The Next War

Diplomacy. They can read the other guy better in a face to face negotiation. I would think W would be a very easy person to read considering his lack of guile and propensity to say inappropriate remarks off the cuff. Rile the guy up and let him say the truth, inadvertently.

ZOMG!! A politician that speaks the truth!!! No wonder the Left hates him.

My observation of the pieces fitting together is that it is possible that W and the Israeli guy were having a face to face to discuss Iran and who's going to bomb what, or who's not going to bomb what, as the case may be. But the meeting was only an hour and you'd think that a phone call would be good enough, especially, say at the US embassy to Washington, which would probably be about the best security available. No code is perfect and I'm sure that the US Embassy in Israel is highly watched and plenty of resources are devoted to cracking whatever comes out of there. Maybe they just need to look each other in the eye on these things, like you suggest, but again, I'd say that was reserved for important discussions and not "how about an extra mil for JP4?"

Dr. Hess wrote: ZOMG!! A politician that speaks the truth!!! No wonder the Left hates him.

You and I should have beers sometime! That or get on Bill Maher and hassle each other to death about politics.

Come on over. I'll show you my various projects to maximize my CO2 production.

I don't drink cheap beer. Life's too short.

Do you have a job Dr. Hess? Not shooting arrows my friend, as I've used a lot of tips from your 20v writeups, but damn! I get about 20min/day on this dreadful machine and every thread has at least a few posts from you. Arkansas is good no?

And I must ask, what's your flavor- beer wise?

If you tell me Heineken, Amstel, or any other mass-swill, I'll call my brewing brethren from Hot Springs to lay a double-IPA hit down.

Oh, and speaking plainly is not the same as speaking the truth. We all know that. If you put on a funny accent, whether it be california, texas, or indeed Arkansas, just because you speak the language of "the people" doesn't mean what comes out of your mouth is the truth. I think we'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually believes that.

Well, Brust, some days are slower than others at work. You don't get to be an UberDork otherwise, padiwan. And sorry, but Heineken is my flavor of choice. My beer requirements are: No migraine, tastes good, which cuts out most domestic beers. I do well on Dutch beers. Go figger. Bavaria is also OK, or XX Amber especially on tap (not Dutch, but the Mexicans learned how to make it from a German guy). I also like Hesselbrau, but I'm down to one bottle left and need to make some more. Takes a month or so and I've been too busy working on the Locost body, Esprit air conditioning, Camry CV joints, 50 downed trees, hot tub pump, etc. to get after it.

Would've guessed you were a Shiner guy. My work blocked GRM (USCG). I find it funny I've been a subscriber for over a decade (probably 15 years) and am still a "new reader"!

Brust, don't let the good doctor foor you, post whoring is a talent that few can be the best at. The trick is saying things that make sense instead of my incessant ramblings.

Naw, I don't drink Shiner. That migraine thing again. I've been through that town on a road trip too.

A Coastie. Love 'em. My favorite Coastie memory was when these two enlisted came onboard to inspect our ship prior to departure, make sure our radars worked, etc. The radars had been on and I'd put them into standby. There was still an faint image of the port burnt onto the tube. The Coastie looked at the screen of the radar in standby and commented on what a great picture we had. I let it slide.

Probably because even in standby mode it was better than the image of his best radar! We're still using 60's stuff in our C-130's. It's like stepping into a time machine every time we run checklists.

But Shiner- come now, it was my salvation when I lived in Corpus. I couldn't get my NW hophead brews, so had to find something new. I've got a serious soft spot for that and Old Mil- $7.70/case in 2001 got me through some trying times.

How's that for Post-whoring John? I might make it to "experienced reader" status in a couple years at this rate.

There were some old timer Coasties that were good telegraphers, but in the late 70's to 80's, I think the selection process went like this:

Room full of recuirts. "Raise your hand if you don't know Morse Code and have no interest in learning Morse code. OK, now, you with your hands up, put them down if you have any, and I mean any what-so-ever sense of rythem. OK, everyone with your hand still up, you're our new telegraphers."

