Are you kidding? The United States initially helped Saddam Hussein invade Iran, in a decade-long conflict that eventually claimed a million Iranian lives. The U.S. and other European powers even helped the Iraq use WMDs against Iran. And, get this: when Iraq attacked Iranian forces with chemical weapons, Iran did not retaliate in kind, despite possessing the technical capacity to do so. On top of all that, Saudi Arabian leaders claim they could acquire nuclear weapons in mere weeks. (regardless of the conditions under which they claim they would do so, the Saudi acknowledgement of their capability, is, itself, a nuclear threat -- on top of the threat already posed by other regional actors, who posses nuclear weapons.)

Now, you don't think *these* are plausible reasons for why Iran might want to develop a latent nuclear capability?
(note that "latent capability" is different from "fully functioning and deployed weapons.")

Exactly, but not the way you describe. That repeating pattern is more like colonialism -- with its concomitant historical pattern of racism and white supremacy -- and not, as you claim, Antisemitism. Those tin-pot dictatorships that are (or were) all over the region? Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Hosni Mubarek, etc...? They are *overwhelmingly* propped-up by European powers and/or the United States. Make no mistake: the Saudi regime is *brutal.* ( it can be argued that basic freedoms are far more curtailed in Saudi Arabia, than in Iran.) Heck, Saudi Arabia essentially operates a eugenics program, designed to breed more "Al-Saud" family members. Such policies are not in the interests of most Saudi citizens, and, in fact: they are robbing the people blind. But these policies are in the interests of the Al-Sauds, and their colonial benefactors.

Also, the entire settler/colonist process in Israel, itself, is far more akin to classic, race-based colonialism, than it is akin to resistance to racism (which includes: resistance to Antisemitism). You can even ignore the treatment of Palestinians to make this case:

1. 1.) Israel helped the Apartheid South African government acquire weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. Israel did this, despite the fact that the South African state was maintaining preparedness for a genocidal war of annihilation against Blacks, eg: they even went so far as to research the creation of bioweapons that would selectively-kill Blacks in the "race-war" that their leaders imagined could happen.
2. 2.) Israel helped supply arms, training, and logistics to the Ladino/White Guatemalan regime, in the 1980s to 90's. It is widely acknowledged that this regime committed outright genocide against indigenous Mayans, during that county's civil war. Some estimates say that at least 200,000 Mayans were murdered or disappeared. Logistics included a computerized "passbook" system, that was used to limit the movements of Mayan Indians, in their own country. A similar system was supplied to South Africa, enabling the Apartheid regime to limit the movements of Blacks.

Now, before you claim "Israel (or other western powers) would never use nuclear weapons, first" -- consider the above two points: Israel has already helped other countries commit, or potentially commit, genocide. Not to mention: the United States, and many of the European powers active in the region, already have their *own* relatively recent history of mass-murder and genocide.

So, who should be trusted? Who will keep the peace? Iranian leaders -- regardless of how un-democratic they are -- have made the calculation that they cannot rely on the peaceful "good intentions" of these other countries. Problem is: based on historical fact, their calculations are probably correct.

Oh, please. If the U.S. really cared about tyrants, we stop propping-up the brutal & corrupt Al Saud "royal" family dictatorship, in "Saudi" Arabia?

Wasn't it supposed to be about WMDs?

Does this include full voice *recording* of the calls?

...and his father's friends in the Florida court system?

Does the NSA have a recording? (or some agency? via one of several automated, mass-surveillance systems?)

The "Christian" right's relationship to the Taliban is might be more literal than everyone thinks: Saudi Arabia owns two trillion dollars of U.S. corporations and assets, and that buys a lot of influence. Perhaps, it's more than a coincidence that many these corporations help push socially conservative agenda? They do this via the media entities on which they advertise, like News Corp, which is 7% owned by a Saudi "royal." And now, they can do it via direct, unlimited, & anonymous campaign contributions/political advertising. Is it any coincidence that the anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-woman agenda they push happens to mirror that which exists in the barbaric, medieval hellhole called "Saudi" Arabia?

The policies they push even help *kill* Americans" -- whether it's via lack of universal healthcare*** (killing up to 40,000 Americans a year) -- or via the wasted opportunity cost of multi-trillion-dollar wars & military spending. Why should the Saudi Arabian monarchy care? After all: a majority of Americans are still "infidels" -- so what if they push policies that help impoverish us and die? They've already spent billions to push their reactionary version of Islam (Wahhabism) around the world, for the last several decades.

