Don't Blitz Iran

Risking the Ultimate Blowback

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY


"Iran's testing of a new missile . . . 'demonstrates that Iran has a very
active and aggressive military program under way,' US State Department
deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. 'That includes both, as we've talked about
before, efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction as well as delivery
systems'." -Middle East News, April 1.

"The Pentagon is preparing to set off a record-breaking bang, detonating 635
tonnes of high explosives and sending a mushroom cloud into the sky over the
Nevada desert. The blast, on June 2, codenamed Divine Strake [sic], is
likely to be the biggest controlled conventional explosion in military
history, experts said, and is designed to test the impact of bunker-busting
[nuclear] bombs aimed at underground targets." -Guardian (UK) April 1.


The Bush Administration is preparing for a series of air strikes (or Divine
Strakes) on Iran. There is a chance that the Christian fundamentalists of
Washington could be persuaded that attacking the country would be insane,
but the hard core of loonies will probably win, and there will be yet
another war.

The consequences for the US and the rest of the world will be terrible. Lots
of people will die, but since that is irrelevant to Bush zealots in any
context there is no point in examining their plans from the perspectives of
morality or international law.

An April LA Times' poll showed that 48 per cent of Americans want war on
Iran, while only 40 don't, when answering the question "If Iran continued to
produce material that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, would you
support or oppose military action?" They've been brainwashed, just like the
millions who still believe Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11, and the
Washington mind-benders are licking their lips.

Notification of the 'Divine Strake' quasi-nuclear test in June may have been
designed in part to frighten Iran's government out of continuing its nuclear
program, but its purpose was officially advertised as improvement of
"warfighters' confidence in their ability to plan to defeat hardened and
deeply buried targets". Don't you love the word "defeat"? What they mean, in
their absurd and savage jargon, is "obliterate by nuclear bomb". And if they
were anything but bloody-minded barbaric humbugs they would say so. With
their fingers poised on the buttons of seven thousand US nukes they trot out
fatuous phrases like "weapons of mass destruction" which would reduce us all
to fits of laughter if the purpose of these fanatics was not so evil.

The psychos intend to destroy the Iranian government, and it will take a
near-miracle for their planned onslaught to be cancelled. They do not care
about what will happen after they blitz the place with their bunker-busters
and all the other demented video-game whizzery at their disposal. The word
'strake' is meaningless in hi-technology language, but preceded by 'Divine'
it conveys exactly, crudely and brutally, what is intended : Watch out,
Islamic nations : the Crusaders are going to get you.

Iran recently tested four items of antique military technology. The missiles
and torpedoes it fired off so publicly are about the standard of weapons
that the US had 30-40 years ago. But this does not mean to say they won't be
effective in achieving the immediate aims of Iran's leaders if their country
is attacked.

If the US attacks Iran the Tehran government will then try to close the
Persian Gulf to the passage of oil tankers. It will also try to destroy as
many oilfields as possible along and off the west coast of the Gulf, and
fire as many missiles as it can towards the bases of its enemies.

What are the Iranians expected to do if they are blitzed by Divine
"deep-penetration" nuclear bombs, cruise missiles and sundry other air
strikes? Does anyone in their right mind think they will sit back and say
'Oh, well, that's life' after the US has attacked their territory and killed
Iranian citizens? (Perhaps thousands of them ; maybe more. Who cares?--not
the psychopaths in Washington and their ideological brothers in Tel Aviv.)

Of course the Iranians will hit back, and they will do so to the utmost of
their power. Sure, that isn't much. But in addition to destabilizing the
entire Middle East the US war will ensure that Iran won't lack allies. One
thing even Cheney and Bush can't claim is that Al Qaeda and Iran are linked,
simply because the former is Sunni Muslim and Iranians are mostly Shias. But
when the bombs and cruise missiles thunder down on Iran, there will not be a
Sunni Muslim country or organization in the world that will not rally to
support the 'victim of the Infidels', no matter that it is Shia. I wouldn't
like to be an American citizen on the streets of any country in the world
after Washington hit Iran.

And the truly terrible thing is that the large and growing number of
pro-western young Iranians, hundreds of thousands of them, desperate to be
released from a humorless, unmerciful and cretinous medieval theocracy, will
automatically unite in hatred of the country that attacked them.

