My take on this whole nuclear issue with Iran echoes what I have heard and read. The Iranian president cannot be trusted and is an expert of dodging on point questions using deflective language. He does nothing more than dance around the point regarding nuclear weapons. When the BBC contacted me to be on their round table show recently, I was stunned. My views remain that history repeats. In the 30's, Hitler was rising to power. He was in the "friendly stage", trying to woo others, which he succeeded. The other countries all tried to appease him with concessions or by "ignoring him" thinking the problem would vanish! Hitler would then accept them and not really concede anything but continued to be cordial and nice--reassuring the world that he only wanted what was best for Germany. Time went on. Inside Germany, the military had been building up and training all along. The citizens themselves had little clue what Hitler really wanted at the time (30's). It all seemed "Okay", to anyone who simply casually looked. To others, they saw danger and tried to warn an ignorant world.
Ahmadinejad is following the same script Hitler wrote and performed. The world today is smarter. His goal is to destroy Israel. He does have designs on Iraq in a covert manner. Iran could control some of Iraq through covert activity, for instance, control Basra, key to oil and ports. He is not that dumb to do this overtly with military activity- he is a fox. A sly, cunning leader.
If the world waits until Iran does do something with even a tactical nuclear weapon, it is too late. With a nuclear weapon, Iran would be a threat to most nearby countries. Instability would increase dramatically. The problem for the West is that no solution is even a good one. They are all only the best of a bad selection of choices to counter this. It is a "damned if you do, damned if don't" situation. We all know that even with pinpoint bombing is inaccurate if the intelligence of the nuclear locations is incorrect. The best we could do would be to destroy the obvious above ground nuclear facilities, and of course, Iran would keep such material in this obvious place. At least, serious damage could be made along with destroying their oil refineries. Perhaps the Iranian people would then be angry enough to overthrow the regime, for it is their government which has brought this upon them. The common Iranian is no different than the common American in many ways.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said a nuclear Iran could threaten the world. How true. He is also quite correct that unless Iran proves to the world it is "clean", the West will sooner or later use military force.
Iran should allow the inspectors in their country, free access to any location they wish to pursue, stay as long as they want, talk to anyone they want. Anything short of this is akin to a person who knows they are guilty when charged with a crime--they dodge questions, confuse issues, and to a policeman, act suspiciously by refusing to cooperate.
A person who is truly innocent has nothing to hide. That is the simple clue. Iran is not this person.
