From FOXNews:
Iran’s hard-line president on Saturday inaugurated a heavy-water production plant, a facility the West fears will be used to develop a nuclear bomb, as Tehran remained defiant ahead of a U.N. deadline that could lead to sanctions.
The U.N. has called on Tehran to stop the separate process of uranium enrichment  which also can be used to create nuclear weapons  by Thursday or face economic and political sanctions.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that his nation’s nuclear program poses no threat to other nations, even Israel, “which is a definite enemy.”
Ahmadinejad said in a speech that Iran would never abandon what he once again called its purely peaceful nuclear program.
“There is no discussion of nuclear weapons,” he said. “We are not a threat to anybody even the Zionist regime, which is a definite enemy for the people of the region.”
Though the West’s main worry has been enrichment of uranium that could be used in a bomb, it also has called on Iran to stop the construction of a heavy-water reactor near the production plant that Ahmadinejad inaugurated.
A senior Israeli lawmaker warned in a statement that the plant inauguration marks “another leap in Iran’s advance toward a nuclear bomb.”
More here. Additionally, JWebb emails:
Apparently, Iran has been working on fusion theoretically for some time.
The start up of the heavy water plant is ominous. It means Iran will have not only full in-house production facilities for a simple uranium gun-type weapon (kilotons yield) but could shortly have all components necessary for a fusion weapon (megatons yield – plutonium implosion trigger to ignite a deuterium [heavy water] core wrapped around a uranium 235
sparkplug and u238 focusing jacket.)The reason this is intriguing is because Ahmadinejad is nothing if not a literalist. A fission weapon with several hundreds kiloton yield could certainly harm Israel greatly; a fusion weapon in the megatons yield range would quite literally “wipe it off the map.”
And now I’m reminded of one of the signs of the Mahdi’s return. “The sun shall rise in the west.” A fission weapon would be a pretty sparkler, but a fusion weapon would quite literally be a small sun rising.
Beyond my wild extrapolations, Iran has once again stuck it’s thumb in the West’s eye. All this brashness and sabre-rattling makes you wonder what they’ve got already.
Well, it certainly does seem as though Iran is pushing hard to instigate an attack against its nuclear facilities—and the question is, why?
One possibility is that Iran would use such an attack as an excuse to use a nuclear weapon on Israel (or perhaps launch a strike on Baghdad)—a possibility that is of course contingent upon Iran’s having already acquired such capabilities and is willing to use it without first testing it.
Another possibility is that this whole show of bluster is merely a bluff meant to force us to second guess ourselves and to delay any strike; for Iran, this provides them more time to finishi up their programs. And for an already dithering international community, it provides perfect cover to do what they do best: remain cautious and hope that the situation resolves itself.
Bush has repeatedly maintained that he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons on his watch—something Benjamin Netanyahu recently noted he was confident was the case.
Which suggests to me that there is much more happening here than we know about—and that, though our own intelligence services continue to downplay the Iranian threat, the administration itself is moving behind the scenes as if the threat Iran poses in the region is quickly becoming imminent.
In general, the primary concern with Arak isn’t for the construction of fusion weapons. In order of priority, the first concern is the implications for the generation of plutonium (in addition to the fact that Pu can be generated without enriching the Uranium fuel). The secondary concern deals with the use of tritium in a boosted fission design, which has implications for the use of fission devices as weapons. The third concern is the direct creation of fusion weapons. Rather than chewing up bandwidth here, I’ve posted about this in greater detail on my blog.
Ok, I guess I have to apologize, for I read JWebb’s comment incorrectly, as he isn’t addressing the heavy water reactor at Arak, but rather the heavy water production facility.
He is correct that deuterium produced at the heavy water facility does have additional proliferation problems involved with boosting the yield of a fission device, and it wouldn’t be impossible for them to make the leap to a fusion device, given the other elements of their program.
I would still argue that they are a ways away from being able to build a more complex device, but the ease with which they could manufacture one is a question certainly open to debate.
BRD…there is no such thing as the direct production of fusion weapons. A fission trigger is required.
As usual the MSM are over hyping. FOX got it wrong as usual saying that the heavy water production facility will be used to produce plutonium which is true only in the sense that every necessary component of their planned heavy water reactor is “used” to produce plutonium.
My apologies for speaking imprecisely. I ended up writing about it at greater length in the blog, and was sloppy in my summary. But yes, essentially any reaction in a fusion weapon requires either a fission trigger or another fusion reaction.
