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  • Time's up on Iran

    Column One: Time's up on Iran
    Sep. 3, 2009
    Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST

    Over the past few weeks evidence has piled up that Iran is not years away from being capable of building nuclear bombs at will. It is months away. As the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Teheran's nuclear program makes clear, at its present rate of uranium enrichment, Iran will have sufficient quantities of enriched uranium to build two atomic bombs by February.

    What is most notable about this IAEA finding is that it comes in a report that does everything possible to cover up Iran's progress and intentions.

    Israel responded angrily to the report, alleging that the agency's outgoing director, Mohamed ElBaradei, suppressed information that confirms the military nature of Iran's program. In a statement released last Saturday, the Foreign Ministry alleged that the report "does not reflect the entirety of the information the IAEA holds on Iran's efforts to advance their military program, nor their continued efforts to conceal and deceive and their refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and the international community."

    Two weeks before the IAEA released its report, the US State Department published its assessment that Iran won't have the wherewithal to develop a bomb until 2013. According The Washington Post, this conclusion is based on the State Department's analysis of Iran's "technical capability."

    For all its failures, the latest IAEA report puts the lie to this State Department assessment.

    Moreover, as a recent study by Israeli missile expert Uzi Rubin shows, Iran already has several delivery options for its burgeoning nuclear arsenal. In a report published by The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Rubin, who has been awarded the Israel Defense Prize and oversaw the development of Israel's Arrow missile defense system, concludes that Iran today has the capacity to develop solid-fuel-based intermediate ballistic missiles with a range of 3,600 kilometers. That is, today, Iran has the capacity to attack not only Israel and other states in the Middle East. Since its successful test of its solid-fuel based Sejil missile in May, it has the demonstrated capacity to attack Europe as well.

    Furthermore, Teheran's successful upgrade of its ballistic missiles to satellite launchers has given it the capacity to launch nuclear weapons into the atmosphere. This renders Iran capable of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack from sea against just about any country. An EMP attack can destroy a state's electromagnetic grid and thus take a 21st-century economy back to the pre-industrial era. Such an attack on the US, for instance, would cripple the American economy, and render the US government at all levels incapable of restoring order or preventing mass starvation.

    THESE LATEST disclosures should focus the attention of Israel's leaders on a singular question: What can Israel do to prevent Iran from further expanding its nuclear capacity and block it from emerging as a nuclear power?

    The answer to this question is the same as it has been for the past six years, since the scale of Teheran's nuclear program was first revealed. Israel can order the Israel Air Force to bomb Iran's nuclear and missile facilities with the aim of denying Iran the ability to attack the Jewish state.

    The necessity for Israel to exercise its one option grows daily in light of what the rest of the world is doing in regards to Iran. Following the release of the IAEA report and ahead of the UN General Assembly's opening meeting later this month, this week US, German, British, French, Russian and Chinese diplomats met in Germany to discuss the possibility of ratcheting up Security Council sanctions against Iran. Ahead of the meeting, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both announced that they support stronger sanctions.

    But right on schedule, as the representatives of these countries sat down with one another, the Iranians told the media they are interested in negotiating. Suddenly, after stonewalling for more than a year, Teheran is willing to think about telling us the terms under which it will discuss the West's offer to provide the mullahs with all manner of rewards in exchange for an Iranian agreement to suspend the expansion of its of uranium enrichment, (which, as the IAEA report notes, is already great enough to produce two nuclear bombs by February).

    Taking their cue from the mullahs, the Russians and the Chinese are now saying that there is no reason to be hasty. Far wiser, in their view, would be a decision to sit down and see what the Iranians would like to do. No doubt, the Russians and Chinese are arguing that it will take some time - perhaps until February - to arrange such a meeting. And then, there is the prospect that such a meeting could end inconclusively but keep the door open for further talks sometime in late-2010 or early 2011. In the meantime, as far as the Russians and the Chinese are concerned, further UN sanctions would be unfair in light of Iran's willingness to engage diplomatically.

