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Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 2839
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 10:23 am: | 
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Hoops, the kinds of Nukes being discussed will not produce casualties in the millions. The RNEP is not the bomb they were taking about. They were talking about B61-11's, which are modified B61-7s, The warhead size is configurable, though I don't think either has ht true potential to penetrate to the depths necessary to destroy the facilities in question. Again, I am not advocating the use of nukes. I think it's slippery slope that we cannot afford to go down, particularly in an arena where we will ultimately not be fighting a government, but a distributed network of attackers. In other words, IMHO, using nukes in Iran will set off a shitstorm of terrorism, and will hasten the use of suitcase nukes against us.
Alley, I am not questioning whether N Koreans hate us. But you don't see too many N Korean terrorist groups trying to cause catastrophic damage to the US in the way that we see Iranian funded groups. Did you read what I wrote? I said nothing about whether or not N Koreans love us. I said that they do not have the same ties to international terrorism that Iran does. And not too many people outside N Korea is going to be suicide bombers for their cause. |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 11186
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 10:30 am: |
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I think a fair amount of the information leaked is just good old fashioned sabre rattling to get Irans attention, and get them to the negotiating table.
After Iraq I doubt that even Bush, Cheney and Rumfeld feel that the military option should be the first option.
Rastro, the North Korean army regularly sends infiltrators across the DMC to try to kill American soliders on duty there. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13558
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 11:12 am: |
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I like the way Hoops spells the n-word.
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Phenixrising
Citizen
Username: Phenixrising
Post Number: 1532
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 11:25 am: |
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I think a fair amount of the information leaked is just good old fashioned sabre rattling to get Irans attention, and get them to the negotiating table.
BobK
It could also mean the opposite. A U.S. attack could provoke a wave of nationalism that would unite Iranians against the United States. This leak could also provoke a new wave of insurgent recruits.
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tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4199
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 11:27 am: |
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It is important to remember that the President of Iran has an interest in this sabre rattling as well. He is trying to cloak himself in patriotism to add to his political power. |
Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1662
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 11:34 am: |
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Rastro, but if N. Korea has a nuke (and they are so inclined to use it) they don't need ties to a terrorist group. They could do amazing amounts of damage to us without ties.
Tom, I am not a fan of war. I don't support it and I do believe that we shouldn't be in Afghanistan or Iraq. But I do wonder since you are so eager to jump down my back about my post, what do you suggest we do when every aggressive country has nukes? I would have liked for Pakistan to not have nukes too. If you have no problem with them having them, then why don't we help them to build nuclear power stations throughout the rest of the world? Most of the 3rd world doesn't have enough power. I don't doubt that Iran needs the energy. It is easy to criticize others but less easy to offer up solutions. I'd like to hear your suggestions on how to keep the world safe from nuclear war. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13563
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 11:39 am: |
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I wasn't jumping down your back. I was making a crack at the administration's approach to winning friends and influencing people.
I don't see how nuking a country will convey the point that it's wrong to have nukes.
And yes, I do think that helping others build their infrastructure could buy a heck of a lot of good will. Once they start prospering, they may not feel so threatened. I think they are more valuable to us as friends than as enemies.
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Dave
Supporter
Username: Dave
Post Number: 9199
Registered: 4-1997
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 12:06 pm: |
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Too late?
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/04/11/iran.nuclear.ap/index.html |
Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1664
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 12:35 pm: |
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Quote:I don't see how nuking a country will convey the point that it's wrong to have nukes.
Tom, I don't remember ever saying that we should nuke any country, although it seems as if maybe you are implying that I did in your post. I don't think we should be using nuclear weapons of any kind. Even the "benevolant" armor piercing tank busting or bunker busting ones. Those are great for the ecology too I'm sure. Take radioactive waste, stick it on a bomb and it pierces through stuff. Wow that's ingenious.
So do I understand you correctly, we should provide nuclear power plants to aggressive countries? What is to stop them from doing what N. Korea did and later make them into weapons? And what is to stop these countries from having a regime change down the road like in Palestine? Or from an army/militia stealing, the radioactive materials or destroying the power plants? We are concerned that could happen here, what is to stop it from happening in Iran, Pakistan or any other country? The chances of something horrible happening increase with the more countries we provide this technology too.
