Right Wing Nut House

If you plan on perusing lefty websites today, I highly recommend you put on a hazmat suit and take along a Geiger counter. Also, please make sure you’re wearing a good pair of cowboy boots because not only is it getting thicker and deeper than usual in moonbat land, but many of the denizens of the fever swamps have detonated their own weapon of mass stupidity regarding the possible use of nuclear weapons by the United States to destroy the underground infrastructure of Iran’s nuclear program.

I personally think military action to take out Iranian nukes is self-defeating. But don’t tell the Iranians that. In fact, the more uncertain President Ahmadinejad is about our intentions, the better.

This little stratagem about keeping the Iranians guessing about our intentions seems to be lost on our rabid dog left wing who have swallowed what is almost certainly a deliberately planned leak on our military options against the mullahs and regurgitated the most hysterical nonsense this side of the Scooter Libby story:

John Aravosis: “Bush is out of control.”

Kevin Drum: “It may or may not be a bluff, but the PR campaign for an air strike against Iran is clearly moving into high gear.”

The Mahablog: “Our President, George W. Bush, has a messiah complex…”

HuffPo: “Imagine the unimaginable: George Bush becoming the first president to use nuclear weapons on another state since Harry Truman, and get this, without even declaring war.”

May we have a little sanity please? Dan Reihl:

To not plan for a possible military option as regards Iran’s nuclear program would be foolish. Emphasis my own, of course one plans for many contingencies. Said planning is as much a part of the diplomatic dialog as anything else and Think Progress and the AP are basically carrying the White House’s water by spreading the report. Too bad they can’t do it less sensationally.

Mr. Reihl tries valiantly to correct the record on what exactly Sy Hersh said in his anonymously sourced article but I fear he is getting the same result as whippoorwill singing in a whirlwind:

We don’t need mushroom clouded brains thinking about and discussing options for Iran just now. We need reasoned debate on a topic which poses a serious risk to world peace. An oil-rich country with no current need for nuclear energy appears determined to develop a nuclear capability, after having declared their desire to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.

No reasonable nation has gone on record as suggesting stopping them is a bad thing, most find it necessary. Planning for that is the prudent step. Characterizing it as demon, warmongering Bush taking up nuclear arms to confront Iran is not only silly, it’s harmful and misleading for the necessary discussion at hand.

Actually, Think Progress has a good round-up of a series of leaks in the past couple of weeks all designed to make the Iranian leadership very, very uncomfortable. Despite their bluster about nothing being able to stop their efforts to develop their “peaceful” use of nuclear energy, the fact is they are scared witless about an American strike. They realize that the military would insist on not only taking out their nuclear infrastructure but also their air defense system and probably their naval capabilities as well. Saddam never did fully rebuild his air defense system following the punishment it took during the Gulf War in 1991. And the Iranians need their navy in order to project the kind of regional hegemony to which they aspire.

One thing for sure; these leaks are putting enormous pressure on the domestic political situation in Iran which now pits the radicals who have pretty much taken over all top government positions against the not-so-radicals who used to run things and are mightily upset that Ahamdinejad has blown their nuclear cover and bollixed things up on the international stage so that Iran is once again a pariah nation:

Many Iranians are critical of Ahmadinejad’s forays into international affairs and his diplomatic blundering. The most intense and meaningful criticism has come from relatively centrist figures who represent an older generation of politicians - former Presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, for example. They have spoken out against the undoing of their work, particularly the painstaking restoration of Iran’s relations with the international community.

[...]

The international isolation Iran is facing due to its intransigence has contributed to the growth of fissures within Iran’s body politic. In an effort to end public debate on this subject and criticism of the executive, Rafsanjani announced at a March 8 meeting of the Assembly of Experts - a popularly elected body of 86 clerics tasked with supervising the supreme leader - that it was time for national unity in the face of “enemy” plots. Divisive comments, he said, undermined national unity.

The next day, Ahmadinejad accused unnamed Iranians of being agents of an enemy trying to divide the country. These efforts, he continued, were connected with the desire to undermine Iran’s nuclear pursuits. And on March 10, Friday prayer leader Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami’s sermon in Tehran, which was broadcast across the country by state radio, shed light on the political coloring of the call for unity. Khatami (no relation to the former president) noted that the current nuclear policy was not Ahmadinejad’s alone and had been shaped years earlier. “The decision was first taken during the previous government’s term of office. The current government is implementing the same decision now.” As for domestic critics, he said, “When the time comes, the great Iranian nation will give a harsh response to the insiders who move in the same direction as the enemies, just as it has given decisive responses to foreigners.”

And into this charged up atmosphere comes the anti-Bush forces screaming, in effect, that it is unfair not to tell Iran that we have no intention of using nuclear weapons or initiate a military strike of any sort. The left calls this “confidence building” - which is a pretty good descriptive except the only people’s confidence such a tactic builds is our own domestic moonbats whose opinion and confidence in their own superior moral certitude is affirmed. Meanwhile, our enemies snicker behind their hands and keep building their nuclear capability.

This past week has seen the Jack-in-the-Box left in all of it’s glorious moonbattery jumping up and down over a story that not only has been reported before but which promises to actually vindicate Bush in his denial that he ever told anyone to leak Valerie Plame’s name.

Given what’s at stake in Iran, I would hope that whatever the Administration decides to do about it, most of us from both the right and left would be supportive. I honestly don’t think the military option is in play in any serious way. Only if we discovered that Iran was closer to building a bomb than we thought or if they gave reliable indications that they were planning on using such a weapon against Israel or the United States would we go with a military option.

And there is absolutely zero chance - zero, zip, nada - of the US using nuclear weapons on Iran. Even with nukes that will detonate below the surface, there is going to be massive radioactive fallout drifting toward Russia - something I’m sure would cause President Putin to cancel his membership in the Official US Fan Club.

But for the loony left, it’s just one more way to bash Bush. So let them have their fun. It’s actually playing into the Administration’s strategy to give the Iranians pause and make them realize we can cause serious damage to both their military infrastructure and political unity.

Costs and benefits.

Short of all out war with a clear strategic goal such as unconditional surrender of the enemy, any military action taken by the United States must, in the end, take into account the price we will pay - human, economic, strategic - versus the benefits that will accrue to us in taking that action.

And if one were to tote up on paper the pluses and minuses of bombing Iranian nuclear sites to prevent the Iranian wildmen for getting their hands on a nuclear device, it would not be a pretty picture.

We would need an additional page or two for the minuses.

The gamble we took in Iraq was, at the time of the invasion, a good bet. There the potential gains to our security and our overall strategy in the Middle East far outweighed the minuses of roiling the volatile Arab street and spurring al Qaeda’s recruitment. As the war has gone on, however, the tote board is starting to look more and more even. There is still much to be gained with a successful conclusion to the Iraq operation (although lowering our sights as far as what can be realistically accomplished is now part of the game) and, of course, we’ve already benefited from getting rid of Saddam. But the minuses are starting to pile up and very soon we will be faced with the prospect of Iraq becoming a zero sum game with whatever benefits accruing to our security and strategic position in the Middle East being offset by losses to our overall security posture and an actual diminishing of our influence in the region.

We are not at that point yet in Iraq. But it is on the horizon. And if we ever do reach the point of diminishing returns outweighing any possible gain, we will have to reassess whether it is morally right to ask our men and women to remain in harms way for a cause in which there is no foreseeable gain to the United States.

