Iran Air Strikes Growing in Probability

It is always gratifying to read Setanta, even when we fail to agree.

The DPRK is not known to currently have any missile in its inventory caplable of reaching beyond some parts of Alaska. Even that would be a long reach. There is a North Korean multi-stage missile that probably could strike Washinton State, perhaps even parts of California. That missile has not only never been tested, we don't believe that it has even been stacked. The longest range North Korean missile was tested once, and fell into the sea beyond Japan. Whether a North Korean warhead could be fitted to their missiles is not known, but we assume that it could be done. Shipping a nuclear device out of the DPRK would be difficult, but obviously not impossible. The DPRK is almost certainly nuclear capable, but is not capable anything more than regional reach at this time.

Kim Jong-il is an imponderable element as Set has pointed out. He isn't believed to be either crazy nor suicidal. Kim's first priority is personal and dynastic survival, followed closely by the desire to reunit the peninsula under his Stalinist-style rule. Kim's negotiating style is bluster, threats and blackmail. Faced with determined and credible threats of counterforce, the DPRK backs down ... a minimal amount ... and shifts its bluster, threats and blackmail to another kindered topic. In Kim's hands a small nuclear arsenal with limited reach is sufficient to his negotiation possition. Would he ever actually use a nuclear device? If pushed to the wall, as Hitler was in the bunker, Kim Jong-Il might well launch against Japan, Seoul, Okinawa and any U.S. assests within range. If he were to be able to reach the U.S. mainland and facing gotterdamerung, and I personally believe he would takeout Los Angeles without a moments hesitation. Kim Jong-Il is very dangerous, but not very capable.

I have to stop now. I'm need to attend a meeting in less than an hours, but will try to continue this later today.

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Quote:

Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, U.S. Says

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Iran, which is defying United Nations Security Council demands to cease its nuclear program, may be capable of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days if it goes ahead with plans to install thousands of centrifuges at its Natanz plant, a U.S. State Department official said.

``Natanz was constructed to house 50,000 centrifuges,'' Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow. ``Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days.''

Continued...

Fool me once...

Okay folks, let's take a trip back to the real world. Let's say just for the moment that Iran HAS a nuclear bomb. The way the US had been gobbling up Middle Eastern nations it would be the smart thing to do. One keeps nuclear weapons as a deterrent to invasion. That's supposedly why the US has so many. If you attack us, we will destroy your homes.

It is for that reason that Iran is not a threat to the US. Iran won't attack the US no matter what nuclear weapons Iran may have because the US has so many more of them AND the missiles to carry those warheads from the heart of the US of the heart of Iran, turning their nation into a gigantic green glass parking lot.

So, setting aside that the US Government has a track record of lying about other nations' 'nookular' bombs, and setting aside the fact that nobody has produced any evidence that Iran is building anything other than a power station, the fact is that Iran can have all the nukes it wants; they will NEVER use one against the US. Period.

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This from AP news service:
CAIRO, Egypt - Iran's boast that it has joined "the club of nuclear countries" by enriching uranium may rattle the Western world. But diplomats and experts familiar with the program say Iran still is far from producing any weapons-grade material needed for bombs and may be exaggerating its own progress. "The Iranians are deliberately trying to hype this up," David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said Wednesday.

Rice Calls for 'Strong Steps' Against Iran AP
Is Iran next? The calculus of military strike. Christian Science Monitor via Y! News
Iran raises stakes in nuclear row at BBC Slideshow Discuss

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Asherman wrote:

As I've said before here, it boils down to a hard choice after all diplomatic efforts fail:

(A) Intervene to destroy, or so damage the Iranian nuclear weapons program that it will not be a regional or world threat for years to come, regardless of the legal niceties. There is a saying among police officers, which I don't necessarily and completely approve of, "Better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6". It may be illegal for a citizen to physically attack a confessed child-molester for giving the "eye" to his child and the children in the neighborhood, but it is understandable. When the stakes are thousand, perhaps a million lives, the decision of whether action or in-action is the better course will lie heavy on a Commander's shoulders.

(B) Accept the risk that an Iranian nuclear program will result in a first-strike nuclear strike on those Iran's religious leaders decide should be "punished". It is possible that having a nuclear arsenal, Iran may come to its senses. If this choice is followed, and I think it will be (see my rational posted a couple of times above), and Telaviv, or San Francisco, is later attacked with weapons allowed by inaction, there will be demands for retaliation on a massive scale. The net result of inaction may be the loss of many thousands, even millions of lives.

