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An Inside Look At Iran's Nuclear Program
Posted by
timothy
on Sat May 03, 2008 05:39 PM
from the glowing-reviews dept.
from the glowing-reviews dept.
NotBornYesterday writes "On April 8, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited his country's secretive nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz for a photo op. What came out of this visit is a series of photos which have caused a fair amount of interest among western scientists. Shown in the photos are not only some of the inner workings of the plant and current generation of enrichment centrifuges, but also key components to newer generations of more effective centrifuges. Analysts are 'intrigued' not only by the technical revelations in the pictures, but also because Iran's Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar accompanied Ahmadinejad through the facility."
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Here the propaganda machine starts again (Score:4, Insightful)
Way before the invasion of iraq we heard alot of how bad iraq was with their WMD:s and their connections to terrorism. And now what? No WMD:s no connection what so ever to al'quaida and what is the answer now? It was to bring democracy to Iraq.
And now it's irans turn, well you know what; this is a war that america can't afford. The dollar isn't worth salt so just turn the fucking propaganda machine of again.
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Way before the invasion of iraq we heard alot of how bad iraq was with their WMD:s and their connections to terrorism. And now what? No WMD:s no connection what so ever to al'quaida and what is the answer now? It was to bring democracy to Iraq.
Hussein was bragging he had WMDs in order to stave off an invasion by Iran. Unfortunately his bragging was picked up by U.S. intelligent forces which of course assumed he wasn't bluffing. Since he was bluffing it explains why we didn't find WMDs in Iraq. Hussein's attempt at protecting his country from Iran backfired on him. And since this submission happens to also be talking about Iran and its progress dealing with their nuclear program it seems that Hussein's idea of touting his arsenal's power wasn't
Re:Here the propaganda machine starts again (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As for bringing the defense minister along, well, what's strange about the defense minister inspec
Re:Here the propaganda machine starts again (Score:5, Insightful)
And the "wiped from the map" quote is, at best, a disputed translation of Ahmedinejad misquoting a statement their Supreme Leader made about the Israeli government, and at worst it's just a bunch of random empty threats. We'd waste less of our time taking Chinese seriously when they claim all sorts of land as their own - they have a history of actually sending their army out to secure the claim.
And as far as the Hitler comment goes...come on. Show me where he's trying to usurp control of Iran for his own nefarious purposes. You don't honestly belive that he, and Khamene'i, and the councils that have some power over them, and all their advisors and assistants are all in it to blow up Jerusalem (which is actually holy to them) and then promptly die, do you? Not only that, but that they've somehow kept this a secret fom all the beurocrats that they employ to do their bidding, who would expose them in an instant if they were actually planning on getting Iran depopulated - let alone the Iranian people, who would certainly revolt if they seriously believed their leaders were out to get them killed.
All I see is a politician dancing for the cameras, trying to draw people's attention away from the fact that since their government directly controls something like half of that nation's economy (in addition to the usual stuff like education and the justice system and basic infrastructure), it is directly responsible for a huge portion of whatever domestic problems they may be having right now.
No. The nation-sized suicide bombing is top-grade bullshit. If they're building nukes they'll be using them the same way all the other countries that have nukes use theirs - as a cheap way to guarantee that nobody ever invades your territory to take your land.
Parent
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Re:Here the propaganda machine starts again (Score:5, Funny)
Nyah, nyah!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When Americans talk about freedom, how can anyone listen, without breaking a sad smile?
Americans are unfortunate, for the populace has no control of its government or its destiny. It rests almost entirely in the hands of the financiers and moguls on Wall Street whose marching step follows a beat that most Americans are unaware of.
There is no congruity between the stated reasons for America's foreign policy and the facts as they stand.
There is no doubt in my mind that America will attack Iran, even though Iran poses no threat to any American citizen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
OH BULLSHIT! sure america isn't perfect, but it's legal to beat your wife if she "dishonors" you in iran. which society do you think is more moral?
your just another mindless sheep following the let's hate america because it's cool crowd.
Re:Here the propaganda machine starts again (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think your other claims can be tested against data.
Parent
Re:Here the propaganda machine starts again (Score:4, Informative)
2. going to war to secure oil and give friendly companies contracts in iraq. that is not democracy, it's imperialism and crime.
