Proof that Iran cannot be contained through mutually assured destruction
The Obama administration believes that it doesn't matter whether Iran gets nuclear weapons because they can be contained through the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.
I've always believed they're wrong. Now, I have proof.
Unlike North Korea whose territorial claims are limited to the Korean Peninsula, the Ayatollahs' territorial claims – featuring prominently in their school textbooks, weekly sermons and daily subversive and terroristic operations - transcend Iran, the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and the Muslim World. Unlike North Korea which is deterred by MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), the apocalyptic Ayatollahs are not deterred - but energized - by MAD. For example, The Qur'an and Life (Grade 12, p. 125) prepares children for the apocalyptic war against the US, and Defense Readiness (Grade 11, p. 11) praises the 500,000 children who were sent to clear the minefields during the war against Iraq.
Would they really teach their kids that sort of thing if they weren't ready to follow through on it?
The angry, defiant exchanges that punctuated Tuesday night’s
unusually tense game here came amid intense protests by Beitar Jerusalem
supporters over the team owner’s plans to recruit two Muslim players
from Chechnya. Some young men had unfurled a banner at the previous game
declaring “Beitar pure forever,” which reminded many here of Nazi
Germany’s purging of Jews from athletics in 1933 and prompted statewide
discussion about racism on and off the field.
“People in Israel usually try to locate Beitar Jerusalem as some kind of
the more extreme fringe; this is a way to overcome the embarrassment,”
said Moshe Zimmermann, a historian at Hebrew University who specializes
in sports. “The fact is that the Israeli society on the whole is getting
more racist, or at least more ethnocentric, and this is an expression.”
Reaction to the purity banner, perhaps the most controversial in a
series of Beitar outbursts, was swift. One of the fans who made the sign
was arrested and banned from games for the season. Fifty more were
barred from Tuesday’s match, along with banners of all kinds, and the
team was fined about $13,500, amid concerns that the episode could
threaten Israel’s scheduled hosting of a European Under 21 soccer
tournament in June.
When Beitar management last week brought in two Muslims from Chechnya
to join the team, the response by the haters was ugly, if not
unexpected. Despite official efforts to celebrate the inclusion of
Muslims into the Beitar family as an important Israeli value, some fans
responded at a game over the weekend with shameful calls for "Beitar
purity," and unfurled a vicious banner: "Beitar, pure forever."
But today's New York Times story about the incident is shocking in its
narrow focus and excessive reliance on Israel haters to suggest that the
racism of the worst Beitar fans accurately reflects Israeli society.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told The Jewish
Press by telephone from Berlin, "You want to know what "mirrors" Israeli
society? Walk in the Mamilla Mall on a Saturday night, Arabs and
Israelis, Muslims and Jews, all strolling, eating and shopping together -
that's the mirror of Israeli society."
While the focus of her article is what the antisemitic attitudes that
the New York Times missed, this point by Mrs. Marcus is important. By
focusing on a minority of Israelis and using selective sources to
project those attitudes to the larger society, the New York Times
reflects its attitude towards Israel. To the Times Israel is assumed to
be the sinner, unless shown otherwise.
An interesting contrast can be drawn to an article from nearly a year and a half ago in the Times, Beyond Cairo, Israel Sensing a Wider Siege. In discussing the siege and sacking of the Israeli embassy in Cairo, the reporter wrote:
But as the months of Arab Spring have turned autumnal, Israel has
increasingly become a target of public outrage. Some here say Israel is
again being made a scapegoat, this time for unfulfilled revolutionary
promises.
But there is another interpretation, and it is the predominant one
abroad — Muslims, Arabs and indeed many around the globe believe Israel
is unjustly occupying Palestinian territories, and they are furious at
Israel for it. And although some Israelis pointed fingers at
Islamicization as the cause of the violence, Egyptians noted Saturday
that Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, distanced
themselves from Friday’s protests and did not attend, while legions of
secular-minded soccer fans were at the forefront of the embassy attacks.
(Contrary to the implication of this article, calls for attacking the
embassy did come from the Muslim Brotherhood.) Note the contrast with
the recent article on the Beitar Jerusalem fans. In addition to
explaining the attack on the embassy as being anti-Israel not
antisemitic, the article justifies the antisemitic attitude.
Instead of taking an aberration and projecting it onto the whole
society, the New York Times took pains to explain away a society's
hatred of Israel and Jews.
But military analysts said that the Israeli jets’ flight pattern
strongly suggested a moving target, possibly a convoy near the center,
and that the Syrian government might have claimed the center was a
target to garner sympathy. Hitting a convoy made more sense, they said,
particularly if Israel believed that Hezbollah stood to acquire
“game-changing” arms, including antiaircraft weapons. Israeli leaders
declared days before the strike that any transfer of Syria’s extensive
cache of sophisticated conventional or chemical weapons was a “red line”
that would prompt action.
