Pajamas Media

35 Comments

1. dan:

Being a batshit little country, Iran’s primary job is presumably to continue to divide the West, acquire strategic weapons, place stress on the fuel markets, and serve as a major base of operation for general Middle Eastern havoc – all financed and coordinated by the Moscow-Beijing axis.

Dividing the West is easy – and, of course, as everyone has noticed by now, NATO essentially doesn’t exist anymore outside the Anglosphere (and even partly inside the Anglosphere). This must be very gratifying to the Russians, for whom this has been a major strategic goal since NATO’s creation.

Their strategic weapons acquisition program is full steam ahead.

Every failure of the West to stand up Iranian moves or Iranian-Russian moves results in – in the language of Wall Street – a plausible reason to increase the oil futures prices on which today’s oil prices are based.

I think the other day’s missile launches were for this purpose; the Israeli air maneuvors over the Eastern Mediterranean were just a nice pretext.

As for regional chaos, it cannot redound to regional order to have Hezbollah annex Lebanon, to have HAMAS take over Gaza and gain recognition by Putin, to say nothing of Syria still providing at least a trickle of jihadis into Iraq. And what about the PKK? The Communist Kurds basically forcing Turkey to send excursions into Northern Iraq – and by the way causing sometimes tremendous tension between USA and Turkey, a once crucial ally against the USSR?

Yes, I’d say electing Obama, whose strange background does suggest “sleeper agent” to the quasi-paranoid like myself, would be about the worst thing we could do right now.

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:01 am 2. chuck,:

Any theories about what in hell the Russians think they’re doing arming a Moslem loon-regime right next door to them? They don’t think those rebadged missiles won’t be sent back at them some day?

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:39 am 3. Chip:

Even if the early Shababs are nothing but long-range V-2’s, enough of them raining down on a dense suburban area will make it unpleasant to say the least, like Sderot with larger explosions or the London Blitz — not noted as a picnic. If I were president Iran would finally be repaid in kind for everything since the Lebanon attack of 1983. But instead we’ll get more peas-and-carrots-and-plutonium diplomacy. Don’t even say anything nasty about the Iranians or they might not take our bribes! — Obama’s position.

Egad.

Jul 10, 2008 - 6:01 am 4. dan:

http://www.rawa.org/gul-kgb.htm

Interesting! It’s all Russia – and you will never have “proof.” But check this out – and remember the Hekmatyar-Iran links for basically the entirety of the US-N. Alliance-Afghan war? And “senior al Qaeda” “escaping” into Iran where they have remained “under house arrest” since then? Gee – I wonder if Hekmatyar had anything to do with that…

Jul 10, 2008 - 7:01 am 5. MarkD:

The key is to end our dependency on imported oil from OPEC. I don’t care if it’s gassified coal, hydrogen generated from nuclear energy, or shale oil, Oil from Alberta tar sands, or domestic drilling. We couldn’t be more pathetic in our response to this energy crisis if OPEC owned our politicans and bureaucrats.

Jul 10, 2008 - 7:26 am 6. dan:

chuck – i recently read a russian general saying “arms make allies,” which is probably self-evident. but provision of nuclear technology must be the most ally-making relationship possible, especially considering the degree of penetration and control Russia exacts for such “alliances.” In reality, it is not unlikely that the SVR (Russian foreign intelligence), among other agencies, have penetrated Iran to the extent that they believe Iran can be reliably directed against the Israelis and the USA. This orientation also of course jives with their Islamic Revolutionary sensibilities since Khomenei first began broadcasting. It also raises the question, in hindsight, that if the Iranian Revolution was indeed generally carried out by Leftists, but then unified by the Islamic faction that eventually triumphed, whether the whole thing was not in fact a giant gambit directed essentially from Moscow, and now coming to fruition, since Iran is on the threshold of gaining strategic weapons and a significant deterrent capability.

