The countdown to a massive aerial bombing of Iran . . . has begun?

Spot the rogue

Prem Shankar Jha

May 4, 2006

The countdown to a massive aerial bombing of Iran, possibly using bunker busting nuclear weapons, has begun. In strict adherence to a script written jointly by the British and US foreign offices and exposed by The Times of London some two months ago, the US, Britain and, surprisingly, France are pushing the UN Security Council towards passing a resolution condemning Iran’s refusal to stop uranium enrichment under chapter 7 of the UN charter. This, as Nicholas Burns of the US State Department reminded reporters, will “make the Security Council’s resolutions mandatory under international law” and justify the imposition of a variety of sanctions. Although Burns did not say so explicitly, reporters were left in no doubt that such a resolution would be a prelude to a surgical strike against Iran. A chapter 7 resolution would provide the fig leaf the US has been looking for.

Such a strike would most probably not be confined to a few key nuclear and missile installations. Pentagon planners made it clear to Seymour Hersh that its purpose would be to prevent Iran from launching any retaliatory strike against international shipping in the straits of Hormuz or other American allies and assets in the Gulf. It would aim at destroying all its airfields, ports, naval installations, submarine depots, missile bases and support facilities. According to one estimate, it would involve strikes on more than a thousand targets. Worst of all, since the Natanz uranium enrichment facility is more than 75 feet underground, the Pentagon has already warned the White House that it will have to use a nuclear weapon to destroy it.

The only hurdle is a possible Russian or Chinese veto of the next resolution. But the US and Britain have worked out a way of securing their compliance by degrees that is a masterpiece of diplomacy. Their strategy has been to play upon all countries’ reluctance to see the emergence of yet another nuclear power, and put forward resolutions that ask Iran to cease and desist, but do not involve the use of force if it refuses. The US and Britain have calculated that each resolution of this kind that the Russians and Chinese support will commit them to the path of escalating the pressure in the next resolution. When the chapter 7 resolution finally comes, they will simply choose the easy way out of abstaining from voting on it.

The US has thus plunged the world back into the ‘state of nature’ from which it had emerged in 1648, and as Thomas Hobbes pointed out, this was also a state of war, at least until another powerful hegemon emerges which can restore order. All the international treaties signed over the past hundred years and more have implicitly assumed the existence of the Westphalian order and acceptance of its basic principles. In destroying the former and repudiating the latter, Bush has destroyed the premises, and thereby invalidated not the just the NPT but all the major international treaties. The repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol, the use of cluster bombs, depleted uranium shells, white phosphorous bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan and the contemplated use of nuclear bunker busters in Iran shows how rapidly other international agreements are unravelling before our eyes.

full article: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1690822,00120001.htm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060504/ts_nm/france_iran_dc_2;_ylt=Aoc87hhDI_PMfDk4KydOi0pSw60A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

"PARIS (Reuters) - Military action is not a "magic wand" that can be used to resolve the international community's standoff with
Iran over its nuclear programme, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Thursday.

He said the international community must look at what tools can be used to put pressure on Iran but said military action in
Iraq and the Middle East showed that it was not a solution.

"My conviction is that military action is certainly no solution," Villepin told a monthly news conference."

the resolution that France helped introduce is a Chapter 7 one with action clauses including sanctions and military force.

They've insisted all along that Iran's nuclear program is a military one. Their calls against military action seem faked.

Villepin is very weak right now for internal reasons and what he says have little weight. Besides he is not the Foreign minister any longer, and the guy who decides in the participation or not is Chirac.

Condi will have special meeting with the actual foreign minister Douste-Blazy

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060504/wl_mideast_afp/usfrancelebanonun_060504075152

And the French carrier group is outside Pakistan right now.

France has supported the US on the Iran question all the time. If there is a UN resolution of use of force, they'll go along. And there will be a UN resolution, because Russia and China will abstain, same story than Gulf War. Of course they'll get some rewards for that....

And I don't think they'll go nuclear. The Allies can cripple Iran's infrastructure without going nuclear, it's more a posture.

Iran has been very open about hardening them against air attack, and time and engineering are on their side. I see more likely airmobile against Iranian nuclear sites which allows them to be dug out, looted, and destroyed, as well as attacks on shore defenses perceived as a threat.

think there will be attacks on Iran this year, if ever.

I must be missing something other people are seeing.

presented itself to Bush as a diversion, a distraction, from his deepening unpopularity, he'd consider it.