One sure way to make Iraq a lost cause is to bomb Iran. If we were to take that step, the insurgents in Iraq would be joined by the two largest Shia militias - Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army and the largest pro-Iranian militia the Badr Brigade - in armed opposition. That would put at least 350,000 angry Shias in direct military confrontation with US forces, scramble the political situation perhaps beyond salvage, and almost guarantee a humiliating retreat by US forces. Any guesses about what kind of state would emerge from this chaos?

That’s for starters. The probability of Iranian missile counterstrikes against our bases in the Middle East not to mention their ability to attack our troops in Iraq would also have to go into the ledger under “minuses” when contemplating military action against the mullahs.

How about the economic impact of a strike on Iranian nuclear infrastructure? While I have complete confidence in our navy to severely degrade the Iranian capability to interdict shipping through the Straits of Hormuz, I doubt whether we would be able to destroy their ability to cause enormous problems for tankers making their way through that vital choke point.

At its narrowest, the Straits are only 34 miles wide - easy striking distance for a variety of land-to-ship missiles that the mullahs have been buying from the French, the Chinese, and the Russians over the last two years in anticipation of just such an eventuality. It is doubtful we could destroy all of them. And what would be the resulting increase in the cost of a barrel of oil if the Iranians managed to sink a couple of tankers in the Straits? Estimates range from a premium on the spot market of $20 BBL to $50 BBL which would put the cost of a gallon of gas at between $3.05 and $4.85 a gallon (2.5 cents rise per dollar increase in a BBL with a baseline of of $2.60 per gallon - which is what it is at the gas station around the corner from where I live).

Ask an independent trucker what $5 a gallon for deisel would do to his business. And these independents carry 80% of our food from distribution centers to the grocery store not to mention stocking shelves in a wide variety of other retail businesses. If a significant number of them were unable to make a living hauling freight, the consequences to the cost of living, employment, interest rates, and a wide variety of other economic indicators would be pretty grim.

Then there is the probability that the Iranians would engage in so-called “asymmetrical warfare” or terrorism. The WaPo article detailing this eventuality makes for some pretty frightening reading:

Former CIA terrorism analyst Paul R. Pillar said that any U.S. or Israeli airstrike on Iranian territory “would be regarded as an act of war” by Tehran, and that Iran would strike back with its terrorist groups. “There’s no doubt in my mind about that. . . . Whether it’s overseas at the hands of Hezbollah, in Iraq or possibly Europe, within the regime there would be pressure to take violent action.”

Finally, from all accounts I’ve read, since it is extremely unlikely we will be able to delay the Iranian nuclear program more than 2 or 3 years, one must also factor in the probability when the Iranians rebuild their infrastructure, they will make it that much harder for us to strike the next time.

John McCain has been quoted as saying “[T]here’s only one thing worse than the United States exercising the military option; that is a nuclear-armed Iran.” Clearly that is incorrect. There are several things worse than a nuclear armed Iran starting with the probability of a humiliating defeat in Iraq, moving on to a severe downturn in our economy, followed by increasing instability in the Middle East, and ending up with the real possibility of a 9/11 type attack by Iranian supported terrorists.

Of course, discussion of Iranian nuclear weapons has to include what options are available to Israel. And surprisingly, those options seem to be few and far between:

[O]ne of the take-aways from my recent Israel trip is that Israeli national security bureaucrats — diplomats and generals — have far greater confidence that there are numerous potential solutions to the growing Iran crisis short of bombing them in an invasive, hot attack.

One of the issues that came up in many of the national security related discussions I had was that Israel has maintained and cultivated a very strong human intelligence network inside Iran. The two nations were close strategic allies 25 years ago — and continue, in many behind-the- scenes ways, to communicate and possibly even to coordinate certain actions. It doesn’t mean that Israel is ready to appease Iran’s regional ambitions, but it does mean that I have witnessed far more worries about Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s anti-Holocaust and anti-Israel rhetoric in the U.S. than I did in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

Many serious Iran watchers in Israel think that chances are relatively high that “internal developments” will emerge in Iran to constrain Ahmadinejad’s “political options and political life.”

TALK TO THE ISRAELIS — the ones responsible for national security there. I found their sensibilities on Iran to be remarkably well informed, nuanced, confident, and sensible.

Nearly everyone I spoke to in Israel who ranged in political sympathies from the Likud right to Maretz left thought that the tone of the AIPAC conference had been too shrill and that Israel thought it wrong-headed and too impulsive to be engaged in saber-rattling with Iran at this stage.

In the past, I’ve been occasionally critical of Israeli influence over U.S. decisionmakers when I felt that American and Israeli national security interests were not as convergent in some respective case as some argued. However, in this instance on Iran, Israel’s national security thinkers and diplomats are on the side of logic — and it is in American national interests to hear the Israeli position and consider the roots of their surprising position.

I would be perhaps less sanguine about a regime change having any effect whatsoever on Iranian nuclear ambitions. The only alternative at this point seems to be former President Rafsanjani who initiated the Iranian nuclear program in the first place back in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. Combine that with a clear mandate from the Iranian people - who, like the Pakistani people see building a nuclear device as a question of national pride - and it becomes clear that even if the Supreme Council roused itself and ousted President Ahmadinejad, nothing would change in the Iranian drive to build nukes.

Israel is the one nation that would be in the Iranian crosshairs from the minute the mullahs went nuclear. And if the Jewish state is resigned to the Iranians getting nukes, then perhaps we should be looking at what our regional response should be in that context.

This monograph by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) examined the question of what the United States could do in the region with a nuclear armed Iran. Here are some of their options:

* Engage in traditional deterrent strategies such as making it clear to Tehran that the use or threatening the use of nuclear weapons has reciprocal disadvantages to the regime.

* Allow the development of nuclear weapons by states threatened by Iran such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

* Employ a regional military strategy against the regime by building credible alliances.

* Work with dissident groups to create an armed, united opposition that could affect regime change.

These are just a few of the unsatisfactory but realistic options open to us if we resign ourselves to the reality of the Iranian government going nuclear. The question then becomes, are they better than bombing?

In the short term, one would have to say it’s a wash - equally bad outcomes to a bad situation. But in the longer term, the non-military options have a chance of isolating the Iranians and confronting their ambitions in the region. For those reasons, I think that unless something dramatic happens to change the situation, as it stands now the best course of action for the United States is to follow non-military actions, proceeding from the assumption that the Iranians will have a bomb in 3-5 years.

With their oil wealth, an exploding population that is becoming increasingly literate, and economic and strategic alliances forming with both Russia and China, Iran is going to be a threat to the region with or without nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future. By forgoing the military option, we can still confront the mullahs and stifle their dreams of dominating the region with their nuclear arsenal.

Leave it to Mohammed ElBaradei to make the world safe for Iranian nukes.

Scurrying hither and thither like some kind of peripatetic Energizer Bunny, the head of the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Nobel Peace Prize winner has been a busy little bee since breathing fire and talking tough a few weeks ago regarding Iranian nukes. At that point, 27 out of 35 nations voted to take Iran to the Security Council woodshed so that economic sanctions could be considered.

Not so fast says our fearless watchpuppy:

TEHRAN, Feb. 20, 2006 (UPI) — The head of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog agency claims the threat of sanctions against Iran will make the current nuclear program standoff worse.

Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said threatening sanctions on Iran for operating a uranium enrichment plant will make matters worse and in the end won’t work because China and Russia — two veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council — oppose sanctions.

ElBaradei also said Iran has a sovereign right to operate the plant and feels the course to go is strike a deal to limit enrichment, Itar-Tass reports.