I feel fortunate that the decision is not mine to make, and do not envy the National Command Authority its responsibility to protect the nation. Whatever the decision might be, it will be unpopular. We can only hope that diplomacy will succeed, even though that seems only a remote possibility.

Thanks, Ash. I kept asking the question, and you're the only one, who answered it.

(Well, I think Set had a one-liner about creating parking lots, but as you show here, that's after someone takes a hit.)

I not willing to be that someone. This is why Dems are doing so poorly nationally. THIS.

They are thinking of idealistic fairness in who has the bomb. They aren't thinking of the realistic day when we all go outside waiting to watch the first nuke fall. Iran is not capable of possessing nukes. MAD is the deterrent. Remember, that deterrent doesn't work if you ARE MAD.

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Back during the Clinton Administration we were as concerned with the DPRK's efforts to produce nuclear weapons as we are today about Iran. The North Koreans were intransigent, and a preemptive strike was prepared to "take-out" the North's nuclear program. This was a tough decision, and one that could have resulted in renewal of active hostilities in the Korean War. President Clinton felt it was worth the risk to prevent the DPRK from acquiring a nuclear arsenal. At the last minute, Kim struck a deal and the raid was called off. The deal was that the United States and ROK would send immediate humanitarian aid to alleviate wide-spread famine in the North, and that arrangements would be made to sell the North a nuclear reactor that could not be subverted to making weapons-grade materials Kim Jong-Il, in return pledged that he would scrap his nuclear development program. Period. Not a great deal, but apparently without the risk of a preemptive strike.

The U.S. and ROK promptly sent large cargos of food and humanitarian aid as promised. The distribution of that aid was (1st) the Kim family, followed by his most devoted political subordinates, (2nd) the DPRK miliary officer corps, followed by the troops, (3rd) those engaged in producing military technology (DPRK's leading export), (4th) the common People, with whatever was left over (and it wasn't much) went to the starving children whose value to the State wasn't rated highly. I've heard that rations in the "Re-Education Camps" were cut around that time, but have no independent means of verifying the assertion. As if that weren't bad enough, Kim and the DPRK did not scrap their program as promised. What they did was to hide it even more deeply, while working to produce nuclear weapons. Just goes to show, you can't trust totalitarian regimes to fulfill their obligations. Eventually, the whole aid program was dropped before the DPRK was given a nuclear plant as a reward for their deceptions. The moment when North Korea might have been prevented from becoming a nuclear threat to the region passed, and now we are faced with an even more dangerous regime on the Korean Peninsula.

We are nearing that point with Iran now, where it is possible to forestall a more dangerous situation later. However, as Set has pointed out the two situations are not the same. The DPRK hates the United States because we prevent Kim from extending his power over the whole country by military force. If the U.S. were to pullout all of its troops from Korea and pledge not to assist the ROK if the Korean War flared up again ... as it most certainly would ... Kim Jong-Il would probably love to join into an American alliance and sign a most favored nation treaty with us! Of course, that isn't about to happen so long as a conservative-minded person sits in the White House.

Iran, on the other hand, is ideologically married to the idea that there can be no compromise with the Great Satan, and that Paradise awaits those who fall in the effort to destroy the Jews in Israel, or the materialistic West where infidels prize individual liberty above religious correctness as defined by the Mullahs. It has been Iran's public policy to support any effort to spread, by any means, their own twisted version of Islam. They are supporting and supplying radicals inside Iraq hoping to prevent the birth of an alternative government in the region. I think they mean every bit of their threatening rhetoric, but not everyone does it seems.

Iran, at this moment, does not have nuclear weapons. They say their nuclear program is only for the generation of electrical power, but few responsible analysts believe that to be true. Iran doesn't claim that it is seeking nuclear warheads as a deterrent, and their program actually increases the risk of foreign intervention. Yet they continue a program that has little or no practical value except to threaten, blackmail, or attack others.

Iran has missiles fully capable of delivering a warhead anywhere in the region, and they have greater access to the oceanic shipping lanes than does the DPRK. Iran's religious leadership is fully in tune with the avowed goals of international radical Islamic terrorist organization.

These are some of the most notable reasons that Iran in my opinion is a greater nuclear risk to their region and the world than the DPRK. In a way this is all quibbling anyway, both regimes armed with nuclear weapons are extremely dangerous to world peace. One regime is already armed because we took a gamble that didn't pay off, and the other is on the threshold of nuclear weapons in the next few years.

