Of Oil, Weapons and bad interpreters
Iran has been in the news a lot recently for breaking the seals at its nuclear ( or "nucular" if you're from Texas) plants and also for its mad president. Of course, the president isn't really the major playa in Iran since everything has to be cleared with the Ayatollah. But, the debate has certainly been interesting and, in some cases absolutely hysterical. Take this story, for example about CNN being banned from Iran because of a faulty translation. The Mad President said that Iran has a right to nuclear energy, but this was incorrectly translated and broadcast on CNN as "Iran has the right to nuclear weapons" - oops! Maybe we now have the secret of the American "intelligence" mistakes re Iraq et al. Imagine in Feb/March 2002 a CIA operativein the White House: "Sir, I just overheard an Iraqi taxi driver who rolled down the window and asked someone about the weapons of mass destruction!", except later it transpires that the guy merely said in a thick Iraqi accent "We must ask for diretions" - and so it goes on. Similarly with sale of yellow Uranium Cake in Niger, which was clearly really an attempted sale of black market urinal cakes...
The thing about AhMADinejad is that some of what he says is really quite compelling. Of course, objectively speaking, Iran should be able to develop nuclear energy. I'd even go so far as to say that they should not be hampered in their development of nuclear weapons, if only because it seems so hypocritical to deny them. In the depths of the cold war, US and Russia had a MAD policy - Mutually assured destruction, which ensured that neither one would use a nuclear weapon on the other. It works for India and Pakistan today. I also seem to remember Reagan talking about the Soviets as an "evil empire" which just goes to show that the US President's speech writers haven't really got better over the past 25 years. If they could pursue this MAD policy with Russia, why shouldn't it work with Iran? Plus, Iran is surrounded by or very near to Pakistan (Nuclear), Israel (nuclear), India (nuclear), Iraq (occupied by US (nuclear) and UK (nuclear) and Turkey (bird flu). Alright, I'm not entirely sure how nuclear energy/weapons would innoculate Iranians from bird flu, but that threat is there, especially given how much chicken Iranians eat - being married to one, I should know...
The thing about AhMADinejad is that some of what he says is really quite compelling. Of course, objectively speaking, Iran should be able to develop nuclear energy. I'd even go so far as to say that they should not be hampered in their development of nuclear weapons, if only because it seems so hypocritical to deny them. In the depths of the cold war, US and Russia had a MAD policy - Mutually assured destruction, which ensured that neither one would use a nuclear weapon on the other. It works for India and Pakistan today. I also seem to remember Reagan talking about the Soviets as an "evil empire" which just goes to show that the US President's speech writers haven't really got better over the past 25 years. If they could pursue this MAD policy with Russia, why shouldn't it work with Iran? Plus, Iran is surrounded by or very near to Pakistan (Nuclear), Israel (nuclear), India (nuclear), Iraq (occupied by US (nuclear) and UK (nuclear) and Turkey (bird flu). Alright, I'm not entirely sure how nuclear energy/weapons would innoculate Iranians from bird flu, but that threat is there, especially given how much chicken Iranians eat - being married to one, I should know...
posted by Akash at 11:42 AM
1 Comments:
actually, I think that Pakistan has a first strike policy against India in that if India attacks with conventional weapons Pakistan has said it would be forced to use its nuclear arsenal in retaliation. Maybe this has changed since warming of relations and the institution of bus lines after bus lines between India and Pakistan.
Incidentally, on the issue of bird flu, it is ridiculous that the international community has pledged some 2.4 billion USD to combat a potential pandemic (the science is still not conclusive as to whether it can be transferred from human to human)when such funds could be better used in the fight aganst aids or cancer.
The mis-translation point is very interesting - the issue arguably proved to be a decisive factor in the US and UK's decision not to seek a second UN resolution on Iraq in March 2003 after it was mistakenly translated that Jacques Chirac said on French TV that he would use France's power of veto on any resolution recommending military action. He did say so, but only if a resolution was to be tabled at the time of his interview - it was not intended to be a final position. The US and UK interpreted (or rather twisted his words) otherwise and the rest is history.
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