I know we have another thread for this. Mods by all means feel free to merge. I'm just letting this article get some individual attention before ya do since it is Sy Hersh and all.

I haven't finished reading it yet, but thought I'd share anyway. Apologies for the poor paragraphing... I had to do it myself since it's a copy/paste from a Word doc. [EDIT: fixed]

P.S. Is there a way we can leave davejeni's paranoid red herrings out of this thread?

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/a ... 417fa_fact

The Iran Plans

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
Issue of 2006-04-17
Posted 2006-04-10

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?' ”

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?' ”

The rationale for regime change was articulated in early March by Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter of President Bush. “So long as Iran has an Islamic republic, it will have a nuclear-weapons program, at least clandestinely,” Clawson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd. “The key issue, therefore, is: How long will the present Iranian regime last?”

When I spoke to Clawson, he emphasized that “this Administration is putting a lot of effort into diplomacy.” However, he added, Iran had no choice other than to accede to America’s demands or face a military attack. Clawson said that he fears that Ahmadinejad “sees the West as wimps and thinks we will eventually cave in. We have to be ready to deal with Iran if the crisis escalates.” Clawson said that he would prefer to rely on sabotage and other clandestine activities, such as “industrial accidents.” But, he said, it would be prudent to prepare for a wider war, “given the way the Iranians are acting. This is not like planning to invade Quebec.”

One military planner told me that White House criticisms of Iran and the high tempo of planning and clandestine activities amount to a campaign of “coercion” aimed at Iran. “You have to be ready to go, and we’ll see how they respond,” the officer said. “You have to really show a threat in order to get Ahmadinejad to back down.” He added, “People think Bush has been focussed on Saddam Hussein since 9/11,” but, “in my view, if you had to name one nation that was his focus all the way along, it was Iran.” (In response to detailed requests for comment, the White House said that it would not comment on military planning but added, “As the President has indicated, we are pursuing a diplomatic solution”; the Defense Department also said that Iran was being dealt with through “diplomatic channels” but wouldn’t elaborate on that; the C.I.A. said that there were “inaccuracies” in this account but would not specify them.)

“This is much more than a nuclear issue,” one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. “That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.”

A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said. The danger, he said, was that “it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability.” A military conflict that destabilized the region could also increase the risk of terror: “Hezbollah comes into play,” the adviser said, referring to the terror group that is considered one of the world’s most successful, and which is now a Lebanese political party with strong ties to Iran. “And here comes Al Qaeda.”

In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, told me that there had been “no formal briefings,” because “they’re reluctant to brief the minority. They’re doing the Senate, somewhat selectively.”

The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”

Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars.

Last month, in a paper given at a conference on Middle East security in Berlin, Colonel Sam Gardiner, a military analyst who taught at the National War College before retiring from the Air Force, in 1987, provided an estimate of what would be needed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Working from satellite photographs of the known facilities, Gardiner estimated that at least four hundred targets would have to be hit. He added:

I don’t think a U.S. military planner would want to stop there. Iran probably has two chemical-production plants. We would hit those. We would want to hit the medium-range ballistic missiles that have just recently been moved closer to Iraq. There are fourteen airfields with sheltered aircraft. . . . We’d want to get rid of that threat. We would want to hit the assets that could be used to threaten Gulf shipping. That means targeting the cruise-missile sites and the Iranian diesel submarines. . . . Some of the facilities may be too difficult to target even with penetrating weapons. The U.S. will have to use Special Operations units.

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year. (Iran has acknowledged that it initially kept the existence of its enrichment program hidden from I.A.E.A. inspectors, but claims that none of its current activity is barred by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.) The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete.

There is a Cold War precedent for targeting deep underground bunkers with nuclear weapons. In the early nineteen-eighties, the American intelligence community watched as the Soviet government began digging a huge underground complex outside Moscow. Analysts concluded that the underground facility was designed for “continuity of government”—for the political and military leadership to survive a nuclear war. (There are similar facilities, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, for the American leadership.) The Soviet facility still exists, and much of what the U.S. knows about it remains classified. “The ‘tell’ ”—the giveaway—“was the ventilator shafts, some of which were disguised,” the former senior intelligence official told me. At the time, he said, it was determined that “only nukes” could destroy the bunker. He added that some American intelligence analysts believe that the Russians helped the Iranians design their underground facility. “We see a similarity of design,” specifically in the ventilator shafts, he said.

A former high-level Defense Department official told me that, in his view, even limited bombing would allow the U.S. to “go in there and do enough damage to slow down the nuclear infrastructure—it’s feasible.” The former defense official said, “The Iranians don’t have friends, and we can tell them that, if necessary, we’ll keep knocking back their infrastructure. The United States should act like we’re ready to go.” He added, “We don’t have to knock down all of their air defenses. Our stealth bombers and standoff missiles really work, and we can blow fixed things up. We can do things on the ground, too, but it’s difficult and very dangerous—put bad stuff in ventilator shafts and put them to sleep.”

But those who are familiar with the Soviet bunker, according to the former senior intelligence official, “say ‘No way.' You’ve got to know what’s underneath—to know which ventilator feeds people, or diesel generators, or which are false. And there’s a lot that we don’t know.” The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”

He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.' ”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said.

