Grace wrote:Andy, as an American, I never heard any American or American media call Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Where did you get that idea?

What, you only watch Faux News or something?

You have to pay a lot closer attention than you appear to be.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Mononoke wrote:8% economic growth is very impressive. I guess the chinese & indian promised to buy a lot of their oil. It looks like even our government will give these sanctions the middle finger and continue with our normal purchases

The Chinese entered into long-term oil supply contracts with Iran several years ago. And yes, it's very good business, it helps drive that 8 per cent economic growth you mention, which beats the hell out of anything happening in the West.

Indeed and India buys a lot of oil as well, and considering it's got a large population...India will find ways to work around any laws to buy Iranian oil.

If you think about it, sidelining Iran actually negatively affects China, Russia, and India, three great powers. I'd factor this into the equation when it comes to America's interest in antagonizing Iran. It makes sense.

andyx1205 wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Mononoke wrote:8% economic growth is very impressive. I guess the chinese & indian promised to buy a lot of their oil. It looks like even our government will give these sanctions the middle finger and continue with our normal purchases

The Chinese entered into long-term oil supply contracts with Iran several years ago. And yes, it's very good business, it helps drive that 8 per cent economic growth you mention, which beats the hell out of anything happening in the West.

Indeed and India buys a lot of oil as well, and considering it's got a large population...India will find ways to work around any laws to buy Iranian oil.

If you think about it, sidelining Iran actually negatively affects China, Russia, and India, three great powers. I'd factor this into the equation when it comes to America's interest in antagonizing Iran. It makes sense.

What happening right now is that Iran is going to sell oil to china & india and potentially several other countries in asia at discounted rate using the Yuan as the currency.

at the same time the IMF believes that the brent will shoot up to 140. it's pretty clear to me that the winners will be russia, china & india. The looser will be the EU who will be forced into buying overpriced oil from russia

oh look, its the justification the US and its bitch UK used to start a war in Iraq happening all over again

and people fall for this shit hook line and sinker

Its the 2002-2003 winter all over again...

Sa, a fundamentalist, undemocratic regime with local power aspirations is perfectly justified to develop nukes, and the rest of the world should just look on? Not that I think that an invasion is feasible, or even on the map for the US.

Varangian wrote:Sa, a fundamentalist, undemocratic regime with local power aspirations is perfectly justified to develop nukes, and the rest of the world should just look on? Not that I think that an invasion is feasible, or even on the map for the US.

Iran isn't some banana republic run by a tin pot dictator. If we can expect uncle sam not to go trigger crazy with his nukes, then we can certainly expect the same from Iran.

I'm not sure what the agitation is all about. I realize Nelson Mandela was a prisoner of war, falsely imprisoned for protesting the government, but he was never a terrorist by any stretch of the imagination. His wife Winnie became a terrorist while her husband was imprisoned for decades, but when he got out, he quickly divorced her.

There's a bunch of us who are at odds with our past stupid presidents. We're called liberal Democrats.

Varangian wrote:Sa, a fundamentalist, undemocratic regime with local power aspirations is perfectly justified to develop nukes, and the rest of the world should just look on? Not that I think that an invasion is feasible, or even on the map for the US.

Sovereignty is sovereignty, dude. It's up to the Iranians to change their form of governance, nobody else.

And since Israel has nuclear weapons (by the dozens) and represents a threatening force to Iran, we shouldn't be too surprised that Iran wishes to have nukes too, as a means of countering the Israeli threat.

I don't know that anyone's saying this is "justified," any more than they're saying that Israel is justified in having nukes. It's just what we can expect from the situation.

The rest of the world just "looked on" when Pakistan developed nukes, and it's hardly a democratic state.

I'd like to hear a further explanation of what you mean by "local power aspirations" on the part of Iran and any case you might make about this being a matter of fact.

I thought the problem wasn't so much of Iran having nukes (as a deterrant) due to them fully realising they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they do anything real with them, but rather the ties they have with Hezbollah and the possibility of the latter group attaining a few nukes through their friendliness.
I'd much sooner trust Iran with the bomb than I would Hezbollah.

quixotecoyote wrote:

Mononoke wrote:

Varangian wrote:Sa, a fundamentalist, undemocratic regime with local power aspirations is perfectly justified to develop nukes, and the rest of the world should just look on? Not that I think that an invasion is feasible, or even on the map for the US.

Iran isn't some banana republic run by a tin pot dictator. If we can expect uncle sam not to go trigger crazy with his nukes, then we can certainly expect the same from Iran.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't expect Iran to go crazy with it's nukes.

I expect it to use it's nukes as cover under which to do higher levels of the same crap it's doing now. I'd prefer a less influential Iran to a more influential Iran (because it's run by fucking nutballs who make Bush look as left as Chomsky in comparison), and nukes make it much more influential.

Lol. Iran has messed with the rest of the world far less than America & western europe. As someone living outside of America & the EU i gladly welcome Iran getting nukes and becoming more influential.