Two parts of a single coordinated enterprise were taking shape on opposite sides of the world. The pieces of a giant puzzle were coming together with potentially lethal results as Caroline Glick explains:
North Korea is half a world away from Israel. Yet the nuclear test it conducted on Monday has the Israeli defense establishment up in arms and its Iranian nemesis smiling like the Cheshire Cat. … Less than two years ago, on September 6, 2007, the IAF destroyed a North Korean-built plutonium production facility at Kibar, Syria. The destroyed installation was a virtual clone of North Korea’s Yongbyon plutonium production facility. … the main reason it makes sense to assume that Iran and North Korea coordinated their tests is because North Korea has played a central role in Iran’s missile program.
Nuclear weapons are the heart of the dispute between Obama and Netanyahu over the way the “peace process” should go forward. According to Glick, Obama believes that the establishment of a Palestinian state constitutes the unavoidable first step in the process in which the nukes will be dealt with somewhere along the way, maybe, while Netanyahu is seeking a guarantee of national survival before signing on to Washington’s plan. The differences between the two are going to be highlighted by the IDF’s plans to launch “largest civil defense drill in the country’s history for next week”. Israel, Glick says, is alone. Ironically, like North Korea and Iran, on this subject there is nothing more the Israeli government has to say to Barack Obama.
Between North Korea’s nuclear test, Iran’s brazen bellicosity and America’s betrayal, it is clear that the government can do nothing to impact Washington’s policies toward Iran. No destruction of Jewish communities will convince Obama to act against Iran. Today Israel stands alone against the mullahs and their bomb. And this, like the US’s decision to stand down against the Axis of Evil, is not subject to change.
From a spin-master’s point of view, Netanyahu’s resistance to Obama carries the danger that the President’s PR men can portray him as a man as fully unreasonable as Kim and Ahmadinejad. But Netanyahu may be following a strategy calculated to win him more than he loses. By so blatantly defying Obama he is anchoring his position so publicly that it will become hard for him to climb down, even if he wanted to. Netanyahu is doing the equivalent of chaining himself to his position. To the question why? one possible answer is time. Netanyahu cannot beat Obama in a straight power play. To have any political chance he must throw Obama’s tempo off.
The Israeli Prime minister knows that Obama’s political capital will be greatest in his first 200 days. After that, Obama will have to renew it by some signal accomplishment as the impetus of his campaign dissipates. And perhaps Netanyahu is calculating that Obama is all hat and no cattle and if he holds up the President up long enough for that to become evident, he might have a chance. If Obama cannot bend the Israeli government to his intent during his window of opportunity, he will be overtaken by other events. Lost in the battle of wills between the two men is the most tantalizing question of all: how the US and Israel wound up on opposite sides of this process? And is this a good thing or a perverse reversal of history?
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Obama cannot talk to the Mullahs if he gives Netanyahu what Israel needs. Netanyahu has shown Obama he cannot double deal this, saying one thing to the Israeli government and another to the Evil ones. He loses nothing as Obama appears to have made his choice publicly by approaching the Mullahs at all. He may yet gain that meaningful public assurance.
Do they have civil defense drills in Tehran? Do they care?
How the US and Israel wound up on opposite sides of a process to first demonize and then acquiesce in the ruin of Israel? How about by electing the most massively PC administration in the history of the US, in which the sensitive and caring Europeans and their antisemitic baggage form the role model?
Let’s see. Iran gets a couple of nukes and hits Israel. Israel retaliates with its nuclear arsenal and reduces the Iranian survivors to a stone age level. At this point I imagine the UN would send in “humanitarian” peace keepers to the regions, the cost of which would be paid by “managing” the Iranian oil. The two major sore spots in the Middle East, Israel by the virtue of its mere existence, and Iran by virtue of its bellicose policies, would be gone.
Who benefits? Coincidently the same people who are trying to undermine any substantive efforts to keep Iran from obtaining nukes. Or am I just paranoid?
And of course, our current President knows as much about foreign affairs as I have of building a faster than light starship drive. He’ll go along with any platitude than is currently popular with the “international community.” I believe the term is “useful idiot.”
Obama may or not be a fool when it comes to foreign policy, but the trap set up for Israel hasn’t been planned by him. It has probably been planned for a long time by the State Dept and other US enemies of Israel. It was, at least partly, at work already during the Bush administration. Obama probably only gave it the full go ahead and made it a (or the) priority of his administration. After all, one diplomatic way of reaching peace with an enemy is giving him what he wants (or what one thinks he wants). Obama, the State Dept, Carter, Walt and Mearsheimer and many others believe that what Iran wants is (only) Israel’s head on a platter. And they’re doing their best to give it as soon as possible, and to serve it hot.
Obama & Israel are on different sides because they have different interests. For Israel — national survival. For Obama — domestic politics.
Probably Obama reckons that if anything good happens, the media will make sure he gets the credit. And if anything bad happens, the media will make sure Hillary Rodham Clinton takes the blame.
First, the “Goode Family” types, the SWPL Yuppies, are intensely anti-Semitic because they care what Europeans, the NGO Left, and so on care, and those groups all hate Jews and Israel both. As do Blacks, Hispanics, and Gays. Women are anti-Israel and mildly anti-Semitic because GWB backed Israel, that was enough. Not to mention that (as the “Goode Family” shows) women are the heart of PC and Multiculturalism and SWPL status-mongering. A non-stop, exhaustive effort to claim the moral high ground in Yuppie status games.
This is why a Muslim man was elected President, with a retinue of hard left, anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ideologues. The SWPL yuppies hate Israel, and it’s as simple as that.
Next, I think Netanyahu is NOT playing for time. The decision of Obama is irreversible, if Obama suddenly resigned for whatever reason, US politics (anti-Israel) would be unchanged. Gays, Blacks, Hispanics, SWPL Yuppies and Women would all HATE Israel’s existence, want it wiped out, and wish to grovel before Saudi kings and what-not.
Rather, Netanyahu knows that Israel is indeed “a one bomb state” and can only survive if it STRIKES FIRST. And strikes HARD. The civil defense exercises are to obviously, prepare the nation for the retaliation sure to come from Hezbollah and Hamas, chemical certainly, nuclear perhaps. Israel will lose hundreds of thousands of lives, no doubt (something about Half of America, the Democratic voters, will celebrate wildly). But that’s better than ALL the population.
Israel’s plan is to give some ultimatum, to the Obama Administration, about six months or so, which will be promptly shared with the Iranians. Along with the broad outlines of an Israeli Air Strike. The ACTUAL strike will be with Nuclear weapons, the only tools to get the job done. Which will be aimed at not only killing the weapons stuff, but infrastructure and the PEOPLE, in a desire to live not die.
For Israelis to live, Iran must die. Simple as that. It’s what the withdrawal of the Pax Americana, American security guarantees, and a strong military mean. Eventually America will also see our cities nuked, by sold North Korean or Pakistani “borrowed” nukes or what- have you. Shrug.
About Half America would say we’d have it coming. SWPL Yuppie-dom will ONLY be eradicated when survival and nothing else is on the objective.