The chairman of the Defense Science Board is William Schneider, Jr., an Under-Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration. In January, 2001, as President Bush prepared to take office, Schneider served on an ad-hoc panel on nuclear forces sponsored by the National Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank. The panel’s report recommended treating tactical nuclear weapons as an essential part of the U.S. arsenal and noted their suitability “for those occasions when the certain and prompt destruction of high priority targets is essential and beyond the promise of conventional weapons.” Several signers of the report are now prominent members of the Bush Administration, including Stephen Hadley, the national-security adviser; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

The Pentagon adviser questioned the value of air strikes. “The Iranians have distributed their nuclear activity very well, and we have no clue where some of the key stuff is. It could even be out of the country,” he said. He warned, as did many others, that bombing Iran could provoke “a chain reaction” of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world: “What will 1.2 billion Muslims think the day we attack Iran?”

With or without the nuclear option, the list of targets may inevitably expand. One recently retired high-level Bush Administration official, who is also an expert on war planning, told me that he would have vigorously argued against an air attack on Iran, because “Iran is a much tougher target” than Iraq. But, he added, “If you’re going to do any bombing to stop the nukes, you might as well improve your lie across the board. Maybe hit some training camps, and clear up a lot of other problems.”

The Pentagon adviser said that, in the event of an attack, the Air Force intended to strike many hundreds of targets in Iran but that “ninety-nine per cent of them have nothing to do with proliferation. There are people who believe it’s the way to operate”—that the Administration can achieve its policy goals in Iran with a bombing campaign, an idea that has been supported by neoconservatives.

If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get “eyes on the ground”—quoting a line from “Othello,” he said, “Give me the ocular proof.” The broader aim, the consultant said, is to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime.

The new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if conducted by C.I.A. operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.

“ ‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. “The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran,” he said. “We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want.”

The President’s deep distrust of Ahmadinejad has strengthened his determination to confront Iran. This view has been reinforced by allegations that Ahmadinejad, who joined a special-forces brigade of the Revolutionary Guards in 1986, may have been involved in terrorist activities in the late eighties. (There are gaps in Ahmadinejad’s official biography in this period.) Ahmadinejad has reportedly been connected to Imad Mughniyeh, a terrorist who has been implicated in the deadly bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, in 1983. Mughniyeh was then the security chief of Hezbollah; he remains on the F.B.I.’s list of most-wanted terrorists.

Robert Baer, who was a C.I.A. officer in the Middle East and elsewhere for two decades, told me that Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard colleagues in the Iranian government “are capable of making a bomb, hiding it, and launching it at Israel. They’re apocalyptic Shiites. If you’re sitting in Tel Aviv and you believe they’ve got nukes and missiles—you’ve got to take them out. These guys are nuts, and there’s no reason to back off.”

Under Ahmadinejad, the Revolutionary Guards have expanded their power base throughout the Iranian bureaucracy; by the end of January, they had replaced thousands of civil servants with their own members. One former senior United Nations official, who has extensive experience with Iran, depicted the turnover as “a white coup,” with ominous implications for the West. “Professionals in the Foreign Ministry are out; others are waiting to be kicked out,” he said. “We may be too late. These guys now believe that they are stronger than ever since the revolution.” He said that, particularly in consideration of China’s emergence as a superpower, Iran’s attitude was “To hell with the West. You can do as much as you like.”

Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is considered by many experts to be in a stronger position than Ahmadinejad. “Ahmadinejad is not in control,” one European diplomat told me. “Power is diffuse in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards are among the key backers of the nuclear program, but, ultimately, I don’t think they are in charge of it. The Supreme Leader has the casting vote on the nuclear program, and the Guards will not take action without his approval.”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said that “allowing Iran to have the bomb is not on the table. We cannot have nukes being sent downstream to a terror network. It’s just too dangerous.” He added, “The whole internal debate is on which way to go”—in terms of stopping the Iranian program. It is possible, the adviser said, that Iran will unilaterally renounce its nuclear plans—and forestall the American action. “God may smile on us, but I don’t think so. The bottom line is that Iran cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the U.S. Something bad is going to happen.”

While almost no one disputes Iran’s nuclear ambitions, there is intense debate over how soon it could get the bomb, and what to do about that. Robert Gallucci, a former government expert on nonproliferation who is now the dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, told me, “Based on what I know, Iran could be eight to ten years away” from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon. Gallucci added, “If they had a covert nuclear program and we could prove it, and we could not stop it by negotiation, diplomacy, or the threat of sanctions, I’d be in favor of taking it out. But if you do it”—bomb Iran—“without being able to show there’s a secret program, you’re in trouble.”

Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, told the Knesset last December that “Iran is one to two years away, at the latest, from having enriched uranium. From that point, the completion of their nuclear weapon is simply a technical matter.” In a conversation with me, a senior Israeli intelligence official talked about what he said was Iran’s duplicity: “There are two parallel nuclear programs” inside Iran—the program declared to the I.A.E.A. and a separate operation, run by the military and the Revolutionary Guards. Israeli officials have repeatedly made this argument, but Israel has not produced public evidence to support it. Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State in Bush’s first term, told me, “I think Iran has a secret nuclear-weapons program—I believe it, but I don’t know it.”