Hezbollah — backed by Syria and Iran — wants to upgrade its arsenal in
hopes of changing the parameters for any future engagement with the
powerful Israeli military, and Israel is determined to stop it. And
Hezbollah is perhaps even more anxious to gird itself for future
challenges to its primacy in Lebanon, especially if a Sunni-led
revolution triumphs next door in Syria.
But if weapons were targeted, analysts said, it is not even clear that
they belonged to Hezbollah. Arab and Israeli analysts said another
possibility was that Syria was simply aiming to move some weapons to
Lebanon for safekeeping. While there are risks for Hezbollah that
accepting them could draw an Israeli attack, said Emile Hokayem, a
Bahrain-based analyst at the International Institute for Strategic
Studies, there is also an upside: “If Assad goes down, they have the
arms.”
In the whole discussion about the meaning of the target and its
implications, one detail is missing: where is resolution 1701 - the
resolution ending Israel's war with Hezbollah in 2006? The provisions of 1701 include:
14. Calls upon the government of Lebanon to secure its borders and
other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent
of arms or related materiel and requests Unifil as authorised in
paragraph 11 to assist the government of Lebanon at its request;
15. Decides further that all states shall take the necessary measures to
prevent, by their nationals or from their territories or using their
flag vessels or aircraft;
a. the sale or supply to any entity or individual in Lebanon of arms and
related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition,
military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts
for the aforementioned, whether or not originating in their
territories, and;
b. the provision to any entity or individual in Lebanon of any technical
training or assistance related to the provision, manufacture,
maintenance or use of the items listed in subparagraph (a) above, except
that these prohibitions shall not apply to arms, related material,
training or assistance authorised by the government of Lebanon or by
Unifil as authorised in paragraph 11;
Israeli efforts to prevent arms transfers to Lebanon would seem to be
justified by the language of this resolution. See Elder of Ziyon for a similar observation.
While much of the Syrian opposition is radical Islamist or even part
of al-Qaeda, Sofrin continued, that is a new threat but not an immediate
threat like that emanating from Hizballah.
However, given the likelihood of the regime being overthrown and
replaced by a government that is led by the Muslim Brotherhood and,
either willingly or because it is unable to prevent them from doing so,
gives a free hands to Salafist groups or even al-Qaeda affiliates,
Israel cannot predict what its security situation will be like with
Syria a year from now.
Note that if al-Qaeda gets its hands on chemical weapons — and that
means deadly nerve gasses — this would be a direct threat to the United
States and other Western countries as well as to Israel.
The New York Times also provided a similar assessment attributed to Boaz
Ganor at the end of its article about the more general threat Syria
chemical weapons could pose in the future.
Why Hezbollah chose to smuggle these systems at this moment is
unclear. It could simply be that, having engaged in such transfers of
its assets in Syria for a good year now without any Israeli
interdiction, it thought it might be another routine operation. That
Israel was able to obtain such detailed intelligence is a testament to
its penetration of the organization.
What’s more, although Israel prepared itself for possible retaliation,
the lack of hesitance in taking out the convoy, on Syrian soil,
underscores Hezbollah’s predicament. With its Syrian strategic depth in
shambles, the Party of God is not in a position to start a major war
with Israel.
Those who thought that Hamas would ever establish a modern and
liberal regime in the Gaza Strip received another reminder this week of
how the radical Islamist movement is pursuing its effort to create a
Taliban-style entity in the territory that has been under its control
since 2007.
The reminder came in the form of a decision taken by the Al-Aqsa
University administration in the Gaza Strip to force female students to
dress in accordance with Islamic teachings.
This means that all female students would be required to wear the hijab or niqab which cover their heads and faces.
Some think its belated show of strength is just sabre-rattling in a US presidential year. This is unlikely. What’s much more likely is that the west is putting on a show of strength to show Iran that the west ‘really, really means it’ in order to get Iran to ‘come to its senses’.
To which there are three points to make. First, this is all far, far too late. Tough sanctions that would really hurt Iran were being urged years ago, when some of us started warning that Iran’s nuclear programme simply had to be stopped before the situation became dangerously out of control – and were derided as ‘neo-con war-mongers’ for our efforts.
Nothing was done; the UK and EU vaguely wrung their hands and shook the occasional fist; while for his part, Obama advertised US weakness by extending his hand in friendship to the Iranian regime which at the time was busy blowing up American and coalition soldiers in Iraq. Obama’s catastrophic strategy gave the Iranian regime the one thing it needed above all else – time to bring its infernal nuclear programme to fruition. And now we read – surprise, surprise – that the regime has built at Fordow a secret nuclear plant inside a mountain where it is presumed to be impervious to bombing raids.