There is only one world we all live upon. If Iran detonates nuclear bombs in Israel it WILL affect the US. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13564
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 12:41 pm: |
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All of my pot shots are directed at the administration, not you, Alleygater. I'm on your side.
I don't know if we should help with building nuclear power plants. I've heard it suggested that it could help them (whoever "them" is) enough to distract them from wanting weapons, but I don't know how that would work.
But if we helped build schools and hospitals and roads, things might look up for everyone.
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Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 2840
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 12:45 pm: |
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There are types of nuclear reactors that can be used for energy generation, but cannot be used for military purposes. |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 2841
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 12:50 pm: |
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I take that back. Any nuclear fuel could be used in a dirty bomb. So there is no safe way to provide nuclear energy to the masses without risking it being used illicitly. |
Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1667
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 12:59 pm: |
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Rastro, I am not a specialist, nor did I do the research I should on this matter to pretend to speak knowledgably on this topic (that's my disclaimer), but I was under the impression that you need to first enrich the fuel source before it can be taken from a power plant and then used as a bomb. This could take a lot of time, technology and money that a smaller country might not have, AT FIRST. But over time, they can aquire it. The thing is, not all of these countries can aquire or have the raw materials (the Uranium or Plutonium usually) in the first place. The elements aren't found everywhere in the world and are EXTREMELY difficult to get in large enough quantities to be useful. |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 2843
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 2:38 pm: |
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There are reactors that do not use rods of radioactive material, but use small pebbles or marbles of uranium-, plutonium-, or thorium-ceramic. They are not as easily converted to highly enriched massses of fissionable material.
But they can be put into a box and blown up, sending clouds of radioactive dust into the wind. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13582
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 4:45 pm: |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/opinion/11tue1.html
Quote:If the Bush administration's goal is to change minds in Iran and energize diplomacy, it is not going about it in a very smart way.
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Eats Shoots & Leaves
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 3262
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 5:30 pm: |
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Rastro. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle. Countries will use nuclear energy for energy and possibly for weapons production. We can at least try to stop the weapons production by developing and paying for a thorium-based cycle--cannot be converted to nuclear weapons. Yes, it produces toxic waste, and that can be weaponized by a terrorist, but we at least can stop state-produced nukes.
There is a difference between state-run nuclear cycles and terrorism. Terrorists will always get their hands on toxic substances if they really want to--whether it be biological hazards, chemical hazards, or a special breed of chemicals called nuclear isotopes. They can turn planes, trains, and automobiles into weapons of significant destruction. They can get their hands on surface to air missiles. This should not stop us from dealing with nuclear proliferation at the state level by highly subsidizing thorium-based reactors for Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India, and anyone else who wants them. |
Foj
Citizen
Username: Foger
Post Number: 1140
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 8:06 pm: |
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NO tjohn, humans wont survive a major exchange. Carl Sagan wrote an Editorial back in the Ahhhh.... early 1980's, concerning nuclear winter. I will ditch the science and relate the story Sagan told.
In the Early 1800's a small island in the Pacific had a volcano. No, not Krakatoa (which exploded), the Island was Tambora. The volcano on Tambora smoldered for nearly 2 months. Spewing very hot fine particulate matter into the upper atmosphere. The United States experienced a year without a summer. In New England there were 8 weeks without a frost. Farmers, trying to get their crops in, planted seeds which were killed off by the frosts. People starved to death, thru out the northern hemishere. Instead of 70 to 80 degree weather we had 30 to 40 degree weather.
If one volcano can put the colonies & Europe on the brink of ruin, just think what your so called major exchange will do.
The body of research on this matter is volumnous. If cities burn, more fines are launched into the atmosphere, versus if a desert installation is nuked, which would provide less fuel for the fires.
With 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, what would it take for one of them to put a suiitcase nuke into a backpack and walk the sucker into NYC, a scant 15 or so miles away. All because Bush nuked Iran? Because somebody thought it was payback time.
tjohn, you can sign your life away, but you can't sign mine away. And quite frankly you seem to be trying. I object to that, and I think its insane. And I dont think your neighbors appreiciate you trying to do this to them.
SO if we follow Bushs pre-emptive strike policy--- should MOL get together and kill you before you kill us? Or should MOL try to reason with you?
Why should any of us listen to anyone who spews such insanity?
