Posted on 08/19/2006 7:05:48 PM PDT by itslex71
Below is body of an email from a dear friend of ours and I offered to post it here to stir a discussion about what he wrote regarding the threat from Iran. The author, Gene, is a 67 year old American, retired from the US govt/military, and has been living in Belgium for the last 16 years with his lovely Belgian wife. As you'd imagine, he's constantly butting heads with Euros who are either sticking their heads in the sand or are outright sypathetic to the those who wish to harm our way of life. He wrote this email to those contacts and friends as a wake up call and I wanted to share it with my fellow Freepers.
-itslex71
The problem I have with the debate about uranium enrichment in Iran is the characterization of the perceived threat. Most people agree that the threat is serious, but the opinions are split on how to deal with the problem. These opinions range from the alarmist's push for immediate military action to the self-described moderate's demand for: "let's find the root causes of poverty and cultural misunderstanding and then apply good diplomatic efforts to arrive at a solution."
On this issue I am not a moderate. Nor am I an alarmist. To be frank, I would describe myself as borderline freaked out! I hold alarmists responsible for my condition because in my opinion they understate the threat. Yes, that's right, I used the word "understate."
Virtually everything I have read characterizes the future nuclear threat from Iran as 1) construction of a bomb, 2) delivery of the bomb with a missile (short range for Israel, long range for Europe). The alarmists end the threat scenario there and assume that it's enough to awaken people to action. The moderates, however, carry the scenario a step further and take some edge off the immediacy. They add, 3) massive retaliation by the international community. With step three added to the scenario they argue that Iran will see that steps one and two are futile and therefore diplomatic settlement of the issue will ultimately be successful.
The alarmists like to recall the 1930's when the failure of diplomacy and postponement of early military confrontation took the world directly into the worst human catastrophe in history. The moderates like to recall the 1970's and '80's when diplomacy and postponement of military confrontation succeeded in staving off another equally devastating human catastrophe.
These older generations of alarmists and moderates, I am afraid, are at great risk of confusing themselves with two major contradictory examples from the 20th century. They want to apply their favorite feel good lessons that they think they have learned in the past to the present day situation. Refreshingly, I am finding that many in the younger generation are seeing the future more clearly through the undiluted lens of current events. They're watching and they're listening, but they are not stupid and I hope they won't be as confused as their elders.
In my opinion we are in a completely new world. It's not the '30's, nor the '70's, nor the '80's, much as drawing parallels makes us feel comfortable. Instead, we are in post 9/11, post-Madrid, post-Bali, and post-London, to name a few. This new world is introducing us to new violent strategies and tactics and it requires new insights into scenarios of the future that, according to my reading, are not fully discussed in the popular press at all.
Why do I emphasize strategic and tactical scenarios? Because I believe great wars throughout history are undertaken, not for reasons of failed diplomacy, but rather when one side believes it has a significant military advantage over the other side. And I believe the current Iranian leaders think they can build a military advantage despite all the power that we think we have arrayed against them. Let me show how.
Let's start with a different scenario than the nonsense that's in the press or implied in public debates as mentioned above: 1) Iran refines weapons grade uranium and safely stockpiles it. 2) Iran announces a nuclear capability to the world which will be used for peaceful purposes AND (they will add this later) be "available" for self-defense. 3) Iran expands conventional covert terrorist activity without playing the provocative nuclear card and spreads this campaign over years and in some cases decades. (We can take the current Baghdad situation as a blueprint for this phase.) They will use the world media to defuse and confuse the origins of the terrorist activities, and they will endeavor to stay just below a provocation threshold that would trigger a direct military retaliation from the outer world. (Take the Lebanon/Israeli war of August 2006 as the example.) Their future nuclear umbrella will enhance this strategy immensely and allow them to raise the threshold of provocation higher.
Objectives:
First: The destruction of Israel. When Iran acquires its nuclear cover, look for it to begin pumping terrorists into Israel. The destruction of Israel would be a great energizer in the Middle East and a set-up to focus people on the next objective.
Second: Accelerated terrorist attacks on weaker Arab and Muslim states with vulnerable dictatorships (witness Somalia and Darfur). Essentially, this phase will aim to swamp the UN and Western democracies with crisis situations, both financially and militarily. Any successfully toppled government in the Arab League of Nations will be replaced with a pro-Iranian government. This organization will steadily coalesce into a radical Islamic entity with Iran at the nucleus. Granted this organization could suffer stresses from the Shiite/Sunni rift, but I still think Iran would be able to gather considerable control over a large portion of the Middle East power block.
Third: Withering away of the western world by terrorist pressure on our free, open and ultimately indefensible system of society.
