Rostere

The article is mostly correct, but a few mendacities has snucked in. Iran has significant uranium deposits and several large uranium mines. So when the article states that "[iran] could buy the 100,000 kilograms of natural uranium for $10 million, and have France or Russia enrich it for them at a cost of another $8 million, for a total price that is insignificant compared with the cost that current international sanctions are imposing on the country." this is technically true, but disregards the option and the history of them having the whole chain internally. Since earlier US efforts demanded a complete halt of nuclear activities, Iran has been forced to construct this entire chain of enrichment themselves. Now at this point, when they already have the entire infrastructure, it would be economic madness to import enriched uranium from France - considering (from a US perspective) that at this point Iran could already have enough HEU for as many bombs as they want, a dismantlement of the centrifuges is meaningless with regards to nuclear proliferation. They said "they don't have one now". That's not the same thing at all as saying they're not working on one. That's the same faulty logic you use throughout. They have vastly more centrifuges now then they did in early 90's. Their economy is all but collapsing. Why would they acquire so many centrifuges if they weren't trying to make a bomb? The same people were also saying N. Korea would get a nuke, and guess what, they were right. Pay attention! They are not saying that Iran does not have a nuke. They are saying that for all they know, Iran does not have a military nuclear program. The possibility exists that they will initiate a military nuclear program in the future, though, although I think it is unlikely barring some catastrophic event, considering the Islamists have already dismantled an existing military nuclear program in the 80s (inherited from the Shah) and forbidden it by Islamic law. It's not an argument that because they have more centrifuges now than in the early nineties, they must be building a bomb. Furthermore, I defer my judgment as to whether they are currently building a bomb or not to Mossad and CIA. If they are wrong, then so am I. Has anyone been saying North Korea wouldn't get nukes if they could? I wasn't aware of that. It's not a defense of Iran, it's a defense of science and common sense in NPR matters. I just made the argument that you fail to see anything else than "bad guys" and "good guys" and then you write this? By this rate, I won't need any actual arguments of my own, I only need to wait and watch you show your naïve view of foreign politics yourself. The fact that they are (most likely) not currently having a military nuclear program does not make them "fuzzy kittens". I have not said so and you know it. I understand that you have a GI Joe view of the world where there only are "evil villains" and "fuzzy kittens" (evidently), and while this is sufficient for kindergarten-level discussion of foreign politics it is utterly inadequate for any adult subject of a modern democratic nation. Make an effort to educate yourself if you truly want to understand what is going on in the world. The state sponsorship of terrorism is also hugely overblown issue. I once saw a complete list (with a map I think?) of Iranian state-sponsorship of terrorism. Not very impressive. Most of it are things which took place over ten years ago, and the vast majority not related to Iran itself but Iran-aligned groups such as Hezbollah - who by the way has had p.cool bromance with the Lebanese Christians the last ten years, seeing how they have been successful coalition partners in Lebanon's democratically elected government. IMO the worst Iran supports is Assad, who is a crazy bloodthirsty dictator. It goes without saying that the US has sponsored far more terrorism during the Cold War than Iran has ever done. Israel is also a state sponsor of terrorism, considering their support of MeK, which is considered a terrorist group by the US. Obviously, being a sponsor of terrorism does not immediately make you a "great Satan" or something. I concede the point that you can condemn both US, Iranian and Israeli state sponsorship of terrorism. But then you will end up condemning a lot of people, and you won't get a lot done in foreign relations. At least this we can agree on. Only that I claim that with a treaty we can be more sure they are not getting nukes, if such a program is initiated in the future. If they have been planning for nukes all along - which the CIA and Mossad claims they haven't - then obviously a treaty won't make any difference as by now they could be hiding any amount of the necessary isotopes anywhere.

