Will Saber Rattling And Sanctions Work Against Iran? - National Security Experts

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/10/will-saber-rattling-and-sancti.php

 

 

 

 

Comments

[RAISER William]

"... then the eventual Iranian nuclear force will be unusable and will merely serve to make Iran a major player in international geopolitics.

"And that, friends and neighbors is what the Israelis really fear."

Right on! Not only is that what Israelis fear, but that's what the US administration fears.

I too think that Iran will someday have nuclear weapons. The animosity of the US almost guarantees that. Therefore, wouldn't we be better advised to work at finding ways in which we can have friendly relations between our two countries? I think that is well within the realm of possibility with a little effort.

[Fred]

"Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I/D-Conn."

I was unaware that the US Senate MADE foreign policy. The track record of Joe (I for Isreal) is not so good, unless one considers Iraq a huge success.

As long as President Obama is concerned about human rights perhaps he could take a stand here, too:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=36086&Cr=flotilla&Cr1=

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/15session/A.HRC.15.21_en.pdf

[J]

Colonel

Sen. Lieberman is a stupid fool who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if his life depended on it! And Lieberman thinks he can make U.S. foreign policy on behalf the interest of a foreign nation? Lieberman Mr. Jo-E need to go and take a hike, unless he is willing to allow his personal rump to be attached to one of those boom-booms he wants dropped on Tehran.

We contained the Soviets for years, and we can do the same for Iran if need be.

Nukes are a waste of space, and the sooner world powers and wannabe nations realize it, maybe they can then loose the nuke appeal and quit walking around with their heads up their pie holes.

It is interesting how Russia played the S300 cards with Iran, faced with the portend of U.N. Security Council roadblocks, they canceled their sales and used a go between Belarus to make sure the Iranians now have S300 systems. I'd love to see Israel's IAF try, and watch as the IAF gets knocked out of the skies, maybe that would teach them a hard lesson it's not nice to back-stab the U.S. and steal Patriot Missile tech and funnel it to the Russians.

No use making a mountain out of a mole hill regarding the Iran n-weapons stuff, till it actually happens.

Maybe one day our government and the Kremlin will realize that our nation's have more in common than the difference we have. That day we would see the Europeans hiccuping all over over the place, especially the British Crown. Hmmm.......

[walrus]

Agree 100% with your comment.

I also note the way the Senator for Israel and his ilk easily glide between "possession of nuclear weapons" and "possession of nuclear weapons capability", the latter is something already possessed by dozens of countries and is hardly a Casus Belli.

[Patrick Lang]

Raiser

It should be kept in mind that the US spent decades searching the halls of the UN looking for Iranians who would allow us to kiss their b---s. this was encouraged by the Israelis until they began to see that Iran had the possibility of becoming a threat to them, especially in the post-Saddam era. This yearning for Iranian love was manifested in a lot of ways but most clearly in the Iran-Contra affair. pl

[Jose]

PL, great analysis and insight, but LMAO at the post following yours!

Perhaps the Stuxnet cyber virus will be able to influence him in a way that our sanctions and threats have not. - Loren Thompson

Forcing the Iranians to switch from using Siemens products (which Israel and US have great influence in affecting and/or sabotaging and/or tracking progress) to some unknown Chinese, North Korean, Pakistani, or Indian product(s) will be our deterrence.

Very short term thinking, IMHO.

[Norbert N, Salamon]

Sir:

Rather then belly aching about Israel's concern that Iran might possibly want to build a bomb [which they deny] even though they may achive N weapon capability - as has Japan, Germany, Argentina, Brazil and a few others, [if Iran also purify the UF(6) from contamination] the USA should concern itself with building N power plans TODAY for according to USA Forces, the oil crunch is coming in 4 years [other think it will come in 2011].

Any of the commentators who propose military action are [in my own opinion based on research of PEAK OIL] traitorous not only to the USA, but the whole world, for the world CAN NOT AFFORD a 3M barrel per day production cut [the Iranian contribution], never mind the possible blowback, such as damages to other oil installtions around the Persian Gulf.

Without doubt persons in power [or just out of] in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Bejing are ALL AWARE AND KNOW THAT PEAK OIL IS COMING SOONER THAN THEY SAY [or hide the info], this especially revelant to Mr. Chaney and his buddies in the oil business. As history has shown the USA did not win any great price for trying to get management of IRaq's oil. This misappropriation of public funds could and should have been used to prepare for PEAK OIL, rather then letting China be the leader in both installation and manufacturing of this vital tehnology.
There is absolutely no chance that the USA and or her satraps would get any deal in Iran.
If the USA and satraps are not 100% sure that there will be no IRanian blowback, and are 100 percet sure that no oil installation will be damaged in case of military action, even then they must resist the notion of military action, for they can not afford the wasted energy involved in the manufacture of the war material/equipment and its delivery [never mind the illegality of such attack, nor the transgression against human rights, which seems to be of concern to President Obama when applied to China and Iran, but of course of no consequence when applied to Israel, USa, and her ME satraps.

