Posted on 01/25/2006 6:56:43 AM PST by Dark Skies
Before the founding of the modern State of Israel, the anti-Semitic view of the historical role of the Jew was that of half-willing victim. Jews were supposed to wait patiently while the Poles, Tartars, and Cossacks threw the bones to see who got to burn down the village this time. Many of us thought this subjection ended in 1948 and would never again disgrace humanity.
Discussions surrounding the Iranian nuclear threat suggest this judgment may have been premature. Talks concerning Iranian nuclear programs between Iran on one hand and Britain, France, and Germany on the other exhibit the nature of a ritual shadow play, one that consistently overlooks what should be the most salient fact: that Israel itself possesses nuclear weapons.
You’d think this would lend some sense of urgency to efforts to defuse the crisis, but you’d be wrong. The Jews are once again expected to wait while the dice are being tossed, this time until Tel Aviv and Haifa vanish in blinding flashes of fire. Israel has a nuclear arsenal estimated at two hundred bombs. These have never been tested, but with the state of nuclear technology, that’s not a necessity. As Ted Taylor, the late senior U.S. bomb designer, once put it,
“No nuclear weapon ever designed has failed to go off.”
These bombs are evidently compact enough to be deployed on any of the fighter-bombers that comprise Israel’s Air Defense Force. A possibility also exists that Israel possesses long-range cruise missiles – the Israelis were pioneers in the field of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s). No nation has been more discreet in its possession of nuclear weapons than Israel, which has never acknowledged having any such weapons at all. Nor has it ever explicitly threatened any of its neighbors with the nuclear stick. Iran, on the other hand, has done little else in recent months. The behavior of the country’s rulers, both political and religious, has been such that it would cause alarm even without the nuclear capability. By now Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s new president, has become a nearly iconic figure. Each succeeding item that comes to our attention about this man makes it difficult to believe there can be anything worse to come. But there always is. Consider his membership in Pasdoran, Iran’s version of Hitler Youth, whose uniform he still occasionally wears. Consider his commitment to Mahdaviat, which Daniel Pipes translates as,
“belief in and efforts to prepare for the Mahdi.”
The Mahdi is the Twelfth Imam, supposed to return at the End of Days in the Shi’ite version of Revelations. The more fanatical “Twelvers” believe that they have a duty to create worldwide chaos to hasten the day of return.
Back in the mid-80s, it was common to come across distraught American Leftists convinced that Ronald Reagan had placed fundamentalist Christians in the Defense Department for the purpose of bringing about the Rapture. It would be nice to see something matching that level of concern today. Ahmadinejad’s commitment to Mahdaviat is easily gauged. While mayor of Tehran, he had a broad avenue built to welcome the Mahdi. As president, he began a railroad to the town of Jamarkan, where the Mahdi is alleged to be biding his time in a well awaiting the great day. He spent seventeen million for an elegant mosque in the same area. Pipes tells us Ahmadinejad also had his list of proposed cabinet members dropped into the well for the Mahdi’s approval. The story of Allah’s intervention at the UN is worth contemplating. According to Ahmadinejad,
“...I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink…. And they were rapt. It seemed as if a hand was holding them there and had opened their eyes to receive the message from the Islamic republic.”