The world would be unimaginably dangerous if it were possible to manufacture fusion weapons without the need for fission triggers. It was proven long ago that chemical energy (ie some kind of explosive blanket) alone cannot trigger fusion weapons.
A big bone of contention for the US prior to signing the comprehensive test was whether we could be confident of a viable nuclear deterrent without testing periodically. After comprehensive analysis by some of the brightest minds in the country a conclusion was reached that testing was not necessary altho maintenance definitely is. A vital component of nuclear weapons is tritium which is radioactive and must be replaced periodically.
FOX News is usually wrong?
comprehensive test ban treaty
They use AP sources for a lot of their stuff. And there is no reason to suspect that their production staff is any brighter than their counterparts elsewhere.
Today for example they are displaying a hurricane track that to the unwary shows Ernesto hitting New Orleans! Irresponsible BS.
But yes I am over hyping myself by saying usually.
Thanks for the admission noah.
I think FOX gives fairer treatment of both sides to issues (thus their portrayal as a Republican propaganda arm), but I agree, 99% of air time is exactly the same as their counterparts.
ALL of them have lost my respect (FOX, after enduring Geraldo and Shep during Katrina), so I rarley watch broadcast news. There’s just too many other sources out there.
It means Iran will have not only full in-house production facilities for a simple uranium gun-type weapon (kilotons yield) but could shortly have all components necessary for a fusion weapon (megatons yield – plutonium implosion trigger to ignite a deuterium [heavy water] core wrapped around a uranium 235 sparkplug and u238 focusing jacket.)
Gee, thanks, guys. The freakin’ Age at work. What, no mention of “soda straws”? Arseholes.
SB: money
for nothing
Reading between the lines…
The U.S. military leadership in Iraq has given several press conferences accusing Iran of supplying weapons, training, and personnel to Shi’ite extremists in Iraq.
Most of the Arab oil platforms and facilities in the Gulf are now armed with Patriot missile batteries.
Bush is using the phrase “Islamic fascists” in all the speeches he’s making on the road, despite complaints from Muslim groups.
The White House is unequivocally accusing Iran and Syria of supporting terrorism in the region.
Bush is allowing the U.N. farce to play itself out until there’s absolutely nothing more that the Europeans can give up.
A former military spook said on the radio last week that the U.S. has the cell-phone numbers of all Iranian general officers, just like we did before Operation Iraqi Freedom. We used those numbers to tell the Iraqis not to fight.
General Abizaid, head of CENTCOM, said recently that a nuclear-armed Iran would be hugely destabilizing to the region.
The U.S. military is now the most experienced Muslim-fighting entity on the planet.
What does all this tell us?
Tom,
Do you have any links on the continuing use of the term Islamic Fascist by Bush in his on the road speeches? I had only heard about it the once, and am curious to hear about it.
Thanks!
BRD
China just yanked No. Korea’s chain. Last week they told Beloved Leader they wanted him to visit pronto. Today they’ve substantially cut back oil shipments to him.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060826/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear_8
C’mon, Jeff. Iran nukes Israel means that much of Iran’s strategic stockpiles of sand will be transformed into unusable glass. If you respond that the mullahas are irrational and would not be deterred by this consideration, then why is it that they need an “excuse” to fire their supposed nukes right now?
Just askin’.
cordially,
I’m not sure anyone said the mullahs are “irrational”, just twisted in their idiology. They have “rational” (to them) reasons for what they do,most of them involving 72 virgins.
It was only recently that the mullahs had a change of heart about the muslim morality of having nuclear weapons. It’s not too much of a stretch IMO that they would like a moral cover for using them.
It’s not the mullahs Israel worries about:
“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, would “sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel,” Giora Eiland, Israel’s former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.”
There’s no concept of mutually assured destruction with messianic death cults.
I don’t think anyone has said this explicitly, but heavy water is NOT used in fusion bombs.
Lithium deuteride is, but that’s another thing altogether. It’s not as if deuterium is all that hard to come by, or that heavy water is particularly useful in and of itself. Suggest that whoever wrote this article is looking in the wrong place.
And now that I’ve clicked on BRD’s link, the above is redundant.
