Originally Posted by roachboy

i'm sorry, folks, but the idea of iran posing a serious threat to the united states is absurd.
the idea of anything like a nuclear strike on israel originating in iran also seems to me absurd. the consequences are obvious. why on earth would the iranians do it, knowing that israel is a nuclear power itself with the capability to reduce every urban centre in iran to ashes in a minute.
so i really do not understand the rationale behind any of the paranoia that seems to animate the right/hawks who posted in this thread.
and given that the "analyses" this paranoia rests on assume a wholesale stripping of any context that might enable the statements from the president of iran to be interpreted rationally, i doubt seriously that any of these folk could convince me of it.

more generally, if the americans were really interested in problems associated with nuclear proliferation, maybe they would not sell so much of the technology that enables the process to get under way.

sometimes it seems that the americans indulge in the sale of nuclear technologies that are obviously adaptable to weapons production as prompt for future policy initiatives--a few nights ago i watched "atomic cafe"--if you want to get a visceral sense of the extent to which conservative consensus building has relied upon periodic bouts of collective hysteria, you should watch it too.