This is the man who repeatedly denied that the Holocaust ever occurred. Who has refused to curtail developments that can only be utilized to obtain nuclear weapons. Who has stated that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” (And not only Ahmadinejad – ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a supposed “moderate,” used exactly the same words a few months previously.) The criteria for a preventive nuclear war have never been codified, simply because such an alternative is too ghastly to contemplate. But the possible need for such an action is in little doubt. Few would argue against the necessity of a preventive strike against a nuclear-armed Hitler. In 1948, Bertrand Russell, godfather of the peaceniks, publicly suggested such a strike against Stalin’s USSR (he went to great pains in later years to deny ever saying any such thing, but the printed record doesn’t lie). For that reason, it’s difficult to say what factors are required to justify such an action. But the case of Iran – a demonstrable record of bloodthirstiness and callousness, an expansionist messianic ideology, a foreign policy based in large part on anti-Semitism, rule by a hallucinatory fanatic, explicit threats of a nuclear first strike – pushes any conceivable envelope. Taken alone, each of these factors would be a matter of concern. Together, they make it extremely difficult to deny that Israel is being forced up against the wall. The Europeans appear proud of the fact that they’ve muddled along for two years, as if diplomacy was simply a matter of delaying the inevitable. Now, with a nearly audible sigh of relief, they have handed the matter over to the UN. The UN of the “Zionism is racism” decree. The UN that welcomed an armed Yasser Arafat. The UN that abandoned its peacekeeping posts in the Sinai in 1967 at Egyptian demand – without notifying Israel. The UN whose head a few weeks ago sat beneath a huge wall map featuring a boldly labeled ‘Palestine’ without any sign of discomfort. These are not actions designed to defuse a crisis.
An acute observer might well think that everyone involved was trying to ease the way for a strike to be carried out – by the U.S. or Israel or both. It really wouldn’t matter so long as the EU and the UN were not involved. (The French nuclear threat only highlights this point – it’s best read as a statement intended to direct Iranian intentions elsewhere.) Israel, after all, does have a history of the coup de main, the all-or-nothing strike such as occurred in 1956, 1967, and 1981. Look at the situation from Israel’s point of view to grasp how far it may be forced to go. This is the state founded in the shadow of the Holocaust, as a lifeboat for oldest surviving nation on Earth. The only people the world ever consciously tried to destroy.
To the Israelis, a hostile Middle Eastern state gaining nuclear weapons renders the level of risk effectively infinite. They will be facing not defeat, not humiliation, but effective annihilation. Under these circumstances, any level of response is justified. In the past week, two prominent Israelis, Benjamin Netanyahu and chief of staff Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, have both publicly stated that “the threat to Israel is existential.” On January 21st Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz went even further: the Iranian people face “havoc and destruction” if their government fails to stand down. They should be taken as meaning what they say.
Those words may be the only warning anyone ever gets. There was a point during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 when it appeared that the Egyptians had broken though Israeli lines in the Sinai at the same time the Syrians were about to drive across the Golan. Although never verified, it’s been reported on some authority that Moshe Dayan placed the Israeli nuclear strike force on full alert, the planes at the ends of the runways with their engines hot, their weapons armed, ready to head for their targets.
The “go” phrase was, “The Temple has fallen for the third time.” It didn’t happen then. And I think it can taken as a given that the Temple will not fall this time either. Apart from that, everything else is up in the air. Except for the jets – and they’re always ready to go. Among many other things, J.R. Dunn was the editor of the International Military Encyclopedia for twelve years.
This is a job that calls for hundreds of cruise missiles and ICBM strikes at hardened subterranean targets, which even if found, would be resistant to anything but low-yield nuclear strikes ... nuclear bunker busters. Even with a massive effort, we could never be sure we got'em all.
While all this is going on, the Iranians would be hitting Israel with crude "Dirty Bombs" delivered by their missiles. They probably don't have many, but then to poison Israel's cities, they wouldn't need many. This wouldn't be the few pin-prick SCUD attacks of Iraq I, but probably using many missiles much more advanced than that generation.
I'm affeared that this is the Shi'ite Endgame, the ultimate Islamic Suicide, which is after all, what Shi'a is all about. I.E., Dieing and taking the infidels with you to serve as your slaves for all eternity in Firdous. C
Color me very very nervous
It would kill far more Muslims than it would Jews.
Maybe not depending on the size , number and placement of the bomb(s)
The blast, and the fallout, would pollute or destroy Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey virtually forever. Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and parts of Iran itself would also be contaminated, if not destroyed.