Please note first how we have gone from trying to prevent Iran from enriching uranium to limiting their enrichment. In other words, instead of allowing their centrifuges once fully operational to enrich enough uranium to make 30 nuclear bombs a year, maybe we should only allow them the ability to create 20 ten kiloton nuclear warheads.

Super.

This is the same Mohammed ElBaradei who leaked the bogus information about missing explosives from al Qaqaa one week before the US presidential election in 2004 trying to influence the outcome. It’s the same Mohammed ElBaradei who allowed Saddam Hussein to keep 500 tons of yellowcake uranium at a nuclear site in Iraq called Al-Tuwaitha until the US military carted away the fissile material in disgust following the fall of Baghdad. This is the same Mohammed ElBaradei who insisted that North Korea’s nuclear program was peaceful. Ditto for ElBaradei regarding Iran.

And now that every country on the planet knows that Iran is working as fast as it can to gather enough enriched uranium to blow Israel off the map (and God knows who else) we have our brave UN Nuclear Enabler-in-Chief backing down from his original position of trying to beat some sense into the radioactive mullahs in Iran. So what has changed since earlier this month? It appears that ElBaradei, like most bureaucrats, hates confrontation - despite the fact that part of his job description is confronting rogue nuclear states - and doesn’t want to “make things worse.”

Excuse me, would someone please bop the Nobel Prize winner on the head and ram a steel rod up his backside to stiffen his spine just a touch? This is what President Ahmadinejad has been counting on all along; that the UN and the west just don’t have the stomach for this confrontation. Couple that with the machinations of the inscrutable Chinese and the extraordinary cynicism of Russia and you have the recipe for a full fledged meltdown of international will when it comes to placing a stop order on the desires of the fanatics in Tehran to get their hands on the ultimate defense against cartoon blasphemy.

At least western Europe appears to be waking up and may be willing to initiate some kind of sanctions regime with the US even if China and/or Russia veto such a proposal in the Security Council. And even if they don’t veto it, watch for the proposal to be so watered down as to be almost meaningless anyway.

When the history of the beginning of the 21st century is written - if we are vouchsafed such a luxury - let it be said that the international institution whose primary responsibility it was to prevent the one country in human history with a desire to bring about Armageddon failed miserably to stand up and be counted when it counted the most.

Anyone who has read Richard Rhodes Pulitzer Prize winning book The Making of the Atomic Bomb knows the awesome technical problems that had to be overcome by the scientists and engineers who worked on America’s Manhattan Project. And while the Iranian’s clearly have something of a head start in that many of the concepts worked out at Los Alamos have since entered the public domain via leaks and through books like Rhodes, the fact is that there are some aspects to building a bomb that are still closely guarded secrets and require a level of technical expertise not readily found in a third world country like Iran.

There are several ways around the technical problems that are being encountered by Iran as they seek to construct a nuclear weapon. Experts from other nuclear powers like China, Pakistan, and especially North Korea have probably already contributed to Iran’s enrichment program. This has been a given since we uncovered the nuclear bazaar being operated by the “Father of the Pakistani bomb” A.Q. Khan. There is little doubt that Dr. Khan was able to greatly assist the mullahs in the 1990’s with both the knowledge and sources for hardware that the Iranians will need to go nuclear. And perhaps most frighteningly (and blessedly least likely) is that the Iranians have been able to secure a quantity of enriched uranium (U-235) that they have already used to construct several crude nuclear devices.

That nightmare scenario cannot be ruled out but is unlikely due to the extraordinary difficulty in extracting the highly enriched (HE) uranium from what is commonly called yellowcake or Uranium Hexafluoride. The conversion process is technically challenging and very expensive which would make it difficult for all nuclear powers with the possible exception of China and Russia to be marketing the material to the Iranians. Countries like India, Pakistan, and North Korea would not have enough U-235 to spare. Since it takes around 125-150 lbs of HE Uranium to build even the crude “gun design” device that the US dropped on Hiroshima and since in order to get that amount of nearly pure U-235 you need to have several hundred tons of yellowcake to work with, it would be highly unlikely for any secondary nuclear power to sell the mullahs what they need to construct a nuclear device.

If we assume the Iranians have the technical expertise to enrich uranium, how long then do we have before Iran gets the bomb? A National Intelligence Estimate leaked to the Washington Post and New York Times (natch!) last summer indicated that our government believes the Iranians are a decade away from being able to explode a nuclear device. Given the history of the CIA’s prognostication abilities with regards to countries going nuclear, that time frame should not give comfort to anyone with an ounce of common sense. The Israeli’s on the other hand believe that Iran could be nuclear capable by the end of this decade (2009). The difference is significant in that the Mossad probably has better in country sources than the CIA.

So unless the Iranians have hidden much more of their nuclear program than anyone is aware - a difficult concept to entertain given that the movement of nuclear materials is carefully watched - it is likely that we still have 3-5 years before we would be forced to act.

Some of the major technical hurdles that Iranians have to overcome in order to build a bomb are outlined in this excellent article by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis of the blog Arms Control Wonk. Lewis is on the board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and an arms control expert. What impressed me most about this article was his patient explanations of the engineering problems the Iranians have already experienced as well as what lies in store for them as they seek to build the infrastructure necessary to enrich uranium:

David Albright and Corey Hinderstein at the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) released an estimate that breaks down the steps for Iran to make fissile material for a bomb, along with a nifty satellite image (at right) of Iran’s Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz.

Most references to Iran being “months” away from a bomb are really statements about how close Iran will be once it completes the FEP—something, as you will soon see, that will take a few years.

[snip]

So, the real question, however, is how quickly Iran could assemble and operate 1,500 centrifuges in a crash program to make enough HEU for one bomb (say 15-20 kg).

Albright and Hinderstein have created a notional timeline for such a program:

Assemble 1,300-1,600 centrifuges. Assuming Iran starts assembling centrifuges at a rate of 70-
100/month, Iran will have enough centrifuges in 6-9 months.

Combine centrifuges into cascades, install control equipment, building feed and withdrawal systems, and test the Fuel Enrichment Plant. 1 year

Enrich enough HEU for a nuclear weapon. 1 year

Weaponize the HEU. A “few” months.

Total time to the bomb—about three years.

Please note that this would be a “crash” program and that the date 2009 dovetails nicely with the Israeli estimate.

While most experts believe that the Iranians will eventually have 50,000 centrifuges housed in the FEP at Natanz, the best estimate is that they currently only have 1000 - 1500 on hand, hence the long lead time between getting the enrichment plant up and running and converting enough U-235 to build a workable bomb. At full capacity, the plant should be able to enrich enough uranium to make 25-30 bombs a year.

Is this how the CIA calculated that it would take the Iranians a decade to produce a bomb? It would certainly take years to install 50,000 centrifuges and get them synced up so that they would work properly. If this is the case, it is interesting that they left the fact out of their leaks that the Iranians could engage in a crash program in enrichment that would cut the lead time for bomb building almost in half.

That said, as Dr. Lewis points out, even a crash program in enrichment would not guarantee an Iranian bomb in 3 years:

The interesting question is what technical problems the US IC expects Iran to encounter. The thing about a crash program is that things, well, crash.

The engineering tolerances necessary to spin a centrifuge at supersonic speed in order to separate isotopes are extremely difficult to achieve. And each centrifuge must act in concert with the others so that all 1500 machines are working together. Called a “cascade,” Lewis points out that this may be just one of several technical hurdles the Iranians must overcome even in a crash program.

