Empty Threats

President Obama has managed to take the full might and power of the United States of America and make it as impotent as a child who threatens to hold their breath until they turn blue. Once again this week President Obama stepped up and reiterated his willingness to act should Bashir Assad or either rebel group utilize any of Syria’s extensive stores of chemical weapons. His actions were necessitated by reports of possible use of said chemical weapons as reported by the intelligence agencies of France and Britain. These reports coincided with a more strongly worded statement from the head of Israeli military intelligence that President Bashir Assad had indeed used his chemical weapons. The Israeli communicated that they had proof that Syrian troops had released Sarin nerve agent on two occasions and not just military grade tear gas whose use had been reported earlier. This was likely stressed as President Obama had discounted the use of the military grade tear gas as not being sufficient to cross President Obama’s red line on chemical weapon use. The Israeli report was initially confirmed by United States Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel who later retreated from his position claiming to have been surprised by the Israeli claim as they had not informed him while he had been visiting Israel earlier on the week. So, where does that leave things?

 

The thing about the Israeli claim is it was backed up by the Syrian rebel forces which are currently receiving nonlethal supplies from Western powers when they admitted to knowledge that Israeli agents were working within Syria and would quite likely have first-hand evidence of any chemical weapons use. For the rebels to actually admit to the presence of Israelis inside Syria is a rather bold statement that would not be issued lightly. Despite the mounting evidence that Bashir Assad has resorted to using his chemical weapons, President Obama has chosen inaction and a simple restatement of his initial threat that any use of chemical weapons by either side would result in immediate action by the United States. When the initial reports of potential use of chemical weapons was issued by Britain and France President Obama requested clarification as to which chemicals were known to have been released. When it was then reported that there were suspicions of possible caustic chemicals as well as the aforementioned tear gas, President Obama dismissed the rumored use of caustic agents dismissing them as equally possible industrial chemicals such as chlorine being accidentally released as a result of the use of explosive munitions. When President Obama backed off these initial reports it might have been understandable that the American threshold to qualify as chemical weapons use was higher than that of their European allies and Israel. But with the reports of Sarin gas being released on the battlefields of Syria one might expect a reaction from the United States at least somewhat stronger than words, especially a stale repetition of the President’s original warnings. Does President Obama really believe that setting a red line and then when it is violated, simply resetting the red line will gain respect from the likes of Bashir Assad, a treacherous dictator who has already murdered tens of thousands of his own countrymen and sent millions into exile will recoil in fear from mere words that President Obama has given indication he never intended to back with actual actions?

 

And Bashir Assad is far from the only world leader watching to see if President Obama is a credible leader who backs his words with actions. There is always North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, another one who likes to hear himself threaten. The one thing absolutely necessary to keep the likes of Kim Jong-Un impotent is to mean action when one threatens to use it. If Kim Jong-Un expects for a minute that any threat of action by the United States is not going to be actually executed, then he is very likely to act on his threats in the belief that there would be no real consequences. And Kim Jong-Un is not the most dangerous of threats on the international stage. There is Iran and the Ayatollahs with their nuclear project which thus far words have proven to be less than useless, yet here too President Obama appears to be satisfied to talk until a nuclear Iran is a verified fact and a half a dozen cities around the world lie as smoldering ruins. With new leadership in Mainland China there is a need for the words of the President of the United States to have great weight, not great doubts. It is for exactly such reasons that President Obama must not allow his word to become a matter for questions rather than being taken at face value and his every word heeded. It is for reasons of credibility that President Obama may find necessity requiring him to act against the Syrian chemical weapons threat. It is not necessary for United States military forces to put boots on the ground as all that is required to fulfill President Obama’s warnings against the use of chemical weapons would be to destroy the chemical weapon storage facilities. My bet would be that should President Obama decide to commit a couple of B-2 stealth bombers, as he did in a show of strength to Kim Jong-Un, to actually bomb the Syrian chemical weapon stores, Israel would be more than agreeable to provide accurate coordinates and might even offer to turn off the Syrian radar grid, though such would not be really necessary with stealth bombers. The old children’s rhyme, “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never harm me,” does not apply in the realm of world politics where words can do one great harm, even break more than bones.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Middle East One Year After a Nuclear Iran

Everyone has given their picture of the horrors which would follow a nuclear armed Iran. Most of these warnings point to the possibility of Iran distributing their nuclear capabilities to their closest allies Syria and Hezballah in Lebanon. They explain how Iran might choose to attack Israel with a nuclear device smuggled into Israel by Hezballah in the north, by Hamas from the southwest, or Bedouins or others from within the Sinai Peninsula in the south. They mention that Iran could threaten Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, and Bahrain with severe and dire consequences while loosing the Shiite populations in each country to serve whatever ends the Ayatollahs decide. Where these scenarios are troubling enough, they completely miss a far worse situation which is actually more likely. There have been some who have hinted at these problems but they warrant retelling.