    But then even if the Russians and the Chinese supported stronger sanctions, the measure now being debated will have no impact on either Iran's ability or willingness to become a nuclear power. Today these leading nations are discussing the prospect of banning refined petroleum imports into Iran. Given that Iran, with its currently limited capacity to refine petroleum, is a net oil importer, for the past several years, the notion of banning the Iranian imports of refined petroleum products has been raised every time the IAEA submitted a report on Iran's nuclear program and every time more information came out describing its spectacular progress in missile development and uranium enrichment. Inevitably, this talk was dismissed the moment a mullah approached a microphone and hinted that Iran might be interested in cutting a deal.

    But while the West has consistently postponed imposing such sanctions, the Islamic republic has taken the prospect seriously. Over the past four years, Iran moved to reduce its vulnerability to such a ban. It has required citizens to adapt their cars to run on natural gas, which Iran has in abundance. Furthermore, in a joint venture with China, Teheran has launched a crash program to expand its domestic oil refining capabilities. With Chinese assistance, Iran is expected to have the refining capacity to meet its domestic needs by 2012.

    Beyond that, as former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton noted this week in The Wall Street Journal, even if the West were to impose such sanctions on Iran today, they would not impact the Iranian military's ability to operate. The only people who would be impacted by such sanctions are Iranian civilians.

    Here, too, it should be noted that the entire rationale of the ban on refined oil imports to Iran is that oil shortages will turn the public against the regime and the regime in turn will be forced to stand down against the international community in order to placate its gasoline-starved constituents. But if the regime's brutal repression of its opponents in the wake of the stolen June 12 presidential elections tells us anything, it tells us that the regime doesn't care about what the Iranian public thinks of it. Indeed, in the face of rising domestic opposition to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the regime's best bet may be to launch a war against the hated Jews in order to unify the clerical leadership - which is now split between those supporting the regime and those supporting the opposition - behind the regime.

    Finally, the discussion of sanctions is irrelevant because every move that Iran is making shows that the regime is determined to go to war. Its massive diversion of resources to its nuclear and ballistic missile program shows that the regime is absolutely committed to becoming a nuclear power. Its move to build an open military alliance with the Lebanese government, together with its expansion of its military ties to Syria through the financing of the sale of advanced Russian aircraft to Damascus and the proliferation of nuclear technology, shows that it is building up the capabilities of its underlings. Then, too, this week's report that the Hizbullah weapons cache in southern Lebanon which exploded in July contained chemical weapons indicates that Iran is already providing its terror proxies with nonconventional arsenals to expand its war-making capabilities against Israel and the West.

    ALL IN all, the totality of Iran's moves make clear that it is not interested in using its nuclear program as a bargaining chip to gain all manner of goodies from the West. It is planning to use its nuclear program as a means of becoming a nuclear power. And it wishes to become a nuclear power because it wishes to wage war against its enemies.

    And all in all, the totality of the UN-led international community's responses to Teheran's moves make clear that the world will take no effective action to prevent Iran from gaining the capacity to wage nuclear war. The world today will again do nothing to prevent the genocide of Jewry.

    And that's the thing of it. So long as the mullahs continue to signal that the Jews are their first target, the world will be content to allow them to build their nuclear weapons and to use them. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's contention that the US will retaliate against Iran if it launches a nuclear attack against Israel makes clear, Washington will only consider acting against Teheran after the US moves to the top of Teheran's target list.

    The question then is whether Israel has the ability to effectively attack Iran even if the US opposes such a strike. Based on open source material, the answer to this central question is yes, Israel can launch an effective strike against Iran.

    Over the past several years, the IAF has demonstrated that it has the power-projection capability to reach Iran's nuclear installations, strike and return home. The key nuclear installations have been visited by IAEA inspectors. They are not hundreds of meters underground. They are not invulnerable to ordnance Israel already possesses. They can be destroyed or at least severely impaired.