In recent months, the Pakistani government has given the U.S. new access to A. Q. Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb. Khan, who is now living under house arrest in Islamabad, is accused of setting up a black market in nuclear materials; he made at least one clandestine visit to Tehran in the late nineteen-eighties. In the most recent interrogations, Khan has provided information on Iran’s weapons design and its time line for building a bomb. “The picture is of ‘unquestionable danger,' ” the former senior intelligence official said. (The Pentagon adviser also confirmed that Khan has been “singing like a canary.”) The concern, the former senior official said, is that “Khan has credibility problems. He is suggestible, and he’s telling the neoconservatives what they want to hear”—or what might be useful to Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharraf, who is under pressure to assist Washington in the war on terror.

“I think Khan’s leading us on,” the former intelligence official said. “I don’t know anybody who says, ‘Here’s the smoking gun.' But lights are beginning to blink. He’s feeding us information on the time line, and targeting information is coming in from our own sources— sensors and the covert teams. The C.I.A., which was so burned by Iraqi W.M.D., is going to the Pentagon and the Vice-President’s office saying, ‘It’s all new stuff.' People in the Administration are saying, ‘We’ve got enough.' ”

The Administration’s case against Iran is compromised by its history of promoting false intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In a recent essay on the Foreign Policy Web site, entitled “Fool Me Twice,” Joseph Cirincione, the director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote, “The unfolding administration strategy appears to be an effort to repeat its successful campaign for the Iraq war.” He noted several parallels:

The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. Secretary of State tells Congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The Secretary of Defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism.

Cirincione called some of the Administration’s claims about Iran “questionable” or lacking in evidence. When I spoke to him, he asked, “What do we know? What is the threat? The question is: How urgent is all this?” The answer, he said, “is in the intelligence community and the I.A.E.A.” (In August, the Washington Post reported that the most recent comprehensive National Intelligence Estimate predicted that Iran was a decade away from being a nuclear power.)

Last year, the Bush Administration briefed I.A.E.A. officials on what it said was new and alarming information about Iran’s weapons program which had been retrieved from an Iranian’s laptop. The new data included more than a thousand pages of technical drawings of weapons systems. The Washington Post reported that there were also designs for a small facility that could be used in the uranium-enrichment process. Leaks about the laptop became the focal point of stories in the Times and elsewhere. The stories were generally careful to note that the materials could have been fabricated, but also quoted senior American officials as saying that they appeared to be legitimate. The headline in the Times’ account read, “RELYING ON COMPUTER, U.S. SEEKS TO PROVE IRAN’S NUCLEAR AIMS.”

I was told in interviews with American and European intelligence officials, however, that the laptop was more suspect and less revelatory than it had been depicted. The Iranian who owned the laptop had initially been recruited by German and American intelligence operatives, working together. The Americans eventually lost interest in him. The Germans kept on, but the Iranian was seized by the Iranian counter-intelligence force. It is not known where he is today. Some family members managed to leave Iran with his laptop and handed it over at a U.S. embassy, apparently in Europe. It was a classic “walk-in.”

A European intelligence official said, “There was some hesitation on our side” about what the materials really proved, “and we are still not convinced.” The drawings were not meticulous, as newspaper accounts suggested, “but had the character of sketches,” the European official said. “It was not a slam-dunk smoking gun.”

The threat of American military action has created dismay at the headquarters of the I.A.E.A., in Vienna. The agency’s officials believe that Iran wants to be able to make a nuclear weapon, but “nobody has presented an inch of evidence of a parallel nuclear-weapons program in Iran,” the high-ranking diplomat told me. The I.A.E.A.’s best estimate is that the Iranians are five years away from building a nuclear bomb. “But, if the United States does anything militarily, they will make the development of a bomb a matter of Iranian national pride,” the diplomat said. “The whole issue is America’s risk assessment of Iran’s future intentions, and they don’t trust the regime. Iran is a menace to American policy.”

In Vienna, I was told of an exceedingly testy meeting earlier this year between Mohamed ElBaradei, the I.A.E.A.’s director-general, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control. Joseph’s message was blunt, one diplomat recalled: “We cannot have a single centrifuge spinning in Iran. Iran is a direct threat to the national security of the United States and our allies, and we will not tolerate it. We want you to give us an understanding that you will not say anything publicly that will undermine us. ”

Joseph’s heavy-handedness was unnecessary, the diplomat said, since the I.A.E.A. already had been inclined to take a hard stand against Iran. “All of the inspectors are angry at being misled by the Iranians, and some think the Iranian leadership are nutcases—one hundred per cent totally certified nuts,” the diplomat said. He added that ElBaradei’s overriding concern is that the Iranian leaders “want confrontation, just like the neocons on the other side”—in Washington. “At the end of the day, it will work only if the United States agrees to talk to the Iranians.”

The central question—whether Iran will be able to proceed with its plans to enrich uranium—is now before the United Nations, with the Russians and the Chinese reluctant to impose sanctions on Tehran. A discouraged former I.A.E.A. official told me in late March that, at this point, “there’s nothing the Iranians could do that would result in a positive outcome. American diplomacy does not allow for it. Even if they announce a stoppage of enrichment, nobody will believe them. It’s a dead end.”

Another diplomat in Vienna asked me, “Why would the West take the risk of going to war against that kind of target without giving it to the I.A.E.A. to verify? We’re low-cost, and we can create a program that will force Iran to put its cards on the table.” A Western Ambassador in Vienna expressed similar distress at the White House’s dismissal of the I.A.E.A. He said, “If you don’t believe that the I.A.E.A. can establish an inspection system—if you don’t trust them—you can only bomb.”