If this all sounds rather ideologically unlikely, remember that among the lesser observed but certainly non-controversial aspects of Soviet-Russian history is that the USSR managed to (re)incorporate all of its traditional southern Muslim regions during 1920-3, largely by penetrating them and creating “Muslim” front organizations, through which the KGB (Cheka, GPU, OGPU, etc.) then administered the -stan SSRs or ASRs throughout Soviet history. Recall also that Stalin had to be forced to honor his agreement to leave Iran in 1946, and that preserving the Iranian alliance with the USA was of great importance to us throughout the Cold War (and remember that the much misremembered Mossadeq, the scion of the recently deposed ruling Qajar dynasty who scoffed at parliamentary government, nationalized the oil fields prior to his removal by British and American intelligence in 1953). Presumably the Russians/Soviets acquired a great deal of expertise in penetrating, deceiving, co-opting, and controlling culturally Muslim leaders and regions during this experience. It does not seem to strain credulity that they would have a great deal of success in applying this expertise to regions on its own borders. And of course, their strategic interests – Iran’s and Russia’s – coincide to a large extent.

Jul 10, 2008 - 7:29 am 7. C-Low:

“chuck,:

Any theories about what in hell the Russians think they’re doing ”

Very simply, just pissing in our cereal.

Jul 10, 2008 - 7:32 am 8. kabud:

it is time to attack mullahs now

attack should destroy their weapon systems: those missiles, before they will get more of them

so far they just have a handful or so,

US and Israel have thousands: so why do we have to wait and let those KGB mullahs acquire more?

Jul 10, 2008 - 8:49 am 9. Trent Telenko:

Spook 86,

The issue I keep seeing people miss WRT Iranian WMD development is that “obsolete” nuclear technology is still deadly technology.

Consider the fact that (a) the technology Saddam Hussein’s whole pre-Gulf War nuclear weapons program was missed because he was using WW2 era calutron electromagnetic uranium separators and a gun-type nuclear fission design to avoid detection by both the IAEA and Western Intelligence and (b) small gun style fission devices that are missile deliverable are a 1950’s vintage technology.

See here from this wikipedia link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Annie) on the US Army’s “Atomic Annie” nuclear cannon:

The first artillery test was on May 25, 1953 at the Nevada Test Site. Fired as part of Operation Upshot-Knothole and codenamed Shot GRABLE, a 280 mm (11 inch) shell with a gun-type fission warhead was fired 10,000 m (6.2 miles) and detonated 160 m (525 feet) above the ground with an estimated yield of 15 kilotons. This was the only nuclear artillery shell ever actually fired in the US test program. The shell was 1384 mm (4.5 feet) long and weighed 365 kg (805 lb); it was fired from a special artillery piece, nicknamed “Atomic Annie”, built by the Artillery Test Unit of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Around 3,200 personnel were present. The warhead was designated the W9 and 80 were produced from 1952-53 for the T-124 shell. It was retired in 1957.

The example of the South African nuclear weapons program showed that it was possible to build in complete secrecy 10 highly enriched uranium (HEU) gun-type nuclear devices (seven of them in one ton jet fighter certified bombs) in 10 years, using 300 people as a work force, for less than $300 million. See this link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050412005857/www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ja94albright

When you use pre-enriched uranium from commercial reactors as feed stock, rather than “yellow cake,” for nuclear material separation. The ability to obtain large amounts of weapons grade uranium to create an arsenal of such devices becomes very reasonable. Iran has had Russia, China, and North Korea supplies of such nuclear material for literally decades.

If Iran has followed Saddam’s and South Africa’s “Retro-technology” approach, we may already be facing an Iranian State that is armed with nuclear tipped missiles.

Jul 10, 2008 - 10:15 am 10. kabud:

to Telenko
interesting, so it is possible that kremlin cultivates iran’s nuclear program just for shows))
provoking us and Israel to attack iran, create disturbance in the Gulf and as a result russian oil will increase in price something like 10-folds!