There are a multitude of factors complicating getting a coalition of support, but Bush has demonstrated that he's not a deep thinker. There was certainly a host of opposition to the Iraq invasion, including from within the same security council he's got his toadies petitioning today.

Yet, he leapt forward . . .

a war with the second largest producer of oil in the world would create a world wide depression

Thanks for the post.

they're arguably paying more attention to the confrontation than most of our pack media.

without a Declaration of War an impeachable offense???

Just asking....

non-nuclear states, and . . . declarations of war are so 1941.

and diebold

or any President for that matter, making a pre-emptive nuclear attack. Some of the rhetoric getting thrown around is just that, imo, rhetoric.

Or so it seems.

Up until about 48 hours ago, I didn't think much of the possibility of nuking Iran, as I think the pre-emptive use of nukes would lead to near-rioting in the streets. As bellicose as Americans can be, I would like to believe that we'd, as a nation, draw the line at the unprompted use of such weapons.

BUT, that changed when I listened to and read a few things.

I heard a former soldier say that 1 million soldiers have now rotated through Iraq. One. Million. That' mind-boggling.

If we want to wage a land war in Iran, even a small-scale "high value targets only" kind of land war, we're going to need bodies to do it. And we'll still need bodies in Iraq.

So we're almost surely looking at a draft in order to muster the types of numbers we would need. Unless, that is, we use tactical nuclear weapons.

That's how they can sell it: start bringing up the idea of a draft, put people in a mode where they believe Iran is a real threat and yet also worry that their own sons/daughters/brother/sisters/etc might be on the ground doing the fighting. Build up that pressure, then release it by saying "either we use nukes or we have a draft". People would rally behind that in a heartbeat and the administration would have carte blanche to use nukes as they saw fit.

If you start hearing rumblings of a draft in the next few weeks on mainstream news, I'd be willing to bet this scenario is beginning to play itself out, with the strikes coming in late August or early September, as it'll take that long for the pressure to adequately build.

But, this is all just rank theory and speculation and I damn sure hope I'm wrong.

Mostly

PS Tinfoil makes an itchy hat.

Iran will respond to any strike on Natanz with retaliatory strikes on Israels nuclear facilities, U.S. carriers in the Gulf, U.S. Naval bases in the Gulf, possibly major Saudi refineries, and can probably take out quite a bit. These would be mission critical losses for the U.S.

Plus with nukes used in Iran, I'd expect Syria to get involved, with them attacking the same targets, including the use of WMDs against Israeli civilian populations.

And that would mean WWIII, and anything could happen- NK invading SK, China attack Taiwan, civilian uprisings in the U.S., etc.

So I take all this Iran talk as just a distraction.

I don't expect nukes will be used, but I wouldn't rule out an aerial strike at all. Not with this regime in the WH.

will still result in attacks on Israel, possibly a few sunk carriers, destroyed refineries, unprecedented oil crises, several thousand more U.S. dead, and millions more civilians dead.

and I know it.

does Bush?

look what the Iraq invasion has unleashed.

there was no stopping him with the republican Congress.

until we get our party in control, there will be no rationality to anything involving the use of our military.

even then . . . idiocy abounds in this regime.

doesn't matter.

His controllers know it.

The same thing that told me an invasion of Iraq would result in a bloody occupation, years of guerilla warfare, thousands of americans dead, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead.

"If Ben Burch is right - 36 days and counting."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1083036&mesg_id=1083036

Do people really have such short memories? This is the beginning of the second act of a three act play, the third act being an all-out holy war, pitting the U.S. against several hundred millions of Muslims. And this second act has started just like the first.

And again, for the bazillionth time I will ask, "Where is the outrage against this administration?"

Elizabeth Spiro Clark
May 04, 2006

Where are the calls to stop the Bush administration from taking military action against Iran, despite a loud chorus of voices warning of its disastrous consequences? Critics list the consequences—escalation (with no troops to escalate with), oil shocks, increased terrorism, worsening insurgency in Iraq, weakening the nonproliferation regime, a stronger Ahmadinejad, and international isolation—but few come out and call bombing Iran the worst worse-case scenario. The inability of the Democrats to insert themselves into this debate is a factor, but, that aside, it is important to ask why the debate is shaping up as if the Bush administration’s threats are not to be believed . . .

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/04/slouching_towards_tehran.php

:scared:

Sounds like the world as we know it is about to end

(of course, the world as we know it changes from moment to moment anyway)