I cannot help but to think of the end of the Roman Empire. Barbarians on the rise, military in retreat, insolvent government and aimless leaders. Perhaps Netanyahu can play the part of King Arthur, fighting to save a beleaguered bit of civilization and sanity from the rising tide of madness.
Whiskey,
“SWPL Yuppie-dom will ONLY be eradicated when survival and nothing else is on the objective”
I think when that nuke with no return address goes off in NYC or SanFran a large part of those folks will go with it, sort of ironic. The folks most responsible for allowing the rouge nations to arm themselves with atomic weapons will be the ones most likely to be fried by them. The pathology of PC is so strong that they cannot see an existential threat when it is front of them.
Meanwhile, back at DeFault,
which is DeNile,
which is Everyday Life:
Kosher Cellphones
Anton,
But, but…
If SF goes, who will be “left” to vote for DiFi, Boxer, and Pelosi?
Wo is us!
North Korea, Israel, Syria, Iran, South Korea HELL I wish one of these loud mouth’s would go ahead and shoot each other.
Able Danger raises its head – again!
Horse Soldiers | 2009 | Doug Stanton
In his book, Horse Soldiers, Stanton describes (pg 27) the thoughts of Major General Geoffrey Lambert, US Special Forces Command, Fort Bragg on the morning of September 11, 2001.
“It had taken him about ten seconds to figure out who had masterminded the attacks, and who had carried them out. For the past several years, he had observed a top-secret intelligence program called data mining that had identified one man, an Egyptian by the name of Mohammed Atta, as a serious terrorist with links to a Saudi named bin Laden, who was a financier of terrorist training camps for men like the Egyptian. Months earlier, the people involved in the program had tried telling the FBI what they had discovered, but Army lawyers had discouraged the disclosure, even though the project had identified the highjackers. Lambert figured they knew everything there was to know about Osama bin Laden and his military training camps in Afghanistan, but none of the legal minds could decide if the surveillance was lawful. Now Lambert felt sick that more effort had not been made to warn someone. (Lambert, extremely upset, later agreed with lawyers that the information not be shared with the FBI.)”
#3 TCobb
If Israel decides it is in an existential crisis [which it looks like to me] they have the arsenal and delivery systems to destroy not only Iran, but also the overwhelming majority of the Ummah. There is going to be bloody little oil pumped by anyone in the area if that happens. There will be precious little oil for the UN Kleptocrats to “manage”. Israel would also, possibly, have enough left to pose an unacceptable threat to all the remaining nuclear powers if they piled on; although they still might consider the damage to be worth achieving the goal of destroying Israel and killing Jews.
I rather doubt that Israel will give the US any warning, because it would be transmitted to Iran as soon as it was translated. [Granting that the State Department has a pretty poor track record with translations in this administration, but it would be at most a matter of hours.] If Israel [and ultimately the West kicking and screaming against its will] is to survive, it will be a bolt from the blue.
#7 Anton
Re: your last paragraph
We are going to be hit. We are now far past the point where we can do anything to prevent it, and our government seems to have no interest in doing so. The one consolation is that the odds are that most of the blows will fall on those who are no longer our countrymen.
Subotai Bahadur
I’m not so sure that the hammer will fall on the coastal cities… what if they’re smart enough to take out Atlanta, Austin, St Louis and Louisville instead? What if they’re ALLOWED to execute such a strike as part of the bowing to the new masters?
axis of evil = access to evil
CONSIDER:
A vulture was hacking at my feet. It had already torn my boots and stockings to shreds, now it was hacking at the feet themselves. Again and again it struck at them, then circled several times restlessly round me, then returned to continue its work. A gentleman passed by, looked on for a while, then asked me why I suffered the vulture. “I’m helpless,” I said. “When it came and began to attack me, I of course tried to drive it away, even to strangle it, but these animals are very strong, it was about to spring at my face, but I preferred to sacrifice my feet. Now they are almost torn to bits.”
“Fancy letting yourself be tortured like this!” said the gentleman. “One shot and that’s the end of the vulture.” “Really?” I said. “And would you do that?” “With pleasure,” said the gentleman, “I’ve only got to go home and get my gun. Could you wait another half hour?” “I’m not sure about that,” said I, and stood for a moment rigid with pain. Then I said: “Do try it in any case, please.” “Very well,” said the gentleman, “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
During this conversation the vulture had been calmly listening, letting its eye rove between me and the gentleman. Now I realized that it had understood everything; it took wing, leaned far back to gain impetus, and then, like a javelin thrower, thrust its beak through my mouth, deep into me. Falling back, I was relieved to feel him drowning irretrievably in my blood, which was filling every depth, flooding every shore.
Franz Kafka, THE VULTURE
Now read Louis Rene Beres’ 2003 commentary on this prophetic Kafka parable…only substitute Obama for Clinton. Israel is there…We are there! http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jul03/beres2.htm
A rhetorical question:
Would BC readers be surprised or just mildly predictive, as in, “Yup, it figures”, should a nuclear, biological or chemical device be activated against a significant US population?
Think of what that means, and reflect upon the reaction of residents of such cities as NYC, LA, SF, Boston and DC.
My ‘mental jumping jacks’ have led me to believe that the residents just don’t believe that ‘it can happen to them’. I do so believe, and am trying to reconcile the willful inability to realize that, with the current TOTUS the mullahs are mulling their next move, and it will not be dainty.
tom
hey
subotai bahadur…spot on , the comment miles ahead of your time . what a thought”…THOSE WHO ARE NO LONGER OUR COUNTRYMEN”.
how incredibly precise. well done, amigo.
i can not look at a freak like Sotomayor (got those Prozac eyes) or Obunga and consider them americans. they are aliens. what they preach use to be bottled up at lefty film fests or other college rap session. all blow…no go. now its u.s. policy.
can you imagine what it is like observing all this meltdown from abroad. i live in a place that will be second round cannon fodder as the iranian go nuts…or act just plain old ”Persian” throughout the gulf region. i mean Dubai could burn to the ground, with mass riots of workers and Paki ISI agents leading the distruction. nevermind Abu Dhabi and the oil energy resources…now to be ”protected” by the french-right.
anyway their are aliens amoung the simple folk of the USA and they will be the first to disappear.
think Obunga has a bunker ready for his stand-off ???? naaa…his jet to Mecca will be fueled and ready to split.
“”"”"”"Rather, Netanyahu knows that Israel is indeed “a one bomb state” and can only survive if it STRIKES FIRST. And strikes HARD.”"”"”"”
NOT true, Whiskey. Nukes are incredibly destructive, but they are not the end-all, be-all weapons that myth portrays them to be. The kind of nuke that may be used on Israel would be a relatively low-yield one for the foreseeable future, and the senders would have only a limited number of such nukes and an unreliable delivery system to send them. Israel would be severely damaged, but would be fully capable of an immediate retaliation with many more nukes that any of its adversaries, and yet still have a bunch of nukes in reserve. I’m not arguing with your premise of Israel reserving the right to a preemptive nuclear strike, but merely saying that the limited attack that could be launched against it for the foreseeable future would be survivable for Israel, and a bigger catastrophe for its attackers.