This is part false and part true. They DO need enrichment plants to enrich uranium for their needs, considering they mine their uranium themselves. HOWEVER, buying low-enriched uranium from elsewhere would probably make more economic sense. Brazil suggested a deal like this some years ago, but was shot down by the US, who at that time advocated a complete shutdown of the Iranian nuclear program. At this point there is really no meaning in discussing this any more. They have had the enrichment plants up and running since 2010 and if they had wanted to, they would have HEU for dozens of bombs today. So if you are really saying that they should shut off their enrichment facilities and you are under the impression that Iran wants to make a nuclear bomb, it is already too late. They could be hiding any amount of HEU anywhere. So dismantling the enrichment facilities means nothing, which it appears the Obama administration has finally realized. Personally, I think you appear more than a little naïve. Why would you think they are building nuclear weapons? When you have no proofs, who are you listening to? Mossad has said they do not have one. CIA has said they do not have one. Oh look, Guard Dog thinking he knows better than the Israeli and American intelligence services. Great job. Can you get it into your head that the same guys who are saying "Iran will have nukes in the next few years" have been saying so since the early nineties? And that these were the same who fabricated "evidence" about Iraq (for which they should be hanged, drawn and quartered for treason)? The exact same people are now hawking about Iran's "nuclear weapons" with zero evidence for everything. Geez, I guess Netanyahu wasn't fooling about when he said in 2001 that the US is easily influenced. The exact same people are trying the exact same trick on you for the second time. I'd like to (not) paraphrase GWB and say that if they can fool you once, then same on them. If they fool you twice, then you're just plain ****ing retarded. Anyways, this is rapidly approaching idiot level when you make statements such as that without proof. Next you will be saying that you are sure that god exists. Wrong. If the treaty lets international inspectors inspect Iranian sites at will, then we can be sure that no military nuclear program is initiated in the future. As I have already said, if you believe Iran has pursued a military nuclear program from the beginning, then they could already have all the materials they need for all the nukes they will ever need. So in that case, even a complete dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program (which the Republicans have been calling a "good deal") will not be enough to be sure. So as you see, a treaty like the current one is the best option because it is the only way we can learn to trust each other. Yeah, because this is totally the same thing. The "good guys" postponing a war against the "bad guys". Nuanced American foreign policy insight at it's best :D. The mere fact that you make this comparison, implicitly saying that Iran is "the devil" which cannot be dealt with peacefully demonstrates that you have more in common with the Iranian crackpot nationalists who are saying the same thing, than with moderates on either side. Do you realize that "Neville Chamberlain demonstrated for the whole world the value of a deal with the devil yet the same mistakes get made again and again." is exactly the same argument that is made in Iran against this treaty?

Then what do you propose? There are a lot of people talking, most of which do not seem to have any knowledge about the process of acquiring nuclear weapons. First off, both the CIA and Mossad agree on the point that Iran does not appear to have a nuclear weapons program going on. If you think you have a more accurate source of intelligence on the matter, please share it with me. Otherwise, you should stop talking about "Iran getting nuclear weapons". These negotiations are about civilian nuclear power, and the logistics behind them, for all we know. Yes, that includes parts which would shorten the time for Iran to build a nuclear bomb, should they choose to do so. But these are things many other countries also have - Romania, Germany, South Korea, formerly Sweden and also Slovakia, the list goes on. Only suddenly did it become important that Iran should not have those facilities. This is a red line which is drawn completely arbitrarily. You could as well talk about how a professorship in subatomic physics can shorten the breakout time for building nukes, and hype that we should "prevent Iran's university program" because that would be also be realistic and viable in Republican la la land. It's ridiculous at this point - not only is the proverbial emperor naked, but he is also rubbing his **** in your face. I vaguely remember Ahmadinejad raging about US politicians still talking about "preventing Iran's nuclear program" when they in 2010 were already at such a point that they could enrich as much uranium as needed for several bombs a year. The best you can do is to accept all civilian installations in good faith and then institute maximum surveillance of these sites under a treaty. It's either war, a treaty, or nothing. If you choose "treaty" over "nothing" the only potential downside is lost prestige for Obama if the treaty fizzles. Thus mindlessly choosing "nothing" over "treaty" is, quote: a perfect example of the modern bureaucratic dysfunction of prestige loss being more important than the expected outcome.

This new letter from Republicans implicitly addressed at the Iranian opposition (the people who do not endorse a deal), is ridiculous. It's like if Cold War Republicans had addressed SU hardliners, saying that it was no point negotiating with Kennedy about putting nukes on Cuba. Suddenly the charade that they actually want to solve a problem drops. When they make common cause with the most hardline nationalist forces in Iran, you know something is seriously wrong. Pro-Western secular Iranians: Want an agreement on nuclear power. Moderate Iranians: Want an agreement on nuclear power. Hardline Nationalist Iranians: Want to sabotage the agreement on nuclear power. Republicans: Want to sabotage the agreement on nuclear power. Democrats: Want an agreement on nuclear power. Great job Republicans. OK, wait. It's unfair to lump all Republicans together. The culprits (who might already have thought about how stupid this letter was) are bought and paid for by the same guys who have repeatedly advocated bombing Iran in the past and originally advocated the Iraq war. The pro-Israel lobby, a.k.a. the "war on everything in the Middle East" mafia. When will people ever learn? The difference is more like between, say, Arabs and Greeks. Oh boy.

