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

A War the United States Will Not be Able to Run From

The media, our representatives in the Federal Government, the President with the full backing of his Cabinet and the vast majority of Americans all believe that the battles for Afghanistan and Iraq have been won; and now that the troops are finishing up any untied strings and heading home for good. Nothing could be further from the truth and there is only one place to pin the blame, President Obama and Congress. They will likely claim that they are simply responding to the wishes and desires of the American people, and that holds a fair amount of validity. The problem is that Congress and the President are elected to serve the people, defend the Constitution from all threats foreign and domestic, to act as the adults in their relationship with the citizenry and to treat the people with respect by telling them the truth along with advise as to what choices are available along with a predicted result for each and after educating the citizenry the country can, as a whole, come to an educated consensus. Thus far none of these discussions have taken place and it is as much the blame of the mainstream media as it is the President, his administration and the members of Congress. The impression that has been put forth is a picture of Iraq and of Afghanistan each with a steady government that the United States have greatly aided and who is indebted to the United States and its military and will be one of the closest allies which the United States can rely upon in the future. If only that was even ten percent of the truth.

 

Let us begin with Iraq and open up some eyes to what is coming. The Iraqi Shiites can hardly wait for the last American to exit their country. They have already demanded and forced the United States military to sequester their personnel onto one of two main base locations, one in Baghdad in what was called the Green Zone where the government offices and the sprawling complex which is the United States Embassy and the rest isolated out at Camp Liberty in the middle of the desert miles from any town or other habitation. The American forces have to clear any operational moves or simple troop movements with their Iraqi advisors, though I am tempted to refer to these advisors as overlords as their decisions are usually final. Iraq has already aligned with Iran and is allowing Iran to supply Bashir Assad in Syria overland crossing central Iraq thus aiding Assad in his slaughtering of his own people as well as jihadists who have joined the battle against Assad in the name of al-Qaeda and/or the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite what the public back in the United States has been fed about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, he was the most ardent of the Shiite candidates and was all but hand-picked by the true leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

 

Even as the troops from the United States and their allies were pulling out from their station points in Iraq in preparation to return home, the Shiite leadership of the government began a cleansing of the Sunni influences within the government wherever they were able. This has caused great amounts of friction and building animosity which is what has led to the drastic increases in terror attacks mostly in central Iraq. These ambushes will only increase and there is a possibility that the Sunni Muslims in Iraq will ally with the Kurds in the north and either begin an endless struggle for dominance against the Shiite loyalists in the south or possibly declare their independence. Whichever direction they should decide to move, once all the foreign forces have left or dwindled to the point of inability to influence or prevent fighting, then a war of some degree will break out and continue with no end in sight. This could become a winner take all take no prisoners blood feud and will not be pretty.

 

The last item about Iraq is that the leadership of the United States has misplayed their hand so pathetically by abandoning the only real friends they had won in Iraq, the Sunni and many of the Kurds, simply in order to get out as fast as possible and damn the consequences. Thus the result was a power vacuum which left a shaky balance between the three sects within Iraq with the Kurds relatively safely entrenched in the north and the Shiite in control in the center and south with the Sunni mostly in the center and at the mercy of the Shiite except in a few towns and cities closest to the Kurdish provinces. The result was a purge of the Sunni by the Shiite with Iranian backing followed by the Shiites seeking vindictive reprisals over the years of suffering they had suffered under the Sunni rule of Saddam Hussein. This is what will lead to a vicious civil war and possible bloodbath. The Sunni in Iraq, if any should survive, will never forgive the United States, who they trusted and joined making the surge a success, for abandoning them leaving them at the mercy of their historic rivals. The result is that every sector of Iraqi society now despises the United States because each one perceives that the United States deceived them and treated them poorly. We are leaving Iraq feeling greater animosity towards the United States than when the United States arrived or any time since. Iraq has resulted in a failure.

 

In Afghanistan we have played the political game poorly and what makes matters worse, we got caught at the game. Afghani President Hamid Karzai was an ally of the Americans who now feels betrayed after he became aware that the government of the United States had opened up negotiations with the Taliban without consulting or informing Karzai. He immediately opened his own dialogue with them and soon the situation became exactly what one would expect, the Taliban began playing the American and Karzai off of one another. This only served to deepen the rift that was forming between the two countries. Then there were a number of accidents and the beginning of the drone war operations all of which resulted in injured and murdered Afghani civilians. The United States admitted to a few civilian casualties and held the position that the greater majority of those killed were al-Qaeda and other jihadists and terrorists. Karzai saw the picture far differently and his protests only grew angrier and louder as the bodies piled up and the United States appeared not to care and refused to change their method of engagement. This eventually came to a head and President Karzai forced a curtailment of the drone war and a rewriting of the Rules of Engagement (ROE) for United States and allied troops which served to make these troops operations extremely difficult and eventually resulted in numerous additional casualties and deaths as troops were often denied air or artillery support under the new ROE. Another change was the demand that the United States and allied troops not carry their arms when within the wire back at major camps and bases. This is what has allowed for what is known as Green on Blue attacks. Green on Blue attacks are where Afghani police or military, who are trained by the United States and their allies, shoot often killing their American or allied counterparts. These shootings usually happen within the compounds of the major bases where the American and allied troops are disarmed by regulations and are unable to defend themselves. There has been no explanation provided by the Afghan government and seemingly no investigations or steps have been taken to address these disastrous and often fatal attacks. Needless to point out that these attacks are but a symptom of the animosity felt towards the United States and allied presence in Afghanistan. Afghanistan will return to the tribal and fractional confrontations and hostilities as soon as the United States and allied troops depart. There is a distinct possibility, maybe even inevitability, that the Taliban will once again rise to power and the terror training bases reopen returning to business as usual which spawned 9/11. Needless to point out but Afghanistan will end up being a complete disaster.

