Remember Washington's success story in West Asia: Libya.
Japan, to take another example, is much more technologically advanced than Iran or North Korea, so it could have built a nuclear bomb or two before North Korea if it had really wanted to, I'd think. After the North Korean nuclear test, the LDP's policy chief Shoichi Nakagawa and Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso said there should be discussion about whether Japan should develop nuclear weapons, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe immediately insisted Japan has NO intention of doing so. That's as far as it has gone. The reason is that Japan acquiring nuclear weapons means Japan developing its own foreign policy independent of US foreign policy, whereas the essence of the post-WW2 US-Japan relation has been that Washington welcomes Japan's economic development in so far as Japan's power elite won't have independent foreign policy or develop military power or alliances to back it up.
The Khatami and Rafsanjani factions would love Iran to have the kind of relation that Japan has with the US. To be sure, Washington is highly unlikely to concede as much or even a good deal less like the Libyan deal, so what these two factions want may be a moot question, but the Libyan option can't be totally ruled out.
That said, while it is not true that everyone wants a nuclear bomb, more and more countries' power elites are certainly thinking of going nuclear:
<http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=12715> GCC announces plans for joint nuclear program 12/11/2006 12:00:00 PM GMT
(Reuters Photo) Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal
Leaders of six Gulf state announced that they would develop a joint nuclear program for peaceful purposes.
The leaders made the announcement in a statement issued Sunday at the end of the two-day 27th Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit.
The GCC comprises Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The six oil-rich Arab states said they were considering the possibility of creating a shared atomic program, stressing that the "states of the region have a right to possess nuclear technology for peaceful purposes."
GCC Secretary-General Abdul-Rahman al-Attiya said that the joint nuclear program would abide by international treaties and be subject to external scrutiny.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal dismissed speculation that the GCC's decision to seek nuclear technology would heighten regional tension.
"We will develop nuclear technology openly, rather than clandestinely. We don't want atomic bombs," he said, adding: "It's not a threat… It is an announcement so that there will be no misinterpretation for what we are doing."
The Gulf leaders also reaffirmed their support for a peaceful settlement to Iran's nuclear crisis, and called on Tehran to focus on environmental issues, and cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The United States and other Western states claim that Iran is secretly developing atomic arms, a charge Iran strongly denies.
GCC members also said they wanted a region free of weapons of mass destruction, and called on Israel to renounce nuclear weapons and allow international inspection of all its atomic facilities.
The Riyadh-based GCC was established in 1981 to improve the coordination and cooperation among its member states and promote regional integration.
--AJP and Agencies
> Hamas ought to be ditched by everyone anyway - they are an entirely
> useless resistance organisation who are vastly more dangerous
> and harmful to their own population than to their enemies. And ditching
> Hezbollah is not even slightly on the cards given the importance of
> Lebanon to Iran. A diminution in Iranian support
> for Hezbollah (and consequent increase in Syrian influence) would be no bad
> thing either, as it would strengthen the nationalist elements in Hezb relative
> to the fundamentalists; I don't see how it can possibly be seen as a victory
> for imperialism if Hezb becomes more of a political movement with a base in the
> whole of Lebanon rather than a Shiite militia aiming at exporting the Iranian
> revolution.
One, it's up to the Palestinian people to support or oppose Hamas. Two, what makes you think that there is a division between "nationalist" and "fundamentalist" elements as you put it in Hizballah and the former is tied to Syria and the latter is tied to Iran? That sounds like a figment of your imagination. Three, what makes you think that Syria can or will fill the gap if Iran abandons Hizballah? Four, as it is, the coalition led by Hizballah is more nationalist than the March 14th coalition.
> > An Iranian government driven by the reformist and/or Rafsanjani
> > faction might work with Washington to get rid of Moktada al-Sadr and
> > the Mahdi Army, too, as they are closer to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim than
> > Ahmadinejad's faciton or Ali Khamenei for that matter is:
> > <http://www.juancole.com/2003/10/iranian-factions-divided-on-which.html>
> > <http://www.juancole.com/2003/11/khatami-recognizes-igc-according-to.html>.
>
> Yoshie, these references are three years old and have been
> utterly overtaken by events.
Events since then have reinforced the relation between Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and Washington. Remember, any favorable view the reformist and Rafsanjani factions had about him was based on Hakim getting close to the USA, for those are the factions that want to be on good terms with the empire at the expense of the empire's enemies like Sadr, Hizballah, and Hamas.
> Iran can't "get
> rid of" al-Sadr unless it is going to invade Iraq (I am presuming, perhaps
> wrongly, that we would all regard this as a bad idea).
Yes, that would be a really bad idea. Also unwelcome is a possibility that Iran will single-handedly play the role in Iraq that Pakistan has played in Afghanistan.
> <blockquote><http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html>
> > December 12, 2006
> > Iraqis Consider Ways to Reduce Power of Cleric
> > By EDWARD WONG
>
> This story basically disqualifies itself from serious consideration simply by
> the headline. Moqtada al-Sadr isn't a cleric. He doesn't issue fatwas; he has
> a middle-ranking Islamic academic title which is the equivalent of an honorary
> degree. His religious status is entirely based on who his father was, and his
> importance in Iraqi politics is entirely based on his ability to keep a militia
> together and to be a successful guerilla general. This article is all about an
> attempt to stick together a coalition in the Iraqi Parliament to "marginalise"
> Sadr; since he has about 60k street fighters, I would have thought this is
> about as relevant as trying to get him blackballed from the local tennis club.
> If by "eliminate", you mean "kill", then it is hard to see how Ahmadinejad
> could protect him from that.
Washington has not decisively moved to kill Sadr yet, though earlier in the occupation it had a better chance of doing so than now. It must have feared backlashes, and it probably still does. Besides, the US power elite have not quite made up their mind about precisely how to proceed from this point, so we all have some time. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>