Sheldon Adelson calls on US to nuke Iranian desert
Sheldon Adelson calls on US to nuke Iranian desert | The Times of Israel.
Washington should then threaten to drop nuclear bomb on Tehran if it fails to comply with Western demands, powerful casino magnate says
NEW YORK — American Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson said the United States should detonate a nuclear bomb in the Iranian desert to display toughness, though without hurting a soul, before the next stage of negotiations with Tehran. It should then threaten that the next bomb would fall on Tehran, he said.
“What are we going to negotiate about?” Adelson told a crowd at New York’s Yeshiva University on Tuesday night.
As filmed by blogger Philip Weiss, a fierce critic of Israeli policy, Adelson said, “What I would say is, ‘Listen. You see that desert out there, I want to show you something.’ …You pick up your cellphone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK let it go.’ And so there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes, and scorpions, or whatever. And then you say, ‘See? The next one is in the middle of Tehran.’ So, we mean business.”
Adelson made his comments at a forum on “Iran, Assimilation and the Threat to Israel and Jewish Survival” moderated by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the flamboyant Orthodox leader, nicknamed “America’s Rabbi,” who’s famous for promoting Judaism and Jewish values through mainstream American media.
“You want to be wiped out?” the mogul continued, directing his comments at the Iranians. “Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes.”
Over 400 professionals and students packed Yeshiva University’s Lamport Auditorium to hear the panelists: Pulitzer Prize-winner Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal, Adelson, and Yeshiva University president Richard Joel.
The panelists agreed Iran should not be allowed nuclear weapons, with Stephens hitting the main points eloquently.
“Think about this: a regime that is capable of taking a stone in one hand and stoning a woman to death, a regime that hangs gay people from cranes in the streets of Tehran, should not under any circumstances get anywhere near a nuclear bomb,” Stephens said.
The room erupted in applause — not for the first or last time.
US billionaire businessman Sheldon Adelson (file photo credit: Flash90/File)
Like Adelson, a staunchly conservative Republican, Stephens also denigrated liberals in the context of Iran. He addressed himself to liberals who proclaim, “We need to find peace with Iran,” even in the wake of the regime’s oppressive practices. “If you call yourself a liberal under those circumstances, you need to reexamine what your liberalism is all about,” he said.
Stephens also professed bafflement over the world’s preoccupation with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian figurehead politicians, when, he said, the real problem was still Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“They don’t call you supreme leader if you’re a semi-supreme leader,” Stephens quipped.
Adelson also said negotiations with Iran were unquestionably a demonstration of weakness on the part of the United States.
Adelson, a casino magnate worth $26.5 billion according to Forbes, is a veteran political player in both Israeli and US politics.
A long-time supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he also threw his considerable financial weight behind Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign to become president and reportedly said he was willing to spend up to $100 million to prevent President Barack Obama’s reelection.
Adelson is also the publisher of Israel’s widest-read newspaper, the free Israel Hayom daily, which critics say takes a blatantly pro-Netanyahu line.
When it came to Israel, Adelson, a personal friend of the prime minister, and Stephens deviated slightly. While Adelson said Netanyahu “would not live without taking some kind of action under the threat of harm to the Jewish people or the State of Israel,” Stephens claimed he is “all hat and no cattle.”
Negotiators from Iran and six world powers, known as the P5+1, are due to meet in Geneva for a round of talks on November 7-8, the second round of talks in as many months.
Western powers fear Iran’s nuclear program could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iran says its program is peaceful and its purpose is to advance medical research and power generation.
Last week, Iranian diplomats met in Geneva with negotiators from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. Iran hopes to ease the crippling economic and oil sanctions placed on its government over its contested nuclear program.
Among key concessions being demanded by the West, according to two diplomats who spoke with the Associated Press, is that Iran stop enriching uranium to 20 percent. The diplomats say Iran offered to halt 20% enrichment at last week’s Geneva talks. However, the Iranian government hasn’t publicly commented on the issue.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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WarSclerotic 
October 24, 2013 at 4:01 PM
What a pity to waste a good nuke on a desolate desert, even in Persia…The real job must be done directly over Iran. Iran has lost its moral right to exist. Why? Ask the ayatollahs. They will explain to you why.
October 24, 2013 at 4:31 PM
To ‘waste’ a nuke in the desert shows not only our willingness to preserve life, but it shows our capacity to deliver as many nukes as necessary to end the threat and our willingness to do so. However, given everyone’s track record concerning ‘red lines’, it would fail in the face of Iran’s probable defiance. Then what???
October 25, 2013 at 8:45 AM
The truth is, Steve, that no nukes will be necessary to send Iran where it deserves to be, back in the history.