In http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1354 Debka sez:

Iran Has Technology for a Nuclear Warhead to Fit Shehab-3 Missile DEBKA-Net-Weekly 351 Updated by DEBKAfile June 16, 2008 Some Western military and intelligence were shocked to learn that Iran had the blueprints for making a nuclear warhead that could fit onto its Shehab-3 missiles. The discovery was released by the former UN weapons inspector, David Albright, Sunday, June 16, ahead of the report on his investigation of the nuclear smuggling ring run by the father of the Pakistan nuclear bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan. He alleged that the nuclear blueprints passed to Libya, Iran and North Korea included “previously undisclosed designs for a compact warhead that could fit on Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles.” On May 22, Swiss President Pascal Couchepin, disclosed that, last December, the destruction had been ordered of a batch of 30,000 documents detailing construction plans for nuclear weapons, gas ultra-centrifuges to enrich weapons-grade uranium and guided missile delivery systems , evidence in a criminal case of a Swiss family of three engineers involved in the Khan ring. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s exclusive sources disclosed on May 30 that these nuclear blueprints were sold in underhand deals to those countries - and possibly also to al Qaeda - in the second half of the 1990s. Tehran has therefore had those designs for between 10 and 13 years. This discovery makes nonsense of the supposedly definitive judgment in Western and Israel intelligence that Iran lacks the technology for building a nuclear missile delivery system. Because of these estimates, Western governments have been able to keep their sanctions-cum-diplomatic track with Iran rolling as though tomorrow would never come. It is now evident that not only North Korea and Iran have known for some time how to build and deliver a nuclear warhead, but unknown recipients of A.Q. Khan’s merchandise, including terrorist organizations, may also command hazardous nuclear knowledge. The three Swiss engineers, members of the Tinner family, are the father, Friedrich, whose ties with Khan went back decades, and his sons, Urs and Marco. The Khan ring set up marketing headquarters in Dubai and Malaysia. The brothers have awaited trial for four years in a Swiss jail. Their father is out on bail and confined to Switzerland. The evidence against Urs Tinner, the hard disk he stole containing the incriminating nuclear documents, has now been destroyed by the Swiss authorities under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military experts reported on May 30: If Urs Tinner, a small cog in the Khan network, was able to steal a hard drive containing a mass of the network’s nuclear secrets, three conclusions are inescapable: 1. That Khan did not retain an efficient security system for the data he was selling. Therefore, his system was full of holes and his confederates and agents, whether employed on the technical or marketing side of the business, were able to help themselves to documents, diagrams and other illicit nuclear materials that were put on sale and, perhaps, go into business on their own. 2. It is an open secret among the American and Western intelligence services involved in uncovering the Khan ring that large sections are still going strong out in Pakistan, the Far East and the Middle East through channels still unexposed. They are bound to assume that the documents destroyed by the Swiss government may exist in copies still in circulation. 3. Some of their holders may have hung onto them for the last four or five years and then destroyed them when the Khan ring was exposed, for fear of being linked to the trafficker. On the other hand, it is possible that some of A. Q. Khan’s agents and accomplices sold his nuclear plans and secrets to terrorists linked to al Qaeda.

So, where else did these plans go? No mention is made of Iraq, but you can bet that the late Saddam Hussain had a copy of them too. Also that everyone knew it. Never forget that the first nuclear bomb was made with 1940's technology.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1355