There is little sympathy for the I.A.E.A. in the Bush Administration or among its European allies. “We’re quite frustrated with the director-general,” the European diplomat told me. “His basic approach has been to describe this as a dispute between two sides with equal weight. It’s not. We’re the good guys! ElBaradei has been pushing the idea of letting Iran have a small nuclear-enrichment program, which is ludicrous. It’s not his job to push ideas that pose a serious proliferation risk.”

The Europeans are rattled, however, by their growing perception that President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney believe a bombing campaign will be needed, and that their real goal is regime change. “Everyone is on the same page about the Iranian bomb, but the United States wants regime change,” a European diplomatic adviser told me. He added, “The Europeans have a role to play as long as they don’t have to choose between going along with the Russians and the Chinese or going along with Washington on something they don’t want. Their policy is to keep the Americans engaged in something the Europeans can live with. It may be untenable.”

“The Brits think this is a very bad idea,” Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council staff member who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, told me, “but they’re really worried we’re going to do it.” The European diplomatic adviser acknowledged that the British Foreign Office was aware of war planning in Washington but that, “short of a smoking gun, it’s going to be very difficult to line up the Europeans on Iran.” He said that the British “are jumpy about the Americans going full bore on the Iranians, with no compromise.”

The European diplomat said that he was skeptical that Iran, given its record, had admitted to everything it was doing, but “to the best of our knowledge the Iranian capability is not at the point where they could successfully run centrifuges” to enrich uranium in quantity. One reason for pursuing diplomacy was, he said, Iran’s essential pragmatism. “The regime acts in its best interests,” he said. Iran’s leaders “take a hard-line approach on the nuclear issue and they want to call the American bluff,” believing that “the tougher they are the more likely the West will fold.” But, he said, “From what we’ve seen with Iran, they will appear superconfident until the moment they back off.”

The diplomat went on, “You never reward bad behavior, and this is not the time to offer concessions. We need to find ways to impose sufficient costs to bring the regime to its senses. It’s going to be a close call, but I think if there is unity in opposition and the price imposed”—in sanctions—“is sufficient, they may back down. It’s too early to give up on the U.N. route.” He added, “If the diplomatic process doesn’t work, there is no military ‘solution.' There may be a military option, but the impact could be catastrophic.”

Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, was George Bush’s most dependable ally in the year leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But he and his party have been racked by a series of financial scandals, and his popularity is at a low point. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said last year that military action against Iran was “inconceivable.” Blair has been more circumspect, saying publicly that one should never take options off the table.

Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of an American bombing campaign. “The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically,” the European intelligence official told me. “He will benefit politically from American bombing. You can do it, but the results will be worse.” An American attack, he said, would alienate ordinary Iranians, including those who might be sympathetic to the U.S. “Iran is no longer living in the Stone Age, and the young people there have access to U.S. movies and books, and they love it,” he said. “If there was a charm offensive with Iran, the mullahs would be in trouble in the long run.”

Another European official told me that he was aware that many in Washington wanted action. “It’s always the same guys,” he said, with a resigned shrug. “There is a belief that diplomacy is doomed to fail. The timetable is short.”

A key ally with an important voice in the debate is Israel, whose leadership has warned for years that it viewed any attempt by Iran to begin enriching uranium as a point of no return. I was told by several officials that the White House’s interest in preventing an Israeli attack on a Muslim country, which would provoke a backlash across the region, was a factor in its decision to begin the current operational planning. In a speech in Cleveland on March 20th, President Bush depicted Ahmadinejad’s hostility toward Israel as a “serious threat. It’s a threat to world peace.” He added, “I made it clear, I’ll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel.”

Any American bombing attack, Richard Armitage told me, would have to consider the following questions: “What will happen in the other Islamic countries? What ability does Iran have to reach us and touch us globally—that is, terrorism? Will Syria and Lebanon up the pressure on Israel? What does the attack do to our already diminished international standing? And what does this mean for Russia, China, and the U.N. Security Council?”

Iran, which now produces nearly four million barrels of oil a day, would not have to cut off production to disrupt the world’s oil markets. It could blockade or mine the Strait of Hormuz, the thirty-four-mile-wide passage through which Middle Eastern oil reaches the Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, the recently retired defense official dismissed the strategic consequences of such actions. He told me that the U.S. Navy could keep shipping open by conducting salvage missions and putting mine- sweepers to work. “It’s impossible to block passage,” he said. The government consultant with ties to the Pentagon also said he believed that the oil problem could be managed, pointing out that the U.S. has enough in its strategic reserves to keep America running for sixty days. However, those in the oil business I spoke to were less optimistic; one industry expert estimated that the price per barrel would immediately spike, to anywhere from ninety to a hundred dollars per barrel, and could go higher, depending on the duration and scope of the conflict.

Michel Samaha, a veteran Lebanese Christian politician and former cabinet minister in Beirut, told me that the Iranian retaliation might be focussed on exposed oil and gas fields in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. “They would be at risk,” he said, “and this could begin the real jihad of Iran versus the West. You will have a messy world.”

