Fifty Miles Of Bad Road

For several years I've been expecting that we would wake up one morning to discover Iran had been hit by a series of air strikes to reduce or destroy its capability to manufacture weapons-grade, enriched Uranium. I still do.

Despite that possibility, and in the face of UN economic sanctions, the fundamentalist Islamic clerics and corrupt Republican Guards commanders running that country have pushed ahead in developing that capability. At the same time, they claim to want to negotiate with the UN, then rebuff them over and over; oddly, very much like the North Koreans treated the UN and the United States in the run-up to developing their very own Bomb.

The Iranians have also counted on the fact that a) Any attack would further unite the Islamic world against Israel and the West, when America needs the support of moderate Arabic states, needs their oil, and needs to push Israel towards peace with the Palestinians; b) Attacks would (at least publicly) unite the Iranian people behind their government; and c) Draw international condemnation over radioactive contamination that would result from bombing nuclear facilities.

The Iranian rulers are clever, and resourceful, but they have to know none of that matters. To the Israelis, it's this simple: Iran (or any neighboring state of Israel's) cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. Period.

So; when? is the question. In the most recent issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Jeffrey Goldberg, their national correspondent, published an article which took months to research and write titled "The Point Of No Return".

(Note: Goldberg has been criticized by Glenn Greenwald at Salon ["Does the past record of journalists matter?" ], and "Wanker Of The Day" by The Great Curmudgeon, among others.)

(Their criticism is based in Goldberg's 2002 writings, which pushed lies about evil Saadam's WMD's in Iraq, used by Lil' Boots and President Cheney as justifications to invade that country.)

(These were in fact lies; and journalists [such as the NYT's Judith Miller] who sold them to the U.S. public were noting but shills for the Bush administration, which shat on the world for nine years. Goldberg was seen by Greenberg and The Curmudgeon as an enabler of lies and worse than lies about Iraq, and that he is writing something very similar about Iran now. Just so you know.)

As Steve Clemons in TPM notes, "after conducting dozens of interviews with senior members of Israel's national security establishment as well as many top personalities in the Obama White House, [Goldberg] concludes ...that the likelihood of Israel unilaterally bombing Iran to curtail a potential nuclear weapon breakout capacity is north of 50-50."

And, there's funny in the article, too: Goldberg recounts how Lil' Boots refused to listen when President Cheney wanted a joint bombing of Iran in concert with Israel. Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer pressed Lil' Boots to attack, and (with that propensity of the hereditary wealthy to bestow nicknames on pets, children, and retainers) Bush referred to them as "The Bomber Boys".

"In short [Steve Clemons relates], Goldberg paints a picture that despite the likelihood of very high cost blowback from Iran in the wake of a unilateral strike by Israel, or a coordinated attack with the US, there are numerous tilts toward bombing embedded in the current political orders in both Jerusalem and Washington."

Given that the Iranians have already lied and repeatedly tried to hide aspects of their Uranium-enrichment program from UN inspectors; and that their President, Little Mahmood, seems to speak for Iran's Islamic leadership when he claims the Holocaust never happened and that Israel should cease to exist; and that Israel's current government is captained by Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the hard-line head of the Likud Party...

I'm hoping that something else will happen. I'd like Iran's leaders to see reason; but they haven't so far, and I don't believe they will. I'd like the Israeli government to be judicious, but they weren't in Gaza and this is a much more threatening situation from their perspective. What other outcome is possible?

When maps were being made in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries, cartographers used an inscription on occasion to signify blank areas on a map where things were unknown: Here There Be Dragons, or Here There Be Tygers... and everyone understood, 'If you venture here, no one knows what will happen'.

And in Vietnam, signs would be erected at the start of an area where hostile fire was expected: Fifty Miles Of Bad Road Ahead.

UPDATE: On Friday, August 13th, the New York Times online reported that the Russian government announced its state nuclear power company would take a crucial step this month to start Iran’s first nuclear power plant.

The company, Rosatom, said technicians would move tons of low-enriched uranium fuel from a storage site into the reactor on Aug. 21, the first of three steps in starting it up, a process that will take months.

The United States had asked Russia to delay the plant’s start-up, until Iran had stopped uranium enrichment and allayed concerns that it was using its civilian nuclear program as a cover for weapons development.

Well, that worked out well.

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