I like the concept, but "Seven Dragon Saga" sounds like a really stupid name Oh well. You can't get everything.

Have you ever been engaged in student politics? Sadly, I have been, far too much for my own good. Trust me, it is the worst kind of place, where the worst people go, the ones whose sole subconscious desire is to keep discussions going for ever and ever about the smallest trifle. Whoops, did I just implicate myself there? Anyway, a 40-minute discussion seems about normal. And during this discussion (which BTW typically takes place without the candidate present in person from my experiences - but that might of course be completely different from place to place), you should expect people to dig up every single piece of dirt they can. Discussions range from "X sounds a bit angry when he speaks..." to "X has earlier been a Microsoft Student Brand Ambassador..." to whatever you can think of. I don't know exactly who participated in this discussion, but if it was public, then the only thing which bounds the stupidity of the questions asked is the people attending. If you are engaged in ANY OTHER ACTIVITY WHATSOEVER, people will ask firstly if that leaves time to your commitment as (in this case) board member. Secondly, they will ask whether there are any conflicts of interest between these. But here it is important to know the background. Several universities have recently voted to divest from companies participating in ethnic cleansing and land theft in the West Bank. That is political question where a lot of campus pro-Israel organizations have very specific views. Typically, a board member is elected to represent a segment of the students, and is supposed to represent people who have different opinions. If you have already sold your soul to one side of the debate, you can't do that. You can make pretty much an exact analogy with the current Iran negotiations. What if John Kerry also was a board member of the Iranian-American Islamic Friendship Group? A group which organizes free trips to Iran for Congress members, where the politicians are shown that totally no weaponization of radioactive isotopes is made, how just and fair Islamic law is, and so on. Furthermore, assume that John Kerry had an Iranian mother or father. Surely, I mean, SURELY, wouldn't we expect inquiring members of Congress to ask something along the lines of “Given that you have Iranian heritage and very active in the Iranian community … given that recently … [inaudible] has been surrounding cases of conflict of interest, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view … [inaudible]?”. The part connecting bias with race or religion is definitely racism. But being a member of other political organizations is also definitely bias. But then again, during WW2 the US locked up Americans with Japanese heritage in camps (which arguably prevented espionage), Muslim Israeli citizens are given a special Muslim passport so that border security knows who to stop/detain (which arguably prevents terrorism), and on Fox News, an entire interview with Reza Aslan can focus on if he had a bias as a Muslim. These are all instances of racism, frankly I'd like to see the person who is completely without guilt with regards to making decisions based on racism. The types of racism we like to highlight is very much based on our own biases and there are very, very few people who actually genuinely do not believe in any kind of racism at all. It's very sad that "Jewish" is conflated with pro-settlements, pro-war against everything in the ME, and parroting right-wing Israeli governments in general when in reality, some of the best intelligent and constructive criticism of Israel comes out of groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, Open Hillel, Mondoweiss news blog, Richard Silverstein's blog, and more. Case in point when during Netanyahu's recent speech, he says that he "speaks for all Jews" when the demonstration outside is organized by JVP. Sadly he is reinforcing this conflation from the other side. Burning the Swedish flag would be considered oddball, but probably preferable to displaying it too much (in which case you would be identified as a dirty inbred neo-Nazi from the countryside).

I'd agree with that based on common sense, but history tells me otherwise.

"The Republican Love Affair with Bibi Netanyahu" "I’m afraid the issue here is war and peace… I didn’t hear him once offer a sound proposal besides war. Because all he said was you can’t cut a deal, any deal is bad. He basically said that. You can’t get a better deal! He treats us like rubes. You don’t think we’re not trying to get the best possible deal, come on!… I think it was a terrible precedent. I tell you, This is going to be remembered. This is going to be remembered as a very dark day for American democracy when you bring a foreign leader in to try and displace the American leader. Obama sets our foreign policy, not Netanyahu." All I'm thinking about is how awful it must be to be a Republican sympathizer in this age of Sheldon Adelson. Seeing the reactions to this speech, any Republican presidential candidate in 2016 will be for the use of force (i.e. war) against Iran. A pity if you like the economic side of their politics.