3. enron. morgages. health insurance. education. environment. bush.
everybody makes mistakes and nobody is perfect, so that is ok, but some modesty would be in order. you're not alone in this world, so please open your eyes and stop behaving that way.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113000912.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/042000-01.htm [commondreams.org]
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/29/america/29prison.php [iht.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/22/us/20080423_PRISON_GRAPHIC.html [nytimes.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=2 [nytimes.com]
http://www.jbs.org/n [jbs.org]
Re:Here the propaganda machine starts again (Score:5, Insightful)
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Threat? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is nothing the IAEA hasn't seen already (Score:5, Insightful)
Iran is not in violation of the NPT, but the major nuclear powers are, since they have not disarmed and have no intention of doing so. In fact new nuclear weapons systems are being developed right now. Why then does the media not focus on the NPT violations of the big 5? Perhaps people feel the big 5 are so responsible that it's ok for them to posses them, but frankly the historical record does not back that up. Hiroshima and Nagasaki aside, Richard Nixon is on tape suggesting a nuclear strike on North Vietnam and before the Iraq war, UK Minister of Defence Geoff Hoon threatened Iraq with a nuclear strike (crazy I know).
The big 5 want to maintain a permanent nuclear apartheid whereby they keep their weapons (and threaten others with them, explicitly or implicitly) while preventing any other country from developing them. It's not a sustainable situation. You can't wave your gun about and then expect everybody else to refrain from acquiring guns of their own. It is the major powers themselves that are putting us all in a huge amount of long term danger due to their failure to disarm. That should be the real focus of media attention.
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Please spare me your diatribe about the Shah and SAVAK -- compared to the Mullahs of today many Iranians were better off during the Shah's reign than today.
I'm sure many Iranians got rich while the Shah was in power, but thousands of others were tortured and murdered by the SAVAK, an organisation trained and supported by the CIA and designed to curb dissent and keep the unpopular Shah in power. Iran might still have a parliamentary democracy now if we hadn't wrecked the one they had back in 1953 when we installed the Shah to regain control of the oil (which Mossadegh mistakenly believed belonged to Iran). After the revolution, the Iranians might not have g
Re:This is nothing the IAEA hasn't seen already (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, but they were even better off under Mosadegh. You know, the popularly elected guy that the CIA removed from power because he had the gall to nationalize Iran's oil for the benefit of his people? The Mullahs of today could never have gotten the popular support of the Iranian people to overthrow him or more democratic people that could have followed.
The revolution and rise of the Mullahs can be traced almost directly to the removal of Mosadegh and the installation of the Shaw. The CIA even acknowledges this and applied the term "blow-back" to how badly the situation went.
So yeah, the Mullahs are bad, but most of the blame for them even being in power lies with the US. Imagine... we could have had that "model of democracy" in the Middle East had we supported Mosadegh rather than deposing him. Sure, just like any other sovereign country, there would be no guarantee that they would have "done our will", but frankly, I would rather have had Iran as a democratic ally rather than a theocratic enemy.
I wonder what nuking Iran would do for all the extremist among the Muslims out there who'd like to have an example of the US being an imperialist aggressor in the Muslim world. I suspect they'd be thrilled that we made their case for them.
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Double standards (Score:5, Insightful)
When other nuclear powers (lead by a country where its own president can't even pronounce the word nuclear properly) get in the way of this process it sends a clear message to other countries that are signatories of the NPT they it may not be as easy as they think to develop peaceful nuclear technologies within their own countries. As a result black-markets start popping up making ratifying the NPT all that more difficult.
If the US and UK just abide by the terms of the NPT then the majority of problems they are now seeing will all but disappear.
Ok, let's get this straight (Score:5, Interesting)
Umm... am I the only one that wonders about the only question worth asking? I.e. why?
He is not dumb. Doing a tour to an uranium enrichment plan with your minister of defense and going public about it is not really what you do if you have a nuke program running and want to keep it secret. The very first reaction is, well, the reaction it caused. That's a no brainer. So the only logic conclusion is that this reaction was wanted.
And that again starts another round of asking why.
