Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
This is going to get very, very ugly. There are no good options left. only bad, worse, and much worse.
The one good option is for the US to back the majority of the people within Iran who want to see a change in their government. Too bad we waffled and wimped out earlier this year….a good opportunity wasted. Where was Rahm and his “never waste a crisis” mantra?? It might have worked wonders if he and his guy had the experience, ability, or slight desire to focus on something outside domestic give-a-way politics.
With these guys (our current administration) in place we are screwed.
Steve, a change in government neither equates to stopping the nuke program, nor saying that Israel would now be “allowed” to exist.
I’m not sure what the majority of Iranians want, and doubt that anyone else does either.
His U.N. speech was extraordinary. Mr. Netanyahu will do what the leader of Israel has to do, IMO, and not let Iran get the bomb. Would prefer that the U.S. would also do the right thing, though that seems to be a forlorn hope.
I agree with you, Ron. I cannot picture that nation, Israel, the most civilized nation in the Mid East, allowing itself to be destroyed. They are the only nation in that area with cutting edge technology, and they have never stopped working at it, and honing their skills since 1947. Plus, they are the bravest of all nations in the Mid East, without question. How can our President have misunderstood them so.
I think their Secret Service, Mossad, knows very well where the main bomb building areas in Iran are, and, since Mr. Obama has signaled that our country will not back them up [a gross betrayal of past pledges] they will pick the right time and bomb the hell out of the facilities.
More power to them, and I pray for their success.
Marianne
I’m going to put my bet on the long odds and say the facilities are well dispersed and, apparently, have some redundancy, so striking them might elongate the timeline to Nuke Day, but doesn’t prevent Iran from developing the weapons. It would also play havoc with US-Muslim relations in the area, and give the O-Team an easily marketed pretext for downplaying if not terminating the security alliance with Israel. Which I tend to think they would like to do. To hit the reset button with the Muslim world, for balance and goodwill, hope and change, yadda yadda.
So, no strikes by Israel.
There’s one thing missing in this analysis.
It’s darned difficult to hide an enrichment facility. They’re like data centers — if you know what to look for in terms of power and cooling they stand out even if they’re in a brick building marked Auto Repair or inside a strip mall. Iraq is a large country, a dispersed production would make this difficult to stop, but certainly not impossible. And if you break only a few links you’ve still broken the chain.
We’ve basically given Israel notice that we’re not protecting them any longer, we expect all players to abide by our expectations. I wonder if that is a signal to our allies as well as the Israeli’s to do what they think they need to, we’re not running with the ball on this. Israel can do what it has to do, if Germany lends a hand or NATO shares assets that’s not our fault. We’re not taking a stand, we’re voting “present” and hoping somebody else will lead the way.
I have no idea how this is supposed to help us.
– Max
Yeah, Max, the power lines feeding those facilities in particular are a highly vulnerable choke point that is easy to interdict. A few (thousand) metallic strips spread by, say, a few Thomawks, over the power-lines would pretty much shut things down–no need for deep penetrator bunker-busters.
You’re not thinking it through, Virgil. We don’t want to short out a power line for a few hours. We want to obliterate a sub-station to where it takes 6 months to get replacement transformers. We want to find that coal or natural gas plant and set the coal on fire, put holes in the cooling system, and turn the natural gas tanks into smoking ruins.
Sucks for the civilians, but electricity is kind of like a telephone system — if I have some capacity left, I can always direct it to those who pay me the most, everybody else gets a busy signal. I’m busy, get back to me when you have money or I have capacity.
Electrical grids have choke points. They take a long time to repair, especially with sanctions preventing imports of replacement parts.
This is, of course, doing too little too late, but it is at least something that can be done.
– Max
MaxDamage/
Oh, I’d thought about that aspect, Max ‘ole buddy, and you’re right–from a strictly military targeting officers perspective–but I was thinking of something that would cause the fewest civilian cas, so as not to inflame Iranians who otherwise despise the regime, as well as risk the fewest Allied pilots lives. Cruise missiles fill all those squares (as well as give the Navy something to do with their Tomahawk loaded subs and make the bobbleheads feel good) and the process can be repeated as often as needed to keep the processing plants down. And we can always claim straight faced (well, mildly smirking) innocence by speculating that perhaps the missiles were sent by Ming the Merciless from the planet Mongo. If THEY can believe in thousand yr old 12th Imams climbing back from the dead out of a well, WE get to believe in our buddy good old Ming.