What would the Western response be to this kind of scenario as it unfolded year in and year out? Iran will hope for and encourage the following answer: CONFUSION! 1930's style confusion. Probably, the most ancient of all animal dilemmas is how to respond when faced with a threat-stand and fight, or turn and run. Each strategy carries its own valid/invalid chances for success depending on the circumstances. Confusion, though, gives the greatest advantage to the aggressor.
What options would be available to the Western world?
A) More diplomacy? Iran will be happy to talk forever about anything or nothing. Meanwhile, the uranium refinement will relentlessly continue. And, as the tensions mount, so too will the price of oil. More money for Iran and more money for Hezbollah.
B) An Israeli strike? Against what? After the first Gulf War in Iraq it took inspectors a year to uncover Saddam's nuclear program. After that experience, Iran became much better prepared. Their production facilities and stockpiles will be well distributed and hidden deep in the vast mountainous terrain of Iran. There won't be a single, obvious target like there was in Iraq on 7 June 1981 when Israel destroyed the Osiraq nuclear reactor.
C) A Western conventional invasion into Iran? Which democratically elected politicians are going to send columns of tanks up the deep valleys in Iran (look at Google Earth) where they can be cut-off and vaporized by the 1000s with small defensive Iranian nuclear devices? Would Afghanistan have been so easy if the Taliban had a nuclear threat in their pocket in 2001? Tell me how many European nations are going to volunteer for that operation--or Americans either.
D) A massive nuclear air threat by the West against Iran? Suppose Iran counters with its own threat. Let's examine this one in detail.
If I were the president and/or military planners of Iran, I would prepare for a Western nuclear threat long before I aroused their anger with my serious terrorist campaigns. I wouldn't make the same stupid mistake that Saddam made of entering Kuwait without a nuclear capability that was only a few months away from fruition. (Saddam said it was the biggest mistake he ever made.)
What would I, as the president of Iran, propose doing?
We must get technical for a moment. The first nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima only weighed 60 kilos (about 130 lbs)--roughly the weight of my wife, a small bomb in herself! The device was so simple, they didn't even test it. Anyone can build a nuclear bomb; it's only a matter of slamming one small chunk of U-235 into another small chunk to create one super-critical mass with a self sustaining chain reaction of splitting atoms that will blow your hat off faster than you can even think the word, "nanosecond." (See, "Scientific American" magazine, February 2006.)
Making the bomb is almost literally child's play; getting the U-235 to make it is the total challenge. Uranium appears mostly in nature in the form of the heavier, non-fissionable U-238 isotope. To extract the 0.7% of lighter, fissionable U-235 a laboratory must convert the raw material into a toxic gas, and then run it through a cascade of highly delicate gas centrifuges. Thousands of the small centrifuges are required to gradually improve the purity of the U-235. When it is 30% pure Iran can light-up their streets, houses and hospitals from their power plants. Spin the centrifuges some more and they can eventually arrive at 90% purity, otherwise know as weapons grade.
How many centrifuges Iran has is a matter of speculation. People working sometimes covertly during the Clinton administration managed to thwart efforts by the Russians and Chinese to sell centrifuges to Iran; but now it is believed that Iran may be building their own; they have blueprints from various sources. Expert projections for Iran's success range from two months (Israelis) to 15 years. The US projection is placed at five to ten years, but British Intelligence places their bet at only one and a half years. I have taken this information from a highly informative article in the Sunday New York Times 3 May 2005. Counting from that date, the BI projection would be on target right about now. A further note: Iran announced last year that by the end of 2005 they would install 3000 centrifuges that experts admitted, if true, could produce up to ten bombs a year. (By the way, it's also possible to steal refined U-235 from supplies that were produced and distributed by the US and USSR during the past half century. That supply amounts to 50 tons residing in civilian research reactors at 140 locations around the world; but let's not talk about that.)
Once acquired, the U-235 can be packaged in various ways for transportation. In a large quantity it would have to be surrounded by some kind of heavy shield, and anyway would be highly detectable. Be aware, though, that one Russian facility packaged small quantities of U-235 in hand sized disks that could easily be carried in the pocket with no risk. The facility has tens of thousands of these wafers on site and it's a security nightmare.
By further illustration, I have a very good friend that has a PhD in metallurgy and he recently told me that in his early days he carried weapons grade uranium in his pocket. (I might add that he now has three, healthy grown daughters that are married and have their own children.)
The point here is this: As president of Iran, if I can produce some refined U-235, I believe I can package this in small quantities and find a way to transport it undetected to various strategic places around the world. It could be pre-positioned out of detection range and then if some country threatened me with a nuclear attack, I could direct a quick assembly and make a Hiroshima/Nagasaki type of demonstration that led instantly to the resignation of Japan from WWII. With this kind of block to Western nuclear threats in place, I can then proceed with my systematic terrorist activities as I wish, and in fact expand my operations far more aggressively.