It was my understanding that to increase yeild a deuterium/ tritium combination was needed. Also. Wasn’t the first atomic bomb tested an explosive compression type
All the hard work to make an atomic bomb was done in 1945. Today its just a matter of following the right steps
A deuterium-tritium mixture was used as an initial test of “boosting” in the Greenhouse Item and George shots but the primary purpose of those tests was not so much to make a bigger fission device per se, it was to test the underlying theory towards producing a fusion bomb. Tritium was quite expensive in terms of reactor production and it made more sense from a fission device standpoint simply to dedicate reactor time to producing more plutonium. Ironically enough, George demonstrated that Teller’s Classical Super wasn’t workable but showed that the Teller-Ulam configuration was.
As far as bomb design is concerned, a great deal of work *was* accomplished by 1945 but there was also a very large body of refinement after that, as well as the theorizing and testing of fusion bombs in the 50’s on forward.
JWebb,
Especially when said destruction is fervently believed to bring about the appearance of their “messiah”.
TW: the roar of the pressure wave would be music to their ears…
And-a-one!
And-a-two!
And-
tw: shot. Heard ‘round the world…
Oh, boy!
Iranians test submarine to surface missile.
Yay. Another nice peaceful missile test.
tw: Return, hopefully not of this guy.
Did they launch it from their supersonic submarine?
Hmmmm.
1.
I thought the only need for tritium was to boost the yield and that if you were willing to live with sub-50kt yields that you didn’t need tritium?
2. Not to take away anything from the problem in Iran but there’s also the possibility of a war flaring up between Turkey and the Kurdistan northern part of Iraq.
Turkey, and Iran, have both been having serious trouble with Kurd separatists and terrorists. The problem is that the Iraqi Kurds aren’t willing to act against the PKK and other separatist groups. So Turkey has been doing recon overflights of northern Iraq along with their troops having invaded northern Iraq and taken some portions of Iraqi territory. Additionally Iranian artillery has been shelling portions of northeastern Iraq for weeks now because of separatist Kurds.
If either Turkey or Iran makes a significant incursion into northern Iraq then the responsibility for restoring those borders will fall to America because the Iraqi Army is currently organized to fight a counter-guerilla war, not a conventional one. Additionally I think the Iraqi Army only has one tank regiment, at best, and no integral logistics structure.
That could get much uglier, much faster. I for one have no idea what would happen if two NATO allies suddenly end up in a shooting war if Turkish and American soldiers end up fighting each other.
Ed,
We did see something of the sort with the brush up between Greece and Turkey with the invasion of Cyprus. Simply fighting isn’t enough to invoke Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all). NATO members need to agree before Article 5 is invoked.
That said, shooting between Turkish and US troops would still be all kinds of bad.
BRD
Yeah, but if the design yield of your weapon is 1 MT and the decay of your tritium “sparkplug” lowers it to 50 kT, it’s effectively a dud/fizzle.
ABA,
Well, I would imagine that you would use lithium deuteride in the sparkplug, but you’ll still need the tritium trigger in the first stage. I think.
BRD
LiD (the replacement for the cryogenically cooled liquid deuterium originally used in the proof shot Castle Mike and demonstrated spectacularly in Castle Bravo, Romeo and Yankee) is not used as the sparkplug per se but rather as the fuel source for the fusion secondary. W/o the tritium in the sparkplug, it’d never fuse at an appreciable rate.
Think of it as the gas tank, to use an automotive analogy…
I had been operating under the assumption that the tritium is used in the first fission stage, but that the neutrons produced in that stage would interact with the LiD to produce the tritium for the second fusion stage. But then again, I’ve had a non-trivial number of beers and may have to assess this again tomorrow.
Don’t think it would be wise for the mullahs to vaporize the Dome of the Rock Mosque and most of the West Bank in a nuclear strike on Israel. The nuclear destruction of Israel remains more of a bluff than an actual possibility. More likely is the continued strategic option of using proxies to inflict a million paper cuts on the civilian Jewish population.
Interpretation of ancient texts? Check
Wild eyed speculation and attribution of hidden power? Check.
Postulating the near term extinction of Israel? Check.
Contravening the conventional wisdom and attributing uber-Machivellian thought processes to the enemy? Check.
Ignoring the realities of the situation? (The US does not have the capability to realistically or effectively solve this issue militarily, so diplomatic/sanctions is the only real option.) Check
Welcome to the biblical prophet/tin foil hat brigade!
(On the last quoted paragraph: Well, duh, this is what Iran is doing. This is no secret.)
Andrew,
How do you figure that the US does not have the capability to “realistically or effectively” address the situation?
