The Tehran Times, the source of all sorts of comical gems, reports:
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani told Reuters in an interview on Sunday Tehran would accelerate its nuclear program if the United States or Israel attacked its atomic facilities.
To steal a line from Beverly Hills Cop villain Victor Maitland, “that would be a neat trick.” I don’t know what kind of countries Iran normally tussles with, but if we attack Iran, it’ll be to take out those atomic facilities first. If the United States (or Israel, which would definitely and gleefully bring hellfire to the Iranians if they got the chance) attacks Iran, there’s not going to be any nuclear program left to accelerate. The lunacy continues:
Rowhani also told Reuters there was nothing the West could offer Tehran that would persuade it to scrap a nuclear program which Washington fears may be used to make bombs.
Does Iran really want to dig its heels in here? President Bush made Saddam Hussein an “offer” in early 2003. Hussein turned it down, and he’s now hidden in a top secret United States cell after a nice stint in a spider hole. If the West “offers” Iran the choice between stopping its atomic program and getting the Iraq Special, will the mullahs be ready to acquiesce? Does Iran realize that this sort of tough talk won’t work on the United States? While many countries in the world (Europe) go for appeasement in situations like this, Americans are only emboldened by external threats.
Rowhani: The basis for America’s dealing with Iran was threats … But at the same time, we are in talks with the Europeans and we hope the Americans, by pressuring the Europeans, are not going to destroy the talks and cause their failure.
Read: We’ve tricked the Euros into a standstill with all of this talk. We know they won’t ever really do anything to us, so we’re trying to broker some sort of sweetheart deal where we claim to be sensitive to their concerns and give them some concessions. We’ll then ignore all the concessions and continue on our merry way. We hope that the United States doesn’t take us to account and screw everything up by toppling our regime.
Iran has promised military retaliation as well as an acceleration of its nuclear “fuel” program if the United States attacks them. My question is this: Why would Iran threaten to finish its nuclear program if it was only for energy purposes? Isn’t the real threat here “if you attack us, we guarantee we’ll build the bomb“? Perhaps Iran thinks these statements will help it in some way, but I don’t see this as a good play at all. But, maybe Iran thinks we’re all talk…
Americans mostly chant slogans and think that they can scare us by such slogans.
Americans were last seen chanting slogans in Baghdad as a statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled to the ground.
Nathan Novak at 11:16 am
Brilliant analysis with nice humor. Anyone who quotes Beverly Hills Cop is okay with me. I can see Sean saying Maitland’s line, “That would be a nice trick.”
Comment by The Other Ref — February 7, 2005 @ 11:24 am
Oops, I meant “that would be a NEAT trick!” oy.
Comment by The Other Ref — February 7, 2005 @ 11:37 am
Since we have Condy Rice in there now, there will be no problems. She just has to remember, when she put’s her Bush hand puppet on her right hand that she put’s her V.P. poster up in the background…
Comment by Anonymous — February 7, 2005 @ 4:59 pm
A nuclear Iran is not the problem
Guardian, UK - Feb 6, 2005
Comment by max — February 7, 2005 @ 8:25 pm