If all this is true, the good news is we have time - time to get serious about working with dissident groups in Iran to affect regime change. Because in the end, no other option seems viable at this point. The fact is that the Iranians could hurt us in retaliation far more than we could hurt them by taking out their nuclear capability. And with not much prospect of European cooperation on meaningful sanctions, the regime change route may be our best bet to thwart the murderous designs of the mullahs.

UPDATE

Dr. Lewis has published Part II of his 3 part series “Iran and the Bomb” which deals with the difficulties in warhead development for Iranian missiles.

UPDATE II

Aziz P. at Dean’s World nails it:

The analysis by ArmsControlWonk is thorough and detailed and goes into the specifics of nuclear production - including a very relevant discussion of lead. I urge everyone to read the full post. The bottom line: Iran is at least three years away from the bomb, even with the unrealistic assumption that the engineering is flawless enough to avoid even a single technical problem.

It is deeply troubling that instead of discussing how we might facilitate the birth of a new Iran, we are instead talking about “Hobbesian choices” and hinting darkly at 100 million potential dead in the middle east - by our hands. How noble of us! How monstrous. Preemptive war is one thing; preemptive genocide another.

And as Aziz makes clear in his own post (read the whole thing), it would betray our new found sense of mission to spread democracy in the Middle East if we were to bomb the Iranians with all the misery that would entail for the Iranian people - who would surely rally around the mullahs - as well as expose our own vulnerabilities to Iranian countermeasures.

The point I was trying to make is that we have time. Let’s put it to good use.

See also Demosophists analysis of a piece from Stratfor by George Friedman at the Jawa Report that is well worth your time.

When it comes to Iran possessing nuclear weapons, there appears to be general agreement on the right that the mad mullahs must be prevented from getting them at all costs. There is the recognition that Iran is being led by if not irrational, then certainly fanatical people who don’t see nuclear weapons as a deterrent but rather as a way to realize their stated goal of wiping Israel off the map. And there is also the fear that Iran wouldn’t hesitate to give weapons to one or more of the numerous terrorist groups that Tehran sponsors around the world. This would put the United States directly at risk for a nuclear strike, something policy makers have said is unacceptable.

But is all this true? And even if it is, should the United States seek to destroy or set back the Iranian nuclear program by taking military action against the Islamic state?

In answering those questions, we must also think the unthinkable; that the consequences involved with taking military action are so severe that it may be better to try and deal with a nuclear Iran rather than initiate actions that could lead to economic and strategic catastrophe for the United States.

The first question deals with the intent of the Iranian government. Clearly, President Ahmadinejad was chosen to lead Iran at this juncture by his mentor Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei not in spite of his radicalism but because of it. Ahmadinejad’s engineered victory at the polls last June must be seen in the context of a belief by Iranian leaders that the time is ripe for a showdown with Israel and the west and that having a true believer at the helm like Ahmadinejad serves the purpose of rallying the still large numbers of Iranians who believe fervently in the Islamic revolution. With the United States military heavily engaged in Iraq, Israel increasingly isolated internationally, and Europe sinking into a cynicism and defeatism about defending itself, the theocrats in Iran seem to have carefully analyzed the strategic situation and come to the conclusion that they have an approximately 2 year window in which to realize their nuclear ambitions.

After two years, the chances are that more vigorous leadership will take over in Europe as the right is making something of a comeback in response to deteriorating economic conditions as well as a realization that Muslim immigration is tearing at the fabric of European societies. And in two years, there is the probability that the American military will largely be freed of its obligations in Iraq as the new government should be far enough along in being able to handle their own security that our troops should be able to stand down. Also, if the peace process continues apace in Israel, there is a good chance that the Jewish state will become less isolated especially with the prospect of rapprochement with less antagonistic governments in Europe.

Clearly the intent of the Iranian government is to force the issue now while they believe they hold the upper hand. In this respect, they may be correct. For the foreseeable future, there simply is no way to thwart Iranian nuclear designs short of invasion and regime change. Even the kind of sustained bombing campaign military analysts say would be necessary - one that lasts weeks and targets perhaps hundreds of Iranian sites - would only set back the Iranian nuclear program not destroy it.

Then there would be the Iranian reaction to deal with. You can be sure that the mullahs will not sit back and fail to respond to such a massive military intervention, even if we are able to build a coalition of Europeans and Arab states to help take part in the operation. Some of the options open to the mullahs are downright frightening:

* Attacking ships moving through the narrow Straits of Hormuz, a choke point where 20% of the world’s oil flows daily.

* Blockading the straits by either using their increasingly capable navy or simply sinking several vessels at a strategic point that would block traffic.

* Launching a counterstrike against American positions in Iraq with hundreds of short and medium range missiles.

* Imposing an oil embargo on any nation that participates in an attack.

While it is true we have lessened our own dependence on Middle Eastern oil over the last quarter of a century, that fact wouldn’t stop the speculators from driving the price of oil over $100 per barrel or higher. I daresay if you were to talk to an independent trucker in the United States (and they are responsible for moving more than 70% of the food that ends up in grocery stores) they would tell you that with diesel at more than $7 a gallon they would be unable to stay in business. This fact alone would be bad enough. But the consequences of such a catastrophic rise in the price of oil would be felt in all sectors of the economy. Hardest hit would be the industrial sector where plastic, petrochemical, and other oil sensitive industries would be devastated. The chances are good that hundreds of thousands of people would be thrown out of work with the effects of such a catastrophe rippling through the service sector of the economy causing even more unemployment. Travel and tourism would also be hit hard with the already shaky airline industry probably facing either massive government bailouts or outright nationalization in order to keep them flying.

Other less serious consequences of a strike against Iran would be in undermining our alliances in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia and Egypt as well as complicating the domestic political situation in Iraq. There would be a backlash by Iraqi Shi’ites against any attack against the Shi’ite regime in Iran with the frightening possibility of some of the more radical militias going to open warfare against American troops. That scenario, although not likely, is still a real possibility and one that may mitigate against attacking Iran altogether.

The Iranians are not unaware of these scenarios which is one reason they are gambling that the west will bluster and talk tough while in the end, acquiesce to the Islamic state becoming a nuclear power.

Must this be the end result? Shouldn’t we ignore the consequences outlined above and bomb anyway?

We may end up doing just that. But when military action fails to achieve even the modest objectives we set out to accomplish - significantly delaying the Iranian bomb program - while causing very serious economic and strategic problems for the west, what is the point in attacking in the first place?

This monograph published by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) should be read by all if only because it so thoroughly examines the situation in Iran from both a diplomatic and military point of view. Richard Fernandez comments on the findings of the SSI study while reminding us of the political problems in the west that make any kind of military action against the mullahs problematic:

An earlier post argued that only a regime change could keep Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon. Since the US Army War College paper cannot envision that happening in the short term, what we are left with then, is a new Cold War with an ideology as strong — and probably much stronger than — Marxism in its prime. It’s hard to remember, now that the Berlin wall is a relic whose fragments have literally been sold for souvenirs, how perilous a time the Cold War was. It took more than 100,000 American lives on the battlefields of Korea and Vietnam. On at least once occasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US and the Soviet Union came close to the nuclear brink. The difference between the Cold War and the new prospective struggle is that the former was between nations while the latter is between nations and secret societies bound together only by a common hatred.

Diplomats and statesmen since the Treaty of Westphalia had grown accustomed to seeing nothing smaller than nation-states. This conceptual blindness prevented foreign ministries, academics or the United Nations — the very name a testament to the limits of its sensibility — from understanding that sub-national units under the banner of a world religion could arise to challenge the established international order.

