WarSclerotic

FOXNews.com – Iranian Missile May Be Able to Hit U.S. by 2015.

By Mike Emanuel

– FOXNews.com

U.S. Defense Department report also says Iranians have gone to great lengths to protect its nuclear infrastructure from physical destruction including using buried and hardened facilities.

AP

April 18: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second left, listens to his Defense Minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, as a rocket is paraded during National Army Day.

“With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States by 2015,” says a new 12 page unclassified report prepared by the Department of Defense on the Iran Military Threat.

The report says Iran’s military strategy is designed to defend against external or “hard” threats from the United States and Israel. “Iran’s nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility to develop nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy,” according to the report.

Iran continues being a disruptive force inside Iraq, it alleges.

“Iran continues to provide money, weapons and training to select Iraqi Shia militants despite pledges by senior Iranian officials to stop such support,” the report says. “Iran also offers strategic and operational guidance to militias and terrorist groups to target U.S. Forces in Iraq and undermine U.S. interests.”

It also outlines what Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called Tehran playing a “double game” inside Afghanistan.

The regime makes big promises to the Afghan government trying to appear to be a good neighbor, and is also sending weapons into the country, and backing a wide range of groups so “it will have a positive relationship with the eventual leaders.”

Regarding the effectiveness of Iranian Conventional Forces, “Iran maintains very sizeable military forces, but they would be relatively ineffective against a direct assault by well trained, sophisticated military such as that of the United States or its allies.”

It does judge Iran’s unconventional forces, which include paramilitary forces, “would present a formidable force on Iranian territory.”

The report outlines Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities and developments saying it is “keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons,” which is consistent with what we’ve heard from a wide range of U.S. officials. It says the Iranians have gone to great lengths to protect its nuclear infrastructure from physical destruction including using buried and hardened facilities.

The final aspects of the report review the regime’s efforts to improve ballistic and cruise missile capabilities.

The secretary of defense is required as part of the National Defense

Israel calls for sanctions against Iran – UPI.com.

Alan Dershowitz: The Obama Administration’s Conflicting Messages on Iran.

The Obama Administration is sending conflicting and confusing messages both to Iran and to those who fear an Iranian nuclear weapon. According to the New York Times, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sent a top secret memorandum to White House officials bemoaning the fact that the United States simply has no policy in place to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. At the same time, it is telling Israel that although Iran has threatened to wipe it off the map, the Jewish state should not take military action to prevent a second Holocaust. Indeed, former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has participated in White House discussions concerning the Middle East, has threatened that if Israel tries to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapon facilities, the United States is fully capable of shooting Israeli jets out of the air.

Although Gates subsequently denied that his memo, which he acknowledges writing, was intended as a “wake up call,” a senior White House official has confirmed that it was just that. There is no evidence, however, that the White House is prepared to confront the grave threat posed by a nuclear Iran. The policy that seems to be emerging from the White House is one called “containment.” But what is containment? It is little more than an acknowledgment of failure. Containment implies that the United States will not succeed in preventing Iran from securing nuclear weapons, but rather it will accept such an eventuality and seek to deter the use of nuclear weapons by threats and by the deployment of defensive measures. The analogy that proponents of containment point to is North Korea, which has nuclear weapons but has thus far been “contained” from using them. But there are vast differences between North Korea and Iran.

North Korea is a secular Communist regime that is risk averse and that has no sworn existential enemies. The goal of its leaders is simply to remain in power and maintain their totalitarian control over their people. Iran is a theocratic, apocalyptic regime that believes that it has a religious obligation to destroy Israel and threaten the United States. Iran, unlike North Korea, also operates through surrogates, such as Hezbollah, Hamas and other smaller terrorist groups. They could hand-off nuclear material to such groups, or to sympathetic individuals, for use as dirty bombs directed against its enemies.

When he ran for president, Barak Obama pledged not to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. He claimed to understand that a nuclear Iran would be a game changer and a direct threat to the United States and its allies. He now seems to be softening his position and that of the United States government.

If in fact the United States is prepared to accept a nuclear Iran, then it has no right to require Israel to accept the risks posed by a nuclear armed country that has overtly threatened its destruction. Every country in the world has the inherent right to protect its citizens from a nuclear attack. Israel, a nation that Obama has himself acknowledged was built on the ashes of one Holocaust, certainly has the right to take military action to prevent a second Holocaust, especially at the hands of a country that has explicitly threatened to wipe it off the map.

The world ignored the explicit threats of one tyrant who threatened to destroy the Jewish people in the 1930s, and he nearly succeeded in the 1940s. Israel cannot be expected to ignore Hitler’s successor, who while denying the first Holocaust, threatens a second one.

The United States has promised to regard a nuclear attack on Israel as a nuclear attack on its own country, but Iran does not credit such threats, since it appears that the Obama Administration has already broken its promise not to accept a nuclear Iran. Elie Wiesel put it well when he said that the Holocaust has taught the Jewish people to “believe the threats of our enemies more than the promises of our friends.” Iran’s promise to destroy Israel must be taken seriously, not only by Israel but by the United States. If the United States is not prepared to stop Iran from acquiring the nuclear weapons necessary to wipe Israel off the map, then Israel must be prepared to protect itself.