I'm not buying that. We set at least one atomic bomb off in this country above ground without anything like that happening.
Great way to maintain good relations with your Islamic brothers.
Most of the so-called Islamic brothers are heretics and not engaged in Jihad. The Jihadists are not worrying about Kilian heretics. As they found out in Iraq and Jordan.
The resulting devestation and fallout would shut down a signifigant portion of the world's oil production, wrecking every economy on the planet, but hurting the Muslims the most.
Chaos is what they want. The Mahdi is the Twelfth Imam, supposed to return at the End of Days in the Shi’ite version of Revelations. The more fanatical “Twelvers” believe that they have a duty to create worldwide chaos to hasten the day of return.
Iran cannot continue to prop up it's Fundamentalist Potemkin village with oil revenues. It will be ripe for conquest or internal revolution without them.
That's why the Jihadists need to use the bomb: before the Infidel collaborators topple the Mullahs in Iran.
No, Iran is not seeking nukes to wipe Isreal off the map, even if that is the stated goal.
We might have the luxury of waiting and seeing, but it is life or death for those in Israel.
If they develop several bombs we will be targeted also. And they won't worry about the consequences anymore than Mohammed Atta and the others did. -Tom
Your statement mirrors exactly what I, and many others, have been thinking. I keep praying that any Iranians with an ounce of sense will do something to stop this madman before Israel and/or others have to do it for them.
I heard that too, and I really hope he cancels his trip.
"I have read that the Syrian chain of command was so rigid that the commander on the ground would not move forward (I believe it was night) without orders even though it was clear he had no Israeli forces in front of him."
Rigidity of Syrian command was a significant factor in the battle according to this book as well, I recall. Of course, the Syrians are inaccessible, and the Israelis, if this guy is right, won't tell the truth. I do recall the Israeli version bordering on the incredible when I read it, years before reading this book.
Q: Why do you think Israel is going to use jets?
A: Because I think they will use conventional arms; because loading conventional bombs on ballistic missiles doesn't make sense; and because I'm not sure they have cruise missiles.
Why is it that so many on this thread think Israel would still load nukes onto jets?
I said nothing about nukes; I only offered the bit about bases in Turkey in response to people talking about the flying distance from Israel itself to Iran, the need to refuel midair, etc. etc.
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You make the mistake of equating Islam with a religion, when what it is, in fact and deed, is a system of control over every aspect, down to the most personal and minute detail, of it's adherant's lives. It does so in a way that would have made the Nazis and Communists of old green with envy.
Thirty seconds after Iran launches anything at anybody, the President of the United States will be notified. Thirty seconds after that, the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Egyptians, and Jordanians will beg the rest of the planet to defend them. Within thirty minutes, Iran will will be targeted. Within an hour, Iran will cease to exist.
You cannot maintain power over that which does not exist.
They know this. They know it better than you do. As with the Chinese Communists, the issue is not advancing their agenda, it's about maintaining and finding more subtle uses and expressions of, power. It's about presenting a facade of power and prestige to their own peoples (look! We must be a great country -- we built a nuke! You can forget the part where we're all starving now, okay?). In this case, the creation of a nuclear weapon is the response to a national (ethnic)inferiority complex. They don't intend to use it. They intend to show it off --- to brandish it ---
to push the West's collective nose in it. And to milk it for whatever they can get for it.
It is , for intents and purposes, a substitute penis.
Don't think for a second that some apocalyptic religious duty will drive any of the lunatics into launching a nuke. If that kind of attitude was all that was required, then this planet would have been burned to a cinder a long time ago.
Let me put it to you this way: you have a better chance of seeing Christ walk into your living room, with a six-pack and tub of Extra Crispy, to watch the Super Bowl with you, then you do of seeing an Iranian nuke dropping anywhere.
Repeat after me: Clauswitz was wrong...Clauswitz was wrong...
Time makes all things clear. - Tom
Fair enough.
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