    The route to Iran is also open. Various leaked reports indicate that Saudi Arabia has given Israel a green light to overfly its airspace en route to Iran.

    Finally, consistent polling data shows that the Israeli public understands the need for a strike and would be willing to accept whatever consequences flow in its wake. The public will support a government decision to strike even if the strike is not a one-off like the 1981 IAF strike that destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor. The public will support the government even if the strike precipitates a condemnation by the US and a resumption of hostilities with Lebanon and even with Syria.

    With each passing day, Iran moves closer to the bomb and closer to initiating war on its terms. The international community will do nothing to preempt this danger. Israel must act. Fighting a war on our terms is eminently preferable to fighting one on Iran's.



    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...icle%2FPrinter
    Last edited by Castellano; 05 Sep 09,, 18:11.
    L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux

  • #2
    Caroline,


    if you are sure go for it


    and when people start to complain in A'dan which they will.......


    then I can bring a baseball bat if necessary...


    Let me not to the marriage of true minds

    Admit impediments. Love is not love

    Which alters when it alteration finds,

    Or bends with the remover to remove:

    O no!

    ...it is an ever-fixed mark

    That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

    It is the star to every wandering bark,

    Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

    Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

    Within his bending sickle's compass come:

    Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

    But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

    If this be error and upon me proved,

    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.



    William Shakespeare
    L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Castellano View Post
      Column One: Time's up on Iran
      Sep. 3, 2009
      Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
      Why am I not surprised Castellano that your posting more Nuke propoganda hysteria...when the IAEA has flatly rejected this sort of path towards the Iranian Nuclear programme?

      Like any sane person would truly regard an article by some rag in Israel as highly reputable anyway given the Israeli Forign Ministries shrieking propensity for over-reactionary alarmist hyperbole in an all too familiar tactic of juxtapositional missapropriated rhetoric that isn't supported by anyone but itself and lunatics like Huckabee.

      *switches off*
      Ego Numquam

      Comment


      • #4
        Such an attack on the US, for instance, would cripple the American economy, and render the US government at all levels incapable of restoring order or preventing mass starvation.

        Pfft. I wasn't aware that an EMP attack would remove the ability of every electrical engineer in the country to think or act.
        In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

        Leibniz

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Chunder View Post
          Why am I not surprised Castellano that your posting more Nuke propoganda hysteria...when the IAEA has flatly rejected this sort of path towards the Iranian Nuclear programme?

          Like any sane person would truly regard an article by some rag in Israel as highly reputable anyway given the Israeli Forign Ministries shrieking propensity for over-reactionary alarmist hyperbole in an all too familiar tactic of juxtapositional missapropriated rhetoric that isn't supported by anyone but itself and lunatics like Huckabee.

          *switches off*
          I suppose the raid on Osirak was a good example of "over-reactionary alarmist hyperbole" - and that is the reason it was condemned at the UN by every single country including the Reagan administration.

          And the IAEA condemned the raid on the North Korean reactor in Syria, or has been whitewashing Iran's nuclear weapons program and downplaying continued noncooperation - I thought the point about the IAEA was to help prevent proliferation

          Israel would be crazy to leave it to the IAEA.

          It seems pretty obvious that if Israel doesn't attack, Iran will have Nukes and soon - the only issue to elucidate is then if it is worse to attack Iran's nuclear program or to have a nuclear armed Iran. That is the question.
          L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
            Pfft. I wasn't aware that an EMP attack would remove the ability of every electrical engineer in the country to think or act.
            I think an EMP attack on the US is extremely unlikely.

            That said, I understand these attacks are capable of taking the grid and most appliances off-line. I don't think electrical engineers can do much about having millions of fridges rendered useless.


