[lit-ideas] Re: The Case for Bombing Iran
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 08:37:59 -0700
Your comment surprises me, Andreas. It assumes that the US isn't already
collapsed in Iraq. This is quite a switch for you - must have been the
surge.
I suspect you didn't read all the way to the bottom of my last note. If the
Iranians are "freaking out" as Foster says and if they are speculating about
"when" not "if" the bombing is going to occur, surely the Iraqi Shiites are
speculating about the same thing. Foster says the bombing will occur in the
next 60 to 90 days if Iran doesn't capitulate, and if he is right about the
ineffectiveness of the Russian defensive system, Iran has a lot less to feel
sanguine about when they consider a US air attack.
I think the Iraqi Shiites who would feel most upset about our bombing Iran
are the ones who have already sold out to Iran, the ones the Iraqi
government is trying to keep at bay, the ones Iran is using to fuel the
insurgency; so they are already fighting us.
No, I don't think the US enterprise in Iraq would collapse after a bombing
of Iran. Don't forget, one of the most horrendous wars of the 20th century,
took place between Iraq and Iran. The bulk of the fighting and dying for
Iraq was done by the Shiites. Most of the officers for Iraq were Sunnis.
Most of the enlisted men were Shiites. Shiites fought Shiites in that war
which ended right before the Ayatollah died in 1989. The Iraqi government
isn't going to arms against us if we bomb Iran. No one is.
Thanks to the Leftist Media we are once again seen as a bunch of wuses who
lost their nerve. A lot of Islamofascists are back to thinking of us the
way Osama did after Black Hawk Down and the way Saddam kept thinking of us
right up until end. The Leftist Press continues to encourage Islamofascist
adventures. Well, why not. Maybe they'll get someone like Carter after the
next election. I'm sure they're hoping. In the meantime we'd better bomb
Iran so that our enterprise in Iraq doesn't collapse.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: Andreas Ramos
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 10:39 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Case for Bombing Iran
Forget it, Lawrence.
The White House itself has realized this is a hopeless and reckless idea. An
attack on Iran would collapse the US in Iraq.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence Helm"
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 10:03 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] The Case for Bombing Iran
> Norman Podhoretz, wrote World War IV in September 2006. In the June 2007
> issue of Commentary he published an article entitled, "The Case for
> Bombing
> Iran."
> http://www.commentarymagazine.com/cm/main/viewArticle.html?id=10882
> Bush has been long suffering, but time is running out for Iran. Like John
> McCain said, the only thing worse than bombing Iran is for Iran to get the
> bomb. Podhoretz said in a CSPAN2 discussion of his book that he believes
> Bush will bomb Iran soon. Apparently that view is also widely held in
> Iran
> as one can see in the following article sent me by a lurker [Lawrence]:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
http://www.ocnus.net/artman2/publish/Analyses_12/Silence_in_Syria_Panic_in_I
> ran.shtml
>
>
> Silence in Syria, Panic in Iran
> By Dr. Jack Wheeler, To The Point News 19/9/07
> Sep 25, 2007 - 12:09:27 PM
>
> "Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing,' he
> reports. 'No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over
> and
> over again, 'Do you think the Americans will attack us?' 'When will the
> Americans attack us?' 'Will the Americans attack us in a joint operation
> with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and on, endlessly.
> The Iranians are in a state of total panic.'
>
> And that was before September 6. Since then, it's panic-squared in
> Tehran.
> The mullahs are freaking out in fear. Why? Because of the silence in
> Syria. On September 6, Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted a
> devastating attack on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr
> az-Zawr. Israel's military censors have muzzled the Israeli media,
> enforcing an extraordinary silence about the identity of the targets.
> Massive speculation in the world press has followed, such as Brett
> Stephens'
> Osirak II? in yesterday's (9/18) Wall St. Journal. Stephens and most
> everyone else have missed the real story. It is not Israel's silence that
> 'speaks volumes' as he claims, but Syria's.
