Fight hate by getting off your high horse. Hurling insulting cartoons at the other side, and playing victim all the time, achieves nothing toward this goal. There is clearly hatred on the both sides and focusing on the other sides hatred only is not productive. It just adds to tribalism, and stupidity.
If America dies it will be because it won’t get off the oil spigot, and oil is not permanant. If Israel goes the way of the dinasaur, it will maybe be because of nukes, but it has nukes itself and doesn’t plan to give them up. It also perpetually pisses off arabs and muslims by treating removable objects, for settlements not security, and by threatening other countries in the region with various military provocations, including nukes.

Um, as I recall, it was a non-Jewish Danish newspaper that published the cartoons, not a Jewish one. Why should the Jews suffer from the retaliation?

What’s your point, Dameocrat? Do you think there should be more holocaust denial in Europe?
Also, you might have forgotten that journalists in Europe have been prosecuted for what was deemed hate speech against Muslims. Oriana Fallaci is on trial.

Dameocrat:
We obviously live in very different worlds.
“they are ten years away from having the bomb according to cia estimates. ”
I don’t know what the CIA estimate is. There are several different estimates from various experts and groups (of varying reliability) which range from several months to several years.
“We don’t have the soldiers for another invasion.”
I’m sure your’e the expert. In WWII, with less than half the population and far less than half of the GDP, we fielded enough soldiers to defeat the Axis powers. But today, you believe stabilizing Iraq exhausts our resources? Absurd.
“I doubt Iran would be persuing this if they weren’t in Bush’s axis of evil speech. ”
Factually wrong. They were pursuing it long before. But I’m sure you can ascribe every other evil in the world to Bush (except those of the Jews, of course).
“They were headed toward moderation and liberalism before this and before we invaded Iraq. ”
You must be joking. The same gang has been in charge (real charge; the facades may vary) since the revolution. What evidence of this do you have? Was the Hezbollah torturing somewhat less before they murdered?
“They were definately friendly. ”
Yeah, they were gentlemen, they helped you on with your coat. You must be delusional.
“They were becoming a secular democracy.”
Oh yes.
“Neither Pakistan or Israel have signed the nuclear non proliferation treaty. Iran has.”
Well, it’s all in the signature. When Iran nukes us, you can use your last words to praise that signature.
You make it too easy. Any Lefties who are willing to live in the real world in the house?

J:. The estimates for a few months come from a guy named Timmerman who worked for Dick Scaife’s Spectator magazine, and last year he reported WMD had been found in Iraq.
Pakistan might nuke you too. How come there is no concern? They have nukes right now, and their intelligence agency did actually help Osama.
We had a draft in WWII. A draft has maybe 20% support right now, and once American’s hear that they won’t have nukes for 10 years I doubt it will peak past that point.
Also the treaty binds them to Weapons inspection from the IAEA the same people who inspected Iraq. Those inspections definately worked in Iraq. We know that now.

Where is your response re blaming Bush for Iran’s nuclear program, that Iran was heade for moderation, that Iran was friendly

It is my opinion based upon reading news about Iran since the 2 gulf war started.

Reformist MPs, who form a parliamentary majority, are threatening to resign en masse after repeated obstruction by conservatives on the guardian council, an unelected body but possessing a constitutional veto over legislative change.
The final straw came last month when the council rejected two bills proposed by President Khatami that would have ended clerical authority over the judiciary and the electoral process.
Conservatives portray the threat to resign as naive and dangerous, damaging Iran’s national security at a time when the US military encircles Iran. The state prosecutor warned MPs that they might face legal action if their resignations threatened “national interests”.
If the MPs do stay, they will enter February’s elections with nothing to show for their promises of change. If they step down, the conservatives may choose to impose emergency rule to pre-empt protest.
Diplomats say President Khatami and other reformers are furious that the US has decided to publicly pressure Iran at such a delicate time.

I’ve seen at least a dozen varying estimates over the last couple of years from all kinds of sources. Obviously only the Iranians know for sure (and if anyone else does, theyr’e not spilling the beans). I don’t see any reason why you should arbitrarily choose the CIA estimate (especially knowing their track record) except that it fits your agenda. You would pick the longest possible estimate. I would say that given the danger, we have to operate under the assumption that the shorter ones are valid.

It isn’t a valid assumption given the very recent track record of those making the claims. Timmerman being a person who promoted the WMD idea, is a rather obvious dubious source. You don’t cite any of these sources that you say we should rely on, and why should we rely on your word over the cia?

No concern? Depends who you ask. I have always been concerned. But relative to Iran (ONLY relative to Iran!), Pakistan is sane and stable (for now). Iran is clearly the bigger problem.

Stable? Hardly. Musharraf, who is a dictator, has been the beneficiary of several assasination attempts. Many of these Islamic Fundamentalist are ensconced in his army and intelligence service.

We have enough soldiers without the draft. If necessary, we could pull them from other places, like South Korea. Iran is by far a greater crisis than any other. And when people learn of the full range of estimates, they’ll be alarmed.

Than why are we sending amputees back to the front in Iraq. Also if we pull them out of South Korea how will we protect them from the other nuclear threat in North Korea?
Iran is four time as big in terms of geographics and population than Iraq.. It isn’t a pushover militarily either. It has a functioning air force unlike Iraq after the first gulf war and 10 years of sanctions. During operation desert storm, the Iraqis could not get one jet air plane off the ground.
My bet is, if people are aware that the same people are pushing this that pushed the WMD in Iraq idea, they will be less alarmed. The war isn’t popular J.

And when the inspectors are kicked out? Isn’t that happening now?

It hasn’t happened yet, but presuming it did, it would still leave a ten year gap, and the best way to discourage this in my view, is to make our peace with Iraqis, hope that Iran elects a more moderate government, and try and get EVERYONE in the middle east to sign on to the nuclear non proliferation treaty.
Possibly, but inspections haven’t been too effective generally. Israel, in fact, evaded inspectors successfully. And even if inspections had a high rate of effectiveness, given the catastrophic nature of nuclear attack, such a high rate isn’t good enough. You might be willing to take a 95% chance of success while, say, investing money, but you wouldn’t risk your life on those odds.

Israel never signed the non proliferation treaty and wasn’t obliged to receive any inspections. We live under that threat already from China, Russia, India and Pakistan. A military invasion isn’t the best way to make the threat go away anyway. You realize that Iranians already have a democracy, so what good is regime change? They elected the guy that everyone views as problematic, and invasions seem to make fundamentalists stronger, by increasing nationalistic and cultural zeal. In the middle east Ilsam is part of this mix. It is the exact same style of government we just installed in Iraq.