US/Iran Rhetoric Escalates
Nuclear is okay for me, but not for thee (image: futureatlas.com, flickr)
It must be an election year, because the noise about war with Iran has quite suddenly elevated. You have Republican Presidential candidates talking about blockades and putting missiles on high alert, threats to block the Strait of Hormuz, and the like. And Iran is doing its best to avoid an apocalyptic rhetoric gap, by announcing a series of advances on the nuclear and ballistic front. First, Iran said it produced a nuclear fuel rod:
Iranian scientists have produced their first nuclear fuel rod, Iran’s nuclear agency said Sunday, another step despite United Nations sanctions and measures by the United States and others to stop the nation’s atomic work and shut down any possible pathways to weapons production.
Iran has long said it is forced to seek a way to manufacture the fuel rods on its own, since the sanctions ban it from buying them on foreign markets. Nuclear fuel rods are tubes containing pellets of enriched uranium that provide fuel for reactors.
Iran’s atomic energy agency’s Web site said the domestically made fuel rod had already been inserted into the core of Tehran’s research nuclear reactor, but the claim could not be verified.
And today, they announced a long-range missile test, achieved during military exercises in the Persian Gulf.
Iran says it has successfully test-fired a long-range missile during naval exercises in the Gulf, flexing its military muscle to show it could target Israel and US bases in the region.
The announcement came a day after Iran claimed to have successfully tested a new medium-range, ground-to-air missile.
The hope is that this is all posturing around a possible resumption of nuclear talks. But the election season adds a pretty negative dynamic. Iran amps up its rhetoric, and candidates of both parties desire to avoid the label of “weakness” on Iran. So the rhetoric escalates. And after that, it’s really just a hop and a skip to a practical escalation. The public, depressingly, would largely go along with military action with Iran to prevent the production of weapons of mass destruction, despite the catastrophe that ensued from the last military actions along those lines.
US/Iran Rhetoric Escalates
It must be an election year, because the noise about war with Iran has quite suddenly elevated. You have Republican Presidential candidates talking about blockades and putting missiles on high alert, threats to block the Strait of Hormuz, and the like. And Iran is doing its best to avoid an apocalyptic rhetoric gap, by announcing a series of advances on the nuclear and ballistic front. First, Iran said it produced a nuclear fuel rod:
Iranian scientists have produced their first nuclear fuel rod, Iran’s nuclear agency said Sunday, another step despite United Nations sanctions and measures by the United States and others to stop the nation’s atomic work and shut down any possible pathways to weapons production.
Iran has long said it is forced to seek a way to manufacture the fuel rods on its own, since the sanctions ban it from buying them on foreign markets. Nuclear fuel rods are tubes containing pellets of enriched uranium that provide fuel for reactors.
Iran’s atomic energy agency’s Web site said the domestically made fuel rod had already been inserted into the core of Tehran’s research nuclear reactor, but the claim could not be verified.
And today, they announced a long-range missile test, achieved during military exercises in the Persian Gulf.
Iran says it has successfully test-fired a long-range missile during naval exercises in the Gulf, flexing its military muscle to show it could target Israel and US bases in the region.
The announcement came a day after Iran claimed to have successfully tested a new medium-range, ground-to-air missile.
The hope is that this is all posturing around a possible resumption of nuclear talks. But the election season adds a pretty negative dynamic. Iran amps up its rhetoric, and candidates of both parties desire to avoid the label of “weakness” on Iran. So the rhetoric escalates. And after that, it’s really just a hop and a skip to a practical escalation. The public, depressingly, would largely go along with military action with Iran to prevent the production of weapons of mass destruction, despite the catastrophe that ensued from the last military actions along those lines.