No, that's not what I am saying. I am saying the E.U. really messed up on this, and that the outcome is very unfortunate. It's easy to equate this to National vs. European, but it's impossible to do that because the national governments are an integral part of the E.U. through the various bodies that make up the E.U. that consist of ministers from the governments. It's more like... European Commission v.s. rest of the E.U. institutions. It's all sorts of complicated. No. The EU did not mess up on this. The national governments messed up on this. It's easy to equate to national vs. European because that's what it is. The elected body of EU representatives made this, and when it was sent out to the governments, they botched it, because specific governments did not want it. Saying that the Council of European Ministers is a part of the EU is very disingenuous. It is simply the place where the respective governments are supposed to rubber-stamp EU decisions. If you regard this as a part of the EU, then the your problem is simply that you want to make EU decision making independent of national governments, like I said.

So what you're saying is essentially that we should ditch the opinions of our respective governments and let EU decisions override in all cases? Because that is what would solve this. I don't see how it is possible to blame the EU for this when the sound judgment of the elected EU-parliamentarians is botched by national ministers.

But PUH-LEEZ. All the "EU guys" had passed this, is was only torpedoed when it came to the national governments. There's literally no way that you can say that EU is to blame for this watering-down.

Ah, yes... The speech famously known as the "Looney Tunes speech" for the cartoonish imagery. Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/warming-to-iran/383512/ I absolutely *DO NOT* object to the latter two, especially as it pertains to actual existential threats to Israel, but if it undermines the first, then forget it. The truth is that illegal settlement construction, forced relocation on an ethnic basis and land confiscations is already at an all-time high, Obama can't give Netanyahu anything in that regard... Here is a must-read article about this article about Rand Paul's "Israel Problem". Apparently Paul "only gave a Citizen Kane applause", "clapped to slowly", "appeared unenthusiastic" and is thus completely blowing his chances of Republican donor support. He defends himself by saying that he gave "Netanyahu 50 standing ovations". Apparently that's not enough. I can't help but feel sorry for the Republican party being hostage to such a narrow and dangerous special interest group. Following this, Republican candidate in 2016 will be someone who has at least said implicitly that they will take military action against Iran - and there's not much anyone can do about this, unless they have . Let's not twist words. The original quote about "wiping off the map" means just that in the same sense that Reagan wanted to "wipe East Germany off the map". You can see here how the Iranian government erected a monument to the Iranian Jews who died fighting for Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Iranian influence throughout the Middle East is actually rather positive if we compare to countries like Saudi Arabia who is constantly leaking money to headchoppers seemingly by the amount of minorities they want to kill/enslave. We have Hezbollah (which much to the dismay of Lebanese Sunni have been in a very successful coalition with Lebanese Christians since 2005), we have Iranian influence in Afghanistan acting as a "moderating and stabilizing force" as per Western media, and Iran and the US are de facto allies in the fight against ISIS. The only dividing issue is the status of the Palestinian people. Plus the fact that Iran is also an ally of Assad, who is a crackpot dictator. Yes, I think this is inevitable, but it also a matter of quite some time. I've always found the idea that the US has an amicable relationship with Saudi Arabia but not Iran to be laughable, considering the influences of their respective countries. Iran is clearly a country that represents a traditionally secular part of the Muslim world, which has sadly come under the rule of a very religious movement. The revolution in Iran against the Shah (who was put on the throne in a Western-supported coup) was made by both socialists, Shia Islamists and republican nationalists. As with all violent revolutions, the power is often in the end grabbed by the most motivated group, in this case the Islamists (who also had the most support in rural parts). The illusion that the other secular factions would get any say disappeared soon. Still, there exists divisions to this day - firstly within the clerical establishment (of course), and between the Basij militia (IMO the dangerous component of Iranian politics) and the political class. Crucially, the protests after the 2009 elections must be viewed in the light of Basij putting down protests against their pet candidate Ahmadinejad. As such I think Iran is on the right path now, and it's only a question of time before they will produce an Iranian Gorbachev, at which point we much hope that the Basij militia's influence is not too strong. EDIT: Oh, and everybody should see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv7tK2JD6Gg

