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Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296, 650]

Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?


  • Total voters
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Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

Not very.

I spent twenty years in the Navy - and yes, that included loading stuff on board ships. Even on a relatively small ship, there's many, many places to hide something the size of a nuclear warhead. Even the crudest of portable atomic bombs - the size of Little Boy or Fat Man - are easily loaded on a tramp steamer.

And it wouldn't get past a geiger counter within 10 miles.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

I heard someone make the argument that Obama doesn't believe the US has any rightful role in preventing or hindering Iran from developing and maintaining nuclear weapons. I don't know that that's true, and nobody but the President can answer to what he believes, so I'll ask what you believe. If Iran has the ability, does it have the "right" to nuclear weapons? (By "right", I mean the U.S. and other nations would not be unjustified in trying to prevent it.)

working on the poll

Sovereign nations have the right to do whatever they want. Hence the name.
However, other sovereign nations have the right to protect themselves, especially against rogue nations. That includes the right to deny Iran the right to the aforementioned weapons.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

Sovereign nations have the right to do whatever they want. Hence the name.
However, other sovereign nations have the right to protect themselves, especially against rogue nations. That includes the right to deny Iran the right to the aforementioned weapons.

How many nations has Iran attacked in the past decade? None? How many have we attacked? Two? Three? I'd say the only rogue nation around is the United States, doesn't that mean Iran ought to have the right to protect themselves against us?
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

How many nations has Iran attacked in the past decade? None? How many have we attacked? Two? Three? I'd say the only rogue nation around is the United States, doesn't that mean Iran ought to have the right to protect themselves against us?

How many times did we use nuclear weapons? How many leaders have we had that would have actively sought to use them?

Trying to compare the foreign policy of the United States to Iran based on recent events is willfully distorting reality.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

How many times did we use nuclear weapons? How many leaders have we had that would have actively sought to use them?

Trying to compare the foreign policy of the United States to Iran based on recent events is willfully distorting reality.

We've used them more than any other nation on the planet. We have been engaged in more wars than pretty much any other nation around. We have funded terrorists (although we like to pretend they're "freedom fighters"). We have overthrown governments. How many countries has Iran invaded recently? How many have we? You've really got no leg to stand on.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

I heard someone make the argument that Obama doesn't believe the US has any rightful role in preventing or hindering Iran from developing and maintaining nuclear weapons. I don't know that that's true, and nobody but the President can answer to what he believes, so I'll ask what you believe. If Iran has the ability, does it have the "right" to nuclear weapons? (By "right", I mean the U.S. and other nations would not be unjustified in trying to prevent it.)

working on the poll

They're a sovereign nation in middle of a continent under siege from foreign armies all over the place. Hell, several years ago its neighbor was taken down by one of the foreign armies. Would a sovereign nation not have the right to defend itself?

It’s not to say the West doesn’t have interest in preventing them from obtaining the weapons, we certainly do; particularly because we are the foreign invaders. But in theory any sovereign nation is sovereign and has the right to defense.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Sorry, but among historians it has become the definitive view. And the point is that the bombs were necessary to preclude evil.

No it hasn't. Again, I've more than a select few. Yes, winners write the history, but there are dissenting views. It is debatable. Sorry.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

Um, this may come as a shock to you, but we don't rule Iran. That, and this might even be heretical to you, but most Iranians are just as patriotic about Iran as we are about America. Which means, if you tell them what not to do, then that's precisely what they WILL do.

Typical liberal response. So you tell Iran to build all the nuks they want so in your mind they will not. That is the most naive comment I've ever heard.


This is called "diplomacy"...and is to some extent what we've been doing to Russia. Diplomacy, properly conducted, consists of both carrot and stick. Thing is, what you're proposing is all stick: "Do what we say or else". Anyone with any experience in military leadership will tell you that when it comes to getting people to do what you want them to do, "all stick" might work for days or weeks, but it NEVER works in the long run.

Diplomacy my ass. Obama telling Putin to not invade Ukraine, christ Putin tells Obama to jump and how high.

Guy, your problem is the same that so many conservatives (and not a few chickenhawks like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh) have: your only tool is a hammer, so all the problems look like nails to you. You've forgotten that in the wars that we've gotten into because of a failure of diplomacy was usually because it was warmongering idiots who were conducting that diplomacy (i.e. Vietnam, Spanish-American War, the invasion of Iraq, the War of 1812). Note that there are wars where I do NOT blame our lack of diplomacy, like WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and of course the Civil War.

I could respond to all these but no sense, but I will comment on the Civil War, as you know was because of southern liberals did not want to give up their slaves. Yes liberals enslaving black people.

