World War III, Anyone?
As you've probably heard, in a press conference yesterday, President Bush warned that letting Iran get the knowledge of how to build a nuclear weapon could unleash World War III. Given that he is not exactly a student of military history, GWB and his spokespersons are awfully free with their war analogies.
The conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT) has been compared to the Cold War (long hard slog, no end in sight). Iraq is either Korea (long hard slog, no full troop withdrawals in sight) or Vietnam (should have stayed in for a long hard slog, since pulling out caused the genocide in Cambodia). And now Iran getting the knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons -- not even the weapons themselves -- will spark World War III (a short, decisive slog, the literal war to end all wars). Thank goodness the days of fear-mongering and loose charges were brought to an end by the fiasco in Iraq!
Where to begin?
Factually, even if Iran went for broke and tried to get a nuclear weapon as soon as it possibly could, it could take ten years or more.
Strategically, even an Iran with a nuclear bomb -- by no means a foregone conclusion -- would have no incentive to either attack the United States with it or share it with a terrorist group. In either case, it would risk being destroyed as a functioning society in retaliation.
Politically, the more Bush demonizes Iran, the easier he makes it for Ahmadinejad and Khamenei to repress pro-democracy forces there.
I still think war with Iran is not inevitable, but that doesn't mean it can't happen -- it just means we still might be able to do something to stop it. As the Bush/Cheney rhetoric escalates, they could reach a "point of no return" in which their "credibility" (whatever that means at this late date) requires some sort of military strike. Not only have the top three Democratic candidates -- Clinton, Obama, and Edwards -- been virtually silent this issue, but Clinton has made Bush's job easier by voting to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.
While speaking out as loudly and clearly as possible in the media, in religious organizations, at universities, and in other community fora against the "third Bush war" in Iran, we also need to pressure leading Democrats -- and sensible Republicans -- to raise their voices, both on Capitol Hill and in the presidential campaign. We can't leave it to Mike Gravel to chide the Democratic frontrunners -- his position needs to be amplified a million-fold.
If those of us who fear war with Iran translate those feelings into action, we can make sure it doesn't happen.
I've found another analogy for Iraq---Palestine. We now have our own Occupied Territories that we can't leave and can't annex.
It has been noted that Iran was in a helping mood, pre-Iraq. Our blustering attitude apparently encouraged the mullahs to boost Ahmadinejad, anwering our cowboy with one of their own.
Many are commenting on how disconnected and random Bush seemed at that gaggle.
October 18, 2007 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Our local democratic party club sent the following message to our senators and representatives.
"The Executive Board has expressed serious concern about the numerous threats against the nation of Iran that officials in the US government have been voicing. Among other actions we are seriously concerned at the recent Kyle-Lieberman amendment that declares sections of the official Iranian military forces as a terrorist organization. We believe that given the wording in the authorization to engage in military action against Iraq in October of 2002 this latest vote could be interpreted as expressing the will of congress to engage in military action against Iran. Last winter many of us as individuals voiced our concern about this dangerous situation and were reassured by some that congress was working on a resolution to request direct authorization for military action against Iran. This putative resolution was inexplicitly tabled by Speaker Pelosi.
In light of these concerns the Executive Board has passed by a vote of 15 to 0 a resolution urging that Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein and our Representative Mike Thompson work on reinstating a resolution and work on passing the said resolution that resolves the following.
1) That no previous congressional resolutions have authorized the Executive branch of the US government to engage in military action against the state of Iran.
2) No military action against the state of Iran will be conducted unless congress exercises its constitutional prerogative to declare war against Iran."
Of course some individual letters wouldn't hurt.
October 18, 2007 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I note you have the same clock error I'm getting. I just posted, as I presume you did. We seem to have found a time machine, of sorts.
I've notified Andrew G.
October 18, 2007 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I grow more and more horrified by the actions and intents of the Bush Administration. When did we come to this? When did the United States become a rogue nation that refuses to pay even lip service to the international law our past generations sacrificed so much to create and defend?
At least Hitler had the decency to blow up one of his own radio towers and pretend that Poland had attacked Germany. These guys care less about the world's opinion than Hitler did.