Democratic representatives rip into Netanyahu and Boehner with very harsh words: http://videoshare.politico.com/singletitlevideo_chromeless.php?bcpid=309045726001&bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAETmrZQ~,EVFEM4AKJdT-Wv9cQWadwt8FUbtX2ID_&bctid=4091453894001 "At first I'd like to congratulate Speaker Boehner and PM Netanyahu on a very impressive bit of political theater. This was straight out of the **** Cheney playbook, this was fear-mongering at it's [worst]" "Congress was used as a partisan tool" et.c. Full video here. Other comments: Nancy Pelosi says: “I was near tears throughout the Prime Minister’s speech – saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States as part of the P5 +1 nations, and saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation.” Jan Schakowsky says: “What I heard today felt to me like an effort to stampede the United States into war once again.” CNN characterizes the speech as bringing absolutely nothing new, and as being "dark and Strangelovian". I think that's the next closest thing to saying Netanyahu is a crackpot. Meanwhile, Republicans - the same guys who bogged down the speech with so many standing ovations it's hardly watchable - reacted to the speech with positive platitudes. Rand Paul says: "It is important to work together to prevent a nuclear Iran, and the spread of Radical Islam.” How he makes it up in his head that Israel is counteracting Radical Islam is left untold. How he talks about "preventing" a nuclear Iran, when this is already a fact, I also do not know.

New job offer up!

So, apparently Israel's president Netanyahu recently spoke in Congress about how he wants Obama's nuclear talks with Iran to stop. Here's the video: http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4501507/netanyahu-warns-congress-iran The speech has been boycotted by about 60 Democrats, for various reasons, the most common reason being that Netanyahu was invited by congressional Republicans in order to torpedo the President's foreign policy. The second reason is that people suspect that Netanyahu merely wanted to do this to strengthen his image at home, in advance of the Israeli legislative elections due in two weeks. My opinion is that since the effort to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear technology has already failed, he's doing this in advance in order to save face later and be able to say that he did what he could when this fact sinks in. It's interesting that Netanyahu states no alternative to the talks. Iran has already achieved civilian nuclear power, and constructed enrichment facilities. They have had a research reactor (since 1967, supplied by the US), one (small) operational heavy water reactor, one light water reactor on the commercial grid, with two more light water and one heavy water reactor planned. They have been fully assisted by Russia in starting up their light water reactor. So the Republicans who say "Their nuclear program must be stopped" (Jeb Bush) and "Obama Admin's negotiations w/ Iran have been a failure. We must stand united with Israel to prevent a nuclear Iran!" (Ted Cruz) are being extremely insincere, since it's not about "stopping" some future leap of technology but dismantling existing, operational reactors and enrichment facilities which have been operational since 2010. There is fundamentally speaking no alternative to talks, there is nothing short of war at this point which could possibly stop the Iranian nuclear programme. The alternative the Republicans speak of might be to just wait, doing nothing, but that clearly won't prevent Iran from anything, as we've seen - there's no point in keeping sanctions on for nothing (or is that exactly what the Republicans think?). Meanwhile, both the Israeli Mossad and CIA are clear on the point that there is nothing which points towards there being a military Iranian nuclear programme. Now, let's not confuse that with the possibility of Iran starting a military nuclear weapons programme in the future. With what we know they have now, Iran might have a rudimentary nuclear bomb (without delivery system) within one year. Clearly the answer is a deal which lets the IAEA inspect what they are doing. So let's keep track of, and discuss, what will come out of this. And how would things have looked with a Republican president? Since Iran has been getting nuclear weapons next year every year since the 1990s, we can expect this to be a relevant question also after 2016.

It might not make him "genuinely" popular, but it sure counts as popular in every practical way. Plus, all media have degrees of bias so nobody is completely innocent here. The fact that Russia looks like it does today is a product of a political climate which has morphed into it's current form during decades. We might think it's inexplicable that there is not any other political actor who manages to get a share of Putin's vote. In a Western country, another party would quickly rise which is a closer match to outlying segments of Putin voters. You would get roughly the same political views, but a clearer opposition. Russia are still stuck in the leader cult phase, which most European countries left during the 1900s. Personally, I blame it all on the Yeltsin era and the failure of Western countries to provide some kind of Marshall Aid package to post-Soviet countries (sadly, that would never happen without two competing global ideologies...).

