Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Obama does nothing
In any case, why worry? The WH press secretary says there is no rush to
deal with Iran. A year can go by very quickly.
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/207469-white-house-
no-rush-on-decision-to-strike-against-irans-nuclear-program
Hey but President Obama did sign the toughest Iran sanctions
legislation-right? Heard that a few times before--and will again.
Of course, it was slowed down in Congress and numerous letters have been
sent on a bipartisan basis asking him to actually enforce the sanctions but
that is the "rest of the story' that is rarely or never told.
What do the Iranians think when they hear there is no rush to deal with
their nuclear program?
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Keep pressure up on Iran
The EU's 27 foreign ministers, meeting Monday in Brussels, imposed an oil embargo against Iran and froze the assets of its central bank, ramping up sanctions designed to pressure Iranian officials into resuming talks on the country's nuclear program. In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner welcomed the EU decision, calling it "another strong step in the international effort to dramatically increase the pressure on Iran." The EU sanctions include an immediate embargo on new contracts for crude oil and petroleum products. Existing contracts with Iran will be allowed to run until July. (AP-Washington Post)
The Obama administration has sanctioned Iran's third-largest bank, Bank Tejarat. "Today's action against Bank Tejarat strikes at one of Iran's few remaining access points to the international financial system," said David Cohen, Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. (Wall Street Journal)
See also EU Adds Iran's Bank Tejarat to Sanctions List (Reuters)
Britain, America and France delivered a pointed signal to Iran, sending six warships led by a U.S. aircraft carrier through the Strait of Hormuz. The deployment defied explicit Iranian threats to close the waterway. The USS Abraham Lincoln joined another carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, which has been in the Gulf for several months. Each of these vessels carries a complement of fighter aircraft with more striking power than the entire Iranian air force. (Telegraph-UK)
Friday, January 20, 2012
Iran's danger
Reality Check: Shorter and Shorter Timeframe if Iran Decides to Make Nuclear Weapons - David Albright, Paul Brannan, Andrea Stricker and Andrew Ortendahl
Some have sought to downplay Iran's nuclear progress by emphasizing that Iran has not yet "made the decision to build a nuclear weapon." But this does not accurately portray the real concern about Iran's nuclear program and progress since Iran has already made a series of important decisions that would give it the ability to quickly make nuclear weapons.
Iran's strategy of "nuclear hedging," or developing the capability to rapidly build nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, is laid out in the evidence of work on nuclear weaponization, particularly efforts to make specific nuclear components, contained in the November 2011 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards report on Iran. If Iran's ability to quickly build nuclear weapons increases during the next few years, this will only shorten the period of time between taking a decision to build a bomb and constructing one. (Institute for Science and International Security)
Without doubt, Iran has long wanted nuclear weapons - to deter American intervention in its and neighboring territories; to threaten Europe; to respond to the former Iraqi nuclear effort; to counter the contiguous nuclear presences in Pakistan, Russia and the U.S. in the Gulf; to neutralize Israel's nuclear deterrent; to lead the Islamic world; to correct the security imbalance with Saudi Arabia; and to threaten the U.S. directly. In the absence of measures beyond pinpoint sanctions and unenforceable resolutions, Iran will get nuclear weapons, which in its eyes are an existential necessity.
Accommodationists argue that a rational Iran can be contained. Not the Iran with a revered tradition of deception; that during its war with Iraq pushed 100,000 young children to their deaths clearing minefields; that counts 15% of its population as "Volunteer Martyrs."The writer is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. (Wall Street
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
iran's mortal threat
Message body
The difference between the NYT and the WSJ. Over the weekend, the Times ran two columns in their editorial section. One told Netanyahu not to strike Iran; the other said the situation with Iran can be resolved by having a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East (meaning Israel is stripped of its nuclear shield while its adversaries continue their programs in secret-much easier to do that in dictatorships and closed-societies).
The Mortal Threat From Iran
Iran can sea-launch from off our coasts. Germany planned this in World War II. If cocaine can be smuggled into the U.S. without interdiction, we cannot dismiss the possibility of an Iranian nuke ending up in Manhattan.
By MARK HELPRIN
To assume that Iran will not close the Strait of Hormuz is to assume that primitive religious fanatics will perform cost-benefit analyses the way they are done at Wharton. They won't, especially if the oil that is their life's blood is threatened. If Iran does close the strait, we will fight an air and naval war derivative of and yet peripheral to the Iranian nuclear program, a mortal threat the president of the United States has inadequately addressed.
