kactus

The difference between the regime must be vanished from the page of time and Israel must be wiped off the map is quite clear. The former refers to the policies of the zionist regime the latter refers to the people of the jewish state along with their land wiped off the map, which Ahmadinejad never said in his speech. Let's look at the exaple of the old USSR Communism existed USSR but did the downfall of communism translate into the demise of the ordinary russians? No! It's not right to put both statements in the same category.

Stomp your feet as much as you like. Bombing never mind invasion of Iran ain't never gonna happen!!! Enough with BS and scaremongering. As if the cost of war in Iraq wasn't enough on US taxpayers why should they take the burden for yet another war on behalf of Israel?

The point was and still is that kurdish region of Iraq with its vast oil is not as lucrative as saudi arabia or other persian gulf countries to the US, which are geo-politically and startegically more important to the US to counter the russian threat. Yes, again the point here was that the US has much less influence in the kurdish region than shiite or sunny regions in the south. The kurdish region is becoming more and more autonomous which Turkey fears will try to establish an independent kurdistan and would become a strong base for PKK attacks. US knows it and like said before does not want to piss off an important proxy ally. It is quite clear that morality in this case does not come into equation. It's all a matter of money, oil and greed and the western arms manufacturers are the BENEFICIARIES (I thought you might like the choice of word;)) for selling and arming these countries to the teeth. Tut Tut! Shalom Shalom! My 50 shekels is still on! Oooops no! I have crossed the lborder line now of becoming a nazi lover!? The paranoia must be getting the better of me. LOL - Iran is a Nazi lover - Not! I mean seriously, we have gotten so used to invading militarily and economically massively weaker countries that are not a threat to us directly or indirectly it's considered normal and we hardly discuss it. It's a 24/7 scaremongering tactics and the media, like the NY Times are always on board to sell a cowardly invasion in the beginning playing the fear card and then backing away a bit when the casualties come in (although always favoring continuing the war). They've been trying to sell Iran as a threat to the US for decades even though Iran helped the US contain and defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda after 9/11 and is massive weaker than the US militarily and economically. If one looks at the US from the outside, it's a bully nation that tortures in violation of international treaties and only attacks the weak.

Whether Iraq had WMDs or not is irrelevant. Sadam had by then reached its expiry date and had to be removed irrespective of WMD or no WMD.

Except the fact that they (the kurds) do not have enough ENOUGH oil or shall we say as much oil as the kuwaitis and saudis coulped with the fact that there's another reason for US to stay away from the kurdish region not to piss off a proxy ally called Turkey (remember the turkish troop incursion into kurdish area last year). The rationale here is that militarisation of countires around the 'Persian Gulf' such as saudi arabia by the US. It has a two tier advantage: 1- Profitiering the american arms manuafacturers 2- Combating the vertical influence of russians from the north That's where I would put my 50 cent/ toman/ rial or shekel.

Hi everyone, Am new here and just thought to share some thoughts on this topic. Frankly IMO whether Iran has a nuke or not does not make any difference to Israel or Knesset. Israel is playing a common intelligence game. They want to pretend that they're trying to keep the info secret but after all having some nuclear capability is pointless if your enemies don't know about it so while keeping it a secret they have to kind of give away some info at the same time. This report by FAS (relatively old but a reliable source) gives an indication on their capabilities: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke "By the late 1990s the U.S. Intelligence Community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 weapons, based on production estimates. The stockpile would certainly include warheads for mobile Jericho-1 and Jericho-2 missiles, as well as bombs for Israeli aircraft, and may include other tactical nuclear weapons of various types. Some published estimates even claimed that Israel might have as many as 400 nuclear weapons by the late 1990s. We believe these numbers are exaggerated, and that Israel's nuclear weapons inventory may include less than 100 nuclear weapons. Stockpiled plutonium could be used to build additional weapons if so decided." And the article goes on: "Based on plausible upper and lower bounds of the operating practices at the reactor, Israel could have thus produced enough plutonium for at least 100 nuclear weapons, but probably not significantly more than 200 weapons." Anyways there was nothing in the report that tells me Israel has less than 200. Simply a guess based on how the intel community tends to work and report factored in with the need Israel has to keep these weapons safe, centrally located and reasonably ready. Also factor in how many missiles they would need, how many they have already armed "conventionally" and how many weapons (warheads and missiles) need to be replaced/repaired periodically and this would just end up being my guess.