[J]

As a signatory to the NNPT, the U.S. 'could have' helped the Iranians build and supply the radioactive materials needed for 'civilian power' production (that way U.S. would have had first hand knowledge on-the-ground), Iran would have readily agreed. But that was not to Israel/Cheney's linking so Iran's civility was spurned by the Mideast Bully and its D.C. sock-puppets.

[Fred]

Jose,

Iran is not the only country to use Siemens products.

[Allen Thomson]

Do you know what Steven Metz meant by "There is absolutely no evidence that a nuclear armed Iran would undertake conventional aggression. No state which has acquired nuclear weapons has then done so"?

The US and USSR certainly did so on several occasions and the UK, France and China are not entirely innocent in that regard either.

Maybe he had some special meaning of "undertake conventional aggression" in mind.

[Spafford]

The A-Hole returns! Crooksandliars.com is running a video of Chalabi's interview at the Washington Ideas Forum (now that is some "idea"!) In it he claims no responsibility for the fake intell provided to the US, he only "vouched" for the people he led to the US gov't. Why is he even allowed into the US? Wasn't he last reported to be staying in Iran?

[Jose]

Fred, my point is less countries are going to use Siemens products after this.

BND, MAD, CIA, and/or Mossad really should have played better poker on this affair.

[Larry Kart]

Hey -- my hearing aids are made by Siemens. Does that mean I'll be getting orders in my head?

And why does the headline writer at the National Journal think that "unfazed" is spelled "unphased"?

[Cieran]

Norbert:

Maybe I'm just dense, but I have never understood this line of thought:

the USA should concern itself with building N power plans TODAY for according to USA Forces, the oil crunch is coming in 4 years [other think it will come in 2011].

The uses of nuclear energy and crude oil are completely decoupled, and hence a change in the circumstances of one has little or no influence on the other, i.e., neither can be used effectively as a substitute for the other.

Nuclear energy (when not used in weapons) can only be used to generate electricity supplies, and then only in a base load generation capacity. There are no U.S. base load electrical plants powered by oil (that would be a bad idea financially and thermodynamically), so all the nuclear electricity in the world won't substantially displace any amount of U.S. oil consumption in the arena where nuclear energy actually works.

On the other hand, the vast majority of uses for oil fall into the "liquid fuel for transportation" category, and this energy market is almost completely impervious to electricity supplies. If we had scalable battery technologies in place, then some automotive uses of oil could potentially be displaced by nuclear-fired electricity, but we don't, so we can't.

And unless somebody figures out how to build an electric jet plane, that transportation sector is simply not a viable market for nuclear-generated electricity.

In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find two sources of energy whose technologically practical end-uses are more decoupled than these two, and that means that you simply cannot replace one with the other. All of the various forms of energy seem interchangeable, e.g., they are all measured in the same units, but the laws of thermodynamics inform us that they are not so fungible.

And finally, peak oil is not an event that will occur in 2011 or 2014. Peak oil is a secular process (which is almost the exact opposite of an event), and while we need to prepare for a potentially increasing gap between supplies and demands for crude oil, a crash program of building nuclear power plants cannot constitute a practical solution to peak oil.

I would invite you to "show your work" to demonstrate why you believe that such a program is essential, but in the absence of such information, I simply cannot understand the need for what you suggest. Please feel free to educate me on this subject, because my lack of understanding ain't for lack of trying!

[SubKommander Dred]

Spafford:
Why Ahmad Chalabi is not swinging from a telephone pole on K Street is beyond me.

Pete Deer

[Adam L Silverman]

Mr. Salomon: I understand your concern regarding peak oil, however, I think you need to step back and recognize that the peak oil concept started as a Royal Dutch Shell IO and PsyOps campaign. The concept was introduced by M. King Hubbert, the chief consultant for general geology for Shell in a paper he presented at the American Petroleum Institute in 1956. Mr. Hubbert's paper was actually a pitch that the energy industry should rapidly start moving to nuclear. What wasn't mentioned was that his employer had just made massive acquisitions of uranium resources. The peak oil concept is based on his research, which when graphically displayed is referred to as Hubbert's Peak. While it is true that we should be working hard to transition off of fossil fuels for a combination of technological security, national security, economic security, and climate security reasons, and that we will one day run out (so other than the fact that we don't ever do anything until its a crisis and we can't control the costs, so why wait?) we really don't have any good idea when we'll hit the point where there is no more petroleum reserves to be discovered or even exactly how much we've got left to extract. The link to Hubbert's report is below:
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf

[R Whitman]

Our intelligence regarding the Iranian Nuclear weapons program is spotty at best and our conclusions as to its status is probably incorrect. They are either way ahead of where we think they are or way behind.

If Iran has or achieves nuclear bomb status, will they announce it to the world or will they keep it a secret??

Do they actually hgave a nuclear bomb, stolen from US or USSR stockpiles, sold to the Shah by the Isrealis during the 1970's when they were tring to sell nuclear wepons to the South Africans or by their own efforts. Nuclear bombs are 65 year old technology and you can find the basics of construction in many college texts. All you need is fissle material.

