The NYT was also complicit in the propaganda run-up for selling the ill-conceived attack and invasion on Iraq.
The author of the NYT article, John Bolton, is a card carrying neoconservative - a group that I think is motivated both by war profiteering and flawed ideology.
The war mongers never go back and look at the history of bad outcomes from US interventions in other countries (e.g., overthrowing the popular democratically elected leader of Iran in the 1950s, what we did in Guatemala, etc.)
Why is it okay to sit back and do nothing as Iran builds nuclear capability while shouting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America?" Why is it okay to sit back as Iran forces other regional powers such as Saudi Arabia to restart their own nuclear programs?
Iran's leadership is under the grip of a expansionistic, fundamentalist religious ideology. If nothing changes, this could result in a nuclear war within the next fifteen years.
> Fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon predates Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution
> 1984: ... US Senator Alan Cranston claims Iran is seven years away from making a weapon.
> 1992: Israeli parliamentarian Benjamin Netanyahu tells his colleagues that Iran is 3 to 5 years from being able to produce a nuclear weapon – and that the threat had to be "uprooted by an international front headed by the US."
> 1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tells French TV that Iran was set to have nuclear warheads by 1999. "Iran is the greatest threat and greatest problem in the Middle East," Peres warned, "because it seeks the nuclear option while holding a highly dangerous stance of extreme religious militanCY."
> in early 1992 a task force of the House Republican Research Committee claimed that there was a "98 percent certainty that Iran already had all (or virtually all) of the components required for two or three operational nuclear weapons."
> 1997: The Christian Science Monitor reports that US pressure on Iran's nuclear suppliers had "forced Iran to adjust its suspected timetable for a bomb. Experts now say Iran is unlikely to acquire nuclear weapons for eight or 10 years."
> 1998: The same week, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reports to Congress that Iran could build an intercontinental ballistic missile – one that could hit the US – within five years. The CIA gave a timeframe of 12 years.
> 2007: A month later, an unclassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran is released, which controversially judges with "high confidence" that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons effort in fall 2003.
> June 2008: Then-US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton predicts that Israel will attack Iran before January 2009, taking advantage of a window before the next US president came to office.
(Bolton is the author of this op-ed piece. He was wrong then. Why should I believe he's right now?)
> May 2009: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee reports states: "There is no sign that Iran's leaders have ordered up a bomb."
...
Despite decades of warnings of nuclear war within the next decade or so, the response so far has not been to bomb Iran. What's different now that we need to bomb them, that we didn't need to do so a decade ago?
I also see plenty of evidence that there are more than the two options of "war with Iran" and "ignore Iran completely." Few say that we should sit back and do nothing at all.
After reading through these, I am comfortable in sweeping aside your argument. Time and time again, North Korea claimed it was pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. In every negotiation they stalled for more time, more money and more food, until one day when they tested their first bomb. Sure, that one fizzled out, but it wasn't that long until they tested another another, which worked, and that was followed by another. With each test they have grown in capability, and now they openly admit that their reactors are operating to build nuclear weapons.
North Korea is widely acknowledged to be one of the world's poorest, most isolated and backward countries. If they can get the bomb, Iran can do it too, and faster.
I asked what changed with respect to Iran, such that bombing the country is appropriate now when it wasn't appropriate earlier, despite warnings earlier that they would be able to produce a bomb within 10-15 years.
Your answer is to point to North Korea. However, in the NYT timeline you pointed to:
> 1994: North Korea Quits Atomic Agency
> 2002: Confronted by Bush administration officials with evidence that it had cheated on the 1994 agreement, North Korea admits that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear program using enriched uranium.
> 2006: First Nuclear Test
Unlike what you implied ("[NK] claimed it was pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes ... until one day when they tested their first bomb"), the NYT says NK said they were pursuing a weapons program at least three years before they did their first tests.
Similarly, if you're going to make comparisons, I can point to reports about the nuclear and biological weapons capabilities in Iraq, including the aluminum tubes supposedly only used to enrich uranium, or the "significant quantities of uranium from Africa" that Iraq supposedly bought, or how Iraq needed only "45 minutes" in order to prepare its chemical weapons. All of which turned out to be false, but which were used to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Why is North Korea a better comparison than Iraq, enough to "sweep aside" any objection of mine?
