opinion

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Jackson, The late great Molly Ivins
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Gutman, The danger in the Middle East
Lerner, The "New Anti-Semitism"
Donovan, Uruguayan pulp fiction
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Pilgrim, The Iraq War from a Caribbean perspective

Silié, Fidel Castro and the Youth Revolution of the 50s and 60s

Reporters Without Borders, 2006 was a year of danger for journalists in the Americas

The nightmare scenario:

is Iran next?

by W. E. Gutman

Early in President Bush's second term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell. He said that Iran was "right at the top of the list" of rogue enemies, and hinted that the Israelis would "do the bombing for us….”

Cheney misspoke. The United States was not urging Israel to go it alone but to take part in “a joint military operation to bomb Iran,” a mission that has been in the works, with Washington conducting covert recon operations inside Iran during the past two years. The Defense Department has since been working with Israeli military and intelligence services, carefully identifying targets inside Iran.

Experts agree that any proxy war, invasion or missile strike on Iran would be a costly mistake, but opinion is divided as to whether it could happen anyway. Foreign policy analysts unanimously agree that there is no international support for an attack and that, as evidenced by the civl war in Iraq, the United States is woefully unprepared to deal with its consequences.

Ready of not, the United States may be gearing up for a preemptive strike as early as April on the tenuous assumption that an assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities would stir up ethnic tensions and trigger "regime change" in favor of US interests.

Israel has some 5,000 "smart air-launched weapons" including 500 BLU 109 bunker-buster bombs. The uranium-coated munitions are more than adequate to take out Iranian targets, with the possible exception of the buried facility at Natanz, which may require the more muscular BLU-113.

A current scenario calls for the Israeli Air Force to attack Iran's nuclear facility at Bushehr, using bunker-buster bombs. The attack would be carried out in three separate waves with radar and communications-jamming protection being provided by US Air Force AWACS and other US aircraft in the area.

Israeli Dolphin-class submarines equipped with US Harpoon missiles armed with nuclear warheads are now aimed at Iran.

With between 200 and 500 thermonuclear weapons and a sophisticated delivery system, Israel has quietly overtaken Britain as the world's fifth largest nuclear power, and may currently rival France and China in the size and sophistication of its nuclear arsenal.

A staple of the Israeli nuclear arsenal are "neutron bombs," miniaturized thermonuclear bombs designed to maximize deadly gamma radiation while minimizing blast effects and long term radiation --- in essence designed to kill people while sparing property.

The bombs themselves range in size from "city busters" larger than the Hiroshima “Little Boy” to tactical mini-nukes. The Israeli arsenal of weapons of mass destruction clearly dwarfs the actual or potential arsenals of all other Middle Eastern states combined, and is vastly greater than any conceivable need for "deterrence."

That’s the good news --- sort of.

In a world where good-news-bad-news scenarios have become interdependent, if not indistinguishable, the bad news --- should the United States (and/or Israel) attack Iran --- is far worse than imagined.

Herman Kahn's book "On Thermonuclear War," the seminal work on the subject, is not exactly coffeetable reading material in Iran. Nations with a budding yet fragmentary nuclear program are at their most vulnerable. They have not yet achieved full nuclear potential, but they have succeeded in inspiring fear in their neighbors. Iran does not seem to understand that having an embryonic nuclear program while blithely threatening to destroy Israel is reckless. Its leaders are saying, "If you stop us from developing nuclear weapons, we will use them when we have them." These are mind games calculated to show that Iran has achieved negative deterrence, i.e., they have created an environment in which their enemies have every incentive to strike --- and strike hard.

Israel has made it clear that it will respond with a massive retaliatiatory nuclear strike if attacked with atomic weapons. Iran would not survive any Israeli action. Hence, there is no logic in threatening Israel, which has achieved assured destruction of a nuclear adversary. Only brainless ideologues like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his gang of thugs would threaten Israel with annihilation.

Meanwhile, Bush advisers believe that Iran’s “opposition movement" will unseat the Mullahs. This assessment grossly misjudges social forces inside Iran which are more likely to rally behind a wartime government against foreign aggression. In fact, the entire Middle East and beyond could rise up against US interventionism.

Tehran has confirmed that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel. These attacks could also target US military facilities in the Persian Gulf, an act that would immediately escalate into all-out-war.

Even if tactical nuclear weapons are not used by Israel, an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities not only raises the spectre of a broader war, but also of nuclear radiation over a wide area. Iran has an advanced air defense system, deployed to protect its nuclear sites. According to the Jerusalem Post, "they are dispersed and underground, making potential air strikes difficult and without any guarantees of success."

The United States has tough choices: Face an Israeli unilateral conventional strike against Iran’s nuclear assets (which the Israelis have affirmed they would eventually carry out), or bite the bullet, engage Iran by diplomatic/military means and take the blame (to avoid a Mideast war against Israel, which the United States cannot control). Either way, we're in for a terrible mess --- something that could make the fiasco in Iraq look like a picnic.

This is a nightmare situation. The only hope --- wishful thinking at this stage --- is that the Iranian Supreme Leader abruptly rescinds Iran’s nuclear program and puts Ahmadinejad out to pasture.

W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist. A former press officer at Israel’s Consulate General in New York, he now lives in southern California.

Sirias, Daniel Ortega in retrospect
Jackson, The late great Molly Ivins
Bernal, About authorities
Gutman, The danger in the Middle East
Lerner, The "New Anti-Semitism"
Donovan, Uruguayan pulp fiction
Henke, Is Cuba really at a crossroads?
Pilgrim, The Iraq War from a Caribbean perspective

Silié, Fidel Castro and the Youth Revolution of the 50s and 60s

Reporters Without Borders, 2006 was a year of danger for journalists in the Americas