Debka said: Mossad Chief Empowered to Prepare Groundwork for Iran Strike DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 23, 2008 Meir Dagan appointed to seventh year as Mossad Director By extending the Mossad director, Meir Dagan’s tenure for another year until the end of 2009, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has put in place a vital constituent for a possible eleventh-hour unilateral strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities. In his six years on the job, the 61-year old external intelligence has proved his covert mettle in a variety of counter-terror operations, graduating most recently to a highly successful intelligence coup leading up to the demolition of Syria’s North Korean plutonium reactor in al Kebir last September. Appointed by former prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2002, Dagan’s first four years as the Mossad’s tenth chief were dedicated to counterterrorism rather than tracking Iran’s nuclear activities or monitoring Iran’s burgeoning strategic ties with Syria and Hizballah. From mid-2006, the former general shifted the agency’s priorities to include these targets, while the Mossad continued to show its fearsome counter-terror paces in Damascus, Beirut and other Arab capitals. Not all the Mossad’s operations have seen the light of day, but it has been credited in the past two years with hits against high-profile Hizballah, Hamas and Jihad Islami operatives in Syria and Lebanon. The operation against Syria’s plutonium reactor last year was one of the most complex operations ever performed by the Mossad. For the Israeli raiders to put the facility out of commission and lift out the evidence of a working nuclear collaboration between Syria, Iran and North Korea, they needed from the Mossad precise data on the facility’s inner and outer defenses. It had to include the air defense systems in place across Syria, the whereabouts of the materials and equipment the Israeli team was assigned to appropriate from the site and transfer to the United States, and the nature and numbers of the Syrian, Iranian and North Korean personnel present. It was not until April 2008, seven months later, that the US Central Intelligence Agency released news of the operation in Washington, providing graphics attesting to the depth of Mossad’s penetration of the of the most secret and well-protected facility in Syria. Examination of those visuals attested to one or more agents having been planted solidly enough in the Syrian nuclear project to have photographed the different stages of the reactor’s construction and the North Korean equipment installed there – a feat which drew the respect of Dagan’s undercover colleagues in the West. The other outstanding feature of the Al Kebir operation was one that has come to be associated with the spy chief’s method of operation: No leads or clues were left for the Syrian, Iranian and North Korean investigators to find –even after the photos were published. His spy or spies proved untraceable. Dagan, a hands-on spymaster, demonstrated this skill earlier in the operation to eliminate one of the longest-running and most dangerous enemies of Israel and America, the head of Hizballah’s special security apparatus, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus on February 12. It followed similar methods in the preceding two years - usually explosives planted under a driver’s seat or headrests of vehicles driven by Hizballah, Hamas and Jihad Islami operatives. Neither Hizballah nor Syrian intelligence has been able to prevent these liquidations or catch the hit-teams. The intelligence operation for aborting Iran’s aspirations to acquire a nuclear bomb would undoubtedly ratchet up the Mossad’s targets for its most formidable mission ever. It would be undertaken in the full knowledge that a nuclear bomb in the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran would constitute the most dangerous threat to Israel’s survival in 60 years of statehood, as well as a menace to the free world. It would be up to Meir Dagan, a Holocaust survivor born in the Soviet Union, to rise to the Mossad’s motto: "Where no counsel is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety" (Proverbs XI/14) The Mossad chief has his critics at home. In Israel’s clandestine agencies, some find his style excessively individualist, secretive and highhandedly confined to fields which he finds interesting rather than objectively important to national security. He is faulted with shunning the close collaborative relations traditional in the undercover world. The Mossad’s structure is also said to be antiquated and in need of an extensive overhaul, although it recently launched a website for recruitment. But Dagan has the full trust of his boss, the prime minister. The timing chosen for extending the Mossad chief’s tenure – early summer of 2008 – is indicative. Israeli intelligence estimates the summer months are critical for acting against Iran’s nuclear advances, especially uranium enrichment which Iran refuses to forego. If it is not stopped by September or October of 2008, it will be too late; Iran will have crossed the threshold to the last lap of its military program. Israeli intelligence and its armed forces have three months to finish the job which has long been in preparation.

So, we find a few more little gems: That Syrian reactor was for Plutonium. The US got pieces of it. The US knows exactly what is going on in Syria with the Iranians. The US won't hit Iran. Isreal continues to gear up for fixing the Iranian nuke industry. We may see something happen just before the US Presidential Election in November. That's a bit worrysome and I'm not sure how to interpret that right now. We already knew that Mosad was very effective in what they do. My old spook friend said that Mosad was the most rutheless of any agency he ever worked with. "They'd kill their own mothers if ordered to." That was the in 60's. They appear to be one of the few agencies left that has true Human Intellegence capabilities. The US dumped it's Hum-Int when satellites came into vogue. Why bother with spook stuff when you can just listen in on their cell phones?

Last week, a hundred Isreali planes went on a training mission, reported as a test run on Iran. In a separate article, Debka sez that was not a test run on Iran. They don't say what it was, but they conclude that bombing Iran with planes would not be an effective/safe thing to do. Also that Hamas is ready to launch everything they have at the first bomb in Iran.

Yup, gonna be an interesting November.

Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN, had some interesting thoughts. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/2182070/Israel-%27will-attack-Iran%27-before-new-US-president-sworn-in%2C-John-Bolton-predicts.html

quote Israel 'will attack Iran' before new US president sworn in, John Bolton predicts By Toby Harnden in Washington Last Updated: 9:50AM BST 24/06/2008 John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.