 

All of the Sunni nations in the Middle East are fully aware of the threat they would face should Iran become a nuclear armed nation. The struggle for supremacy between Shiite and Sunnis Islam would become far more competitive with Iran having nuclear weapons with which to threaten the major Sunni powers who currently enjoy a measure of preeminence provided by their oil wealth. What has been omitted from many explanations of a future after Iran goes nuclear is that when Pakistan faced a nuclear armed India they went on an emergency nuclear weapons development program. This was an exceedingly costly program far beyond anything the Pakistani government could ever have afforded. Enter the ever helpful but not too egalitarian Saudis with all the cash that Pakistan would need. There was a very simple price for the assistance of the Saudis, the promise of nuclear weapons on demand should Saudi Arabia ever find themselves on the wrong end of a nuclear situation, say like Iranian threats. This agreement would provide the Saudis with a number of operative nuclear weapons along with the plans for building their own weapons once they put the processing and other required productions into place. There have been numerous conjectures to the number of weapons which would be provided the Saudis on demand with a dozen being the median figure which would be more than sufficient to keep Iran in check while the Saudis brought their own nuclear weapons program online. But the Saudis are but the first in a line of new nuclear powers which would result from a nuclear Iran.

 

There are other countries who would feel compelled to reply to a nuclear Iran by immediately developing their own nuclear arsenals. The idea that every nation in the Middle East, and even further, would be satisfied to rely on the United States nuclear umbrella to keep them safe is a foolish and silly belief. For starters, any nation which currently views themselves as being major players in the Middle East would take a nuclear armed Iran as an unacceptable challenge to their place in the order of the Middle East. Of these the first two which come to mind are Turkey and Egypt. Turkey and Egypt both have sufficient technology available to them to produce their own nuclear weaponry within a nominal amount of time, likely less than three years from inception to production of their first two or three devices. They would require negligible research times as access to plans for a nuclear weapon are readily available to any nation with sufficient money. The readily available sources for such plans are well known and include but are not limited to North Korea, Pakistan, China, Russia, and other former Soviet countries. Even without any assistance from a current nuclear power the designs for a simple nuclear device are readily available on the internet though not necessarily in sufficient detail to assemble one straight off those plans. But with sufficient engineering and nuclear physics expertise, nuclear weapon designs require mere months to successfully develop. With computer aided design it becomes even more readily accomplishable. But who else might decide they were in need of a nuclear arsenal should Iran complete their nuclear weapons plans?

 

The first suspects would likely be many European countries; especially Germany, Poland, Romania, and very likely all of the rest would either desire their own or would ally forming treaties of mutual protection with neighboring countries that were developing such weapons. England and France would likely resume building nuclear weapons and update any nuclear weapons they currently hold. Once any of the nations of North Africa developed nuclear weapons they might start a nuclear arms race through the rest of Africa. South Africa was once a nuclear power and who knows where those plans are now. Then one needs to reevaluate the equation even if only three or four nations in Africa manage to go nuclear and also look to Asia and South America. If Iran is allowed to go nuclear then the entirety of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty goes out the window and a truly horrific domino theory will come to fruition. Such a world becomes the most ominous threat condition from which mankind may cease to exist along with near extinction event enveloping the world. Many of the nations which would become nuclear armed and enabled were either nonexistent or uninterested in the last World War and may not have taken the lesson of Nagasaki and Hiroshima to heart as those nations involved in World War II.

 

The United States and allies faced off against the Soviet Union and its allies in a nuclear standoff in which great care and mechanisms were built in to assure that no accidental confrontation would occur. Even with these precautions there were a number of times when the two sides came perilously close to the brink but fortunately never went beyond the cusp and committed their nuclear response. Once even one-third of the nations of the world possess nuclear weaponry the possibility of either a mistake or an intentional use of nuclear weapons would simply become a matter of time. Once one nation utilized nuclear weapons then either the attacked nation and the nations with which they have mutual defense treaties either respond in kind leading to an ever escalating nuclear conflagration or they stand down at which point every other nations’ nuclear deterrent becomes just one small bit less effective. Once a nation and their allies allow a nuclear attack to go without a response in kind then it becomes a measured consideration which would make the offensive use of nuclear weapons just a small amount more tempting. Since mankind has always used the weapon of previously unequaled destruction which ended the previous war to start the next war, how long before nuclear weapons become the first strike weapon of choice? Look at the evidence, the Ancient Greek used the Phalanx which was perfected by the Romans. World War I brought into use tanks and aircraft and World War II revolved around armor, bombers, and fighter aircraft. World War I used dreadnaughts which were the follow-up to the ironclads and metal warships of the American Civil War and the other wars between then and the outbreak of World War I. It may have been inevitable once mankind invented the nuclear weapon that it would be the weapon of initiation for World War III which may very likely be World War Last until the next intelligent species rises from the mire left afterwards. Maybe we should press for more actions to be committed for preventing Iran or anybody else developing and building nuclear weapons.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How North Korea with Nukes Defines Iran with Nukes

