Breakdown of Diplomacy between Canada and Iran

[Callie Del Noire]

Would the counter bureaucrats really be the masters of the game if there was a clear and present danger of Iran cutting the Strait off and (perhaps, as seen by many in Washington) dropping a 1 MT atomic bomb on Jerusalem? Even the 1 in 10 possibility of that last one happening soon would put every discussion about dropping air bases and cutting down on navy ships in the Near East into reverse gear!  And do you seriously think the Saudi royals would be sitting on their hands and saying "no,. gotta wait a week before you can let anyone fly" if a nuke-powered Iran was trying to force every state in the region to dance according to their own road map??

The city of Jerusalem won't be nuked.. it's an Islamic holy city.. on the tier just below Mecca..which is one of the few spots in Saudi Arabia that won't be threatened.

Depends on how the Iranians present things.

Do you think if they got a carrier group in the straits doing a change over that the 'we don't belong there'  crowd won't scream bloody murder? I couldn't call it till things pan out.. I can easily see the Iranian navy pushing things with a token force.. since by US standards of territoriality they can claim a good chunk of the straits.. then blow us up. 

[gaggedLouise]

The city of Jerusalem won't be nuked.. it's an Islamic holy city.. on the tier just below Mecca..which is one of the few spots in Saudi Arabia that won't be threatened.

Depends on how the Iranians present things.

Substitute Tel Aviv for Jerusalem, and if you like, add in a smaller nuke, perhaps smuggled in by an Iran-affiliated terrorist group like Hezbollah, going off on the ground in West Jerusalem (which Tehran could present as defiled by being Israeli since 1948 and therefore a legit target), killing let's say 150.000 people including Christian and Jewish pilgrims and tourists and Israeli military units. The point I wanted to make was, American statements about cutting down on defense would not matter a bit if there was blatant, present danger of Iran being able to lash out open and perfectly credible threats, threats that are realistic here and now, against Israel or the Gulf States., If that happens the GOP's plans for scrapping air bases in the region would be history.

Ahmadinejad's talk about destroying Israel may sound scary but it's not that realistic in the present or the near future.

[Callie Del Noire]

Substitute Tel Aviv for Jerusalem, and if you like, add in a smaller nuke, perhaps smuggled in by an Iran-affiliated terrorist group like Hezbollah, going off on the ground in West Jerusalem (which Tehran could present as defiled by being Israeli since 1948 and therefore a legit target), killing let's say 150.000 people including Christian and Jewish pilgrims and tourists and Israeli military units. The point I wanted to make was, American statements about cutting down on defense would not matter a bit if there was blatant, present danger of Iran being able to lash out open and perfectly credible threats, threats that are realistic here and now, against Israel or the Gulf States., If that happens the GOP's plans for scrapping air bases in the region would be history.

Ahmadinejad's talk about destroying Israel may sound scary but it's not that realistic in the present or the near future.

Depends on who gets elected.. I don't think Romney can do anything but offer a response in course of his support of Isreal but I dont think that Ahmadinejad thinks much of US 'testicular fortitude'. To many we're a paper tiger.

[OldSchoolGamer]

If Iran does close Hormuz, they will get everyone and I mean everyone coming down on them like a ton of bricks.  Russia, China, Japan, Europe, America, Saudi Arabia.  NATO.  Quasi-government entities like the Bilderbergs (who wield more soft power than any government, including America itself).  They would find themselves very quickly isolated from the entire planet, save for Al-Quaeda and the Syrian government.  They would, within an hour or two, get phone calls from Russia and China telling them that if the blockade were not lifted immediately, the Tehran regime would be left to twist in the wind when American retaliation came.

As for nukes, pretty much the same scenario.  America and Israel would likely be (very quietly) granted a limited, one-time not-to-be-repeated pass by other superpowers to use small, tactical nukes for the purpose, and only for the express purpose, of taking out Iran's nuclear program.  This would fall under the heading of "preventing unstable wacko nutjobs from joining the exclusive nuclear club" much more than protecting Israel, under the calculus of other superpowers.  Any other use of nukes, by America or anyone else, would still be strictly forbidden.  So if Iran did lob a nuke at anyone, it would get four or five in return; they'd be fair game.

[gaggedLouise]

The comments of Netanyahu on Tuesday morning could be about clearing the moral ground for a raid if it would prove needed to act in the next six months or so, but it kinda sounds more as if the Israeli cabinet has already decided to act and that action could be very close.

