell what Russia will do next these days, or at least I can't), and much more importantly, it and Israel loathe each other with a burning passion. Israel has a reason to do so, though - if Iran shut up and never bothered it again, Israel wouldn't care that Iran was sitting on the other side of 1,000 miles of desert. But Ahmedinejad, His Unspellableness, will never rest as long as those darn Jews, who made up the Holocaust just to get on the good side of the West, have a foothold on this side of the Prime Meridian. (Or anywhere, most likely.) And the bulk of his government seems to agree with him.

So it's a different situation. If NK tries any funny business, it'll get owned. So will Iran, presumably, but it'll be a heck of a lot messier and far more tragic.



I agree, it would be nice if nobody had any nuclear weapons anymore (except, ideally, some suited for blasting approaching asteroids away - currently we can't even do that and we really need to be able to do so). But as long as there are some loose cannons out there, we need at least a few for international safety. And really, the United States has a fantastic track record for nukes. We haven't used ANY since 1945, when they were first developed, and that saved lives overall and probably prevented a communist takeover of Japan. That takes enormous national restraint right there (which Soviet Russia certainly helped build - thanks Stalin!). If there's any hypocrisy in our keeping nukes while not letting Iran have any, it's right on the surface and not deep down.

Of course, I wouldn't trust Ahmedinejad's perceptiveness on something he doesn't want to perceive farther than I could kick him - and that inversely - so perhaps your point is 100% valid in a practical sense.



Iran isn't a threat to us at all, in the broad sense. The only way they can harm us is by sending undercover operatives over here to blow themselves up under our radar. If they were to launch an outright attack, armed forces to armed forces, they would be decimated and Ahmedinejad would be the laughingstock of the UN, for however long the remainder of his administration lasted. Iran can't raise the nuclear power to launch something across the entire globe at us, so his nuclear program isn't a great concern of ours personally.

What it does directly threaten is Israel, and many people here tend to feel extremely strongly about Jewish security, in part because of all the misery our ethnic ilk have put the Jews through over the course of history. Now we have an opportunity to make amends for that, in part at least, and I for one would rather see Israel preserved and Ahmedinejad suffer a military humiliation than to see both countries devastated by war, and the "Holy City" of the Jews, the Muslims and to some extent Christians laid waste.



Only like 20% of us.

A much larger proportion of Iran thinks the "identical opposite" of us because of the government's nasty propaganda. This is the leaders' fault, of course, not the peoples', and should not be punished by war but by re-education (FASCIST DEMOCRACY STRIKES AGAIN HAHAHA ). Still, Demon Jelly is pretty much right.

I disagree. I think that they see us as a godless, fornoficated nation that is the driving force behind a pornographic, sex-ridden culture. That's why some call us the "Great Satan."

Most believe that role is filled by the UK.

No we just keep our military hidden in secret ninja villages.

But in all seriousness you described it perfectly and with that economy as well as our technological prowess we could amass a decent sized army pretty fast. We also historically beat Koreas asses and took there country (therefore implying alot of Koreans are actually of Japanese heritage) Not that it really matters just felt like handing out that little fact.



Anyways as for North Korea i'll just throw this out randomly for you all to chew on.

It's a common practice in Korean culture to make idle threats. Threats to family, friends and sworn enemies over tiny things just like it's part of America's culture to be hard-headed (Not all of you are i realise that but a good chunk are). Kims a little off his nut and keeps his country in the dark that doesn't mean he's going to blow the shizzle outta the states. I'm sure if America got off his balls he'd never even bring you up in his psycho rants and speeches.

Oh wait this is about Iran.

Alot of people have said it already if Iran tries to nuke Israel then Israel/The States/A few other misc. countries will nuke Iran so bad that the country will look like a big crater from space.

If the U.S. ever really loses a war and humbly starts to rebuild itself like Japan did, maybe the economy would be less likely to fail and we'd be in a much better state, without all this money going to hell in a squadron of F-22s.

Well the thing since WW2 all Japans done is copy and expand upon what America does. We Japanese love you burger eating pig-heads and think your awesome the problem is you elect people like Bush and Nixon and 1 short 8- year stint of change we can believe in isn't going to make enough of a drastic change and i assure you after Obama you'll have another Bush-like republican whos gonna screw you up again. You need to use your ability to vote a little more responsibly thats all.

Heck I don't vote, but sincerely, 8 years is not going to do anything that lasts. All that could get us out of the current mess is a dictator, and I think we can all see that that's not a good idea.

It would be a great idea actually, problem is anyone who's a decent enough human being to be a good dictator isn't going to step on and kill all the people they'd need to in order to become a dictator in a country like America, and even if they "elected" a dictator they'd probably elect someone like Obama who may have been a better choice then McCain or Hillary isn't the kind of person i would want dictating a country. It would have to be some wierd combonation of Washington, Castro and Bush in order for any successful dicatorship to work.

Before the state of Israel came to be, was America the great devil in the eyes of the persians? Certainly not. During the long and widespread reign of the Ottoman Empire, there was no hatred towards Christians - in fact, the Ottomans used Christian janisaries as their elite warriors. The middle east wasn't too fond of western powers, but this was political, rather than religious.

After World War I, Britain and the allies promised to grant the king of Iraq his own arabian kingdom, which included Palestine. Many European Jews began to immigrate to Palestine at this time, but the Palestinians didn't mind them much at all. And then, the Allies promised the Jews their own nation. When the western powers gave all of Palestine to the Jews and kicked the Palestinians out, the Islamic world was enraged. Soon, the opposition to the west went to extremes, and Christianity, the majority religion of the west, was hated as well.

Iran even had a personal problem with the west. During WW2, Iran's leader Reza Shah failed to cooperate with the allied powers. So, we staged a successful coup and put Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in power. Whether Pahlavi was a good leader is debatable, but what's most important is that the people of Iran hated him. They got rid of him in 1979, but the United States continued to support him. Our meddlings with Iran's government and the boundaries of Arabia have angered the middle east, and because of this, they've gone as far as hating Christianity.

You're such a hypocrite.

I don't see it that way, so your point is invalid.

I don't get it. It sounds like you're being sarcastic, but if so I don't know who you're talking to, because if I can only really make you out to be disagreeing with Demon Jelly if I read your post as completely serious. What are you saying?

In any case, Demon Jelly is saying that claiming "We," as in "us Americans" think the Middle East is populated by jihadists is wrong because he's an American and he doesn't think that. There's no hypocrisy there, although I'm sure a minority of Americans do think that. My apologies if I'm not relevantly addressing your point - like I said, I don't really know what you're saying.

I just said that because the FBI is looking at everything that comes through this house- HI BOB, HOW'S THE FAMILY? STILL HAVING THAT PROBLEM WITH YOUR WIFE? HOW'S THE E.D. TREATMENT GOING? GOOD? OK, BYE! LOL, WE BOTH KNOW YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! HA HA HA.