            Should the electrical power system be lost for any substantial period of time, the Commission
            believes that the consequences are likely to be catastrophic to civilian society.
            Machines will stop; transportation and communication will be severely restricted; heating,
            cooling, and lighting will cease; food and water supplies will be interrupted; and
            many people may die. “Substantial period” is not quantifiable but generally outages that
            last for a week or more and affect a very large geographic region without sufficient support
            from outside the outage area would qualify. EMP represents such a threat; it is one
            event that may couple ultimately unmanageable currents and voltages into an electrical
            system routinely operated with little margin and cause the collapse of large portions of
            the electrical system. In fact, the Commission is deeply concerned that such impacts are
            certain in an EMP event unless practical steps are taken to provide protection for critical
            elements of the electric system and to provide for rapid restoration of service, particularly
            to essential loads.
            http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2...ission-7MB.pdf
            L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Castellano View Post
              I suppose the raid on Osirak was a good example of "over-reactionary alarmist hyperbole" - and that is the reason it was condemned at the UN by every single country including the Reagan administration.
              Since when does one action make another right, or justify another? Wake up man. I hate to break it to you but Osirak was a hypothesised intelligence threat, no matter how you look at it, at a time that the US was turning a blind eye and saw it as no consiquence. A little matter on inconsequential glory that would have been smaked like fly had it gone further.
              And the IAEA condemned the raid on the North Korean reactor in Syria, or has been whitewashing Iran's nuclear weapons program and downplaying continued noncooperation - I thought the point about the IAEA was to help prevent proliferation
              Both of which have nothing do do with statements from the IAEA about nation states trying to force the agency into making statements that can easily be misinterpretated for a political outcome - as outrightly stated by the outgoing IAEA head. If you want to go down this path you can cop the flak for it. I have no problem with your views have them, but if you want to air them and not be critisized because the fabric is doped, then your pissing into the proverbial.
              *Sigh* - I have zero doubt whatsoever, that you can't accept an independant, credible non-politisized assessment by the worlds peak nuclear body because arma-weed said 'Israel should be wiped off the map'... thus you continually foist upon others whatever official explanation the Israeli Foreign Ministry has to give as verbatim - however tiring and incredibly missappropriated and innacurate that might be.
              Israel would be crazy to leave it to the IAEA.
              Like Isael is in any position whatsoever to do something off it's own bat. the IAEA has the means to predict what could be happening, Israel does not, bar some imagined dream of some crybaby. Preach to the converted - I say if Israel likes to try and force its opinion down others throats, then it deserves to get it's ass kicked, because it obviously had no respect for reputable organisations. It wouldn't be like Israel is any crystal clear ball of unreproachable question...
              It seems pretty obvious that if Israel doesn't attack, Iran will have Nukes and soon -
              Are you calling the rest of the world delusional? Get real. You have the Secretary of State a woman at that, publically, explicitly, on the record saying that the US will NEVER allow that to happen. Hillary Clinton is about as Pro-Israeli as you can get. Do you expect the rest of the sane world to continually put up with the propogandist BS? However much you absolutely love trying to outlast any rebuttle for presumed posterity, this one is a fail path. Israel's previous assertions about Irans ability to produce a Nuke have not materialised. According to the IAEA they don' show any signes of materialising, until 2012 at the earliest, and that was their assement if they stareted working in May-July 2008 - Your closest ally and their intelligence assessment has openly rebuffed Israeli intelligence - and it would not be the first tiem said intelligence on either side has got it wrong.
              the only issue to elucidate is then if it is worse to attack Iran's nuclear program or to have a nuclear armed Iran. That is the question.

              If only the shrieking propensity was a reality. The chance of them being able to produce them and deploy them is so obviously national non gratis, that this line of journalistic standard isn't worth the paper it's written on and the bandwidth its wasting - to put it mildly. Frankly, with the U.S issuing statements about continued settlement developments , Israels chance of getting any real sympathy from the international community is precisely zero. It's tactics are old. Obviously it's coveted Nuke ambiguity does not mean much!

              You can continue to debate the point, all you wish -its so far off centre court that it's in the lunacy category. Heck, your reduced to besmirching the IAEA...