The Pentagon has packed the Persian Gulf with dozens of warships that have
identified and tracked almost every radar and missile site along the Iraqi
coast. Satellites have done the same inland. Strike aircraft from US
carriers have been trailing their coats and practicing attacks on Iranian
defense installations for years. The shooting down of an Iranian civil
airliner by the USS Vincennes was only part of the game. (300 innocent
people were murdered and the captain of the ship was decorated, which gave
Iran the message about where it stands in the US scheme of things.)

Washington will not dare invade Iran, of course, because Iran's military
would not be the walkover that the pathetic Iraqi army was, and US ground
forces would suffer thousands of casualties. The stand-off attack will be
the usual video game, controlled from air-conditioned coke-swigging comfort,
followed by ham-handed attempts at public relations damage control.

The first US priority after attacking Iran will be to try to stop the
Iranians closing the Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz which they could do by
sinking a passing tanker. 90 per cent of oil from the Gulf--about two fifths
of the world's supply--is moved by tanker through the Strait, which is less
than five navigable miles wide. An easy target area.

It will probably take only one sunk ship to seriously disrupt world oil
supplies. But even if a single tanker doesn't actually block the Strait, the
crews of others are not going to be happy about sailing into danger.
Insurance rates will go through the roof, and recent spikes in oil prices
will be nothing compared with what would come. If the Iranians manage to
sink two large tankers at the Gulf choke point, say goodbye to Gulf oil
exports for a week or so. Perhaps US citizens will be happy to pay $10 or
more per gallon to fill their cars ; but maybe not.

Even then, does anyone think that Iran would let the US clear the Hormuz
Strait without doing its best to disrupt salvage efforts? Like hell it
would. There would be suicide boat attacks, suicide plane attacks, and
further missile strikes. Although most airfields in Iran would be destroyed
by cruise missiles and much of the Iranian air force would be shot out of
the sky by roving US fighter jocks within hours of the war beginning, Tehran
would still retain a limited offensive capability.

The Iranians would fire most of the some 400 medium-range ballistic missiles
they've got at US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and at the oil fields across
the Gulf. They know exactly where they are, without need for all the clever
satellite technology the Pentagon has, because their myriad supporters tell
them the precise locations. (There are hundreds of thousands of Shias in
these countries.) The missiles might not cause many casualties among US
troops, but they will destroy a lot of oil production capacity in Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia and the southern Gulf nations. (Some US troops will die, of
course : maybe a few hundred if a couple of missiles strike lucky. But what
does that matter to the Bush Administration?)

If Israel is involved in the attacks (and, given the paranoia of some of
Iran's leaders about Israel, probably even if Israel is not involved in the
attacks), then some longer-range missiles will be pooped off in a westerly
direction, hoping to impact somewhere in Israel, which at least some of them
would do. They might deliver biological or chemical warheads, but even if
they are just high explosive and cause only a dozen or so casualties each
there would be irresistible pressure within Israel to retaliate, probably
with nuclear weapons. Nobody except a few Librul peaceniks will care about
that.

But even before Israel's strikes, the price of oil would have gone to $100 a
barrel, and rising. In the US $10 a gallon would be only a memory. In
Europe, and especially the UK, governments would be forced to reduce their
enormous taxes imposed on vehicle fuel, signaling a downward economic
spiral. Russia and China would cope remarkably well, but almost all the
developed world, and especially Japan, would suffer to the verge of
catastrophe. The social development of thrusting India could unravel with
disastrous consequences, given the already critical state of the Naxalite
(Maoist) insurrection in eight states of the country.

Most of South America would laugh at the plight of the US. The
democratically-elected Mr Chavez of Venezuela (excellent piece about him in
The Atlantic, this month), so much hated by Bush and Cheney who are plotting
his overthrow because Venezuela does not support US Big Oil, would take
delight in playing the oil card.

It is not well known in the US that Venezuela is so important, even vital,
in the matrix of American oil consumption. (Although its oil is thick and
difficult to process.) But it produces about 5 per cent of the world's
total, and American citizens will rapidly realize that it does, when the oil
crunch begins. The US Department of Energy states that "Venezuela contains
some of the largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world. It
consistently ranks as one the top suppliers of U.S. oil imports and is among
the top ten crude oil producers." And this is the country that the
Cheney-Bush administration is determined to alienate. If this sort of thing
appeared in fiction it would be ridiculed as being too far-fetched.

In the Malacca Strait and other sea routes around Indonesia there would be
disruption, even if Iran did not manage to close the Gulf. The citizens of
Muslim countries of East Asia despise, distrust and hate the US just as much
as those elsewhere. It would be surprising, after a US attack on Iran, if
there was not an attempt to block these tanker routes. Again, a single
flaming tanker hulk could do it, causing enormous extra costs to oil
transportation to Japan.