For a number of years to come, Iran and N. Korea would husband their few nukes as a bluffing mechanism against weak-kneed westerners. Pakistan is the real wild card, as it has more nukes than those other two are likely to have.
Anton writes: “The pathology of PC is so strong that they cannot see an existential threat when it is front of them.”
This is so. For religious believers (in this case PC), faith is meaning. Abandoning faith is existential death, or at least disorientation. I’m not surprised that Obama supporters exhibit faith that all will work out in the end, especially if Israel will just be rational and roll over and surrender, in the name of peace. (This worked well in Vietnam, didn’t it? We departed, reneged on our promises, and everyone in Southeast Asia lived happily ever after?)
Over at First Things, David Goldman (a.k.a. Spengler) has an essay, “Two Paths to Jewish Survival.” One path is for Jews to recognize a Christian interest and theological stake in Judaism, and to some extent the state of Israel, in so far as the state is tied up in complex ways with the Jewish people. The article negotiates some of the deep currents in Christian/Catholic theology.
An opposite tack is evident in a (as usual) politically correct article in the national Lutheran magazine on ‘Christian Zionism.’ The take away: Israel bad, in violation of the eighth commandment; Christians who support Israel, unsophisticated and un-nuanced.
Wrichard asks: “how [is it that] the US and Israel wound up on opposite sides of this process? And is this a good thing or a perverse reversal of history?”
The West, or at least its elites and camp followers, traded in one religion for another, keeping the moral sentiments and aspirations of Christianity but turning them into new commandments. The first of these is: Thou shalt have no God. Unless you have a foreign God and want to deploy that God against the infidels who still believe in a Christian and Jewish exceptionalism.
Poor Israel. Surrounded by recrudescent post-enlightenment Westerners, communists, and Islamists, each eager for the ‘peace’ that temporily descends following the lynching of the scapegoat.
re: #15 SML An interesting parable and comment at Freeman.org. Regarding the “Sampson option”– remember that Sampson had already been blinded when he pulled down the temple on himself and his enemies. What else could he do? But Israel is not blind. Israel has astonished the world many times in the past with creative and incredibly bold action to stop their enemies. Maybe they will come up with some plan other than a massive nuclear strike to stop or at least significantly postpone, once again, the plans of those who hate them. I hope so. I can’t think of what other options they have but I hope for their success.
#13 LFMayor
While not as large or ideologically pure as say New York, LA, or San Francisco; are not the cities you listed still Leftist strongholds that went for Obama overwhelmingly? I admit to not knowing about Louisville.
Subotai Bahadur
@Subotai (and anyone else who chooses to comment)
OK, so what now? Do we hunker down with MREs, ammo, and potassium iodide waiting for Armageddon?
Living on the Eastern edge of LA sprawl, my excuse is earthquake and wildfire preparedness. Gives plausable deniability to preps. Besides, much as Boise ID is an attractive place to live, I do not miss chiseling ice off my windshield.
Regards-
InlandEmpire
Pres Bush stated clearly more than once that Iran would not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
I am convinced that Pres Bush, a man not known to lie and one known not to be partisan (his biggest flaw, I think) made sure that Israel was equipped with the means to stop Iran.
NotaYahoo knows that he does not have to ask permission. He is he is Gen Lambert talking to the FBI about Atta. He is giving Obama a chance to save face.
I believe Caroline Glick was correct that the nuclear reactor destroyed in Syria was based upon Nork technology and the Iranians had some involvement with it. The Syrian nuclear reactor appears to have been designed as a plutonium production reactor. Plutonium can not be used in a simple gun type fission bomb (the fission cross sections are too high). Plutonium can only be used in an implosion type bomb. Implosion type fission bombs are hard to design. However implosion type bombs offer a huge advantage because they use plutonium efficiently and can be miniaturized. Plutonium based implosion type triggers (primary sections) are an enabling technology for thermonuclear weapons.
It appears that the Nork first attempted nuclear weapon’s test in 2006 resulted in a “fizzle” (failure to produce a significant nuclear explosion). Gun type fission weapons are so simple that they don’t need to be tested (the gun type Little Boy used on Hiroshima was an untested weapon). Since the first Nork test fizzled, I’m inclined to believe that it was a failed plutonium based implosion type device. The second Nork test was successful but had a relatively small yield. The small yield may indicate that they are getting their miniaturization technology worked out and going directly for a thermonuclear weapon. It could also indicate that the device malfunctioned and didn’t provide a full yield. If the next Nork test is over 150 kilotons then we’ll know that they got the bugs worked out of their technology.
The Iranian nuclear weapons program has been focused on uranium isotope separation. This process is capital and energy intensive. However once the Iranians have enough U-235, they could produce a weapon that they know would work untested because they could use the U-235 in a gun-type bomb. The Iranian U-235 program is designed for a surprise attack.
It appears that the Iranians have pursued a three track nuclear weapons program, i.e.
1) U-235 produced entirely within Iran for use in an Iranian built low tech. gun-type bomb.
2) Plutonium produced in cooperation with North Korea for use in a high tech. thermonuclear weapon.
3) Plutonium produced in a third country (Syria).
Destruction of the Iranian uranium isotope separation facilities in Iran would not guarantee denial of nuclear weapons to Iran. The Iranians could still pursue their nuclear weapons program through cooperation with Korea or through a third party like Syria.
It would initially seem the Norks and Iranians were being overly obvious in building the plutonium reactor in Syria. Is it possible that they have facilities like the Syrian one in the Sudan or some other sub-Saharan country? Syria does have a significant population of technically educated people and would also have access to Iraqi expatriates who previously worked on Saddam’s nuclear weapon’s program. It’s probable that Syria provided North Korea and Iran with a unique opportunity for a third party. I don’t expect to find plutonium production reactors in the Sudan.
Iran has continued to pursue its U-235 based program because they could not be sure of continued Nork cooperation and the success of the Syrian based program. If the Norks are successful in weaponizing their nuclear weapons technology and do indeed share that technology with Iran then an obvious tactic for Iran would be to openly abandon their U-235 program as a subterfuge while vigorously pursuing a thermonuclear weapons program with the Norks (this tactic would probably deceive Obama and the moonbats).
The Norks are in it for the money and for technology exchange. The best bet against the Iranian nuclear weapons program may not be in destroying their uranium isotope production capability but rather in wrecking their economy. When the Israelis strike, their options are to attack Kharg Island and the Iranian power grid –or– go for blanket destruction using their own nuclear capability. I don’t expect the Israelis could morally accept the second option so watch for the first one.
12. Subotai Bahadur
Perhaps there are some Arab states that think a pocket nuclear war between Iran and Israel would be to their benefit, but the real winners of such an outcome would be Russia, China, and the European Union. I imagine that Israeli retaliation would be confined to wiping out population centers that contain the essential infrastructure of the Iranian state and military installations. Most of the oil fields aren’t really that close to the major cities, and oil is fairly useless if you don’t have the capacity to refine it, which for the most part the Iranians don’t. This is even more the case in Saudi Arabia.
