Turkey, Iran, Brazil sign deal on nuclear fuel swap

[Louis VI the Fat]

Your explanation of Iranian foreign policy (build a bomb and defeat America) made me laugh really. Defeat America? Someone would have to be crazy over there. Not even a religious fanatic covers it, I'm talking genuine, certified "cluck-cluck, gibber-gibber, my old man is a mushroom" crazy.

Defeat not as military defeat within a time-span of a few years. But defeat as in replacing America as the greatest power in the Middle East? Yes. Defeat as replacing America's cultural soft power? Sure. Even demographic and economical eclipse.

See, the thing is, we are fighting an assymetrical war. A war who's assymtry is best summed up as: they are trying to defeat us, we are not even aware that they are trying to do so.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE


TEHRAN -- Iran boasted yesterday it could defeat any American military action over its nuclear drive, in one of the Islamic regime's boldest challenges yet to the United States.


"You can start a war but it won't be you who finishes it," said Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards and among the regime's most powerful figures.


"The Americans know better than anyone that their troops in the region and in Iraq are vulnerable. I would advise them not to commit such a strategic error," he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Tehran. "I would advise them to first get out of their quagmire in Iraq before getting into an even bigger one," Gen. Safavi said with a grin.


"We have American forces in the region under total surveillance. For the past two years, we have been ready for any scenario, whether sanctions or an attack." Iran announced this week it had successfully enriched uranium on a small scale that could be used for nuclear reactors. The claim represented a direct challenge to the United States and the U.N. Security Council, which has demanded that Iran halt enrichment activities by April 28.


At a Friday prayer sermon in Tehran yesterday, senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad branded the U.S. as a "decaying power" lacking the "stamina" to block Iran's ambitions. And hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Agence France-Presse that a U.S. push for tough U.N. sanctions was of "no importance." "She is free to say whatever she wants," the president replied when asked to respond to comments by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice highlighting part of the U.N. charter that provides for sanctions backed up by the threat of military action. "We give no importance to her comments," he said with a broad smile.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1615797/posts

That is how many view the conflict. From the US 'encirclement' in Iraq and Afghanistan, to America's 'defeat' in Iraq, to economical breakdown of America/the West and economical ascendescy of emerging powers. To many hardliners, not only is Iran trying to defeat America, but many would say that Iran has been making great strides too towards defeating America these past three decades. Unlike America / the West, they have the patience and capacity to think long-term. There is a relentless drive to eclipse America in huge parts of the world, completely unknown to America - which is not an imperialistic, expansionist power, and is as such mostly oblivious to this sentiment.

[Tellos Athenaios]

China has moved already. And re-affirmation of the NPT is a bit of a cuddly couch-politics feel-good game; rather than a hard commitment to actually change something.

I think Iran will, for the time being, be content to have a two-speed negotiation device at its disposal which allows the regime to make concessions without submitting to the little & big devil directly. I think the regime would view an untouchable, unquestionable autonomy over its (civil) nuclear ambitions as the end goal. Iran works by a combination of angry state rhetoric and funding massive subsidies on petrol, and the more oil it requires for its domestic demand the more expensive this becomes.

[gaelic cowboy]

See, the thing is, we are fighting an assymetrical war. A war who's assymtry is best summed up as: they are trying to defeat us, we are not even aware that they are trying to do so.

They will miss us when were all gone Louis they see the WEST (there capitals not mine) as all the same and they go to bed at night praying they win or America exhausts itself which it possibly is. The day China rules the Great Game will change there wont be anyplace to hide for an errant regime the nukes will fly at tinpot dictators no bother.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Acquiring nuclear weapons and some form of semi-reliable delivery system is a rational choice for any nation-state. This is especially true if one of the powers that be dislike them for some reason. Nuclear technology and weapons must proliferate and will do so for more or less the same reasons the musket and bayonet did.

Eventually, a nuke will fall into the hands of some extra-national willing to use it. Then the death toll will be 300k+ not 3,000. We need to think what we can do to minimize such events and how best to respond to them.

[Husar]

Defeat not as military defeat within a time-span of a few years. But defeat as in replacing America as the greatest power in the Middle East? Yes. Defeat as replacing America's cultural soft power? Sure. Even demographic and economical eclipse.

You mean Iranian restaurants may one day be more numerous than McDonalds? And iranian goat/camel milk or whatever will take over Coca Cola(I really have no idea what drinks they have invented over there, if any)? But what about Döner? Can they ever beat Turkey?