The decision of what will be done is going to be difficult, but I believe that in the end the United States will not strike the Iranian nuclear facilities ... at least during this Administration. Forbearance, puts off the greatest consequences for a couple of years and by then perhaps the international situation will have changed. Its a gamble either way, and again no one should envy the National Command Authority this decision which is a lose-lose situation.

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I stand in amazement that we think we have some moral authority. Weapons beget weapons, through the ages. We should not act surprised princess that any nation surrounded by trouble might want to attain one, much less act like we are the only ones allowed. Who is it we think we are?

That we of the US can even discuss tossing an Abomb half a globe away where we have no business in the first place except for bodies previously thrown at territory (said with respect to those men/women and nearby people..). is more that I can fathom.

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Some comments on what Asherman said....

Asherman wrote:

It has been Iran's public policy to support any effort to spread, by any means, their own twisted version of Islam. They are supporting and supplying radicals inside Iraq hoping to prevent the birth of an alternative government in the region.

That might be true. Then again, it might not. However, if I read this statement correctly, you are basically saying: "They are trying to influence the future of Iraq, a neighboring country, a souvereign nation, in order to achieve results that they deem favorable for their own political goals. They shouldn't do this. They have no business in Iraq."
However, I might misread you.

Asherman wrote:

Iran, at this moment, does not have nuclear weapons. They say their nuclear program is only for the generation of electrical power, but few responsible analysts believe that to be true. Iran doesn't claim that it is seeking nuclear warheads as a deterrent, and their program actually increases the risk of foreign intervention. Yet they continue a program that has little or no practical value except to threaten, blackmail, or attack others.

A program that has little or no practical value except to threaten, blackmail, or attack others - or to provide the country with nuclear power plants to generate electricity. You forgot that last possibility.

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Iran 'years from nuclear bomb'

Quote:

Iran has alarmed the international community by removing the seals at its nuclear fuel research sites - but experts say it is several years away from being capable of producing a nuclear bomb.

There are two routes to producing an atomic weapon: using either highly enriched uranium, or separated plutonium, and Iran could pursue either or both routes.

Regarding uranium, Iran has already embarked on the first step of the purification process necessary to ultimately produce weapons-grade material.
It has produced reconstituted uranium - what is known as "yellow cake" - at its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan.

However, the influential London-based think tank The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said in a report in September that this was contaminated and was not currently useable.

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LATimes, Thursday April 13, 2006, page A21

Quote:

TIMES/BLOOMBERG POLL
Doubts About Taking On Tehran
About half those polled support military action if Iran continues its nuclear activity but don't trust President Bush to make the call.

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You read my mind, walter, I just read that and was aiming to post it. I don't know what it tells about any "side" in the Iran/nuclear issue except a lack of confidence in Bush in general by the American people. (bout time)

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revel wrote:

a lack of confidence in Bush in general by the American people. (bout time)

As pdf-data:

Full/exact wording of questions along with poll results and analysis

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old europe wrote:

Some comments on what Asherman said....

Asherman wrote:
It has been Iran's public policy to support any effort to spread, by any means, their own twisted version of Islam. They are supporting and supplying radicals inside Iraq hoping to prevent the birth of an alternative government in the region.

That might be true. Then again, it might not. However, if I read this statement correctly, you are basically saying: "They are trying to influence the future of Iraq, a neighboring country, a souvereign nation, in order to achieve results that they deem favorable for their own political goals. They shouldn't do this. They have no business in Iraq."

However, I might misread you.

If you have not misread Asherman, then the irony is trenchant. He supports an invasion of Iraq. The United States is many thousands of miles from Iraq and Iraq never posed a credible threat to the United States. Yet Asherman contents that Iran--with a common border with Iraq, which has been attacked by Iraq, and sustained an extremely sanguinary eight-year-long war with that nation--has no right to attempt to influence events in Iraq. I consider that an extremely hypocritical position to take.

Asherman contends that Iran desires to export their brand of extremist fundamentalist Islam. Persia was invaded by Ali, son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet, and in what is known as the Mother of All Battles, conquered that nation. Ali is the father of Shi'ism, and Iran is the home of Shi'ism. The only credible charges for support of foreign, Islamic groups is that they supported Hezbollah in the Lebanon, and that they have supported Hamas. Hezbollah is a Shi'ia party which was founded in the Lebanon in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion. It has a military and a civil wing, and the civil wing operates schools and hospitals, and other forms of "social welfare" for Muslims in the Lebanon. Hezbollah also functions as a political party represented in the Lebanese government. It was founded in 1982, when Iran was already embroiled in their war with Iraq. It was not founded by the Persians, but it did receive support from them. It received support from them at a time when western nations were perceived as supporting the Israelis who were occupying southern Lebanon (and it is true that at least indirectly, western support for Israeli enabled their occupation of that nation), and that they were supporting the Maronite Christian militias of that nation. For as attractive as the argument may be for conservative Americans, the suggestion that they ought not to support their confessional cousins is not considered reasonable by Muslims, either Sunni or Shi'ite. The Maronites are eastern Catholics, in full communion with the Papacy--sauce for the goose makes sauce for the gander.