***Ironically: the Saudi Arabia dictatorship attempts to buy support by providing their subjects with universal healthcare!

You can't be serious. Failed federal policies, facilitated by corporate-financed corruption, nearly caused the entire American economy to collapse. ...A collapse big enough to put both the Constitution and countless American lives in jeopardy. Next time, we might not be so lucky.

It IS that bad -- your comment seriously downplays what's been going on. Part of the problem is that not all Americans are affected to the same degree. (which is perhaps why you haven't noticed.) Look at the differential rates of incarceration, depending on what race you are. (holding constant particular crimes & crime rates, eg: white vs. black drug use rates are nearly identical for various drugs -- but the incarceration rate for blacks can be more than X10.) Or, just look at this guy, who just spent TWO YEARS in solitary confinement, after having had NO TRIAL.

Meanwhile, if you were the decision-maker at a bank that issued "liar's loans" en masse -- or led one of the credit agencies that fraudulently rated these bundled mortgages as "AAA" -- I guarantee that you got off scott-free! No one has gone to jail, or even been arrested for these crimes. (described & documented by many people, e.g.: William Black, here.) ...even though the ENTIRE ECONOMY NEARLY COLLAPSED -- putting the both the Constitution and American lives in peril.

That's just a few small examples of how law & order have broken down in this country.

Even worse: a Saudi Arabian "prince" owns 7% of News Corp. What agenda do you think he want to push, vis-a-vis selling more oil? (not only vis-a-vis climate change, but war with Iran?)

This is great news for people who want to use lasers for crowd control.

>600LY delay in communications is the deal breaker

Even if an extraterrestrial intelligence were detected thousands of light years away, we could reasonably assume that they've been around a lot longer than we have. (it is unlikely that in our multi-billions-of-years-old galaxy, that their technological civilization emerged *exactly* at the same time ours did. ...whether or not you consider the delay in communication.)

This means they could have long ago established outposts all across the galaxy, to which (whom) they can delegate decisions about what to communicate, or physically do. Such outposts could be very close to Earth.

>trade for exotic technologies.

Perhaps the "trade" is informational, or computational.

> [if] they wanted to kill us off, there is nothing that we could do.

That's why this scenario is not the one we should be worried about. Here's a greater danger -- one plausible enough, that it might cause Earth-bound governments to invest significant resources in detecting extraterrestrial intelligence:

Imagine that the intelligence is intentionally (or even: inadvertently) broadcasting information that can be used by one faction of Earthlings against another. Perhaps they are broadcasting what is to them, basic science information. (but to humans: the next, best, new weapon!) Perhaps they are broadcasting their own philosophy and ideology. (again: that could be used as an info- weapon, here.) Perhaps they have no desire to contact others -- but, inadvertently, there are signatures in their atmosphere(s) that indicate a variety of advanced technologies they're using. (...which would indicate fertile directions for future weapons research, here.)

Just *knowledge* of their existence -- eg: being the first to provably detect such an intelligence -- could give one ideological faction on this planet more power than another.

I was referring to independent studies, like this:

Report: Government spends billions more hiring contractors over public workers

...Big clarification: Rep. Mica wants to *privatize* the TSA, more than he want to destroy it.

There's evidence that government services provided by private contractors can cost twice as much as the same services, provided by full-time federal employees --- all while doing everything even less efficiently than before. (...Just like it is with private prisons, private war contractors, private health insurance, and many other scams.)

This whole scheme seems like just another RepubliScam(TM), meant to divert taxpayer cash into the pockets of Republican political benefactors.

On the contrary -- this could be a display of an amazingly nuanced kind of intelligence:

Think of this system as somehow capable of modeling knowledge -- and parsing & executing queries on that knowledge. Surely, knowledge that can be modeled includes representations of the knowledge-state of the query-asker -- basically, a "theory of mind."

Indeed, that seems to be what we are witnessing in this video demo: communication centered around ascertaining each other's knowledge. Part of this process could involve gauging the response to nonsense questions. Furthermore, one or both may be have ascertained that they are each instances of the same AI engine!

That seems pretty sophisticated, to me.