We should think of a asymmetrical approach to it.

i say: we must stop any rhetorics on islamists, iran, korea, whatever

and focuse on kremlin. kremlin must be made openly responsible and must pay for all this bullshit

and Beijing

Jul 10, 2008 - 10:42 am 11. jerry:

An Iranian nuclear force is just a problmatic for them as it is for us. The threat of its use provides a powerful deterent and shield for expanded Iranian military and terrorist operations around the world. However, the actual use of a nuclear weapon by Iran does not constitute an extisential threat to anybody but its immediate neighbors one of which has the ability to destroy Iran in 15 minutes regardless of the outcome of the initial Iranian attack.

If Iran were to use a nuclear weapon against anybody else they would face retaliation from the United States. One B-2 or a small number of number of Trident missiles effectively ends the existance of the Persian nation. If they are relying on Russia or China to protect them then they are out of their minds. Neither power is going to end civilization to protect Iran from retaliation. Russia stands to gain even more billions from soaring oil prices after the rather one sided exchange.

The real question is do the mullahs feel lucky?

Jul 10, 2008 - 11:00 am 12. cedarford:

Trent Telenko – Nice article on the S African program by David Albright, of later fame on Iraq WMD.
Once you have the enriched material, the technology and manufacturing down, cranking out nukes appears to be as easy and cheap as I suspected based on S Africa data. 2.5-3 thermonuclear devices for the price of one fighter jet was purportedly the Soviet thumrule. We and the Russians once had “assembly lines” that cranked out 500-to over 1,000 nuke weapons of a particular model in a year.

*******************
But many of those tests had something in common: they resulted in failures, ranging from missiles that blew up in flight, failed to achieve the desired range, or strayed badly off course.

The author misses that early missile programs test to fail – to find out every bug in testing, even a series of missile failures in flight – to get to the point where those bad boys are proven reliable and accurate after launch.

******************
The problem is that experts declared that once Israel had major WMDs and widely was known to have missile-deliverable nukes, that Israel’s time of possessing a WMD monopoly was finite.

Just as with all military technology, any edge is temporary as rivals determine there is no more critical a national priority than achieving deterrence against a deadly enemy through getting naval warship, rifle, artillery, logistics, air, electronic warfare partity. Or nuclear.

The US stayed ahead of the Soviets, in most but not all areas, by continuous military technology improvement – but nevertheless, a “clunky” Soviet 15 megaton H-Bomb on top of a “nearly-obsolete” and fairly inaccurate SS-12 is still enough 40 years after design to still be unstoppable by all but the US and Japan in the last 5 years only, and make any major city a smoking crater.

And that is the 1st of three flaws with anyone that thinks Israel can perpetuate its quantum edge in WMD in the ME. “Improvements”, while hugely important in the Cold War counterforce capacity, matter much less in a ME conflict where sophisticated and “crude” missile warheads cross paths on their way to enemy cities.

The 2nd great flaw is believing Israel can maintain it’s WMD dominance by aggressively warring against any nation that starts to seek parity. Geostrategic, economic and religious factors will not allow Israel to be an endless attacker of others working to establish a strong military, peacefully. Nor can Israel use it’s nukes – but once.

The 3rd great flaw is believing the US is morally obligated, somehow, to send its own people to death in ME wars, regularly, to safeguard it’s “Special Friend” Israel’s regional WMD “monopoly”.

The endpoint, experts predicted 30 years ago, is that when the Muslims advanced technologically in a generation or two to build their own stuff or purchase and understand other’s technology – Israel had only two real choices after the impossiblity of sustaining regular aggressive war on rivals from Morocco to Indonesia or counting on the USA to act as it’s big, dumb Golem to do Israel’s work for them – was understood.

a. Resolve the Palestinian mess in large part -at least to where permanent borders were recognized by all ME Parties even if that meant Large Powers arm twisting. And then to declare ME borders inviolate and the ME nuke-free, with some international enforcement mechanism.

b. MAD. With Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, KSA&Gulf States and perhaps Syria all having nuke weapons in 25-50 years time.

Jul 10, 2008 - 1:03 pm 13. Larry J:

There are several factors which determine if those Iranian missiles are effective military weapons. They include:

1. Reliability – If a substancial portion of the missiles fail to reach the target area, then you’re going to need to launch a lot of them.