I am not suggesting that Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. I don’t know enough about the military considerations that should go into any such an existential decision. But I am asserting, in unqualified terms, that Israel has an absolute right — legally, morally, politically — to take such an action if it deems it necessary to protect its citizens from a threatened nuclear attack. This is especially the case, if Secretary Gates was correct when he wrote in his memorandum that the United States “lacks a policy to thwart Iran,” as the New York Times headline announced. Someone must thwart Iran. An Iran with nuclear weapons simply poses too great a threat to the world to be accepted — or “contained.”

BBC – Mark Mardell’s America: Attacking Iran: Is it a real option for the US?.

America’s top brass has pointed to the elephant in the Iranian room, only to make it clear it’s a particularly unattractive beast.

Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Adm Mike Mullen has said that a US air strike on Iran could “go a long way to delaying” Iran’s nuclear program, but would be his “last option”.

But he suggested that as far as he was concerned, it was not only a last option, but a bad one.

He added it was not his call, but the president’s. It sounds pretty clear he doesn’t want the bombers to fly. Ever.

“There are those that say, ‘come on, Mullen, get over that. They’re going to get it. Let’s deal with it’. Well, dealing with it has unintended consequences that I don’t think we’ve all thought through. I worry that other countries in the region will then seek to, actually, I know they will, seek nuclear weapons as well. That spiral headed in that direction is a very bad outcome.”

This follows the fuss about a top secret memo from Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

The New York Times, which published the story gave the impression that it was intended as a wake-up call to the president, arguing that the USA does not have an effective long-term policy for dealing with Iran.

Mr Gates took the unusual step of releasing a statement saying the New York Times had got the memo wrong and “mischaracterised its purpose and content”.

He said that it wasn’t a wake-up call but had raised a series of questions and options to go along with “the Administration’s pivot to a pressure track on Iran earlier this year”.
Pivoting to a pressure track sounds like an unwieldy and possibly painful manouevre, but apparently refers to the energetic pursuit of sanctions and what might follow if they don’t work.

Mr Gates continues to say that “there should be no confusion by our allies and adversaries that the United States is properly and energetically focused on this question and prepared to act across a board range of contingencies in support of our interests.”

So the elephant will find itself talked about more and more this year, but the administration’s approach to military action seems to boil down to “we could, we might (but we won’t).

Iran picks site for new enrichment facility  | ajc.com.

By NASSER KARIMI

The Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved the site for a new enrichment facility Iran plans to build, his top adviser said Monday, the latest step in expanding a nuclear program that the United Nations has demanded Tehran halt.
Iran’s Ghadr-1 missile, which has a range of up to 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers), and capable of putting Israeli and US bases in the region within Iran’s reach, is paraded during a ceremony marking National Army Day, in front of mausoleum of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 18, 2010. A portrait of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is seen at left. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second left, listens to his Defense Minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, as a rocket is paraded during army parade ceremony marking National Army Day, in front of mausoleum of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 18, 2010. Ahmadinejad on Sunday extolled Iran’s military might during the annual army parade, saying the country is so powerful today that no one would dare attack it. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iran’s Shahab-3 missile, which has a range of up to 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers), and capable to put Israel and US bases in the region within Iran’s reach, is paraded during a ceremony marking National Army Day, in front of mausoleum of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
More Nation & World stories »

* Teen guilty of manslaughter in NY immigrant death
* Va. Tech victims’ families press for gun show bill
* Court denies Texan’s appeal over DA-judge affair
* Oklahoma City marks 15 years since bombing
* Disaster in Haiti
* Health Care Reform: News and resources
* Top news around the Web

Still, in an apparent attempt to ward off a new U.N. sanctions, Iran’s foreign minister said his country wants to hold further discussions on a nuclear fuel deal that was originally touted as a possible way to ease the standoff but has since hit a dead end.

The United States and its allies are trying to rally support for new U.N. sanctions on Iran over its refusal to stop enrichment, fearing Tehran will use the process to build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any intention to do so, saying its nuclear program aims only to generate electricity.

The new enrichment plant would be Iran’s third. Ahmadinejad approved the location for the new facility, his top adviser Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi said, without specifying where the site is.

Samareh Hashemi said work will begin “upon the president’s order,” without specifying when, according to the ILNA news agency Monday.

Iran’s government approved plans in November to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities. Earlier this year, Iran’s nuclear chief announced that construction on two of the 10 would begin during this Iranian calendar year, which runs from March 2010 to March 2011.

Iran currently has two uranium enrichment plants — one operating in the central city of Natanz and a second, near the city of Qom, that has not begun enriching.

The United Nations has demanded enrichment be suspended because the process can be used to produce a nuclear bomb as well as fuel for a nuclear reactor.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for “crippling sanctions” against Iran, including a ban on petroleum products exports to the country, to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapons capability. In an interview broadcast Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Netanyahu said if the U.N. can’t agree on sanctions, then “a coalition of the willing” among other countries should do it on their own.

The United States has been lobbying hard with Russia and China, who have traditionally been reluctant to impose sanctions on Iran and wield veto power in the U.N. Security Council. The U.N. has already imposed three rounds of limited financial sanctions.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran would be sending delegations to China and Russia, as well as temporary council members Lebanon and Uganda, for talks on the moribund nuclear fuel deal.

