Iran's Nuclear Program

Despite the quiet outrage over China declaring they will shoot down airplanes hundreds of miles from their own coastline, this news was eclipsed by the news the last couple days. Great Britain met with Iran in Switzerland and brokered an agreement, between Iran and the USA, to back off sanctions in exchange for a signed treaty to keep Uranium/Plutonium enrichment below 5% (less than weapons grade). This allows Iran to keep their nuclear program, to make electric power and probably ships, in exchange for them selling oil on the open market again rather than to the Greeks and Indians and Chinese for Gold at slightly discounted prices. They never stopped selling oil. They just weren't selling oil for dollars or euros. As its highly likely Iran already has a nuclear weapon stockpile, and the treaty is a piece of paper and unenforceable, this gives Iran carte blanche to openly join the world of nuclear powered Bond Villains nations. Pakistan, India, China, USA, Russia, Israel, probably North Korea, probably Japan, probably South Korea, France, Great Britain, probably Germany. The trouble with nuclear proliferation is those with weapons that can't hold their tempers, ones with leaders prone to threats, nuclear war is inevitable and the fallout is literally an international problem, which means that if the fallout lands somewhere that's also nuclear armed, they will retaliate with force on the offender. The other problem with proliferation is that America got The Bomb when most of our roads were unpaved, our population out of work and fighting two wars, and much of us suffering from hunger and the cold. We were a third world nation, and we built and used two atom bombs. Crappy modern third world nations can do this too. How do you feel about a nuclear armed El Salvador? How about Namibia with nuclear weapons? South Africa has them, and they're communists, so that probably means their nukes were sold for food. Africans display amazingly poor sense for maintenance. And nukes need very frequent and precise maintenance by extremely sober and careful men. Good luck finding those in sub-Saharan Africa.

Nuclear proliferation makes for nuclear accidents and even small spills can poison a lot of seafood. Look at Fukushima Reactor in Japan, where the energy minister kept insisting there was no problem, even after the youtube video of the steam explosion and leaks.

I think Japan lost a great deal of the world's respect with that denial. We already saw this and he's insisting everything is fine. Many workers died from radiation poisoning. They're now trying to freeze the ground to stop natural water flow pushing their leaking and highly radioactive reactor cooling pool into the sea, where its been leaking for a couple years now. As sea water is a good way to cool a reactor so it can make more steam, and thus more power, putting nuclear reactors on the coast is going to continue to be a normal thing. The two nuclear reactors in California are both on the coast, cooling themselves in the icy Pacific.

I feel glad that the US Navy is withdrawing from the Middle East and Indian Ocean and Mediterranean. We have no interests there anymore. We shouldn't be paying to keep it safe for our competition to benefit. Let them pay for their own security, and suffer the consequences of the wars caused by pretending "everything is A-Okay!". Between the ambivalent Europeans (and the failure of the European union in the southern nations) and the Chinese navy, they can deal with all that crap. Same with the Indian navy, such as it is. Let those two fight over patrolling the Persian Gulf and deal with pirates in the Indian Ocean. Not our problem. Not America's problem. While I'm sure there's good reasons to stay active in the Pacific, restraining Chinese ambitions to slaughter lead the world under its peaceful and benevolent rule, as a teacher leads a student, our real issues are closer to home and must be dealt with here. Not somewhere nebulous. US foreign policy has long been about fighting wars overseas so they aren't fought here. And with cheap oil, that works. The trouble is we have expensive oil and we're a bankrupt nation that's killing our youth in wars and refusing to give them jobs at home so they get into drugs, crime, and teen pregnancy to join the gravy train of entitlements. In the scale of things being told by the EU to butt out of Iran's nuclear program? Well, ESAD. This is not a victory for anyone but Iran.

I wonder if we'll relax restrictions on Cuba next? Its not like the Cuban expats in Florida vote for Democrats anyway. They're a known conservative quantity, so hurting them doesn't cost the Ruling Party its votes. And the president is a Lame Duck so can flap around doing whatever, insulting everybody. It's not like increasing the suffering of the public in Cuba has resulted in a revolution. At this point, its just sour grapes from those who had to flee their homes in Cuba. I wonder which nation will broker this secret agreement, and what neutral nation will host the secret conference? Maybe the US should go negotiate returning the Falkland Islands to Argentina? Would Britain like that? You know, just to be fair! Sigh.

America is giving up many of its treaty obligations. It just doesn't have the prestige to threaten anymore. Like our President from Hawaii, we're kind of a joke. May as well take our ball and go home.