Iran could also initiate a wave of terror attacks in Iraq and elsewhere, with the help of Hezbollah. On April 2nd, the Washington Post reported that the planning to counter such attacks “is consuming a lot of time” at U.S. intelligence agencies. “The best terror network in the world has remained neutral in the terror war for the past several years,” the Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said of Hezbollah. “This will mobilize them and put us up against the group that drove Israel out of southern Lebanon. If we move against Iran, Hezbollah will not sit on the sidelines. Unless the Israelis take them out, they will mobilize against us.” (When I asked the government consultant about that possibility, he said that, if Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, “Israel and the new Lebanese government will finish them off.”)

The adviser went on, “If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle.” The American, British, and other coalition forces in Iraq would be at greater risk of attack from Iranian troops or from Shiite militias operating on instructions from Iran. (Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, has close ties to the leading Shiite parties in Iraq.) A retired four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, “the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.”

“If you attack,” the high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna, “Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the Iranians.”

The diplomat went on, “There are people in Washington who would be unhappy if we found a solution. They are still banking on isolation and regime change. This is wishful thinking.” He added, “The window of opportunity is now.”

Yes.

We should just let Israel do it; they have better intelligence than us, and they've done it before so it won't suprise anyone.

No.

Do we even have enough troops to get the job done? I was just refering to a bombing campaign myself, which is what the latter part of the article discusses, which although is an act of war is not indicative of a full scale war.

Forget about having enough troops. China and Russia would never let war with Iran and the U.S. take place.

But would we allow Israel to bomb it? Sure. Would we drop some JDAMS on a couple possible nuclear sites? Sure. War? Nope.

No way.

******IMO******

bush is a weenie and the only reasons he went to war with Iraq was to one up his daddy and be a "wartime president".

my republican husband is endlessly frustratred because he believes that more countries should have been invaded by now (he's a bit of a war/history geek, makes for *interesting* conversation), but he has come to realize that bush is a one trick pony.

apologies for the lack of fact in this post, but it seems to me that a lot worse stuff has been going on based on lack of fact.

laugh all you like it will be German led 10 nation EU, that will take Iran out.Their gonna rip through Iran like nothing this world has ever seen.

Iran are gonna start playing around with oil big time now they have the rest of the world over a barrelll with oil.
They can wreck countries economies with oil, & europe gets i think about 40% of oil off Iran.
Its the ace up thier sleeves they have.

America wont go to war with Iran.

1 Their already fighting 2 wars.
2 their will is broken they will never win another major battle.(the same with Israel their giving their land away the terrorist are winning their battle)
3 Americas economy is at Armaggeddon proportions, put it plainly the dollar is going to fall soon.( they cant finance another war)
4 Russia & China are with Iran simply because they have trade deals with Iran.

In 30 days Iran have to go back to the security council watch for Germany to get involved in this.
Relations between Germany & iran are going to get real bad.

Explain to me how Germany run the EU again? Especially seeing as there is a rotating 6 month presidency? Especially seeing as Germany is no longer the strongest economy in the EU anymore.

an article earlier this year

Germany regaining its stride
By Mark Landler The New York Times

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2006


HEIDELBERG, Germany After four years of stagnation, Germany is showing signs of reclaiming its role as the economic engine of Europe. And much of the credit goes to old-line German companies like the printing press manufacturer named for this ancient university town.

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, the world's largest maker of printing presses, was flat on its back two years ago, the victim of a downturn in the media industry and Japanese rivals that undercut its prices. Now, after painful therapy that included 3,500 layoffs, the company is humming again.

The rest of the country may soon join it. A variety of recent statistics suggest that Germany, the world's third-largest economy after the United States and Japan, is on the mend, with quickening growth, surging investor confidence, signs of a rebirth in consumer spending, and even a modest decline in unemployment.

A reinvigorated Germany would have far-reaching implications for Europe and even the global economy. It accounts for a fifth of the economic activity of the entire European Union, and is the world's largest exporter, a title it managed to retain even during these lean years.

"The rumors of Germany's death have been exaggerated," said Norbert Walter, chief economist at Deutsche Bank. "We've really made lots of progress, and we've gotten off to a good start in 2006."

Germany has seen false dawns before, of course. There was a burst of enthusiasm here last winter before the economy had a relapse and an unpopular German government felt forced to call early elections. Germany grew barely 1 percent in 2005, and even the most bullish projections for this year put growth at just 2 percent - a pace that would qualify as a lull in the United States.

But for the first time since the technology bubble burst in 2000, there is a real sense that Germany is on the move.

For one, Germans voted in a new government, under its first female leader, which has helped lift the mood in this often pessimistic country. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met with President George W. Bush in Washington on Jan. 13, has gotten off to a sure-footed start, political analysts say, raising hopes that she can push through overdue economic changes.

For another, German industry has whipped itself into shape. By taking unpopular steps, like cutting jobs, extending work hours without extra pay, and moving production to lower-cost countries, companies have pruned their costs and regained their competitive edge in global markets.

Back in fighting trim, German industry has begun flexing its muscles overseas. The chemicals company BASF recently made a $4.9 billion hostile takeover bid for the U.S. company Engelhard, while the steel maker ThyssenKrupp is locked in a battle for a Canadian steel company.

"The strength of German companies has been hidden by a productivity and cost disadvantage," said Alexander Dibelius, a partner at Goldman Sachs who runs its German office. "When they increase their productivity, their products are pretty much unbeatable."

