Bush planning air strikes on Iran?

[russ_watters]

What Wes Clark said was quoted quite explicitly in the article. This is not a case of "unnamed sources" or "high-ranking officials" that are commonly cited as sources of leaks in right wing outlets that are Bush mouthpieces (perhaps the "leakiest" administration in recent memory). Clark is quoted explicitly and his observations are backed up with analysis. He is not a nut job and we ignore him at our peril.

I'll try this one more time: it isn't the quotes themselves that are the problem, but the interpretation of them provided by the blogger. Again, the quotes are real, but they do not say what the blogger says they say. Specifically:

and paints U.S. air strikes against Iran in 2007/08 as all-but-a-done deal.

Those are the blogger's words, not Clark's and none of the quotes from Clark imply that he believes that. They are putting words in his mouth, though, by phrasing the questions in the article in a leading way then following them with a quote that isn't very specific. It implies Clark says something he didn't. Ie:

When we asked him what made him so sure the Bush administration was headed in this direction, he replied: "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."

Now "headed in this direction" is different from "all but a done deal", but regardless, Clark's answer doesn't say anything specific about what he believes, just where he gets his impressions. (More on that below). And the next quote:

"How can you talk about bombing a country when you won't even talk to them?" said Clark. "It's outrageous.

What's outrageous? He doesn't say. He doesn't say he thinks its "all but a done deal", the blogger says it.

Also, you are claiming Clark has some insider knowledge here, but the blogger was relatively clear that it was this other article he was upset about, not some other info he has:

Clark was really angry about what he'd read in this column...

 

[russ_watters]

Well it depends on their targets. Let's say theoretically the half a dozen nukes that you were referring to do work, all of them. Now let's say they carefully drop all six on six different U.S. cities. That's quite a big wipeout of the population and a strong pretext for the U.S. to wage a global nuclear annihilation. All of this is theory in practice of course, but that is something I am concerned with.

How, precisely, could they do such a thing? They don't have any missiles capable of sending them to any American cities besides those in Alaska or Hawaii. And with their reliability, I wouldn't bet on a success rate of better than 10% just getting them off the ground. And we do have a functioning ABM defense in place. I'm nor real worried. S. Korea and Japan, on the other hand, have a lot to fear. If nothing else, N. Korea could kamakazi them that far.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

They don't have either the missile technology or the material to build nukes yet so this is entirely speculative, if the Koreans shared their short range missile tech with them, we are talking just shy of Israel, medium slightly further sort of Turkey/ Libya sort of range, but that's about it.

The US wouldn't risk doing this unless they knew they have nukes or were building them, and since this is unlikely this is more posturing from the big dog at the whitehouse.

 

[Yonoz]

They don't have either the missile technology or the material to build nukes yet so this is entirely speculative, if the Koreans shared their short range missile tech with them, we are talking just shy of Israel, medium slightly further sort of Turkey/ Libya sort of range, but that's about it.

Just shy of Israel? Take a look at the http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/shahab-3.htm" .

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Just shy of Israel? Take a look at the http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/shahab-3.htm" .

Sigh, people seem to assume that the same technology for directing high explosives will work for nuclear weapons, take a look at Koreas highly accurate splash down in the pacific. Not just that but In order to strike any further than Eastern Europe it would need Korean technology.

Shahib-3 has a range of 1300 km range at 700 kg payload, how far does that get it?

Top range for Iranian developments is about 3000 km ATM assuming conventional payload.

Note though I never said it could not strike Israel,assuming it developed sufficiently sophisticated guidance tech, I was pointing out that it could not strike much of Europe let alone the US.

 

[russ_watters]

That the John Stennis strike group is headed to the Persian Gulf to join the Eisenhower group would be unusual only if Ike is nowhere near the end of its deployment, wouldn't it*? Is a two month overlap in deployments longer than is usual? But now that you mention this...I just heard something on the BBC news a day or two ago about an Admiral being appointed to head CentCom. Sure makes me raise an eyebrow now!

* Edit: Just read Russ' post that answers the question. Eyebrow is significantly lowered.

Just a note on this, I didn't see the duration of the overlap being two months when I first posted about it - that's longer than I think would be typical (a few weeks would be more reasonable), but given the planned increase in activity in the area, I don't think that's unreasonable.

And an airstrike on Iran's nukes would probably not use carrier-borne aircraft anyway (stealth bombers from stateside) - and even if it did, it certainly would not require two.

 

[Yonoz]

Sigh, people seem to assume that the same technology for directing high explosives will work for nuclear weapons, take a look at Koreas highly accurate splash down in the pacific. Not just that but In order to strike any further than Eastern Europe it would need Korean technology.

Accuracy isn't an issue when dealing with nuclear payloads.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I think you'll find it is. The further the nuke has to travel the more small discrepancies matter, so in order to get ICBM's to hit anywhere close you need extremely sophisticated guidance systems, otherwise you may aim at the US and hit Canada.

 

[Yonoz]

I think you'll find it is. The further the nuke has to travel the more small discrepancies matter, so in order to get ICBM's to hit anywhere close you need extremely sophisticated guidance systems, otherwise you may aim at the US and hit Canada.

But we're not talking about the US and Canada, we're talking about Israel, a country much closer to Iran that you can drive across in 20 minutes.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

We were but for some reason you decided to derail the discussion to talking about Israel, agreed a nuke targetted at Israel would not need sophisticated guidance systems.