[...]

…[T]he Western intellectual elite watched the growing number of Wahabist mosques, the photography of landmarks, the application for flying lessons and the attendance at courses of nuclear physics by students from older worlds. They laughed, for nothing could threaten the dominion of Western Man, supreme in his socialized state at the End of History. Even after September 11 the only question for many was how soon history would return to normal after a temporary inconvenience. Little did they imagine that the expansion of the European Union, the Kyoto Agreements and Reproductive Rights — all the preoccupations of their unshakable world — might be the least of humanity’s concerns in the coming years.

The Bush Administration has failed to do the kind of heavy lifting necessary to build up the various Iranian dissident groups and help them coalesce into a united opposition over the past 5 years. We are now paying for this shortsightedness by not having any viable non-military options when it comes to thwarting the designs of the mullahs to become a nuclear power. Yes, we may hit enough of the Iranian nuclear sites, causing damage that would result in setting back their bomb making program temporarily. But at what cost to ourselves and our allies?

If Iran is going to get nuclear weapons despite anything we do short of invasion, regime change, and occupation, then wouldn’t be better to contain their ambitions to become a dominant regional power? The SSI study outlines several approaches we can take to deal with a nuclear Iran:

* Engage in traditional deterrent strategies such as making it clear to Tehran that the use or threatening the use of nuclear weapons has reciprocal disadvantages to the regime.

* Allow the development of nuclear weapons by states threatened by Iran such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

* Employ a regional military strategy against the regime by building credible alliances.

* Work with dissident groups to create an armed, united opposition that could affect regime change.

From my own point of view, there are a couple of troubling aspects to this strategy, not the least of which is the assumption that the Iranians are sane and would respond to our deterrence in more or less a rational manner.

One author of the study, Michael Eisenstadt (”Deter and Contain, pg. 225), goes so far as to say that the bloodcurdling language used by the mullahs is for all intents and purposes for domestic consumption and that when it comes to the language of deterrence, the Iranians sound rational:

The perception, however, of Iran as an irrational, undeterrable state with a high pain threshold is both anachronistic and wrong. Within the context of a relatively activist foreign policy, Iranian decision makers have generally sought to minimize risk by shunning direct confrontation and by acting through surrogates (such as the Lebanese Hizballah) or by means of stealth (Iranian small boat and mine operations against shipping in the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War) in order to preserve deniability and create ambiguity about their intentions. Such behavior is evidence of an ability to engage in rational calculation and to accurately assess power relationships.

One might add, “you hope.” This piece was written before President Ahmadinjad ascended to power which may or may not have changed Mr. Eisenstadt’s tune.

Despite this, I still think military action against the Iranians may be necessary - but only if we get a clearer picture of the consequences of such actions. How much support would we have from the world? From other oil producing states? From our allies? What would Russia and China do? Would Arab governments support us?

All of these questions can be answered and work in our favor only through careful and patient diplomacy. From my point of view, military action wouldn’t make sense unless it improved the situation. If it can’t do that, then it would only highlight our impotence when Iran eventually got the bomb. And that could be just as dangerous as anything we can imagine the mad mullahs doing to us.

A gathering of wise men (and woman) has been called by the President ostensibly to discuss the situation in Iraq:

It will be an unusual sight on Thursday in the Roosevelt Room of White House, and deliberately so: President Bush will engage in a consultation of sorts with a bipartisan collection of former secretaries of state and defense.

Among them will be several who have left little doubt that they think Mr. Bush has dangerously mishandled Iraq, ignored other looming crises, and put critical alliances at risk.

The meeting was called by the White House, which sent out invitations just before Christmas to everyone who once held those jobs.

The invitees were told that they were being asked to attend a briefing on Iraq and other issues. It was unclear, one recipient said, “how interested they are in what we are thinking.”

This could be, as some invitees have speculated, window dressing for the President’s continuing efforts to sell the Iraq War to the American people. Or, it could be something much more ominous.

Following on the heels of last weekend’s leak to Der Speigle about our contingency plans to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, this gathering could be one more signal we are sending to the Iranians that we are deathly serious about preventing them from building a nuclear weapon. Since Iran is going to be on the agenda, the President may want to gage what kind of support he can expect from Democratic heavy hitters if he feels it necessary to escalate the crisis, probably within a few weeks.

Key to this strategy will be two individuals respected by the liberal press and Democratic members of Congress; former Secretary’s of State Madeline Albright and Colin Powell.

Powell would probably support toughening our stance in the UN and perhaps even some kind of sanctions regime. Albright is another story. Architect of what she considered a successful nuclear containment policy in North Korea (she blames Bush for the collapse of the inspections in 2002), it is doubtful she would advocate anything outside of that being offered by the European Union’s “Big Three” - Britain, France, and Germany. Those three countries have been negotiating with Iran for almost a year about trying to safeguard their nuclear program and keep the mullahs from processing enough fissionable uranium to build a bomb. The Iranians, of course, have been playing the Europeans for fools as they blow hot and cold on negotiations, all the while continuing to expand their enrichment efforts. The latest offer by the EU - to allow Russia to enrich the uranium - has been rejected by President Ahmadinejad who continues to bait both Israel and the United States, daring us to attack him.

In fact, Ahmadinejad recently made it plain that he feels negotiations with the EU is a waste of time:

In a closed-door meeting with parliament’s Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, Ahmadinejad said that under former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami Iran had tried to appease Europe.

“On foreign policy, Ahmadinejad said that during the last sixteen years, we adopted a detente policy … but in practice this policy had not achieved anything for Iran,” Kazem Jalali, a member of the committee, told the official IRNA news agency.

By the end of Khatami’s second term in 2004 “we were distanced from the goals of the (1979 Islamic) Revolution and our activity in the Islamic world had been somewhat diminished,” Jalali quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

(HT: LGF)

Meanwhile, the Iranians appear to be scouring Europe for the hardware to construct a working nuclear device:

The Iranian government has been successfully scouring Europe for the sophisticated equipment needed to develop a nuclear bomb, according to the latest western intelligence assessment of the country’s weapons programmes.
Scientists in Tehran are also shopping for parts for a ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe, with “import requests and acquisitions … registered almost daily”, the report seen by the Guardian concludes.

The warning came as Iran raised the stakes in its dispute with the United States and the European Union yesterday by notifying the International Atomic Energy Authority that it intended to resume nuclear fuel research next week. Tehran has refused to rule out a return to attempts at uranium enrichment, the key to the development of a nuclear weapon.

All of this adds up to a brewing crisis that will require the Administration to make a decision; do we acquiesce and accept an Iranian fait accompli on their building and deploying a nuclear weapon or do we try and use every means necessary to prevent it?

There are things short of bombing that we can do. The UN Security Council would be useful except that both Russian and China - who have both recently signed lucrative commercial deals with Iran - would be expected to veto any sanctions regime or military action contemplated by the SC. And there is the possibility that we could initiate a naval blockade. This would be extraordinarily risky because Iran has been armed by both the Chinese and the French with modern anti-ship missiles. And in the duck pond of the Persian Gulf, our ships would have only minutes notice before one or more of those missiles were upon them. While our anti-missile defense is the best in the world (Aegis Cruisers are designed to protect the battle group in just such a circumstance) they would probably need more time to be effective. I daresay the Navy would be extremely reluctant to undertake any blockade that would put so many ships and men at risk.

