Well, well, well, here's a turn up for the book - and, yes, I'm in tired old cliché mode tonight, or at least, I'm tired after a day grass-cutting in the Churchyard and planting my bedding plants in my miniscule garden. But, I have just stumbled across the best bit of news I have had in ages - I have found my old e-pal (well, perhaps 'pal' is tad familiar), Oliver Kamm. He was one of the first bloggers I ever came across 'back in the day' and I took to him instantly, not that I agreed with everything he wrote but I learned rapidly, as I surveyed the remnants of his opponents littering 'Blogdom', to be exceedingly cautious before taking him on. Back then he was just another 'something in the City' but before long he was taken on by my mate 'Rupe' and today he is a leader writer for The Times. Alas, 'Rupe' ignored my advice and took The Times behind a pay wall and Oliver stopped his blog, and thus was one of the most fiery and intelligent voices in 'Blogdom' silenced - unless you wanted to make 'Rupe' even richer!
However, today I came across a piece at The Coffee House by Peter Oborne, perhaps the equal of Oliver in journalistic pugilism, counter-punching vigorously against two posts written by Oliver concerning a recent book by Oborne and a co-writer, David Morrison, called A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran. In it, Oborne and Morrison propose that Iran has absolutely no nuclear weapons and no intention of getting them. In Oliver's first attack ( I cannot call it otherwise), he had not yet read the book itself but he took exception to Mr. Morrison whom he accused of being a Srebrinica-denier. As I hinted above, you need to be very sure of your facts before you take on Oliver:
Srebrenica denial is, as I’ve argued here, the same class of “argument” as Holocaust denial. Except the lie is even more blatant. We know how many victims perished because the bodies have been found. Scientists have recovered the remains of more than 7,000 victims and used DNA analysis to identify 6,838 of them. I’ve noted here the heroic work of the International Commission on Missing Persons, which can thereby reliably estimate the number of victims as between 8,000 and 8,100.
Oborne answers this in his Coffee House response:
This analysis was based on an article for the Labour & Trade Union Review in August 2005. I have read it carefully and do not find that it supports Mr Kamm’s interpretation, or anything like it. Indeed Dr Morrison explicitly stated in his article ‘that Bosnian Muslims got massacred in large numbers is not in doubt’ (a statement to which Mr Kamm did not draw his readers’ attention).
Well, 'you pays your money and you takes yer pick'. Of course, far and away the most interesting point is whether Oborne and Morrison are correct in their assertion that Iran does not now and will not in the future possess nuclear arms. I suspect that neither party knows for sure, any more than I do. Oborne's claim that Khomeini has stated that nuclear weapons are against Islamic creed may have been said but how far would you trust him if you were an Israeli? And mention of Israel brings me to the key player in this frighteningly dangerous poker game. It doesn't matter if the CIA is convinced that Iran has weaponry because the USA will do nothing so long as Obama is in the White House. However, I reckon Israeli intelligence knows exactly the state of the game and the day they are certain the weapons are there will be the day before the Big Attack and then we will all know for sure!
Incidentally, if any of you techie-swots know how to log in to this Times.tumblr. thingie without paying I would be very grateful and 'Rupe' would be irritated!
David?
I knows it's hard to distinguish them thar Iranian Mullahs - maybe because they all sport beards - but there is one sure way that being "the act of breathing."
Khomeini > Not breathing!
Khamenei > Breathing!
Here I sends you to NightWatch School and all you does is look for the pictures!
Posted by: JK | Thursday, 02 May 2013 at 00:58
Hmm, so Mr Oborne cheerfully admits that Iran has a well developed Nuclear programme and has enrichment as a goal/aim/intention, but they are all innocently wanting peace if we just give them a chance?
I might point out that rather than trying for Low Enriched Uranium (<20%) they appear (from the scuttlebutt) 'interested' only in Highly Enriched Uranium (>20%). LEU is used in reactors and whilst HEU can be used in reactors it is also the necessary ingredient for 'you know what'.
Then:
"Oborne's claim that Khomeini has stated that nuclear weapons are against Islamic creed"
Tell that to Pakistan! And 'peaceful intentions' just makes me wonder what someone has been smoking.
I can't face reading the book, but the article quoted, and who it was for (L & TUR) says a lot, does it not? I've had a number of 'discussions' with people who say similar things with regards to Stalin; "the fact that he killed many Russians is not in dispute", and then there's always either a silent, or rarely expressed, "BUT" that follows in which that uncomfortable and (don't they just wish they'd managed to keep it hidden) fact is glossed over, excused and ignored in their 'glorification' of their hero.
I may be doing a disservice to the gentleman, but I'll 'take a pass' on the book if you'll allow?
(I'll wait for the book where Bush gets blamed for premature baldness - as he's to blame for everything else apparently, almost as bad as Lady Thatcher over here)
Posted by: Able | Thursday, 02 May 2013 at 05:36
JK, you say 'Khomeini', I say 'Khomeni, let's call the whole thing off!
Able, I wasn't trying to flog the book, honest. Anyway, as I said above, the Israelis will decide the matter.
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 02 May 2013 at 08:42
Are we really bond to this notion that Israel has a nuclear bomb, therefore any other nation in the ME may have one also? Or the "hard" version, Israel has a nuclear bomb, therefore any other nation in the ME MUST have one, just to balance the terror? I don't really like "balance" when one side of the see-saw believes that the other side is a nation of pigs and monkeys that must be destroyed to allow the hidden imam to reappear.
The islamists already believe they can roam around the world setting off conventional bombs at a moment's notice. It might not be a good idea to let them do that when their mentors have a nuclear bomb.
Posted by: Dom | Thursday, 02 May 2013 at 15:19
Dom, here even I have a sneaking sympathy for Obama. I don't have a lot of it but I do have some. He is relying on various intelligence summaries from various agencies all of whom, in the snake pit that is Washington politics, have their own axe to grind. Remember, it Is only a few years back that virtually all of the intelligence agencies of the world were convinced Saddam had WMD. An American-led attack on Iran would be cataclysmic in all sorts of unforeseen areas, not least the world economy. That is not to say that he shouldn't do it. I think that provided the intelligence is as close to incontrovertible as it can be, then he should destroy the Iranian sites. On the other hand, doing that is maybe to set the bar too high. The Israelis will not work to such fine distinctions. If they are, say, 75% sure, then they will go in. No-one, least of all Oborne and Kamm, can be sure until the day after the Israeli strike.
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 02 May 2013 at 16:33