A mortal threat when Iran is not yet in possession of a nuclear arsenal? Yes, because immediately upon possession all remedies are severely restricted. Without doubt, Iran has long wanted nuclear weapons—to deter American intervention in its and neighboring territories; to threaten Europe and thereby cleave it from American interests in the Middle East; to respond to the former Iraqi nuclear effort; to counter the contiguous nuclear presences in Pakistan, Russia and the U.S. in the Gulf; to neutralize Israel's nuclear deterrent so as to limit it to the attrition of conventional battle, or to destroy it with one lucky shot; to lead the Islamic world; to correct the security imbalance with Saudi Arabia, which aided by geography and American arms now outclasses it; and to threaten the U.S. directly.
In the absence of measures beyond pinpoint sanctions and unenforceable resolutions, Iran will get nuclear weapons, which in its eyes are an existential necessity. We have long known and done nothing about this, preferring to dance with the absurd Iranian claim that it is seeking electricity. With rampant inflation and unemployment, a housing crisis, and gasoline rationing, why spend $1,000-$2,000 per kilowatt to build nuclear plants instead of $400-$800 for gas, when you possess the second largest gas reserves in the world? In 2005, Iran consumed 3.6 trillion cubic feet of its 974 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves, which are enough to last 270 years. We know that in 2006—generation exceeding consumption by 10%—Iran exported electricity and planned a high-tension line to Russia to export more.
Accommodationists argue that a rational Iran can be contained. Not the Iran with a revered tradition of deception; that during its war with Iraq pushed 100,000 young children to their deaths clearing minefields; that counts 15% of its population as "Volunteer Martyrs"; that chants "Death to America" at each session of parliament; and whose president states that no art "is more beautiful . . . than the art of the martyr's death." Not the Iran in thrall to medieval norms and suffering continual tension and crises.
Its conceptions of nuclear strategy are very likely to be looser, and its thresholds lower, than those of Russia and China, which are in turn famously looser and lower than our own. And yet Eisenhower and Churchill weighed a nuclear option in Korea, Kennedy a first strike upon the U.S.S.R., and Westmoreland upon North Vietnam. How then can we be certain that Iran is rational and containable?
Inexpert experts will state that Iran cannot strike with nuclear weapons. But let us count the ways. It has the aerial tankerage to sustain one or two planes that might slip past air defenses between it and Israel, Europe, or the U.S., combining radar signatures with those of cleared commercial flights. As Iran increases its ballistic missile ranges and we strangle our missile defenses, America will face a potential launch from Iranian territory.
Iran can sea-launch from off our coasts. Germany planned this in World War II. Subsequently, the U.S. completed 67 water-supported launches, ending as recently as 1980; the U.S.S.R. had two similar programs; and Iran itself has sea-launched from a barge in the Caspian. And if in 2007, for example, 1,100 metric tons of cocaine were smuggled from South America without interdiction, we cannot dismiss the possibility of Iranian nuclear charges of 500 pounds or less ending up in Manhattan or on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The probabilities of the above are subject to the grave multiplication of nuclear weapons. Of all things in respect to the Iranian nuclear question, this is the most overlooked. A 1-in-20 chance of breaking a leg is substantially different from a 1-in-20 chance of dying, itself different from a 1-in-20 chance of half a million people dying. Cost drastically changes the nature of risk, although we persist in ignoring this. Assuming that we are a people worthy of defending ourselves, what can be done?
Much easier before Iran recently began to burrow into bedrock, it is still possible for the U.S., and even Israel at greater peril, to halt the Iranian nuclear program for years to come. Massive ordnance penetrators; lesser but precision-guided penetrators "drilling" one after another; fuel-air detonations with almost the force of nuclear weapons; high-power microwave attack; the destruction of laboratories, unhardened targets, and the Iranian electrical grid; and other means, can be combined to great effect.
Unlike North Korea, Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons, does not have the potential of overwhelming an American ally, and is not of sufficient concern to Russia and China, its lukewarm patrons, for them to war on its behalf. It is incapable of withholding its oil without damaging itself irreparably, and even were it to cease production entirely, the Saudis—in whose interest the elimination of Iranian nuclear potential is paramount—could easily make up the shortfall. Though Iran might attack Saudi oil facilities, it could not damage them fatally. The Gulf would be closed until Iranian air, naval, and missile forces there were scrubbed out of existence by the U.S., probably France and Britain, and the Saudis themselves, in a few weeks.