2. Accuracy – what is the circular error probable (CEP) for those missiles, meters or kilometers? Simply hitting somewhere in the general neighborhood of Israel isn’t enough to do any serious damage except by chance.

3. Warhead type – as the missiles become more accurate, the need for powerful warheads decreases. If the CEP is a few meters, then a conventional warhead can destroy a lot of targets (at great expense). If the CEP is high, then you need a WMD to do any serious damage. As of yet, it doesn’t appear Iran has a WMD warhead for those missiles.

There’s also the fact that Israel has both the Patriot and Arrow ABMs that stand a reasonable chance of shooting down many of the missiles that happen to make it that far. Quite likely, the counter-strike (accurate, reliable and most likely WMD tipped) would be on its way before the smoke from the ABMs cleared.

Jul 10, 2008 - 2:27 pm 14. kabud:

the conflict of Israel and arab world was designed by british with a big help from kremlin when Israel was established

British had an idea that israel will help their interest, but the history proved them wrong

kremlin invested in antisemitism- a ideological weapon tested through centuries and very effective

almost all american right wing was antisemitic and largely remains so to this day: this fact gives kremlin the best means to blackmail out right wing opinion makers

So what is awaiting Israel?
The country is ridden with liberalism, it is not the same place as it was in the 60s

It can survive if it could promote democracy and made allies in arab world and turn Iranian regime down- iranians will support it

The other option would be to collectively emigrate as a whole country to California, San Luis Obispo area is almost deserted and has sema kind of climate

So it is up to jews to make a choice

Jul 10, 2008 - 3:27 pm 15. davod:

“3. Warhead type – as the missiles become more accurate, the need for powerful warheads decreases.”

The development problem is not in the powerfullness of the warhead but the physical size of warhead.

Does the successful development of a mediam/long range missile provide a vehicle for a chem/bio attack?

Jul 10, 2008 - 3:51 pm 16. chuck,:

Dan:

“arms make allies,” And oil. An understanding between Moscow and Tehran to divy up the oil and gas reserves of that part of the world–Moscow gets the Caspian sea region, Tehran gets all the Middle East it can grab–would be tantamount to an Iron/Koran curtain around most of the world’s energy. A tempting vision for both parties, I think. For Russia there is the bonus of having moslem demographics as a counter to China’s, since their own aren’t looking healthy at all.

One test of this theory is whether the various -stans that formerly belonged to Russia are quiet of Islamic troubles. Iran, I understand, passively watched as Russia crushed their co-believers in Chechnya. And a consequence of it is that the mullahs for all their heavenly spouting have a very down-to-earth agenda. That means they’re sane.

The downside, which Russia may not have completely thought through, is how long the Islamic Reich will consent to be the junior partner. But right now, Putin must be rubbing his hands at the party he’s about to throw for us. Cutting us off from the oil-what a payback for Afganistan!

We’re screwed. Maybe we can cook up something with the other major have-not, China….

Jul 10, 2008 - 4:18 pm 17. John Samford:

jerry;
“However, the actual use of a nuclear weapon by Iran does not constitute an extisential threat to anybody but its immediate neighbors one of which has the ability to destroy Iran in 15 minutes regardless of the outcome of the initial Iranian attack.”

Any evidence to support this rather wishful conclusion?
I would like to point out that in effect, you are counting on a death threat to deter a suicide bomber. Pardon me for thinking that won’t work so good.
You are over looking the fact that an atomic bomb detonating in the Hudson will leave no evidence as to who set it off. So who do we nuke back? Draw names from a hat? Whoever has insulted the Assistant to the Assistant of the Under Secretary of widgets for the Secretary of State lately?
Or do we just nuke them all?
Mad loses it’s point when one of the madders isn’t afraid to die or you cannot ID the other party. MAD only works when BOTH parties agree to it. If one side won’t play, MAD becomes a sure fire path to war.
Just to boggle your mind, what is to keep a 3rd party from dropping a bucket of sunshine on LA and letting the Mad Dog Mullahs reap the reward?

