POST: Would Iran strike preemptively? Thomas P.M. Barnett on November 4, 2008
ARTICLE: Top Iran officials recommend preemptive strike against Israel, By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, October 22, 2008
If true, then this is how the MAD-ness begins: the claim to equal danger for both sides.
Read your history. The shoe-banging has begun for real.
Play the News: Games and Prediction Markets allows you the opportunity to predict what you think will happen.
Some Israelis Feel An Urgency To Attack Iran, (Los Angeles Times)…Ashraf Khalil and Paul Richter, Nov 2, 2008
With international efforts to increase sanctions against Iran at a standstill, many Israelis believe their nation alone stands in the way of Tehran eventually building nuclear weapons.
Officials say other nations quietly want Israel to act unilaterally against Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. But an effective strike would be difficult and could stir up a wider conflict.
New Beltway Debate: What To Do About Iran, (New York Times)…Carol Giacomo, Nov 3, 2008
It is a frightening notion, but it is not just the trigger-happy Bush administration discussing — if only theoretically — the possibility of military action to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
One of the most thorough discussions is in a report by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, founded by four former senators — the Republicans Robert Dole and Howard Baker and Democrats Tom Daschle and George Mitchell — to devise policy solutions both parties might embrace.
With Iran projected to produce enough fuel for a nuclear weapon by 2010, the next president is going to have to concentrate his mind quickly. We hope he, unlike George W. Bush, will encourage a broader public debate about all of America’s options, and the high cost of another war. I will certainly be a lot more skeptical.
Newsweek, Periscope, Nukes: Too Deep To Hit, By Mark Hosenball, November 3, 2008
Western intelligence experts believe that Iran’s nuclear facilities are so deep underground that it would be difficult for Israel to wipe them out, or even significantly damage them, with a quick airstrike. In order to deal a serious setback to Iran’s nuclear program, at least four key sites inside Iran would have to be hit, said one Western official, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information. The facilities, however, are located in tunnels fortified by barriers more than 60 feet thick. According to this official and other U.S. experts, Israel does not possess conventional weapons capable of knocking out the facilities. Breaking through the thick shell would require, at minimum, several bunker-buster bombs striking precisely the same spot. “These targets would be very hard to destroy,” said former U.N. nuclear expert David Albright.
Theoretically, Israel could do a lot more damage with a nuclear strike. But U.S. and other Western experts say there is no reason to believe the Israelis will abandon their policy against shooting first with nukes.
Stopping A Nuclear Tehran, (Washington Post)…Daniel R. Coats and Charles S. Robb, October 23, 2008, Pg. 19
It is likely that the first and most pressing national security issue the next president will face is the growing prospect of a nuclear-weapons-capable Iran. After co-chairing a recently concluded, high-level task force on Iranian nuclear development, we have come to believe that five principles must serve as the foundation of any reasonable, bipartisan and comprehensive Iranian policy.
… Fourth, so that Israel does not feel compelled to take unilateral action, the next president must credibly convince Jerusalem that the United States will not allow Iran to achieve nuclear weapons capability.
Both to increase our leverage over Iran and to prepare for a military strike, if one were required, the next president will need to begin building up military assets in the region from day one.
Daniel R. Coats, a former Republican senator from Indiana, and Charles S. Robb, a former Democratic senator from Virginia, are co-chairmen of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s national security task force on Iran.
Sen. Obama has stated as recently as Oct 3, 2008, that ” the use of military force should not be taken off the table when dealing with Iran, which he called “a threat to all of us.” Sen McCain has stated that “We cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon”
Next President’s Iraq War, (Washington Times)…Austin Bay, Oct 17, 2008. p25.
In a month, Iraq will be the next president’s war. From the American perspective, the next president’s phase of the Iraq war will be twofold. First off, it will be a proxy war with Iran’s tyrannical mullahs. The second “fold” will be even more strategically significant: The next president’s war will measure America’s commitment to defending democracy and promoting genuine international security in the 21st century.
The Iraqi perspective differs a shade. Iraq’s war will be yet another Iran-Iraq war, but one where the Iraqis will have an organizational advantage and a significant ideological edge.
Iraq’s organizational advantage has two components. First and foremost, Iraq engages Iran with the United States as an active ally – unless the next U.S. president proves feckless and makes the inexcusably stupid mistake of denying Iraq diplomatic and military support in a crisis.
Iraq’s second organizational advantage is its increasingly capable military and more responsive government.
The next president will be tested by these robed thugs.
Iraq’s emerging democracy presents the mullahs with a complex challenge. Democracy gives Iraq an ideological advantage in its struggle with Iran’s dictatorship. Disgust and discontent has become a way of life inside Iran. The Khomeinist revolution has failed and fossilized as a corrupt theocracy backed by secret police and Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian people look west and see Iraqi Arabs and Kurds seizing a historic opportunity to create their own open, democratic system – and they know the mullahs are the gangsters denying them that opportunity.
China Blocking Talks On New Iran Sanctions
(San Diego Union-Tribune)…Associated Press, 17 Oct 2008.
China is blocking high-level talks about imposing new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, apparently in retaliation for U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, U.S. officials and diplomats briefed on the matter said.
Israel Asked US For Green Light To Bomb Nuclear Sites In Iran
(The Guardian (UK))…Jonathan Steele, Sept 25, 2008.
Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian.
Iran: Letter On Nuclear Program, (New York Times)…Helene Cooper, August 6, 2008
The Bush administration said Tuesday that Iran’s response to an offer of incentives by six world powers seeking to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions was unacceptable, and American and European officials said their next step would be to go back to the United Nations Security Council to seek additional punitive sanctions.
Iran Not Serious In Nuclear Talks, U.S. Says, (Baltimore Sun)…Unattributed, July 21, 2008
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran today of not being serious at weekend talks about its disputed nuclear program despite the presence of a senior U.S. diplomat, and warned that Tehran might soon face new sanctions. In her first public comments since Saturday’s meeting in Switzerland, Rice said Iran had given the runaround to envoys from the United States and five other world powers. She said all six nations were serious about a two-week deadline for Iran to agree to freeze suspect activities and start negotiations or be hit with new penalties. At the meeting, Iran had been expected to respond to a package of incentives offered in exchange for halting the enrichment of uranium, which can be used to fuel nuclear reactors or atomic weapons.
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