It certainly looks like a job for the Air Force. That is, if the President has the courage to buck the left, the MSM, and probably a majority of Democrats not to mention 9/10 of the rest of the world.

And what of all these respected national leaders called to the White House to discuss Iraq and “other matters?” The Democrats in the group (and probably some Republicans) think that Bush has ignored them for 5 years and why should they pull his chestnuts out of the fire now? It’s a fair question and here’s a fair answer; because it is vital to our survival as a nation that on the issue of preventing Iran from getting its hands on nuclear weapons, we speak with one voice. In fact, perhaps the only way to prevent military action against Iran is to convince Ahmadinejad that there is no chance - zero - that they will escape military action by trying to play one faction off of another here in America. We must convince him that he has no choice but to submit to some kind of international inspections regime that will be stringent enough to give us confidence that they can’t circumvent it and build a nuke anyway.

Otherwise, it will be a bombing campaign with risks that I spell out here.

Will factionalism be the death of us all? A significant portion of the answer to that question may be answered tomorrow at a meeting of some of the wisest heads in the foreign policy and defense establishment.

In diplomacy, this is called “sending a message.” Or, if you are President of a country that is seeking to build nuclear weapons, it is called “The Voice of Doom:”

According to Ulfkotte’s report, “western security sources” claim that during CIA Director Porter Goss’ Dec. 12 visit to Ankara, he asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide support for a possibile 2006 air strike against Iranian nuclear and military facilities. More specifically, Goss is said to have asked Turkey to provide unfettered exchange of intelligence that could help with a mission.

DDP also reported that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan have been informed in recent weeks of Washington’s military plans. The countries, apparently, were told that air strikes were a “possible option,” but they were given no specific timeframe for the operations.

(HT: Ed Morrissey)

Gee…I wonder how Der Spiegel got a hold of that little tidbit of information? So does Misha:

So it all comes down to a leak (intentional, no doubt) to Der Spiegel which is high on innuendo and low on actual useful facts. Yep, it’s a plant alright.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t planning an attack, since it should be pretty damn obvious to anybody with a functioning brain that negotiations aren’t working one little bit and time is running out — FAST. If we don’t, the Israelis will do it alone, because they have no choice.

In his book The White House Years, Henry Kissinger relates several anecdotes about how this leaking occurs. The subtlty varies from case to case, but it basically comes down to a little game that’s played by the US government and the media. The media knows the story is a plant but plays along because the news is just too juicy to pass up. It is also not uncommon to use foreign media to break the story. In Nixon’s case, I’m sure the enmity of the American press towards his administration had something to do with that. But it also reflects a need on the part of government to get the story maximum impact. If the Iran story had appeared first in the American press, it would have been interpreted through the prism of partisan politics and media bias. This way, the “first draft” of the story comes out raw so that the impact on the target nation - Iran - isn’t cushioned by the Washington Post or New York Times running stories with opposing viewpoints from Democratic party politicians.

This leak is not very subtle in its implications. The reason for that is simple; the United States government feels it absolutely vital that Iran get the message clearly and unmistakably. Also, it is hard to match the subtley of Ahmadinejad whose diplomatic tip toeing resembles an elephant walking across a field of eggshells. Saying you will “wipe Israel off the map” is not very subtle and hence, the response “we will bomb the crap out of you” is entirely appropriate.

The question is, are we serious about attacking Iran? And what will be Iran’s response both to the threats and any actual attack?

The answer is we are dead serious about bombing Iran’s nuclear infrastructure even at the risk of starting a general war in the Middle East and an Arab oil boycott. Any sustained bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities - and estimates range from 10 days to 2 weeks with hundreds of sorties - will roil the “Arab street” and force even moderates like King Abdullah II of Jordan into opposition. Then there’s that other King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who would be committing suicide if he didn’t condemn any American military action against Iran. Where Saudi Arabia goes, so goes most of the other Gulf states. Even Kuwait would be hard pressed to say anything nice about us if we attacked Iran.

What all this adds up to is trouble in the form of a potential oil boycott by many producing states - not just in the Middle East - against the United States. I daresay that President Goatface (Hugo Chavez of Venezuala) would be in full throated anti-American howl and would join any effort by Arab states to choke off the flow of oil to the US. And has anyone been listening to what Mexico’s President Fox has been saying lately about the US government’s idea to build a fence along the border to try and control immigration? Mexico may exact a heavy price for continuing to supply us with oil in the event of a boycott by OPEC.

The short of it is that the countries that supply the United States with most of its imported (and refined) oil would probably participate in a boycott which would be absolutely catostrophic for the US economy. This is the reason for the leak at this time. While Ahmadinejad will bluster like a schooyard bully, he knows full well that while we probably wouldn’t be able to destroy his nuclear program completely, we could set it back several years. This is a prospect that Ahmadinejad and his master, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, would find worrying. They are counting on an atomic bomb the same way that President Musharraf counted on the Pakistani device; as a domestic political ploy to generate patriotic pride and boost the popularity of the government. In Musharraf’s case, it worked pretty well. What worked even better was American assistance following 9/11 in tamping down fanatical jihadists who seek to make Pakistan another Islamic “republic.”

Iran will have no such assistance in dealing with its restless minorites nor the growing opposition of secularlists who chafe at the restrictions imposed by the mullahs and their Revolutionary Guard enforcers. For this reason, they see the bomb as a domestic unifying factor that would ease pressure on the government to reform. And of course, they see the bomb primarily as a guarantor of the Islamic state. The US will not invade if there is the prospect that their invasion force would be incinerated.

Could an attack on Iran by American forces precipitate a general Middle East war? During Gulf War I, Saddam launched missles at Israel to try and provoke the Jewish state into becoming involved in the fighting which would have destroyed the fragile coalition built by Bush #41 as Arab armies would melt away less they be tainted by being seen as fighting on Israel’s side against Saddam.

The problem with Israel sitting on the sidelines during an American attack would be different but could cause just as many headaches for Washington. Syria (or their proxies in Lebanon) could launch a massive series of attacks against the Jewish state that could provoke Tel Aviv into responding directly against Damascus. The resulting shockwave of Syrian and Israeli forces exchanging blows would be felt all the way to Bahgdad. Hatred of Israel would unite the Arab world and could precipitate a situation that would even cause Egypt’s Mubarak to re-evaluate his relationship with Israel.

In short, all bets would be off and things could get very bloody very quickly. And don’t expect Israel to wait around to see if any of their potential foes would attack. The IDF would strike first and strike very hard. All things considered, an American attack on Iran would create a tinderbox situation in the Middle East where one wrong move, one miscalculation by any of the major players would result in a million men going off to war.

Some analysts have put the likelihood of a general war in the Middle East as a result of an American attack as a 50-50 proposition.

And if, as some military strategests have speculated, Special Forces troops would be necessary to complete the destruction of some of these sites, the question would arise from where would they take off? It is generally assumed that the US would use long range bombers based in the states for most of the sorties against Iranian nuclear facilities (it is unlikely that the Navy would send a carrier battle group into the Gulf what with the Iranians armed with sophisticated anti-ship missiles supplied by France and China.) But Special Ops would need to be based closer to the target which would probably mean that they would take off from Iraq.

Would the newly minted Iraqi government defy the will of its own people not to mention risk the wrath of the Iranians by allowing the US military overflight permission or okay the basing of Special Forces on the Iranian border?