And I doubt Iran will give the idea much attention, because it is insane.
Rastro- The Union of concerned Scientists are talking about 1 megaton warheads. If a smaller warhead is used the effect might not penatrate deep enough. And if very small nukes are used, the effect may only go 80 or 100 feet in bedrock.
These so called Bunker busters, may be, not for bunkers. They may be are tactical battlefield nukes. Enough Scientists have written about this issue over the last year, that I think it needs to be given some credence. |
Foj
Citizen
Username: Foger
Post Number: 1141
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 8:31 pm: |
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Rastro- Good point on Pebble bed reactors, and the dirty bomb. But as ESL says "the whatch-ma-callit is out of the bottle".
Having some one who thinks they can bring the end times on, Who may just want to start WWIII, thinking " I am a true believer, I will go to Heaven. Is insane.
The Presidents of Iran & the USA are both End Timers. If Bush wants to start WWIII he better make sure he stays in his Bunker, because I got a feeling a lot of Americans will want a peice of him. And the rest of the cabal. Unless we are all dead. |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4201
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 9:40 am: |
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Foj,
Tambora released more energy than all of our nuclear weapons combined. I also don't understand how you can describe the eruption of Tambora as smoldering. Perhaps you are working on the art of understatement. And I am surprised that a person of your knowledge didn't reference Toba, a volcano that is thought to have nearly achieved the extinction of H. sapiens.
Carl Sagan ended up his career as a pop, junk scientist. The notion of nuclear winter is junk science.
You and your fellow travelers who seek to prevent nuclear war on the grounds of insanity are free to join the author who wrote that WW I was suicidal because of the interconnectedness of the European banking community.
So, as I said, H. sapiens would survive a major nuclear exchange. Whether or not we would want to survive is another question entirely.
I am resigned to some sort of nuclear exchange in my lifetime. Perhaps H. sapiens will behave sensibly for some period following such an exchange, but there is nothing in history to support that hope. |
Dave
Supporter
Username: Dave
Post Number: 9202
Registered: 4-1997
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 9:48 am: |
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I wouldn't call Carl Sagan a junk scientist unless by junk you mean curious, cautious, inquiring, uplifting, compassionate, humane, warning, discovering... |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1090
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 10:22 am: |
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tjohn, I have no idea where your information is coming from and frankly the certainty with which you make your claims is alarming.
nuclear winter revisited |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4202
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 10:33 am: |
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I call him a junk scientist because jumped on the nuclear winter bandwagon. Science does a disservice to us all when they push a hypothesis as gospel. I am pretty sure that research on the oil fires started during Desert Storm discredited the nuclear winter theory.
In fact, when volcanoes cause global cooling, it is because they erupt with sufficient force to inject large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere. The eruption column of Tambora is estimated to have reached 28 miles, well into the stratosphere. The eruption columns of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Pinatubo, by contrast, were about 12 and 20 miles high, respectively. |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4203
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 10:35 am: |
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Suffice it to say the the nuclear winter theory is more controversial than the global warming theory.
Rational people don't need fears of nuclear winter to convince them that nuclear war would be unthinkable. Anybody who saw the conventional destruction of WW II would understand that.
Irrational people don't care. |
Glock 17
Citizen
Username: Glock17
Post Number: 589
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 10:40 am: |
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Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1695
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 11:31 am: |
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tjohn, I'm not sure why you are arguing or what you are arguing about? I couldn't give a rat's a** about nuclear winter.
Nuclear war would be horrible for everyone. It should be avoided AT ALL COSTS.
Is there really something worth debating here? |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4204
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 11:55 am: |
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You are right Alleygater. I agree. Any rational being knows that the use of nuclear weapons would be madness. Therefore it can't happen. I feel better now - quite secure, in fact. |
Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1701
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 2:54 pm: |
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I don't remember anyone stating that it "can't" happen, certainly not me. Read the last 10 or more posts and I think you will see that that clearly wasn't what people were talking about. |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4205
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 3:52 pm: |
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What set me off was the notion that because we think it is unthinkable, that some sort of nuclear exchange can't happen. To me, WW I, WW II and the Holocaust are pretty unthinkable, but it happened.
I simply stated that "Unfortunately, nuclear war is all too thinkable." Then,FOJ went on a rant assuming that because I said nuclear war is thinkable, that I supported first use of nuclear weapons (or even a military response) against Iran.