MaxDamage/
Oh, I’d thought about that aspect, Max ‘ole buddy, and you’re right–from a strictly military targeting officers perspective–but I was thinking of something that would cause the fewest civilian cas, so as not to inflame Iranians who otherwise despise the regime, as well as risk the fewest Allied pilots lives. Cruise missiles fill all those squares (as well as give the Navy something to do with their Tomahawk loaded subs and make the bobbleheads feel good) and the process can be repeated as often as needed to keep the processing plants down. And we can always claim straight faced (well, mildly smirking) innocence by speculating that perhaps the missiles were sent by Ming the Merciless from the planet Mongo. If THEY can believe in thousand yr old 12th Imams climbing back from the dead out of a well, WE get to believe in our buddy good old Ming.
No electrical power, no threat. I’ll bet Iranian power generators are few and vulnerable. Centrifuges take a lot of power. An enemy nation deprived of electrical power is mission killed.
Respectfully, it shuts them down for as long as it takes to get the lines repaired or new generating facilities built, unless somebody plans to keep every city with a potential nuclear research facility offline indefinitely. At the end of the day that’s still just extending the timeline by, let’s be generous, ten years. Israel would have to park a squadron in Arabia or an SSK in the Gulf permanently to hammer Iran with cruise missiles whenever it looks like they are getting nuke dev ramped up again. I don’t know if the Saudis would be so accommodating for so long; Iraq and Turkey have already given the airspace transit thumbs-down for this round.
So ten years later we get to go through the rigamarole again, after they figure out a new subterfuge and build a Bond-villain underground generating station (or whatever they think is going to work out in the long run)?
Iran’s still getting nukes. Just a little later than they planned.
Israel probably has enough men in Iran to know where the sites are located. I don’t believe it is targeting, or even weaponeering. Think it is a pure gas issue. Cruise missiles with carbon fiber heads are one thing, but hitting a facility 200 ft underground with a Tommyhawk is another. They need heavy iron. Lots of aircraft. Over several nights. Other options? Chemical contamination? Dirty bomb?
With the “heavy” sactions BHO is going to apply (on telecom, energy and financial – oww that hurts) I am sure the Iranians will be beating a path to the negotiating table. After all, sanctions worked so wonderfully against the NORKS why won’t they work here?
I deal with some Israeli telcom companies on a daily basis and they are genuinely surprised that this administration has so thoroughly undone 60+ years of support in so short a time.
I can believe that Israel is surprised how BHO is basically cutting them adrift. Concurrently, I (almost) cannot believe how fast and far BHO has been able to push his Socialist agenda. (Sorry Lex, I will not accord BHO the courtesy of Mr. President)
Agree with others that Israel probably has pretty good intel on Iranian facilities. Historically their intel has been excellent -some exceptions though.
Israel knows that they have the support of the American people, and with Congress. Primary problem is that Israel has very little cushion to take a chance. At least that is my very amateur geopolitical analysis.
Saw a few articles this morning that Russia is having second thoughts about sanctions against Israel. I am shocked!
Zbigniew Brzezinski, from those glorious Carter days of foreign diplomacy, is now advising Obama Husein. In a recent interview he said that if the Israelis attack Iran flying over Iraq we should confront them in the air and turn them back by any means necessary.
This problem can be easily solved. Just take the advice of SN/SS Broten,on USS Dolphin AGSS 555, some time in the late 70′s, While puking into a garbage bag EB greened to his knees as he drove the boat while charging batteries,surfaced, in a state 5 sea on the beam,,,,,,” Nuke them, nuke them till the camel turds glow. Then set up a free offroad park, with free gas every 20 miles.”He was a good lad, should have been CJCS.
I may be crazy, but symmetry and logic are undeniable. BHO has deemed nuke reductions a goal for the world, nuke disarmament. All he has to do is call out serial numbers of the warheads
when they leave the tube(s), as they go on thier merry way. Iranian problem solved. The rest of the ragheads are going to have an epiphiny, no dought in my ex military mind.
To operate all this disperse equipment requires trained and motivated personnel.
Kill enough of these people and the possible replacements lose motivation.
The Iranian program probably depends on a few hundred key people. There are possibly bottlenecks of expertise that if known, could require a smaller death toll. In our Manhattan Project, the death of General Leslie Groves anytime in 1943 or 1944 would have meant no Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
KEY PEOPLE is where Mossad will focus. Then, they will kill them by assasin, by air attack, or by missile.
Broten says,”enough with the key people, just make sure there are NO replacements. Problem solved”
FWIW, tactical backpack nukes of Russian origin would be a neat solution. Very do-able and cost effective.