The only other plausible "charge" against the Persians in this regard is support for Hamas. Hamas is a Sunni Muslim organization. Additionally, the evidence is very good from various western sources that Hamas was originally funded by the Israeli Mossad as a counterbalance to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Whether or not that is true, allegations of Persian support for Hamas do not, by any stretch of the imagination, support a claim that Persians are attempting to export their brand of Islam, which is Shi'ite. Iran provided a haven for anti-Ba'athist Iraqi Shi'ites before the American invasion, hardly a surprising thing for a nation which had so long fought the Iraqis. Unless Asherman has an allegation of other attempts by the Persians to export Shi'ism, for which he can provide plausible support, his contention that the Persians intend to export "their brand" of fundamentalist Islam are without merit.

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It appears, Set, that you are an apologist for Iran's support of international Islamic terrorism.

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Quote:

U.N. presses Iran on nuclear plans
Watchdog chief in Tehran for talks in intensifying dispute

(CNN) -- The chief of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog is holding crisis talks in Iran as Tehran refused to back down over a large-scale uranium enrichment program that has sparked international criticism.

Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency, met with senior Iranian representatives on a 24-hour visit Thursday, demading a suspension in Iran's nuclear program.

"I'm also going to discuss how we can bring Iran in line with the request of the international community," he said.

But Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would step up its uranium enrichment, insisting the nuclear program was for peaceful purposes.

...

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Senator doubts military option to be used on Iran

Quote:

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A member of the powerful U.S. Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and Intelligence said on Thursday he doubted whether the United States would use military force to settle a row with Iran over its nuclear program.

Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, said during a visit to Pakistan that military action was "not a viable, feasible option".

"I do not expect any kind of military solution on the Iran issue," Hagel told a news conference at the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, stressing that he was speaking for himself rather than the Senate or the Bush administration.

Hagel said President George W. Bush and senior members of his cabinet had said the military option was not a responsible approach to resolving the issues.

"I think to further comment on it would be complete speculation, but I would say that a military strike against Iran, a military option, is not a viable, feasible, responsible option," he added.

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US USING IRAQ TERROR GROUP FOR IRAN OPERATIONS, OFFICIALS SAY http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_outsourcing_special_operations_intelligence_gathering_0413.html

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Interestingly US-media report that "Rice calls for 'some consequence' against Iran's nuclear intentions" (or with similar headline), while European papers report about the same event like "Rice demands UN should threaten Iran with 'force of arms'."

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Rumsfeld lies, AP covers it up

April 11, 2006: Here's what U.S. Secretary of Defense [sic] Donald Rumsfeld said today:

"There is obviously concern about Iran. It's a country that is -- supports terrorists. It's a country that has indicated an interest in having weapons of mass destruction."

Now read how AP reported the story, and pay very careful attention to the placement of the quotation marks:

Said Rumsfeld: "There is obviously concern about Iran. Iran is a country that supports terrorism. It is a country that has indicated" a desire to obtain nuclear technology.

AP completely fabricated the last part of the quote!!!!

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Interestingly US-media report that "Rice calls for 'some consequence' against Iran's nuclear intentions" (or with similar headline), while European papers report about the same event like "Rice demands UN should threaten Iran with 'force of arms'."

Well, since Rice made no such demand, it appears "European papers" are not accurate.

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Rice is indeed demanding that the U.N. threaten force thus giving Iran "no choice" but to discontinue its nuclear energy program:

Rice says U.N. must adopt tough Iran resolution

Quote:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday the United Nations must consider strong action against Iran, such as a resolution that could lead to sanctions or lay the groundwork for force.

Asked what options the U.N. Security Council should consider, Rice said it should look at chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter to force Iran to comply with international obligations over its nuclear plans.

"I am certain we will look at measures that can be taken to ensure that Iran knows that they really have no choice but to comply," Rice told reporters.

Chapter 7 makes a resolution mandatory under international law for all U.N. members. It can lead to sanctions and eventually the use of force if it specifically calls for them or threatens "all necessary measures."

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Iran Air Strikes Growing in Probability

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