Mottaki said Iran wants direct talks about the deal with all the Security Council members, except one with which it would have indirect talks — a reference to the United States, which with Tehran has no relations.

The talks halted after Iran last year rejected a U.N.-backed plan that offered nuclear fuel rods in exchange for Iran’s stock of lower-level enriched uranium — a swap would have curbed Tehran’s capacity to make a nuclear bomb.

Under the U.N. proposal, Iran was to send 2,420 pounds (1,100 kilograms) of low-enriched uranium abroad, where it would be further enriched to 20 percent and converted into fuel rods, which would then be returned to Iran.

Tehran needs the fuel rods to power a research reactor in the Iranian capital that makes nuclear isotopes needed for medical purposes. Sending its own low-enriched uranium abroad would leave Iran with insufficient stocks to further purify to weapons-grade level. Once converted into rods, uranium can no longer be used for making weapons.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Ahmadinejad taunts.

Pres Ahmadinejad at Army Day parade (AP Photo)

Iran’s armed forces are so strong that enemies should not even harbor the thought of attacking the country, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted Sunday, during an annual military parade commemorating National Army Day, according to Tehran Times.

Ahmadinejad called Israel the center of conspiracy and conflict in the region and asked the United States to stop supporting the Zionist regime and to allow the Palestinian nation to determine their own destiny.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad directed the United Stated and its allies to withdraw from the region, saying their presence has brought nothing but death and destruction.

This is not a request, it is an order, this is the will of regional countries… they should go back to their homes and leave regional countries in charge of regional affairs,” he stated, according to Tehran Times.

Masked Iranian troops at Army Day parade (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iran’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Hassan Firouzabadi said Iranian forces are well prepared to destroy US forces in the region should it venture upon a military attack on that country.

Speaking on the sidelines of Tehran’s Nuclear Conference, Iran’s top military commander brushed aside what he said were threats by the Obama administration against Iran .

Iran’s armed forces are quite prepared to destroy US forces and their equipments in earnest,’ General Firouzabadi said, according to Hamsayeh.net.

He added, ‘No US soldier will go back home alive if the US decides to attack Iran.’

During the National Army Day parade just outside Tehran, the Iranian military showcased their latest domestically produced long-range surface-to-surface Ghadr missile, according to Iranian Press TV.

The Iranian military also unveiled their long-range S-200 air defense system, which they claim has been exclusively designed to defend large areas against aerial attacks, including assaults by high-speed and high-altitude aircraft, Iranian Press TV reported.

Iran already has a missile armament capable of wreaking havoc, but its air, sea, and ground forces are out of date and badly in need of maintenance, according to a survey of websites devoted to military topics.

Iranian version of US Hawk missile (AP Photo)

GlobalFirepower, a military statistics website, which cites the CIA as one of its sources, ranks Iran 18th in military power worldwide behind Turkey (10), Israel (11), Pakistan (15), and Egypt (17) but ahead of Saudi Arabia (24), Iraq (37), Afghanistan (40),and Lebanon (42).

According to GlobalFirepower, Iran’s defense budget was $6,300,000,000 and it currently has 540,000 active military personnel.

Iran owns one of the largest missile inventories in the Middle East and has developed an infrastructure capable of building missiles indigenously, according to NationMaster, a website specializing in military data and analysis.

Iran recently flight-tested the Shehab-3 missile, capable of reaching Israel, and there are reports about the development of even longer-range missiles.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported Sunday that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned in a secret three-page memo to White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s progress toward nuclear arms.

Exclusive: Iran’s Reasons for Wanting the Bomb Affects Sanctions » Publications » Family Security Matters.

William R. Hawkins

On April 14th, the State Department sent out a twitter about its concern over the “provision of increasingly sophisticated weaponry into Lebanon.” The issue had come up at the daily press briefing of Assistant Secretary Philip Crowley, who was asked about reports that Syria is giving Scud ballistic missiles to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Sen. John McCain also raised the issue earlier in the day at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iran with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flournoy.

Crowley responded that the issue had been raised with the Syrian ambassador, adding, “Regardless of the issue of Scuds, we are – we remain concerned about the provision of increasingly sophisticated weaponry to parties in – to Hezbollah. And this is an issue that we continue to raise with Syria, [and] other parties in the region.” Among the other parties must be Iran. Syria is Iran’s junior partner in the arming, funding and training of Hezbollah, and of Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

In his testimony, Deputy Secretary Flournoy talked about Iran’s role in Iraq, backing parties in elections as well as supporting party militias. Radical cleric Moqtada Sadr has been living in Iran since 2007, but heads a political group that holds 40 parliamentary seats in Iraq. His fighters have also attacked U.S. and Iraqi security forces several times over the years. Thus Flournoy concluded, “Iran is a serious threat to U.S. national security both because of its nuclear program and its destabilizing activities across the Middle East.” The Obama administration has focused on the Iranian nuclear program in recent forums like the Nuclear Security Summit, but it cannot be taken out of the larger context of Tehran’s ambitions to dominate the region.