It is true that Iranian proxies would attempt to exact a price in terror world-wide, but this is not new, we would brace for the reprisals, and although they would peak, they would then subside. The cost would be far less than that of permitting the power of nuclear destruction to a vengeful, martyrdom-obsessed state in the midst of a never-subsiding fury against the West.
Any president of the United States fit for the office should someday, soon, say to the American people that in his judgment Iran—because of its longstanding and implacable push for nuclear weapons, its express hostility to the U.S., Israel and the West, and its record of barbarity and terror—must be deprived of the capacity to wound this country and its allies such as they have never been wounded before.
Relying solely upon his oath, holding in abeyance any consideration of politics or transient opinion, and eager to defend his decision in exquisite detail, he should order the armed forces of the United States to attack and destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons complex. When they have complied, and our pilots are in the air on their way home, they will have protected our children in their beds—and our children's children, many years from now, in theirs. May this country always have clear enough sight and strong enough will to stand for itself in the face of mortal threat, and in time.
Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, the novels "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt) and "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt).
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
www.converttojudaism.net
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Obama not serious about stopping Iran
Obama Statement Means No Iran Embargo
Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 01.04.2012 - 4:08 PM
When Congress passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act last month that mandated a ban on all transactions with Iran’s Central Bank, it gave the administration the tool it needed to allow President Obama to make good on his promise to prevent Tehran from ever obtaining nuclear weapons. Restrictions on dealing with the bank would make it possible to put into place an oil embargo on Iran, the one type of sanction that could bring the Islamist regime to its knees. But the inclusion of waivers in the bill at the White House’s request also made it possible that nothing would be done. Though the president signed the Act into law during the holiday weekend, the release of his signing statement confirms our doubts about his intentions.
As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, the statement explicitly noted the sanctions were passed over his objections and might interfere “with my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations.” Obama’s statement bluntly warned Congress that if he was so inclined, “I will treat the provisions as nonbinding.” While administration officials said in spite of this, Obama still intended to pursue sanctions on the bank, the statement is a clear signal he has no such intentions.
The stated motive for Obama’s reluctance to try to stop the flow of oil income to the ayatollahs’ coffers is that it would disrupt the global economy and raise oil prices. That is a real danger and one that ought to worry everyone, not just a weak incumbent desperate not to worsen the nation’s financial situation. But given that such an embargo is the only measure short of war that would halt Iran’s nuclear program, there is no other choice. If Obama continues to waste more time by engaging in feckless diplomacy to assemble an anti-Iran coalition that has no chance of coming into existence, an Iranian bomb will be the inevitable result. If Obama thinks an oil embargo would be disruptive, what does he think the impact of an Iranian bomb on the global economy or gas prices would be?
One of the co-authors of the bill, Sen. Mark Kirk, warned if the president fails to enforce these sanctions (as, in fact, the administration has not done with even the weaker existing sanctions already in place), then he would face serious political consequences. But it may be that, despite the 100-0 vote in favor of the amendment, Obama believes some in Congress were hoping he would do just that. The inclusion of the presidential waiver was an open invitation to inaction on the president’s part. He may think many members of both the House and the Senate are like him: big talkers about Iran but reluctant to do anything about this terrible threat that would require action or sacrifice.
Earlier today, Michael Rubin noted Turkey had already requested the administration grant its biggest refinery a waiver on dealing with the Iranian bank so as to continue the lucrative trade between the two nations and said Obama’s willingness to grant the quest would answer the question about whether he was serious about stopping Iran. Unfortunately, the answer may have already been given with the president’s effort to stop the bill’s passage and a signing statement that all but promised it would never be enforced.
Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 01.04.2012 - 4:08 PM
When Congress passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act last month that mandated a ban on all transactions with Iran’s Central Bank, it gave the administration the tool it needed to allow President Obama to make good on his promise to prevent Tehran from ever obtaining nuclear weapons. Restrictions on dealing with the bank would make it possible to put into place an oil embargo on Iran, the one type of sanction that could bring the Islamist regime to its knees. But the inclusion of waivers in the bill at the White House’s request also made it possible that nothing would be done. Though the president signed the Act into law during the holiday weekend, the release of his signing statement confirms our doubts about his intentions.