 

Then there is the Arab Spring, or as we here at BTC have called it since very early on, the Arab Winter. As was pointed out here, the people being supported by the United States fall into three categories, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda aligned terrorists, other terrorists who possibly are aligned with Iran. President Obama may make grand speeches about the democracy revolutions and the youth with the use of social media bringing a change to these Muslim countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and possibly Syria, but that is a pipe dream. Yes, there were many youth who demonstrated for hope and change and they received change without any hope. The beneficiaries of the revolutions spreading across the Arab world thus far have been the Muslim Brotherhood with a definitive victory in Egypt where they now control the Presidency, are on their way to control of both houses of the Parliament, have taken over the majority of the courts, and have replaced almost all of the higher officers in the military. The sole grand accomplishment in Egypt was to replace a military backed dictatorship where regular election frauds were held with a Muslim Brotherhood military backed dictatorship where regular election frauds will be held in the future. In Tunisia the Islamists have gained the majority of the Parliament but have been blunted to some extent and who will win out has yet to be decided. Libya has dissolved into a fractional state where different tribes now control their own parts of the country and terrorist groups roam freely and are carrying their revolution into the neighboring countries. The most closely covered has been in Mali where French forces are assisting the Mali government forces in containing the terrorists in the north of the country. Nigeria is another front which has had numerous assaults by Islamist terrorists, mostly from the Boko Haram terror group. The Boko Haram terrorist fighters have bombed and burned numerous churches in the north and into the center of the country often during services killing and maiming numerous Christians as well as torching neighborhoods and stores owned by Christians. The situation threatens to devolve into a civil war in Nigeria as the violence builds just as it has already become in Mali.

 

The final front is Iran and their aligned forces which include Bashir Assad in Syria, Hezballah which rules Lebanon by overt military threat, Hamas in Gaza, the IRGC and affiliated terror units which operate worldwide including a large base in the tri-state area of South America on the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina shared borders meet. Iran also has made allies with Venezuela and Nicaragua while also wooing additional South and Central American countries including Brazil, Peru, Argentina and others. Iran is also suspected of working towards attaining nuclear weapons. Iran has apparently made an agreement with North Korea under which the two countries share rocket and nuclear research and design information. Many believe the two have been working to perfect a special type of nuclear weaponry which is quite different than the normally perceived nuclear ballistic weapons which are largely destructive due to their explosive properties. The kind of weapon Iran and North Korea are researching is a low yield high Gama burst device which has an explosive component of only one to twelve kilotons but discharges an enormous Gama ray burst which causes a massive EMP pulse which can be destructive to unshielded electronic devices and networks such as power grids and communications systems which would include television, radio, phone, internet, and electronic generation systems. Such a devise, it has been suggested, could theoretically be so destructive that one warhead detonated over the Kansas City to St Louis areas would take out almost all electronic equipment and power from the East Coast to the Rocky Mountains and possibly all the way to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The other advantage of such a weapon is it does not require any hardened heat shield as it does not need to reenter very far into the atmosphere before being detonated and thus is far lighter allowing for a more powerful device to be placed atop a launch vehicle.

 

The truth is that between the economic time bomb which is the European Union and the budgetary and debt problems plaguing the United States when combined with the problems spreading through the Middle East and North Africa and throwing in the axis being built between North Korea and the areas of Iranian influence there are more than sufficient potentials for serious problems and likely scenarios which result in confrontations which could easily explode with little or no notice that one might believe that governments have not been exactly truthful as they peddle the idea that all is going to be just fine. President Obama has on many an occasion claimed that the United States does not have a spending problem. If President Obama means that the United States has no problem spending, then he has been truthful; otherwise he has been misleading the American public. The claims that the Arab Spring will result in Western style liberal democracies throughout the Arab world is wishful dreaming at best and foolish lies which can only end poorly at worst. The claims that Europe and the United States are experiencing an economic recovery and the end of their financial woes is just around the corner are simply a misrepresentation of reality. The stock market is showing gains simply in proportion to the rate of increase in the money supply from the three sets of Quantitative Easing with a simple delay built in as the stock market is almost always a lagging indicator of such forms of stimulus. The actual value of the majority of stocks has not changed very much but is only representing the soon to be realized inflation which will balance the stock gains out through higher prices across the board. Behind almost every rosy picture the media and politicians are attempting to sell is a large amount of fertilizer. We live in what the Chinese might call interesting times, and to them interesting times is a form of curse. Perhaps that is the one piece of truth, we are in interesting times and China just launched their first aircraft carrier on their way to having a blue water navy comparable to that of the United States, and President Obama’s cuts to the military, the Navy in particular, is making their task all the easier.

 

Beyond the Cusp