Link this, sucker!

What is NATO good for? Well, pretty much nothing, at least right now. As I wrote in 2008,  "What has NATO ever done for us?" The answer is also pretty much nothing (since the fall of the USSR) and I do not take back a word of it.

America is moving rapidly to tribalism, pushed hard on purpose by the Marxist, America-hating revolutionary vanguard. And the very concept of "citizen" is vanishing. Because "Pre- & post-citizens" was written by VDH, you automatically should read it. My own relevant essays are here.

With Soleimani blown to smithereens, what to make of Iran's threats to retaliate? Oh, they will do something, but if they were capable of doing worse, they would have already done it. And with Soleimani dead, they have a huge blank in their murderous-imagination planning because, "Top commander's assassination leaves Iran with very few options to retaliate."

Then read Hussain Abdul-Hussain's thread on why "reporting in the main news outlets NYT and Wash Post is so misinformed (either on purpose or because of incompetence)... ."

Oh, when Trump blew up Soleimani, the Left was unanimous that it was an act of war that was going to start World War 3! Oh, how we long for the good old days when Obama launched 2,800 strikes on Iraq, Syria without congressional approval. And how fondly we remember "Obama's Breathtaking Expansion of a President's Power To Make War." Good times, eh? Good times!

Speaking of war, why was this an act of war:

Remains of the car Qassem Soleimani was riding it. 

... but this was not?

Smoke rises from the reception room of the U.S. embassy that was burned by Pro-Iranian militiamen and their supporters, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020 (Link)

But the chickens come home to roost, even if to a new coop: "Obama official thinks Trump's strategy worked."

ISIS attacks Tehran: Who do we root for now?

An Iranian policeman takes cover during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017.
Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

Attackers bomb Iran parliament and mausoleum, at least 12 dead: Iranian media

Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Iran's parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran on Wednesday morning, killing at least 12 people in a twin assault at the heart of the Islamic Republic, Iranian officials and media said.

 

Islamic State claimed responsibility and released a video purporting to show gunmen inside the parliament building and one man, who appeared wounded, on the floor.

The attackers were all killed and I'll bet none of them get the Muslim funeral prayer said over them, either.

But now the two main enemies of freedom are having at each other more seriously than ever. Let's hope they both lose.

Just War and Syria Strikes

Can we frighten this man into killing
people only conventionally?

This is a revisit of an essay I wrote in 2013 when President Obama was contemplating bombing Syria because of the Assad government's chemical-weapons attacks against militias opposing his regime.

As then, I am framing this in the context of Just War Theory (JWT henceforth), a theological inquiry in Christianity going back at least to Saint Augustine, 354-430. It's most robust treatment was by St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274, whose exposition was so thorough that it still forms the basis of modern theory. I have written over the years quite a bit about JWT in different contexts.

Today my main points are that going to war justly requires that at least these questions to be answered in the affirmative, below.

1. Is there just cause for the war?

2. Is the war authorized by proper authority?

3. Is it wise, as far as we can discern, to wage the war?

4. Is there a just objective to waging war?

First, though, there is the question whether the cruise-missile strikes against Sharyat airfield the evening of March 6 constituted "war," or were they military violence of a kind other than war. I think the answer is straightforward, for here the key point is not what President Trump wanted to do (frighten Assad) but the means he used to do it. And the means were exclusively military and violent.

Throughout history, to attack another country with military forces has been seen unambiguously as an act of war. Just imagine that the evening of Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese government messaged President Roosevelt that the air raid against Pearl Harbor should not be construed as as act of war, but only as a warning to the US not to inhibit Japan's imperial plans in the Far East. "We are prepared to do more," Japan might have said, if the United States did not comply. What do you think Roosevelt's response would have been?

And that leads to a second key point: Though President Trump initiated the violence, he does not get to call it war or not-war. Bashar Assad does. To expect that Assad sees the strikes as anything other than war is fantasy thinking.

This doesn't mean that Assad won't be cowed away from using chemical weapons again. My point is that no matter how the strikes are spun by the administration or others, they opened an actual war against Syria. The war may be brief, it may not. Syria might respond, it might not. But war it is. And we must remember that it takes both sides to end a war. The United States unilaterally began it, but we cannot unilaterally end it. This war will not be ended until Assad either says so or is removed from power. And even then his successor may choose to continue it.

