Posted on 01/24/2006 5:58:58 AM PST by Esther Ruth
Last update - 09:26 24/01/2006
Iranian official: UN sanctions may lead us to seal off Persian Gulf
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
A senior Iranian official threatened that Tehran may forcibly prevent oil export via the Straits of Hormuz if the UN imposed economic sanctions due to Iran's nuclear program, an Iranian news Web site said on Monday.
This is the first time an Iranian official makes military threats in a public statement on Tehran's recent disagreements with the West.
The news site, affiliated with the radical student movement in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was once a member, quoted Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Depends on whether or not the Arab street believes the Iranians are their best shot at doing away with Israel. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.
"And there are types of mines that are difficult to either detect or clear."
A few dozen nuclear warheads should sweep the channel clear, no matter how hard the mine is to sweep.
After all, being hard to detect doesn't give one the ability to withstand 1,000+ psi dynamic overpressure. :)
Absurd. That would be an act of war, and they would lose. Fast.
Agree. The cost of action now is defnently preferrable to the costs of inaction (which would mean millions dead).
I agree, that we can't discount the ability of another nations to step in and fill the oil void, but speculators will not be counting on that at the outset, I presume, given the reaction to Katrina. If they fear a gulf-wide war, they would likely price in Saudi disruptions, too.
The US sunk half of Iran's navy under Ronald Reagan.
I just love the easy talk of nukes and turning cities to glass in these threads. What stupidity.
You're missing the point of the post you are quoting from. If the Straits of Hormuz are blocked, it doesn't just stop Iranian oil, it stops all the oil from all six Persian Gulf oil producers. That's stops the flow of more than half of the world's oil from making it to the international market place.
[Depends on whether or not the Arab street believes the Iranians are their best shot at doing away with Israel.]
Which points out that, in this poker game called the WOT, in which the stakes are now at their highest and players like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have a ton of chits in the kitty...you call their bluff (Israel is a fake issue used to control people with IQs less than 90) and convince the Sunni media managers, with offers they cannot refuse, to back the US in the fight against the Shiite Iranian hardliners who threaten and attack Sunni countries (you could fake Iranian attacks on Sunni countries for effect).
Is there any evidence yet of the Sunni arab press starting to make the Iranian regime out to be the big threat? Or are we allowing these cynical bozos to make it seem like Iran is only a problem for the imperialistic Americans?
I was thinking the same thought. Some B83s adapted for underwater use and detonated at full yield (1.2 megatons). The resulting micro-tsunami may even wipe out some coastal land batteries as well.
[I just love the easy talk of nukes and turning cities to glass in these threads. What stupidity.]
It might be dumb for first use and I don't think we'd want to kill pro-American Iranian civilians in large numbers...but Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Egypt are filled with cities that are stubbornly anti-American. A nuke or radiological device used by Al Qaeda or Hezbollah against American citizens could easily result in glass Muslims in Pakistan (if they riot) and glass Iranian Republican Guard units.
So, no, I don't think nukes would be used to clear mines in the Hormuz Strait. Everyone in the world would be thinking of the radioactivity problem even if most of the fallout would head out to sea from there.
Matthew 24 and Luke 21
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Mat/Mat024.html#1
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Luk/Luk021.html#1
The only way a nuke gets used on Tehran is if China and Russia decide it's the quickest resolution to the situation for all parties. Contrary to what a lot of people are surmising, I don't believe for a second either of these nations want war with the U.S. Iran, yeah. Russia and China? They're economically dependent on us like we're economically dependent on oil. they may be communists, but they're also businessmen. I wouldn't rule out Israel attacking with a nuclear weapon if it concludes that Iran cannot be stopped conventionally, but like you said, the situation will have to be exponentially worse than just blocking the straits and it would have to be clear that by doing so, an inevitable, much more deadly pan-regional conflict can be headed off.
We don't want to be the ones to let the pre-emptive nuclear genie out of the bottle unless it is absolutely certain (via nuclear testing) that Iran has reached atomic capability and is getting ready to deploy. It's easy to bandy the phrase "nuke 'em" about, but the ramifications have to outweigh the negatives of doing nothing, and only as a last resort.
I don't have a Bible handy, but isn't Luke 21 about a poor woman who gives a beggar a penny is more generous than a rich man giving the beggar a dollar?
And then I remember that passage having Jesus say "Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never die."
Oh wait. It is coming back to me now...
I think Luke 21 also predicts the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. Correct?
[Just click on the links, it's just an online Bible and the text is there]
I hate to brag, but I have one heck of a good memory!
And my point was that blocking the straights would be an act of war, and would be very short lived.
No one will be allowed to block commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
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