I am convinced that high diplomats and indeed even journalists that are aware of this scenario will only speak about it in very vague terms, if at all. They are vague because the possibility is so nightmarish. For this reason, the general public has not yet been adequately informed. If you think, though, that this scenario is far fetched, listen to the words of Jacques Chirac in a speech at L'Ile-Longue nuclear submarine base in the western region of Brittany on 19 January 2006:
"Leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, just like anyone who would envisage using, in one way or another, arms of mass destruction, must understand that they would expose themselves to a firm and fitting response from us," he said. "This response could be conventional. It could also be of another nature." He went on to say: ...there should be no doubt "about our will and our capacity to use nuclear arms" if the country's vital interests are threatened.
Presumably, he would act BEFORE he received an anonymous note on his desk informing that Leon would disappear that night, and Paris the next night. (By the way, it's ironic to contemplate what the French press would have said if Donald Rumsfeld would have made such a speech.)
I'm sorry to be so macabre about this issue, but I think it is not the moment to paint over any part of this scenario. To complete our picture there is another type of threat worse than an attack on cities. The worst nightmare presently haunting security experts around the world is that a container ship may arrive at some major port with a nuclear device on board, perhaps assembled during the entry. If you think cancellation of a few dozen flights because of a terrorist threat is serious, then think about a major port being devastated by a nuclear attack. Immediately, all container ships would be blocked from entering ports around the world for some unspecified amount of time. That kind of disruption to the modern world's supply system would be unprecedented in all of history.
We generally measure the tragedy of a terrorist attack by how many people are killed and injured. I'm sorry to say, however, that in my mind, I think more of the economic impact. It may not be fashionable to say that, but think about 9/11. Less men than you can count on your hands and feet ruined the air industry, tourist industry, bank and insurance industries, closed down the world's largest stock exchange for the first time in history, brought down the two biggest buildings in one of the world's largest cities, made a direct hit on the world's most powerful military headquarters, and would have decapitated the US government capital except for a few brave souls over Pennsylvania.
I ask any reader to examine this scenario as carefully as you can, and if you find an improbability anywhere in it please give me the good news. My mental health depends on it.
Excellent read. Thanks for sharing! BTTT.
Little Boy weighed nearly 9,000 pounds.
wow, I have been running some of the same thoughts through my head over and over. I also learned somethings by reading this as well.
sometimes reality is too much to swallow.
It contained 64 kg U-235, of which 0.7 kg underwent nuclear fission.
Marked to read later.
A critical mass of u-235 is not a bomb.
ping
bump
from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy
the author of the email probably used this source.
Credible? I dunno.
I just finished reading your friend's e-mail. I wish I could say that this reads like some off-the-wall doomsday novel. Your friend is not only well-spoken and literate, he's also highly intelligent. That being said, I pray that he is wrong as wrong can be.
Third: Withering away of the western world by terrorist pressure on our free, open and ultimately indefensible system of society.
The west won't whither, democracy will. Should our nation become fascist (most likely outcome as opposed to communist), the end of islam will be very near. In our military-run nation, our dictator would have no qualms about eliminating every city in the middle east - and just for the fun it, literally. Terrorist nation (U.S.) fighting other terrorist nations but with absolute military superiority. End game.
Good thoughts. Your friend must be having trouble conversing with the liberal minded appeasers in EU. However, I know there are "some conservatives" in Europe who share his views.
--- 3) Iran expands conventional covert terrorist activity without playing the provocative nuclear card and spreads this campaign over years and in some cases decades. (We can take the current Baghdad situation as a blueprint for this phase.) They will use the world media to defuse and confuse the origins of the terrorist activities, and they will endeavor to stay just below a provocation threshold that would trigger a direct military retaliation from the outer world. (Take the Lebanon/Israeli war of August 2006 as the example.) Their future nuclear umbrella will enhance this strategy immensely and allow them to raise the threshold of provocation higher.---
Exactly, and the UN will help them by "defusing" all the little brush fires, so that, essentially, the West will bleed to death, as much of the world sinks back into the dark ages of feudalism and tribalism.
Excellent doc.
Saved it in my HANDOUTS file.
Nevertheless, the writer's point remains valid, if awkwardly expressed.
I.e., we should not exclusively concern ourselves with the delivery or a nuclear bomb, or missile. The import and fabrication of a mere "device" is the more likely delivery system.
And the essence of that is: hermetically sealing the borders to that degree is impractical, if not impossible. Once Iran has the ability to refine weaponized uranium, we can no longer rely on defensive measures.
Consequently, it becomes necessary to take the offensive initiative.
I think he means Lyons.
*Snerk*
If any US city is hit by a nuke, then *every* population center, military facility, port, and strategic asset in Iran will be a crater within 1 hour.
And the US will immediately begin drilling for shale oil, drilling in the restricted waters in the Carribean, and open up ANWR.
Don't get your panties in a wad.
Cheers!
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