Posted on 08/18/2005 7:36:12 PM PDT by DoctorZIn
Top News Story
The military strike option against Iran
Experts disagree about possible effect of US or Israeli preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
| csmonitor.com
Iran once again says it will resume its nuclear program, despite International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)concerns. Iran claims its interest in nuclear power is entirely for peaceful purposes.
Last week US President George Bush said during an interview on Israeli TV that "all options are on the table," including a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities by US or Israeli forces, if Iran doesn't "comply with international standards."
When it comes to relations between Iran and the US, an editorial in the Daily Times of Pakistan notes that "the normal rules don't apply" because of the acrimonious history that stretches over the past 26 years, when Iranian militants held US diplomats hostage for more than a year.
Yet experts and commentators are split over what such a possible "military option," or even the threat of one, might achieve.
Columnist Robert Robb of the Arizona Republic says when Mr. Bush makes threats of this sort, he is in danger of becoming a "lame duck president" regarding foreign affairs. Mr. Robb believes that Bush is using the strike threat as a way to get current negotiations with Iran on a track more favorable to US interests, which would include having Iran referred to the UN Security Council, which would then place sanctions on it.
But Robb says this approach will bear little fruit, as most of Iran's nuclear transgressions happened in the past, and it has owned up to them.
It's a little late in the game to be referring Iran to the Security Council for its past reporting failures. And an attempt to refer Iran for currently doing what it has a right to do under the non-proliferation treaty would certainly seem a non-starter. Even if the matter got to the Security Council, the chances are remote that Russia and China, both of which have significant and growing economic relations with Iran, would go along with anything meaningful.Daniel T. Barkley, who teaches microeconomics at Northern Kentucky University, writes in the Cincinnati Enquirer that a strike against Iran, one of the world's top oil producers, would have serious negative economic consequences for the global economy, where the "loss of just a fraction of Iranian oil production either though collateral damage, sabotage or economic embargo could trigger a severe economic global recession."
Columnist Robert Scheer writes in the Los Angeles Times that the US doesn't "respect or understand any religious or nationalist fervor other than our own," and that this had always caused foreign policy problems, in particular for the Bush administration. Mr. Scheer says the White House is also using a double standard when it comes to talk of nuclear weapons.
If Tehran refuses to be transparent and open to inspections, the UN Security Council can take up the issue of imposing sanctions.Yet as the head of the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on human beings and the one currently devising the next generation of "battlefield" nukes, it would seem that Bush should be a little more careful about trying to seize the moral high ground. This is especially the case because Washington has accommodated the nuclear programs of three allies (Pakistan, India and Israel).
Global issues expert Dan Plesch points out in the Guardian that Bush has "the capability and the reasons" for an assault on Iranian nuclear facilities. He notes that anyone who thinks that the US is "overextended" militarily in Iraq "misunderstands" the goals of the Bush administration.
America's devastating air power is not committed in Iraq. Just 120 B52, B1 and B2 bombers could hit 5,000 targets in a single mission. Thousands of other warplanes and missiles are available. The army and marines are heavily committed in Iraq, but enough forces could be found to secure coastal oilfields and to conduct raids into Iran.Mr. Plesch writes that attacking Iran also makes sense domestically for the White House, as 'war with Iran next spring can enable them to win the mid-term elections and retain control of the Republican party, now in partial rebellion over Iraq." But Plesch argues that if we're going to avoid a war with Iran, "new approaches are needed to head off such a dismal scenario," and the negative consequences it would create.Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria writes that while it is important that Iran's nuclear ambitions be curtailed - because of the way it would change the nuclear ambitions of countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, thus radically changing the "security atmosphere" in the Middle East - he doesn't think "sticks" are going to work.
In its second term, the Bush administration has softened its Iran policy, and yet it remains unwilling to talk, let alone negotiate, on anything substantive. As with North Korea, the shift toward a less hostile policy is so slight that it can't possibly succeed. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether this new "soft" policy has been designed by Vice President Cheney's office, so that it fails, discredits any prospect of negotiating and thus returns us to the old policy, which is to do nothing and hope the regime falls (a prediction that has been made by neoconservatives for 15 years now).Zakaria says that Iran's ultimate goal is actually better relations with the West, the US in particular, but it wants that deal in a way that creates a "grand bargain" – a comprehensive normalization of relations with the West in exchange for concessions on nuclear issues. The US should explore this path, he says, because even if it failed, the situation would be no different than it is today.