The US banned oil imports from Iran after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979,
but it is estimated that Iran exports about 4 million barrels a day. This
amount is scheduled to rise because India and China and some others have
invested in oil and gas production facilities. India resents being ordered
by Washington to discontinue its negotiations with Iran about an overland
pipeline. China has an agreement worth US$100 billion for supply of Iranian
natural gas over the next 25 years. And China, although saying nothing
publicly about the US obsession with Iran, is going to react fiercely if its
long-term energy plans are disrupted by the Bush administration, which it
regards with contempt. A US blitzkrieg on Iran is not going to be regarded
favorably by Tehran's trading partners, if only because it will interfere
drastically with their economic development.

Even if Cheney and Bush are not lunatic enough to send their cruise missiles
and bombers to attack Iran they might manage to have harsh economic
sanctions imposed, additional to the unilateral ones in place by the US for
years. They usually ignore warning signals, so doubtless they dismissed the
unmistakable threat in September 2005 that Iran could endure a
self-inflicted cut in oil exports in the national interest of combating what
it would consider rabidly hostile action. It is estimated that cutting
exports would raise the price of oil to $80-100 a barrel. This wouldn't
matter to the rich in America, who are all that Cheney and Bush care about.
But it would matter to the average man and woman who are even now struggling
to make ends meet as a result of the rich-supportive tax policy of the
present Administration.

There is no point in putting the moral position against attacking Iran. The
Cheney-Bush administration has shown itself impervious to argument, and
presenting a case against killing thousands of innocent people cuts no ice
with blinkered zealots. The planned blitzkrieg of divine strikes will
probably take place. It will alter the entire world and create hatred of
America that will never be eradicated. And there is nothing we can do about
it. At this Easter time (and Thai New Year), God help us all.

[Brian Cloughley writes on military and political affairs. He can be reached
through his website http://www.briancloughley.com ]



Inviato da X-Privat.Org - Registrazione gratuita http://www.x-privat.org/join.php

Bua Lamphu wrote:

Risking the Ultimate Blowback

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY


"Iran's testing of a new missile . . . 'demonstrates that Iran has a very
active and aggressive military program under way,' US State Department
deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. 'That includes both, as we've talked about
before, efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction as well as delivery
systems'." -Middle East News, April 1.

"The Pentagon is preparing to set off a record-breaking bang, detonating 635
tonnes of high explosives and sending a mushroom cloud into the sky over the
Nevada desert. The blast, on June 2, codenamed Divine Strake [sic], is
likely to be the biggest controlled conventional explosion in military
history, experts said, and is designed to test the impact of bunker-busting
[nuclear] bombs aimed at underground targets." -Guardian (UK) April 1.
All April Fool jokes, hopefully....?


The Bush Administration is preparing for a series of air strikes (or Divine
Strakes) on Iran. There is a chance that the Christian fundamentalists of
Washington could be persuaded that attacking the country would be insane,
but the hard core of loonies will probably win, and there will be yet
another war.
The consequences for the US and the rest of the world will be terrible. Lots
of people will die, but since that is irrelevant to Bush zealots in any
context there is no point in examining their plans from the perspectives of
morality or international law.
An April LA Times' poll showed that 48 per cent of Americans want war on
Iran, while only 40 don't, when answering the question "If Iran continued to
produce material that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, would you
support or oppose military action?" They've been brainwashed, just like the
millions who still believe Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11, and the
Washington mind-benders are licking their lips.
Well, would you say NO to war on radical moslims building a nuclear bomb
they would definitely use?! Dont be so naive. The persians have no
need for nuclear power, its all intended for bombs.

Notification of the 'Divine Strake' quasi-nuclear test in June may have been
designed in part to frighten Iran's government out of continuing its nuclear
program, but its purpose was officially advertised as improvement of
"warfighters' confidence in their ability to plan to defeat hardened and
deeply buried targets". Don't you love the word "defeat"? What they mean, in
their absurd and savage jargon, is "obliterate by nuclear bomb". And if they
were anything but bloody-minded barbaric humbugs they would say so. With
their fingers poised on the buttons of seven thousand US nukes they trot out
fatuous phrases like "weapons of mass destruction" which would reduce us all
to fits of laughter if the purpose of these fanatics was not so evil.
Your jargon 'obliterate by nuclear bomb' is more savage, and more
accurate.

