Israel and Iran - lannan13's Tourney

I hope my responses to his last arguments will be considered equally worthy of the voters' attention, which are as follows:Nuclear Programmea) There is nothing suspicious about developing alternative energy sources, both the US and Britain had massive oil reserves in the 1950's and 60's and were self-sufficient in oil production while they developed their respective nuclear power programmes. (1,2)i) Oil production is not 100% efficient, not in Iran, not anywhere. This point should be disregarded. ii) I refer my opponent to the statement above relating to the need to develop alternative energy sources in advance of oil reserves being depleted. iii) I maintain that Iranians will be as concerned as anyone else about pollution and global warming and they do have a nuclear waste processing facility, it is located at Anarak, near Esfahan in central Iran. (3,4)b) There are concerns over the end use of Iran's nuclear enrichment program, I have not denied, but just today the Iranian President stated that he is ready to engage in talks with the international community on the issue and has previously said: ""We do not need an atomic bomb. The Iranian nation is wise. It won't build two atomic bombs while you have 20,000 warheads. " (5) Whilst many will be unwilling to take Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at his word, surely constructive diplomatic engagement is better than a preemtive military strike? With regard to Israelis, surely their continued refusal to even admit that they have a nuclear capability, much less engage in international discussions regarding the same, as my opponent acknowledges, proves they are equally, if not more, duplicitous than the Iranians'? The fact is that if Israel were not a nuclear power they would say so and open up their facilities to the IAEA for inspection, but they haven't. Israel and IranI think my opponent and I both agree that there is mutual distrust between the Israelis and the Iranians and I would say, in many ways, this mistrust is justified. We should not allow this debate to get derailed by the minutia of the various diplomatic spats between the two countries - many nuclear powers are engaged in similar disputes: India and Pakistan and North Korea and the US are notable examples. The point is, do such political or ideological disagreements warrant one country launching an unprovoked attack on another sovereign nation? I would say not. Putting Two and Two TogetherI would agree that the Iranian president is one sandwich short of a picnic, but this does not give Israel the right to unilaterally launch an attack on his country. That would amount to the collective punishment of the Iranian people who did not vote him into power in free and fair elections and who are too oppressed to overthrow his hideous regime. To be legal, any such attack would need to be sanctioned by the UN Security Council and while the US might support it under a Republican administration; Russia and China would almost certainly veto such a motion. Terrorists and CowardiceThis is a new argument, isn't it? Anyway, my opponent may well be right that Iran has supported groups resisting the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, just as Britain and the US supported resistance fighters in France during that country's occupation by the Nazis in the second world war. Many countries do this on a regular basis: the US has u anti-communist insurgents in South and Central America and Asia for decades. Indeed, they initially supported the Taliban in their struggle against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980's. As it happened, the Taliban turned out to be a group of vile, anti-democratic terrorists, but that label cannot be applied to South Koreans or French resistance fighters, or, indeed, Libyan rebels who freed their country from tyranny last year. Just because Israel labels Arab freedom fighters as "terrorists" does not mean they are terrorists. Preemtive StrikeIn reply to my opponents points I reiterate that:* Iran may not require nuclear energy at this very moment, but she will in the future. * Unlike Israel, Iran has expressed and demonstrated her willingness to engage with the international community on the issue of nuclear weapons* Iran has, indeed, expressed belligerent sentiments towards Israel, just as has Israel has expressed belligerent sentiment towards Iran but, unlike Israel, Iran has never threatened a unilateral, illegal and unprovoked military attack on her adversary. * If Israel does not have nuclear weapons she would engage with the international community and open up her facilities to independent inspection. * Iran funds her allies, such as the democratically-elected Hamas Party in Palestine - they are not terrorists, even though militant Hamas supporters engage in attacks on Israeli troops in the region. If Israel did not illegally occupy Palestine then they might be described as "terrorists" but all they are doing is resisting the illegal occupation of their country. * Iran could, in the future, use a dirty bomb against Israel, but this would provoke a devastating response from the international community and they would lose all sympathy from neutral nations such as China and Russia. Such an action would be political suicide, if not physical suicide, as Israel and her allies would respond with a far more devastating nuclear counter attack. In conclusion, a preemtive military strike by Israel on Iran cannot be considered an act of "defense" and would seriously destabilise not only the Middle East, which is already very politically fragile, but would cause massive and damaging rifts between the US, Russia, China and Europe. For that reason I reaffirm that a preemtive Israeli strike on Iran would be extremely dangerous and totally unjustified. Thank you. 1) . http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com...2) . http://www.moneyweek.com...3) . http://www.isisnucleariran.org...4) . http://maps.google.co.uk...5) . http://www.bbc.co.uk...