1/4 of an Iran Debate
Scott Horton,
August 03, 2010
On April 1, 2010 I participated in a panel discussion at the University of California at Riverside titled “Obama’s challenge: Iran, Nuclear Weapons & the Mideast” with Reese Erlich, Larry Greenfield and Christopher Records – here is some of my part. Thanks to Mansoor Sabbagh for the video. Reese Erlich’s part here.
E. A. Costa
August 3rd, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Precise, concise, articulate, splendidly presented–and most importantly, on target on every point but one, to wit the cartoonish sketch of Sadr, reflecting the establishment's own naive view unfortunately.
Duglarri
August 4th, 2010 at 6:21 am
Wonderful summary by Scott. He's good at it because he's had to make these same basic points to so many audiences so often. Perhaps it's time to look past the facts and recognize that the move to war is not based on facts. Enrichment is just an excuse; the problem is Iran's driving while Muslim problem. So long as Iran exists as a single state, so long as it constitutes a remote threat to Israel, and a direct threat as a sponsor of Hezbollah, there will be calls for war. If they gave up enrichment tomorrow the drums for war would go silent- just for a while. Then they'd start up again.
The people on the other side of this debate don't care if Iran enriches uranium or not. It's just a handy stick. If they closed their current program they'd be accused of having a secret one.
Conversely, if they deep-sixed Hezbollah and abandoned Syria, and kicked all the Hamas people out of Tehran, all this talk would disappear faster than a pile of snow in the Russian summer.
seannielson
August 5th, 2010 at 9:54 am
The great debate that does not end.
Sean
drewhause
August 5th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Debate wont save us, actions will.
Charles
Iran Debate | Stress
August 16th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
[...] is the 2 1/2 hour entirety of that Iran debate at UCR on April 1, 2010. Featured speaker was Reese Erlich. Panelists were Erlich, Larry [...]