The psychos intend to destroy the Iranian government, and it will take a
near-miracle for their planned onslaught to be cancelled. They do not care
about what will happen after they blitz the place with their bunker-busters
and all the other demented video-game whizzery at their disposal. The word
'strake' is meaningless in hi-technology language, but preceded by 'Divine'
it conveys exactly, crudely and brutally, what is intended : Watch out,
Islamic nations : the Crusaders are going to get you.
About time, they had it coming..

Iran recently tested four items of antique military technology. The missiles
and torpedoes it fired off so publicly are about the standard of weapons
that the US had 30-40 years ago. But this does not mean to say they won't be
effective in achieving the immediate aims of Iran's leaders if their country
is attacked.

If the US attacks Iran the Tehran government will then try to close the
Persian Gulf to the passage of oil tankers. It will also try to destroy as
many oilfields as possible along and off the west coast of the Gulf, and
fire as many missiles as it can towards the bases of its enemies.

What are the Iranians expected to do if they are blitzed by Divine
"deep-penetration" nuclear bombs, cruise missiles and sundry other air
strikes? Does anyone in their right mind think they will sit back and say
'Oh, well, that's life' after the US has attacked their territory and killed
Iranian citizens? (Perhaps thousands of them ; maybe more. Who cares?--not
the psychopaths in Washington and their ideological brothers in Tel Aviv.)

Of course the Iranians will hit back, and they will do so to the utmost of
their power. Sure, that isn't much. But in addition to destabilizing the
entire Middle East the US war will ensure that Iran won't lack allies. One
thing even Cheney and Bush can't claim is that Al Qaeda and Iran are linked,
simply because the former is Sunni Muslim and Iranians are mostly Shias. But
when the bombs and cruise missiles thunder down on Iran, there will not be a
Sunni Muslim country or organization in the world that will not rally to
support the 'victim of the Infidels', no matter that it is Shia. I wouldn't
like to be an American citizen on the streets of any country in the world
after Washington hit Iran.
With the exceptions you mention below of course (Saudi, Gulf States,
Kuwait). But you exaggerate the effect on Americans, there were few
retaliatory attacks on civilians (apart from a couple of spectacular
beheadings) after Afghanistan and Iraq. And the Persians are not _that_
loved by their muslim bretheren either..


And the truly terrible thing is that the large and growing number of
pro-western young Iranians, hundreds of thousands of them, desperate to be
released from a humorless, unmerciful and cretinous medieval theocracy, will
automatically unite in hatred of the country that attacked them.
Well all those 'desperate' youngsters have done nothing effective
against their mullahs since they took power about 25 years ago! Lets
not forget their women, the 50% of the population forced to run around
looking like moving rubbish bags and treated as 2nd class citizens, they
remain totally passive as well! So let them unite with the assholes
behind this whole farce. The mullahs are probably glad to have a force
uniting their 'unpopular' government again.
There is still time. If they revolt now, trash their mullahs and allow
FULL access to ALL their nuclear 'research' facilities war could be
avoided. I'm sure help from the west for an insurrection would be given
if needed..

The Pentagon has packed the Persian Gulf with dozens of warships that have
identified and tracked almost every radar and missile site along the Iraqi
coast. Satellites have done the same inland. Strike aircraft from US
carriers have been trailing their coats and practicing attacks on Iranian
defense installations for years. The shooting down of an Iranian civil
airliner by the USS Vincennes was only part of the game. (300 innocent
people were murdered and the captain of the ship was decorated, which gave
Iran the message about where it stands in the US scheme of things.)
Fine. Practice makes perfect.

Washington will not dare invade Iran, of course, because Iran's military
would not be the walkover that the pathetic Iraqi army was, and US ground
forces would suffer thousands of casualties. The stand-off attack will be
the usual video game, controlled from air-conditioned coke-swigging comfort,
followed by ham-handed attempts at public relations damage control.
Sounds familiar :-/

The first US priority after attacking Iran will be to try to stop the
Iranians closing the Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz which they could do by
sinking a passing tanker. 90 per cent of oil from the Gulf--about two fifths
of the world's supply--is moved by tanker through the Strait, which is less
than five navigable miles wide. An easy target area.