And, as 18. Roderick Reilly notes, Nukes are incredibly destructive, but they are not the end-all, be-all weapons that myth portrays them to be. Nukes, unlike bullets, are not designed to kill people. They are designed to destroy areas of land, which may or may not contain high concentrations of people. And how many people really know how many nukes Israel has? Maybe its just because I am a vindictive son of a bitch, but if half my fellow citizens had been wiped out by country X, I wouldn’t waste any nuclear bombs on sparsely populated oil fields, I’d use them in an effort to reduce the population of country X to, the extent possible, a number that could be represented by a single digit.
As usual, note what the Saudis are not saying. There is the usual wall of silence from them, as in 2003. The Iranian bomb is a huge threat to them as well as to Israel.
A devastated Iran [post Israeli attack] would leave the far more dangerous Saudi Wahabbism to prevail in the ME.
If Israel does do for Iran, you can be sure the Saudis will be there in the background, as usual.
I almost hope that the first jihadi WMD strike is on the UK. We currently have a leftist government, true; but it is not quite yet the sort of PC insanity that has taken over in the EU and to a lesser extent the USA. We lose a city, and they lose all theirs. We only have one boomer in theatre at a time – but it will come home empty.
Fletcher Christian said:
“I almost hope that the first jihadi WMD strike is on the UK.”
The UK is too small and densely populated to withstand a nuclear strike (almost as vulnerable as Israel). Also, the target city would probably be London which would be a terrible tragedy for the entire human race (one of my favorite cities).
Boiled Cabbage said:
“As usual, note what the Saudis are not saying. There is the usual wall of silence from them, as in 2003. The Iranian bomb is a huge threat to them as well as to Israel.”
Give the Al Saud family credit. They’re smart customers. They keep their mouths shut while quietly working their intrigues. There are excellent reasons why they are sitting on a large fraction of the world’s wealth.
#21 Subotai Bahadur:
Agreed in full sir, I was also thinking in terms of disruption. If the greater liberal bastions are left untouched by the strong hand I believe they’ll be more inclined to kiss the ring upon it, whilst the unwashed in flyover country continue to be viewed as they are today, of little relevance and no consequence. A pitiful fate perhaps, but deserved because of their failure to worship at the altars of PC and Gaia.
#22 InlandEmpire,
Speaking only for myself [and I do not live near any of the likely target areas], a basic level of preparations along those lines is not a bad idea. It is a strange time, when the inevitability of a WMD strike on an American city has a similar or higher probability of the normal natural disasters.
I’m not Mormon, but I like their idea of keeping a year’s supply of food, or as close as possible on hand. I would recommend having a bunch of bleach on hand, to purify any water you might get [a more immediate problem than food, and bleach can be stockpiled covertly and easily]. If you live/stay where gardening on a decent scale is possible, preservable crops are a good thing. Have, if possible, heirloom varieties, because hybrid variety seeds from your crop are not fertile.
And be ready for evil times. Knowing like minded people who you can band together with is not a bad thing.
As for living on the “eastern edge of the LA sprawl”, your problem is going to be the mass of people and the sudden absence of any public utilities and food supplies. Urban areas are not survivable in this kind of crisis. Two legged predators and mob psychology.
I would offer the idea of getting a copy of The Effects of Nuclear War OTA-NS-89 put out by the Office of Technology Assessment and available through the Government Printing Office. LC # 790600080 It assumes blasts in the megaton range, and the likely ones we are going to endure are going to be in the kiloton range; but this will let you approximate damage circles from any assumed ground zero. These will, of course, vary somewhat with topography. In fact if my understanding of the “Inland Empire” is correct, y’all are somewhat east of I-10 and I-15 intersection. Thus, you have the advantage of distance and have some hills and/or mountains between you and LA. Distance and large chunks of granite are your friends when dealing with nuclear detonations.
For your area, I would actually recommend having somewhere in a relatively safe place as a haven that is well stocked and defendable rather than at home, a “bug-out kit”, and a willingness to leave if things look tense. A “long weekend” may be life-saving for you and yours. You might want to research secondary roads and routes out. I have had the dismal experience of driving on the Nimitz Freeway in the Bay area during rush hour. LA is worse. And in a panic will be far worse. Phone trees to get loved ones moving ASAP would be good.
As for the aftermath, I don’t think that it is possible to predict what the situation will be. We’ll all have to wing it.
In any case, preparations can be made discreetly and without figuratively or literally stringing concertina wire around your homestead. ‘Tis better to be prepared for a dangerous situation and not need it, than not be prepared and really need it.
Feel free to take this as you will. If you choose to consider me to be paranoid, it is no skin off my nose. But remember, even paranoids have enemies. [smile]
Subotai Bahadur
Note on the effects of Nuclear devices:
Consider a tactical weapon with yield similar to either of the 2 deployed by the U.S. against Japan, on the order of 10 to 20 Kilotons, air blast below 1000 meters.
Analysts point out that the effects of such a device detonated over, for instance, L.A. International Airport would be almost entirely contained within the borders of that airport.
Still a major annoyance for travelers.
Thermonuclear devices (“H-Bomb”) produce much more damage, but because they consist of a large blanket of fusible material enclosing a fission-device initiator, the size of any fusion-bomb is bound to be enormous. Much more critical in all design details, subject to failure, detection, and interdiction by whatever delivery strategy currently available.
On the other hand, two incidents over the last 30 years in which abandoned therapeutic nuclear medical devices were broken open by scavengers, releasing the primary contents, showed that problems can last for decades.
I don’t think Eggplant exhausted the possibilities.
First, a uranium-235 implosion weapon can be very efficient and hence give a yield of 150 kT or more with material quantities similar to a Pu design. Uranium need not be a gun-type design, which is very inefficent and requires a much larger mass of U-235 per kT of yield. A U-235 implosion design can serve, I understand, as a trigger for a fusion weapon. Add some tritium and one could get 500 kT out of a strictly uranium fission weapon on about the same $ per kT expense.
Hence, an Iranian U-235 program could be the industrial basis for a massive thermonuclear inventory buildup. Let’s not put too much hope in the technical difficulties of implosion or thermonuclear designs as a barrier. These technologies are 60+ years old by now and are much easier just because of the calculational tools availible now.
The option of Israel going full countervalue on first strike is one I hadn’t considered. Persia would still exist as a culture but the remnents would politically break apart. The big question would be whether the remaining military still had the power to deliver a nuke inside Israel, via missile, ship, or Palestinian.
No, Israel is not a one (20 kT) bomb country. One could make the case for it being a one (25 MT) bomb country though.
To repeat from previous thread.
Do we know for sure that the NORK demonstration was nuclear? Has radiation been detected? A sufficiently large amount of chemical explosive, properly fused, and buried deep enough could make a large enough bang to seem very nuke-like.
It is all about perception. Dear Leader, and to a lesser degree, the Persians, are as much about leaving the table in the kitchen and sitting with the grown ups in the dining room as they are about ideology. Egos are amazing things.
I suggest a recon in force. Look, leave, report (possibly disable). It could be US in NORK, it could be Israel in Iran.
I’m not sure how much longer Jong-Il will be able to withstand the pressure of the ever-building expressions of concern.