Is there just cause for war?

Just Cause of war is the fundamental question, of course. I remember reading a (probably apocryphal) story of a South Seas island native chieftain who after a large battle between the US Marines and the Japanese in World War 2 asked the American commander who was going to eat the vast quantities of flesh of the slain soldiers.

The Marine general explained that neither the Japanese nor Americans killed people for food.

"What barbarians you are!" the chief replied, "To kill for no good reason!"

Historically, Western thought on war has held that war cannot be separated from larger concerns of nations, and in fact is one part of national relationships. "Politics is the womb in which war develops," said Prussian officer and theorist Carl von Clausewitz. More famous is his observation that, "War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means."

JWT has generally held that the political just cause for war is pretty narrowly expressed: either to defend one's own nation from actual or imminent attack, or to protect innocent third parties from lethal aggression or oppression. Some years after the American Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman put it simply: "The only just aim of war is a more just peace," which is a political goal. Absent a political orientation, warfare becomes just what the South Seas chieftain said, an exercise in pointless killing.

Not all JWT theorists agree that a nation may strike pre-emptively even in the case of clearly imminent attack, but since no one in the Trump administration claims that Syria poses any kind of military threat to the US, I'll not address the self-defense tenet here, especially since in his remarks following the missile strike, President Trump never invoked it at all. (In fact, when President Obama was contemplating similar strikes in 2013, he said specifically that the United States did not face an imminent threat.)

Absent self defense, then, the question then becomes one of protection of the innocent. Is that the case here?  Undeniably, victims of March 4's sarin attack against Idlib Province, held by opponents of the Assad regime, were innocent. After all, of the 85-plus people who died and scores more injured, many were children. So it would seem that a prima facie case can be made that the cruise-missile attacks against Sharyat airfield were justified on the basis.

However, the question is then begged whether chemical weapons are so unique that American warmaking on their users is justifiable for that reason alone. The Syrian civil war has already taken the lives of 400,000 people, perhaps as many as 500,000, of whom many thousands were children and countless thousands more were adult non-combatants. Neither President Obama nor President Trump ever invoked the prospect of military strikes against Syrian government forces for that reason.

So what, exactly, makes Tuesday's chemical attack so uniquely objectionable? It cannot be the number of victims, which in war's sanguinary calculus was rather small compared to other attacks by Syrian forces on civilian targets. Nor can it truly be that children were killed, even though President Trump did cite that specifically. Children have been killed all along.

It would seem, then, this administration like the prior one, maintains that the use of chemical weapons by itself was the reason for the cruise missiles to be launched. Is that a just cause of war against Syria?

If the answer is no, then war making against Syria cannot justly be done on that basis alone.

If the answer is yes, as the administration clearly claims it is, we move to closely-related inquiry of JWT - the war we wage must be justly conducted to achieve a just objective, which Trump says is the cessation of chemical weapons.

Here is the sticking point as I see it. By focusing exclusively on chemical casualties, Trump has written off a half-million or so violently killed by other means. Trump spoke not a syllable indicating he would take active steps to end that slaughter. But Trump did call for a political settlement -- as did Obama, as have many other states, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.

But this simply means that at best the war will continue with conventional violence only, and unnumbered thousands more will die -- unless truly decisive military steps are taken to remove Assad from power and enforce a ceasefire. Absolutely no nation is contemplating that -- which makes the claim that the deaths of this week's 85 persons are uniquely offensive simply hollow and morally unsustainable.

Let's look at the the JWT tenet of proportionality. The doctrine of proportionality is simply stated that the means of conducting the war must be proportionate to the goal for which the war is waged. Another way of looking at it is that while the just ends desired do not justify any means to attain them, they absolutely justify some means. The tenet of proportionality, then, is to assess what the justified means are, then employ those means and not the unjustified ones.

Which leads directly to the question: what exactly is the goal here? The president, secretary of state and others, in multiple remarks and interviews, have announced four key things:

A. There is no intention of effecting regime change in Syria by military means.

B. The strikes are to punish Assad's regime for using chemical weapons.

C. The strikes are intended to deter Assad from using such weapons in the future.

D. It is more urgent than ever that a political solution to the conflict be obtained.

Are these just objectives of war? If so, it is apparently just to "punish" Assad for using chemical weapons, and to deter him from using them again, but not just to remove him from power. Why? (I will note that these are identical objectives to those of President Obama in 2013.)

