A Gauntlet Thrown at the United States Feet

 

Reportedly a Russian General strode into the United States Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq and demanded to speak with somebody responsible for military actions and handed the officer a letter after which some curt words were exchanged and the Russian left without further explanation. It has been further reported that there has been a Russian demand that the United States cease all air activity and cease and desist any sorties in the greater Syrian theater or risk a confrontation with Russian aircraft who have orders to defend against United States interference, or so it appears was the implication. Other rumored reports claim that the Russian bombing runs today were concentrated on the areas occupied not by the Islamic State but on the Syrian “rebels” which were trained and working with the United States. This we believe is somewhat a bit of hyperbole as the latest reports claimed that the United States efforts had produced less than two dozen fighters after two years and countless investment in time, money and equipment and that does not sound like anything that would require more than one airstrike. The likelihood is that the Russians were hitting the rebels who oppose Bashir al-Assad which would include potential strikes on United States trained fighters, especially with reports from this past week that they were trading much of their United States provided aid in exchange for free passage through other rebel groups areas in order to avoid a fight which they would likely have lost. So, with the United States continuing to fly sorties, though how few is uncertain, and the Russians presumably threatening to protect Assad and his Alawites and their coastal region from United States air attacks, the question is would the United States attack Assad troops and position or simply contain their strikes to Islamic State positions. Another problem might become a point of contention is if the United States aircraft on missions necessarily cross over Assad’s regions would the Russians attempt to down the United States flights and if such should happen, what would be the reaction from the White House and the Congress.

 

There are too many questions and such complete uncertainty with far too few sources of information to base any hypotheses upon with any degree of accuracy; but why not just fly off the handle and take a stab at this situation and see what we produce and judge it later down the road. Apparently the Pentagon plans to continue with their missions as assigned and ignore the Russian threats probably hoping that it was just so much bluster and sabre rattling. Putin probably feels quite certain that should he push hard enough that President Obama would back down just as he did with the red line fiasco with Assad and the use of chemical weapons which President Putin saved Obama’s bacon as he stewed in pools of indecision and slow and repeated retreats. This is what Putin is basing his boldness upon and has no reason, from the track record which President Obama has compiled, to think differently. The problem is with the Iran deal beginning to tarnish already under the microscope of public opinion, President Obama may be seeking some strong armed acts which he can rebuild some form of foreign policy and military prowess legacy. A desperate man with the clock running out might prove too irrational and unpredictable for anybody to make a safe bet on what actions might be now considered worth the risk. When President Jimmy Carter found himself looking weak he attempted a rescue of the hostages held by Iran and the mission ended in tragedy and dead United States troops including Special Forces and Navy Seals if I remember correctly. A desperate Administration still seeking an uncontested foreign policy legacy which has hung its final shot on degrading the Islamic State and forcing regime change in Syria necessarily removing Bashir al-Assad from being in contention in that process. The Iranians, Hezballah and now Russia have staked their claim to Syria and restoring al-Assad to power and then holding a Syrian election where al-Assad will win reelection by sufficient margin to remove any doubt to his authenticity no matter how unverified the election numbers might be. The Russians have made one thing very clear, despite the overt efforts of the Obama White House’s demands for Assad to be removed from power and not permitted to run in any new elections, as the United States has Assad tried and convicted for his abuses of the men and women who had remained in Syria living in rebel occupied areas and presumed to have joined or be supporting the rebels even if all they were doing was protecting their home and limit their losses, just attempting to survive and not actually backing either side, the two sides will continue to butt heads until President Obama realizes the error of his ways, or so Putin is adamant. The United States does not actually have a dog in this fight while the Russians most definitely have their own pet dog in the fray, Bashir al-Assad, along with Hezballah and Iran, and a potential route towards gaining control over Iraq and Europe and the land bridges between them. The Iranians basically told the world what was the reason and against whom his forces are fighting for and this has been further validated through their actions. The enemy in Syria are the best training facilities built by the Soviet Union back before their break-down and Assad accepted the assistance from the many different sides thus making himself largely responding to the demands and instruction of Russian forces assisting and supplying the tools required to draw Israel into the fight.