"No one who refuses to put the decisive red tape before Iran has any right to try to red-light Israel" (that is, urge Israel not to take out Iran's nuclear installations)


Before or after the U.S. elections? That's almost impossible to say. The writer in Haaretz (a paper which does not openly support any of the parties of the Israeli cabinet coalition) is downplaying the notion that this spelled an outright warning of a strike in the next few weeks, but much of his analysis looks like Kremlology to me - he's inferring stuff from what other veteran Israeli statesmen have been saying and doing in the last ten days. Netanyahu has never been known for being a calm and methodic man who sticks to a single cautious plan, or for minimizing danger, so he may well have decided that "now's the time for action". I don't think they would wish to have a strike against Iran happening just weeks *after* the elections - then they would have to plan it without even knowing if Obama will be a lame duck by then. And they might not want to do it in the depth of winter when the weather is unfavourable for such a very risky air mission (rain, snow, frequent storms). It makes sense that they would be thinking "we'd better do it now, or we'll have to wait till next spring".

[OldSchoolGamer]

I hope the Israelis do shut down Iran's program with a tactical nuke or two.  Long past time for this geopolitical zit to get popped and over with.  Let Muslims focus on developing the 98% of the Middle East they own rather than killing people and breaking things to get the 2% that Jews own (and have actually gotten off their asses and built something on).

[Callie Del Noire]

I hope the Israelis do shut down Iran's program with a tactical nuke or two.  Long past time for this geopolitical zit to get popped and over with.  Let Muslims focus on developing the 98% of the Middle East they own rather than killing people and breaking things to get the 2% that Jews own (and have actually gotten off their asses and built something on).

If they don't develop Nukes, I'd give the Ayatollah's.. another 10 years.. less if they didn't learn their mistake from the last election they baked badly. At the beginning of the last century more than a few of their grandfathers were hung by their own turbans.. its' a cycle thing.

[Zakharra]

I hope the Israelis do shut down Iran's program with a tactical nuke or two.  Long past time for this geopolitical zit to get popped and over with.  Let Muslims focus on developing the 98% of the Middle East they own rather than killing people and breaking things to get the 2% that Jews own (and have actually gotten off their asses and built something on).

If Israel uses a nuke first, they will lose any friends they had in the world. The US would turn against them as would all of Europe.  The Israelis can get the job done without resorting to nuclear weapons with the use of long ranges missiles, planes and deep penetration bombs and bunker busters. Using nukes wouldn't stop the nuclear program since nuclear bombs are not deep penetrating. They're air burst weapons. To get deep, the bomb would need to penetrate many meters of solid rock and concrete, otherwise it's just blasting the few top meters of soil and rock and leaving everything underneath  that intact and safe. And if it did work, it would be throwing -all- of that nuclear material up into the atmosphere in the form of a highly radioactive cloud of pulverized dust. Dust that the wind would carry all over the world.

[OldSchoolGamer]

If Israel uses a nuke first, they will lose any friends they had in the world. The US would turn against them as would all of Europe.  The Israelis can get the job done without resorting to nuclear weapons with the use of long ranges missiles, planes and deep penetration bombs and bunker busters. Using nukes wouldn't stop the nuclear program since nuclear bombs are not deep penetrating. They're air burst weapons. To get deep, the bomb would need to penetrate many meters of solid rock and concrete, otherwise it's just blasting the few top meters of soil and rock and leaving everything underneath  that intact and safe. And if it did work, it would be throwing -all- of that nuclear material up into the atmosphere in the form of a highly radioactive cloud of pulverized dust. Dust that the wind would carry all over the world.

That's pretty much what the bunker-busters are designed to do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_penetrating_weapons

[Zakharra]

That's pretty much what the bunker-busters are designed to do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_penetrating_weapons

Oh. I didn't know they had nuclear bunker busters.  I thought it was high powered conventional explosives.  Still, I'd say the use of nuclear weapons, ANY nuclear weapons in a first strike by Israel, would isolate them completely in the world. They'd suffer more  than they'd benefit.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Oh. I didn't know they had nuclear bunker busters.  I thought it was high powered conventional explosives.  Still, I'd say the use of nuclear weapons, ANY nuclear weapons in a first strike by Israel, would isolate them completely in the world. They'd suffer more  than they'd benefit.

I don't know.  I think Islam is definitely burning through whatever residual goodwill it may have with the rest of the world.  I would say under ordinary circumstances, yes, the use of nuclear weapons would make a nation a pariah.  But I think, given the avaricious nature of Iran, and its repeated bellicose threats of jihad and destruction, Israel will at least be graded on a curve when it says "enough is enough, we're not going to wait for the Mohammedians to strike."  Today's events in Libya simple underscore the fundamental clash of civilizations here.

[gaggedLouise]

A Washington think-tank that's been looking into the military and tactical alternatives said last week ordinary high-powered bunker busters are not enough to get what is desired at several of the installations, it would take nuclear high-power bunker busters (which are capable of piercing dozens of meters of concrete and solid rock).