Thanks,
BRD
Andrew – When faced by an apocalyptic nutjob like Ahmadinejad, don’t you think it might be worthwhile to understand his fanatical, Islamist (not “biblical”) eschatological world view? Or would you have been one of the many idiots who dismissed Hitler’s rantings, too?
Airstrikes won’t solve the problems alone, as was seen in Lebanon. Military is stretched and vulnerable (due to Iraq). A draft would likely be required. War with Iran will disrupt world oil flow causing economic chaos. Iraq is a larger than Iraq, with a better military, less hospitible terrain and an even more unfriendly population. The liklihood of asymmetric responses (terror attacks in the US, against US interests overseas and by Hexbollah against Israel would complicate matters greatly. The extent and progress to date of the nuclear program (Note: not the existence) and the locations of the facilities are even more in doubt than the existence of WMD’s in Iraq, so “proof” that the war was necessary may be hard to come by.
There are many articles available on the Tubes, discussing this. You may say “reasonable people will disagree” as to the efficacy of a war with Iran, but the key point is that the US electorate doesn’t trust Bush anymore, so the question of the willingness to fight is probably the most pressing. Bush cannot reasonably be expected to make a winning case, it must be left to his successor. (Unless Bush decides to go cowboy, that is.)
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060710fa_fact
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,154245,00.html
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1704686&page=2
http://thinkprogress.org/iran-military-option
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040801082.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200412/fallows
While you can cherry pick out-of-context support for a war with Iran from the above, the general consensus seems to be that, at best, it would not permanently solve the issue, rather buy some time, at great cost to the US in both money and lives.
My favorites: THe New Yorker article and this: “‘The U.S. capability to make a mess of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is formidable,’ says veteran Mideast analyst Geoffrey Kemp. ‘The question is, what then?’ NEWSWEEK has learned that the CIA and DIA have war-gamed the likely consequences of a U.S. pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, ‘The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating.‘†[9/27/04]
One possibly workable solution: Funding of internal dissedents along with Special Forces commando raids. Then again, can you say “Bay of Pigs”?
Jwebb: I meant “biblical” in the general sense not “Biblical” From WordNet:
Also, never heard of Godwin’s law? I win! W00t!
BRD:
Oh, one more thing. Do you remember that the spectre of a nuclear armed USSR was considered a massive threat? One that was the genesis of the despicable McCarthy ascendancy? And that, once they (and we) had enough nukes to make the planet virtually uninhabitable (still do, a fact Iran is well aware of), we continued to resist, through various means, but no one really thought about invading them, right? What happened to those days of patient consideration, indefatigable resistance and, most importantly, bravery? Man up there, and stop peeing your pants every time someone brings this up. You are scaring the women and children. (A cynical person might say that’s your point.)
To that end, see this testimony by a Heritage Foundation fellow. I disagree with his final section, but his non-invasion, containment and sanctions strategy seems to me to be the right (read “let’s not lose our heads in a moment of anti-Islamic hysteriaâ€Â) approach.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/tst062706a.cfm
Andrew,
You’ve laid out a lot of items, so I will ask your forebearance in that I won’t be able to get back to you at length until later today. I will note a couple of things in passing, however:
1) The Seymour Hersh article isn’t, to put it politely, worth an awful lot, for a variety of reasons.
2) Additionally, I wouldn’t cite the Think Progress page you link as being “substantive” in any meaningful sense, as it seems to commit the same sin you note in your post of “cherry pick out-of-context.”
Rather than getting into a he-said-she-said match over sources, I just wanted to focus on the items with a bit more meat on their bones, if that’s alright with you.
BRD
Andrew,
And as a passing note, in response to your quote ”Man up there, and stop peeing your pants.” I would invite you to reflect on whether or not that is an appropriate response to my initial question:
And, having done so, bite me.
BRD
TW: Effects-based targeting.
The “Signs of the Return of the Mahdi” have nothing at all to do with “the nature of the Bible, its times or people” much less “biblical styles in writing.” It is strictly a Shiia construct.
The subject of my sentence was gullible idiots, not Hitler. Substitute any appeased, dismissed tyrant’s name you like. Godwin’s “law” – sheesh.
BRD: Your site is called “Anticapatory Retaliation” but you do not advocate the use of military force against nation-states that oppose the US as “top-drawer”? Pardon my confusion.
If you do advocate military force against Iran as the best solution here, then my comment is appropriate, no?