And, by the way, why is it okay for Pakistan to have nukes and to export that technology, to have the Taliban and Al Queda based in their territory, and to sponsor and harbor terrorist groups that attack India?
Every time something the US does in south Asia make no sense Pakistan seems to be right in the middle of it. There's a lot of talk right now about the Israel Lobby, but I have a different question.
What the hell does the Pakistani military have on Bush? It must be good.
October 18, 2007 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Attended an event featuring Seymour Hirsch yesterday. I highly recommend hearing him if you can, this guy is even more impressive in person than in print.
The WWIII comment is incredibly depressing. Is Bush that moronic or is it some extremely irresponsible impulse. What does it mean? WW is war across the globe. Does this mean that if Iran refuses to accede to our demands that Bush will set in motion a war that will go globally -- to E Asia, S. America, Europe, Russia? Is he threatening Russia and China? Blackmailing them? This verges on the insane. He also mentioned that he will forced to do this because Iran threatens Israel. Not the US mind you but Israel. He is basically saying that he will take the US to the brink of nuclear holocaust on behalf of Israel. Amazing.
October 18, 2007 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
And, by the way, why is it okay for Pakistan to have nukes and to export that technology...
Oh, and by the way, why is it okay for the US (the only country in the world to ever use nuclear weapons -- ok NUCULAR in case George is reading this - hah!)? Why should WE decide who can and can't have them?
Iraq didn't -- we invaded them
Korea does -- we negotiate
Pakistan does, and even condones selling technology and god knows what else to god knows who -- we prop up the dictator.
Israel does -- enough said
Russia -- well, Putin would NEVER do anything that wasn't in the interest of the US, because George looked him in the eye......
I could go on, but there are 2 points I want to make:
1. IRAN DOES NOT HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS!
2, We have absolutely no moral authority to say who can and cannot have them. We lost all moral authority with
a. The invasion and occupation (without provocation or threat to our country) of a sovreign nation, whose dictator we had supported and given biological weapons, etc to.
b. Our flouting of international law in the areas of habeas corpus and torture
We, in short, are screwed!
Does anyone have an explanation as to why current presidential candidates are being asked about "signing statements," as though we are all at the mercy of what the president says he can do?
Why not just declare it illegal to sign a bill into law and then say the law doesn't apply to the president? Is this a fucking monarchy? Why are these people afraid of this bully-coward Bush? I just don't get it!
Jan
October 18, 2007 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh Happy Day!! This takes us one step closer to the Second Coming. Praise God!
Is that what this is all about? Otherwise Bush is just flat out insane.
Hoppy in Sacramento
October 18, 2007 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Honestly, if you were a non-US country right now, and if you had dicey if not near-hostile relations with the US, the ONLY rational choice you could make would be to develop nuclear weapons, hopefully before the US found out about it. Because if you don't have them, you're vulnerable. If you try and the US knows, you're vulnerable; if you have them, you at least don't get invaded.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 18, 2007 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will vote on the war issue and it looks like I'm very unlikely to vote for a Republican or a Democrat.
October 18, 2007 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've had weird time errors on some of my posts too.
October 18, 2007 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
How come people think that a new nuclear power with one or a handful of bombs would waste them attacking the US, which has thousands of bombs to retaliate with and is geographically so large that it could not be destroyed by a single strike, no matter how terrible it'd be for us?
Just wondering.
The way people talk, a country gets one bomb and it's like they become the Soviet Union.
The only other rationale the people who talk that way can use basically boils down to "Arabs, North Koreans, etc. are crazy." And that's just racist.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 18, 2007 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean in the Presidential general election? There are peace candidates in the Democratic Presidential primaries (Kucinich comes to mind, so does Gravel) and among Democrats running for Congress.
October 18, 2007 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hitler also had the decency to seek control of only local European oil sources in Romania. Bush could have just invented scary reasons why we must invade Mexico or Venezuela.
October 18, 2007 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid that Bush's comments sound precisely like Bush is *threatening to start* World War III if Iran doesn't agree to his demands (whatever they are this week) -- obviously, Iran couldn't possibly start a world war, but the US could.
This reminds me: Adolf Hitler threatened to start WWII if he wasn't given Poland and parts of Czechoslovakia. He started it anyway, and it was harder to win because of the concessions.
