Do you believe that Iran in 2007 is comparable to Nazi Germany in 1936 in terms of capability? I don't think we should ignore Iran but from the original article this new missile might be nothing more than bluster on Iran's part. I don't doubt that Iran has in mind to develop nukes and us and the Europeans are dealing with that. In the meantime I don't think there is any reason to get too worked up about this missile.
i think you've got the timeline and the requirements wrong. Saddam was required, by the UN, to show proof he'd dismantled his WMD. he said he lost the paperwork. not bloody likely.
So you are in favor of war over misplaced paper work? Because no matter what reasons he gave, the one thing that is clear is that he had no WMD's that were a threat to anyone. That was in the midst of being proved with inspectors on the ground, and the framework being put in place to ensure that Saddam wouldn't be able to get them with ongoing inspections to continue.
Right now,...no. But they are positioning themselves to compare to capability of Nazi Germany circa 1936... Look at the similarities:... 1936-1945 Nazi Germany...................................2007-? Iran 1. tried to wipe jews off ................................... 1. would not mind map...............................................................wiping jews (Israel) off ..................................................................... the map 2. Grew by spreading influence ......................2.Desires influence to spread to other nations/intimidation ......................... through extension of ................................................................. Hezbollah or IRG units... ................................................................(as well as common ground ................................................................of shared religion, but twisted ................................................................towards extreme rationale) 3. twisted religion for the ........................... 3. twisted purposes of masking the inherent ................. religion for the purposes of evil of it's actions. ...................................... masking the inherent evil of ............................................................. it's actions. 4. The nation was led by a "mad man" ........... 4. The nation's President is as has been described. .............................. often described as a .............................................................. "mad man" 5. People stated Hitler would not................... 5. People state Ahmenjinidad grow to be any real threat ........................... will not grow to be any real dispite the signs. ...................................... threat dispite the signs.
Then how do you reconcile these massive stockpiles of WMD's sitting around with the fact that extensive US teams whose duty it was to justify the war couldn't find anything more than a couple of cans of Raid? For a while back then you were really grasping at straws. As if a couple of 20 year old misplaced artillery shells at the back of a weapons dump constituted an imminent threat to world security. I was kind of embarrassed for you. I would have thought with a bit of distance between then and now you might have been able to be a little more self-reflective. And it is absolutely like the July Ultimatium. Sadaam backed down and let inspectors in, but dubbya had decided that he was going to war.
Otto, I have to side with ymc on this one. It's very likely (in fact, would make sense) that Iran is building a limited number of these missiles as a deterrence against possible U.S.-Israeli attacks and/or invasion. In terms of costs, the Iranian leadership may have calculated this move to be beneficial to their position vis-a-vis the U.S. This also fits into a pattern of behavior by Iran that seems to be increasingly aiming at deterring what -- they likely believe -- is an imminent U.S. attack on their country, primarily by trying to change the 'cost-benefit' calculus for the U.S./Israeli side (e.g. they've stated in the past that as a retaliation they would target all major oil fields in the Gulf; they said they would target Israel (regardless of Israeli involvement); and now they're just increasing their capabilities to make good on that promise if they have to...basically backing up their threats with 'hardware') I can easily see this as fitting into a larger 'pattern' of Iranian rhetoric/behavior...