 

This multiple fractioned war has coalitions which can be instructive as to who sides with whom and who are the actual players. The initial two sides have all but been destroyed or subsumed by their original parent groups. The Syrian forces of Bashir al-Assad have reacted strongly but with lesser and older weapons than has the Islamic State. The forces fighting with al-Assad currently are the remainder of his military who have stood by his side and watched their power and nation be laid waste and been unable to prevent this horror story. The immediate allies for al-Assad have been Hezballah and originally Iran who are the actual puppet masters working the marionettes. Their final benefactor, forced by the precarious situation faced by Assad and his allies as they had been defeated across the boards, the Russians have jumped into the fray with both feet betting that the United States will accept Russians determining the end results in Syria or be forced to face the Islamic State with little if any assistance from the remaining forces in Iraq as well as Syria using almost universally United States fighting men and women on the ground. The opposition breaks into three distinct groups, the social-Marxists consisting of the leftist forces whose desire was to restructure Syria into a model leftist socialist state. Then there were the Islamist supremacy groups which include all the various factions of al-Qaeda to the Muslim Brotherhood fighting against al-Assad in a semi-symbiotic relationship with the social-Marxists. Then there is the breakaway force which sees itself as the sole preordained leader of all Sunni and eventually all Muslim forces under their self-proclaimed Caliphate. That is the most basic description of the breakdown of the forces before the Russians responded to the sad state of the Alawite troops losses which threatened complete bombing began to systematically strike at the anti-al-Assad forces including the rebels trained by the United States. There are also the forces known as the Islamic State which appear to be a problem to everybody not an active subscriber to their radical agenda who claim they are the core of the new Caliphate. The end result is this self-proclaimed Caliph and his forces will continue to grow unless somebody is forced into committing troops to prevent such advances. From appearances President Obama had been attempting to prevent any large contingent to coalesce around the United States enemies, as well as to force al-Assad from power, without committing any United States ground troops, a tactic which has died gloriously just as predicted and allowed, if not forced, the Russians to appear. This forced Russia to declare their interests and willingness to enforce their side by any and all means required. This will settle the situation in favor of al-Assad by default. The problem is this may not go far enough to eradicate the Islamic State which could surrender their Syrian holdings rather than contend with the Russian troops and simply continue their expansions through Iraq and potentially further throughout the region.

 

 

 

The big, and we mean really big, question is what steps if any will the United States take from the Russian demands they leave the area. Will President Obama press a confrontation and how will he react when any actions, especially sorties flown by United States Air Force and Navy pilots are challenged over Syrian air space and warned to retreat and never return as their assistance is not required nor desired. Will President Obama press the situation to its breaking point of the Russians shooting down an American aviator and taking the pilot prisoner which could happen today of that is the way the cards are being laid out on the table. This current situation with the direct confrontation being pressed and the game of chicken and who will blink first begins. If the glares never blink the other result is a war between Russia and the United States and all the potential ramifications of such a conflict come into play. Our bet is it will get extremely tense and at the last minute some facilitation will be found or Putin will blink first as President Obama is not calling the shots for the United States or he would have turned and run from the first threats as he has done every time he has been challenged. This situation is as serious as or more so than has been played in the media and the media may try to prevent things from boiling over but they will find that beyond their control or even influence. The media can only exacerbate the problem and send things spinning out of control even faster. That is what they must avoid at all costs.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

When the Good Are Leaderless

 

This week has proven how absolutely horrific the world scene can turn when the Western governments are leaderless and not only do not have a policy but don’t even have a clue. The United States State Department has released statements explaining their expectations that Secretary of State Kerry will hold meetings with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the ceremonies this week at the United Nations to discuss the situation in Syria, to discuss what role the United States might play towards stabilizing the situation and combatting the Islamic State. This is the end result of Washington leading from behind. The full ramifications has yet to even begin to play out as to the far reaching effects of the surrender of any leading role by the United States over the past six plus years of the Obama foreign policy. Further tokens being cashed due to the lack of American presence, let alone leadership, will be the handing of seventy-five Russian tanks from Syrian forces to Hezballah in order for the latter to form a core around which to build an armored division. These tanks will be T-55 and T-72 models which make them outdated compared with the United States Abrams or the more modern Israeli Merkava IV tanks currently deployed by the two Western militaries, but when compared to no such force these are a definitive step up towards fulfilling the Hezballah desire to field heavy armor units. Further there are plans for Russian and Iranian tank commanders to train Hezballah in the best tactics and use of these assets. This news comes fast on the heels of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu meeting with Russian President Putin in Moscow where Netanyahu received Putin’s guarantee that Russian forces currently being deployed in Syria were there to provide a positive influence and not to alter the balance of power. This news of the gifting of heavy main battle tanks, no matter how dated, to Hezballah is not what one might call having no deleterious effects on the current balance of power.