I'm retired Navy - and like most retired enlisted, the thing I miss most is guiding the junior enlisted. Most of my friends are retired or active duty. My oldest son was in NJROTC, and my youngest son is seeing the Navy recruiter with his friends this very day. So you go take your I-hate-all-liberals-'cause-FREEDOM crap and shove it where it richly deserves to be.

Your a Navy man so you say, yet your comrades died at Pearl Harbor banging on the hulls of their ships trying to escape with no way out. And you blame it on lack of diplomacy. Navy man my ass.
 
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Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

You don't even know what a liberal is, never mind how one thinks. You're just flinging feces at shadows- all you're going to do is end up with **** on your hands.

All I have to do is look at idiot Obama.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

All I have to do is look at idiot Obama.

What I've read here, you probably wouldn't recognize him, either. You don't seem to pick up on much, even when it's laid out in front of you.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

No it hasn't. Again, I've more than a select few. Yes, winners write the history, but there are dissenting views. It is debatable. Sorry.

Please cite a review or journal article that challenges Giangreco's account.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

Again, the Saudis don't care. They consider it an act of charity to allow the Shia to remain.

Yes, they do consider it an act of charity (as required by the Qur'an) for the Shi'a to remain...but no rational government (including that of the Saudis) wants to do that which would incite unrest and domestic terrorism. If that were not so, then the Saudis would have gotten rid of the Shi'a a long time ago.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

Yes, they do consider it an act of charity (as required by the Qur'an) for the Shi'a to remain...but no rational government (including that of the Saudis) wants to do that which would incite unrest and domestic terrorism. If that were not so, then the Saudis would have gotten rid of the Shi'a a long time ago.

The Shia are cheap and useful laborers in Saudi eyes, nothing more. The Saudis' favorite Israeli? Benjamin Netanyahu.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

The Archives of any country present the official line. "Britain" may not have been committed to France, but the Grey cabinet was.

And that was my point - the English were not eager to go to war to defend France...but all that changed once completely-neutral Belgium was invaded. When that happened, popular opinion in Britain swung strongly towards supporting going to war against Germany.

And that's the lesson we need to remember when we start talking about bombing Iran - when we do that which pisses off the other people in the geographical region, bad things can happen.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

And that was my point - the English were not eager to go to war to defend France...but all that changed once completely-neutral Belgium was invaded. When that happened, popular opinion in Britain swung strongly towards supporting going to war against Germany.

And that's the lesson we need to remember when we start talking about bombing Iran - when we do that which pisses off the other people in the geographical region, bad things can happen.

Please look again at my link. The British decided for war two days before the Germans invaded Belgium.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

And it wouldn't get past a geiger counter within 10 miles.

It wouldn't need to.

A shielded nuclear warhead isn't that easy to detect. Even if you knew what to look for, where it might be, and when the ship was arriving, it's by no means a given that one would be able to detect that warhead even if one were standing 20 feet from it. And even if you did somehow detect it ten miles away (which is a fantasy, btw), how the heck are you going to stop that ship if the captain decides to go full steam ahead to detonate the warhead close to the NYC waterfront?

But back to your detection fantasy, those who serve on board nuclear-powered carriers in the Navy normally receive more radiation from the fluorescent lighting than from the two nuclear reactors...and those reactors hold a heck of a lot more radioactive material than any nuclear warhead.

And that's why I'm one of the very few political progressives who is enthusiastic about nuclear power (civilian and military) - nuclear reactors are (in the long run) greener than anything short of true renewable energy...and it's safer than most people think. I remember studying the design of the reactors on the Lincoln, at all the safeguards they had, and I remember thinking to myself that in order to cause a meltdown, the entire watch team would have to get together to try to cause it...and even then they might not succeed.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

Typical liberal response. So you tell Iran to build all the nuks they want so in your mind they will not. That is the most naive comment I've ever heard.

And of course, instead of even attempting to give diplomacy a chance, you want to go to war, go directly to war, do not pass "Go".

Diplomacy my ass. Obama telling Putin to not invade Ukraine, christ Putin tells Obama to jump and how high.

When you're the president, and you're the one who has to decide to get involved militarily and risk escalation to a general thermonuclear exchange which would destroy America and most of human civilization just to stop Russia from invading a country next door, THEN you can tell all America how your way is best.

Fortunately, none of our presidents - even Reagan, even Dubya himself - have been that idiotic.

I could respond to all these but no sense, but I will comment on the Civil War, as you know was because of southern liberals did not want to give up their slaves. Yes liberals enslaving black people.

