Peres: I believe Obama, but Iran may be 'bluffing'
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4358676,00.htmlOn eve of US president's visit, Israeli counterpart tells CNN 'he is a man that thinks before he speaks, but Iranians capable of bluffing others and bluffing themselves'
President Shimon Peres said he was "free of doubts" that his American counterpart Barack Obama would use military force if necessary to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb.
---
Last week Obama told Israel's Channel 2 he believes Iran is "over a year or so" away from being able to develop a nuclear weapon and that the US will use "all options" to stop it.
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran?
= new reply since forum marked as read
so this brings a new question; what exactly is Iran supposed to be bluffing with here? Iran's position is that it is not, has not, and never will pursue nuclear weapons. That's not a very good bluff. In fact I would argue that it fits no known definition of "bluffing."
Bluffing would be like when we decided to fuck Iraq no matter what and Saddam suddenly started threatening to use all those chemical and biological agents against US forces. That was a bad bluff, since a) that was what we were using as pretext and b) he didn't have any such weapons, but at least it was a bluff. Or, for that matter, there's Israel's own "maaaaaaaybe we do and maaaaaaaybe we don't" stance on its own nuclear weapons. That's a bluff too, of the Dirty Harry sort ("Feel lucky?"
. And hten we have North Korea's bad habit of rattling its sabres every time one of the Kims gets hungry, threatening to attack the South in order to get more aid shipments. Everyone knows that'd be a goddamn dumb thing to do, but hell, the Kims are literally nuts enough, better to give 'em the cheese and crackers than watch 'em blow up a few hundred north Koreans by marching over their own landmines.
Calling "we don't have any and we don't want any" a "bluff" is frankly silly. The point of bluffing is to give a display of strength and confidence to make the other guy back off. Iran bluffing on nukes would be them taking a position similar to Israel's.
If "bluff" is being used to mean the weaker definition of "lie or mislead," then Peres is basically saying the Iranians are fooling themselves about their non-pursuit of nukes... which is just all kinds of silly.
Now, my perspective? Iran has apparently been "on the verge" of nuclear weapons since at least January 19, 2002, with Bush's "Axis of Evil" remarks in the State of the Union. For eleven years, they've been "just a year away," or "just a matter of months," or "two years" or "a year and a half," depending on who's making the claim, when, and to whom.
I would also find it a little easier to believe if the people that keep saying this weren't all, each and every one, so very eager to make war on Iran anyway.
It would also have a little more credibility if, y'know, the Supreme leader of Iran hadn't totally proscribed the weapons, along with chemical and biological weapons.
I didn't like the taste of yellow cake in 2002, and I still don't care for it.