Well, that, combined with the fact that any mention of volcanoes and most references to history cause me to respond out of addiction.
Plus, I really believe that Sagan turned into a pop scientist at the end of his career at the expense of scientific rigor. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13611
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 3:55 pm: |
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April 12, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Wag the Camel
By MAUREEN DOWD
Washington
Talk about a fearful symmetry.
Iran was whipping up real uranium while America was whipped up by fake uranium.
Obsessed with going to war against a Middle East country that had no nuclear weapon, the Bush administration lost focus on and leverage over a Middle East country hurtling toward a nuclear weapon.
That's after the Bush crew lost focus on and leverage over an Asian country that says it has now produced a whole bunch of nuclear weapons.
To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, if brains were elastic, these guys wouldn't have enough to make suspenders for a parakeet.
While Dick Cheney was getting booed as he threw out the first pitch for the Nationals — it bounced in the dirt and Scooter wasn't even there to catch it — Iran was jubilantly welcoming itself to the nuclear club and spitting in the eye of the U.S. and U.N.
Speaking before a mural of fluttering white doves, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bragged that his scientists had concocted enriched uranium. They will now churn out nuclear fuel as fast as they can.
Are they making a bomb? Nah, said the Iranian president, furthest thing from their minds.
Are we going to bomb them before they can get a bomb? Nah, said the American president, furthest thing from our minds.
The nuclear doves announcement was embarrassing for Mr. Bush, who had said on Monday that he was determined to prevent Iran from getting the know-how to enrich uranium. But the Persian logic cannot be faulted. If you pretend to have W.M.D., the U.S. may come and get you. Ask Saddam. If you really have W.M.D., you're bulletproof. Ask Kim Jong Il.
I'm sure the mad-as-cheese Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot believe his luck. The down-the-rabbit-hole Bush administration is tied up in Iraq, helping to create a theocracy friendly to Iran while leaving Iran to do whatever it wants on W.M.D.
In this week's New Yorker, Seymour Hersh writes about the Pentagon planning for a possible strike against the nutty "apocalyptic Shiites," as the former C.I.A. agent Robert Baer calls the Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad and his chorus line of clerics.
Mr. Hersh quotes a source close to the Pentagon saying that Mr. Bush believes "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy." Which makes sense, in a wag-the-camel way, since saving Iraq is not going to be his legacy.
The Bush hawks, who have already proven themselves cultural cretins in Iraq, seem to still be a long way from that humble foreign policy they promised. A former defense official told Mr. Hersh that the plan was based on an administration belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." The official's reaction: "What are they smoking?"
Just as Rummy dismissed questions back in August 2002 about a possible invasion of Iraq as a media "frenzy" — even as plans were well under way — the defense chief shrugged off The New Yorker story as "Henny Penny, the sky is falling."
Noting that the president is "on a diplomatic track," He Who Should Be Fired said that while W. was obviously concerned about Iran as a country that supports terrorists and wants W.M.D., "it is just simply not useful to get into fantasy land."
Yes, the reality-based community of journalists should stay out of fantasy land, which is already overcrowded with hallucinatory Bushies.
W. defended his authorization of a leak to rebut Joseph Wilson's contention that the administration had hyped up a story about Niger selling Saddam uranium. "I wanted people to see the truth," the president said.
Of course, sometimes in order to help people see the truth, you've got to tell them a big fat lie.
As David Sanger and David Barstow wrote in The Times on Sunday, Scooter's leak about Saddam's efforts to obtain uranium had already been debunked by the time he leaked it. Colin Powell had told The Times that intelligence agencies were "no longer carrying it as a credible item" by early 2003, when the secretary of state was preparing to make the case against Iraq at the U.N. Only Scooter and Dick Cheney were willing to use a faulty bit of intelligence to defend their war scam.
With Watergate, reporters followed the money. With Monica, Ken Starr followed the stain. With W. and his bananas second banana, Patrick Fitzgerald is following the uranium. All he needs is a Geiger counter.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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3ringale
Citizen
Username: Threeringale
Post Number: 171
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 8:13 am: |
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The Reactionary Utopian
March 21, 2006
BUSH'S LATEST IDEA
by Joe Sobran
In the 1979 movie THE IN-LAWS, Peter Falk plays a
dotty former CIA man who awes his sidekick, Alan Arkin, a
timid dentist whose daughter is married to Falk's son.
