Iran Is Not Recalcitrant

Even if Iran were secretly trying to develop the bomb, they would be acquiring it for defense. To fear they would drop it on Israel is to think the Iranians are less rational than even the North Koreans. The most they could do is threaten their non-nuclear neighbors, but even that's unlikely, with the US threatening them if they try. Meanwhile, Israel has several hundred bombs and the missiles and bombers to deliver them.

Even if the Iranians built the bomb, it would be for defense: to prevent the US from trying to force "regime change."

But it's pretty much agreed, by the world's best intelligence agencies, the American and Israeli, that Iran abandoned nuclear weapon development in 2004, and hasn't decided whether to resume it. On the other hand, many analysts believe that Iran has the technological and knowledge capability to build a nuclear weapon, and one of the policy points of contention was that very word, 'capability.' If Iran is to be denied nuclear 'capability,' then there are already grounds for attacking it--and scores of other countries.

What is almost never admitted is this: Iran, as a member of the IAEA, has the international treaty right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, as long as it allows inspections to insure that's what it's doing. Enriching uranium to 20% is for medical use, and as someone with prostate cancer treated by radiation, I believe modern nations should be able to supply their own, and Iran is modernizing.

It is possible that a gold bug's theory, explains why the US is acting this way. Iran has been leading an international movement away from the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. If the movement prevails (it will, eventually, even without Iran), the US would owe debt it couldn't pay, and its strength would be checkmated, because it couldn't credibly borrow the huge sums we now depend on monthly, especially to finance our imperial military.

So, the pressure against Iran may not be what it seems. The conflict isn't really about a few nuclear bombs that do not exist. It's about whether the US remains a viable economic superpower.

It is clear that Iran's leaders don't like us, but then we've been helping Israel and the MEK covertly attack the regime for years. Iran's promotion of a post-dollar international economy fits in with their hostility--and with their experience of the US as a malign international entity, consistently hostile--even when the Iranian regime was more liberal, and inclined to view reconciliation favorably.

Iran is 3.7 times larger than Iraq territorially, is 2.3 times larger in population, and has an effective government not based on one dictator. If bluff and sanctions don't work, war with Iran could be the straw that broke the American camel's back: it could bankrupt the US empire; we'd be facing a replay of Rome's fall in 476.