Posted on 06/14/2011 8:36:53 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Of course this was going to happen (h/t: “Reza Khalili”). The whole point of having theater missiles, for Iran, is being able to engage in deterrence. What Iran will protect under the missile umbrella is not peace, harmony, and light, but the nation-torturing activities of the paramilitary Qods Force and Iranian-backed terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas.
This move puts Iran in the aspiring-nuclear-power category of the former USSR and China – not that of Britain, France, India, Pakistan, or North Korea. Iran is still in the “aspiring” stage, but has already revealed the scope of her ambitions for deterrence. The radical Islamic regime has no intention of merely deterring a single neighbor, maintaining its independence inside a foundational alliance, or even just brooding dementedly inside its borders. Revolutionary Iran aims to achieve regional dominance, and sees deterring the West as the first step.
Just to be clear, when Iran offers a missile umbrella to the Muslim nations of the Middle East, she means she can, and under certain circumstances will, launch missiles at the non-Muslim nations she can reach with her arsenal, which right now include Israel, Southeastern Europe, and Russia. When the joint missile base in Venezuela is completed, Iran will be able to reach the territory of the United States with her missiles. A secondary meaning is that Iran can threaten with missiles those Muslim nations that collaborate with the West (e.g., by hosting military forces), like Bahrain, Kuwait, and UAE.
The missile umbrella propounded by Larijani is precisely the form of deterrence employed by the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The Soviet deterrent – to which the Russians still, to this day, refer as their “strategic deterrent” – was used as an umbrella to give cover to the Soviet oppression of Eastern Europe, and to Soviet support of Marxist insurrections further abroad. It was a very successful deterrent, because it changed the most fundamental calculations of the United States about what was possible.
We took off the table, with NSC-68 in 1950, the possibility of doing anything so effective against Communist incursions abroad that it might incur a Soviet nuclear response. We constrained ourselves instead to accept losses of territory, half-measures, and unfinished business that we would not have thought necessary in the absence of a Soviet strategic deterrent. (I wrote more about this in February 2009, precisely apropos of Iran’s prospects for a nuclear deterrent.)
Our strategic deterrent did not deter the Soviets from supporting and fomenting Marxist insurgencies and civil wars in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Soviets’ strategic deterrent did deter us, until the Reagan presidency, from pushing back decisively against those insurgent efforts. The latter is the lesson learned by Iran’s current leadership. Iran has revolutionary cadre making trouble abroad already; it’s the deterrent umbrella she has lacked. The Larijani statement has been made before the Iranian missile umbrella becomes a nuclear one – but that will come soon enough. We can’t say we didn’t see it coming.
*UPDATE* Daled Amos steps into the fray with an interesting twist.
Ping.
I feel so protected now.
“That missle base is a threat to the United States by not one, but two hostile states and should be blasted into dust - now.”
yeah but if we do, Dennis kucinich will claim that it is in violation of the War Powers Act.
You are assuming Obama would drop the gloves for Iran... aint going to happen.
The caliphate he has been working towards would be disrupted.
I’m also assuming Obama won’t be re-elected so we can actually do something about Iran
No doubt they’re going to ask for protection money.
I think we are both praying that Iran doesn’t do anything in the meanwhile, which is highly improbable. Very unreasonable on our part. The trajectory is happening way too fast. How long till they are tipped up?
I disagree.
Wait until the very day it's operational. Allow them to expend enormous funds and political capital, then take it all out.
Hmm. I’m not convinced. Let’s test it.
Could be seen as a violaion of the Monroe Doctrine.
Oh great! They are starting a protection racket. I din’t know they got the Sopranos over in Iran.
One US Navy SSBN (Nuclear Ballistc Missile Submarine) with it’s 16 MIRVed missiles could destroy the ENTIRE Middle East. We have 18 such vessels.
Don't have time right now to look for blog entries, but I do remember a few Iranian bloggers mentioned the concept of 'nuclear deterrent' and Iran back in 2006-2007. Actually, a couple insisted that is exactly what the Mullahs' regime has in mind & one of the key reasons they're developing nuclear capability.
Point is: if people like J.E. Dyer, Reza Khalili, and the rest of us know it, then you can bet your bottom dollar that Washington, Beijing, and Moscow have already known about it. Question is: Why hasn't anything been done about it? Or, has there? Well, apart from useless "sanctions".
Now compared the above to Iraq. Israel promptly bombed Saddam's (Iraq's) Osirak nuclear plant and nipped it in the bud. Later, we got rid of Saddam & his regime because we thought he had usable WMDs & of course we wanted to 'liberate' Iraq & Iraqis. So, what is & has been different with Mullahs' regime and Iranians?
Yeah—hope and change in touchy feely, military policies for worldly trading partners for decades. The counter-culture punks were put in charge of the fortunes behind controlling constituencies a long time ago. The extents of their apathy toward their own fellow Americans will be realized soon enough.
Iran Placing Medium-Range Missiles in Venezuela; Can Reach the U.S.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2640111/posts
And this is good news, why?
I think the “good news” in the title is sarcasm, don’t you?
Excellent observation, excepting we have a alien in the White House who would rather use those vessels to defend Iran than attack it or redirect the American machine at Israel.
“Dat’s a nice lookin’ country youse got dere. It would be a shame if sumthin’ ‘happened’ to it.”
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