 

United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, top American negotiator for the Iranian nuclear deal, was quoted according to The Associated Press on Friday that the Obama administration is ready to open a dialogue with Iran about the situation in Syria. This comes on the heels with an Administration signaling their readiness to soften their position on the requirement for Bahir al-Assad to be removed from power in any progress in ending the carnage on the ground in Syria. Additionally the Administration has fully admitted their having no priorities nor plans for addressing the Islamic State and that the United States was taking a back seat and simply providing assistance behind the clearer vision provided by Iran and Russia as to what will be the most advantageous manner in which to address the Islamic State. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly made it patently clear to America in the past that their assisting in taking the lead in fighting the Islamic State was predicated on their continued support for al-Assad and that the United States demands for his removal were a dead issue. It now appears that the Obama Administration is ready and willing to surrender on this issue and will be satisfied to once again to lead from behind.

 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has made it clear previously stating, “The United States’ ‘obsession’ with Assad isn’t helping in the common fight against the threat from Islamic State… People put the fate of one person whom they hate above the fight against terrorism. Islamic State can go ‘very far’ unless stopped, and air strikes alone are not going to do the trick. If people continue to acquiesce with what is going on and continue to acquiesce with those who categorically refuse to start the political process until Bashar Assad disappears, then I’m not very optimistic for the future of this region…”

 

 

There is a Storm Brewing and the Time Has Come to Simply Ride the Storm Out

 

 

That is as straight a manner of stating that in Syria things will be done as benefits Russia if anything is to be done with their taking the lead. This was as definitive a ‘my way or the highway’ get ‘out of town’ reading of the riot act and exactly what can be expected from President Putin as a reaction to the complete lack of United States initiative. This lack of United States policy is a large part responsible for why Egypt and Israel have both had to meet with Russia’s Putin to receive any assurances that the plans for the Middle East were not planning on eclipsing their future and stake in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Still, this lack of leadership by the United States will leave Israel in a compromised position for as long as she remains beholden to the United States as her life raft. Perhaps it would have been wiser for Israel to have read the tea leaves and departed Obama back when doing so had advantages which are no longer in play.

 

 

 

 

The best path left for Israel is to watch the upcoming elections in the United States with great interest and care and plan for either eventuality when the results are in. It would be unwise to aggravate an already untenable and shaky situation any further and probably best to attempt to prevent any further daylight to come between the allies and hope to ride the storm out. In the meantime Prime Minister Netanyahu should prepare to defend his attitude when opposition forces within the Israeli government such as Yair Lapid make as much out of this delicate balancing act. The one advantage for Netanyahu is that the Israeli electorate more than likely trust Lapid even less than they do Bibi. The one truth is that Bibi has attached his wagon to the United States and declared his decision to ride out the remaining year and a half in order to see what makes its way into the White House starting January of 2017. Bibi is betting that closer relations will become presentable with the next administration and the Israeli public appears to be along for the ride for now. This could result in a bumpy ride and make for an interesting next election cycle in Israel. Until then it is batten down the hatches and keep on riding the storm out.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Is the Choice Between the “Deal” or War, Period?

 

The working agreement between the P5+1, and primarily President Obama, with the Iranians will in this discussion be referred to as the “Deal” for simplicity’s sake. This Deal has been panned by conservatives and anti-terror specialists as being dangerous and potentially deadly accords. It has been predicted that Iran will easily become a major economic power the equivalent of Saudi Arabia with the infusion of one-hundred-fifty-billion dollars and its resurgence into the oil market even at todays lowered prices, a situation caused by Saudi Arabia pumping oil at near peak levels intending to damage the economies of the Iranians and hurting Russia as well in the interim. The pain caused the Iranians will be offset by the cash infusion. The one thing we can be thankful for the warning but feel accursed by the aimed for results was the announcement after the signing of the Deal by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that his intentions are to utilize the cash infusion to resupply and rearm his terror proxies to levels believed impossible until a few days ago with the announcement of the Deal crafter by the Iranian demands and the quickness with which Secretary of State Kerry (to be referred to as ‘SKerry’ through the remainder of the article) revealed to be at the orders of President Obama, folded his hand and capitulated to every command and refusal to accept any limitations or requirements upon Iran thus in the final weeks of negotiations surrendering virtually every gain pressed forth through great efforts by the rest of the P5+1 from Iran. There was a glimmer of hope against hope that the Deal might crumble at the last minute due to the honor and integrity shown earlier in the negotiations when the initial framework was decided before the initial six-month pushback of the deadline for producing an agreement when the French Foreign Minister vetoed the framework only to be pressed by President Obama and his minions with a small cosmetic change in the phrasing of a minor item was made as the reason for the French veto though most believed the problems were more systemic than that one minor, insignificant item which was altered.