"Were you involved in the Bay of Pigs operation?" asks
the fascinated Arkin. Falk replies proudly, "Involved in
it? It was my idea!"
"Success has a hundred fathers," John Kennedy
quipped; "failure is an orphan." True, as a rule; but the
Iraq war has a hundred fathers who still think it's a
success, President Bush chief among them. It was his
idea!
Now, heaven help us, he has another idea: Let's
extend the war to Iran. No, he doesn't want to send U.S.
troops into Iran; even he isn't quite that goofy.
But Bush and his sidekicks keep talking about the
threat from Iran the way they used to talk about the
threat from Iraq. Something's up. I look for air strikes
on Iran soon, maybe just a good night's bombing, as
proposed by Edward G. Luttwak in the WALL STREET JOURNAL
recently. You know, another preemptive strike.
Unannounced, but not unexpected. A predictable sneak
attack.
History repeats itself as farce, Karl Marx observed.
That would be a good epitaph for this administration. As
a connoisseur of political farce, I'm anticipating an
inept sneak attack, a combination of Pearl Harbor and the
Bay of Pigs.
Then what? As the Iranian people rally behind their
government, the whole Muslim world and everyone else
rally against the United States, the world oil market
goes berserk, and Americans start riding horses to work,
Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld will claim another
success, complaining that the media are showing only the
downside of the operation.
According to Bush's interpretation of the
Constitution, the president, in time of war, is empowered
to do whatever he's in the mood to do. And Bush is now in
the mood to teach the Iranians a lesson they won't
forget, no matter what the cost.
A quick air strike wouldn't require a congressional
resolution and wouldn't give the opposition time to
organize. At this point, Bush must turn every faux pas
into a fait accompli, as our French friends -- well,
former friends -- might say.
Meanwhile, Bush's hairy-chested neocon friends are
coping with cowardice on the home front. They question
the manliness of liberals and Democrats, except for
Hillary Clinton, and I myself have felt the sting of
their lash.
Here I must mention the most familiar, yet most
baffling, argument for war. It runs roughly like this:
"Our brave men and women are dying in [fill in name of
relevant country] to protect the very freedoms you
yellow-bellied peaceniks abuse."
On this view, we owe all our freedoms to wars, and
all our wars are wars for freedom. Is that so? Well,
which wars gave us freedom of speech, trial by jury,
property rights, the right to remain silent, and the
right to abortion? Are these the rights our enemies were
trying to take away? And just how did, say, Kaiser
Wilhelm II or Manuel Noriega plan to achieve that?
Obviously, as many libertarians have pointed out,
it's precisely during wartime that government grows and
our rights shrink. Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, and George W. Bush should have
taught us this by now.
This isn't the only country that believes freedom
depends on war. Unless Brittania rules the waves, says
the old anthem, Britons may all wind up as slaves. Well,
Brittania no longer rules the waves, and Britons,
happily, aren't slaves, but they're still singing that
anthem.
Faith in war is the closest thing America has to a
national religion. It is closely allied to our faith in
Great Presidents. As for those who didn't trust our Great
Presidents, such as copperheads and isolationists, their
name is mud.
So trying to talk Americans out of going to war is a
fool's errand, like trying to persuade Yosemite Sam to
hold his fire for just a minute. If you get any reply at
all, it will be a truism: "The only thing these varmints
understand is hot lead."
As the old rabbis used to ask, "Have your ears heard
what your lips have just uttered?" It's no use trying to
make people listen to you when they won't even listen to
themselves.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read this column on-line at
"http://www.sobran.com/columns/2006/060321.shtml".
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The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1218
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 9:25 am: |
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Can we please add some common sense back into this discussion?
-SLK
Iranian Bomb Scare-WSJ
It would be irresponsible not to have military plans.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
In the matter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, these columns aren't often complimentary. But the Iranian president does have an exquisite sense of timing.
Mr. Ahmadinejad announced yesterday that the Islamic Republic had for the first time enriched uranium to reactor-grade levels. "This is a starting point for more major points of success for the Iranian nation," says the man who repeatedly calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map." This announcement puts Iran in formal breach of a U.N. Security Council resolution. It also indicates that Iran has the know-how, if not yet the industrial base, to build an atomic bomb.