A good number of world leaders are currently sweating nervously while hanging on every threat that the new North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong-Un utters with their nerves fraying even more each time the satellites or other intelligence sources report any activities taking place anywhere near missile sites or nuclear instillations. Even China, the one who usually is called upon to calm situations emanating from North Korea, has placed additional troops on their border with North Korea and appears to be just as concerned as anybody else. Russia has made statements which could be seen as indicating that they are also in the dark as to what this new, young and untested North Korean leader is likely to do. The concerns are spread throughout the whole gambit of possibilities. Will he launch a middle-range missile or two or many more? Will he launch the reported untested long-range missile? Will the missiles be armed with active warheads? Would he honestly choose to place a nuclear weapon atop one of the missiles and if so where the nuclear warhead would be aimed? Everything is very much unknown largely due to no clear intelligence on North Korea and absolutely no history or even inklings of information about the new leader of North Korea. The entire world is in the dark forced to take guesses and attempt to be ready for any and every possibility. And as unclear everything is concerning this confrontation that has thus far been simply words and false moves without any actual belligerent acts, the world does have the one calming hope that all of this will result in simply meeting some demands for easing sanctions and some other mostly political compromises and food aid or other trade items as this has been the scenario in the past when his predecessors, his father and grandfather, had taken similar actions of saber rattling and boisterous threats. The level of trepidation which seems to have gripped our leaders where they have taken precautionary measures but at the same time are tip-toeing so carefully around the problem refusing to stand up against the threats coming from North Korea as if they are quiet enough things will calm down on their own. Such a timid approach only emboldens Kim Jong-Un and allows him to appear far more powerful than he actually is which is exactly what he desires. Where part of this strutting and bellowing out threats is done for intimidation and effect in order to have his demands met once they are stated, the other part is for propaganda on the home front where Kim Jong-Un will have reports for the foreseeable future regaling how the world was hanging on his every word and willing to grant him whatever he demanded and their sacrifices have not been in vain as North Korea is so powerful they can virtually stop the world from spinning. Maybe things would end quicker and Kim Jong-Un could be denied the endless ranting under the spotlight if he was confronted and somebody demanded him to simply state what this was all about and after he makes some demands instruct Kim Jong-Un that he will accept exactly what the rest of the world is willing to give him until he compromises and allows some freedoms and begins to serve his people instead of his ego. But the world does not seem to work like that which is why people like Kim Jong-Un and his fathers before him can get away with such antics.

Now look down the road about three or four years, or maybe by the end of this year depending on which report is correct on the Iranian nuclear weapons program and imagine how the world will react to the Iranian President, whomever wins the election this June to replace Ahmadinejad, along with whatever supporting role the Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei decides to play making demands of the world. Imagine, if you can, Iran and the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) along with their terrorist branches the world over, like Hezballah, threatening to detonate nuclear devices in multiple capital cities around the globe if their demands are not met. How would the world react if Iran decided to annex Iraq claiming they were simply reforming their rightful lands as the inheritors of the lands that belonged to Persia? They could then annex Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan all with the same claim. At what point would the world leaders decide it was too much and take a hard stand? Would it take having them attack a NATO country such as Turkey? Would the Europeans even flinch if they attacked Greece or would the Europeans see that as good a way as any to rid themselves of a problem? What if Iraq, Syria and Lebanon simply announced that they desired to form a confederation under Iranian rule with their retaining some amount of autonomy but falling under the protection of the Iranian nuclear umbrella? If the world is apoplectically paralyzed by North Korea when they presumably do not possess ballistic missiles capable of striking anywhere on the globe, what would be the reaction to Iran who by then will almost certainly possess such missiles? Would the United States go to war over Israel or would Israel become literally the Czechoslovakia of World War III? How about over Kuwait or Saudi Arabia? Would the world rise up to protect any of the Sunni Islamic countries if they began to fall under Shiite Iranian hegemony? After Iran crept across North Africa, would we then rise if they laid claim to Andalusia which is what the Islamic powers called Spain when they held much of it until 1492 when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella marshaled the Spanish people and threw off the Islamic rulers. What if there were to be a modern battle of Tours in southern France. Iran is not a poor and economically desperate nation despite the effects that the sanctions have had on them. The Iranians are still managing to trade some of their oil and other goods and as the Western nations fall deeper into their own economic troubles we might very well see a resurgent Iran with many Asian and other nations discarding the sanctions and resuming trade with what would appear to be an Iran with a brighter future than the debt ridden Western nations. We need to remember that North Korea has a controlling power on its northern border and China would not allow the situation over North Korea threaten to bring a nuclear exchange to her southeastern border. Russia also would have something to say about such a possibility. North Korea also is far smaller and does not possess the natural resources that Iran does. Iran with nuclear weapons is a completely different and extremely dangerous threat which really cannot be compared to North Korea. If the nations of the world are unable to squelch the protestations and threats of Kim Jong-Un out of North Korea, then we will be in even worse position should Iran start to make similar noises backed by nuclear weapons. That is something to consider but not too close to bedtime if one wishes to sleep free of nightmares.

Beyond the Cusp