 

Back to the question at hand; is the Choice Between the “Deal” or War? One item which has to be brought into the consideration is some of the terms as far as items to be provided to Iran by the United States or other members of the P5+1 or any other entities. We have heard that the United States will be providing additional cyber protection with a mentioned direction of protecting the entirety of the Iranian nuclear research, development and particularly their enrichment program from interference, especially from Israeli cyber capabilities above and beyond other cyber assaults. There has been mention that President Obama through his lackey SKerry promised the Iranians that they could expect United States to provide air security both from the ground in Iraq as well as from the naval taskforce including, if necessary, from the aircraft deployed from the carrier in the Arabian Gulf. This guarantee appears to include, as some reports have stated, shooting down Israeli fighters should the situation demand such, and the expressed targeting of Israeli forces was exactly as heard. How much further to the other side the Administration will stray from the normative distance it has shown former allies making them into potentially targets of United States military assets is far beyond anything expected by any number of Americans who voted for President Obama, particularly my Jewish friends.

 

What does this paint for the future for Israel? Israel can feel a little less alone in her neighborhood as Egypt and Saudi Arabia along with their allies along the gulf coast are all in the same sinking boat right now. Unfortunately this situation will not aid Israel immensely. Where Saudi Arabia and Egypt might be cooperating, Israel should not expect any overt or announced cooperation from her new friends or even any thanks should Israel take actions which prevent Iranian production of nuclear weapons. Should the United States have actually sent orders to their military to intercept any attack on Iran, that could make any attack on Iran extremely problematic. By now Israel will hopefully have figured out that informing the United States of their intents is not tactically the brightest move available. This causes more problems than many might realize as there are numerous Israelis both within the IDF and within the government who believe it is their specific responsibility to announce every move to the corresponding department within the American government. This would require that care be taken on who might be trusted with any information and orders which were given to implement actions against the Iranian nuclear sites. Any such attempt to neutralize the Iranian nuclear sites had best be discussed with trustworthy advisors alone and should be tested as one of a number of potential interventions when being discussed with people having knowledge of the Iranian government and their expected and especially unexpected reactions and in plane plans made to address any resultant actions by Iran and her many allies and proxies. Further, Israeli intelligence should be on alert to find out the plans by any other actors as Iran has promised a reign of terror upon Israel should any attack be taken on their nuclear programs or any other resources within Iran.

 

The brilliance displayed by President Obama and his advisors which has been displayed through such exercises and actual events as Benghazi which was determined to be a response to a YouTube Video with about five thousand views before it was referenced by the Administration. There was the success of President Obama’s brilliant collapsing of al-Qaeda and how “stable governments” were taking form and President Obama gave as the prime example Yemen which burst into civil war overthrowing the “stable government” and forced to flee the Capital and head to the next largest city where two or three days later they were forced to flee again and have barely been heard from since. But we have heard from Iran and their arming of the Houthis and we have heard from Saudi Arabia which is supporting any entity which stands against the Iranian proxies, the Houthis. It is almost as if the Iranians are seeking anywhere and everywhere to make President Obama look the fool, but he and Secretary SKerry are too busy strutting their stuff purporting the great Deal they made and how it will prevent any need for a war to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. The Deal puts that the probability for setting the date for an Iranian nuclear weapon to be about a decade from now, give or take two, three or four years assuming that Iran gets caught in the web of intrigue and becomes entangled in all the minutia placed there to prevent an Iran desperate to please the West and the United States and Israel in particular but is absolutely useless against an Iran that intends to bull rush straight through any supposed restrictions in the Deal.