Let me add some civil defense advice to Mr. Bahadur’s comments. In case of a local nuclear explosion where one does not experience direct effects (blast, burns, radiation – say 5 miles), the important thing is to SIT STILL unless dirt starts falling from the big black smoke cloud forming from the mushroom cloud. That dirt is fallout and is highly radioactive. GET out from under the BLACK CLOUD and away from the fallout.
Otherwise, SIT STILL. With no fallout, you are OK. The Federal government will be on the air within 15 minutes with a prediction of the fallout path. Note that radio wave communications may be disrupted for a while so check cable, internet, etc. The reason to sit still is that you do NOT want to cross the path of the fallout cloud. If the predictions say the fallout is coming your way, then follow the directions to get out of its way. Otherwise SIT STILL. That fallout can kill one hundred miles downwind within hours of exposure.
I too recommend “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons” by Glasstone and others if you’ve any technical bent. I’ve my copy and the useful little circular sliderule in the back for calculating effects radii, etc.
#25 Tcobb
For the case of Iran alone [and I do not think if they launch they will stop there. There is no advantage to do so, and the rest of the Ummah will be at war with them if they are left untouched.] if done properly, it will take 3 warheads, only one of which would be a surface burst, to approach your single digit. One can conceive of a use for a 4th warhead on the surface if one was being particularly vindictive, but the same effect could be achieved with relative few specially modified PGM’s. Except for the surface burst area, residual radiation would not be a major factor. The trick is thinking outside the box for targeting. Think Aikido.
For the Ummah, 68 devices with varied delivery means, and “Aikido”. And yes, even from open sources they have well over that many.
The study that this came from was done privately, unclassified, and without government funding. It has been reviewed, unofficially, by private individuals with some expertise in the field. The reviews were positive. It was further agreed that I am not a ‘nice person’.
#24 Eggplant
Agreed as to production strategies. Minor disagreement as to Nork motives. I do not rule out both a different and uncomprehensible Weltanschauung along with the strong possibility of them being Chiroptera Lunaris crazy. Somewhat more substantial disagreement as to Israeli targeting decisions, as restraint does not eliminate the mortal threat. Think what happened to the Philistines. I weight your second targeting option heavier than the first; but that is a matter that we can come to no conclusion on until after the fact.
Subotai Bahadur
Eggplant writes: “When the Israelis strike, their options are to attack Kharg Island and the Iranian power grid –or– go for blanket destruction using their own nuclear capability. I don’t expect the Israelis could morally accept the second option so watch for the first one.”
Alvin writes: “Maybe they will come up with some plan other than a massive nuclear strike to stop or at least significantly postpone, once again, the plans of those who hate them. I hope so.”
It’s possible that Israel will never use a nuclear weapon, except in perhaps a bunker-busting capacity. Jews have an obligation to honor life, and that is the law and the culture. In a hair-trigger situation, the nukes may fly. But I suspect we’d be more likely to see a reverse exodus before that happens, to the US perhaps. Then we can have real credentials for being the great satan.
Muslims might not have our revulsion at the use of nuclear weapons, at least if used against Jews. Islam has a coherent core of Jew-hatred in its scripture and traditions. Jews poisoned the prophet, etc., and the Jews accompany the anti-Christ in the final days, etc., etc. There is an Islamic obligation to assist in, or at least anticipate, a last-days final solution regarding the Jews.) Sad, but there it is.
Maybe Muslims would assume that the Kafka parable applied to them.
But anyway, fear not— Andy Borowitz: U.S. to Respond to North Korea with ‘Strongest Possible Adjectives’
Give the Al Saud family credit. They’re smart customers. They keep their mouths shut while quietly working their intrigues. There are excellent reasons why they are sitting on a large fraction of the world’s wealth.
Nonsense. They were herding camels over that wealth until the British offered Ibn Saud their support in his holy war against the Hashemites, in return for first dibs on developing the oil fields. (Of course American oil companies weren’t far behind.)
Njartist,
As historical support, consider MacArthur’s shooting of the Bonus Army. Not only were those fellow citizens, they were veterans.
An Israeli scientist has opinioned that the Syrian target destroyed by the airstrike was more likely a nuclear weapons factory than a reactor. He points out certain missing features of that facility as compared to a reactor.
it will take 3 warheads, only one of which would be a surface burst, to approach your single digit.
With all due respect Sir, what kind of warheads are you talking about? Iran has more than 70 cities with populations numbering more than 100,000 people. Its land area is 636,374 square miles. The biggest H-bomb that I am aware of was a 65 megaton monster that the USSR tested—I do not know if bombs of that power were ever put into production for actual military use, but even three of those couldn’t destroy Iran.
I mean no disrespect to you personally, (I have always liked and respected the comments you make) but I am very dubious about the validity of the study you quote.
Pretty good sumulator here.
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html?ll=35.19814,31.79647&yd=1000&z=6
While nukes tend to have much larger yields then conventional bombs, you still are not going to take out an entire country with one.
“About Half America would say we’d have it coming.”
That half needs to die. Sorry, just “calls it like I sees it” whiskey.
Damn. I copied that first one, then I saw so many more. Where were you in November? Yes, McPain was a waste. But we could have gotten started. As for this current political madness? Perhaps it will be a wake up call. Provided we survive to recover this nation at the ballot box.
The largest weapon in the US arsenal was the 25 megaton (MT) B41 aerial bomb. It weighed just over 10,000 lb. I think it was fitted to the Titan II missile, if memory serves. The largest device ever tested was Russia’s Tsar Bomba, as mentioned, but at the time the Russians only claimed a yield of 50 MT. It was air-dropped. It was widely acknowledged that the US could have done the same. The Russians even pulled back, wisely, from testing Tsar Bomba at 100 MT, fearing regional weather effects.
The Israelis are purported to have well over 150 warheads and are expected to be thermonuclear-capable. I think their issue is delivery means – do they have to use warplanes or do they have missiles with adequate throw weight?
I would expect that an Israeli full countervalue attack is quite capable of destroying Iran’s 70 cities larger than 100,000. The largest city is Tehran – it might take more than one warhead to promptly kill over half that city’s population (ignoring possible fallout) but one B41 bomb could have done the trick. Add ground burst tactics to increase the local fallout and more weapons are needed for prompt destruction but total fatalities and greater areas of unihabitable territory results.
“And of course, our current President knows as much about foreign affairs as I have of building a faster than light starship drive. He’ll go along with any platitude than is currently popular with the “international community.” I believe the term is “useful idiot.””
Sorry, after a go back through I had to grab that one too.
I don’t see Israel using nukes when/if it tries to take out Iran’s nuke program. Too much taboo there.
#42 Tcobb
Blast and gamma radiation are only two of a number of the effects of a nuclear explosion. Picking which to use, where, is the key. I’d rather not go into details here, for obvious reasons [although if someone could convince me that they were from the Israeli embassy I might not mind sharing a copy with them]. As I said, it has been reviewed by people with expertise in the field, positively.
Absolutely no disrespect taken. I further realize that my unsupported [and admittedly guarded] statements are not probative. So feel free to disbelieve. If I lose credibility with you, I accept that as the price of not laying it all out here. You might want to think about it as a theoretical exercise, though.