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/09/nuclear-strike-on-iran-needed-to-take-out-facilities-report-2464118.html

To get the right kind of effect and penetration, and make sure that they actually hit in the right spot -  a much trickier job in mountainous locations in Iran than in Jaoan seventy years ago - they would likely need to drop the bombs from aircraft. I don't think surface-fired missiles would be considered sure enough in such an all-important mission: they would hit (spot on or close), but would they hit with the correct angle and speed and at precisely the right location? If a high-powered nuke BB of this kind hits at the wrong angle, it won't have deep yield, but perhaps a much wider-area yield into populated areas around, and that's likely the last thing the Israelis or the U.S. want.

So it would still require a number of manned air raids deep into Iran, then escape back out, and that would be risky - recall the Eagle Claw operation?

The page linked above also recaps another analysis, made by Business Insider a little bit earlier I think, which looks into a non-nuclear raid, what it would ook like and how Iran might begin to react. Those guys assessed that Israel might do it alone - what happens next would take  heavy toll on their military muscles though:

"Here’s the Business Insider report which ignores the Think Tanks findings on the need to use nuclear weapons to take out Iran’s facilities.:

This Is What A US Strike On Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Could Look Like

Washington D.C. foreign policy think tank the Center For Strategic & International Studies took a long hard look at what it really means to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, what it would take, and what it could lead to in a report released yesterday.

The speculation that Israel can go it alone against Tehran remains, but the specifics of what’s required by a US attack to put the nuclear program in the dust is outlined in detail. At least 16 F-18s, and 10 B-2 bombers carrying 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, would initially be required by US forces.

Iran’s retaliation would be another story entirely with a massive incoming missile salvo directed about the entire region. When that happens a full Ballistic Missile War could ensue with untold US space, air, sea, and land elements coming into play.""

(there are some lively maps and diagrams in the article to show how that kind of series of missions could be carried out and what might happen when Iran retaliates. One big unknown is how terrorists and militias all around the Middle East (and their affilaite people elsewhere?) would react.

[Callie Del Noire]

I don't know.  I think Islam is definitely burning through whatever residual goodwill it may have with the rest of the world.  I would say under ordinary circumstances, yes, the use of nuclear weapons would make a nation a pariah.  But I think, given the avaricious nature of Iran, and its repeated bellicose threats of jihad and destruction, Israel will at least be graded on a curve when it says "enough is enough, we're not going to wait for the Mohammedians to strike."  Today's events in Libya simple underscore the fundamental clash of civilizations here.

The only recourse that would allow Israel to nuke Iran would be in retaliation. Anything else would push the Israelis into political isolation. Plus I'm willing to bet they don't have deep penetrator nukes.. odds are they only got a handful. Using things like penetrators and thermobarics are cheaper and just as effective.

[gaggedLouise]

The only recourse that would allow Israel to nuke Iran would be in retaliation. Anything else would push the Israelis into political isolation. Plus I'm willing to bet they don't have deep penetrator nukes.. odds are they only got a handful. Using things like penetrators and thermobarics are cheaper and just as effective.

True, I think. I doubt they have any stockpiles of nuclear bunker penetrators. If they wanted to use a major number, they'd have to ask for them from the U.S. and the question "what for?" would have an obvious answer by now.

[Callie Del Noire]

True, I think. I doubt they have any stockpiles of nuclear bunker penetrators. If they wanted to use a major number, they'd have to ask for them from the U.S. and the question "what for?" would have an obvious answer by now.

I think the only way to shut down the program would be to decapitate the government and let the country implode..THEN move on the sites.

[gaggedLouise]

I think the only way to shut down the program would be to decapitate the government and let the country implode..THEN move on the sites.

Are you suggesting Spetsnaz agents, or the like? 

[Callie Del Noire]

Are you suggesting Spetsnaz agents, or the like? 

Technically speaking? Not possible at all. We don't have the intelligence assets in place to coordinate multiple site strikes to kill the Ayotollahs, their government stooges, the leadership of the People's Guard and the forces of the non-PG that aren't open to subversion. That level of intelligence in the field would require MILLIONS and YEARS to set up.

The US hasn't been in the practice of humint (Human Intelligence) recruitment on that level since the end of the cold war and the Gulf states were never a target for that level of work. To pull it off.. you'd have to started back when Clinton was in office, have the program survive 8 years of Bush downsizing and 'tech intell is king' outlook that has been in the intel community since  Reagan was in office and four years of enforced isolationism under the current president.

Our elected officals never liked the idea of spies in the field.. they have made a practice of killing off active intel practices for decades.. starting with the gutting of the OSS after the end of the war.