There are now two possible reasons. First, there is a nuke program and they are trying to create some sort of deterrent for an immediate strike, to show that they are able to retaliate. Second, there is no nuke program, but they want everyone to think there is one. Now, there is no strike planned (at least none that I know of), so the first reason makes little sense.
The second starts another round of why.
Personally, I could see a plan. The US will start a new ralley for nuke inspections in Iran, finally Iran will grudgingly agree, they will poke and prod and find nothing, and Iran can do another finger pointing at the US as some aggressor, which only thinks the worst of any country they can't control, discredit the US internationally.
And then start a nuke program. Who'd call for inspections?
The power of public relations (Score:3, Informative)
I believe they are taking a page out of the N. Korean playbook, taunting the world with images and tests, and then laughing when the world, particularly the US, can do nothing about it. Of course nothing can be done about it because they probably do have something, and any force would be risky. Compare this to Iraq where there was little risk as iRaq has little, and unlike the some other countries in the region, apparently had relatively little influence in global events.
Of course if the US like, like the British empire in it's waning day, had not deployed it's forces so willy nilly, and has not spent itself to the brink of bankruptcy, there might be something we could do with Iran and N. Korea. As it is we can't even take care of the real and present threat, Afghanistan and Pakistan, so little else matters.
In the end though I think it is just PR. Just because you have the toys does not mean you know how to use them. And, unlike the end of WWII, two or three big bombs, with threats of more to follow, it not enough to win a confrontation. In any case, one can hardly argue that fanatical religious states with nuclear weapons are inherently dangerous. Israel, which ranks very low in freedoms granted by the modern state, and appears to be controlled by fundamentalism as any country in the region, has had nuclear weapons for years with little negatve effect.
Iran : Crazy Conspiracy Theory (Score:4, Interesting)
Motive
1. Geopolitically, US foreign policy is to create regional checks around the globe so that she can use her weight so swing a balance of power one way or the other but without having to be overtly committed. A strong Iran creates enormous problems for Russia and China both. China has no domestic oil whatsoever, and Russia is well within range of Iranian missiles.
2. Money. We often talk about the US petrodollar as a product of Saudi Arabia, but what's often overlooked is that the USA still possesses a fairly sizable proved reserve of oil in her own right. In essence, the dollar is not just backed by US influence in the middle east but also by the USA's own oil reserves. Yes, the USA does not pump enough of its own oil, but, if we were to throw the environment into the dumper, we could drill Alaska, drill offshore, grind up all the shale in Colorado, convert to coal to liquids, drill the Bakken, and we'd wind up with trillions of barrels of the stuff. So, in the long run, high oil prices benefit the United States, because ultimately, the USA has that money in the bank. Let's put it this way: ANWR alone is worth a trillion dollars.
Supporting Evidence
1. Whose benefited. Everything the Bush Administration has done has benefited Iran from a security perspective. The Iranian foreign minister even pointed this out on NPR. Bush knocked off Iraq and Afghanistan both, and neither regime supported the USA. On the flipside, the high oil prices that exist partially because of the war in Iraq and the bellicosity with Iran actually are proving to be lucrative for nearly every traditionally Republican constituency. Oil men, miners, agribusiness, chemical, even US manufacturers have all benefited from rising oil prices and a devalued dollar. If Iran and the USA are enemies, both sides are laughing all the way to the bank.
2. History. Republicans, in particular, despite their bellicosity with Iran, have a long and fabled history of actually dealing with the Iran in pragmatic terms "behind the scenes". Ronald Reagan was nearly brought down because of a complicated deal which actually saw the USA supply weapons to Iran during the Iran - Iraq war. I mean, while Democrats talked rapproachment with Iran, Republicans were already making deals with them and hiding it.
Later on, administration officials from both Reagan and Bush I would both admit that they did, in fact, have a back door in communications to Iran. It's reasonable to think that a Dick Cheney who was an integral part of all of those administrations might actually have a back door to Iran himself. We do know, right away, that the government we work with in Iraq travels to Iran rather frequently. It's almost inconceivable that the USA would not be using the Iraqi leadership as the most covert sort of conduit.
3. Careful rules of engagement. The USA rightfully complains about the Iranians funding and helping anti-American insurgents in Iraq, but at the same time, the USA is also helping anti-Iranian insurgents in Iran. This is a sort of a standoff. Despite proclamations against Iranian leadership, the Administration has bent out of its way to say, for the most part, that Iranian leaders are not directly implicated in this and they actually might not be.
