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An Iran Update
listen:
  Iran's nuclear ambitions have been the subject of much discussion here in the United States and were part of the discussion at an international security conference last week in Munich, Germany where European Union diplomats talked with Iran's National Security Chief. Meanwhile, President Bush has been pushing for tougher European action on Iran to stand down on its nuclear ambitions. The tension between Iran and the U.S. has escalated in recent weeks with President Bush targeting Iran as a supplier of weapons and training for the insurgency in Iraq and the response from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that he would target American interests around the world if Iran was attacked. We'll look at where things stand with Iran in terms of both the United States and Europe. Laura's guest is Dr. Jackson Janes, Executive Director of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and Massood Samii, Professor of Economics and Chair of the International Business Dept at SNHU. He was also the former Chief Economist for OPEC in Vienna. Web resources:
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Dear Laura -
I've been quite concerned because Prime Minister Olmert of Israel has been heavily influenced by his Mossad intelligence services to attack Iran (with U.S. support) sometime between March and June of this year. Bush keeps saying, "we won't attack" but that is a meaningless diversion from the truth. No one, even Democrats who should know better, is doing enough to spell out the consequences of an attack on Iran. Even Gates lied about it in his own confirmation hearing, because he did know about Iranian missiles and germ warfare development and said otherwise.
The consequences of this attack has not be adequately spotlighted for the American people.
The Iranian government knows very well the long list of targets prepared by Rumsfeld before he left office. The Iranians promised to response with a hail of missles against Israel and "U.S. interests" and bases across the Middle East the "moment a U.S. or Israeli warplane appears on the horizon." We don't realize that since 1991, Iran (although blocked from receiving nuclear technology) purchased the best chemical and biological laboratories and warfare scientists that the dissolved Soviet Union had available. Formerly unemployed post-Soviet scientists have created warheads for the existing arsenal of short and medium-range missiles that Iran now has pointed at Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE and the eastern Mediterranean.
This disaster will make portions of the Middle East unliveable, and justifiably cause a Muslim uprising across the world. The U.S. (although planning Israel's role) will say - "we didn't start it" and... playing the victim... will next fly in and flatten Iran (disregarding its cultural treasures) just as they disregarded the centuries-old culture of Iraq.
Now, what will go wrong are these:
- unlike over Lebanon, U.S. and Israeli planes will be shot down
- the targetting list will be inaccurate, and "despite our best intelligence" U.S. and Israel will hit significant civilian targets
- Shi'a populations throughout the Middle East will, understandably, go nuts... including those in Iraq, and turn on U.S. troops, embassies and civilians
- Iranian missiles are not well-tested and will hit other places than Israeli population and military centers and U.S. bases... causing untold damage
- Those missiles with chemical (nerve toxins) and biological (germ warfare) warheads will do things where they hit that no one has ever seen before, and spread
- The world's Muslim population will watch their home countries and sacred shrines become unliveable wastelands, and won't stand still for it... wherever they are.
Michael Billingsley
Brattleboro, Vermont
michaelb@sover.net
p.s. people in Europe refer to Israel as Bush's "suicide bomber" in the Middle East, and expect ill-informed and unvisionary Olmert to blow up his own country any time now.
"You see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear" - The Point, Neilsson