I hope you can see now why this leak of our military plans is so important. The Iranians are counting on their friends Russia and China in the United Nations to veto any sanctions regime the US and its European allies can come up with to force Ahmadinejad to give up his nuclear ambitions. Therefore, it becomes imperative for the Iranians to be assured that our military response will be initiated even without the consent of the United Nations Security Council. Despite all the terrible ramifications to the United States of an attack on Iran - ramifications the Iranians know as well as we do - the mad mullahs must be convinced that we will attack regardless of the consequences to our economy or our allies.

Will it work? It may buy us a little time. But the nuclear clock is ticking and unless the Iranians back down, it appears that the Middle East could endure a savage spring and summer that will test the resolve of the United States in the War on Terror as never before.

Can someone tell me why when the theocratic, in-all-but-name-only dictator of a budding nuclear power casually mentions in public that his nation could “win” a nuclear war against one of America’s staunchest allies that the media yawns, scratches its collective scrotum, and goes back to sleep?

Supreme Iranian ruler Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said last Friday that the Muslim world would win a nuclear exchange with Israel, aggravating fears Tehran’s quest for atomic weapons indeed has one purpose: the annihilation of what it calls the Zionist “cancer.”

“[The] application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel - but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world,” Hashemi-Rafsanjani was quoted as saying by the government-controlled Iran Press Service.

The spiritual leader, who wields ultimate power in Iran, made the comments during a prayer service in Tehran. It was the first time an Islamic leader of such prominence openly suggested a nuclear attack against the Jewish state, media analysts told the IPS.

(HT: solomonpanting at LGF)

I’m still looking for one western media outlet that has carried this startling statement. The Daily Star of Lebanon carried an entirely different story but one with a similar theme; if attacked, the radioactive mullahs will strike back - hard:

Iran on Friday warned its response to any attack by Israel would be “swift and destructive,” while European leaders warned the Iranian president’s remarks about the Holocaust could be grounds for sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

“The policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is completely defensive, but if we are attacked, the answer of the armed forces will be swift, firm and destructive,” Mustafa Mohammad Najjar was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

He was responding to a question about Iran’s reaction in case of an attack on its nuclear facilities, already under scrutiny as international unease grows over the Islamic republic’s nuclear intentions.

“The doomed fate of (Iraqi ex-president) Saddam (Hussein) must be a lesson for officials of the usurping Zionist regime,” Najjar added in a reference to the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war in which around a million people were killed.

The only world leader who seems to get it is, not surprisingly, the President of the United States:

Speaking to Fox News a day earlier, US President George W. Bush said his administration also views Iran as a true existential threat to the Jewish state.

“I’m concerned about a theocracy that has got little transparency, a country whose president has declared the destruction of Israel as part of their foreign policy, and a country that will not listen to the demands of the free world to get rid of its ambitions to have a nuclear weapon,” Bush told his interviewer.

“I called it part of the ‘axis of evil’ for a reason,” the president added.

Indeed. Too bad the rest of the world ridiculed you for making that statement.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled “Iran: Running Toward the Gasoline Dump With a Lit Match” in which I asked the $64,000 question: Why would Khamenei name a fanatical, anti-semitic, holocaust denying, anti-American zealot like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad President of a country about to get its hands on the most awesome power on earth?

The big question is why? Why would Supreme Leader Khamenei place the future of his country not to mention the world in the hands of someone like Ahmadinejad?

The point is this; Ahmadinejad appears to have the experience, the temperament, the zeal, and ideological purity for one thing and one thing only – to confront Israel and the west and go to war if necessary in order to secure the regimes future. And that future and the future of the Islamic world as Iran sees it lies in their building a nuclear arsenal.

I am not an expert on Iran. I don’t pretend to be able to read the mind of Khamenei or Ahmanidejad or any other radical Iranian theocrat who has been delivering threats to Israel, the likes of which have not been heard on the international stage since Hitler was blustering against Poland back in 1939.

But you cannot convince me that we should not be taking the Iranians at their word when their President threatens to “wipe Israel off the map” followed a few short weeks later by their Head of State saying that Iran could win a nuclear war with the Jewish state. How can we afford not to believe the evidence of our own ears?

And why this dead silence from the western press? A nation - Iran - which influences and helps direct several powerful terrorist groups whose tentacles circle the globe, blithely and shamelessly threatens both our allies and the United States with nuclear Armageddon and the Washington Post, The New York Times, and the cable and broadcast networks are either unaware of it (shocking ignorance) or choose not to report it (unconscionable stupidity).

It’s getting very late in the effort to stop these madmen in Tehran from threatening the peace and security of the world. If the rest of the world, as usual, is waiting for the United States to solve their problems for them, it’s high time we take on the responsibility of doing what needs to be done and get on with it.

Michael Ledeen is reporting this morning that there is a possibility of a failed attempt on the life of Iranian President Ahmadinejad:

I’ve just received a call from a usually reliable person saying that there was an assassination attempt in Iran against President Ahmadi Nezhad, who was in a car. His driver and guards were killed, and he is in the hospital, apparently likely to survive. I couldn’t get any details about the intensity of the blue energy waves flowing from his cranium…but if this story is true it suggests that there are powerful folks in Iran who have decided the president is more trouble than he’s worth…and they’d rather go back to the old deception of having someone who can lull the West into a false sense of security.

Ledeen notes “powerful folks” are upset with the President. Actually, there is really only one rival power center in Iran - the Rafsanjani-Khatami axis that has been increasingly strident in their criticism of Ahmadinejad in recent weeks:

Rafsanjani, who has already attacked the new government for a worsening of international tensions over Iran’s disputed nuclear program, also said he worried that national unity had been badly damaged during Iran’s dramatic shift to the right.

“Such attitudes will allow the enemies to reach their objectives,” the official news agency IRNA quoted Rafsanjani as telling a gathering of Muslim prayer leaders.

The term “enemies” is generally used to refer to the United States and Israel.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is a former President (as well as a former Supreme Leader, the position now held by Ayatollah Khamenei) and leader of the Expediency Council, a body that is supposed to iron out differences between the various branches of the Iranian government. Apparently, Rafsanjani has carved out a separate sphere of influence within the Iranian government and is challenging Ahmadinejad’s reckless and warlike moves - not on the basis that they are wrong but , as Mr. Ledeen points out, because the wild rhetoric puts the US and Israel on guard.

Rafsanjani is playing an extraordinarily dangerous game if he is in any way connected with an assassination attempt. As rich and as powerful as he is, the fact is that Ahmadinejad is Khamenei’s fair-haired boy and as such, the Supreme Leader will brook no attempt to overturn this radical shift to the right that the Iranian President has undertaken. As I’ve speculated in the past, the mullahs may in fact be forcing a confrontation with Israel and the west at this juncture because the correlation of forces - military and especially political - are so much in their favor. Israel has never been so isolated and for the foreseeable future, the bulk of America’s armed forces will be tied up in Iraq. If Rafsanjani thinks that his opposition to the recasting of the Iranian government into a hardline mirror image of its President is going down well with Supreme Leader Khamenei, he is sadly mistaken.

So, does Rafsanjani (who has apparently cast his lot with the reformers) believe he can overturn the whole applecart? Does he think he can tear down the Supreme Leader as well as kill the President?

He has been making a strong case recently that what Ahmadinejad has been doing is terribly damaging to Iran’s standing in the world. His opposition in no way lessens his own hatred for Israel and the US. And it is doubtful that even a President acceptable to Rafsanjani would slow down much less halt the Iranian drive to acquire nuclear weapons (Rafsanjani began the program when he was Supreme Leader back in the 1980’s).