 

When asked what would happen if Iran simply took the one-hundred-fifty-billion dollars which are being released and used the improved centrifuge plans provided and open some undeclared enrichment laboratories in order to build nuclear weapons, warheads to be exact, with intent to make their warheads clandestinely and quickly; the administration replied with stunned disbelief stuttered slowly, but the Deal does not permit such actions and how dare you cast doubts about the Deal as it is a good deal fashioned for a good people to obey its restrictions and Iran had promised to abide by its restrictions. There appears to be a mental disconnect between President Obama and Secretary SKerry making them incapable of addressing any potential shortcomings of their deal and how it may prove completely impossible at restraining any government which practices subterfuge and dishonesty as stark principles reminiscent of the Germans after the Munich Agreement of 1938 which inevitably led to war within two years as Germany had since then annexed Austria, absorbed the rest of Czechoslovakia, and proceeded to make the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreement with Russia by which the two powers invaded hapless Poland from opposite ends and met in the middle thus starting World War II.

 

Iran will not need to make any additional agreements as they have sufficient agreements in place to provide them with control of a large crescent starting at the Indian Ocean and cutting a swath of land passing through the Middle East passing through Iran, southern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and ending in the Mediterranean Sea. Currently Syria is in remission but the cash spigot is about to come wide open and as promised by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his friends will be rearmed and strengthened and will soon have all the necessary weapons and assistance to take the offensive. Add to this the promises from President Obama to provide a wall of protection both in the virtual domain and in the realm of the real where he promises have been made to prevent any and all assaults mounted, in particular, by Israel or any of her new-found allies. Of course by now the farthest reaching terms of the Deal have reached all those who have been waiting anxious to begin to understand what threats may be coming their way and if so, how long do they have to prepare. For Saudi Arabia, they know already that they have zero time as the fighting is on their southern and northern borders with the Yemeni Houthis fighting the Sunnis on their southern border and Iraqi Shia forces tangling with the Islamic State and Iranian backed and augmented Iraqi units facing off. Where most of the fighting has been between Shia and Sunni forces Iran has been known to finance Sunni groups as long as they did not bring any shame upon Iran, something amazingly enough accomplished by Hamas as Iran has cut their relations with Hamas, a blessing we would rather just accept and be thankful for small favors. Many of the groups and states supported by Iran is done simply to further the spread of the ideology and dogma of Shiite Islam and to bring as many misguided Islamic Sunni souls into the embracing arms of Shiite Islam and there is the we have the struggle of the ages. But in addition to this struggle there are the other tactical struggles. Iran desires to amass to themselves the rich oil fields of southern and central Iraq, the Saudi oil fields as well as the oil fields of the Gulf States including any offshore drilling. Additionally Iran believed that the time has arrived that the Shiite form of Islam becomes the dominant form supplanting Sunni through conversion by way of persuasion initially and by force if that becomes necessary. The Iranians also know the importance in geography and in particular of choke points. In that desire Iran definitely has desires to take control of both sides of the Straits of Hormuz, they seek ownership of Oman and the United Arab Emirates and for control of Bab el Mandeb Straits which is fueling much of their desire to have the Houthis control Yemen and be holding to Iran for their victories.

 

Meanwhile, the problem facing Israel as well as much of the Sunni Islamic world, though few would be capable of doing much about Iranian hegemony, is the prevention of permitting Iran to attain nuclear weapons and in particular what is referred to as weaponized delivery systems, a long way of saying miniaturized warheads. The reason for this is two-fold; the first being the obvious in that a rocket is limited in range by three factors, the first is the amount of fuel it can hold which is pretty much set by its initial design, second is the efficiency of the rocket motor, which consists of the combustion chamber, the valves, the atomizer, and some complex combinations in sizes and diameters which is called rocket science for a reason, and finally the weight of the warhead. This is where miniaturizing brings home the benefits as the weight of the warhead is by far the easiest part of a rocket or missile that the user can address. If we have a warhead that weights one-kilogram and a rocket which can hold one-kilogram then that is the limit you can arm said rocket with. But if you can miniaturize the warhead with a superior design which brings its weight down to three-hundred grams then you can place three warheads on that rocket and because that still allows for one-hundred additional grams that are not going to be used then the range of the rocket or missile just increased by almost ten percent, not that would be something as your miniaturization had tripled the capacity of the device’s damage capacity but also increased the range of the weapons package. This is where Iran will need to develop its technology as, just because you can produce a nuclear device does not necessarily mean one can deliver the weapon efficiently and here size and weight are the twin kings, especially if the intent is to place warheads atop missiles or within aircraft.