October 19, 2007 1:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sigh.
Never mind WW III in this context. Nontechnical people often ask "how is the critical secret of nuclear weapons protected?" I believe the first answer, from anyone with a decent understanding of this (and related) subjects was "the critical secret was divulged at Hiroshima: that a nuclear weapon could be made to work." Once it is known that something is possible, it's much easier for technical folk to reverse engineer it.
The truly critical secrets are often very subtle. I understand one of the toughest problem in the initial atomic bomb research was finding a glue that would bond uranium to another metal, during a high-temperature part of processing.
In biological warfare, while people constantly rave about how Saddam got cultures, the culture is the least critical and easiest to obtain part. Perhaps the most difficult part, if you are trying to use BW to cover more than an office, took huge test chambers and open-air tests to find out the infective dose, necessary droplet size, inactivation by the atmosphere, etc. Intermediate is having the dual-use production equipment needed for a BW lab -- this is very well described in the US Militarily Critical Technologies list (I'll get a link if desired).
Far more than the culture, you need the large-scale fermentors, refrigerated centrifuges, lyophilizers (freeze-dryers), and specialized refrigerated grinding & coating machines. Ironically, one of the first cultures on an accusatory Congressional report was a very good Belgian beer yeast, and large-scale (defined as over 100 liters or so) fermentors have dual use in breweries, as well as a huge number of chemicals and drugs produced by fermentation. Some of the other equipment is more of a smoking gun -- and Saddam got them from the French and Russians.
It may or may not be relevant, but I've been doing some extensive Wikipedia writing on some of the more technical intelligence disciplines such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGINTSIGINT and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MASINT with subdisciplines and history. I've also written an article on National means of technical verification that gives information on how the exotic disciplines apply to nuclear nonproliferation. Some other people are collaborating in trying to create an "overarching" article on the nature of intelligence, which probably will touch on political manipulation. I did add, to the article on Stovepiping the common intelligence community definition of the term, as opposed to the recent use of it with respect to Cheney and the Office of Special Plans.
Let me take a look at your blog.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 19, 2007 3:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please read my column on Coonsey's View about this issue: Here's part of it:
Media Mis-Information – We’re Already in WWIII
By Coonsey
On Wednesday, October 17, President Bush said during his press conference, “We’ve got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel, so I’ve told people that, if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
A sample of today’s headlines say, “Bush warns of WWIII if Iran goes nuclear”, “Bush raises specter of 'WWIII' if Iran gets nuclear arms” and “Iran brushes off Bush 'World War III' warning”.
The media is saying a sitting President should never say the word WWIII in public. They are in shock that Bush would even think of saying those words.
I’ve got another shock for them. We’re already in WWIII. We’ve been in WWIII since President Bush announced that we were invading/attacking Iraq in March of 2003.
When we punched that final hole into the bee hive of the Middle East, as Ross Perot once said, you could hear a large sucking sound coming from over there. That sound was the ‘seal’ being glued around the United State’s arm; the arm that was rammed into the bee hive, thereby never allowing the U.S. to withdraw again. At least not without a great deal of harm to all involved.
READ MORE.....
Coonsey's View is looking for one or two folks to volunteer articles/columns once in awhile to it's site.
If interested go to http://www.freewebs.com/coonsey/ and SEND POST. Be sure to give a title and name (at this time - your real name or a fake handle) for the column.
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October 19, 2007 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Former CIA chief Woolsey maintains we are actually in WW4.
Kevin Russell Cook
October 19, 2007 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
At times, it's hard to count. Was the Cold War Big Mistake #3, with its scattered proxy wars?
I've read a fair number of historians who argue for the Napoleonic Wars having a certain claim on #1. It's harder, but not impossible, to consider the Mongols, and even Alexander the Great.
*sigh* I wonder what Belisarius could have done with an armored cavalry regiment, with some air augmentation. Not to be parochial, he would also be interesting with a Marine MEU(SOC) or larger MEB.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 19, 2007 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting that Bush introduced the notion about "knowlege". One scenario I've read about incudes targeting those with scientfic know-how on things nuclear.