It will probably take only one sunk ship to seriously disrupt world oil
supplies. But even if a single tanker doesn't actually block the Strait, the
crews of others are not going to be happy about sailing into danger.
Insurance rates will go through the roof, and recent spikes in oil prices
will be nothing compared with what would come. If the Iranians manage to
sink two large tankers at the Gulf choke point, say goodbye to Gulf oil
exports for a week or so. Perhaps US citizens will be happy to pay $10 or
more per gallon to fill their cars ; but maybe not.
Who cares? I can bike to work.
The environmental consequences are another story. Those that burn or
bomb oil wells must be dealt with swiftly & severely.

Even then, does anyone think that Iran would let the US clear the Hormuz
Strait without doing its best to disrupt salvage efforts? Like hell it
would. There would be suicide boat attacks, suicide plane attacks, and
further missile strikes. Although most airfields in Iran would be destroyed
by cruise missiles and much of the Iranian air force would be shot out of
the sky by roving US fighter jocks within hours of the war beginning, Tehran
would still retain a limited offensive capability.
Very limited, hopefully.

The Iranians would fire most of the some 400 medium-range ballistic missiles
they've got at US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and at the oil fields across
the Gulf. They know exactly where they are, without need for all the clever
satellite technology the Pentagon has, because their myriad supporters tell
them the precise locations. (There are hundreds of thousands of Shias in
these countries.)
I expect most telecom and GPS satellites will be er, 'closed down' for
some time..

The missiles might not cause many casualties among US
troops, but they will destroy a lot of oil production capacity in Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia and the southern Gulf nations. (Some US troops will die, of
course : maybe a few hundred if a couple of missiles strike lucky. But what
does that matter to the Bush Administration?)

If Israel is involved in the attacks (and, given the paranoia of some of
Iran's leaders about Israel, probably even if Israel is not involved in the
attacks), then some longer-range missiles will be pooped off in a westerly
direction, hoping to impact somewhere in Israel, which at least some of them
would do. They might deliver biological or chemical warheads, but even if
they are just high explosive and cause only a dozen or so casualties each
there would be irresistible pressure within Israel to retaliate, probably
with nuclear weapons. Nobody except a few Librul peaceniks will care about
that.
Hmmm, sounds like the Persians will need a good initial thump to shut
them up for the next 20 years, by which time they'll be abe to stick
their oil you-know-where. $100/barrel oil does wonders for ingenuity
-and exploration for that matter.


But even before Israel's strikes, the price of oil would have gone to $100 a
barrel, and rising. In the US $10 a gallon would be only a memory. In
Europe, and especially the UK, governments would be forced to reduce their
enormous taxes imposed on vehicle fuel, signaling a downward economic
spiral.
Since when are the economies of the EU linked to taxation of oil? Even
if they were, less taxation does not automatically indicate a downward
spiral, on the contrary! However jacking up oil prices dramatically will
cause massive inflation, gold will rise as it is already..


The US banned oil imports from Iran after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979,
but it is estimated that Iran exports about 4 million barrels a day. This
amount is scheduled to rise because India and China and some others have
invested in oil and gas production facilities. India resents being ordered
by Washington to discontinue its negotiations with Iran about an overland
pipeline. China has an agreement worth US$100 billion for supply of Iranian
natural gas over the next 25 years. And China, although saying nothing
publicly about the US obsession with Iran, is going to react fiercely if its
long-term energy plans are disrupted by the Bush administration, which it
regards with contempt. A US blitzkrieg on Iran is not going to be regarded
favorably by Tehran's trading partners, if only because it will interfere
drastically with their economic development.
Who cares? Its not 1970 anymore, threatening with oil no longer holds
the terror it once did. Responsible goverments all have plans that go
into effect once such a war begins (stockpiling could also explain the
oil prices nowdays..)

Even if Cheney and Bush are not lunatic enough to send their cruise missiles
and bombers to attack Iran they might manage to have harsh economic
sanctions imposed, additional to the unilateral ones in place by the US for
years.
Nope. Sanctions are for Democrats, these are strictly action-only guys..

They usually ignore warning signals, so doubtless they dismissed the
unmistakable threat in September 2005 that Iran could endure a
self-inflicted cut in oil exports in the national interest of combating what
it would consider rabidly hostile action. It is estimated that cutting
exports would raise the price of oil to $80-100 a barrel. This wouldn't
matter to the rich in America, who are all that Cheney and Bush care about.
But it would matter to the average man and woman who are even now struggling
to make ends meet as a result of the rich-supportive tax policy of the
present Administration.
Most of them are overweight anyway, time to ride those bicycles..


bigD