Report: Iran Won't Stop Uranium Enrichment

[Republican_Man]

[Admiral Dani�l]

If I look really far into the future, *sigh* another war...

[Hitchhiker]

We all know this. There is no incentive for Iran to stop its enrichment. The idea that we would impose sanctions is laughable to them--that's how much or credibility has been strained. :/

Sadly relations with Iran figure importantly in the Middle East these days. While I don't mind Iran having nuclear power, I agree that they should not have nuclear weapons (then again, no one should have nuclear weapons). We should start offering Iran some more positive incentives than, "Stop, or we'll sanction!"

[Republican_Man]

What incentives do you suggest? If sanctions do occur, and they don't work, what incentives do you think we could give them? Israel? I don't know what we could do. We can't really negotate with these people, with their radical, extremest ideology bent on the destruction of Israel.

[Hitchhiker]

Yes, let us allow them to take over Israel. That seems sufficient.

On a more serious note, we could start by being more friendly and not treating them like they already have the bomb. I recognise that Ali Khamenei's stranglehold, both politically and religiously, on Iran makes it difficult to pursue rational relations. But short of a well-coordinated and successful assassination plot, we'll just have to work around that.

I recommend we send in a crack squad of television executives and start producing television shows in Iran, as well as selling American TV to Iranians. If it can corrupt the Western world well enough, we should have no trouble corrupting them. There may be initial resistance from Khamenei, but once he is assassinated or exposed to The Amazing Race I am sure he will acquiesce.

I think that the key to peace with Iran is not just within Iran, however. It's the entire Middle East. As relations improve with other countries, those countries must then in turn put pressure on Iran to come back into the fold and stop acting like a petulant child. The same goes for Syria.

[Republican_Man]

But that doesn't solve the essential short-term question. That's long-term, but we need to figure out what to do in the short term. Being "friendly" with Iran isn't something we should do because it shows weakness, and it involves negotiation with an enemy that has already stated that it's goal is to wipe Israel off of the map, and believes the US to be the "Great Satan."

This is a part of my response to an Op-Ed I found stating that we should negotiate with Iran and responded to for AP English over the summer:

[Hitchhiker]

We can't ignore them (because we obviously had such smashing success when we tried that with North Korea and Cuba ). We can't go to war. So what does that leave but diplomacy?

Iran and Syria are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and so we have to talk to them, whether we like it or not. Negotiation is not a show of "weakness". It is a show of maturity. Concessions can imply weakness, but negotiation is not about concession. It is about tricking the enemy into thinking they have won!

I'm not really sure why a government is ready to go to war but doesn't bother with assassination. Wouldn't it make more sense to kill just Khamenei rather than attempt a costly military operation to kill thousands of Iranian soldiers who have been trained to be loyal to their cause?

[Republican_Man]

It wasn't lack of negotiations with North Korea that caused the situation we're in now. It was negotiations that caused it. The 1994 Agreed Framework most notably placed incriminating nuclear waste beyond reach of inspectors; abandoned Clinton�s reasonable expectations that North Korea would abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, which the dictator promised to follow through with, which required the regular inspection of nuclear sites; and, most importantly, gave North Korea the materials required to make nuclear weapons under the promise and unreasonable expectation that they would not continue to seek to develop WMD. Negotiations didn�t work to prevent North Korea from launching missiles in 1997, did it? In fact, if it weren�t for the Clinton administration�s foolish diplomatic agreement with the Pyongyang regime, and the Agreed Framework, the world would not be in the situation with North Korea that it currently is. It served to do nothing but act as a retreat. Appeasement once again proved not to work. So what makes us think that negotiations with Iran and Syria will have any more success than they already have?
Next, what would negotiations have gotten us with Cuba? I don't see anything that could have benefited us from negotiating with Cuba, and I don't think negotiations with Iran will get anywhere.

Tell me, Tach. I know you're a Canadian, but the United States enlists you to be the ambassador to Iran. You are sent there to negotiate the halt of Iran's nuclear weapons program. Knowing what you know now--that Iran wants the destruction of Israel, that the US is scoffed upon as being the "Great Satan," and that Iran is a breeding ground for radical Islam and a strong supporter of terrorism which could give WMDs to terrorists--what would you say? What would you do? How would you carry out the negotiations?

((I don't think I'll be able to respond to the post, though, 'cause I gotta hurry and finish this AP US assignment and get to bed. I'll be sure to examine your response later.))

[Hitchhiker]