The larger point that I mentioned it in reference to is that it IS within the capability of the State of Israel to deal with this problem, and indeed a larger one. The question is that of will. The will can be altered by the perception of varying levels of threat to their existence, and their perception of whether they do in fact stand alone, surrounded by enemies, with no allies.
Subotai Bahadur
Tcobb, I think he meant 3 to cover Israel (Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem), and 68 to cover Iran. I’m sure he’ll clarify.
And while we are all properly concerned with the Mideast, let us not forget the Far East
as well.
Japan has said, so I hear tell, that if North Korea is not shut down shortly, Japan will
develop a First Strike capability of its own.
Now I leave it to your imagination what that will do to that part of the world.
And can they do just that? Might take them 6 to 8 months. We are talking about a country that in 1945 had seven nuclear manufacturing plants ready to go if they could have just gotten fissionable material.
These days, they already have enough for a few thousand warheads.
I have to concede that Japan has every right to go ahead if they conclude that their survival and well-being requires it. I sure do not have to like it though.
Eggplant, I think that most people would agree that any jihadi WMD strike would be on a single target. And I am fairly convinced that the retaliation would be as I described.
London? Maybe. Frankly, I don’t think it would be much of a loss. Guy Fawkes had a point. In fact, I think the only city in Europe whose loss would be less of a problem to the majority of Brits not living in it would be Brussels. Or perhaps Strasbourg, depending on which particular trough the pigs had their snouts in that week.
Likely targets in London would be either Westminster or the City. Given recent events, not much of a loss at all.
#20 Alvin . . .
Israel has many deadly weapons and many options besides the ones mentioned in this thread.
I won’t say what they are, but I hope all enemies of the Jews know that they will die if Israel dies.
RWE said:
“An Israeli scientist has opinioned that the Syrian target destroyed by the airstrike was more likely a nuclear weapons factory than a reactor.”
I think the Syrian reactor was part of a Iranian/Nork/Syrian PUREX (Plutonium Uranium
Recovery by EXtraction) facility like the one we
had Savannah River. This would have been a heavy duty
industral process where the nuclear reactor was only
the front end. Israel’s destruction of the nuclear reactor essentially nipped it in the bud.
Whitehall said:
“… a uranium-235 implosion weapon can be very efficient and hence give a yield of 150 kT or more with material quantities similar to a Pu design. Uranium need not be a gun-type design, which is very inefficent and requires a much larger mass of U-235 per kT of yield.”
The inefficency of gun-type nukes was recognized very early in the American nuclear weapons program (gun-type nukes were abandoned after Little Boy). However the Iranians will have only one shot at nuking Israel. They really don’t have the option of testing their nukes because it could trigger an Israeli preemptive response. Their most viable option is to attack the Israelis with either untested weapons or weapons developed and tested by someone else, i.e. the Norks. This pretty much dictates that they develop gun-type nukes as well as get in bed with the Norks.
Whitehall also said:
“The largest weapon in the US arsenal was the 25 megaton (MT) B41 aerial bomb. It weighed just over 10,000 lb. I think it was fitted to the Titan II missile, if memory serves.”
No, the Titan-II used the W53 housed inside the Mk-6 RV. The W53 was rated at 9 MT.
Mariner said:
“[The Saudis] were herding camels over that wealth until the British offered Ibn Saud their support in his holy war against the Hashemites, in return for first dibs on developing the oil fields. (Of course American oil companies weren’t far behind.)”
It’s a mistake to underestimate the Saudis. Also the British were backing the Hashemites (read T.E. Lawrence). After the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the Hashemites opted to “trade-up” from the Arabian penninsula to Damascus and Baghdad. Ibn Saud essentially filled a power vacuum. Again, give the Saudis credit for dealing with a tricky political problem. The Hashmites were the direct descendants of Mohammed the Prophet. Ibn Saud had to convince the unwashed masses of Arabia that he was a more devout Moslem than Mohammed’s own family (no easy trick). Then after the oil was discovered, the Saudi’s had to keep from being gobbled up by the Europeans, Americans and Soviets. The Saudis used the very subtle politics of balancing one great power off of another while at the same time preaching that they were holier than Allah to the Islamic world. Where they got into trouble was not in controlling their own fanatics. They should have recognized that religious fanaticism was what got them into power and it could be used to remove them from power. I’ll close by mentioning that the United States under George W. Bush showed considerable sophistication when we pulled out of Saudi Arabia after 9/11 and then went after Saddam. We understood the game that was being played by Osama bin Laden and Upped the Anti. Too bad George W. wasn’t as sophisticated in dealing with the MSM and the moonbats.
“I don’t see Israel using nukes when/if it tries to take out Iran’s nuke program. Too much taboo there.”
Maybe it is apocryphal — but most of us have heard the story of the Israeli security chief shaking his head while looking at the TSA carnival at a US airport: “You look for weapons, we look for terrorists”.
It would be dumb for the Israelis to try to take out heavily protected nuclear weapons plants. Much smarter to cut the head off the snake. Nuclear bombs don’t kill people — people kill people.
Of course, it would be smart for the Israelis to let the Iranians (and their sympathisers at the New York Times) think that the target would be the nuclear weapon installations.
The largest weapon in the U.S. arsenal was the 41,000 lb Mk17/24, with a yield estimated in the 15 to 21 megaton range, carried by the B-36. Of course, it was phased out by 1957.
A conventional version of the bomb was developed as well. Now that would have been impressive too.
Nuclear weapons: When you care enough to send the very best.
I am guessing that Subotai Bahadur’s 3 (or 4) nuke quote to finish Iran is based on non-blast effects. Two obvious ones are EMP, to cook any modern electrical/electronic infrastructure; and the paralysis of command/control and transport of food, water and other urgently-needed supplies. You wouldn’t need to annihilate the population, you could let it perish of starvation, thirst, disease, and social collapse. In 6 months there would be no Iran and very few Iranians. Just my uneducated guess.
Not that I would want to see that result. Most of those folks are quite innocent of the mad mullahs’ designs. But that wouldn’t protect them, any more than it would shield the average Israeli. Or American. War is hell.
That implosion device in the movie Arrival would be nice, just implode the Presidential palace with Ahmmadjihad and the place(s) where mullahs congregate and wzzzzz, suck, all done. Anyone knows how to make it?
RWE – I meant “large” as in biggest yield. I think you mean “heaviest.” Wikipedia claims the B41 had the highest yield of US weapons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons
Personally, I’m skeptical of the degree of damage from EMP to civilian infrastructure. For the the electric grid in the US, there are a number of design features that would be protective against EMP. Solar magnetic storms share certain characteristics with EMP and we’ve done some work on that since North America had a couple of bad experiences a couple of decades ago.
Back on thread, just how would we rate the odds of an Israeli first strike against Iran? I’d say it is pretty low. As Kinuachdrach and others have noted, sometimes all you need is an ice pick, properly applied.
Whitehall @ 58: “I’m skeptical of the degree of damage from EMP to civilian infrastructure.”