As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, the statement explicitly noted the sanctions were passed over his objections and might interfere “with my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations.” Obama’s statement bluntly warned Congress that if he was so inclined, “I will treat the provisions as nonbinding.” While administration officials said in spite of this, Obama still intended to pursue sanctions on the bank, the statement is a clear signal he has no such intentions.
The stated motive for Obama’s reluctance to try to stop the flow of oil income to the ayatollahs’ coffers is that it would disrupt the global economy and raise oil prices. That is a real danger and one that ought to worry everyone, not just a weak incumbent desperate not to worsen the nation’s financial situation. But given that such an embargo is the only measure short of war that would halt Iran’s nuclear program, there is no other choice. If Obama continues to waste more time by engaging in feckless diplomacy to assemble an anti-Iran coalition that has no chance of coming into existence, an Iranian bomb will be the inevitable result. If Obama thinks an oil embargo would be disruptive, what does he think the impact of an Iranian bomb on the global economy or gas prices would be?
One of the co-authors of the bill, Sen. Mark Kirk, warned if the president fails to enforce these sanctions (as, in fact, the administration has not done with even the weaker existing sanctions already in place), then he would face serious political consequences. But it may be that, despite the 100-0 vote in favor of the amendment, Obama believes some in Congress were hoping he would do just that. The inclusion of the presidential waiver was an open invitation to inaction on the president’s part. He may think many members of both the House and the Senate are like him: big talkers about Iran but reluctant to do anything about this terrible threat that would require action or sacrifice.
Earlier today, Michael Rubin noted Turkey had already requested the administration grant its biggest refinery a waiver on dealing with the Iranian bank so as to continue the lucrative trade between the two nations and said Obama’s willingness to grant the quest would answer the question about whether he was serious about stopping Iran. Unfortunately, the answer may have already been given with the president’s effort to stop the bill’s passage and a signing statement that all but promised it would never be enforced.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Most important issue of the age-Iran and the election
On the single most important issue of the age, Santorum is by far the best, Obama bad, Paul a nightmare-Iran and a nuclear weapon
Santorum On His Plan To Attack Iran: ‘We’re Trying To Prevent A War’
By Ben Armbruster on Jan 4, 2012 at 10:41 am
The GOP presidential nomination’s newest “not-Romney” alternative Rick Santorum said last Sunday that a military strike is part of his plan in how he’d deal with Iran and its nuclear program should he become president. “You would order air strikes if it became clear that they were going to [get nuclear weapons]?” NBC’s David Gregory asked. “Yes, that’s the plan,” Santorum said.
Glenn Beck yesterday on his radio show asked Santorum about that comment, seeming a little concerned. “There’s a strong part of me that says enough of the wars,” Beck said, saying he was “playing devil’s advocate.” But the former Pennsylvania senator said an attack on Iran would serve to prevent a war:
BECK: There’s a strong part of me that says enough of the wars. Enough of the wars. What are fighting, five wars right now?
SANTORUM: We’re trying to prevent a war. We’re trying to prevent the most nefarious regime in the entire world, you know this is the equivalent of al Qaeda, it’s maybe even worse than al Qaeda being in control of a country with enormous resources and capability.
BECK: This is Hitler.
SANTORUM: We’re trying to prevent them from having the fail safe so they can go out and rein terror around the world.
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
Santorum On His Plan To Attack Iran: ‘We’re Trying To Prevent A War’
By Ben Armbruster on Jan 4, 2012 at 10:41 am
The GOP presidential nomination’s newest “not-Romney” alternative Rick Santorum said last Sunday that a military strike is part of his plan in how he’d deal with Iran and its nuclear program should he become president. “You would order air strikes if it became clear that they were going to [get nuclear weapons]?” NBC’s David Gregory asked. “Yes, that’s the plan,” Santorum said.
Glenn Beck yesterday on his radio show asked Santorum about that comment, seeming a little concerned. “There’s a strong part of me that says enough of the wars,” Beck said, saying he was “playing devil’s advocate.” But the former Pennsylvania senator said an attack on Iran would serve to prevent a war:
BECK: There’s a strong part of me that says enough of the wars. Enough of the wars. What are fighting, five wars right now?
SANTORUM: We’re trying to prevent a war. We’re trying to prevent the most nefarious regime in the entire world, you know this is the equivalent of al Qaeda, it’s maybe even worse than al Qaeda being in control of a country with enormous resources and capability.
BECK: This is Hitler.
SANTORUM: We’re trying to prevent them from having the fail safe so they can go out and rein terror around the world.
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
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