Why not both? Not that I know anything at all about this case, but the typical secret police would hardly do it themselves, and if they did so, not without disguise. I have no idea about this murder, but if all people were as gullible as you, intelligence services would have no problem getting away with assassinating anyone they wanted.

Now you're generalizing too much. US, Russia and China planning to defend against each other is sensible military planning, to keep the balance of power. Russia planning to invade and occupy Georgia or US planning to invade and occupy Lebanon is not about keeping the peace and being sensible, it is about chauvinistic imperialist warmongering which must be condemned. Same with AH planning to invade and occupy Serbia in this case. Actually, the AH invasion of Serbia is somewhat similar to the US invasion of Afghanistan. US were in talks to extradite Bin Laden (who was told by the Taliban to lay off terrorism but was still tolerated), but then decided to attack anyway, because the main goal is just plain to make war in the ME (remember how the people inside Bush II wanted to attack Iraq first... ). It was certainly unjustified in the sense that the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan did not approve of nor organize 9/11. However they were very lazy in distancing themselves from Bin Laden, tolerating him when he was merely an inciter of low-level terrorism. The official story of the JFK assassination has it that he was shot by an American Communist. Still, the US did not declare war on the SU or Cuba. Why is that, do you think? The truth is that people are replaceable, and one "celebrity" getting killed is never enough reason to start a war - if you don't want a war to begin with, in case an assassination plot might only be a façade for chauvinism. No, no, no. They had no idea Princip & Co had support from rogue individuals in the highest levels of Serbian government until much later. The Serbian government, which officially did not want to disturb peace and order, even sent a diplomat to warn AH in June 1914 that the assassination was about to take place. Although later it was uncovered that diplomat might have been a supporter of the conspiracy himself and chosen his words such that AH did not act upon this information. The war was declared due to Serbia's failure to follow a subsequent ultimatum given by AH. It was worded deliberately so that the Serbians would not be able to accept it, however they did express their intention to do so on every point except the one saying that AH would be able to send their own investigators to Serbia. This was of course unacceptable, because Serbia's government was at the time in the middle of a delicate power struggle between supporters of foreign terror operations and those who prioritized peace with AH, with the latter only barely holding the upper hand and the former pretty much controlling the military. It was well known by Serbia's government that the Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence was the organizer of the assassination. If AH had been allowed to investigate, they would have uncovered this, and then there would without a doubt be war. If anything, the July crisis which immediately preceded the war reflected how the sensible parts of the Serbian government had failed to do away with internal chauvinistic elements supporting terrorism abroad. In the end they had painted themselves into a corner, and their refusal to allow AH to participate in an investigation inside Serbia finally gave them their CB.