Jul 10, 2008 - 4:27 pm 18. dan:

“The downside, which Russia may not have completely thought through, is how long the Islamic Reich will consent to be the junior partner.”

Yes – and I presume in ye olde Asiatic fashion each is trying to screw eachother while smilingly cooperating. I think Russia mainly is allowed a free hand because it is well-known that its policy is “if you come anywhere near us we will f-ck you, and no one will help you.” The “international community” is conspicuously silent on the subject of Russian aggression. Unfortunately for the mullahs that embroils them with… well, Russia, whom it cannot outdo in power and probably in cunning and ruthlessness.

With respect to the Arab-Israeli situation, I guess I come at it from the angle of Israel conquered its territory, and has every right; it also has an obvious an unique claim to the land, even if not the only one. The difference between the sides is that Israel wants to remain small and join in the advance through modernity, while the Arabs are essentially barbarians whose cultural habits consign them to ignorance, squalor and incompetence, and whose aims really never transcend the tribal. Their policy is not to come to some arrangement with Israel in the spirit of comity that informs the US-back international system, but to manipulate with pure Asiatic bazaar bad faith the legal concepts involved for the purpose of *annihilating* Israel.

I disagree with kabud to the extent that anti-Semitism was not invented by the Soviets, but brought to a higher degree of intensity by them; it is inherent in Islam, and it is inherent in Arab inter-group dynamics. After all, pretty much every group, in the olde tribal fashion, can come up with any reason to hate another, whether or not they’re Zionist and Jewish. The Russian contribution is to impose enough discipline – generally by the threat of murder and with the promise of baksheesh – to organize them into groups capable of inflicting enough political damage to create the impression of a “nation” of some kind. Everyone knows this is an absolutely foreign concept to the region and its largely illiterate or propogandized inhabitants.

What’s the solution? Obviously the solution is to invade and hang the tyrants of these zones, and establish a set of institutions that capable of at least stumbling along in the modern way. It’s not as though this offends some moral principle: the political form in all these countries is a thieving, generally Soviet/Russia-backed clique of assholes who rape the country more or less savagely – and who but the tyrants support that? The necessary unit is the nation-state, and so nation-states must be built. By us? Yes, in the absence of an alternative – and there happens not to be an alternative. Why do USA boys and girls have to go and die there and why does our treasure have to flow to these mostly bastards? Because that is the way of converting them to modernity, as it has *always been the way of converting every society into modernity.* The alternative is that they are used, in perpetuity, by powers like Russia and China (who resemble them, formally and morally) as a gigantic catapault to send all this bullshit at us and Europe. Everyone who says differently is either a disciple of demoralization or an idiot.

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:00 pm 19. kabud:

>I disagree with kabud to the extent that anti-Semitism was not invented by the Soviets, but brought to a higher degree of intensity by them; it is inherent in Islam, and it is inherent in Arab inter-group dynamics.

that was exactly my point:
kremlin invested in antisemitism- a ideological weapon tested through centuries and very effective

several very influential people from american right were blackmailed by kgb on the grounds of their antisemitism and connections with nazis, John Birch Society types

kgb idea was to exploit the prejudice including but not limited to ME

it is still one of the best ideological weapons used by kgb through out the world

we have to fight antisemitism as the most dangerous threat to civilization

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:26 pm 20. kabud:

if we invade-
it will give kgb the foundation to rally people against us: no good

what we have to do: we have to support people of Iran in their aspiration to kill the nomenklatura of mullahs , support politically, moralyl, informationally but not financially: iranians in usa have enough money for that

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:29 pm 21. Dave Surls:

Nice post by jerry. I think he nailed it.

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:52 pm 22. fred:

The one thing I have always wondered about: Why does Russia want Israel destroyed? Israel is no threat to Russia; never was and never will be. In fact, Israel has been a fine outlet for Russia to get rid of the Jews it does not want. Someone please bring me up to speed as to why Russia/USSR has consistently worked to destroy Israel.

Jul 10, 2008 - 6:13 pm 23. kabud:

fred:
why do you think kremlin(it is better not to identify Russia and Russians with occupation regime) wants Israel destroyed?

