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Comment by berntb | Hacker News Reader

I wrote neighboring countries. There is also a difference -- granted, sometimes quite small in civil wars -- between terror/guerilla. (Besides, most any case is from the cold war.)

Also, if a country is the biggest terror sponsor on the planet, like Iran, I don't exactly feel sorry as long as civilians aren't targeted.

Edit: To be obvious, terror is worse for western governments, since they need to win elections. The idea with terrorism is to scare civilians -- it is just a place where those governments don't want to go.

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In my opinion the "biggest terror sponsor" has to be the US and other "leading" European countries such as my own: France. All recent large-scale wars have been perpetrated by these countries and what's worse on the very name of freedom and for the ultimate good of human beings (except when it was a revenge, but I'd forgive America for that one quite easily even though it's one of the biggest recent mess).

Ahmadinejad has Fuck-You-Power (as in Fuck-You-Money) and he uses it. He doesn't need any Western government and doesn't care putting up with international sanctions. Whether he is doing good any good to his own country is another matter entirely.

I don't subscribe to the Western theory that Iran as a whole is a threat to anything. They see nuclear technology as both a mean to assert their military supremacy and as a way to overcome their energy issues so they go for it regardless of what other countries think of it. Right now, Nuclear weapons are still used by "strong" countries to impose their supremacy.

Look at Israel. That problem is unmanageable. I strongly believe that if Iran had Nuclear power, Israel would play much lower profile in the region and discuss equitably how to settle the issues over there.

A couple of things I wish to add: the balance of power must shift. Nobody likes living in a world that is biased toward a small group of "leading" countries. Nuclear power is like the instant disruption factor in the balance of power. An alternative is a slow and painful fight between countries such as what happens between Israel and their neighbouring countries.

> Nuclear power is like the instant disruption factor in the balance of power.

I used to believe this, but now I think it's no longer true. It's a case of aspirant countries looking up to the nuclear powers, and drawing the wrong conclusions.

Nuclear weapons are the end-product of a system and process. There's a notion that to surpass the master, you need to ask what the master sought, rather than copying what the master did. In some way, this pursuit of nuclear weapons is cargo-cultish.

How much more secure would Iran be if it had invested money in offensive and defensive cyberwarfare, instead of nuclear?

The problem is that the talent required to drive that doesn't want to live in Tehran, when they can live in San Francisco, New York, or Montreal.

If experience of India and Pakistan have to show anything, developing Nuclear Weapons is not a big deal, except when there are systematic attack against your infrastructure and scientists by foreign powers. Heck, I would wager that any decently educated engineers and physicist with government backing can build a nuclear bomb. The domain knowledge is not very exotic, either.

My argument is that the cost inherent in that "government backing" might be better spent on cyberwarfare.

Imagine what $100-1000 M buys you on the offensive cyberwar front vs. on the nuclear + delivery front.

I think your logic misses he important factor here.

There must be some serious conflict: Juntas need external enemies, so opposition becomes treachery.

It is a pity, Iran would probably be a really cool place without the theocracy. I just hope those thieves don't get millions of Iranians killed before they are thrown out.

>>In my opinion the "biggest terror sponsor" has to be the US and other "leading" European countries such as my own: France. All recent large-scale wars have been perpetrated by these countries

Wars != terror. Which you know, you're just arguing dishonestly.

(Also, check the democratic peace theory on Wikipedia.)

Second paragraph -- "Ahmadinejad has Fuck-You-Power" is totally wrong, too. Most analysts claim he is on the wrong side with the theocracy and is more or less a figurehead for now.

I stopped reading. You're a propagandist or a troll.

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