The Arab world would be "pleased" by Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

"It [the reaction] will be positive privately. I think there'll be public denunciations but no action," he said.

Mr Bolton, an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, bemoaned what he sees as a lack of will by the Bush administration to itself contemplate military strikes.

Article continuesadvertisement "It's clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility," he said. "I don't think it's serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards."

Israel, however, still had a determination to prevent a nuclear Iran, he argued. The "optimal window" for strikes would be between the November 4 election and the inauguration on January 20, 2009.

"The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defences by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations .

"They're also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there's no telling what impact it could have on the election."

But waiting for either Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, or his Republican opponent John McCain to be installed in the White House could preclude military action happening for the next four years or at least delay it.

"An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy," said Mr Bolton, who was Mr Bush's ambassador to the UN from 2005 to 2006.

"With McCain they might still be looking at a delay. Given that time is on Iran's side, I think the argument for military action is sooner rather than later absent some other development."

The Iran policy of Mr McCain, whom Mr Bolton supports, was "much more realistic than the Bush administration's stance".

Mr Obama has said he will open high-level talks with Iran "without preconditions" while Mr McCain views attacking Iran as a lesser evil than allowing Iran to become a nuclear power.

William Kristol, a prominent neo-conservative, told Fox News on Sunday that an Obama victory could prompt Mr Bush to launch attacks against Iran. "If the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out," he said.

Last week, Israeli jets carried out a long-range exercise over the Mediterranean that American intelligence officials concluded was practice for air strikes against Iran. Mohammad Ali Hosseini, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, said this was an act of "psychological warfare" that would be futile.

"They do not have the capacity to threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran. They [Israel] have a number of domestic crises and they want to extrapolate it to cover others. Sometimes they come up with these empty slogans."

He added that Tehran would deliver a "devastating" response to any attack.

On Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, said military action against Iran would turn the Middle East into a "fireball" and accelerate Iran's nuclear programme.

Mr Bolton, however, dismissed such sentiments as scaremongering. "The key point would be for the Israelis to break Iran's control over the nuclear fuel cycle and that could be accomplished for example by destroying the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan or the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

"That doesn't end the problem but it buys time during which a more permanent solution might be found.... How long? That would be hard to say. Depends on the extent of the destruction."

endquote

It is looking more and more like "when" is going to be sometime around the election. I agree with his assessment that it is unlikely to be prior to the election. Way to unpredictable what might happen. So, late November? Early December? It's cool then (relatively), good time for warefare in the PG. In order to go before the election, the Iranian reprisal would have to be prevented. It would have to go: Iranian facilities go poof, Iran cries and does nothing but lanch a few Hamas missles at Isreal, rest of the gulf goes "Oh, you naughty boys" and the media forgets the whole thing the next day. That would take a lot of "fixing."

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5393

Debka sez that the Iranians have divided their country into 31 military districts with individual military commanders and they've dug 320,000 graves "for the Americans" that they are expecting to invade. Of course, the Iranian people know fully well that any graves being dug are for them. This is still pretty early, I think. We are 5 months out from the election. Humm, perhaps if it went down now, by the time November rolls around everyone will have forgotten about it and it won't influence the election results. That's a thought. So, I'd say that the war risk is high right now, decreasing exponentially up to the election, then increasing greatly in late November through January. If it goes down in, say, December, whoever wins the election (60% Little Mac, 38% BHO, 2% LQ), will come out and say "Oh, I've been kept fully informed and I fully support whatever just happened and those Iranians will just have to learn..." I still think it will be up to the Israelies to do the work this time.

Also interesting that the North Koreans and now playing nicey-nicey. They took out their reactor cooling tower, and surpirse, the next week they get shiploads of food. Of course, it takes months of planning to get a shipload of food to North Korea. If a ship left San Francisco today, it'd take about 2 weeks to get there. Obviously this has been carefully orchestrated. It would not surprise me if the NK's snitched off the nuclear plant they built the Syrians, and that was the intel the Isrealies used to take it out. All part of the game.

I don't understand the 60% McCain numbers you are throwing around. According to this poll aggregator they are incorrect. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html

The current graph.. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html Shows MCcain trending down and Obama trending up.

I know there is a long way to go.. but.. you're numbers seem screwy.