Re war and Iran, Olmert made a curious quickie trip to chat up Putin recently and discuss stuff. No Israeli reporters were allowed along and the news reports have been vague on details until the Russians blabbed to Al Hayat.
In leiu of the orginal for now, a summary from Arutz Sheva:
10:58 AM
7 Cheshvan 5768, October 19, '07
Reported
Russians: Olmert Failed to Persuade Putin
"Russian sources said Friday that the attempts by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to convince Russia's leaders of the necessity of a military strike against Iran did not, and will not, succeed. "Washington and other Western capitals failed to change the Russian viewpoint, according to which there is no proof that Iran's nuclear program is headed in a military direction," the Russian sources said.
London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, in its report on Olmert's Thursday visit to Moscow, said he also wanted to know if Russian President Putin had discussed the matter of Russian weaponry reaching Iran through Iran and Syria, when he visited Tehran this week.
The sources said that Olmert and Putin also discussed the IAF attack in Syria over a month ago. Olmert reportedly asked Putin to cancel the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/134987
That must have been an interesting meeting, Foriegn Minister Tzipi Livni is schedualed to go to China.
Why did anyone think Putin persuadable? The Russians probably have their own (better) intel on Iran. The geopolitical plates are on the move.
October 19, 2007 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a lot of people, depending on what uses as the standard of "things nuclear". Here's a link to a summary of the Nth Country Experiment, in which three brand-new physics, PhDs, with no weapons design experience, were told "go design a bomb." There is a link to the heavily censored report. I've also seen conflicting report of whether or not their design was tried in an underground shot, and, if it was, the extent to which it went fizzle, boom, BOOM, or BOOM.
It's one thing to design a miniaturized thermonuclear warhead with unusual weight and balance considerations, such as the W88, and another thing to build the simplest sort of gun-type uranium weapon, and a good deal more complex to do a first-generation (or so) plutonium implosion device. I'm not a physicist, but I can think of a number of enhancements that would get you beyond a 1945 design. It's best to be conservative, based on reports that the Indians tried apparently simple tritium boosting, and got a fizzle yield.
Israel has too much of a lead, especially if the US, oddly in the interest of stability, gave them silo superhardening technology. I have yet to come up with a plausible scenario for Iran to attack anyone that can't destroy them in return after they attack with anything they could build in 10-20 years.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 19, 2007 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
"That's a lot of people, depending on what uses as the standard of "things nuclear".
Yeah, but my memory doesn't serve the details about what or who would be targeted beyond those involved in Iran's nuclear endeavors. As I recall, it was a part of a plan of attack with multiple targets, a handful(?) or so in addtion to suspected nuclear sites. It was the most extreme of the scenarios contemplated .
October 19, 2007 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
"disconnected and random"
You are the very model of restraint and decorum of characterization.
I thought he was scary nuts.
October 20, 2007 5:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
" ...Israel has too much of a lead, especially if the US, oddly in the interest of stability, gave them silo superhardening technology. I have yet to come up with a plausible scenario for Iran to attack anyone that can't destroy them in return after they attack with anything they could build in 10-20 years"
Which is to say that Israel enjoys the "first strike" (with subsequent impunity) capacity that was always the grail of US/Soviet nuclear competition.
That said, may we not look with some nostalgia at the old deterrence by balance of power (M.A.D., anyone?) where at least the ambitions of one (unnamed...) out of control side were tempered?
I think it is inherently DEstabilizing for one side to have first strike capacity, and in that context, query:Is it so bad for long range chances of peace for Iran to HAVE the bomb?
Surely the North Korean bomb turned out to be a "peace bomb", didn't it?
October 20, 2007 5:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
"who would be targeted "
In an update to the practice of burning the books containing dangerous knowledge, we will burn the brains containing dangerous knowledge.
(Books are so legacy media...)
October 20, 2007 6:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
My favorite technical subtlety was the need, in an early thermonuclear test design, for people experienced in applying gold leaf to statues and the like. It was needed for X-ray reflection, I think.
October 20, 2007 6:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Woolsey went down in flames in my book for announcing on CNN, hours after the towers fell, that Iraq was likely responsible.
He also presided over a downgrading of human intelligence in favor of satellite collection. So much for that idea.
October 20, 2007 6:59 AM | Reply | Permalink