The title “Anticipatory Retaliation” is a tongue-in-cheek nuclear warfighting strategy joke and really has no bearing on much of anything in particular related to your commentary. Rather, I was making the point that telling me to “Man up and quit peeing my pants” was about as helpful to furthering the debate (your arguments included) as me telling you to go screw yourself.
Andrew,
And a second point, can you, at any point here, find where I advocate the use of military force as the “best” option?
BRD
Interpretation of or reference to a “sign”, potent, omen, etc of a mystical savior’s or leader’s return? Nope, nothing “biblical” about that. How about biblical-like? I’ll go that far.
Also, re: Godwin’s law, wherein
You not-so-obliquely compared Ahmadinejad’s rantings to Hitler’s rantings. Implying that A. was as much of a threat as Hitler. Godwin’s law certainly does apply, dude. Have a little grace and bow out.
Re: think Progress:
Senator Chuck Hagel, not misquoted or out of context: http://www.bigeddieradio.com/News/more.asp?ID=1111
Heritage Foundation: See above: This is a different person, and I can’t access the story, but it seems to be in line with what Phillips was saying, so not mis quoted or out of context.
CIA and DIA: Not misquoted or Out of context, as this is Newsweek quoting itself (sp?).
Can you please provide backup for your claim that the quotes on ThinkProgress by (supposedly) conservative sources (assuming those are the only ones you’d care to read) are out of context?
Sorry, BRD if I anticipatorily retaliated against you as a “fear blogger”. Hopefully our admin isn’t so quick on the trigger! So, what is your position?
Like I said above, I’ve got some fish that need immediate frying, and I intend to give you a hopefully well thought out response, so that’s not going to happen right this instant.
Say what you want about Hersh, but a) he get’s paid to do what he does and people do listen to him. ( To bad we can’t all say that.) and b) despite threats of libel, no one has yet to bring a case against him. Oh, and re: his most recent Iran story, wikipedia notes that Bush called it “wild speculation”, but didn’t deny the veracity.
Please list your reasons NOT to give his analysis credence. I’ve found most of his stories at least informative.
Andrew,
Here’s a couple of preliminary points. The articles you cite don’t seem to make the point that I am asking you about – i.e. that the U.S. has no “realistic or effective” military options regarding the Iranian nuclear program. In particular the article from the Atlantic Monthly is quite fascinating, and speaks in depth to the array of options available. This, in combination with your earlier response, leads me to believe that you either don’t have a specific point of your own, or that the point of your own (i.e. “Use of force against Iran is axiomatically bad”) is simply one you’ve arrived at ahead of time and are now in the process of finding things that bolster the case.
More broadly, the Think Progress link you provide is a case in point – the thing about the link is that it contains no analysis, no reference to data, no reference to options, and really, nothing beyond a series of quotes. If you were in the business of convincing someone or analyzing something, that bit of data would be worth a pretty big “F”.
In any case, I’m still a bit tied up and will get something put together very shortly.
BRD
Although I think one could make the argument that ““Use of force against Iran is axiomatically bad” based on the results of Iraq, that is most assuredly NOT my argument. I didn’t make the argument myself, because it has been made more eloquently and in so many other places, I saw no need to repeat it. However, I did give a short list of the reasons against, in my post starting with “Airstrikes won’t solve the problems…”
As I mentiooned in that post, I believe the important point is this: Due to our inability to complete the assignment and withdraw in Iraq (or, conversely, the ineptitude of current admin in explaining a coherent plan and, maybe more importantly, the potential medium term contingencies of said underarticulated plan) has put us at a disadvantage with respect to the “will to fight”. However necessary you may think full-scale gunship diplomacy agaisnt Iran is, it’s just not politically viable in the current atmosphere in Washington, D.C. If Bush decides to invade after the ‘06 elections, the Republicans lose the Presidency, and one or both houses of congress, unless we are 100% complete prior to the ‘08 elections. Any plan that will be complete prior to the ‘08 elections is (according to my sources) a bandaid at best, therefore not worth the (less bad but still bad)political fallout (domestically and worldwide) for the Republicans.
Finally, the congressional authorization process for a war against Iran is going to be anything but a rubber stamp this time. Does Bush really think otherwise? If so, he’s possibly dumber than people already think, summer reading list notwithstanding. (lese majeste is still legal in the US, right?)
BRD:
How do you equate this statement
with this from the end of Atlantic article:
I’m arguing in good faith here. (e.g. I pointed out that I disagreed with Heritage’s Phillips conclusion, but liked his fallback approach.) I would hope you would do the same.