In fact, is punishment itself a just aim of war? This tends to slide the war into a legal enforcement mode, which indeed the president has more or less confirmed in his denunciation of Assad's use of chemical weapons. But that only makes us confront a key question: why is it just to punish Assad but leave him in power - when it was his criminal exercise of power that is at the heart of the violation?

The question of means

"Without killing," wrote Clausewitz, "there is no war." Conducting war is a matter of intentional lethality. In the proposed war against Syria, then, this is the question of means: What constitutes a level of violence inflicted upon the Assad regime that is effective deterrence against using WMDs by the regime again or, in future years, deters other bad actors in the region?

The centering question of the doctrine of proportionality is deciding the violence necessary to achieve the war's objectives while not using excessive violence to do so. To employ too little violence is as disproportionate as to employ too much. It is unjust to wage war ineffectively even for a just cause.

Hence, planning for such strikes necessarily involved a massive amount of guess work on what level of lethality and destruction needed to be inflicted upon Syria to ensure the Assad regime never orders the use of chemical weapons again. But that is a heavily psychological calculation for which a high-confidence answer is practically impossible!

The reason is that we do not know the calculations Assad used to to order the chem-weapons attack in the first place. What was going through his mind when he gave the order? We don't know, although in 2013 the Obama administration said it had intercepted some messages that gave some clues. Even if the Trump administration has such messages, they are almost certainly originated mostly by subordinates and oriented toward action rather than rationale, and are many levels removed from what Assad was thinking, Since making him fearful of re-use is a stated goal of the president, our own calculations' margin of uncertainty is bound to be very vast.

As for deterring leaders of other nations, namely Iran and North Korea, assessing what example to make of Syria to deter them is like entering a dark room blindfolded, in the dead of night in a dense fog, to look for a black cat that may not even be there. Does anyone really expect that the Iranian or North Korean governments will abandon their goal of attaining nuclear capability just because the United States mounted a very limited missile strike against Syria, even if the president has promised would be repeated if he sees fit?

All of these things mean that the proportionality calculus has no answer. It is like a math question to solve the value of X in which both the variables and constants are also unknown. We do not know how much death and destruction to inflict upon Assad-Syria to persuade the regime to refrain from using a single class of weapons in the future, and have no realistic prospect that we even can know. And this is a problem cubed for deterrence of other national regimes.

So the question: Even stipulating that the use of chemical weapons is a just cause for the proposed war, can the war be justly waged when we have no way of assessing, within reasonable margins of error, what waging it will require to achieve its stated goals?

When I was assigned to the Pentagon during the planning for Operation Desert Storm, the first ground war against Iraq in 1991, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Carl Vuono emphasized that in our planning we needed to remember two simple concepts: "Hope is not a method and wishes are not plans." Good advice now, too. To which I add: launching missiles is not a strategy.

This is not a strategy. It may be a means to achieve a strategy. Or it may not. 

But is there a strategy?

ABC News Radio reported March 8 of the aftermath of a meeting between the Senate's leaders and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford on the previous day:

“We don’t have the benefit of a larger strategy, for the same reason that I think the previous administration had difficulty coming up with a strategy, because it’s very, very complicated,” Sen. John Cornyn, the second-highest ranking Republican in the Senate, said Friday after a meeting with the Chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

The Hill adds,

Senators left a closed-door briefing Friday saying the Trump administration did not lay out a comprehensive plan for Syria. 

Cornyn added that there were “discussions” about the legal authority being used in Syria and whether the administration’s main target is President Bashar Assad government's or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“We ... need a strategy to figure out what is our goals in Syria,” he said. “Is our goal just to defeat ISIS or is our goal to change the regime, and if there is policy to change the regime what comes next?”

There is presently no answer to that question.

My conclusion: The Trump administration has no strategic objectives evidenced by the missile strikes. "No chemical weapons" is not a strategic goal because it leaves untouched and undeterred almost all of Assad's total offensive capability and gives assent to the war's continuation, even escalation, by conventional means and offers no remotely significant protection of the innocent from lethal attack.

There is no just cause for this war if we use the terms and conditions that President Trump himself has set.