I used to work in the part of the government contractor industry that tested all sorts of things for EMP effects and built simulators for the same. Nuclear EMP is much like a lightening strike. It is a critically damped sine wave with FWHM of ~100ns and rise time of 3-5ns. Most if not all weapons systems have been hardened for decades to include missles, aircraft, ships and land vehicles. I tested a lot of them. GM even tested cars way back when. Your computer will probably not work if you are in line of sight of the device. The power grid handles lightening storms quite well, thank you.
What will be disruptive is the area of direct weapons effects. They are blast, heat, radiation, EMP and shock. Fallout is a serious consideration but most modern weapons are pretty clean. The rogue states with crudely manufactured weapons, maybe not so much.
Wretchard,
I posted the following over on the winds of Change blog April 10, 2006.
What I said then still applies today:
—————————–
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/count_down_to_irans_nuclear_test_revisited.html
Iran’s nuclear program is not a NATIONAL PROGRAM. It is an INTERNATIONAL ONE.
As long as North Korea serves as an invulnerable sanctuary supplying ballistic missiles and nuclear fissile material to Iran in exchange for oil, Iran will get nukes.
Looked at one way, nuclear proliferation may be seen as a phenomenon of globalization. Looked at in another, it may well be that nuclear proliferation is a game of covert nuclear warfare against the world’s sole superpower.
No matter which is true, only forcible regime change will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and setting off a chain reaction of proliferation that will add a least a dozen unstable, nuclear-armed, 3rd world states in a decade. Those will use their nukes on each, themselves and hand some off to terrorists, intentionally or otherwise, for use on us.
The kinds of nukes Iran is pursuing, given the self-evident need to remove the Mullah regime, is the most pressing and least thought through question of the proliferation debate. It is one colored by mirror-imaging conventional wisdom amounting to religious faith on the part of our nuclear weapons and intelligence communities.
The conventional wisdom was expressed recently in an Austin Bay/James Dunnigan podcast for Glenn Reynolds. If Iran had a nuke, it would be an implosion type nuclear weapon roughly of the size and capability of the USA’s 1950′s vintage Mk 7 Thor tactical nuclear bomb. It would be too fragile/unreliable for delivery by a Scud and to heavy for a long range Scud derivative like the Shahab-3 when placed in a workable re-entry vehicle. The biggest threat of such a device, according to Bay & Dunnigan, is as a warhead for a suicide airliner flying out of Africa into Europe.
The underlying logic for this is that plutonium is easier to separate from other materials than highly enriched uranium (HEU aka U-235) while plutonium fissionable triggers require less fissionables than those using U-235. Since implosion style nuclear designs (9 kg of plutonium) are far more efficient in use of scarce, expensive weapons-grade fissionals than a gun-type bomb (60 kg of U-235), implosion type plutonium fueled bombs are assumed to be the only type Iran is pursuing.
I disagree with that assessment.
>snip<
Suppose the Iranians came at the nuclear weapon technology tree with a different set of priorities? What if their choice was not based on getting fissile material? What if that was solved via sales from North Korea or via pre-enriched uranium from other sources that Iran can rapidly make highly enriched?
Suppose instead they want to have a reliable nuclear warhead for Scuds and longer ranged Scud derivative missiles as soon as possible instead? That was Tom Holsinger’s point in his “Case for Invading Iran.”
The key nuclear device weight performance targets are one metric ton for a Scud and 500lbs for a long range Scud derivative.
The technology tree choice in that case is to get a gun-type enriched uranium bomb. Historically gun-type nukes were smaller and faster to develop than implosion type weapons. As an example, America test detonated an 11 inch diameter nuclear cannon shell in 1953 which was 36 inches long and weighed 540 lbs.
I don’t think that the Iranians have matched the M65 11-inch “Atomic Annie” cannon’s shell size with their device, but I do think they have at least one fielded design sized for a basic Scud.
Recent history supports the gun type bomb as the major secret proliferation threat. Both Iraq’s secret Calutron using nuclear program and South Africa’s successful program used gun type bomb designs.
South Africa under its past white governments built seven gun type atomic bombs in ten years enriching 320 kg of HEU for $250 million using no more than 300 people at peak to build them. Their bombs weighed 2,000 pounds each and were scaled for carriage by Buccaneer strike aircraft.
Iran is not as technologically sophisticated as South Africa was, but South Africa did not have the use of the A.Q. Khan/North Korean nuclear black market either.
—————-
We are looking at a worse case break out of pandemic nuclear proliferation.
Israel either acts for its own survival or it dies.
The one thing Netanyahu can count on in all of this is Obama doing nothing.
>Most if not all weapons systems have been
>hardened for decades to include missles,
>aircraft, ships and land vehicles. I tested
>a lot of them. GM even tested cars way back
>when. Your computer will probably not work
>if you are in line of sight of the device.
>The power grid handles lightening storms
>quite well, thank you.
Most American military EMP hardening requirements were relaxed in the late 1990′s.
Most radios and vehicles prodiced since then do not have the same levels of designed in EMP protection as 1980′s equipment.
The majority of the commerical off the shelf electroncs adapted to the US military’s “Battle field internet” during the Global War on Terrorism are not EMP protected.
Trent,
Again, U-235 works very well in an implosion design. The mass of U-235 is comparable to the required mass of Pu-239 in such a weapon and is much, much less than required in a gun-type design.
Yes, implosion weapons are more difficult to design but it makes little difference whether they are U-235 or Pu-239. In fact, a U-235 implosion design might be easier since there is less spontaneous fission and hence neutron flux with U-235 (HEU).
To conclude that HEU requires or implies a gun design is a major conceptual error.
Let me quote from a nuclear weapon design guide:
“The largest pure fission bomb ever tested was the Mk 18F Super Oralloy Bomb (SOB) designed under the leadership of Dr. Theodore B. Taylor at Los Alamos. It demonstrated a yield of 500 kt in the Ivy King test at Eniwetok (15 November 1952 local). Predicted yield was 400-600 kt. 85% of the yield came from U-235 fission, the rest presumably from fission of a U-238 tamper. This bomb used the large diameter (60 inch) 92 point implosion system developed for the Mk 13 high yield fission bomb, and the Mk 6 bomb casing and components. The Mk 18 weighed 8600 lb, about 90 were eventually deployed.”
“A reasonable assessment of the Mk 18 design is that it had a core containing 75 kg of HEU with a pre-implosion diameter of at least 24 cm, the levitated pit probably had a mass of 15 kg or so. It likely had a natural uranium tamper weighing about 150 kg. A density increase over the normal value of 2-2.5 is probable. ”
(source: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq4-2.html#Nfaq4.2 )
61. Trent Telenko:
Most American military EMP hardening requirements were relaxed in the late 1990’s.
Most radios and vehicles prodiced since then do not have the same levels of designed in EMP protection as 1980’s equipment.
The majority of the commerical off the shelf electroncs adapted to the US military’s “Battle field internet” during the Global War on Terrorism are not EMP protected.
May 29, 2009 – 11:04 am
Not to get in the middle, but: GPS is susceptible to interference by a hostile entity. As has been demonstrated recently by China. The One proposes to eliminate LORAN, totally. Does it make sense to have all your aids in one basquet?
The $3xM to run LORAN is peanuts, but is touted as “significant budget cuts” blah de blah.
