Alan Caruba
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Dec 17, 2005
A military confrontation with Iran is inevitable. Israel will need to destroy as much of Iran’s nuclear weapons capability as possible. If it does not, Iran’s ayatollahs will launch nuclear-armed ballistic missiles at Israel. The Israelis will attack with the assistance and blessing of the U.S. because a nuclear attack on America using innocent-looking merchant ships as launch platforms is a significant fear among counterterrorism experts.
This isn’t conjecture or speculation. The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made it clear to the world that Israel is to be “wiped off the map” of the world and, in the first days of its Islamic Revolution, it was American diplomats who were held hostage for 444 days by the Iranians.
For the ayatollahs, America is the “Big Satan” and Israel is the “Little Satan.” No ambiguity here. No slippery rhetoric to disguise their intentions.
Ahmedinijad recently told an Islamic summit in Mecca that an alternative to killing all the Israelis would be to have them all move to Europe! He is not merely certifiably insane, but virtually begging for a war with Israel.
A chapter in a new book, “War Footing”, the collective thinking of some of the nation’s best defense, diplomatic, and intelligence gathering experts, looks at Iran and says, “It is surprising to most terrorism experts that, even after four years of a global war on terror, there has yet to be any serious national debate about the need and the means to confront Iran.”
When asked how far Israel was prepared to go to protect itself, one of its top military leaders replied, “About two thousand kilometers,” the distance between Israel and Iran. Guess who will be refueling those Israeli bombers and fighter jets over Iraq? Guess who will be flying with them? It will be the United States because Iran leaves neither America, nor Israel, any alternative.
With a news media beleaguering Americans daily with reports of every casualty in order to sap our national resolve to remain in Iraq long enough to eliminate the threat that emanates from the entire Middle East, Americans are most surely not being reminded that, prior to the attacks of 9-11, “Iran was responsible for the deaths of more than fifteen hundred Americans—more than any other state sponsor of terror or terrorist organization in history.”
A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, leaked to the media in August 2005 stated that Iran is unlikely to produce the fissile material it needs for a nuclear weapon until “early to mid-next decade.” Bear in mind the intelligence community has been taking a beating over its estimates of WMDs and other reasons to invade Iraq. The NIE estimate is probably too cautious. Iran may well be closer to what it needs to make nuclear weapons.
What will stop this? A massive bombing campaign to degrade their capacity to make or launch nuclear missiles. Take away their nuclear option, along with their command and control capabilities, and there will be no need to invade. Indeed, with sufficient planning, resistance groups inside Iran could be armed to finish off the relative handful of ayatollahs in charge.
What are the alternatives? “War Footing” offers a number of steps the U.S. and the rest of the world can take. Its authors dismiss any “détente” or negotiated resolution. They recommend such measures as making freedom in Iran a declared U.S. policy; an active effort to delegitimize the Tehran regime, declaring it a threat to humanity; waging economic and political warfare, inside and out of Iran; and supporting resistance movements, among the options available.
In the end, the experts conclude that military power may be the only option. I believe this will prove to be the only way to avoid a nuclear Armageddon.
We are dealing with religious fanatics who want to bring about the return of the twelfth Imam al-Mahdi. Born 800 years ago, the lunatics running Iran believe that, before he returns, “one third of the world population will die by being killed and one-third will die as a result of epidemics.” The ayatollahs of Iran have decided to kill one-third of the “unbelievers” with nuclear weapons. This is Islam’s gift to the world, death on a scale no one can conceive.
If they succeed, the world will plunge backward to a time comparable to the Dark Ages. The destruction of Iran’s nuclear and other military facilities is a small price to pay to avoid this. Let’s do it sooner than later.
Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, “Warning Signs”, posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com.
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