…will likely end within weeks:
Obama’s speech was notable for a number of reasons. First, this was the first speech on an Israel related theme that Obama has given since the 2008 campaign in which he did not pick a fight with Israel. And it is due to the absence of open hostility in his address that Obama’s supporters are touting it as a pro-Israel speech.
While he didn’t pick a fight with Israel on Sunday, his speech did mark a clear attempt to undermine Israel’s strategic position in a fundamental – indeed existential – way. As many commentators have noted in recent weeks, Israel and the US have different red lines for the Iranian nuclear program. These divergent red lines owe to the fact that the US has more options for attacking Iran’s nuclear installations than Israel.
From Israel’s perspective, Iran’s nuclear program will reportedly become unstoppable as soon as the Iranians move a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium and/or centrifuges to the Fordow nuclear installation by Qom. Since Israel reportedly lacks the ability to destroy the facility, Israel’s timeline for attacking Iran will likely end within weeks. The US reportedly has the capacity to successfully bomb Fordow and so its timeline for attacking Iran is longer than Israel’s.
The reason this is important is because it tells us the true nature of Obama’s demand that Israel give more time for sanctions and diplomacy to work. When one recognizes Israel’s short timeline for attacking, one realizes that when Obama demands that Israel give several more months for sanctions to work, what he is actually demanding is for Israel to place its survival in his hands. Again, once Iran’s nuclear project is immune from an Israeli strike Obama will effectively hold the key to Israel’s survival. Israel will be completely at his mercy.
Which is just where he wants all of us.
Snort! Some historical perspective:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War#Aid_to_Israel
Well, aside from the small details that 1. Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, and 2. Israel doesn’t have the ability to “take out” Iran’s future ability to make nuclear weapons. This isn’t a repeat of Iraq or Syria, where a would-be proliferator put all their nuclear eggs in one breeder-reactor basket. Iran has irreplaceable nuclear facilities or infrastructure. Nothing critical that can’t be rebuilt in a year or so from purely domestic resources. To stop Iran from building nuclear weapons, one has to destroy the Iranian government or the Iranian industrial economy.
Israel can do neither of these things, except perhaps by using her own nuclear weapons. The United States has the conventional firepower to do the job, but not the inclination. And I would hope that even opponents of a nuclear-armed Iran would insist that any such action be taken on the basis of an American decision in support of American national priorities, rather than as an ad-hoc escalation after an unprovoked and inadequate Israeli attack. Because we’ve seen that sort of thing before, about a hundred years ago in a place almost as unstable as the Middle East…
Provoke [transitive verb]: to arouse to a feeling or action, to stir up purposely.
I’m *sure* stating for the record that you intend to destroy them can’t possibly apply.
Does Spock have a goatee where you live?
In the more restrictive sense of casus belli, no, such a statement would not be applicable. Particularly not an open-ended casus belli. If Guido tells you, “nice place you’ve got here – be a shame if something happened to it”, you have legitimate cause for concern but you do not have license to gun down any of Guido’s associates at any future time you see fit. Not even if you see one of them window-shopping at a gun store.
Guido’s not saying that. He’s saying “nice place you’ve got here, too bad you don’t have any right to exist. And I intend to de-exist you. At a time of my choosing.” And then when you point out to him the fact that you’re inclined to take him seriously, and would he like to modify it, he simply repeats it.
And it’s not his associates window-shopping, it’s Guido himself. And he’s already bought the thing and is waving it around, endangering not only you but several innocent bystanders as well. And the thing is defective; it doesn’t have a safety.
“He’s already bought the thing and is waving it around”
Are you in fact claiming by analogy that Iran already has nuclear weapons? If so, I would like some evidence for this extraordinary claim. If not, I think you have broken the analogy.
Guido has bought a barrel lathe. On this basis you propose shooting him. Really, you propose wounding him and hoping that the neighbors will finish the job rather than watch Guido go for a bit of payback. Notwithstanding Guido’s comments, I suspect you may be a greater threat to the neighborhood.