And you are once more showing your complete ignorance of the South. The Deep South has always been strongly conservative. YES, it was once the Democratic "Solid South", but that was back in the days before polarization of the parties, when there were conservatives and liberals in BOTH parties. If you would read your American history, you'd find that until not long before WWI, the Democrats were generally much more conservative than the Republicans.

I've already discussed how my family knew U.S. senator John O. Eastland, how my grandmother sold moonshine for him. He was a Democrat...and he was a very, very strong CONSERVATIVE.

What changed? Read up on Nixon's "Southern Strategy", and unlearn the BS you've been spoon-fed by Faux News and noted chickenhawk Rush Limbaugh.

Your a Navy man so you say, yet your comrades died at Pearl Harbor banging on the hulls of their ships trying to escape with no way out. And you blame it on lack of diplomacy. Navy man my ass.

AND YOU OBVIOUSLY DIDN'T READ MY POST. If you did, you would have seen the following line: "Note that there are wars where I do NOT blame our lack of diplomacy, like WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and of course the Civil War." Our involvement in WWII was NOT mostly due to a lack of diplomacy - I never said it was. To be sure, in the years leading up to the war, FDR did commit the diplomatic sin of cutting off Japan's access to oil without giving them what would have been (in Japanese eyes) viable options - he didn't "give the enemy a golden parachute", a way out that would have allowed them to save face. But this by itself does not by any means excuse what Japan did - Pearl Harbor was NOT the result of failed diplomacy, and I NEVER said it was. That's only YOUR freaking fantasy, guy.

So when you learn your history, and when you learn to respect those who have worn the uniform to protect YOUR ass, come back and talk to me. Until then, I hold you in the same contempt as I do those who spat on the veterans returning from Vietnam.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

The Shia are cheap and useful laborers in Saudi eyes, nothing more. The Saudis' favorite Israeli? Benjamin Netanyahu.

Your first sentence is largely true - but does not detract from the fact that the Saudi government has a duty and an earnest desire to prevent unrest and domestic terrorism.

The rest of your post is ABSOLUTELY TRUE. Netanyahu is a complete freaking idiot: "Vote for me 'cause the A-rabs are a-votin' for the other side!!!!" He would have fit in just fine with the good-ole-boy system Down South.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

Please look again at my link. The British decided for war two days before the Germans invaded Belgium.

Y'know, I think your posts as compared to mine are a wonderful example of how two rational people can look at the same thing and give completely opposite interpretations of what they see. There's obviously cognitive dissonance - and of course each of us think that cognitive dissonance is on the part of the other guy.

I say this because I see in your post how the decision almost "wrecked the cabinet", and how MP's resigned in protest. I see that war was not declared until AFTER Germany began the invasion...and of course Belgium had known for at least a few days that an invasion was imminent, and would have informed their allies - which included England.

England gave the ultimatum to Germany because England was bound by treaty to defend Belgium...and even then, until Belgium was actually invaded, England did not declare war, but was using every tool they had (in the very short time they had available from when they first received the news about what Germany was about to do) to try to avoid war, to try to keep the invasion from happening. But - and this is especially true in the days of crude electronic communication such as the telegraph - they only had a few days to prevent the invasion. What were their options? How could they have prevented Germany's invasion by anything other than, "Don't do it, or we're going to war with you"?

What I see there is a nation that was demonstrably reluctant to go to war until they saw Belgium being invaded.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

Your first sentence is largely true - but does not detract from the fact that the Saudi government has a duty and an earnest desire to prevent unrest and domestic terrorism.

The rest of your post is ABSOLUTELY TRUE. Netanyahu is a complete freaking idiot: "Vote for me 'cause the A-rabs are a-votin' for the other side!!!!" He would have fit in just fine with the good-ole-boy system Down South.

Saudi admiration for Netanyahu is not as you imagine. They admire his firmness toward Iran, and wish others shared it. They do not care at all about his toughness toward the Palestinians, whom the Saudis regard as troublemakers.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296]

Saudi admiration for Netanyahu is not as you imagine. They admire his firmness toward Iran, and wish others shared it. They do not care at all about his toughness toward the Palestinians, whom the Saudis regard as troublemakers.

I would say the Saudis like him because his utter lack of diplomatic common sense is hurting Israel's reputation around the world...and people like him are very easy to manipulate. All one has to do is show the proverbial shiny object - "Look, there's Hamas terrorists who are trying to destroy the Knesset!" (or some such idiocy) - for him to focus on, and he'll miss what they want him to miss.

The guy's an idiot. He and Tom Cotton should take DNA tests to see just how closely they're related.
 
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