>
> Why would the Syrian government be so tight-lipped about an act of war
> perpetrated on their soil? The first half of the answer lies in this story
> that appeared in the Israeli media last month (8/13): Syria's
> Antiaircraft
> System Most Advanced In World. Syria has gone on a profligate buying
> spree,
> spending vast sums on Russian systems, 'considered the cutting edge in
> aircraft interception technology.' Syria now 'possesses the most crowded
> antiaircraft system in the world,' with 'more than 200 antiaircraft
> batteries of different types,' some of which are so new that they have
> been
> installed in Syria 'before being introduced into Russian operation
> service.'
> While you're digesting that, take a look at the map of Syria: Notice how
> far
> away Dayr az-Zawr is from Israel. An F15/16 attack there is not a tiptoe
> across the border, but a deep, deep penetration of Syrian airspace. And
> guess what happened with the Russian super-hyper-sophisticated cutting
> edge
> antiaircraft missile batteries when that penetration took place on
> September
> 6th. Nothing.
>
> El blanko. Silence. The systems didn't even light up, gave no indication
> whatever of any detection of enemy aircraft invading Syrian airspace, zip,
> zero, nada. The Israelis (with a little techie assistance from us)
> blinded
> the Russkie antiaircraft systems so completely the Syrians didn't even
> know
> they were blinded. Now you see why the Syrians have been scared
> speechless.
> They thought they were protected - at enormous expense - only to discover
> they are defenseless. As in naked. Thus the Great Iranian Freak-Out - for
> this means Iran is just as nakedly defenseless as Syria.
>
> I can tell you that there are a lot of folks in the Kirya (IDF
> headquarters
> in Tel Aviv) and the Pentagon right now who are really enjoying the
> mullahs'
> predicament. Let's face it: scaring the terror masters in Tehran out of
> their wits is fun. It's so much fun, in fact, that an attack destroying
> Iran's nuclear facilities and the Revolutionary Guard command/control
> centers has been delayed, so that France (under new management) can get in
> on the fun too. On Sunday (9/16), Sarkozy's foreign minister Bernard
> Kouchner announced that 'France should prepare for the possibility of war
> over Iran's nuclear program.' All of this has caused Tehran to respond
> with
> maniacal threats. On Monday (9/17), a government website proclaimed that
> '600 Shihab-3 missiles' will be fired at targets in Israel in response to
> an
> attack upon Iran by the US/Israel.
>
> This was followed by Iranian deputy air force chief Gen. Mohammad Alavi
> announcing today (9/19) that 'we will attack their (Israeli) territory
> with
> our fighter bombers as a response to any attack.' A sure sign of panic is
> to
> make a threat that everyone knows is a bluff. So our and Tel Aviv's
> response to Iranian bluster is a thank-you-for-sharing yawn and a laugh.
> Few things rattle the mullahs' cages more than a yawn and a laugh. Yet no
> matter how much fun this sport with the mullahs is, it is also deadly
> serious. The pressure build-up on Iran is getting enormous. Something is
> going to blow and soon. The hope is that the blow-up will be internal,
> that
> the regime will implode from within. But make no mistake: an all-out full
> regime take-out air assault upon Iran is coming if that hope doesn't
> materialize within the next 60 to 90 days. The Sept. 6 attack on Syria
> was
> the shot across Iran's bow.
>
> So - what was attacked near Dayr az-Zawr? It's possible it was North
> Korean
> 'nuclear material' recently shipped to Syria, i.e., stuff to make
> radioactively 'dirty' warheads, but nothing to make a real nuke with as
> the
> Norks don't have real nukes (see Why North Korea's Nuke Test Is Such Good
> News, October 2006). Another possibility is it was to take out a stockpile
> of long-range Zilzal surface-to-surface missiles recently shipped from
> Iran
> for an attack on Israel. A third is it was a hit on the stockpile of
> Saddam's chemical/bio weapons snuck out of Iraq and into Syria for
> safekeeping before the US invasion of April 2003. But the identity of the
> target is not the story - for the primary point of the attack was not to
> destroy that target. It was to shut down Syria's Russian air defense
> system
> during the attack. Doing so made the attack an incredible success. Syria
> is
> shamed and silent. Iran is freaking out in panic. Defenseless enemies
> are
> fun.
>
>
>
>
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