He did indeed - GREAT job!

I watched the whole b'dcast and very early on concluded that I was watching and listening to a raving mad religious fanatic posing as a "professor" and dabbling in world politics - can't think of a scarier set of "qualifications".

What really left me feeling crestfallen was the periodic sound of applause (who the fcuk was clapping for that miscreant?!) which interrupted my concentration on keeping an imaginary red laser dot centered between his eyes.

Ah! I do see through Ahmadienjad. I'm merely considering three factors:
1) The Iranian people and how Ahmadienjad is not popular with them.
2) We've made mistakes before in assuming all that is said to be there, but in reality, may not be there.
3) Nuking is the only viable outcome as we don't have the manpower to invade. However, collateral damage seems not to be a problem with some of the...ur...voices of distinction here, even with knowledge that Ahmadienjad is not a popular president.

Oh, boy, now you're splitting "hairs" when you could ultimately use a few strands.

A pure scientific factual account of who has enriched uranium is suddenly politically biased according to where it appears.

Desperate, eh? ;)

Ah. Yes most Iranian people want to live in the modern world. (not Ahmadienjad's world) However, surgical strikes on Ahmadienjad's (and his ilk) nuclear war machinery may be in order.

It's tricky, should we work to stop nuclear prolferation (and to what degree) or rather wait and deciced what to do after an Iranian bomb finds it's way to our shores? --Any who think 'nah, THAT can't happen' don't know history.

When do you strike? What do you do after you strike? Cut and run? Rebuild? Reeducate "Good Muslim vs. Bad Muslim?" Who's gonna' foot that bill? Who will guarantee that our strike will safeguard against further development of nuclear bombs being used against the U.S.?

Questions. Questions. Questions.

You strike with precision missiles at a time that is safest for your pilots. You may or may not want people to be in particular buildings when you strike. No other infrastructure is damaged, so no need for nation building. There are no guarantees, other than the guarantee that the Iranian nuclear bomb project is delayed.

Problem is, their facilities are apparently spread throughout the country, some in the middle of civilian populations and many are under ground deep enough to be bomb proof. If true, speculation is that it'll take a ground war.

"...very early on concluded that I was watching and listening to a raving mad religious fanatic posing as a "professor""

Maybe this is why Columbia University allowed him to speak.

So, we should wait until???? before whatever??? We should wait for the smoking gun???

You turn it into glass, it was thinking like yours that gave Hitler so much of a head start!!! If we do it right, there won't be any one to build another. How far are you willing to let them get Nevil??

I agree on this one. If Iran wants to use its populace as "human shields" intended to protect an obviously nefarious weapons program, I say we call their bluff. If civilians have to die, sadly I say civilians have to die. Better theirs than ours. Ultimately that's what this comes down to, no?

It is not we who are deciding to play lots with the lives of civilians, it is the radicals who currently rule Iran. Maybe - just maybe - the Iranian people would be smart enough to see that (after they were done grieving for their dead brothers and sisters) and enact the appropriate response against the radical ayatollahs and other assorted religious nutcases currently in charge over there, rather than allowing themselves to be manipulated and whipped into a frenzy of nationalism. Whether or not that would actually happen, I don't know - but all the Iranians I've ever met have been pretty level-headed and intelligent people, certainly capable of knowing who to blame in a situation like that.

It's a shame our current Idiot-in-Chief dragged us into a pointless and endless war by blathering on and fabricating "intelligence" about supposed WMDs in Iraq. Now the Iranians are taking advantage of the American public's (and entire world's) distaste for such B.S. and lies by developing WMDs of their own. They (cleverly and perhaps rightly) think that the world will just say "aww geez, not this schit again" and that it's a case of the boy crying wolf.

The scary part is, they (the Iranians) might be right. I REALLY wish Bush and the rest of his clown crew hadn't used "WMDs!" as the rallying cry for his pet project illegitimate war. Doing so ABSOLUTELY set the stage for this course of action by Iran - but unlike Iraq, I think this one most certainly IS for real. We can't afford to be wrong. Israel certainly can't, so hopefully they'll be the ones to act first.

What I love about threads like these? Nobody in power, anywhere on the planet, gives a flying French Kiss what anybody who posts here thinks. :D

I'll give my quick take on iran and nuclear power.
In our own society, nuclear energy isn't as cheap as fossil fuel burning power plants. Iran has a ton of oil to my understanding. Even with a very poorly designed brayton cycle turbine power setup, i would think oil is so cheap there that the cost per KW-hr would make nuclear power just flat out stupid in that country. The positives to nuclear come from no direct air pollution (co2, nox, particulates, etc), and having a large amount of power coming out of a relatively small plant. Now iran doesn't come across as a country with space constraints or emission problems. So russia offering uranium specifically for power reactors aside, anyone with a basic passing grade in thermodynamics knows that they are full of it.

True, of course. However, many here are simply forming opinions as to how they will handle/react to the likely (future) news of surgical strike on Iran. I know that I am now convinced enough to expect we will likely take-out that threat. --All this talk helps people to understand the possibilities ...probabilities.

Imadinnerjacket is a nut, but he is a crafty SOB. You guys are stupid if you think he came over to "discuss" the world geopolitical situation, he was generating sound bites for his own propaganda machine. He will be running this day and night, went to great University in NY gave the godless infidels the 411, we are peaceful, but we will kill you all if you do not submit. Little editing and he will be able to really twist how it looks. Even if he does not, the people he is going to be playing it for don't speak English so they can have the people ask pretty much whatever questions they want in Farsi.

Tough situation in Iran. The Persians like the West much more than Arabs, though maybe I am getting bad information from the dozens of them I have known, skewed sample, folks living here will be more predisposed to be more positive to western culture and people. I have no doubt the mullahs are disliked, but if you were there, would you be the first one to stand up and say screw this fundamentalist crap, I want a damn BLT, knowing that some large gentleman is going to sling blade(mmm, some calls it a Kaiser blade) your blaspheming head into two pieces. Actually I guess they cut your head off, rather than splitting it in two, but I just saw that flick again. Not simple by any stretch of the imagination.

Columbia University is a pawn of a little douche who would kill you in a second, nice.

Bravo Lee Bollinger! He was such a great dean when he was at U of M, everyone loved him.

Yah, my friend from Iran says that the government is the polar opposite of the people. How they manage to stay in power is beyond him. He loves his country but hates his government, maybe why we are such good friends

:DThat dinnerjacket comment is hilarious.

And you're spot on about the sound bites. They'll edit that little deal and at every "glorious" saying they'll splice in the suckers who applauded for this nut. He'll look like a hero to the home team. Nice work Columbia. You guys were played like a violin.

I wasn't aware of this, thank you for the clarification. I would still go out on a limb though and say it's cheaper to run another fuel medium, than nuclear unless they have some super "green movement" going on like we do. In that case the price of emission control would even the playing field, however iran has other issues, i doubt they care right now about how much co2 is in the atmosphere.

See anything incongruent with surgically attacking/nuking a country of its nuclear devices HIDDEN AMONG the population, and the quote below from MichiganMat?

Or is collateral damage something that gets a wink and a nod?

Cool. Do you use one of these too?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...asy_button.JPG