I don’t have any evidence. I doubt you do either. The only people who would have the evidence are most definitely not at liberty to disclose it. And I’m not proposing shooting him. I do think his lathe should be shot. And any equipment he used to construct it, if in fact he didn’t buy it.
As to my threat to the neighborhood, it must be weighed against Guido’s threat when he achieves his goal. Although I guess you could take his word for it that his goal is to obtain the gun because it’s an antique and he thinks it’s going to appreciate in value. But taking his word on that and not taking his word on his intent to destroy me seems… inconsistent.
This doesn’t directly affect Iran, but Mr. Assad’s Syria is pretty much an Iranian client state, and the deposing of Mr. Assad is pretty much for the taking if we want it. Again, it doesn’t solve the Iran problem, but doesn’t undermine Iran? And Syria is said to have WMD, maybe Saddam’s WMD, and if we could get that under international control or better yet US military control, that may be a useful first step.
What is the take in Israel on Syria? Maybe they are keeping mum and letting Saudi and Turkey and others make the case for turning Mr. Assad out. But maybe we, Israel, others want Mr. Assad in because what comes after him, you know, Apres moi le deluge and all of that?
While it may bring some joy to us to see syria fall after their actions against us in Iraq and Israel might like to see Assad gone for his support of terrorist groups bent on killing all the Jews, it is important to look at who the rebels are and what type pf government they will impose.
There is a myth that AlQaeda and other islamist terrorist organizations are all but extinct with the death of Osama but they are still active in Pakistan and Afghanistan but also in other countries closer to the heart of their desired caliphate. The AlQaeda flag flies in Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Libia, Iraq, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, and especially Yemen where they control emtire cities.
The leader that comes after Assad is just as important asvseeing him gone. I’m not really sure that leading from behind and being close air support for the rebels (which include AQ and other militant islamists) will insure a good outcome for us.
According to this Aviation Week article, Syria and Lebanon have newly upgraded Russian radars that would provide long range warning of an attack from the US or Israel.
If Iran’s nuclear development facilities were bombed by the U.S. or Israel, the planning of both attackers and defenders would have to take into account the newly improved, long-range surveillance and intelligence-gathering facilities in Syria and Lebanon.
Russian radar and communications specialists have just completed improvements to Syria’s early warning capabilities that double radar ranges and establish a surveillance network covering all of the eastern Mediterranean, Israel, Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia.
The importance of this upgrade is that it encompasses many of the key aerial approaches both to Syria (in the event of multinational military intervention) and Iran (if the U.S. or Israel attacked Tehran’s uranium enrichment capabilities). For Israel to attack Iran, it would likely have to fly through Syrian, Turkish, Jordanian or Saudi airspace.
Another element is the long-term cooperation between Syria and Iran. They have shared technology and intelligence-gathering for years. Syrians, for example, provided signals intelligence to the Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon during the conflict with Israel in 2006.
A collapse of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could provide enough chaos to shield a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran. Otherwise, Syria would provide early warning.
“Syria does not want to be embarrassed again,” confirms a U.S. official with long service in the world of black operations. In 2007, Israeli strike aircraft slipped into Syria from the Mediterranean without being detected and destroyed a nuclear reactor site built with North Korean help. The Syrian radar system went dark until the Israeli aircraft were gone, say U.S. intelligence officials.
From Israel’s perspective, Iran’s nuclear program will reportedly become unstoppable as soon as the Iranians move a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium and/or centrifuges to the Fordow nuclear installation by Qom.
That would not stop Iran’s program, it would only set it back a year or two.
To truly force Iran to not build a nuclear weapon requires a US invasion.
But setting Iran back a year or two might let Israel see an American administration that would be willing to stop Iran from going nuclear.
That’s a good point. And an Israeli attack this summer would spike oil prices, possibly stalling the US economy and improving the odds of having President Romney in office to order the follow-up US ground invasion.