Am I missing something? Is there another GPS system in the wings, ready to take over?
tom
Whitehall,
You are hooked on the need to be efficient in fissionable materials.
The key here is political and military _realiability_, not physics package efficiency.
Implosion weapon designs require physical testing to be considered reliable weapons.
HEU, gun type, nuclear weapons designs do not.
The biggest secret and successful nuclear weapons program was South Africa’s. It made 320 kg of HEU in 10 years for $250 million. It did so using no more than 300 people at peak to build them.
All seven nuclear weapons were gun type HEU physics packages.
Since Iran has access to pre-enriched commerical nuclear fuel as a feed stock for it’s A.Q. Khan provided Pakistani nuclear separators for roughly 2 & 1/2 times as long a South Africa had a nuclear program. The working assumption that Iran has more than one gun-type HEU bomb for its Scuds is all but proven.
If Israel is really interested in survival, it should assume Iran has nuclear weapons and strike Iran with that assumption in mind.
Trent,
The issue is deliverability. An implosion HEU weapon could far easier to mount on a SCUD with adequate range due to its lighter weight plus can have a much higher yield.
I still assert making the presumption that any Iranian nuclear weapons SHALL be a gun-tupe is foolish. Believe what you will.
Granted, most of the SWUs needed for HEU are consumed in moving from natural to reactor-grade. Starting with commercial LEU as reactor fuel would save them lots of time.
If the nuke is intended to be delivered anonymously [proxy], how difficult would it be for the developer to hide the “fingerprint” of it?
These counter-attack scenarios all assume that we can determine the originator of the attack. What if we can’t?
What you need is enough nuclear weaons to send a message.
Literally.
Tap out a Morse code sequence using detonations spaced along a timeline spelling out something like:
“Goodbye, morons.”
What would be the deterrent effect of a policy that told North Korea and Iran that if any nuke goes off in any of the following countries (list: starting with USA and Israel, adding others as appropriate), then both NK and Iran will be presumed responsible and turned to glass without any further discussion? …I know, it’s all nasty and terrorizing and against the rules about no collective punishment. But the real question isn’t how crazy it makes the hand-wringers. It’s whether it would get these people to stop, now, and demonstrably so.
Just looking for a way off the slippy slope.
Ask yourself, who is it that is pushing “no collective punishment” as a reasonable and proper constraint?
A very depressing number of US citizens have had their logic processing circuits ravaged and atrophied by the culture.
Many years ago I watched a couple of “New Haven’s finest” arrest someone on the street.
From 20 feet away, what I saw was that they were talking, and suddenly the guy bolted. The two officers ran after and tackled him. In less than a minute three squad cars roared up, and suddenly there was a pile-on of ten uniformed officers grappling with this one guy who clearly preferred to be elsewhere.
My companions (students of untempered liberal training) looked on disapprovingly, murmuring that it just wasn’t fair for so many to be ganging up on just one guy.
Not a fair fight.
God Help us.
These dimbulbs, members of the alleged community of scholars sharpening their wits and earning potential at one of the world’s great universities, were utterly ignorant of the basic idea that an officer of the court, having informed a person that he is under arrest, is required to use all reasonable means available to take that person into custody. If the subject resists, the officer is authorized to use escalating levels of force, including potentially lethal force if necessary, to effect the arrest.
This is NOT subject to the officer’s discretion!
If some scrawny little guy doesn’t want to be arrested, it is no easy thing to get the handcuffs on the wrists. A pile-on by ten officers is actually far more humane way of subduing a subject than for a single officer with no other options to use a weapon.
One of the many vicious disservices Hollywood has fobbed off on us, is the INSANE notion that “a good guy NEVER draws first, never shoots first, but ALWAYS lets the bad guy draw and shoot first.” This is the stupid cocaine-sucking Hollywood community insisting that ALL USE OF FORCE is bad, and only bad people use force before they absolutely MUST.
Don’t even get me started on the question “Wull, why didn’t they shoot the knife outta the guy’s hand instead of killing’im?”
I don’t think Israel goes nuclear first. I just don’t see that happening. Even if they did, they would just be starting the countdown to their own annihilation. The Arabs would be glad to see Persia gone but they would then just begin the effort to rid the world of Israel… the aggressor. It is easy enough to buy a single nuke and get it delivered… especially after Israel wipes out an Muslim country.
There may not even be air strikes since they will probably be ineffectual. Iran has no doubt distributed its weapons program and without the US to help it would be a one shot deal. Heck, we kicked around in Iraq a long, long time before we were sure if there were weapons of mass destruction and we had boots on the ground.
Israel has no good options without the US. They may weigh everything and decide to just wait for further developments. I would also think a program to overthrow the Mullahs should have been in the works for a long, long time. Iran is funding insurgencies on Israel’s doorstep. There is no reason they can’t return the favor. The younger generation there will come to power sooner or later. Better to get on their good side now and help them break their bonds.
>The issue is deliverability. An implosion
>HEU weapon could far easier to mount on a
>SCUD with adequate range due to its lighter
>weight plus can have a much higher yield.
Wrong.
.
The key is achieving minimum, reliable, nuclear delivery capability without testing.
.
I take it you missed what I wrote here:
.
.
“The key nuclear device weight performance targets are one metric ton for a Scud and 500lbs for a long range Scud derivative.
.
The technology tree choice in that case is to get a gun-type enriched uranium bomb. Historically gun-type nukes were smaller and faster to develop than implosion type weapons. As an example, America test detonated an 11 inch diameter nuclear cannon shell in 1953 which was 36 inches long and weighed 540 lbs.”
.
.
Late 1950′s technolgy fission bombs fit on both Scuds and Scud derivative missiles and worked reliably in tests.
.
It is a classic intelligence standard to assess enemy capabilities rather than enemy intentions.
.
What I am saying that the U.S. government has screwed up in estimating Iranian nuclear capability based on mirror-imaging assumptions rather than recent nuclear proliferation tehnological history.
.
This is the same mistake you are making.
.
One the huge ironies in this Iranian nuclear weapons debate is that the last time we had a major National Intelligence group think this wrong headed was in 1998, right before the North Koreans tested their No-Dong missile by firing it over Japan and landing the warhead off the Alaska coast.
.
The Clinton Administration’s CIA in its national intelligence assessment stated it would be 10 years before North Korea would get an ICBM class ballistic missile. As the CIA had stated for the previous 10 years in the Clinton Administration’s first term and the previous Bush Administration. (Time stands still for the CIA!)
.
The Rumsfeld Commission was put together by the Republican Congress to dispute that and predicted a test of such a North Korean missile “very soon.”
.
The CIA pooh poohed that report in congressional testimony and the Clinton Administration ignored it as a stunt to get funding for ballistic missile defenses — which it was.
.
Six months later a North Korean reentry vehicle splashed down off the Alaska coast and Clinton Administration opposition to the Son of SDI died.
.
The problem we have today is that there is no Rumsfeld Commission on Iranian nukes to get Defense Secretary Gates and the Obama Administration to look past the CIA’s intelligence fantasies to the real threat of Iranian nukes.
.
And it is too late for one to make a difference in any case.