2. Is the war authorized by proper authority?

I covered this in my post, "Trump just went to war with Syria." The US Constitution clearly grants to Congress, and only to Congress, the authority to "declare war." However, the Constitution does not define just what constitutes a declaration. As then-Senator Joe Biden accurately explained in 2001, the Congress has declared war when the Congress thinks it has. Hence, he said, an Authorization for the Use of Military Force meets Constitutional muster as a declaration of war.

I happen to be a professor of Constitutional law. I'm the guy that drafted the Use of Force proposal that we passed. It was in conflict between the President and the House. I was the guy who finally drafted what we did pass. Under the Constitution, there is simply no distinction ... Louis Fisher(?) and others can tell you, there is no distinction between a formal declaration of war, and an authorization of use of force. There is none for Constitutional purposes. None whatsoever. 

Constitutional lawyers over the decades have held that varying kinds of enabling acts, such as monetary appropriations for military action, have also amounted to Constitutional satisfaction and, at least, consent of the Congress to action ordered by the president, in whom the Constitution grants authority to conduct warfare.

Neither of these conditions pertained to the missile strikes. The president did not even bring into consultation the senior leaders of either chamber of Congress before the strikes took place. As I pointed out in "The fierce urgency of bombing now!",

Even stipulating that bombing Assad's forces may be justified under humanitarian concerns, what the Guardian [newspaper] is conflating is the difference between moral justification of war and legal basis for it. They are not the same.

Under classic just war theory, both just cause and rightful authority are required. In Syria today there may be just cause for Western intervention, but so far there has been no rightful authority for it.  

... Since the dawn of the American republic, the Congress and the presidents have generally agreed that the president may order US forces into combat against another nation, solely on his own authority, if and only if there is:

1. Imminent danger of attack from the other power, so imminent that time taken for Congressional deliberations would hinder defense against it, or,

2. To protect actual threat against US citizens abroad, or to rescue them from actual danger.  

Neither of these were the case in Syria. Therefore, no matter the moral justification of them, the missile strikes failed the test of rightful authority. This is the president wielding military power not in a representative-democratic manner,  but in a monarchist manner.

There was and is no threat to the United States or to the Syrian people that is so immediately imminent that no time dare be spent in Congressional deliberation to authorize the strikes. If there is, the president should explain why, with 400,000-plus already dead, a few more days of deliberation is unwarranted.

My conclusion: The "proper authority" test was not met.

3. Is it wise, as far as we can discern, to wage the war?

With the failure of the first two criteria, it is hard to see how this war is being waged wisely so far. That the risk of confrontation with Russia has risen, perhaps sharply, seems incontrovertible. However, this question is really one of consequences as cannot be well answered except retrospectively.

My conclusions: Although I do not think the strikes were wise, based on their failure of proportionality (mainly meaning that Assad, not concrete and dirt, should have been the target), I'll keep an open mind. It may turn out to have been better than ill-advised. We will just have to wait and see.

4. Is there a just objective to waging war? 

Well, not yet. See all of the above. But to the point: the deaths and suffering inflicted by chemical weapons have been and are such a tiny part of the overall deaths and suffering inflicted that merely ending their use is not in itself a just objective of waging war against Assad's Syria.

Final thought

One thing the chemical and missile attacks have done is illustrate that the status quo - unending war that is effectively a proxy war between the Western powers one one side and Russia and Iran on the other - cannot be maintained for long. Eventually, Trump and his administration will be faced with doing something other than simply keeping their hand in. The United States will face the hard choice in Syria of going big or going home.

That is exactly is the reason that Congressional and public debate must be entered into sooner rather than later. Going to war against Assad-Syria may be the right thing to do (or maybe the least-bad option) but President Trump initiated it the wrong way politically, strategically, and tactically.

Related:

When Secretary of State John Kerry insisted in June 2013 that US warplanes should begin bombing Assad-regime targets right away, I wrote an extended essay on JWT and Syria, "No justification for Syria Intervention," in which I claimed that not only would such intervention fail the Just War test, it also failed the test of the rigidly secular concept of Realpolitik.

A key note from that day: "Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey made it clear that a few runs on target would do no good, that if the bombing was not be be merely symbolic, it would require a sustained, large effort of no short duration."

What has changed? Nothing. Except now there are Russian boots on the ground in Syria, which certainly does not simplify things.

Other essays here and here and here.

Update: "The Grim Logic Behind Syria’s Chemical Weapons Attack"

Will ISIS resort to bubonic plague bioweapons?