 

The best example of the difference is that the initial bombs the United States dropped on Japan to end World War II were huge in size by today’s standards. Their names were Little Boy (a uranium gun-type atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945) and Fat Man (a plutonium implosion-type bomb on the city of Nagasaki on August 9) both of which took a Silverplate Boeing B-29 Superfortress aircraft. The Enola Gay, named after its Pilot Colonel Paul W. Tibbets’ mother carried Little Boy to its target of Hiroshima while, like William Dawes who was the other rider with Paul Revere and who actually made the warnings as Revere was captured by the British but Dawes proved too difficult to rhyme so it became “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” and not William Dawes, while the B-29 named Bockscar piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney whose plane was not named after either of his parents, carried Fat Man over Nagasaki. Each of these atomic bombs had yields under twenty-thousand-kilograms of TNT (Trinitrotoluene C6H2(NO2)3CH3) which is considered quite low compared with modern thermonuclear devices which carry yields measured in Mega-tons of TNT yet are so much smaller than the original devices that if a B-29 were to carry modern weapons they could carry numerous bombs each with multiple warheads though the plane would likely not be capable of flying high enough and fast enough to clear the area before detonation though with a lighter load it might have a prayer’s chance.

 

Silverplate B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, named after its Pilot Colonel Paul W. Tibbets’ mother, carried Little Boy to its target of Hiroshima

 

Silverplate B-29 Superfortress Bockscar of the 509th Composite Group which dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney

 

Silverplate B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay with Pilot Col Paul Tibbets, named after its Pilot Colonel Paul W. Tibbets’ mother carried Little Boy to its target of Hiroshima historic picture og man and his aircraft

 

 

So, even should Iran detonate a trial nuclear bomb, depending on its yield, it could be determined what variety of device was detonated and what the intended use might be. A really low yield but leaving a high gamma radiation signature would signal they had developed an EMP bomb used to knock out electronic grids and sensitive electronics rendering entire weapons systems useless, especially those dependent on radar from ground based systems such as any aircraft batteries and other targeting systems as well as most command and control as they are dependent on computers and communications networks, both systems very vulnerable to an EMP attack. Such a device could spell a real disaster for most nations but mostly the United States or Europe as both societies are heavily dependent on communications for their economy, computers for their investment and banking systems, their electrical grids for refrigeration and for hospital equipment, and for supplying virtually everything as the majority of vehicles currently depend on computers to run and both Television and radio would be knocked out which in itself and without computers the United States would go completely bonkers within hours.

 

The real problem is that with the United States presumably defending the nuclear sites from military attacks and from cyber-attacks as well as providing advanced radar systems from aboard naval vessels matched to anti-missile interceptors of various types including jamming and interception, and have aircraft capable of taking out any aircraft identified as foreign and entering Iranian air-space with unclear intent or bombs hanging under the wings defiantly stating its mission, all of which means that for the foreseeable future the United States has joined the other side even against the people of the United States who knowingly continue to reside in the Great Satan and have yet to mend their ways and become good Dhimmis living the life in burka-land. The real question is how Iran can be derailed from attaining nuclear weapons, and not just any nuclear weapons, but miniaturized, weaponized, multiple-warhead, thermonuclear devices and the stealth cruise missiles capable of three-thousand-five-hundred mile routing at under fifty meters altitude and what would be the consequences to the nation which so took one for the team, and not necessarily an appreciative team? Because of the United States provided protection, should this continue to be the United States policy by the next President elected in November 2016 and taking office in mid-January 2017 no matter what their reasoning, such would mean that Iran might have such capabilities before they become easily targeted. This situation would present the parts of the world under threat, oddly enough including the United States, in so desperate a position that they might see tempting a shootout with the United States over Iran as giving them better hopes of survival than waiting for another President as by then protecting Iran would have become cemented policy that only the most assured and confident of Presidents would go against meaning there would be no end in sight. Boy, that sure is a SKerry Deal President Obama has there.

 

Beyond the Cusp