The real military problem is one of a delivery vehicle. Achieving that makes the country an actual threat but just the posession of a crude, workable nuclear device changes a countries status as an international player.

[Norbert N, Salamon]

Jose:

There is NO alternative to some Siemens products in the world. Try finding DC High Voltage switches anywhere else [NY City depends on some of these re Quebec power export at 500000 or 1000000 V DC lines].
More probably they will switch from Microsoft to Linux - safer, less viruses, more robust operating system.

You are right the creators of the malware did not consider the consequences --- look forward to the USA being attacked by similar "presents". A challange thrown to hackers with little interest for the well being of USA/Israel/and related satraps.

[Jake]

Nuclear Iran? We better get our own act in place with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Its only been 305 days without inspection of the Russian arsenal.

To top that how in the name of anything good can we tell Iran to open its doors to inspection when Israel is blocking IAEA inspection of its nuclear facilities and arsenal?

I do agree a nuclear Iran would indeed make it a regional superpower along with Israel and if that happens you can bet that other Arab Countries will follow if they are not already working the issue now.

But a Iranian nuclear threat?

Lets see there are some 8,000 active nukes and some 22,000 warheads on the self on this planet....

Oh sure the Iranian's maybe a little wacko but they do not want to see Allah all to soon. MAD is still in place and still a very good deterrent.

The bigger threat is Pakistan. If the current government falls then as it was once said, "Houston we have a problem"....

[J]

Israeli rabbi: Honey-pot sex is kosher for female Mossad agents

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/israeli-rabbi-honey-pot-sex-is-kosher-for-female-mossad-agents-1.317288

Interesting how the 'rabbi' doesn't say nary a word regarding Mossad's homosexual honey traps they use on unsuspecting U.S. politicians and clergy on U.S. soil (as well as for those U.S. politicians/clergy who visit Israel on a regular basis).

[zanzibar]

Cieran

Are thorium reactors commercially practicable today? What is the big deal about them?

How does nuclear compare with coal for base load plants in terms of $/Kwh when one also adds in the costs for pollution abatement and spent fuel storage?

[shepherd]

With regard to Stuxnet, the reason it targeted Siemens products is likely that Iran was known to have them. It's just an off-the-charts piece of malware. When you put that much effort into something, you could probably target any manufacturer's products or OS--the more trusted the better.

[eakens]

Norbert, that may be the case for 60Hz product, but for 50Hz at least, there are several firms I know of in China which can produce high voltage switches north of 500kv. A JV between an iranian company and ABB can get up to about 250kv, which is fairly significant.

I agree this is only switches we are talking about, but I'm pretty sure there is an alternative for almost their entire product line somewhere else in the world.

[Norbert N, Salamon]

Ciceran:

It is true that nuclear does not create transport fuels [except in case of electric cars, electric mass transit, electric trains]. You are using dirty coal [after much transport via diesel] to generate elctricity, with lots of unpleasant pollutants and CO2. You are using gas to create electricity, which could be used for ttransport. there is no net energy gain in ethanol [after accounting for fertilizer, diesel tractors, transport, pesticide, herbacide et al]. For Wind/Solar do not have the trasmission capability [nor the $ to construct same]. Public tranport and trains can run on electricity [they did in the past and Europe, and would be adventagous over the mountains, for the electric train creates energy going down hill].

Dr Silverman:

I beg to differ with your position. Hubert theory is applicable to most oil producers at their rate of production.reserve sizes].

IT is true that new technologies can extract more oil, but they are energy demanding, thus lowering the marginal returns in terms of energy [money only measures as an accounting tool for people not interested in measuring ENERGY IN vs ENERGY OUT. Case studies -- DEEP WATER WELLS, CANADIAN TAR SANDS, no production from COLORADO SHALES.
May I most respectfully suggest to you to look for NET EXPORT MODEL for those countries which are net exporters - wherein you will find that between their own rising demand and depletion rate of their mature fields less and less is exported [this applies to Russia, and most OPEC nations - excluding Angola, Sudan and a few others in Africa]. When Saudi Arabia built the aluminium refining plant, they are using their oil as a source of added input generating electricity for refining bauxite], and that oil is not available for export.

While I greatly appriciate your input, Dr, on many topics, I believe that you should spend a few hours each week to read at:
http://www.theoildrum.com/

and perahps read Oct 1 posting by Gail an actuarian:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7007

which discussers the EXPORT MODEL Covers most past and present oil exporters and changes in 5, 10, 25 years after peak production.

Enjopy, and leave Hubert to the past his theory was made for USA for 1970-75, but is applicable [emperical fact] to all fields, all nations at their respective times.

Thank you for your attention.

[Grimgrin]

NMS: There was a proposal at one point to build nuclear reactors in Alberta to provide power for oil sands extraction.

It was such a magnificently backwards-ass thing to do I'm almost sad that it never came to anything.