The British had won the naval arms race against Germany decisively, and it had pretty much petered out in 1912 from the British side at least. The political establishment in AH had been planning to invade Serbia since 1906. Princip just effectively handed them a CB on a silver plate. I wouldn't think of that as a cause to the war, other than in a purely technical sense. Let's take a moment to reflect on what went wrong and what could have been. Since the Treaty of Berlin abolishing Ottoman hegemony over the Balkans, Russia had secretly given AH free reins to do what they wanted in Bosnia, which was at this point administrated by AH although not de jure a part of the Empire. This was of course contrary to the official story of "pan-Slavic" sentiments. When AH finally annexed Bosnia in 1908 (against the wishes of most Bosnian Muslims and Serbs) Russia's official support was bought for AH support for opening the Straits of Bosphorus for Russian navy vessels, a significant deal which was trumpeted in Russian diplomatic circles. However, the UK effectively vetoed this and quickly the story became that a gullible Russia had sold the "Slavic" Bosnia to AH for nothing. The guilty Russian negotiator in question started selling the version that he had been "tricked by a dirty Jew" (that is, the AH negotiator) in response to which AH released previous correspondence which showed that Russia had previously unofficially given their OK for them to do whatever with Bosnia. This was a huge, huge moment of humiliation for the Russian leadership which after this point broke their previously good relations with AH and swore to avenge this insult by actually pushing a pan-Slavic agenda in the Balkans. Russian support for Serbia in a war against AH would previously have been very uncertain, and even during the outbreak of WW1 Russia initially only partially mobilized and was drawn into war when Germany declared war on them (Russia did not declare war on AH after they had declared war on Serbia as you might believe). In other words, because of previous diplomatic insults Russia felt the need to at least mobilize in order to show their disapproval and not lose their pan-Slav credentials in a warmongering game of chicken. The successor to the AH throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, stated that Serbia was a worthless scrap of land with "nothing of value except for possibly a few plum trees". He also advocated a tripartite division of power between Slavs, Austrians and Hungarians in order to stop Slavic irredentism (and minimize Hungarian power), and increasing ties to Russia to balance the reliance on Germany. He thought that increasing equality was the best way to preserve stability. These views held no power in Vienna at the time, where hawks like von Hötzendorf had access to the ear of the Emperor Franz Josef, who was completely estranged from his son. The chauvinists at this time wanted to invade Serbia for no good reason other than that they were "uppity" (a threat to the regional prestige of AH) and that they saw an independent South Slavic country as a dangerous example to their own Slavic population - which was in significant parts acquired by the occupation of Bosnia to begin with . So there's AH pushing a colonialist, long-term irrational anti-Slav agenda (against the better judgement of the person whose assassination was used (indirectly) as a CB - how ironic). Wilhelm II in Germany (another very erratic and irrational leader) was already in 1912 supportive of an eventual war by AH against Serbia. Note what was said during this meeting. The point where the German Kaiser actually decides to give his unconditional support to an AH invasion of Serbia only came after the British had said that they would not tolerate exactly that, whereupon he hours later calls a meeting to prepare for war. At this point there is disagreement among his advisors and Wilhelm agrees to postpone the war. A textbook example of irrational nationalist warmongering, when more people lining up against you makes you MORE inclined to launch a war, even though the cost/benefit calculus has just worsened! So now you understand why I think the war was caused in large part by vain ****fighting among chauvinist hotheads and not by informed decisions made by calm minds reflecting the self-interest of their nations. I guess the British reason for entering the war (keeping the status quo so that Germany would not become too strong) is kind of rational, though.

But that is exactly what it was. I don't see how anything you write contradict anything I have said. I have not said that WW1 was not important. I have only said that the causes of the war were deeply connected to the chauvinistic attitudes of a few autocrats, and to a far lesser degree, their population. AH wanted to expand into Serbia (petty colonialism), and Germany wanted to "secure their place in the sun". It is a fact that Germany throughout the war never had any clearly stated war goals. Either you can make the case that the leaders of Germany and AH were extremely ill-informed (I think we can be 100% that no cost and risk analysis was made - there was far to little to win for any of the aggressors), or their motivation was for personal and irrational reasons (this was pretty much before any meaningful democracy). I maintain the latter.

I used to be somewhat resentful of the tendency among 19th century Western adventurers to take priceless artifacts from the Middle East and back to Europe for display. Now I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe Austen Henry Layard, Robert Koldewey and Paul-Émile Botta should have taken everything of value in the entire Middle East back to Europe and their respective countries written into Basic Law that nothing should be shipped back to the ME for the next 300 years.

Looking good.

Fixed that for you.

This is an interesting argument, although there is also one to be given from the other side. If three great powers have nukes and are capable of utterly destroying each other's civilian population, we find ourselves in a "race for peace". If two of three countries declare war on each other, the remaining country will have hegemony over what is left of the world. So the one who abstains from fighting will be the winner. The winning move is not to play. It's a long time since WW1 now, where countries would enter war simple out of a vague lust for glory and nationalist sentiment (Germany). Like all scientific advancements, nuclear weapons takes war closer to it's logical conclusion. If two people of equal ability fight, the winner who will dictate the terms of peace is the third party who did not participate. Before, people misled by nationalism could think things like "our boys are braver, they will best these cowards on the battlefield!" and go to war - I bet nobody today thinks "our nukes are better, I bet theirs will malfunction" and presses the button. But of course that only applies to the most powerful countries. If a small country which wouldn't be a contestant for global power gets nukes (North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, South Africa...), it wouldn't have a positive effect on the balance of terror preventing WW3, but only increase the risk of an accident. This is also in line with the reasoning that Iran should better not have nukes, because then Saudi Arabia will be forced to have their own to be up to par.