Also, the ThinkProgress piece isn’t meant to convince you of the rationale, rather what experts (including at least one influential R senator) think of the rationale.
Andrew,
Ok, this breaks down into two parts: 1) the purely military aspect and 2) the broader political-military approach. In any case I’ve gotten a chance to go through the articles, so if there are any specific points you wish to cite from them, please do.
Back to the broader point, is the question of whether or not there is any “realistic or effective” military course of action. I will submit that this is a frankly silly question. To borrow, for sake of argument (and no, I’m not advocating this) if the US were to wage unrestricted nuclear warfare against Iran, it would be “effective” in irreperably damaging the Iranian nuclear program. For a more “realistic” option, any one of the three options outlined in the wargame described in the issue of the Atlantic Monthly would be both “realistic” and “effective”.
I will guess that you were trying to ask a bit more subtle question as regards geopolitical strategic calculus of a military response. The strategic calculus here is pretty much the same it is anywhere: to what extent does the use of force achieve the sought after policy objectives; what are the tactical and strategic consequences of action; and how do the benefits and costs compare against each other. This is a more complex question, and from my armchair it looks like that there are a number of viable options that could, in concert with diplomatic measures, yield the desired policy objectives.
The second point regarding the political-military calculus, and in particular the domestic political angle is a different question altogether. Since a) it is a potential looming tangent, b) not germaine to the question originally being asked, and c) presupposes a whole bunch of other unstated assumptions, it may be wisest to let this question go by the wayside. It should be noted that I’m not disagreeing with you here. Nor am I agreeing. I am simply saying that it is a question of a different flavor than the original topic of discussion, and I am trying to prevent drift away from the sufficiently complex questions first raised.
BRD
As regards the Atlantic Monthly article, the full paragraph from which you quote contains some more interesting bits of nuance:
The underlying point being is whether or not a military option would be militarily effective. If this is not the case, then the US literally has no military option (rather than simply having military options which are unpalatble). This, then defaults to the fallback position of agreeing to a nuclear Iran.
Moreover, reading only the first few sentences of that paragraph substantially miss the broader points of the article.
BRD
Andrew,
In terms of the Think Progress bit, I guess what leaves me particularly cold is that we don’t really know what arguments they’re responding to. Sure, they all fall (nominally) under the umbrella of the use of organized violence to promote policy objectives, but in terms of actually assessing what they’re responding to, in terms of military options, unacceptable political costs, and so on, we simply don’t have anything to base an assessment on, other than blind faith that somehow whatever specific thing to which they are objecting somehow is bad because they say so.
I mean, if, for instance, one person is objecting to sending a special forces team in to place to plant taps on a fiber optics line for SIGINT, then that is a “military option” and is one thing. If, on the other hand, the person is operating under the notion that the only way to impede the nuclear program at all is through the massive use of nuclear weapons, then that is a totally different kettle of fish.
We, from the excerpts posted, don’t have a lot of insight to what they are actually trying to get at, other than a selection of soundbites.
Or, to put it another way, is there anything so compelling on that page that you’re going to stand and fight over every last inch regarding the usefulness of that page?
BRD
Yes, I was origionally referring to the “geopolitical strategic calculus” when I said “realistic or effective” military options. (Perhaps I should amend that to realistic AND effective.) Also, note that I mentioned some small scale Special Forces activity might be a possibility. But the last is not the general direction the Admin seems to be going, and wouldn’t factor into a war authorization either (?), so it’s really a side show But, this:
is the crux of my point. We should not discuss military options in a vacuum. The broader picture must always be considered in all discussions.
Finally, the last few lines of the Atlantic article is a) what gives me pause and b) makes the added factor of the domestic political situation all important. Specifically:
If this gov’t makes another mis-step, and the American people come to realize it, the US will be seen as weak/crumbling and thus make a more (not less) inviting terrorist target.
The point of this is to lessen the chance of terrorist attacks against US interests. I’d feel safer with an Iran that has nukes and the US a cohesive geopolitical force than Iran maybe not having nukes, the US divided (ala VietNam protest civil unrest) and the terrorists smelling blood in the water. However, don’t take that as appeasement or lack of will to fight terrorism, I just think we’d be better served by a lower profile GWoT.
Good discussion, and thanks for the consideration. Sorry about the fear mongering crack earlier.
That was a very good discussion. Even I of the “biblical prophet/tin foil hat brigade” could follow it. Thank you BDR and Andrew. Well done.