October 25, 2013 at 7:15 AM
Sheldon is well intended but wrong on many points.
Firstly, Iran is Amalaik, the Amalekite nation. Haman, the villain of the Book of Esther, who in Persia tried to kill all Jews, was an Amalekite. Our sages teach that the Amalekites are like a person who jumps into a scalding hot bath heedless of risk. He gets burned, but he cools it off for everyone else. That is, Amalaik is so brazen that he even encourages others to be anti-Semitic. When the Jews left Egypt all had heard of the miracles and were afraid to touch the Jews. But the Amalekites didn’t care and attacked anyway. This was also the same situation with the Nazis. They wanted to kill Jews more than they wanted to live. That is why they were diverting trains badly needed for their war effort to ship Jews to the gas chambers. They didn’t care. Just: GET THE JEWS. Same with Iran. Iran is one big giant suicide bomber that does not care if it lives so long as it can get the Jews. Sending them a warning or even a warning shot, “a message to Marie,” is unreliable. You can’t threaten to nuke Iran. You can only just DO it.
The Talmud says in Brachot 58a, “If someone comes to kill you, kill him first.” It follows that if someone is coming to NUKE you, nuke him first. The problem is Bibi has no guts to do this.
Secondly, regardless of party, it is irrelevant to rely on the US. The US did not stop Iran under Bush and won’t do it now. When the Jews were going to enter the Holy Land Moses sent spies to spy out the land. All but 2 came back with a defeatist report, wailing that there were giants in the land and we were just grasshoppers. Depending on the US is treating them as the giants and us as the grasshoppers. Israel has absolutely everything it needs to stop Iran except the WILL to do it. Even if Obama agreed to help with the war effort he would only get in the way because he would want a curtailed military operation in return for his “help.” Did you hear? Obama burned his mouth on the chimney of an Iranian nuclear facility. “I don’t get it!” he said. “They TOLD me to blow it UP!” The man is utterly useless and even after sending forces to Syria he chickened out.
The real problem is that Netanyahu is drunk with this same idea that America are the giants and he is just a grasshopper. He will never bomb Iran. Just look at all the time he spends rushing around to meet the world. He once said sanctions aren’t working. Now suddenly he is being Obama’s good little momma’s boy and saying he really thinks sanctions could work. Bibi won’t bomb Iran anymore than “Momma Obama.”
Thirdly, if anybody dropped a nuke on the Iranian desert, be it US or Israel, the world outcry would limit further action. All that would be left is a wrist slap on Iran, a finger wagging in the desert, nothing more, and Iran would get the bomb.
If Israel mobilizes to bomb Iran, US intelligence will almost certainly know of it and warn Obama, who will warn the Iranians. Obama has already leaked information about Israel to the world, to tip off Iran. How then do you achieve an element of surprise? Carl von Clausewitz said secrecy is much easier in tactics, small scale operations, than in strategy, large scale operations. The only way to get around Obama is with a single missile the US might not be able to warn about until too late.
But not a regular nuke over Tehran. The best is an EMP, electromagnetic pulse. Nuking Tehran does vast damage and Iran is a very centralized country. But a single EMP missile takes out THE WHOLE COUNTRY, not just one city. The EMP, which Israel has, involves setting off a single nuclear blast high above Iran, in outer space. The Iranians don’t feel, hear or see a thing. No blast, no light, no wrecked cities for CNN to scream about.
BUT. The gamma rays from the blast knock electrons off nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the upper atmosphere, creating a shower of electrons that come down and get into all the wiring and circuitry in the country. Anything with a microchip, computers, power plants, oil facilities, government offices, military airfields, missile defenses, even cars, shuts down. The circuits are fried and must be replaced, which could take months or longer. Depending on the size and altitude of the blast there is a huge blackout and the whole country shuts down.
Machiavelli said that “The harm we do to an adversary must be sufficient that we need not fear his vengeance.” Nothing does that like an EMP. One little missile and Iran is completely unable to retaliate. Since almost anything Israel does to Iran Obama will try to sabotage and will be seen by US intelligence if it involves any serious mobilization, the first single blow OF ITSELF must be extremely devastating. Only an EMP can do this. It can literally shut down the whole country for months.
Here’s a video about EMPs:
Once this is done, the element of surprise doesn’t matter anymore because Iran is paralyzed. Israel can probably get away with a single EMP missile without Obama being able to stop it in time. Afterward, Israel can go in with jets and other attacks to take out each nuclear site with very little resistance.