Because they SAY so?:):)

And why you think soviets wanted to get rid of Jews? They kept the borders closed and did not allow them to go up until 1990.
May be just 50-100 thousand were able to leave before from 1948 to 1990

It is not destruction of Israel at all: it is destabilization of oil region and offence towards US: thats what they are for.

The plan is to destabilize US economy, politics and to engage us in foreign wars so the can strike successfully on out home territory like at 9-11 but substantially harder

thats all

Jul 10, 2008 - 6:32 pm 24. dan:

“Someone please bring me up to speed as to why Russia/USSR has consistently worked to destroy Israel.”

Outpost of US/democratic influence in the “Arab world.” USSR invested many resources in former British colonial possessions as they crumbled, or later as under Qaddafiyeh. Iraq, after the Baghdad Pact was abrogated by the Ba’ath in ‘63, Assad in Syria, PLO-PFLP-assorted Pali groups, probably Iranian revolution, the Tudeh parties in Iran and Afghanistan (yes I know they’re not in the Arad world).

Plus as kabud points out – I see what you were saying now kabud – Jew-hatred is a very reliable organizing principle for a wide variety of groups in large parts of the world.

Also remember Yemen was under Soviet influence for a very long time – and witness the civil war going on there now.

But mostly US influence, strategically speaking. So we pay Mubarak and King Hussein billions a year for patronage, we maintain the House of Saud and the Gulf emirates. And we support Israel – which by the way only began to take the form of massive armaments & etc. after Israel’s victory in 1967.

Jul 10, 2008 - 6:37 pm 25. kabud:

dan:
all the policies you described either failed or will fail because we don’t understand a long term strategy of the enemy

it is in our culture and our political system: we live from election to election, we are open society, we accept everything including subversion

we trust everyone

so we are headed for a major catastrophe(((((
check this out
http://xyu.livejournal.com/649821.html
i copied some essential things on Fredy Mac coming disaster

again, back to our conversation yesterday:
it is EXACTLY as Golitsyn predicted. They WILL STRIKE IN A TIME OF MAJOR ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CRISIS(((
—————-

If i would have a magic power over US policy this is what i would do:

1.Openly admit to every shady past deal with enemy forces, from 1917. It would gradually create a public trust of high level towards government

2.Openly describe to the public what is known to elites and what they hide from people, including the long range strategy of kremlin. yes, they know.

3.Immediately stop any trade and cancel diplomatic recognition of kremlin, Beijing and all their allies . Also cancel our debt to them. Including Saudis and alike. Including oil imports from them: no trade, no diplomatic recognition NOW. Create domestic methanol fuel economy: doable in several months period.

4.Publish all details on our rotten financial system, including the real situation with Federal debt, federal reserve etc. May be as some fellow economists proposed create a new solid currency instead of fiat dollar

5.Cancel all regulations that create obstacles for any kind of economic development here, including those that have created monopolistic conditions in almost all industries, global warming bullshit, etc.
Those are well known almost to everybody

6.Massively register all illegals. Profile them. deport all that are remotely suspicious to be actors of subversion: 1 month term.

7.Seal all borders in a matter of ONE WEEK. We can easily do it.

8.Offer a refuge to all Israelis in California. Or just withdraw any political restrictions we put on their policies in the past: let them handle it on their own and win the region or come here
——–

I can easily prove that this will effectively end communism and threats from it. They may try a war but morally they will have no chance , so they will lose))

They will try a war anyway, so the above measures will save tens of millions of our fellow Americans and
if not undertaken beforehand – will be taken later, but:
we will have to suffer massive casualties and may be even lose our Republic forever.

So

Jul 10, 2008 - 7:15 pm 26. dan:

hm…

Jul 10, 2008 - 8:05 pm 27. Brian H:

Larry;
the counter-strike would be on its way by the time the Iranian missiles completed their boost phase, I suspect.

dan;
I think Oblabla is a de facto sleeper agent whether or not he’s aware of it.