I'm using my own "feel", not someone's poll numbers. And not what I think the vote will be, just my prediction on probability of outcome. That is, today, I feel BHO has a 38% chance of winning, or being declared the winner anyway. He might get 51% of the electorial vote or win by 1, but I give him a 38% chance of it. 2% chance the LQ takes it, which would involve some pretty dirty tricks between now and the convention. I don't rule her out yet, I just give her a 2% chance at it. It's still Little Mac's to lose today, since the LQ appears to have dropped out.

OK cool.

Did the type format get all wonky for everyone else or just me?

16vCorey wrote: Did the type format get all wonky for everyone else or just me?

did, now its back...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

Did I mention that Dick Cheney SHOULD be listed along side Osama Bin Laden as a terrorist?

The man seriously wants Iran as a state.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/mixed-reactions-to-report-on-us-moves-against-iran/index.html

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5397

Debka said:The identity of Israel’s post-Olmert prime minister will determine its war options on Iran DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 1, 2008, 4:23 PM (GMT+02:00) Moscow has frozen SA-20B air defense system sales to Iran and Syria According to DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources, the overriding considerations that will determine if and when Israel attacks Iran are these: whether to strike before George W. Bush’s exit, whether Iran’s strategic ties with Syria and the Palestinian Hamas can be severed in advance and what prime minister is chosen to manage the war. These are the determinants, rather than “the red lines” cited by senior Pentagon officials to ABC News Monday as triggers for an Israeli offensive, namely when Natanz nuclear facility produces enough weapons-grade uranium – some time in 2009 or this year - and when Iran acquires SA-20 air defense systems from Russia DEBKAfile quotes intelligence sources as negating those triggers: 1. Contrary to most reports, including those put out by Teheran, Iran is lagging behind its target date for producing a sufficiency of weapons-grade uranium. It is held up by the technical hitches dogging the smooth, continuous activation of its high-grade centrifuges. 2. Moscow has suspended all sales of sophisticated air defense systems to Iran and Syria alike – so that Israel has no cause for haste on that score. 3. That Iran is heading for a nuclear weapon is no longer in doubt. What Israel must decide very soon is whether to strike Iran’s production facilities before Bush leaves the White House or wait for his successor to move in, in 2009. There is a preference in Jerusalem for a date straight after the America’s November 4 presidential election - except that military experts warn that weather and lunar conditions at that time of the year are unfavorable. If Israel does opt for an attack, August and September would be better, they say - or else hold off until March-April 2009. Israel’s political volatility is another major factor in the uncertainty surrounding an attack. Towards the end of September, the ruling Kadima party is committed to a leadership primary. The party’s choice of prime minister and the factors that determine how he (or she) reaches a decision on attacking Iran can only be guessed at. 4. A final consideration must be Israel’s ability to prevent Syria and Hamas opening war fronts at the time of Israel’s attack on Iran. In other words, the IDF needs to know it must contend with two fronts, Iran and the Lebanese Hizballah, not four. Notwithstanding these major deterrents, the weight of opinion in Israel’s decision-making community at this time is in favor of an early military strike. There is an international consensus that Iran cannot be allowed to attain a nuclear bomb, but no sanctions or incentives are proving effective as preventatives. Therefore, it is felt, the sooner Israel pre-empts a nuclear-armed Iran, the better, because the longer it delays, the more dangerous the Islamic Republic’s retaliatory capabilities will become.

So, their assessment matches with mine of something soon, then a lull if nothing happens, then post election for the poof risk of living in Iran. Also interesting that the Russians are holding back on their anti-aircraft systems. Looks like someone got to the Russians and convinced them to hold off. For a formerly communistic economy, they sure like money. Didn't W go talk with them recently? I'm sure it wasn't about the quality of Vodka or the threats global warming will have to Moscow winters. There was another article on the Iranians having good quality plans for a nuclear weapon that will fit on their existing missle systems, bought from Pakistan. The Israeli political scene just confuses the timing more, but I would think that everyone there is onboard with the plan, it's just putting the right face on it. When I was there in about 82, the newspapers would carry ads "Give a soldier a ride." The soldiers were hitchhiking to the front in full combat gear: Pack, rifle, etc. The whole country is behind staying alive and the attitudes/outlooks are quite different than what we have here.

Oh, and John, I believe it would be called: Iranafornia.