More Iranian Bluster
The Iranians kicked it up a notch during "routine" war games. From Reuters:
Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired missiles with the capability of carrying cluster warheads during military maneuvers that started on Thursday and which will last 10 days, state television reported.
Iran had said the maneuvers, which will last until November 11 and will include drills in the Gulf and Sea of Oman, would be a show of "defensive strength".
"Shahab missiles were fired. Its range is up to 2,000 km and it can carry cluster warheads," a reporter for state-owned Arabic-language Al-Alam television told Reuters from central Iran, near where he said the missiles were fired.
Experts say Iran's Shahab-3 missiles have a maximum range of some 2,000 km (1,240 miles), making them capable of hitting Israel as well as U.S. military bases in the Gulf. They say the Shahab-2 missile has a range of up to 700 km (435 miles).
"Capable" of hitting Israel and U.S. bases around the Gulf. Maybe that will convince someone in the current administration how serious the threat of Iran has become. They have been killing our troops for more than twenty-five years and we still haven't done anything to stop them.
Carter backed down when they kidnapped our people and held them for a year. And Clinton backed down, too. Michael Ledeen at National Review Online:
It’s not the first time we have had information about Iran’s murder of Americans. Louis Freeh tells us that the same thing happened following the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. On page 18 of Freeh’s My FBI he reports that Saudi Ambassador Bandar told Freeh “we have the goods,” pointing “ineluctably towad Iran.” The culprits were the same as in Iraq: Hezbollah, under direction from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. And then there was a confession from outgoing Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani to Crown Prince Abdullah (at the time, effectively the Saudi king): page 19: “the Khobar attack had been planned and carried out with the knowledge of the Iranian supreme ruler, Ayatollah Khamenei.”
As Freeh puts it, “this had been an act of war against the United States of America.”
Clinton famously failed to respond to Iran’s act of war. Instead, he attempted to achieve a modus vivendi with the mullahs, the kind of negotiated surrender now so fervently proposed by “realists” of the Brent Scowcroft/Richard Haass/James Baker school, supported by Henry Kissinger on his pessimistic days. This sort of appeasement has always encouraged enemies like the Iranian theocrats to intensify their attacks on us and on those of their own people who dare to call for freedom, and so it has proven ever since.
Still we talk and threaten through the UN, promising sanctions if they don't behave. They keep pushing and we keep backing down.
Sanctions will not work. Russia and China won't support them, and would probably violate them if they did. The Russian position, from ThreatsWatch.Org:
Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov said yesterday that Russia does not believe there has been evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Said Ivanov, “We believe that the possibilities for continuing political discussion around this problem have not been exhausted.” Though Russia has called for more talks with Iran, the permanent member of the Security Council has said that it will directly oppose any ‘punishing sanctions’ proposed against its Iranian nuclear trading partner.
Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, blasted the draft resolution proposal prepared by the EU and the United States that called for sanctions against Iran. Lavrov said today, “We cannot support measures that in essence are aimed at isolating Iran from the outside world, including isolating people who are called upon to conduct negotiations on the nuclear program.” He went on to say that the draft proposal goes far beyond the scope of agreements between members of the Security Council which, Russia maintains, are based on objectives as presented to the Security Council by the IAEA.
Hmmm, the Russians say "Nyet"?
Here's why, from The New York Times:
Russia surpassed the United States in 2005 as the leader in weapons deals with the developing world, and its new agreements included selling $700 million in surface-to-air missiles to Iran and eight new aerial refueling tankers to China, according to a new Congressional study.
Those weapons deals were part of the highly competitive global arms bazaar in the developing world that grew to $30.2 billion in 2005, up from $26.4 billion in 2004. It is a market that the United States has regularly dominated.
Russia’s agreements with Iran are not the biggest part of its total sales — India and China are its principal buyers. But the sales to improve Iran’s air-defense system are particularly troubling to the United States because they would complicate the task of Pentagon planners should the president order airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities.
The Bush administration has vowed a diplomatic solution in dealing with Iran. But as United Nations diplomats argue over potential sanctions against Iran for its nuclear ambitions, Russian officials have expressed reluctance to vote for the most stringent economic sanctions, partly owing to Moscow’s extensive trade relations with Tehran.
Nope, the Russians won't be helping anyone but the Russians, I'm afraid.
The report, entitled “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations,” found that Russia’s arms agreements with the developing world totaled $7 billion in 2005, an increase from its $5.4 billion in sales in 2004. That figure surpassed the United States’ annual sales agreements to the developing world for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
France ranked second in arms transfer agreements to developing nations, with $6.3 billion, and the United States was third, with $6.2 billion.
The leading buyer in the developing world in 2005 was India, with $5.4 billion in weapons purchases, followed by Saudi Arabia with $3.4 billion and China with $2.8 billion.
Good luck getting to sleep tonight.
Michael Rubin, at The Corner on National Review Online:
China and Russia have said no to robust sanctions on Iran. Five months after Condoleezza Rice offered Iran a choice between compliance and reward on one-hand, and non-compliance and sanction on the other hand, the policy has fizzled. Is the Bush administration going to sacrifice US national security upon the altar of multilateralism? Is Bush rhetoric about denying Iran nuclear capability empty?
The Iranians certainly seem to think so.
From Security Watchtower:
Recall what President Bush said on Sept 5:
The world's free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
That wasn't an ambiguous statement. It put military action on the table, if necessary. And yet, the diplomatic front has consisted of putting toothless pieces of paper on the table. Sooner or later, if not already, Iran is going to assume we don't have the will to confront them.
If you think a goon like al-Sadr can stir up trouble. Wait till a nuclear-armed Iran, flush with petrol cash, starts throwing its weight around.
The missiles that Iran fired today were a warning to both the U.S. and Israel: no pre-emptive strikes or retaliation will be ugly.
It seems that we are missing the big picture when it comes to Iran. Certainly a victory in Iraq would having lasting repercussions in the region, and give us handy bases, if needed. But is it already too late to put our eggs in that basket?
From BREITBART:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has predicted Israel will collapse and warned that its allies face the "boiling wrath" of the people if they continue to support the Jewish state.
The renewed assault on Israel by Ahmadinejad -- who has been castigated by world powers for his frequent anti-Israeli outbursts -- came as tens of thousands marched through Tehran in an annual pro-Palestinian protest.
[...]
You (the Western powers) should know that any government that stands by the Zionist regime from now on will not see any result but the hatred of the people," he added. "The wrath of the region's people is boiling."
"Efforts to stabilise this fraudulent regime have completely failed, thank God ... This regime has lost the rationale of its existence," the president said.
Ahmadinejad described his warning as an "ultimatum" for Western powers. "You should not complain that we did not give a warning. We are saying this explicitly now."
"If a hurricane starts be rest assured that the dimensions of this hurricane will not be limited to the geographic borders of Palestine," he added. "This regime (Israel) will take its supporters to the bottom of the swamp."
Vague? Not so much. Iran's intentions are clear and have been for years. They hate us and want to destroy us and are perfectly willing to wipe themselves out in the process.
And every day they get stronger. Time to find a new approach.
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