Libya Fallout: Why Iran, North Korea Now Less Likely To Drop Nuclear Ambitions

[Purveyor]

It’s a pretty good bet that, as he sits in his fortified compound, Western airstrikes targeting his military, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi rues the day he heeded US pressures and gave up his nuclear weapons program.

And, more than a bet, it’s now a matter of record that Iranian leaders interpret Colonel Qaddafi’s plight as a lesson in why not to compromise with the US and other international powers on nuclear development. Their assumption is that, were Qaddafi still in possession of his nuclear and other WMD programs, the West would have thought twice before it attacked.

What that lesson virtually guarantees, though, is that while Iran’s nuclear program may have fallen off the front pages in the wake of Mideast turmoil and the Libyan conflict, the confrontation pitting Iran against the international community will eventually turn hotter than ever.

The resistance of Iran (as well as that of North Korea) to any compromise on nuclear programs is “only going to get worse as a result of the Libyan adventure,” says Geoffrey Kemp, director of regional strategic programs at the Center for the National Interest in Washington. “Now the question of Iran is going to loom ever larger in the minds of many, and the administration is going to have to deal with this.”


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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2011/0401/Libya-fallout-Why-Iran-North-Korea-now-less-likely-to-drop-nuclear-ambitions

[sabrina 1]

1. I remember someone, maybe from N.Korea making that exact

same point after the invasion of Iraq. If Iraq had nukes, they would not have been invaded, and at the time, the N. Koreans stating that this was a perfect example of why all nations needed nukes.

[dkf]

2. That is just great.

It also proves that you will be invaded if you have oil. A couple of very bad lessons to learn.

[aquart]

3. Not a viable argument. They already learned that from the other two wars.

Unless you consider them stupid and slow learners? It was pretty obvious that we don't attack nuclear nations but feel free to wander into non-nuclear nations. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure that I've mentioned it several times right here at DU.

Although Pakistan does seem like a grey area, doesn't it?

[Alamuti Lotus]

7. Re: grey area -- Pakistan is being attacked with the acquiescence of its 'government'

which seems like a fairly paradoxical idea in itself, though not too uncommon anymore;--in this global economy, most elite classes and the governments who serve them fear their own people more than the imperialist power circles, so it is more to the latter that they are indebted to for their power than the former and they serve accordingly.

[bhikkhu]

4. Only if they weren't paying attention to Iraq & Afghanistan

Its a pretty simplistic argument to make, and ignores decades of complex history.

[kenny blankenship]

5. North Korea already proved itself untouchable. Bushler howled and screamed at them.

and they resumed plutonium research. He howled and screamed at them and they began uranium enrichment and exploded two atomic bombs. The IAEA rates N. Korea as a fully fledged nuclear weapons producing state. Bush mumbled some more at them and they fired a ballistic missile OVER Japan.

Forget this stupid shit with North Korea. It just makes you look like you weren't paying attention for the last ten years -or more.

North Korea were already untouchable and Bush proved it. Before they had atomic weapons they were untouchable because of their chemical weapons capability and the equisite vulnerability of Seoul to rocket attack from N.Korea's artillery bunkers dug into the mountains just across the DMZ. There is no conceivable way to suppress the N.Korean ability to destoy Seoul where 1 in 5 South Koreans live, without using nuclear weapons ourselves in a massive first strike on N. Korea's WMDs in those mountain redoubts overlooking the DMZ. North Korea has a vast network of tunnels and bunkers to position and supply batteries of rocket artillery dug into the granite mountain sides opposite Seoul across the DMZ. (They have also tunneled under the DMZ into South Korea at depths over 100m through bedrock to create invasion routes- just to give an idea at how handy they are with tunnels.) The only way to suppress attack from artillery fired from the mountains is to bomb the mountains with such force to bring the upper layers down on top of the revetments and bunkers. And that could only be accomplished by a surprise attack with nuclear weaponry. But a preemptive attack of this nature would defeat its own purpose, since it would render much of the Korean peninsula an atomic wasteland and rain fallout down upon Japan as well - and perhaps China too. Whatever North Korea does to provoke other countries, and no matter how badly its own people are suffering at the hands of the Kim Jong-Il dictatorship, it's not worth killing off much of South Korea, and maybe also starting WWIII, just to "put Pyongyang in its place". Even Bush learned you had to leave North Korea alone, and he was one slow-ass learner.

Bushler also learned there wasn't any leverage over Iran. No doubt he would have loved to bomb the shit out of them. But you see the Iranians already had ballistic missiles that were easily capable of hitting Israel. Bushler was restrained. When it was disclosed in 2009 that Iran has a uranium enrichment program going on at Qom, the Iranian military test fired some new intercontinental ballistic missiles to let the world that they could hit Europe as well. You won't hear much more about trying to force Iran to do anything because they are already beyond the point where they can be bossed around. The West's hope in Iran is that the Iranian people will bring the reign of Ayatollahs to an end by themselves and that will then bring a moderation in Iran's hostility to Western foreign policy goals. They may be right or wrong about that, but they are not going to kick in Iran's door like they did with Iraq. Responsible people do not idly wander down policy paths that could start a region-wide exchange of WMDs. Libya really has nothing to do with this.

[raccoon]

6. Kick, since I can't R, it's been too long. nt