Scary and plauseable.
The war started years ago, when things were set in motion that could not be stopped. It will go hot relatively soon and will involve pretty much the entire planet.
The only question is who, if anyone, will stand with us?
Er, did the author mean the 'Teheran' that just a paragraph earlier he claimed the Israelis turned into a glowing crater lined with smoked glass?
Hot tip to budding Apocalyptic fiction spinners: After a nuclear exchange, there's not going to be anyone in the receiving government to negotiate with.
Perhaps the revised ending ought to be 'The West and China agreed to divide up the oil supplies of the former Arab states'.
NPR had a China expert on last week who predicted the chaos that will result with China's unstoppable consumption of the world's resources. We're doomed.
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If Iran sent a single nuclear missle into Israel, Iran would no longer exist to be "supported" by China. Once you use nuclear weapons, the war doesn't last long enough for anybody to saber-rattle.
BTW, I really like Neils Fergeson as a speaker. I heard him a couple of times on C-Span. I tried to read his book "Empire", and while it was full of great information and I would recommend it to anybody wanting a challenging discussion of British history, I wasn't able to finish the book because it took too long to read and understand.
I just think he underestimates the reaction to a nuclear attack. My belief is the United States would immediately destory Iran, if Pakistan and India didn't get their first, and if Israel didn't have the firepower to do it as part of the 1st-retaliation.
You have to act immediately, because if you wait a day or two people start questioning whether it really is OK to respond, or if there is any reason to do so. All nuclear powers know this, so they are programmed to act in a mindless fashion against anybody using a nuclear weapon.
This ensures that no country gets in their mind that they can launch a nuclear attack and count on the slow wheels of diplomacy to protect them.
I think Condi is in over her head as Secretary of State. Her expertise on Russia has given her no preperation to deal with Islam. In fact, her training might even be detrimental. Although the Soviet were evil, they were reasonable and weren't keenly interested in dying.
Although Soviets outlawed churches, Russians still had a basis of Christianity....i.e., they had not been brainwashed to blow themeselves up in the name of God.
I supported and still support the Iraq war. We need to win it and not look like paper tigers. What's done is done, and failure is not an option. We live in the world of the indicative mood, not the subjunctive mood.
However, if a time machine was invented and we could go back in time to Summer 2002, I would argue until I was blue in the face that war with Iraq would deplete our resources and resolve to fight the greater threat--Iran. All the post 9-11 GWOT capital should have been invested in arguing for the overthrow of the Iranian mullahs. I know all the arguments about how Iran was going to fall ASAP because of their pro-American youth and how it was just a matter of time before we had a sea of liberty between Afghanistan and Iraq...hasn't happened, won't happen. Now, in 2006, the doctrine of preemption is for the most part dead, because of the struggles in Iraq--more specifically, the intelligence failures which will haunt our credibility both inside and outside our borders for decades to come. Iran would have been easier to manage, with one friendly border (Afghanistan) and a unified populace ethnically. You can make better arguments to the skeptical and the weak-kneed that Iran fits in w/ the GWOT than Iraq, mostly because it would be a delayed response to Iran's sponsored attack on U.S. Marines in 1984 that killed 250 soldiers in Lebanon and of course the gross seizure of hostages when the mullah state was founded. Iran's long deserved a massive butt-kicking.
Iran's the problem, and its problems dwarfed those presented by Saddam's Iraq. Let's pray something happens that doesn't make us rue choosing Iraq over Iran.
Those countries which have the ability and the technology to go hydroelectric and nuclear for power generation have had all the warning that they need to have done so already, if not, any hardship resulting should clearly be placed at the feet of the insane and ignorant among each society, and their supporters.
One source of deep satisfaction is that if China or another crazy country unleashes the dogs of nuclear war in search of raw materials and oil, the insane fuzzies in all "civilized" societies, and their supporters, will be the first to "go".
A quick death, if they are lucky, torn limb from limb by the others freezing in the dark.
The nuclear exchange scenario between Israel and Iran makes a lot of sense to me. I suggest two things: one, the Iranian leadership has got to be persuaded that pursuing nuclear weapons isn't going to lead to the achievement of their goals. Second, that the anti-regime Iranians be persuaded that they have to do something about their present regime, rather than waiting for the U.S. to do it for them.
This fairy tale would have been better as a TV special.
Interesting article. Thank you.
May God give our leaders wisdom.
Here's hoping Iran's leaders catch a good case of Bird Flu.
The US might survive at a visibly-unscathed level initially, but if oil and natural resources are at a sharp premium, the economy will tank and a partial collapse might occur. This is, of course, assuming other Nukes don't touch us...
End result: Einstein's quote about World War IV being fought with sticks and stones might come true after all.
Of course, the key word being here is obviously might...
Israel should also realize that if they Samson defense the region, they're likely going to toast themselves out of existence. Simply put, while it's effective, it's also a suicide move.
After all, one good nuke usually just doesn't deserve, it begets another.
And it also appears both sides aren't interested in MAD, but in NUTS.
We've been in a defacto war with Iran since the Iran Hostage crisis. It's more than just the first precursor of 9/11, it led to exactly how this seemingly cold war manifests itself and is becoming hotter as time progresses.
Diplomacy won't work either. Iran is metaphorically stuck in the 11th century. The leadership in Iran is composed of hard-line Islamic clerics that only understand that they want their brand of Islam to dominate the world, and thus aren't likely to know what the heck diplomatic relations (at least from a Western standpoint) are.
I say, we really should go in with several hundred thousand troops and take Iran, Syria, and heck, even Kim Jong Mentally-Ill out while we're at it--down to the point where everything is defused, right down to the last candle.
t's becoming not just clearer, but more obvious, that the Axis of Evil is manifesting itself as a dangerous threat to international security and needs to be swiftly dealt with.