Or maybe the Obama would take advantage of the crisis to go to bypass congressional approval and go to war woth Iran hoping people’s patriotic instoncts would lead to an increase of votes. And to deal with the increased oil prices would nationalize the oil companies and throw their executives in jail. Except for the ones that were major campaign donors, someone has to run the new National Oil and Energy Corporation.
To truly force Iran to not build a nuclear weapon requires a US invasion.
Well that’s certainly their position. It would sure be a mess if that actually weren’t true. Drop some big penetrators at just the right spot, at exactly the right time…
Some folks would need to do some serious reassessment.
We can bomb away their capabilities well short of invasion Jim and we can always re-apply as necessary.
If we bomb them, they’ll rebuild deeper in the ground, until non-nuclear bombs can’t touch them.
Or, maybe they wouldn’t rebuild, either because some new faction of mullahs comes to power which doesn’t want to spend the money, or because there is a genuine regime change and Iran becomes a more peaceful democracy.
Unfortunately, a strike on Iran may weaken the pro-democracy opposition.
Or maybe not – in Serbia, air strikes on Belgrade were soon followed by the democratic opposition taking over.
I think none of us has any idea what would happen next, where “us” includes not just the people commenting here, but also the CIA, etc.
That’s why instead of bombing we need to send a special ops team on a snatch and grab mission to the well behind the Jamkaran mosque outside of Qom. There the team can repel down the well and snatch the 12th imam, the Mahdi, whose been living there for about 1100 years. We fly him out and stick him in Gitmo, then use him as a pawn in our negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program.
“We fly him out and stick him in Gitmo”
I wonder if he enjoys playing soccer?
If we bomb them, they’ll rebuild deeper in the ground, until non-nuclear bombs can’t touch them.
But nuclear weapons can reach that just fine right? Remember that the whole point of proposing an attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program is to prevent future nuclear war. If the world can no longer prevent a nuclear war, then someone, being it the US, Israel, or another neighbor like Saudi Arabia, can wipe out the Iranian nuclear program with a preemptive, possibly ineffective nuclear strike. Either we do something about it now, or there’s a possibility that someone does something later with nuclear weapons.
What is ignored here is that that not only do current convention military strikes on Iran remain the best way to prevent or postpone future nuclear war involving that country, but we also have an obligation to prevent future war, if we can. Also, it turns out that digging deeper is expensive. So that conventional strike not only delays Iran’s nuclear program for a number of years, but it also makes it a lot more expensive, changing the cost side of having nuclear weapons.
If an attack is to be made, it would be imbecilic to limit your attack to only the nuke facilities:
The attacker will pay a worldwide political price. Also, gas prices will necessarily zoom into the stratosphere.
So if you are going to pay you might as well max out the return. You might as well maximize the chances of an internal revolt. To do that, you would attack all refineries, all oil storage facilities, all oil distribution facilities, and as many oilfields as you can take down. You would attack the oil dock and pumping facilities which effectively zeros out refined imports (the mechanism Russia and China uses to thwart sanctions).
You’d flood the Iranian cyber and air waves with notices to the Iranian people that their leaders brought this destruction upon them. And that the moment the regime is histoire, US relief ships – waiting just outside of the battle area, will flood in relief supplies.
Whomever made Stuxnet likely knows exactly how progressed the Iranian program is.
Remember a few weeks back when Iran threatened to attack our ships in the gulf and we promply sailed some in? It could be that we did that in hopes they really would attack amd then we would be free to decimate their military and nuclear facilities.
Did Aqua-Velvajad actually say, “don’t call my bluff?”
No. That was Obama showing what a great poker playing intellect he is.
“Russian radar and communications specialists have just completed improvements to Syria’s early warning capabilities that double radar ranges…”
While I wouldn’t ignore those radar installations as irrelevant, there’s a HUGE difference between having some advanced hardware, and having a well thought out, working Integrated Air Defense.
Especially when the radar owners haven’t fought that kind of war in decades, if at all, and the attackers have either fought in such a war or have access to data/experience from a country who has.