Me? I'd love to do one of those odd darpa projects where you drop a series of 500 pound ceramet javelins from orbit. Nothing like multiples of the speed of sound and looooong ballistic arcs to keep from seeing things coming.. but that is pie int he sky too.

[Oniya]

Technically speaking? Not possible at all. We don't have the intelligence assets in place to coordinate multiple site strikes to kill the Ayotollahs, their government stooges, the leadership of the People's Guard and the forces of the non-PG that aren't open to subversion. That level of intelligence in the field would require MILLIONS and YEARS to set up.

We don't - but does anyone else?  A nuclear Iran isn't only a threat to one nation.

[Callie Del Noire]

We don't - but does anyone else?  A nuclear Iran isn't only a threat to one nation.

The Russians and Chinese don't see them as a threat to their interests.. yet. No one else has the military to back up the level of intel we're talking about.. and I'm sure the Israelis will leak whatever they have to anyone they think will act on it.. so IF they find proof of meddling in Chinese and/or Russian Soveriegnty..they will.

I'm betting the people to do it will be the Russians or China.. when Iran goes one step too far.. the schism here in teh US federal level is too muddy now.. neitehr side wants to do anything 'bad'.

[gaggedLouise]

We don't - but does anyone else?  A nuclear Iran isn't only a threat to one nation.

Mossad have a reputation for being past masters at undercover intelligence gathering about enemies, but I really doubt they would be able to take out any major part of the Irani leadership in a number of assassination missions. Even if they had the help of unmanned drone craft to drop targeted bombs.

[Moraline]

In my opinion the fall out(literally and figuratively) of a Nuclear strike of any kind in a tiny country like Iran would be horrendous.

Whatever country is first to use a Nuclear weapon will become an immediate world wide pariah.

People would feel unsafe everywhere. They would begin to ask the question; if one person could use it then who else will do it next?

The reason why no one uses them now is that they are such horrible weapons and we all know the effects. We've had generations now to learn what it did when it was used. We are terrified of them. If someone uses one again, it will heighten our fears to the point of feverish and dangerous paranoia.

The country that used it would be ostracized by the world from the massive public outcry. A few air strikes on military targets causes an outcry now. Imagine the outcry if something like a Nuclear Weapon is used. It would unite people the world over in horror and disgust.

Imagine if one is used what countries would begin to say - if they can use it, then so can we.
Then all of those countries in the world that are on the verge of that technology would be forced to do so for fear that someone might decide they are a threat and use one on them.

There are many countries that are capable but have not pursued programs.
Ex: Canada for instance could have nuclear weapons any time we wanted - but we don't. We have some of the best mines in the world for Nuclear grade material, we have also developed at least four known weapon systems for deploying nuclear devices and those systems have been used hundreds of times by the US in nuclear weapons testings. We also possess all of the facilities, scientists and engineers to do it. Canada is not the only country that is that close to having them. Many others have similar access to equipment, materials, and facilities.

[TheGlyphstone]

Which is pretty much the situation, because you have to consider the possibility that the country who uses that Nuke might be Iran, or a country like them. The fallout of someone nuking Iran would be horrendous for sure, but so would the fallout from, say, Iran nuking Israel, the difference being that Iran already doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks about it.

[Callie Del Noire]

Which is pretty much the situation, because you have to consider the possibility that the country who uses that Nuke might be Iran, or a country like them. The fallout of someone nuking Iran would be horrendous for sure, but so would the fallout from, say, Iran nuking Israel, the difference being that Iran already doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks about it.

Which sums up the difference between rational and irrational national leadership.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Mossad have a reputation for being past masters at undercover intelligence gathering about enemies, but I really doubt they would be able to take out any major part of the Irani leadership in a number of assassination missions. Even if they had the help of unmanned drone craft to drop targeted bombs.

To take out Iran's leadership, they'd have to nuke Tehran itself.  Unlike a tactical bunker-busting nuke strike on Iran's nuclear program, that definitely would not be allowed by the superpowers.

[Callie Del Noire]

To take out Iran's leadership, they'd have to nuke Tehran itself.  Unlike a tactical bunker-busting nuke strike on Iran's nuclear program, that definitely would not be allowed by the superpowers.

No, it is possible to decapitate the leadership (or enough of it to allow reformers to take control) with surgical strikes. You'd have to kill a HELL of a lot of people though. Upper echelon leadership of the Republican Guard (and some of the regular military), the Executive leaders, a fair number of the Ayotollahs.

That would require the one thing we don't have.

Physical intel. You'd have to plan and manipulate events, infiltrate the communication/control and coordination network of one of the most paranoid nations in the world, and take a long view on how to approach events. You'd have to study the targets habits, routines and locations.