Even if Rafsanjani had nothing to do with an attempted assassination, don’t put it past Ahmadinejad to seize the opportunity to arrest him anyway. It would make sense in light of the Iranian President’s drive to expel all moderate influences from the Islamic Republic and turn the once prosperous, modern country of Iran into a nuclear armed 15th century theocracy.

UPDATE

Via Ace, possible confirmation of the assassination attempt:

One of the bodyguards of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was killed and another wounded when an attempt to ambush the presidential motorcade was thwarted in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, according to a semi-official newspaper and local residents.
“At 6:50 pm on Thursday, the lead car in the presidential motorcade confronted armed bandits and trouble-makers on the Zabol-Saravan highway”, the semi-official Jomhouri Islami reported on Saturday.

“In the ensuing armed clash, the driver of the vehicle, who was an indigenous member of the security services, and one of the president’s bodyguards died, while another bodyguard was wounded”, the newspaper, which was founded by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote.

I doubt very much whether an ethnic conflict is at the bottom of this. But it sure sounds better to the masses than saying “My main rival for power is trying to whack me.”

Ever since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was designated by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the man who would win the election last June, many in the international community have been wondering why this relatively unknown former Mayor of Tehran was chosen to lead Iran at this juncture.

Judging by Ahmadinejad’s words and actions over the past two weeks, it could very well be that the Guardian Council of Iran - the group that runs Iran through the President - has decided that confrontation with the west and Israel is inevitable and that Ahmadinejad is just the man to lead the Iranian state to victory.

For make no mistake about what is going on in Iran. The purges of moderates from all levels of government as well as a crackdown on dissidents (which has led to rioting in several cities) and the feverish work in trying to enrich enough uranium to build several nuclear bombs all point to the Islamic theocracy expecting to be attacked militarily by either Israel and/or the United States with probably a reluctant Britain once again shouldering their burden as our best ally and giving us a hand.

Consider what has been going on just recently:

* At an anti-Zionist conference in Tehran, Ahmadinejad told those assembled that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” Coming from the head of state of a country that may be just a few months from being able to construct a nuclear weapon, it would be difficult to think of a more provocative, warlike utterance in the history of the Middle East. Clearly Ahmadinejad is baiting Israel into attacking Iran.

* Ahmadinejad has defied the so called “Big Three” of the EU - France, Germany, and Britain - who were negotiating to end Iran’s uranium enrichment program by not only restarting that program, but accelerating it. Just yesterday, Tony Blair made it clear he was fed up with Iranian intransigence on the nuclear issue. Even the French have begun to move toward a Security Council resolution and sanctions.

* Ahmadinejad announced the recall of more than 40 ambassadors and envoys, including those who sought closer ties with the west, to be replaced by hardline Islamists. In addition, he has named a total unknown to the oil ministry as well as a former head of a truck suspension company for the minister of welfare. The key being, they were sufficiently radical enough in their politics to pass the ideology test.

* Then there is this regarding their nuclear program:

Iran will process a new batch of uranium at its Isfahan nuclear plant beginning next week, despite pressure from the United States and European Union to halt all sensitive nuclear work, diplomats said on Wednesday.

“Beginning next week, the Iranians will start a new phase of uranium conversion at Isfahan. They will begin feeding a new batch of uranium into the plant,” a European diplomat familiar with the result of inspections by the U.N. nuclear watchdog told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Please note that the “European diplomat” is quoting Nobel Peace Prize winning Mohamed ElBaradei’s International Atomic Energy Administration. If ElBaradei was interested in keeping the peace, don’t you think that this momentous news should have come from him? When was the incompetent fool going to let us in on the Iranian secret?

The answer is probably after the Iranians present the west with a fait accompli of a mushroom cloud over the desert - or Tel Aviv.

The latter is not a possibility of course unless the Iranians have gone completely around the bend. But the fact is - and try not to fret too much - we will have to rely on the CIA to tell us when the Iranians are close to getting the bomb.

Unfortunately, our spooks haven’t been right once in 50 years regarding nations going nuclear. They were 5 years off on when the Soviets would get theirs. They were at least 10 years off on China’s nuclear birthday party. They never saw India’s nuke coming. And they were two years off on Pakistan’s development of the bomb.

Such a track record should not inspire much confidence at the White House.

As far as Iran’s nuclear capability, the CIA is confidently predicting that the radioactive mullahs won’t have a bomb until 2010. Their most recent National Intelligence Estimate (conveniently leaked to the Washington Post and New York Times just as the Administration was making its case that Iran was a danger) says that Iran will not be able to enrich enough uranium to make a bomb until the “middle of the next decade.”

If true, this comes as a shock to the Israelis who have a little more professional view of Iranian bomb making ability:

Israeli intelligence officials estimate that Iran could be capable of producing enriched uranium within six months and have nuclear weapons within two years. Earlier this month, head of Israeli military intelligence Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze’evi said that while Iran was not currently capable of enriching uranium to build a nuclear bomb, “it is only half a year away from achieving such independent capability – if it is not stopped by the West.”

As you can see from the LGF linked article above, we have not stopped them and they are now enriching uranium to their hearts content. As for bomb making, here’s what I wrote when the National Intelligence Estimate was leaked and contained the information that Iran was years away from making an “implosion” device:

As for constructing an “implosion” device, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was constructed using the so called “gun design” where a sphere of U-235 sits at one end of a barrel and a smaller pellet of the material is fired into it thus achieving critical mass and detonating the bomb. This is less efficient than an implosion device but still packs a huge wallop.

The bomb we dropped on Hiroshima was of the gun design variety. It was detonated using an altimeter fuse; that is, once the bomb reached a certain height (8,000 feet) the pellet was fired into the sphere. The results were impressive. And frightening.

For a delivery system, one need look no further than the modified Shahab-3 missile, a present from Kim Il Jong and the North Koreans and a system perfectly capable of delivering a warhead to Israel or US military bases elsewhere in the Gulf.

In short, all the elements are there for an Iranian nuclear nightmare. So while the world dithers and wrings its hands, the Iranians are building. And if military action becomes necessary; that is, if the Iranians appear to be ready to deploy a nuclear weapon, the alarming fact is there isn’t much we could do about it unless we created a military coalition the likes of which hasn’t been seen since World War II.

The Iranians have dispersed their nuclear program and “hardened” their nuclear sites against both air attacks and commando raids so that even being able to take out enough of their nuclear infrastructure to set them back a few years will be extraordinarily difficult. The chances are that the Iranians have built so much redundancy into their plans that we would have to wipe out a sizable percentage of that infrastructure to have any material affect on their capability.

This would leave basically two options; use nuclear weapons ourselves to destroy their capability or invade and affect regime change. The former would brand us as international outcasts. We would become a pariah nation. The latter option of invasion would take a considerably larger force than we would have available. Even a NATO force would need French and German participation to be effective. Anyone want to lay odds on either of those two countries participating in an invasion of Iran?

Iran knows all of this as well as we do which is why they are forcing confrontation now. With the US tied down in Iraq, defeatism and timidity running through Europe like a disease, Britain a tired yet still gallant ally and Israel are all we would have to help us in trying to forestall the Iranians going nuclear.

Perhaps sanctions will bring down Ahmadinejad’s government. Perhaps the whole rotten edifice of the Guardian Council and their Revolutionary Guard enforcers will sink under the weight of their own oppressive rule. Both are remote possibilities at this point. All we can hope for is continuing international pressure along with at least the threat of military action which could lead Iran to strike some kind of deal on processing uranium.

It’s not much, but realistically, it’s probably the best we can hope for.