The Iran Crisis and the Korea Effect

Sorry about the delay. I couldn't access my blog for a few days there. Some of you have read this as I posted it elsewhere today.

Anyone who thinks that the actions of Iran in its enrichment of uranium are random or uncalculated could use a good head soak.
Iran's defiance of the UN and the US, as well as Europe and Russia, are a clear and calculated stalling tactic meant to hold things off long enough to actually develop a nuclear bomb, with which it can hold the world politically hostage.
I'm not saying they even intend to actually USE a bomb, but they want the bomb because it comes with political currency.
Were you the leader of Iran, you'd do it as well.
Look at the examples we have to go by. In recent history, Pakistan, India and North Korea have all developed nuclear weapons despite clear restrictions against nuclear proliferation.
How many punative measures have been taken against them?
How many airstrikes on their arsenals?
How many sanctions?
Instead, Pakistan got to buddy up to the US, despite being a dictatorship that is at times oppressive and being the country most likely to be harboring (however unwillingly) the most wanted man on planet earth. India got a nice fat nuclear power deal. And North Korea refuses to deal unless somebody can put something nice and juicy in the hand it's got out.
The one country that demured and actually did NOT have them, got invaded.
So, from Tehran's perspective: Have nuclear weapons, get cool stuff for free. Don't have nuclear weapons, get the 3rd tear-assing across your territory in tanks, kicking the ever-lovin' snot out of you.

Hrmmm....decisions, decisions.......

Is it really that hard to see why Tehran has chosen the path it has chosen?
If you were them, would you do any different?
It's not that I trust them with a nuke...oh hells no. I don't trust ANY nation in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, and that goes for Israel too.
It must be the heat or something, but rationality and peace doesn't seem to enter into the local politics.

But you can't, from a tactical perspective, blame Tehran for wanting the bomb. Where's the penalty, historically, for having nuclear arms?
Name a country whose development of nuclear weaponry got them shafted by the international community....
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I'll give you some time....
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Yeah. Not a single one. The only country that HAD nuclear weapons and gave them up was South Africa. And it wasn't really threatened over it by the international community.

Now, look at how America handles its non-nuclear enemies...such as Afghanistan, home of the Taliban and Al Queda, and Iraq. Neither had nukes, both got invaded.

The irony is that all the country's trying to urge Iran away from nukes, the U.S., France, Russia, and China, all HAVE THEM.
Now, I want you to think about this. You're going to build a gun. In a neighborhood of about 100 folks, only 10 of the others have guns. One has just mugged two of your closest neighbors who didn't have guns. Now, the neighbors who have guns are telling you that you should not build one. That it would be bad for you to have one.

Isn't that like when you were a kid and your friend had an ice cream cone, and saw you staring, and said: "Oh! You don't want THIS ice cream! It's sooo yucky! *slurp, slurp* MMMmmmm, absolutely horrible! Hey! Don't even THINK about stopping that ice cream truck! *slurp*"

Iran knows the U.S. is spread thin and that the public has no will to go to war over this. We'll be very suspicious of any attempt to invade YET ANOTHER middle eastern country rumored to have, or be working on, WMDs. In the words of our own president, "Fool me once...shame on you...fool me twice....but fool me can't get fooled again!"

Who Iran should have to worry about is Israel, but Israel giving an islamic middle eastern country the smackdown right after a Hamas political victory in the occupied territories, and after the US and Europe have decided to try to starve Hamas out by cutting off aid until it complies is not like throwing a match into the powderkeg, but like lighting your head on fire and trying to use the powderkeg to douse it.

This is a lose/lose situation. Because Iran isn't the most stable and secure country. It's bad enough that Pakistan and North Korea have nukes. Those places aren't paragons of stability, and our good friend Pakistan has already shown itself to not quite having stellar security over its nuclear secrets.
But nothing short of an outright attack is going to stop them from building a nuke, I believe, and the consequences of that may be as bad as them being armed.
It is another example of the failed policies of this adminstration on the foreign front and how we'll be reaping the costs for a long time to come.
Had we focused on al queda until we caught bin Laden and used more sense when dealing with Iraq, we'd have been in a better position to, let's be honest, bully North Korea away from its nuclear program, which in turn would have set a different benchmark. Were our armies not tied up in Iraq, and if bin Laden were in chains or a shallow grave that marines were using as a latrine, where he should be, the threat of force would be more potent against North Korea.
The last thing China wants to see is the US heading into NK. They'd have put the REAL pressure necessary to force NK to back off. Then the record would be: unarmed country, not attacked. Armed country, scared off by world powers. And Tehran would have had an entirely different playbook.