Second, even these tougher sanctions are likely to be ineffective as they will be circumnavigated by Russia, China and others. And in any event, what exactly is the outcome the west hopes that sanctions will bring about? That Iran shuts down its centrifuges, locks the doors on its nuclear plants and promises it won’t open them ever again and that the IAEA inspectors can set up monitoring stations at Fordow, Natanz and all the other secret nuclear locations which it will now make available for international inspection? Does anyone seriously believe that’s a realistic proposition? And if not that, then what, precisely?
But third, the deeper problem is the west’s assumption that the Iranian regime is capable of ‘coming to its senses’ – its assumption that these are rational actors who ultimately will act in their own interest. Few in the west understand that, on the contrary, the Iranian regime is impervious to reason. Educated, intelligent and cunning they may be – but they are religious fanatics driven by an entirely different set of considerations. That’s what makes this situation so terrifying.
...
What really threatens to bring the west to its knees is its own cultural hubris. Refracting everything in the world through the prism of its unshakeable faith in universal reason, it is incapable of recognising or understanding religious fanaticism – and insists instead upon treating the fanatic as a rational actor. Ironically, it is this belief in reason which has led the west to behave so irrationally in refusing to acknowledge the evidence of the mortal threat to itself posed by Iran -- and that there is no alternative to force if it is to be stopped. And now, alas, we’re about to discover the consequences.
Iranian regime in turmoil over The Coming is Upon Us
Two weeks ago, Reza Khalili (a pseudonym), a former Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer who has defected to the United States, disclosed the release of a short (28-minute) video about the imminently expected arrival of the missing 12th Imam, the Shiite Messiah. I thought I had run a story about this, but apparently I did not. Here's the video with English subtitles.
Let's go to the videotape.
Khalili reports that the Iranian regime is quite upset that the video is out.
The film reveals the regime’s true ideology and plans for the world. As I stated in my release, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei — President Ahmadinejad’s top adviser and chief of staff — was directly involved with this project, and he was the first one to be sacrificed over the movie’s publicity in the West. Ahmadinejad, who had strongly supported Mashaei, had no option but to fire him from that position, which was announced on April 8.
One day later, Mashaei denied any involvement with the makers of the movie, though he did not deny all of its facts.
However, the objection to this movie came not only from those opposing Ahmadinejad but also from some hardline radicals, including Hossein Shariatmadari — the managing editor of Kayhan, Iran’s major state newspaper. He lambasted everyone, claiming that now the enemy (the West) is using this video to weaken Iran by showing the intimacies of their sacred beliefs to the world.
The Iranian regime never intended for the documentary to be made public. Reports indicate that funds for its production came directly from the Revolutionary Guards: they intended to distribute it en masse throughout the Middle East to incite further uprisings, while calling for the unification of Arabs to overthrow U.S.-backed governments and promising the destruction of Israel and the imminent coming of the Shiite messiah.
The revelations in this movie have even caused the Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq to show concern, as he has long opposed the radicalism coming out of Iran.
...
It is important to note that in the video, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini — the founder of the Islamic Republic — is quoted as saying that he had three goals for Iran:
1. Overthrowing the shah
2. Establishing an Islamic state
3. Creating the situation for the return of the last imam
It goes on to say that the one following him will be the one to pass the flag of Islam to Imam Mahdi for the conquest of the world by Islam. There is also a quote claiming Khomeini personally told Ayatollah Khamenei that he will be the one to bring about the End of Times and the final glorification of Allah.
While the Iranian leaders are scrambling to stop the damage caused by the publicity over this video, it is important to note: they truly believe their mission to destroy Israel and bring about the reappearance of Imam Mahdi.
This morning, reports claim the Iranian regime has filtered the website of “The Conductors of The Coming,” along with the movie and all of the related information.
Israel Radio reports that both Hamas and Iran are denying that the two people killed in a mysterious attack in Sudan on Wednesday were their operatives.
Nevertheless, Israel is being blamed for the attack.
I think this is the dumbest piece I've seen on Iran yet.
A close look at the history of the nuclear age shows that countries with nuclear weapons are neither more likely to make coercive threats nor more likely to succeed in blackmailing their adversaries. Nuclear powers such as the United States and the Soviet Union certainly made numerous threats after they acquired nuclear weapons. But so did Libya, Serbia, Turkey, Iraq, Venezuela, and dozens of other countries that did not possess the bomb. Nuclear weapons are not a prerequisite for engaging in military blackmail.
No, they're not. But what country did the United States threaten to wipe out with its nuclear weapons? When did the Soviet Union become apocalyptic? When did it ever say that it was willing to allow half its population to die in order to wipe out the United States or any other country?
The United States and the Soviet Union kept each other at bay for more than thirty years through the concept of mutually assured destruction. Given that each country was led by rational actors, and that each country had a second-strike capability that was capable of annihilating the other, the two were able to deter each other from using nuclear weapons.