At the conclusion of the NSS, Obama said he hopes to submit a new sanctions resolution to the UN Security Council this spring. “I want to see us move forward boldly and quickly, to send the kind of message that will allow Iran to make a different calculation,” said the President. The White House has also used the term “cost-benefit analysis” in regard to how Iran should think about acquiring nukes. But is this the right concept? If the Tehran regime wants nuclear weapons as part of its grand strategy and not just as a bargaining chip, then the concept of “calculation” upon which the U.S. tactic of sanctions has been based will not work.

Why does Iran want the bomb? The regime believes that once it truly becomes the “nuclear state” that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaimed in February, no outside power will dare attack the country or intervene in its internal affairs. Though one cannot entirely discount Ahmadinejad’s threats to use nukes to annihilate Israel or bring about Armageddon to fulfill religious prophecy, the more logical use of such weapons is as a deterrent umbrella beneath which Iran can continue to support terrorists and militia groups, and even expand directly without decisive counteraction. It is the regime’s insurance policy, a belief it shares with its collaborator North Korea who has used the “death ride” scenario to its advantage to quash any discussion of overthrowing the madmen in Pyongyang.

Against this concept of security, the offer of “beads and trinkets” to either Iran or North Korea is not attractive. The Obama administration came into office extolling “positive incentives” as an alternative to the “militarized” posture of the Bush administration. Even including in some “grand bargain” an American pledge not to seek regime change in Iran is not as comforting to the mullahs as having their finger on a nuclear trigger. The regime knows that its aggressive foreign policy and penchant for violence will at some point provoke a military response, and Iran will need a powerful deterrent to ward it off.

Of what use then is another round of sanctions? Economic sanctions have often been oversold as a way to change behavior, and when they fail to do so, lose their credibility. The real power of sanctions, however, is to cripple the ability of an adversary to carry out its hostile programs. To be successful, they cannot be mere pinpricks.

The comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War were decisive in preventing Saddam Hussein from rearming or reconstituting his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. They drastically reduced the revenues available to Baghdad, preventing the rebuilding of Iraqi defenses, blocking the import of vital materials, and cutting off access to foreign technologies. Iraq’s military industrial capabilities were beaten down by 12 years of air raids, an arms embargo, and strangling economic sanctions. It was the creeping collapse of the sanctions, weakened by a desire to lessen their impact on the Iraqi people (the notoriously corrupt “oil for food” program), which would have allowed Saddam to finance a renewal of his WMD programs. The U.S. pre-empted this development with its 2003 invasion. Coalition forces met little resistance from a demoralized society alienated from a regime whose policies had not defended the country, but had ruined it.

As in Iraq, U.S. sanctions have targeted Tehran’s energy revenues and access to the global financial system. Iran holds 16 percent of the world’s proven gas reserves and 11 percent of the world’s oil reserves, but the regime desperately needs foreign investment and technology (particularly to liquefy natural gas) to develop them. U.S. sanctions are meant to deny Iran that help.

China has undermined sanctions by importing oil from Iran and investing in oil and gas projects there. The Obama administration has offered China assurances that alternatives to Iranian oil would be available. Beijing has rejected this gambit, indicating it is looking at the larger strategic picture and not just economics. Beijing wants to be aligned with the most powerful state in the region, one that shares its hatred of “American hegemony.”

The White House gave the impression after President Obama met with Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the NSS that Beijing would support new sanctions on Iran, When Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Jiang Yu was asked to confirm this at a press conference April 13, he did just the opposite. He stated, “On the Iranian nuclear issue, our position has been consistent….Sanctions and pressure are not the fundamental way out. Relevant actions of the UN Security Council should be conducive to the turn-around of the situation and proper settlement of the issue through dialogue and negotiation.” The same process that has failed to stop Iran’s program since talks started in 2003, and which Beijing knows will continue to fail.

Hopes that Russia would come on board at the UN, thus isolating China as well as Iran, have faded as well. On April 9th, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a treaty to cut their nuclear arsenals, an event that was supposed to be a positive “reset” of relations. Immediately thereafter, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said his country would not support restrictions on gasoline imports to Iran. “A total embargo on deliveries of refined oil products to Iran would mean a slap, a blow, a huge shock for the whole society and the whole population,” he said, “We definitely are not prepared to consider” such moves. Despite its oil reserves, Iran lacks refinery capacity and must import 25-30 percent of is gasoline.

This is the same position that Moscow held last February when Oleg Rozhkov, the deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s security affairs and disarmament department, said,” Call them what you want – crippling or paralyzing – we are not going to work on sanctions or measures which could lead to the political or economic or financial isolation of this country [Iran].”

With widespread unrest in Iran, the result of a failing economy and a stolen election, now would be the perfect time to impose the “crippling” even “crushing” sanctions that the White House has talked about in the wake of its initial policy of engagement. The “calculation” that must be changed in Tehran is the notion that having nukes will save the regime. The message must be that pursuing nukes is what will bring the regime down, either from a popular uprising inside the country or military attack from the outside – or, more effectively, a one-two punch of both.

Iran’s downfall will not come at the UN, but from decisive action by the United States and its allies. Comprehensive sanctions backed by a naval blockade, including gasoline and other critical supplies valued by Iranian society, is the only pressure short of a direct military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities that has any chance of working fast enough to prevent Tehran’s rulers from becoming nuclear warlords.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor William R. Hawkins is a consultant specializing in international economic and national security issues. He is a former economics professor and Republican Congressional staff member.