The reversal in fortunes is evident in a visit to Heidelberg, where its namesake company looms large, with a shimmering glass tower opposite the train station and a sprawling factory outside town.

Earlier in the decade, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen reflected Germany's industrial decline. Its sales tumbled 17 percent in 2003, as customers put off big-ticket purchases. The rise of the euro against the dollar and the yen had the effect of making Heidelberger's printing presses 30 percent more expensive than those of its Japanese competitors.

The company's unionized work force and rigorous apprenticeships seemed hopelessly ill suited to the realities of a global economy. In fiscal 2004, it lost $840 million, on sales of $4.5 billion.

With Heidelberger's survival in question, it took drastic action, selling two divisions - web presses, which print newspapers, and digital printing. It cut 3,500 jobs and extracted a deal from its union, IG Metall, to extend the workweek to 36.75 hours a week from 35 hours, for the same pay.

"We went to the workers and said, 'Look guys, we've got to get more flexible,"' Bernhard Schreier, chief executive of Heidelberger, said. "The times were very tough for the unions over the last two to three years, so they had to make a lot of concessions in company negotiations."

The same pattern was repeated throughout Germany: Siemens, Volkswagen, and DaimlerChrysler forced their unions to accept wage freezes or modest raises, often under the threat of moving jobs abroad.

Despite Germany's reputation as a workers' paradise, wage increases here have lagged behind those in other euro-zone countries by an aggregate 10 percent since 1996, according to a report by Bank of America. That said, hourly wages in western Germany are still among the highest in Europe.

"Germany had priced itself out of the market by the late-1990s," said Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. "It is basically pricing itself back into the market."

In Heidelberger's case, the agreement will cut labor costs by $121 million, or 10 percent, a year by 2008. This, plus a weaker euro in 2004, helped close the price gap between Heidelberger and the Japanese. And a stronger global economy revived orders from the United States and Asia.

The turnaround necessitated a painful dose of humility. Heidelberg opted to get out of the newspaper printing business. And while it once viewed digital printing as the future, it had to accept that it could not compete with giants like Kodak, to which it sold its digital operation.

These days, Heidelberger is a smaller but fitter company, with a pretax profit margin of 5 percent to 10 percent. Its stock has risen 31 percent in the past 12 months, about the same as the broader German market, which was one of the world's top performers in 2005.

"I'm very confident we will continue to thrive from a German base," said Schreier, a 51-year-old mechanical engineer and career employee, whose father and grandfather both worked for the company. "The technology we are using today is a very lasting technology."

The willingness of companies to hire is crucial to solving one of Germany's other chronic problems: unemployment. The government reported last month that the number of jobless people declined by 110,000, on a seasonally adjusted basis. That was better than expected, but there are still 4.6 million people out of work, close to a record in the postwar period.

"What we still need is for the great success of German companies to translate into employment," said Klaus Wübbenhorst, chief executive of GfK, a market research firm in Nuremburg.

Even so, the confidence of German consumers appears to be rebounding. GfK, which tracks the consumer climate, found that Germans are more ready to make big purchases than at any time since late 2001. Their parsimony has been the biggest single drag on the country's growth.

The European Central Bank is confident enough in the growth of Germany and Europe that it lifted interest rates last month for the first time in five years, and signaled on Thursday that it may do so again.

The German government has been among the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for a revival. It plans to revise its growth forecast for 2006 up to 1.5 percent or more from an earlier forecast of 1.2 percent. Chancellor Merkel has benefited from the good omens, winning high approval ratings.

But the government's actions so far have been small-bore: a few fiscal initiatives like the higher valued-added tax, and a $30 billion public stimulus package to help small and midsize businesses.

Merkel, experts say, will have to be bolder in opening up the labor market, as well as overhauling how the country finances health care and pension funds. That will not be easy, given that she leads a balky coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats.

HEIDELBERG, Germany After four years of stagnation, Germany is showing signs of reclaiming its role as the economic engine of Europe. And much of the credit goes to old-line German companies like the printing press manufacturer named for this ancient university town.

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, the world's largest maker of printing presses, was flat on its back two years ago, the victim of a downturn in the media industry and Japanese rivals that undercut its prices. Now, after painful therapy that included 3,500 layoffs, the company is humming again.

The rest of the country may soon join it. A variety of recent statistics suggest that Germany, the world's third-largest economy after the United States and Japan, is on the mend, with quickening growth, surging investor confidence, signs of a rebirth in consumer spending, and even a modest decline in unemployment.

A reinvigorated Germany would have far-reaching implications for Europe and even the global economy. It accounts for a fifth of the economic activity of the entire European Union, and is the world's largest exporter, a title it managed to retain even during these lean years.

"The rumors of Germany's death have been exaggerated," said Norbert Walter, chief economist at Deutsche Bank. "We've really made lots of progress, and we've gotten off to a good start in 2006."

Germany has seen false dawns before, of course. There was a burst of enthusiasm here last winter before the economy had a relapse and an unpopular German government felt forced to call early elections. Germany grew barely 1 percent in 2005, and even the most bullish projections for this year put growth at just 2 percent - a pace that would qualify as a lull in the United States.

But for the first time since the technology bubble burst in 2000, there is a real sense that Germany is on the move.