Spook86;
the photo you use is a ’shopped fake, according to Memri. The usual: duped images of one launch with minor perspective fiddles to make them look slightly different.

Jul 10, 2008 - 8:48 pm 28. saus:

Hi Spook86, the infamous photo-shopped ‘4th missile’ launch photo appear to be Fateh-110s, slightly better than Zelzals, this is a guided variant and conceivably able to carry a small nuclear payload, at least the N.K. & Chinese variants might be able to – it is a solid state fuel missile. Also, I believe you are correct and the Shahab3 launched in images shown from this crop of launches appears to be the earlier liquid fuel based shahab3, and not the more advanced solid rocket stage missile which the Iranians appear to have renamed Ghadr-1, or Power-1.

Some info on the Iranian primary missile arsenals below
http://hashmonean.com/2007/09/30/proliferation-parade-iranian-weapons-in-the-hands-of-terrorists/

Jul 11, 2008 - 12:12 am 29. Jabba the Tutt:

The Iranians photoshopped a picture from two years ago to show 4 (3) missile launches. As far as I know, we have no other information that the Iranians launched ANY missiles Wednesday and again on Thursday. We only have their announcement that they launched missiles.

The oil price had started heading down, now it’s heading up again. All for the price of a press release.

The American military can determine if there was a missile launch. I haven’t heard anything from them. Sec. Rice is out there responding, but not SecDef Gates or Central Command in Dubai. Why not?

Jul 11, 2008 - 6:05 am 30. Larry J:

“3. Warhead type – as the missiles become more accurate, the need for powerful warheads decreases.”

The development problem is not in the powerfullness of the warhead but the physical size of warhead.

Does the successful development of a mediam/long range missile provide a vehicle for a chem/bio attack?

Developing a biological or chemical warhead for a long range ballistic missile is tough. For one thing, the warheads will be moving very fast when they reach the target area. If you let them impact the ground, the heat will destroy most of the chemical or biological agents. To get maximum dispersal, you’d want an air burst but not too high. Again, heat issues from the speeds involved can make this a challenging engineering proposition. Conventional explosives do relatively little damage for the cost involved while developing a nuclear warhead isn’t exactly easy, either. It’s one thing to develop a nuclear device, it’s another to make one small enough to make a good missile warhead.

Brian H:

Larry;
the counter-strike would be on its way by the time the Iranian missiles completed their boost phase, I suspect.

Quite likely, but Israel might choose to wait until they’ve engaged the incoming missiles before firing their counter-strike. For one thing, there could be no denying who shot first. It’s also possible that you wouldn’t want your own missiles adding to the radar clutter when you’re trying to discriminate the incoming missiles in order to shoot them down.

Jul 11, 2008 - 6:24 am 31. John Samford:

“almost all american right wing was antisemitic and largely remains so to this day: this fact gives kremlin the best means to blackmail out right wing opinion makers”

Evidence? This lie has been around a Looong time and the left just won’t let it die. This is despite the FACT that a continuous line of right wingers have provided the most support for Israel.

“All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know from what you do.” *
*
_Arthur Wellesley, Duke Of Wellington

Jul 11, 2008 - 4:36 pm 32. kabud:

John Samford:

evidence, right)))

the evidence is a poor state of our affairs in the ME

enough for you?

Jul 13, 2008 - 10:26 am 33. Iran « Chockblock’s blog:

[...] has a column up on the missile tests at pajamasmedia.com. He points out errors in the reporting. Western media for years has believed foreign reports about [...]

Jul 13, 2008 - 6:50 pm 34. Pro-Israeli:

Very interesting analysis. Thank you, PJM.

Jul 17, 2008 - 6:53 am 35. Pro-Israeli:

While the Israelis have pledged not to be the first to introduce (the use of) nuclear weapons to the Mideast, I think they should break that pledge and use tiny, tactical nuclear weapons to stop Iran cold.

Tactical nuclear weapons would allow Israel to:

- penetrate hardened underground installations
- ensure the sites remain too radioactive for re-use.

Jul 17, 2008 - 7:12 am

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