Everything you have said about Iran was true 10 and 20 years ago. What has changed to warrant bombing now, that wasn't true then?
such that bombing the country is appropriate now when it wasn't appropriate earlier
Isn't this a bit presumptuous? Dealing with rogue nuclear programs are a bit like dealing with cancer - if you start surgery earlier, your odds of success are greater.
We've been giving Iran a pass on terror for decades. For example, in 1983, Iran bombed a Marine Corps base in Beirut, killing 241 marines, 58 French paratroopers, as well as 6 civilians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing
Like I said, in the 1980s people said that Iran was only a few years away from a nuclear bomb.
In the 1990s, people said that Iran was only a few years away from a bomb.
Why should I believe you that they are closer now, when all those previous predictions have proven false?
The premise behind the nuclear non-proliferation treaties is that it's possible for a country to developer nuclear power and nuclear medicine facilities without being on the path to nuclear weapons. The inspection regime under those treaties has (as you and others say) failed with Iran.
If what you are saying is true, then the NPT has failed. Inspections are insufficient to provide oversight. Why and how have they failed? Are there any other countries which have circumvented those inspections under the NPT?
And as for "rogue nuclear programs", I am not confident that there is a nuclear weapons program in Iran. The information I've read sounds like it's the same quality of information that lead people to say that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.
But even so, let's look at other "rogue programs" and see if they have gone cancerous. (Mind you, some cancers are benign, so your analogy isn't that good to start with.) Apartheid-era South Africa developed its nuclear technology in secret. We didn't bomb them. They dismantled their program, and became signatories of the NPT.
Israel is suspected to have nuclear weapons, and is certainly capable of developing them. It has an official policy of being ambiguous. It's believed they contributed weapons development information to South Africa. Do you call that program a "cancer" that needs to be excised? BTW, Israel is not a party to the NPT.
NBC reported that Israel funded the M.E.K - designated a terrorist group by the United States - to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/isr... . How much state sponsored terrorism is acceptable before a country goes rogue? (And if MEK pays off enough US Members of Congress, can they be removed from the list?)
The Soviet Union had a whole lot of nuclear weapons and were state sponsors of terrorism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism#Sovie... . Why weren't they "rogue"? (If they were rogue, why didn't we bomb them? Oh, right - because they could hurt us back. That's also why we don't bomb North Korea; they have a lot of weapons pointed at South Korea. We prefer to bomb or invade those countries that don't have their knife on someone 's throat. Which gives perverse incentive for a country to develop nuclear weapons, if they don't want to be under the thumb of the US.)
Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_te... . They have nuclear weapons and are not signatory to the NPT. They used to be on the US 'list of countries which repeatedly provide support for acts of international terrorism' until we needed them to fight the War on Terror, when they conveniently became good guys. It's reported that North Korea bribed top military officials in Pakistan to get access to nuclear weapons information: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pakist...
Pakistan has a rogue nuclear weapons program, is a state sponsor of regional terrorism, and doesn't protect its secrets that well. Why don't we bomb them?
Based on this, it appears that all Iran needs to do is fall in line with the US military interests and it will no longer be rogue. Is that right? If not, what does Iran need to do to have a non-rogue nuclear program, in the same way that Pakistan does not have a 'rogue nuclear program' that justifies bombing?
"Iran's terrorist activities" is besides the point. The question is if they have a nuclear weapons program.
Famously, chemical weapons weren't used in WWII, but heavily used in WWI. It is possible to be the harshest of enemies, at active war with them, and still think that some weapons are outside the pale.
The author of the NYT article, John Bolton, is a card carrying neoconservative - a group that I think is motivated both by war profiteering and flawed ideology.
The war mongers never go back and look at the history of bad outcomes from US interventions in other countries (e.g., overthrowing the popular democratically elected leader of Iran in the 1950s, what we did in Guatemala, etc.)