Who will deter Iran, which has threatened time and again to wipe out Israel, which is led by people who have an apocalyptic vision of a 12th imam descending from Heaven at the end of a nuclear war, and which has said that losing half its population is an acceptable price for wiping out Israel?
Many hardliners say Iran’s ideological fervor makes it unique. US officials voiced similar concerns about Mao’s China in the early 1960s. But nuclear weapons did not embolden China. Iran today is certainly different from China in the 1960s, but policymakers would do well to remember that apocalyptic fears about nuclear proliferation are not new.
China was not suicidal and didn't have a culture that glorified suicide and death.
The only way to write a piece like these authors wrote is to bury your head in the sand and ignore the nature and words of the Iranian regime.
Boaz Ganor writes that the Obama administration seems determined to go down in history as the administration on whose watch Iran went nuclear. He then gives a graphic - and realistic - description of what the morning after a nuclear Iran would resemble. And then he briefly says that if Iran is not to be stopped then the nations of the world must have a totally devastating second-strike capability to contain Iran.
But Iran will not be contained by a second strike capability because it is an apocalyptic regime that is more than willing to destroy itself to bring the '12th imam.' Please note the items I am highlighting in Ganor's narrative.
When the sun rises the day following Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear bomb, the world will awaken to a highly combustive reality: The US, the dominant nuclear superpower, will instantly lose its international hegemony, as we will witness the emergence of a radical Islamic nuclear superpower. Many Middle Eastern and Asian states will race toward nuclear proliferation.
But the most immediately threatened and first to capitulate will be the oil emirates of the Gulf and Arab states, like Iraq and perhaps even Saudi Arabia, whose oil reserves will be swiftly conquered by Iranian forces.
Who would dare block the “messenger of Allah,” armed with a nuclear bomb, from attaining regional hegemony from Lebanon to Oman? To be sure, we will see an outpouring of protests and condemnations, but the world will likely sit back as Iran marches toward realizing its strategy of enslaving the oil-dependent West.
Iran will match its military conquests with intensified support of subversive activity in other states. A nuclear armed Iran will reach out to local Islamic fundamentalist movements in Arab and Muslim countries and assist their takeover through either democratic elections or violence, and then will sign pacts with its new allies.
Iran will not hesitate to use vassal terror organizations – Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian arena, Shi’ite elements in Iraq and elsewhere – to promote its interests. Under the Iranian nuclear umbrella, these organizations will be immune to reprisal.
THIS IS not a worst-case scenario, but a completely reasonable estimate of what will happen from the moment Iran achieves nuclear capability. Efforts to persuade it to forgo its nuclear aspirations through negotiation or sanctions are doomed to fail. This is a regime which sent its own children to their deaths during the Iran-Iraq war. At that time, thousands of children were ordered to obey a “divine command” and march directly into Iraqi minefields, paving the way for Iranian troops with their young corpses. Such a regime would not even blink when it comes to jeopardizing its economy or sacrificing its international interests for the sake of its ultimate goals.
The only way to prevent this scenario is through a sweeping military operation. Only one country has the power to take on an operation of this scale; it is the country with the most at stake and the greatest interest in preventing this new world disorder. That country is the United States.
US motives for preventing a nuclear Iran are numerous, starting with the direct threat already posed by an Islamic fundamentalist state openly developing long-range missiles capable of reaching any target in the Western world. Add the fact that Hizbullah has already infiltrated American soil, cultivating sleeper terror cells.
Yet by far the greatest motive is that a nuclear Iran will signal the instant loss of support from its traditional Middle Eastern allies, beginning with Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states. Iran’s intensive courtship of these countries has long been in full force, lobbying them to cut their American ties and transfer allegiance to the rising regional nuclear power. This trend will only intensify once Iran has the Bomb. Having felt that they have bet on the wrong horse by opting for a special relationship with the US, we will see one country after the other cash in its American chips to buy Iranian favor.
A parallel and no-less-dangerous process will be the wave of nuclear proliferation across the Middle East and central Asia. Iran’s traditional adversaries, fearful of an Iranian invasion, will do everything possible to acquire their own nuclear weapons. This process obviously flies in the face of the Obama administration’s openly declared objective to prevent nuclear proliferation.
Worse yet is the clear and present danger of Iranian Islamic radical terrorist affiliates, armed with a divine command, unleashing nuclear weapons far beyond Iran’s borders.
Should President Barack Obama refrain from taking proactive steps and attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, every country in the world will be thrown into a new, much more complicated and dangerous Cold War-like situation, triggered by the multi-polar nuclear environment.
Next to the tough dilemmas this new state of affairs will pose, the Cuban missile crisis will seem like child’s play.
Either someone stops Iran from going nuclear or it is likely that the entire Western way of life will - God forbid - be destroyed.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