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs.

By Spengler

A decade ago I argued that radical Islam might horrify the West into submission through the mass sacrifice of Muslim lives. During the past two weeks Iran has virtually invited a nuclear exchange with the West, in a series of statements that blend a deranged sort of bluster with malevolent calculation.

Iran’s Kayhan press service warned last week, “If the US strikes Iran with nuclear weapons, there are elements which will respond with nuclear blasts in the centers of America’s main cities.” Meanwhile, Behzad Soltani, the number two man at Iran’s Atomic Commission, proclaimed last week, “Iran will join the world nuclear club within a month in a bid to deter possible attacks on the country,” adding, “No country would even think about attacking Iran once it is in the club.”

By the normal standards of diplomacy, these statements appear grotesquely false as well as self-defeating. If Iran brags openly that it has delivered nuclear weapons to terrorists – weapons that it does not yet possess – it invites a Western military response. The threat itself demonstrates that Iran is confident that the West is too supine to respond. Iran has taken our measure well: the theocratic regime evinced an unlimited appetite for sacrifice during its decade-long war with Iraq in the 1980s. It is persuaded, and with good reason, the prospective horror of a military confrontation is too terrible for the West to bear.

In effect, Iran has succeeded in horrifying the West into submission to its nuclear ambitions as well as its bid for regional hegemony. An attack on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Tehran has persuaded the West, would throw Central Asia into chaos. Pro-Iranian elements would precipitate a civil war in Iraq; Hezbollah in Lebanon would initiate a war on Israel’s northern border; the Shi’ite fifth of Pakistan would make the second-largest Muslim state ungovernable; American’s 200,000 soldiers in adjacent countries would suffer suicide attacks; and the hydra heads of Iranian-sponsored terrorists would strike at civilian targets through the West.

This is deplorable as it was foreseeable: on May 2, 2006 I warned (Why war comes when no one wants it : “If Washington waits too long to disarm Iran, the consequence will be a Thirty Years’ War in the Middle East quite as terrible as World War I. Harsh as it might seem, pre-emption – an aerial attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities – is the most humane solution.”

Iranian officials seem intent on provoking American retaliation. General Hassan Firouzabadi boasted on April 8, “If America presents Iran with a serious threat and undertakes any measure against Iran, none of the American soldiers who are currently in the region would go back to America alive.” And Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad addressed President Barack Obama with open contempt in a letter made public last week. “Once [the US was] at the height of glory,” Ahmadinejad wrote. “Now they are collapsing. They have many economic and cultural problems. They have security problems in the world and their influence in Iraq and Afghanistan is vanishing.”

Iran’s estimation of Western squeamishness is well founded. America’s military leaders have made no secret of their fear of the consequences of engaging Iran. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, had this to say on March 16, 2009, in an interview with Charlie Rose: “What I worry about in terms of an attack on Iran is, in addition to the immediate effect, the effect of the attack, it’s the unintended consequences. It’s the further destabilization in the region. It’s how they would respond. We have lots of Americans who live in that region who are under the threat envelope right now [because of the] capability that Iran has across the Gulf. So, I worry about their responses and I worry about it escalating in ways that we couldn’t predict.”

In my estimation, this sort of paralysis is what radical Islam reckoned with from the outset. Mullen should be fired twice, once for thinking this way, and the second time for saying it in public. Obama set the same defeatist tone in a televised interview earlier this month with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, saying, “The history of the Iranian regime, like the North Korean regime is that, you know, you apply international pressure on these countries, sometimes they choose to change behavior, sometimes they don’t.”

That is precisely what Tehran and al-Qaeda wish to hear. As I wrote on October 12, 2001, (Sir John Keegan is wrong: radical Islam could win

Al-Qaeda wants no territory, no conversions, no loot, no slaves. It wishes to destroy the West and happily will sacrifice millions of Muslim lives in order to do so. Indeed, the mass sacrifice of Muslim lives may lie at the heart of its battle plan. It has more in common with the Dostoyevsky of The Possessed or the Wagner of Die Goetterdaemmerung than with the Muslim conquerors of the Middle Ages …

The grand vulnerability of the Western mind is horror. The Nazis understood this and pursued a policy “des Schreckens” (to cause terror) and “Entsetzens” (horror, literally: dislodgement). Horror was not merely an instrument of war in the traditional sense, but a form of Wagnerian theater, or psychological warfare on the grand scale. Hitler’s tactical advantage lay in his capacity to be more horrible than his opponents could imagine. The most horrible thing of all is that he well might have succeeded if not for his own megalomaniac propensity to overreach.

Getting down to tactics, how can al-Qaeda overcome the West with horror? Let us suppose that some state or state agency over which al-Qaeda wields influence possesses a weapon of mass destruction, with sufficient potency to cause a very large number of deaths in a Western country. If it deploys that weapon and causes a very large number of casualties, the West may have no choice but to bombard the offending country with nuclear weapons and destroy its capacity to make war. Given that al-Qaeda has tendrils deep in numerous governments, even a nuclear bombardment of one rogue state might not diminish its capacities. The West would be left with the horrific fact of mass destruction of civilians combined with continued insecurity.

With minor variations, that is Tehran’s intent. That is why the Iranian theocrats dare the West to bring on its worst, to attack Iran in such a way as to produce massive civilian casualties.