              Like another person said, start your "Israeli re-education thread" - that way the rest of us can read interesting stuff that isn't generated by some nutter in some rag in a country that can't make meaningfull steps towards a peace process on the basis of "The land of the bible belongs to the people of the bible".... and have to put up with the onerous task of hypothesised fallacy - then not be able to take the critisism, which btw, is completely justified in its original post.

              Nobody believes the IFM line except for extremests - boohoo, preach to the converted! Iran won't be nuclear armed, it's been assured by the US secretary of state, a democrat, a woman, a blonde one at that. If Israel doesn't get the message clear enough - then it's too damned dumb to take notice of in the first place! ALL this talk about war (read killing people) and not expecting to cop it in the neck because of pure extreme hypothesis is beyond me.
              Ego Numquam

              Comment


              • #8
                Gosh, you mean some engineers have studied the problem in a report and made recomendations about what to do? Well blow me down, according to the newspaper clip

                "....would cripple the American economy, and render the US government at all levels incapable of restoring order or preventing mass starvation."
                Somebody should tell those engineers who say

                "that such impacts are certain in an EMP event unless practical steps are taken to provide protection for critical elements of the electric system and to provide for rapid restoration of service, particularly to essential loads."
                In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                Leibniz

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Castellano View Post
                  It seems pretty obvious that if Israel doesn't attack, Iran will have Nukes and soon - the only issue to elucidate is then if it is worse to attack Iran's nuclear program or to have a nuclear armed Iran. That is the question.
                  Since all nuclear materials are accounted for by the IAEA, unless the Iranians have a uranium mine that no one knows about or see from space or not have flooded the market.

                  Originally posted by Castellano View Post
                  I think an EMP attack on the US is extremely unlikely.
                  Considering that the best nuke the Iranians could build is a uranium gun design, it's a damned big stretch for you to suggest that they could manufacture a plutonium device that they could use to attack the US with, inviting complete and utter nuclear retailliation. Yes, a nuclear generated EMP is considered a nuclear strike.
                  Last edited by Officer of Engineers; 06 Sep 09,, 04:14.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                    Considering that the best nuke the Iranians could build is a uranium gun design, it's a damned big stretch for you to suggest that they could manufacture a plutonium device that they could use to attack the US with, inviting complete and utter nuclear retailliation. Yes, a nuclear generated EMP is considered a nuclear strike.
                    What level of sophistication would the targetting & detonation equipment need to have to create any more than a localized EMP? It is my understanding that altitude in particular is crucial to maximizing effect. Assuming Iran has the missle and the bomb (two ifs already) can they do more than localized damage. Genuinely curious.
                    sigpic

                    Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                      What level of sophistication would the targetting & detonation equipment need to have to create any more than a localized EMP? It is my understanding that altitude in particular is crucial to maximizing effect. Assuming Iran has the missle and the bomb (two ifs already) can they do more than localized damage. Genuinely curious.
                      It's an horizon event. The higher up, the greater the coverage. 300 miles up would give you full continental Nth American coverage.
                      In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                      Leibniz

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
                        It's an horizon event. The higher up, the greater the coverage. 300 miles up would give you full continental Nth American coverage.
                        and how easy is it to get your bomb to detonate at just the right point? Does Iran have reliable tech that will do this?
                        sigpic

                        Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                          and how easy is it to get your bomb to detonate at just the right point? Does Iran have reliable tech that will do this?
                          I would imagine that point is easy: I know that getting it up there is not.
                          In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                          Leibniz

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                            Does Iran have reliable tech that will do this?
                            No on two fronts. They don't have the rocket with big enough range nor a bomb with big enough yield. With the kind of bomb they have, they'll be lucky to give static to a local radio station.

                            And that's because they blew the station up if they're lucky.
                            Last edited by Officer of Engineers; 06 Sep 09,, 05:56.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                              No on two fronts. They don't have the rocket with big enough range nor a bomb with big enough yield. With the kind of bomb they have, they'll be lucky to give static to a local radio station.

                              Thanks. Suspected the article predicting 'mass starvation' might have been overstating the case a wee bit.
                              sigpic

                              Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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