You knew this was coming.
Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings, Joby Warrick is reporting at WaPo.
Enter U.S. bombs, stage right.
Funny, as I researched those calling Iran our greatest threat, I ran across a number of Bilderberg participants:
ReplyDeletehttp://arisfreedomswitch.blogspot.com/2011/11/peculiar-iran-update.html
Time to remember some analysis delivered by respected Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld back in 2004:
ReplyDelete"Respected Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld writing about "the Iran threat' in 2004.
"As regards Iranian intentions, it is hard to say. Iran is ruled by an Islamic fundamentalist government whose members have often expressed their implacable opposition to Israel's existence and their determination to destroy it. On the other hand, the claim that Iran is working on nuclear weapons and would have them within three years has now been floating about for almost a decade and a half and, so far, has always proved false.
Perhaps this is no wonder. Having witnessed the Americans' vain hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, some of us may be less inclined to accept whatever intelligence does or does not say — including Israeli intelligence, which has more than once invented nonexistent threats.
Even if the Iranians are working on a bomb, Israel may not be their real concern. Iran is now surrounded by American forces on all sides — in the Central Asian republics to the north, Afghanistan to the east, the Gulf to the South and Iraq to the west. Shamkhani expressed Tehran's unease at the American presence in an Al Jazeera interview broadcast late Wednesday, in which he hinted that some Iranian commanders believe they should strike first if they sense an imminent threat from the United States.
Wherever U.S forces go, nuclear weapons go with them or can be made to follow in short order. The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy.
Though Iran is ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, most commentators who are familiar with the country do not regard its government as irrational. The only figure capable of inspiring Iranians to extraordinary sacrifices, Ayatollah Khomeini, died more than a decade ago. Even before then, it was Saddam Hussein who attacked Iran, not the other way around; since then Iran has been no more aggressive than most countries are.
For all their talk of opposition to Israel, Iran's rulers are very unlikely to mount a nuclear attack on a country that is widely believed to have what it takes to wipe them off the map. Chemical or other attacks are also unlikely, given the meager results that may be expected and the retaliation that would almost certainly follow.
Numerous foreign sources have claimed that to counter the perceived threat from Iran, Israel has deployed missiles on land and at sea that are capable of inflicting awesome damage on Iran. Should Israel decide to strike at the Iranian nuclear installations, though, it is more likely to use its F-15 fighter-bombers.
The only country whose reaction to such a strike would carry great weight with Israel is the United States. Because Iran is suspected of supporting at least some of the insurgents in Iraq, many U.S officials might privately welcome an Israeli strike on Iran, just as they welcomed Israel's destruction in 1981 of the nuclear reactor that Saddam Hussein was building near Baghdad. With the United States now in the midst of a hotly disputed election campaign, if Sharon wanted to act, the time to do so would be between now and November.
And so the pieces may be falling into place, one by one. If Israel strikes, Iran may react by launching its own missiles at Israel, but this is unlikely. Tehran may ask Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Nasrallah, to open fire on Israel, in which case it is very likely that hostilities would not be limited to Lebanon but would spread to Syria as well. It remains to be seen how Egypt would react if Israel attacked Syria. In the past, President Hosni Mubarak has said Egypt would not take such an action lying down." "
Source = NYT @ http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/opinion/21iht-edcreveld_ed3_.html