A decade of Western stupidity has let America to this pass. In a sense Iran is entirely correct that a last-minute effort to reverse its slow accumulation of military and terrorist capability would be a messy business at best. A decade ago I wrote (Geopolitics in the light of option theory Asia Times Online, January 26, 2002) that America was “long volatility,” in option-trading parlance; instability worked to its advantage by forcing the rest of the world to cling to America’s skirts for safety. After expending vast amounts of blood and treasure in the delusional pursuit of nation-building in the Middle East, Washington is “short volatility”, in precisely the sense that Mullen suggested. America no longer has the stomach for uncertainty.

America’s decade of dithering has led it into a diplomatic cul-de-sac. China recognizes America’s desultory pursuit of sanctions against Iran for the charade it is, and placidly continues to buy Iranian oil; Russia observes that Washington will concede Iran the status of regional hegemon, and offers it nuclear reactor technology, while discovering a new humanitarian concern for the possible suffering of the Iranian people under economic sanctions. India notes that Washington has frozen it out of Afghanistan in favor of one-sided reliance on Pakistan, and looks to Iran as a balancing force against Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. The rest of the world takes its cue from America, even or perhaps especially) when America abdicates leadership.

Russia, China and India have concluded that the probability of an American military strike against Iran is nil, and have made their own arrangements with the emerging Central Asian power. In Washington, the bureaucracy is making the usual sort of preparations for the inevitable moment when Tehran tests its first nuclear device: it is writing memos. Secretary Defense Robert Gates, the ultimate Washington survivor, leaked his memo to the New York Times on April 17, warning that America lacked an effective policy to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

Israel remains the only player that could kick over the chess-board before the Iranians march their pawns to the eighth rank and turn them into nuclear weapons. Endless speculation has been devoted to the likelihood, and the nature, of a prospective Israeli strike; without knowing what the Israeli military knows about its own capabilities, Iranian concealment and air defenses, I have no means of gaming the odds.

It seems clear, though, that Moscow considers such an action unlikely, given President Dmitry Medvedev’s overwrought warning of April 12. Speaking to ABC News, Medvedev characterized a prospective Israeli strike on Iran as “the worst possible scenario” in the Middle East, because “everyone is so close over there that nobody would be unaffected … And if conflict of that kind happens, and a strike is performed, then you can expect anything, including use of nuclear weapons. And nuclear strikes in the Middle East, this means a global catastrophe. Many deaths.”

There is no reason to believe that an Israeli strike on Iran – even if it involved the use of low-yield nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that some analysts mention – would lead to a general nuclear exchange. Medvedev’s remarks should be read as an echo of Iranian propaganda. Nonetheless, there is some truth to Medvedev’s warning. Cutting out the cancer at this late date would be a bloody mess. Hundreds of thousands might die as a result. On the other hand, if Iran does succeed in acquiring nuclear weapons, hundreds of millions probably will die. The choices now are grim. Don’t blame me: I told you so 10 years ago.

Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman, senior editor at First Things (www.firstthings.com).

The Cutting Edge News.