4. A total pass on WMD proves cooperation. The USA had absolutely no problem launching a unilateral war on Iraq because of WMD that didn't even exist, but Iran has 9000 centrifuges spinning and there's not been a shot fired. Even the claim that the Iraqi invasion has weakened the USA abilities to conduct airstrikes doesn't wash. The Navy and Air Force are certainly not tied down. The USA has, since the invasion of Iraq, conducted airstrikes in Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan... rumoured to have conducted airstrikes in Oma
Re:Bomb, bomb Iran, bomb, bomb Iran! (Score:4, Insightful)
We have a choice:
Risk the death of 100,000 people and do nothing.
Ensure the death of 100,000 people and bomb Iran.
You morons!
Parent
Re:Bomb, bomb Iran, bomb, bomb Iran! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Bomb, bomb Iran, bomb, bomb Iran! (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember, before you answer : violence only creates more violence. You obviously know the police will use violence against me.
So
Peace man. Where do you live ? Is your daughter pretty ?
(this post is fiction, obviously, and only meant to illustrate the utter stupidity of this fake "pacifism", the fake "salvation" that non-violence supposedly provides).
Violence against Iran may prove to be a VERY good idea, it may prove to be a very bad idea. We don't know.
One thing is for sure however, Iran is using heavy water reactors, less efficient and more complex than light-water reactors. They make this uneconomical decision for a reason
Do they want bombs for defense ? Why don't you answer this question for yourself. Is it reasonable to assume they need deterrence ? Or do they want to attack ? (little detail : like they've done before, with MASSIVE casualties, they lost 500.000 people, most of them children in an attempt to expand into Iraq)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You daughter gets raped and murdered. The crime gets reported. The person who is suspected of doing the crime lives in a run down apartment building that everyone knows houses nothing but criminals. Instead of arresting the suspect at work (imagine they know where he works, and no he hasn't ducked out) they decide instead to organize a SWAT rai
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Re:Bomb, bomb Iran, bomb, bomb Iran! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why doesn't Iran openly admit to weapons program? (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be much easier to believe the nukes are only for deterrence, that the silly stories currently used to justify the nuclear program.
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Re:Why doesn't Iran openly admit to weapons progra (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Why doesn't Iran openly admit to weapons progra (Score:5, Informative)
No, Kuwait would have gotten nuked, after which there would be nobody left (Kuwait is really small, barely larger than Israel, with only a single city).
And there would have been no alternative to giving it to Iraq. After all, there would be maybe 10000 Kuwaiti's left world-wide.
What would have stopped Saddam from nuking them ? The common decency and conscience that mass-murdering thieves tend to exhibit in times of stress ?
Use them as deterrence? Push their will on the rest of the region, which is cowering in terror under the nuclear shadow?
Actually the region has seen a LOT of wars where the agressors KNOWINGLY attacked, even when they knew the attack would destroy them.
Take the Iraq-Iran war for example. Iraq saw Iran fall back over a mountain range, and tried to pursue. Less than a month after that the Iraqi army was in shambles, supply lines cut, barely capable of policing normal streets in territory on their own side of the border.
Are you saying Saddam didn't know that would happen ? He pushed the attack when he could have easily stopped in a quasi invulnerable position, which would have provided an ideal starting point for the next attack in 10 years.
Yet he attacked
But attacking, knowing full well that retaliation might come is not a rare event in the middle east.
Egypt's attacks against Israel. Hezbollah-Israel, Israel's independance war, Jordan versus Britain, Pakistan versus India (and even worse : Pakistan versus East-Pakistan/Bangladesh)
And this is a tradition that goes back tens of centuries. When the muslims decided to attack the crusader states, they knew it would mean they'd fall to the mongols, that over 35 million people would starve (because there are letters, preserved by the libraries of Byzantium, that literally say this would happen). The muslims attacked, "won", got massacred by the mongols, and of the remaining muslims, at least 30 million starved, but not after killing the entire city that the sultan inhabited, including the sultan himself.
So let's be careful with "they won't attack if they can't reasonably win" ideas.
You make the stupid mistake to think that the Iranian government is there to defend it's people. It's not. It's there only to conquer, and to enforce islam (just read their constitution). Same with Saddam's government. It wasn't there for Iraqi's to prosper, it was there for Saddam to prosper. It attacked because of Saddam's pride.
Parent
Strawman (Score:4, Insightful)
- You compare calling the police to violence, whereas normally, in a civilised country the expected outcome of a (successful) intervention of the Police, will finally end up in court in a fair trial, with the criminal being subject to what punition has been deemed relevant by the law (which law itself should preferably have been voted democratically by the population).
Pacifism is not about inaction. Pacifism is about trying to reach results while resorting to more modern and less barbaric means.
- You compare a situation where the horrible crime has been committed, with a situation where one might encounter a menace and is resorting preventively on violence. The more exact parallel would be beating the head of some random person into pulp, on the grounds that there's a doubt that maybe that random person could have planned to rape twice and murder your daughter.
- Why are you resorting to violence *for* in the place ? What was the goal of you action ? You wanted to make the world a better place ? A better place devoid of "Evil Guys" who might use nukes against you ? And what do you do against them ? Drop bombs on their country ? How is that different from being an Evil Guy ? If you resort to violence to solve your problem, you end up being not different from the guys themselves which cause said problems.
Parent
"Precision bombing" leaves the wrong picture (Score:3, Insightful)
A groundburst is the most fallout-inducing thing you can do with a nuclear weapon. There are dozens of sites involved, all with people living downwind.
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If Israel put down their weapons there would be genocide.
Re:Bomb, bomb Iran, bomb, bomb Iran! (Score:5, Insightful)
The anti-Israel position has become a point of nearly complete cultural blindness.
The anti-Iran position has become a point of nearly complete cultural blindness.
Parent
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I said that they wouldn't use it as a first strike weapon; I'm sure if they were in danger of being overrun, they'd use them. But you say that you believe they act in their own self-interest. Do you realize how small of an area we're talking about? A nuclear strike by Israel into Syria or Iran would almost surely lead to radioactive fallout blowing through Israeli cities and polluting Israeli water-supplies as well.
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Re:Bomb, bomb Iran, bomb, bomb Iran! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, if I was Ahmadinejad I would be trying like hell to get me some deterrence to avoid being bombed. I mean imagine if you are Iran, look east, look west and then shit yourself. And our (USA) decision to *not* invade North Korea gave him what he could logically see as a possible solution. Did we force Iran's hand? I believe so, even if indirectly.
Parent
Re:Bomb, bomb Iran, bomb, bomb Iran! (Score:4, Informative)
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3762 [globalresearch.ca]
I'll give you an extract
Then we have the illegal detention of suddam, and how his charges were created in court, during trial, and not before the actual trial. (Illegal in Iraq)
http://loc.gov/law//help/hussein/comments.html [loc.gov]
And who's jurisdiction was the court under. It couldn't be the international courts, he was being tried for actions committed before it existed and thus outside of its jurisdiction
If it was Iraq's jurisdiction, then by Iraq law, Saddam was still president and thus had immunity from prosecution.
The summery of this post is.
The court that sentenced Saddam to death had no jurisdiction over him, was highly influenced by the controlling forces (The Iraq government, and probably the US), and freely broke the law to deliver the guilty verdict
Saddam did a lot of evil things I'm sure, and if its all true, he did deserve death in my books. But to suggest that his trial was just and fair is a bold lie, committed either through ignorance or unbridled emotion.
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there are numerous useful isotopes for industry and medicine and research that can be produced by a heavy water reactor. do some research before spewing your ignorance all over the internet.
a heavy water reactor is one way to start a nuclear program without having a stock of enriched fuel on hand
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Re:Occam's razor still applies (Score:4, Insightful)
One Defense Intelligence Agency estimate puts the number of Israeli nukes at 65 to 85 weapons.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/ [fas.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction [wikipedia.org]
If Iran were so foolish as to attempt to "obliterate" Israel, Iran would cease to exist within hours of the attempt.
Middle Eastern leaders talk of destroying Israel because it plays well to the masses and the Iranian leadership are crazy like foxes in this regard. These leaders themselves live comfortable privileged lives and will not act like the young suicide bombers they employ as cannon fodder. The mad-dog Arab who will do anything is a propaganda tool meant to scare the shit out of the West. And it works.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He wanted to make sure we knew that Iran's Defense Minister went on tour of the facility with Mahmoud.
More to the point, that's not even something that ought to raise suspicion. In a region where terrorism is a real, daily threat, you want the military to be looking after security issues at an enrichment plant even if it is only being used for civilian purposes - you want them to be making absolutely sure that the facility is not open to abuse by those who would use it for more nefarious purposes.
That's
Funny you should ask... (Score:5, Informative)
There's also the little detail that many leading politicos in Chamberlain's Conservative Party considered Hitler a hero. These were the guys in the House of Commons who booed Churchill the first time he entered the House as Prime Minister. Eventually, they became politically irrelevent, but until they did, any Conservative PM who had gone against Hitler would have been out of office faster than you can say "jackboot".
Now, we don't have a lot of Islamists in U.S. politics, but aside from that, we're pretty much in the same spot now the Brits were then. It's true our armed forces are way better than theirs were, but between our global committments and the Iraq tarbaby, we've nothing to spare. Even if we did have the troops to spare, we've gone and used up all our credibility with our recent fuckups. Starting another war would turn us into absolute pariahs.
And here's one thing that really bugs me: how can we tell Iran that they can't have nukes when we have thousands. Which we are not only making no move to draw down, we are actually planning to increase
One other thing: are you willing to pay all the extra taxes it would take to cover a third war? It's true that we've been running the first two on credit, but that's playing bloody hell with the value of the dollar. So I think we should assume we're at our credit limit.
So don't bash poor Neville. At least he knew his limitations.
Parent
Iran is NOT run by suicidal religious zealots (Score:5, Interesting)
These people are only there for business, they are businessmen.
I start by more familiar examples, say Dick Cheney. Does anybody believe him to be a true Christian or a ruthless businessman who'll do anything for the sake of profit? Or when he talks of supporting troops, is he telling what he truly means?
In Iran we have our own businessmen. Since the 'Islamic' revolution of 1979, these people have taken over the government in a country where 90%+ of the economy is owned and operated by the government.
A clear example, is the largest of these business entities: Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), most recent bogeyman on CNN/FOX. While the American media focuses on the 'military' part of IRGC's operation, they neglect to mention the much much bigger side of IRGC.
Revolutionary Guards is the single biggest business entity in Iran, they build all the dams, bridges, tunnels and roads, railroad, they operate civilian airports all across the country, they do the largest mining operations, they own many of the largest and most profit generating financial institutions in Iran and this list goes on forever.
Almost half of the members of the current parliament are former IRGC members, Ahmadinejad himself made his way to being Tehran's Mayor and later, Iran's president through IRGC.
Then there's Mesbah Yazdi, a mid-level clergy, known as the mentor of Ahmadinejad, the biggest fucking piece of shit I know in Iran. Plays the same role to Ahmadi Nejad as Dick plays to Bush. But there's another side to this guy, he is also known as "Sultan of Sugar" in Iran. He controls import, distribution and sale of all Sugar in Iran. Believe me, in a country of 70 million population a monopoly on sugar is better than a monopoly on gold mines. He also says that the 'Zionist regime' of Israel is doomed, however nuking them means end of the sweet sugar business for him.
Former president Rafsanjani, former parliament speaker Nategh Noori and many others are businessmen too. They don't give a fuck about religion unless in public when preaching people.
Oh, did you hear the Moral Police Chief of Tehran was recently arrested in a brothel with six girls [timesonline.co.uk] and they were mocking muslim prayers, naked? That screams of the hypocrisy of the current situation in Iran.
I just want you to think, what benefit does nuking Israel which guarantees a much much harsher reaction from Israel bring to these ruling businessmen? See, that's why Iran, even with nukes is no threat at all to any other country?
All that matters to these people is survival of their business, they are not religious zealots, they don't believe in the second coming or afterlife or crap like what they preach to people. If a day comes where wiping their asses with pages of Quran helps them keep control of their business, then that's what they WILL HAPPILY DO.
Parent
Re:Iran is NOT run by suicidal religious zealots (Score:4, Funny)
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