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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane
Seriously - what can we realistically expect to do?
Trade embrago's, diplomatic pressure, use the economic power of the EU to inform Iran about the wrongness of thier stated postion.
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If Iran is indeed planning to develop nuclear weapons - and personally, I see no reason to believe that they aren't - what can we (or the world) realistically do about it?
Only the above - warfare is a last resort based upon the actions of Iran.
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Massive sanctions might work, however, sanctions imposed by the UN are completely unrealistic IMO as I have serious difficulties visioning a scenario in which China would support such sanctions (perhaps a guarantee by other security council members that they will replace the oil that China wouldn't get from Iran in case of an embargo - quite expensive and somewhat unlikely, but theoretically possible - and I guess China would insist on some other goodies on top of that).
Problem: I think it is beyond any doubt that Iran would go the extra mile to e.g., further destabilize the situation in Iraq which would result in a quite messy situation (compared to which the current situation might actually look stable and safe).
The west must be willing to stand up - or not. Appeasement is what Iran is after, is the west willing to appease Iran, or is it willing to stand up and do the right thing. The United States is not in a postion to make demands of Iran, however Europe is.
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Strikes that only target the nuclear facilities would be completely worthless IMO - they would at best buy time to delay the inevitable, at the cost of a destabilization of the region (see above). It might be worthwhile if such strikes buy enough time to delay the nuclear ambitions enough until a regime change takes place (quite a gamble - a too risky one IMO).
war with Iran must be a total war - or not at all.
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A massive multinational invasion would be another option - I don't even think the US public would support such an endeavor that would dwarf the Iraq invasion in terms of costs in money and casualties - let alone any other Western nation. And apart from the extremely unlikely public support I also have some doubts that the massive loss of lives, the economic disaster and the resulting instability of the region would be justified by what could be gained by it (although Iran is currently one of the last nations I would like to see having access to nuclear weapons - objectively we already have a nation that could easily turn into a similar extremist state during the next 5 years and that already has nuclear weapons: Pakistan).
I won't even go into pre-emptive nuclear strikes as I think that most sane people will not consider this to be an actual option - once this becomes a viable option, we are entering a new era that I would rather not witness during my lifetime.
The bottomline seems to be that, in the end, all that the world seemingly can realistically do if Iran really is going after nuclear weapon technology, is to watch and hope that responsibility and the realization that nukes are a weapons that only gives you safety as long as you do not use it go hand in hand with the gain of power.
Do I like that idea? No! (and this development could hardly come at a worse time, with a seemingly mad demagogue being in a powerful position in Iran).
But unfortunately we will probably have to get used to the fact that Iran will not be the last nation that gains access to nukes (and which we would rather like not to have access).
To use a quote from Babylon 5:
"The avalanche has already started - it is to late for the pebbles to vote"
Agree with the rest for the most part - however the question still remains.
Did the world not learn a lesson about appeasement in 1938?