Washington Institute

Iranian Fatah 100 Missile aka Syrian M-600 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak sent officials in Damascus and Washington scrambling when he claimed on April 13 that Syria is providing the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah with Scud missiles whose accuracy and range threaten more Israeli cities than ever before. His unexpected announcement, though vehemently denied by the Syrian regime, threatens to spark a new war between Israel and its antagonists in the region while further undermining U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts at engagement with Syria. The alleged missile transfer now looms over the Senate confirmation of Obama’s ambassador-designate to Syria, Robert S. Ford, who is slated to be Washington’s first emissary to Damascus in more than five years. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s apparent decision to transfer more accurate and longer-range weapons to Hezbollah is a disheartening development for U.S. officials, who had hoped Obama’s diplomatic opening would lead the Syrian regime to moderate its behavior. As Damascus arms its Lebanese ally with an increasingly lethal array of weaponry, Syria’s credibility as a peace partner for Israel is increasingly in doubt. Weapons have been flowing from Syria to Lebanon for decades. However, in recent months, reports have indicated that the sophistication of the weapons systems provided to Hezbollah has grown. In October 2009, the British military magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that Syria had supplied Hezbollah with M-600 rockets, a Syrian variant of the Iranian Fatah 110, whose rudimentary guidance system can carry a 500-kilogram payload to a target 250 kilometers away. In early March, the head of the research division of the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, that Syria had recently provided Hezbollah with the Igla-S man-portable air defense systems. The shoulder-fired weapon can bring down the Israeli drones, helicopter gunships, and low-flying fighter aircraft that routinely fly over Lebanon to gather intelligence. Reports of increased weapons transfers surfaced again following Ford’s nomination hearing on March 16. Rumors circulated around Capitol Hill that Syria had delivered Scud-D missiles to Lebanon. These reports did not specify whether the missiles were Russian Scud-Ds or Syrian varieties of Scud-Ds, which are upgraded versions of older Scud models that Syria reportedly began producing in mass quantities during the last year. Both missiles have a range of up to 700 kilometers, which means they could hit most, if not all, Israeli cities even if fired from northern Lebanon. Both can carry chemical or biological warheads. Less than a week after a Feb. 17 visit by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns — the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Damascus in more than five years — Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah at a banquet in Damascus. During the visit, Assad openly mocked U.S. efforts to distance Syria from Iran and stated that his government is “preparing ourselves for any Israeli aggression.” These weapons transfers appear to mark a continuation of Assad’s belligerent stance. While Lebanon has long been the battlefield between Syria and Israel, the transfer of these weapons may indicate that the Syrian president is calculating that the next war with Israel could involve strikes on Syrian territory. Conversely, others have postulated that the transfers could also be designed to put pressure on the United States to get Israel back to the negotiating table — a bizarre tactic that is clearly not working. In trying to answer these questions, U.S. congressional leaders — most notably Senator John Kerry — have visited Damascus over the last few weeks and attempted to engage Assad directly on the issue. The results of the meetings have not been made public. Meanwhile in Beirut, the United States is said to have issued a number of diplomatic demarches to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri complaining about the transfers. Given that the Lebanese government exercises no control over the Syrian-Lebanese frontier, the demarches are likely to go unheeded. These revelations have generated conflicting reactions in Washington regarding engagement with Syria. Skeptics say that the uncoordinated engagement by France, Saudi Arabia, the European Union — and now the United States — has fueled a bizarre outbreak of “Syrian triumphalism,” causing Assad to throw caution to the wind. Syria’s decision to send Scuds to Lebanon, they say, proves Damascus is unwilling to distance itself from Tehran. They argue that posting a U.S. ambassador to Syria under current circumstances would send the wrong signal to Damascus and only embolden Assad further. Advocates of deeper engagement with Damascus argue that sending an ambassador will improve communication with the Syrian regime, thereby averting future crises. One unintended byproduct of Washington’s policy of isolating Syria has been the elevation of the importance of Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha, who has proved to be an unhelpful interlocutor. The return of an ambassador to Damascus could provide channels to bypass Moustapha — and also help avoid an “accident” that, in the atmosphere of rising Syrian-Israeli tensions, could spark a conflict. The ability of U.S. diplomacy to avert a crisis now depends on the Scuds’ current location. Reports citing U.S. and Israeli officials indicate that missiles have crossed the border, but it is unclear how many missiles possibly destined for Hezbollah still remain on Syrian soil. If fighting does break out, diplomats in Washington are concerned that the conflict could distract diplomatic attention from the more pressing U.S. national interest: efforts aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear program. In the event of a regional war, Washington would no doubt be distracted from its task of marshaling international support for U.N. sanctions on Iran. By demonstrating that Hezbollah could not be neutralized without Syrian cooperation, the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war helped break the Assad regime’s international isolation — a lesson not lost on Tehran. Israel has traditionally responded to threats such as these by bombing Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon. However, Israel has indicated privately over the last year that the next conflict could include strikes inside Syria as well, or perhaps target weapons convoys as they cross the porous Syrian-Lebanese border. Although the risks of a Syrian counterstrike are great, some Israeli officials might see an advantage in striking at both Syria’s and Lebanon’s military hardware. Analysts say most decisions to go to war would be based on Israel’s strategic calculations in the north. But there are regionwide calculations over Iran as well. If Israel destroys Hezbollah’s weapons, it could provide a window of time in which Israeli cities are under a decreased threat of missile attack. This would give Israel a perfect opportunity to strike Iran without risking an immediate retaliation from Tehran’s allies to its north. This scenario would not be cost-free for Israel, but given its overriding concern over Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon, Israeli leaders might judge it to be an acceptable level of risk. Given that an Israeli strike on Iran still seems out of the question for the time being, however, this may be one of the reasons why cooler heads have prevailed so far. At the center of this unenviable situation sits ambassador-designate Robert Ford. The surprising escalation on the part of the Syrian regime represents yet another challenge to Obama’s policy of engagement — not to mention regional peace. Quiet diplomacy has so far managed to prevent the situation from disintegrating into an all-out war. However, if Israel locates the Scuds in Lebanon, this deceptive calm might not last for long. Andrew J. Tabler is a Next Generation fellow in the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute.

The Cutting Edge News.

