On Mon, 10 Apr 2006, Michael Hipp wrote: > Net Llama! wrote: > > On Mon, 10 Apr 2006, Michael Hipp wrote: > >> Net Llama! wrote: > >>> Not make it worse with another war, would be an excellent start. It would > >>> be one thing if Afghanistan was a shining example of a stable democracy, > >>> and Iraq was following the same path. Seeing as how Afghanistan is really > >>> not much different than it was 5 years ago, just no longer under the > >>> control of the Taliban (which sounds nice on paper, but in reality is > >>> meaningless), and Iraq is an unstable trainwreck, going off to war #3 > >>> doesn't sound like a sensible decision. Right now, we're a very long away > >>> from exhausting all the diplomatic solutions for Iran. Considering how > >>> emabrassingly poor the intelligence on Iraq (and 9/11 for that matter) > >>> was, I can't see how any one can confidently justify skipping the > >>> diplomatic approach in Iran. > >> I agree wholeheartedly. > > > > Wow, the planets must have aligned or something. That never happens here > > ;) > > > >> But the deal is... I can't imagine there is anyone on the planet that > >> expects the diplomatic approach to actually work. > >> > >> So now we have two options on the table. Neither of which will work. > > > > I think its way too soon to tell if the diplomatic approach will work with > > Iran. There are still quite a few options open (some in the UN, some > > not). Just blindly assuming that they won't work is a convenient excuse > > to go to war, and certainly is easier for Bush. > > That may indeed be Bush's intentions. I hope not, but it would certainly > be consistent with the pattern. > > However, there's nothing blind about expecting it not to work. Has it > ever worked? (On a foe such as this)?
In theory diplomacy worked for the Iran hostage crisis back in 1981. There's also the conspiracy theorists who say that the Republicans were in bed with the Iranians all along, and held off the hostage release until Carter was out of office. But I digress. I don't think we've had any other conflicts with Iran to use for historical analysis. > > My knowledge of history is unimpressive. But I know of no example to the > positive. In any case it could only be expected to yield results if > backed up with lethal force. > > The UN is alternately an impotent, corrupt bureaucracy or a despotic > power monger ruled by petty tyrants and evil oppressors. I'd sooner hope > for Bush to do the right thing. It's that bad. I'm going to go out a limb here and assume that Bush isn't going to do the right thing, as he hasn't done the right thing yet. His track record isn't any better than the UN's. At least the rest of the world still doesn't hate the UN ;) -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lonni J Friedman [EMAIL PROTECTED] LlamaLand http://netllama.linux-sxs.org _______________________________________________ [email protected] Unsub/Pause/Etc : http://mail.linux-sxs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/general