- The Moscow Times reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday warned Western countries not to use force in the standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, insisting purely diplomatic means be pursued.
- Rooz Online suggested one of the dangers for human rights is to politicize the defense of human rights issues.
- Rooz Online reported that Ahmadinejad is reportedly the first and only president who chose his cabinet without consulting even the leader of the republic.
- SMCCDI reported that hundreds of workers and civil servants protested, today, in the strategic City of Abadan.
- SMCCDI reported fresh clashes rocked, yesterday afternoon, several areas of the northwestern City of Mahabad.
- Agence France-Presse reported that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said: US forces have found Iranian weapons inside Iraq on more than one occasion over the past couple of months.
- Robert Tait, The Guardian reported that Iran's new leader is already showing ominous signs of realising the worst fears of his liberal-minded opponents.
- MEMRI reported on the Seekers of Martyrdom Command: Another State-Inspired Organization of Suicide Attackers in Iran (Official Website Based in U.S. and Germany). Video.
- And finally, Iranian.ws reported that Iran received a military delegation from China in which Brigadier General Nasser Mohammadi-Far, the commander of the Iranian army's ground forces said, Our mutual enemies possess advanced military technology, and undoubtedly they would rely on this technology in any possible future wars. Therefore, it seems necessary that both Iran and China upgrade their defense and military technology.
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How about--opps, we have an errant cruse missle that just happens to impact the site of the weird beards reactor.
Most of these "pundits" are wrong.
Iran is not using its nuclear program to have better relations with the West, it is to develop nuclear weapons, and they will.
We need regime change, but I don't see it happening as the bad guys have all the guns.
Sadly, military force is the only option that can work.
It's not an "option". It needs to be done, or it doesn't.
I believe it does.
We have Jimmah to thank for this mess.
We really do need to start Praying for YAHWEH's Mighty Hand of Protection over the US/Coaliton/Israel Forces in the Middle East;
WW3 is going to hit us any day this Century....Yep, Jeus is Coming very Soon.
I am confident a small scale strike at Mullahs' strongholds will help the pro-freedom people in Iran to get rid of their mullahs faster and easier than we think!
Remember the mullahs are using religion to further their power. Since religion is instilled in the ME from day 3, it would be difficult to sway the mullahs followers away from the fold without a swift and decisive blow to them. Maybe a few heads of mullahs on sticks would get the message across.
Agreed. It must be done.
This passage is fully lacking in “moral clarity”:
First, the bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were part of a greater stratagem to save soldiers of the free world from the Japanese “fight to the last man, woman and child” tactics. The emperor mobilized his entire society to the point that Japan’s industrial machine was distributed throughout the homes of Japanese civilians.
Second, the devastation caused by those two A-bombs pales in comparison to the damage NAPALM did to Japan’s wooden cities. Bombing those cities was a moral act but in terms of devastation, focus on the A-bomb is utterly misplaced.
Third, tactical nuclear weapons designed to destroy fortified military targets make perfect sense. Most civilians have not toured hardened instillations and would likely have trouble comprehending the reason for developing tactical nuclear weapons but they are important and the free world should have them. There is a world of difference between a “bunker buster” and a “city killer” and that difference shouldn’t be distorted by equating the two on moral grounds.
And finally, Israel, India and Pakistan are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as Iran and the U.S. are. The NPT is a treaty with serious drawbacks but a sovereign nation must first submit to it before the international community can either refute or accommodate a countries nuclear program. The most recent offers of assistance to India for nuclear assistance were and always will be for peaceful nuclear technology. Iran could choose to build peaceful reactors but has instead taken the N-Korean path of building threatening, heavy water reactors capable of producing weapons grade plutonium.
The passage deflates moral pressure on Iran in a fully immoral way and that’s very sad to see. One would hope the author doesn’t make the same mistake twice.
Do you think U.S. air strikes on IRGC bases would be more of a rallying call to the Iranian people than would an Israeli air strike on Iran's internationally threatening Nuclear facilities? In terms of an immediate threat to the U.S. the IRGC are a far bigger challenge to U.S. troops in Iraq.
F14 - are you implying RP is promoting a U.S. attack on Iran? I don't think he is. Do you think he should?
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