Edge on the Middle East Back to Page One Iranian-Syrian Missile Transfer to Hezbollah Threatens New War in Mideast Andrew Tabler April 19th 2010 Washington Institute Iranian Fatah 100 Missile aka Syrian M-600 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak sent officials in Damascus and Washington scrambling when he claimed on April 13 that Syria is providing the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah with Scud missiles whose accuracy and range threaten more Israeli cities than ever before. His unexpected announcement, though vehemently denied by the Syrian regime, threatens to spark a new war between Israel and its antagonists in the region while further undermining U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts at engagement with Syria. The alleged missile transfer now looms over the Senate confirmation of Obama’s ambassador-designate to Syria, Robert S. Ford, who is slated to be Washington’s first emissary to Damascus in more than five years. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s apparent decision to transfer more accurate and longer-range weapons to Hezbollah is a disheartening development for U.S. officials, who had hoped Obama’s diplomatic opening would lead the Syrian regime to moderate its behavior. As Damascus arms its Lebanese ally with an increasingly lethal array of weaponry, Syria’s credibility as a peace partner for Israel is increasingly in doubt. Weapons have been flowing from Syria to Lebanon for decades. However, in recent months, reports have indicated that the sophistication of the weapons systems provided to Hezbollah has grown. In October 2009, the British military magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that Syria had supplied Hezbollah with M-600 rockets, a Syrian variant of the Iranian Fatah 110, whose rudimentary guidance system can carry a 500-kilogram payload to a target 250 kilometers away. In early March, the head of the research division of the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, that Syria had recently provided Hezbollah with the Igla-S man-portable air defense systems. The shoulder-fired weapon can bring down the Israeli drones, helicopter gunships, and low-flying fighter aircraft that routinely fly over Lebanon to gather intelligence. Reports of increased weapons transfers surfaced again following Ford’s nomination hearing on March 16. Rumors circulated around Capitol Hill that Syria had delivered Scud-D missiles to Lebanon. These reports did not specify whether the missiles were Russian Scud-Ds or Syrian varieties of Scud-Ds, which are upgraded versions of older Scud models that Syria reportedly began producing in mass quantities during the last year. Both missiles have a range of up to 700 kilometers, which means they could hit most, if not all, Israeli cities even if fired from northern Lebanon. Both can carry chemical or biological warheads. Less than a week after a Feb. 17 visit by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns — the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Damascus in more than five years — Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah at a banquet in Damascus. During the visit, Assad openly mocked U.S. efforts to distance Syria from Iran and stated that his government is “preparing ourselves for any Israeli aggression.” These weapons transfers appear to mark a continuation of Assad’s belligerent stance. While Lebanon has long been the battlefield between Syria and Israel, the transfer of these weapons may indicate that the Syrian president is calculating that the next war with Israel could involve strikes on Syrian territory. Conversely, others have postulated that the transfers could also be designed to put pressure on the United States to get Israel back to the negotiating table — a bizarre tactic that is clearly not working. In trying to answer these questions, U.S. congressional leaders — most notably Senator John Kerry — have visited Damascus over the last few weeks and attempted to engage Assad directly on the issue. The results of the meetings have not been made public. Meanwhile in Beirut, the United States is said to have issued a number of diplomatic demarches to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri complaining about the transfers. Given that the Lebanese government exercises no control over the Syrian-Lebanese frontier, the demarches are likely to go unheeded. These revelations have generated conflicting reactions in Washington regarding engagement with Syria. Skeptics say that the uncoordinated engagement by France, Saudi Arabia, the European Union — and now the United States — has fueled a bizarre outbreak of “Syrian triumphalism,” causing Assad to throw caution to the wind. Syria’s decision to send Scuds to Lebanon, they say, proves Damascus is unwilling to distance itself from Tehran. They argue that posting a U.S. ambassador to Syria under current circumstances would send the wrong signal to Damascus and only embolden Assad further. Advocates of deeper engagement with Damascus argue that sending an ambassador will improve communication with the Syrian regime, thereby averting future crises. One unintended byproduct of Washington’s policy of isolating Syria has been the elevation of the importance of Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha, who has proved to be an unhelpful interlocutor. The return of an ambassador to Damascus could provide channels to bypass Moustapha — and also help avoid an “accident” that, in the atmosphere of rising Syrian-Israeli tensions, could spark a conflict. The ability of U.S. diplomacy to avert a crisis now depends on the Scuds’ current location. Reports citing U.S. and Israeli officials indicate that missiles have crossed the border, but it is unclear how many missiles possibly destined for Hezbollah still remain on Syrian soil. If fighting does break out, diplomats in Washington are concerned that the conflict could distract diplomatic attention from the more pressing U.S. national interest: efforts aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear program. In the event of a regional war, Washington would no doubt be distracted from its task of marshaling international support for U.N. sanctions on Iran. By demonstrating that Hezbollah could not be neutralized without Syrian cooperation, the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war helped break the Assad regime’s international isolation — a lesson not lost on Tehran. Israel has traditionally responded to threats such as these by bombing Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon. However, Israel has indicated privately over the last year that the next conflict could include strikes inside Syria as well, or perhaps target weapons convoys as they cross the porous Syrian-Lebanese border. Although the risks of a Syrian counterstrike are great, some Israeli officials might see an advantage in striking at both Syria’s and Lebanon’s military hardware. Analysts say most decisions to go to war would be based on Israel’s strategic calculations in the north. But there are regionwide calculations over Iran as well. If Israel destroys Hezbollah’s weapons, it could provide a window of time in which Israeli cities are under a decreased threat of missile attack. This would give Israel a perfect opportunity to strike Iran without risking an immediate retaliation from Tehran’s allies to its north. This scenario would not be cost-free for Israel, but given its overriding concern over Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon, Israeli leaders might judge it to be an acceptable level of risk. Given that an Israeli strike on Iran still seems out of the question for the time being, however, this may be one of the reasons why cooler heads have prevailed so far. At the center of this unenviable situation sits ambassador-designate Robert Ford. The surprising escalation on the part of the Syrian regime represents yet another challenge to Obama’s policy of engagement — not to mention regional peace. Quiet diplomacy has so far managed to prevent the situation from disintegrating into an all-out war. However, if Israel locates the Scuds in Lebanon, this deceptive calm might not last for long. Andrew J. Tabler is a Next Generation fellow in the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute.