In the Strait of Hormuz, a US Navy task force is “harassed” by a handful of Iranian vessels, what amounts to a bunch of speedboats. This brings us to the brink of a hot war with Iran; video proves that the Iranians had Dastardly Intent, and made Threatening Gestures and radio comments toward our cruiser, destroyer, and frigates:
Ahmadinejad claims that the Navy claim is untrue, that Washington fabricated the threat to justify military aggression. Of course, this was pooh-poohed by the US government… Dangerous Little Man… Evil Incarnate… Major Threat. The Republican Guard was testing us, trying to provoke us, and distracting us from what their true intentions.
But last week, the other side aired its own record of the encounter:
Then, it turns out the threatening voice on the original video was recorded separately [possibly spoken by a US sailor] and the Navy can’t promise it goes with their video. But in the Iranian video, you can actually read the lips of the guy speaking into the radio handset. The one constant is, the voice of the US sailor making contact with the Iranians is the same in both clips.
Now, I’m far from a milquetoast pacifism-at-any-cost type, but this is illustrative of the threat that Iran poses. The Iranian patrol boats were – I’ve seen bigger bass boats – they had outboard motors, for Pete’s sake. This is the threat to the US?
But what about the Cole? She was blasted by a small craft!
Totally different situation. The USS Cole was tying up to a refueling buoy in Yemeni territorial waters, where she had reasonable expectation of security; the small craft that exploded against her was mistaken [as per the perpetrators' intent] for the locals who are required to get the refueling evolution started. Their guard was down, things were going as per usual. Let me assure any skeptics that that is the only reason the Cole bombing was successful.
The subject cruiser [near as I can tell, the USS Port Royal (CG-73)] was in international waters, in or near a war zone, and probably on alert, as the Persian Gulf is a small, shallow body of water, and the Strait of Hormuz is a very small choke point. The cruiser and its sister ships were in a defensive stance before the small boats ever approached.
Not to mention which, with a couple shots, any one of our boats – err, I mean “ships” – could’ve taken out any or all of the “threatening” small craft. [WARNING: intraservice rivalry alert] I mean, compared to your dumbest submariner, even your dumbest cone [and you're talking really, really dumb, here — relatively speaking], the smartest of surface pukes are pretty stupid, but I’m sure even they could’ve taken out a handful of what amounts to pleasure craft with very little effort. [I mean, they're still in the Navy, so they gotta have a minimum of usable intelligence... if they were ground-pounding cannon-fodder, I'd wonder, but Navy guys? No problem.]
Which brings me to my actual point: how does one characterize a third-world nation with no modern navy, no modern army to speak of, and absolutely no ability to project power beyond its own borders, as a major threat to US security? Let me reiterate: Iran has no modern navy, no modern army, and no ability to project power across the Near East, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean, in order to even harass, much less threaten, domestic defenses.
But they have rockets that can go 2,000 miles!
Our smallest, most common weapons systems can be launched from half that distance, with pinpoint accuracy, and wreak utter destruction, without ever putting a single US citizen [or citizen-soldier]in harm’s way. Six to 10 US fast-attack submarines could easily demolish all of Iran’s government, infrastructure, and logistics for years to come, in a single afternoon, and get away without any hope of counter-detection. [And unless I'm mistaken, most of Iran's big weapons are Soviet-era. The USSR ain't around anymore, in part because they didn't make stuff that worked right, or didn't make stuff that lasted. For want of a nail, and so forth. I wouldn't let their legacy weapons keep me up at night.]
But Israel would be in danger! What about Israel?!
Israel, last time I checked, was a whole other country, had hundreds of nuclear missiles, and a great, big, modern military. Why is it that Israel could protect itself in 1967, against not one, but three enemy nations [Egypt, Syria, and Jordan; maybe more], without benefit of modern weapons and tactics, but is completely unable to look to its own defense today, armed to the teeth with American technology? Because of nuclear weapons?
If war is diplomacy carried on by other means, nuclear war is “other means” writ large. And though the punditocracy can cow the teeming millions of Americans into mortal terror at the spectre of looming nuclear winter, I ain’t buying it. All the propaganda in the Cold War doesn’t really obtain anymore. ICBMs launched from the USSR would have had the potential yield to level entire cities, large cities. So-called “backpack nukes” would be of tactical strength at best, meaning their direct effects would be felt, at most, within a radius of a few blocks. Even multiple, simultaneous attacks in several cities mightamount to the equivalent of a mere handful of WTC-like effects; ground-level explosions would not likely yield the EMPs that could take down the power grid and communications systems, either [except on an extremely local scale, at best].
While I’m a big fan of science fiction, dystopian future histories, and all that, let’s try to look at reality. China and Russia could wage nuclear war on us. Some of the former Soviet republics could, maybe. England might could lob some of our nukes back at us. But for Iran to make a nuclear attack on US soil would take a level of incompetence in the US domestic security practices that is absolutely unheard-of [...or maybe not]. Jericho notwithstanding, it would simply be impossible for a ragtag (or any other) group [aside, perhaps, from the US government itself] to move any appreciable amount of fissile materialsaround the country undetected. The EPA, DoE, and state regulatory agencies have detection equipment that can pick up minute amounts of decaying radioactive materials at great distances, much less anything that could be made to evaporate whole cities.
When we went into Afghanistan, there was justification – thin justification – for war, because the 19 Saudiswho perpetrated 9-11 could be tied back to the Taliban. Iraq was a little harder to sell, but once Washington looked past the CIA knowledge of the greatly disputable intel on Iraqi WMD, we all could go along with it. Besides, Saddam was a Very Bad Man, and good riddance.
Now, the very same defunct and debunked claims made against Iraq are being run up the flag pole by Iran agitators: WMD, Very Dangerous, Great Threat, Very Bad Man. Then – chink in the armor! – the NIE comes out and says that Iran doesn’t have a weapons program, hasn’t for years [suggesting that the demands made by Washington and the UN have largely been met, failure of which was the overwhelming rhetorical reason for an Iranian front in the "War on Terror"]. Not to be upstaged by the truth, in a surreal I’m-taking-my-ball-and-going-home moment, the venerable George the Younger announces, “well, they’re [Iran] still the greatest threat to American security and world peace.”
I humbly submit that the greatest extant threat to US security and world peace is a hegemonic administration headquartered at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I’m far from a “blame America first” type, but, just like I was quick to criticize Clinton, I’ll be quick to criticize the wrong-headed, short-sighted, dangerous, and expensive adventures he and his cronies are pursuing, both in the Middle East and here at home.
Of course, like when Bush turned down Hussein’s offer of self-exile for a pittance of $1 billion on the eve of invading Iraq, I doubt that Bush and the hegocons will be dissuaded from their empire-building by something so inconsequential as total compliance with the Bushite demands.