For one, Germans voted in a new government, under its first female leader, which has helped lift the mood in this often pessimistic country. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met with President George W. Bush in Washington on Jan. 13, has gotten off to a sure-footed start, political analysts say, raising hopes that she can push through overdue economic changes.

For another, German industry has whipped itself into shape. By taking unpopular steps, like cutting jobs, extending work hours without extra pay, and moving production to lower-cost countries, companies have pruned their costs and regained their competitive edge in global markets.

Back in fighting trim, German industry has begun flexing its muscles overseas. The chemicals company BASF recently made a $4.9 billion hostile takeover bid for the U.S. company Engelhard, while the steel maker ThyssenKrupp is locked in a battle for a Canadian steel company.

"The strength of German companies has been hidden by a productivity and cost disadvantage," said Alexander Dibelius, a partner at Goldman Sachs who runs its German office. "When they increase their productivity, their products are pretty much unbeatable."

The reversal in fortunes is evident in a visit to Heidelberg, where its namesake company looms large, with a shimmering glass tower opposite the train station and a sprawling factory outside town.

Earlier in the decade, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen reflected Germany's industrial decline. Its sales tumbled 17 percent in 2003, as customers put off big-ticket purchases. The rise of the euro against the dollar and the yen had the effect of making Heidelberger's printing presses 30 percent more expensive than those of its Japanese competitors.

The company's unionized work force and rigorous apprenticeships seemed hopelessly ill suited to the realities of a global economy. In fiscal 2004, it lost $840 million, on sales of $4.5 billion.

With Heidelberger's survival in question, it took drastic action, selling two divisions - web presses, which print newspapers, and digital printing. It cut 3,500 jobs and extracted a deal from its union, IG Metall, to extend the workweek to 36.75 hours a week from 35 hours, for the same pay.

"We went to the workers and said, 'Look guys, we've got to get more flexible,"' Bernhard Schreier, chief executive of Heidelberger, said. "The times were very tough for the unions over the last two to three years, so they had to make a lot of concessions in company negotiations."

The same pattern was repeated throughout Germany: Siemens, Volkswagen, and DaimlerChrysler forced their unions to accept wage freezes or modest raises, often under the threat of moving jobs abroad.

Despite Germany's reputation as a workers' paradise, wage increases here have lagged behind those in other euro-zone countries by an aggregate 10 percent since 1996, according to a report by Bank of America. That said, hourly wages in western Germany are still among the highest in Europe.

"Germany had priced itself out of the market by the late-1990s," said Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. "It is basically pricing itself back into the market."

In Heidelberger's case, the agreement will cut labor costs by $121 million, or 10 percent, a year by 2008. This, plus a weaker euro in 2004, helped close the price gap between Heidelberger and the Japanese. And a stronger global economy revived orders from the United States and Asia.

The turnaround necessitated a painful dose of humility. Heidelberg opted to get out of the newspaper printing business. And while it once viewed digital printing as the future, it had to accept that it could not compete with giants like Kodak, to which it sold its digital operation.

These days, Heidelberger is a smaller but fitter company, with a pretax profit margin of 5 percent to 10 percent. Its stock has risen 31 percent in the past 12 months, about the same as the broader German market, which was one of the world's top performers in 2005.

"I'm very confident we will continue to thrive from a German base," said Schreier, a 51-year-old mechanical engineer and career employee, whose father and grandfather both worked for the company. "The technology we are using today is a very lasting technology."

The willingness of companies to hire is crucial to solving one of Germany's other chronic problems: unemployment. The government reported last month that the number of jobless people declined by 110,000, on a seasonally adjusted basis. That was better than expected, but there are still 4.6 million people out of work, close to a record in the postwar period.

"What we still need is for the great success of German companies to translate into employment," said Klaus Wübbenhorst, chief executive of GfK, a market research firm in Nuremburg.

Even so, the confidence of German consumers appears to be rebounding. GfK, which tracks the consumer climate, found that Germans are more ready to make big purchases than at any time since late 2001. Their parsimony has been the biggest single drag on the country's growth.

The European Central Bank is confident enough in the growth of Germany and Europe that it lifted interest rates last month for the first time in five years, and signaled on Thursday that it may do so again.

The German government has been among the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for a revival. It plans to revise its growth forecast for 2006 up to 1.5 percent or more from an earlier forecast of 1.2 percent. Chancellor Merkel has benefited from the good omens, winning high approval ratings.

But the government's actions so far have been small-bore: a few fiscal initiatives like the higher valued-added tax, and a $30 billion public stimulus package to help small and midsize businesses.