Maybe this will now focus minds on the real Iranian bomb scare--the risk that a repressive regime with huge oil and gas reserves, "revolutionary" ideals, regional ambitions and a global terrorist network will be in a position to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. In recent weeks, however, too much attention has been paid to a different bomb scare: Reports that the Bush Administration has plans for air strikes on Iran's nuclear-related installations.
Those reports got some added media play last week following the publication of an article by New Yorker staff journalist Seymour Hersh, which claims the Bush Administration is seriously considering a tactical nuclear strike against some of Iran's hardened, deeply buried weapons' installations.
If Mr. Hersh's (mostly unnamed) sources are to be believed, U.S. Navy fighters have been flying "simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions" over the Arabian Sea. He quotes a "former senior intelligence official" who says, ominously, that " 'Decisive' is the key word of the Air Force's planning. It's a tough decision. But we made it in Japan." This same former official also claims "the attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . . . and some officers have talked about resigning." Yet the White House is said to be gung-ho.
This alleged war fever is hard to credit, given that for three years the Bush Administration has deferred to Europe in pursuing a diplomatic track on Iran. On Monday, President Bush called the stories "wild speculation." And in fact, it's Iran that has escalated the situation by deceiving U.N. inspectors, indulging in incendiary rhetoric and abandoning its international commitments. Tehran has even resisted Russia's offer to let it enrich uranium in that country under Moscow's supervision.
For our part, we only hope the Administration has a full range of military contingency plans for Iran. Such planning is in one sense routine--the Pentagon constantly devises war games for every conceivable situation against every conceivable adversary. But it would also be irresponsible for the Administration not to draw up contingency plans given the threat Iran increasingly poses--a point that should be especially well-taken by critics of the Iraq War who claim the Bush Administration was negligent in its postwar planning.
Just as important, overt military planning is essential if diplomacy is going to have any chance of succeeding with Iran. The only time the mullahs have given any sign of bending on the nuclear issue is when Europe and the U.S. have appeared to be united in holding Iran accountable. Even Jacques Chirac seems to appreciate this, since he's the one Western leader, or shall we say cowboy, who has actually suggested using nuclear weapons against Iran if it came to that. The phrase "whoever wishes for peace, let him prepare for war" was not coined by George W. Bush.
The more vital question is whether the U.S. has the intelligence, and the means, to destroy Iran's nuclear capability if we had to. Last year's Robb-Silberman report on U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq noted that the quality of American information on Iran was even more abysmal. Fixing this is clearly a priority.
Also a priority should be developing the so-called bunker buster bomb, a low-yield nuclear weapon capable of destroying deeply buried targets. Much of Iran's nuclear program is thought to be buried, and while the U.S. has conventionally armed bunker busters, they might not be as capable as low-yield nukes.
Theologians of arms control have tried to portray bunker busters as uniquely frightening weapons. And Congress, led by Ohio Republican David Hobson, has cut off funding even for more research. The idea seems to be that if we develop such weapons we might actually be more likely to use them. But in fact, such weapons are more likely to be credible against a potential enemy than are giant 200-kiloton nuclear weapons that would kill thousands of innocent civilians as well as any military target. The entire point of low-yield bunker busters is to do less damage, not more.
We suspect that much of this Iranian bomb scare has less to do with actual war plans than with an attempt to portray Mr. Bush as war-happy in an election year and when we are already in a hard slog in Iraq. But if it also has the added effect of persuading Tehran's mullahs that the U.S. is serious about not letting them get the bomb, then maybe this "speculation" will have done some good.
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tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4209
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 9:56 am: |
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The problem with developing load-yield nuclear weapons to destroy hard targets is that you lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. How do you say that 1 kiloton is OK, but 15 is not?
With regard to U.S. intelligence failures on Iraq, one has to suspect that the Bush Administration had everything to gain and nothing to lose by this assessment. As one CIA agent noted, much of the CIA's assessment was spot on (e.g. difficulties of achieving post-Saddam stability) but was ignored. With regard to Iraq, the Bush Administration was very much like the prosecutor presenting only the incriminating evidence at a trial with nobody to present exculpatory evidence. |
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