This also includes deeply buried sites like Fordo. How so? Firstly, Israel has its own bunker busters (as well as some that the US did give Israel). The Israeli bunker buster is not as powerful but can be used in sequence so that with a few you can burrow down till you reach the desired depth.
Israel also has a NUCLEAR bunker buster bomb. Unlike American nuclear bunker busters which are gigantic in their blast effects and therefore impractical, the Israeli version is only one-fifteenth of the yield of Hiroshima. Hiroshima was 13 kilotons. The Israeli nuclear bunker buster is under a kiloton. If it goes off UNDER GROUND it functions like an underground nuclear test with very little radiation leaking out to the surface. It’s not like blowing up a city at all. The idea would be to send a conventional bunker buster to burrow down part way and then send a laser-guided nuclear bunker buster right down the rabbit hole to finish the job.
Here is a video of Israel’s own home-grown conventional bunker buster, which can also be used laterally, to take out a series of buildings in a row:
There is not one target in Iran that Israel can’t hit once an EMP has paralyzed the country. Airports, defensive missiles, everything will be paralyzed by the EMP. Israel can go back for multiple sorties to finish the job at leisure on every nuclear site. Iran becomes a sitting duck.
What about the loss of US aid? Certainly Obama will cut off US aid afterward. The US did something similar after Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant. If so, Israel can retaliate by building its own stealth jet to rival the F-35. The F-35 is a junky PC in an Apple age with clunky software prone to crashes. Israel doesn’t need it and the whole project is doomed to failure. Seventy percent of the cost of a new jet is electronics and Israeli electronics are way ahead of US electronics. Israel can even get its existing F-16s to Iran with or without anyone’s permission along the way using its super-sophisticated jamming methods. It doesn’t need the F-35. The countries the jets pass through won’t even know they came through. When Israel bombed the Syrian nuclear plant in 2007 the Syrians didn’t even fire a shot in response. That’s because there was a cyber foul up and even cell phones were knocked out as far away as Lebanon. This happened even though the Syrians were using advanced Russian air defenses. They didn’t know what hit them.
Here is a report on the American F-35 and what a failure it is:
All the secrets of stealth are already all over the internet, even on Wikipedia. If Israel built its own stealth jet, the bottom would fall out of the US F-35 program. Defense contractors would be up in arms and pressuring Obama. Israel ALREADY builds 70 percent of every jet it buys from the US ANYWAY because it always installs its own electronics.
Here is a video of Israeli midair refueling technology, that Obama keeps insisting doesn’t exist. Israel has the ability to get its jets ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Notice the stars of David on the jet wings:
That exercise took place in Greece, a distance equivalent to Iran, but Israeli jet exercises have gone even a lot farther, all the way to Sardinia. Israeli jets are also LOADED with extra fuel tanks when needed, including dorsal (fuselage-hugging) fuel tanks, an Israeli innovation. The idea that Israel can’t do the job is a FANTASY.
Here is another video of Israeli midair refueling technology, which includes even midair refueling of helicopters. That means Israel can get helicopters all the way to Iran to swoop down on narrow canyons where some Iranian nuclear facilities are squirreled away:
So what’s holding it all up? BIBI! Netanyahu will NEVER NEVER NEVER bomb Iran because his whole mindset is to BEG HIS MOTHER, MOMMA OBAMA! Obama sucks up to Iran. But BIBI sucks up to Obama, which is just as bad. After Iran nukes Tel Aviv Bibi will insist at the war crimes tribunal that he did all he could to get SOMEBODY ELSE to stop Iran! There IS no somebody else. Bibi could have bombed Iran under Amadinejad (“Ama-do-the-job”) and politically it would have been a lot easier then because Amado kept threatening to destroy Israel and kept denying the Holocaust. Now Bibi says that Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Because Bibi waited he now has to deal with someone who is running a charm offensive. THE QUESTION IS: If Bibi couldn’t bomb Iran when, politically, the Iranians were baring their glass jaw in the form of Amado, he certainly won’t have the guts to do it now with Rouhani conning the world. Because Bibi is first and foremost afraid of “What would the goyim sayay????” They won’t like it. WHAT ELSE IS NEW!!!!!!!!!! Bibi is USELESS. Endless talk, there is always his annual speech at the UN but in the end he does NOTHING. Iran is WAY past the red line he drew at the UN a year ago. Once their new centrifuges come online they can quickly make a bomb starting with only 3.5% enriched uranium, not 20% enriched. Bibi has completely wimped out. The Churchill has become a Chamberlain. He did noting , he is doing nothing and will DO nothing.
October 25, 2013 at 8:49 AM
Well spoken. I myself couldn’t say it better, seriously. My respects, Sir.