Merkel, experts say, will have to be bolder in opening up the labor market, as well as overhauling how the country finances health care and pension funds. That will not be easy, given that she leads a balky coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats.

another one

Germany regaining its mantle as Europe's driving forceDocument Actions 01/04/2006

Germany has finally turned the corner and appears to be on the way to regaining its role as the motor of the European economy, analysts say.
Clear signs have emerged in recent days that the biggest economy in the European Union is emerging from several sluggish years.
Business confidence hit a 15-year high and unemployment dipped below the five-million mark.
Now, observers say, if the economic progress is to continue, Chancellor Angela Merkel has to grasp the nettle of the reforms she promised after coming to power at the head of a power-sharing government in November.
The most spectacular indication of a sustained upswing came from the Ifo business climate index, which surged to 105.4 points in March -- the highest since April 1991, the year after German unification, and up from 103.4 points in February.
The positive domestic picture was underpinned by data from Europe as a whole.
The European Commission announced on Friday that eurozone confidence was at its highest point since mid-2001 after reaching 104.8 points in March.
Importantly for Germany, analysts said the traditional gap between business confidence and consumer confidence was closing.
"Germany's upswing has started to reach the long-depressed consumer," said Holger Schmieding of Bank of America in Frankfurt.
"German consumers have apparently started to open their purses at least a little bit more than before."
He said he expected 2006 to produce the "first meaningful advance in German consumer spending in almost six years, supported by a rise in investment and a small improvement in the labour market".
Every sector, including retail, is exhibiting increased confidence in the future. Order books are full and Germany's strength as an exporter is boosting confidence.
Sylvain Broyer, an analyst at IXIS CIB in Frankfurt, believes Germany is reverting to its role of "pulling along the other European countries".
It was a view shared by Edward Teather of UBS Investment Research in London.
"While the acceleration in German growth may not be repeated in full elsewhere, it should provide a lift to activity growth in Germany's trading partners," he said.
But amid the upbeat news, unemployment still remains the issue on which Merkel's young government will be judged.
The number of jobless fell to 4.976 million this month from 5.048 million in February, the equivalent of dropping to 12.0 percent from 12.2 percent.
But economists have said repeatedly that deep reforms are needed to create jobs -- relying on economic growth is not enough, they argue.
The conservative Die Welt newspaper said in an editorial on Friday: "The worst appears to be over. It would now be tempting for the coalition to sit back and bank on economic growth to reduce unemployment.
"In fact, things are the other way round -- the unemployment problem has to be solved in order for Germany to be able to grow more again. Reforms are needed."
Labour Minister Franz Muentefering admitted that the labour market remained "unsatisfactory".
The "grand coalition", as the government is known, was bolstered by victories for both of its constituent parties -- Merkel's Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats -- in state elections last month.
Merkel, who has enjoyed a political honeymoon since ousting Gerhard Schroeder, said she would wait until after the elections to tackle reforms.
They include the possible introduction of a minimum wage and plans to strip away laws protecting employees against sacking as well as an overhaul of the health-care system.
All have the potential to drive a wedge between the two parties which have widely varying political outlooks.
Text and Picture Copyright © 2006 AFP. All other copyright © 2006 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.

Yes.

spraggy boy an evil person will soon take control of Germany he will get their the through lies deceit & will take control of the Germany & the EU & have a strong relationship with the Vatican.(Keep an eye on Edward Stoiber.

Since January, economists have reported a remarkable upswing in the German economy. Now, the gap between business confidence and consumer confidence is closing, analysts report. “Germany’s upswing has started to reach the long-depressed consumer,” said an expert in Frankfurt. “German consumers have apparently started to open their purses at least a little bit more than before.”

Europe is already beginning to look to the success in Germany. The European Central Bank considers Germany’s growth strong enough that in December 2005 it raised interest rates for the first time in five years.

Germany is europes main power block & they like to be in control ,
But when Germany is strong, it dominates the heart of the Continent and relegates its neighbors to powerlessness—until such time as they ally to crush it”.




I have said for months that things with Iran would heat up & now were talking preemptive strikes, everyone laughs at me but a far dangerous more evil power the worst in the history of Mankind is rising right in front of your eyes German led EU,tHEIR GOING TO LEAD THIS WORLD INTO WW3, Once Germany takes out Iran their going to attack America Australia Israel & BRITAIN & COMMONWAELTH COUNTRIES, Their gonna beat us with Deciet & lies once they take Iran out everone will think thier will be peace but their gonna keep going & its going to be nuclear.

The world is about to see the worst suffering ever but the best news will follow.Jesus christ is returing soon.

:gets on my knees and begs for this to stop before I start developing nuclear weapons:

only if he thought it was in the best interests of our great nation.

also, if god tells him to do it.

Why would the rest of the EU go along with this "far dangerous more evil power the worst in the history of Mankind'?

Guys...

There are 2 possible explanations for your insistence on humoring our little friend davejeni, here.

1. You enjoy winning arguments. Be it with dumb people, children, or plain Timmies.

2. Ze lulz.

The first isn't exactly an accomplishment, and the second wore out several weeks ago.

Can we please stop this.

cause the EU will be apart of it But Germany will be the main powerblock, an evil man will take control of both the EU & Germany.

Shinkdew Germany are very aggresive people they like to be in charge their very aggressive.

Margaret Thatcher famously once said when the EU first started out,
you think you have have tied Germany to europe but you will find you have tied europe to Germany.

It will have a close link with the vatican( remember pope benedict is German)

A church & state will take control of europe, most wars are caused by religion.

i think if iraq didn't go so ridiculously terrible this would have been a possibility.

OK, I'll bite.

Mate, seriously. If you find something ominous in this article, you need help for paranoia. There is not a single shred of evidence for over 50 years now that Germany has plans of world domination. Not a single shred.

I don't know if your family faced hardships because of the World Wars, if they did, my heart goes out to them, but that was a long time ago, and a lot of water has flown under the bridge. Germany is a fundamentally different country today than it was in the first half of last century.