External Aid

Hezbollah was established by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who came to Lebanon during the 1982 "Peace for Galilee" war, as part of the policy of exporting the Islamic revolution. It receives substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid from Iran and Syria.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita.../hizballah.htm

Lets not forget, there have been success stories involving the NPT. South Africa, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have all been in a position to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal. All of them willingly gave into international pressure and gave up those weapons programs.

That treaty is pretty old, but I still believe that it has great relevance to us today. The way things are going now ... Lets take the non-nation nation of Taiwan. That's an island living in constant fear of invasion every day of its existence. Obviously, much moreso than Iran typically faces. Taiwan can just point at Iran and ask the simple question: "If they can have nukes and break the NPT, why can't we?" South Korea and Japan can certainly ask the same thing. "If NK and Iran are free to break the Treaty, why not us?" In South Korea's case, the world community is asking a helluva a lot from them by holding them to the NPT and allowing their hostile neighbor to the north break it.

The greater question is this: Should there be something done to enforce the NPT or should we tear the Treaty up and say to hell with it. Ultimately, do we still value the idea of Nonproliferation?

I think its redicules to expect countries not to develop means of self protection. I dont expect Iran to disarm themselves, I know they wont. Other nations who know the meaning of a nuclear armed Iran should disarm the Iranis by any means.

Originally Posted by SHERMAN

I think its redicules to expect countries not to develop means of self protection. I dont expect Iran to disarm themselves, I know they wont. Other nations who know the meaning of a nuclear armed Iran should disarm the Iranis by any means.

I agree, Iran with nukes is only something you can see in your nightmares..

Originally Posted by discourse

it questions why countries like America should be allowed to hold on to their nuclear weapons where as they want Iran to disarm

How **** of a PR department do we have as Americans have when the citizens of the very countries we helped liberate from oppression 60 years ago consider us on the same level as Iran?

The biggest underlying problem with an Iran armed with nuclear weapons: Well, none of their neighbors trust them all that much. If Iran gets nukes, every nation in the region will rush to develop their own nukes so Iran doesn't have a card to play against them that they don't have as well. The idea of "brotherhood of Islam" wears pretty thin in reality and none of the predominantly Muslim countries in the region really trust any of the other predominantly Muslim nations completely. The scary part about it is that this adds yet another several nation with nukes, so the odds of a nuclear exchange between nations of the world goes up dramatically.

Incidently, that is precisely why the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was made: In theory, the few nations possessing nukes, the less likely that there would be a nuclear holocaust triggered by a "whoops" situation. Take what almost happened with the Russian K-19. It's nuclear reactor almost detonated right on top of a NATO base. There would have been no way of distinguishing this from an intentional strike, and the USSR and USA and all their allies would have merrily destroyed the world right then and there.

Now that is the concept of the NPT. It is also equally easy to argue that nobody nukes their enemy if the enemy can nuke them back and that logic is very hard to argue with.

godofthunder you just don't get it man with all this 'logic' and 'reason' you speak of.

It's simple, if pure dark nasty evil imperialist America has nukes than surely a nation as benign as Iran can have nukes. And if you disagree then you're just another arrogant American and I'm better than you.

This is not a matter of mrale. This is a simple matter of intrests. Israel simply cannot live with a nuclear armed Iran, and either can the USA. It would make the implementation of US foreighn policy in the ME impossible.