The Sun reports that University of Texas researchers are working to develop vaccines and other treatments to counter bubonic plague attacks by terrorist organizations.

Today the disease – which has a 90 to 100 per cent mortality rate – has been classed by the World Health Organisation as a “re-emerging human pathogen”.

Dr Ashok Chopra, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas, is leading studies he hopes will develop a vaccine to counter all three strains.

He told The Sun Online: “We are specifically looking at pneumonic plague because the mortality rate associated with pneumonic plague is very high – almost 100 percent.”

Bubonic plague is the most commonly recognised strain of the disease – but the pnuemonic variant is much more virulent, and unlike bubonic, is spread via airborne particles.

“If terrorists use those organisms – they could utilise the bacteria. It could lead to mass deaths in a very short period of time. It would spread very, very quickly.

“Think about the bubonic plague in Europe in the 13th, 14th century. One third of the population was wiped out because of infection. That’s the typical scenario that you should think of.

“At the time it started with the bubonic plague and then it went to the pnuemonic plague and one third of the population died so the consequences could be enormous.”

This is bad news, too:

Studies have since revealed the USSR focused on developing “aerosolized” forms of the disease – thereby removing the need for it to be transmitted via infected fleas [Yersinia pestis - D.S.] or animals.

Work on this continued into the 1990s at least.

I pointed out last year that weaponizing the plague could be in the cards. Back in 1988-89 I wrote a 105,000-word novel about an Iranian plot to infiltrate a weaponized, extremely lethal form of Y. pestis into the United States, aiming to kill millions of Americans. The plotters were not the Khomeinist government, but the dwindling number of Iranian communists who were supported from Moscow by a small, rogue element of the Soviet general staff. It is set in the late 1980s, during Gorbachev's tenure as General Secretary.

You can read the first section of the third chapter. Click here and page down a little (Blogger's page-jump coding is pathetic, sorry).

Missiles for Christmas!

Just what the world needs now:

Drudge Report today, right column:

Here is a clue to P.E. Trump: The world will never come to its senses. As Richard Fernandez put it, "The story of mankind is the tale of someone who wakes up in Paradise and decides to burn it down."

And on Sunday we will celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. God help us. Now more than ever.

Just what the world needs now:

Obama uses Nixon's training manual

Dear President Obama,

This was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual:



Obama’s Cash Payment to Iran Was More Than a Ransom — It Broke Criminal Law

Yogi Berra on $400 Million Iran ransom

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. [Link]

The administration insists that the $400 Million payout has no relationship to the hostages Iran just happened to release at the same time. No relationship at all, none, nada, zip, null set.

Well, of course. But remember what Yogi Berra once observed: "It's too coincidental to be a coincidence."

And it's also such a coincidence that Berra's line applies over and over to this administration and its doings.

Update: "This is not the first time Obama has paid a ransom to the mullahs."

Iran's tanker problem

Iran Is Ready To Flood The World With Oil

Iran reportedly has about 50 million barrels of oil floating off its coast in Iran-owned tankers, about half of which departed for Asian ports this month.

The problem for Iran is that it has no more than 60 tankers in its fleet. About half of them are parked for storage and another 20 or so are not seaworthy, at least not for sailing the open oceans. So all Iran has to do is rent foreign-flagged tankers, right?

There is just one problem: nobody wants to give their spare tanker capacity to Iran.

According to Reuters ship owners, who are not short of business in a booming tanker market, are unwilling to take Iranian cargoes.

One stumbling block is residual U.S. restrictions on Tehran which are still in place and prohibit any trade in dollars or the involvement of U.S. firms including banks – a major hurdle for the oil and tanker trades, which are priced in dollars.

As a result only eight foreign tankers, carrying a total of around 8 million barrels of oil, have shipped Iranian crude to European destinations since sanctions were lifted in January, according to data from the tanker-tracking source and ship brokers.

I beg you to pardon me for a moment while I break down and cry that Iran can't make more billions of dollars to pay terrorists.

Furthermore, tanker companies are not standing in line waiting for Iranian bids.

Whether it is due to politics or simple business precautions, Paddy Rodgers, chief executive of leading international oil tanker company Euronav, said at present there was “no great urgency to do business in Iran”.

“There is not a premium to do business in Iran and there is plenty of other business – the markets are busy, rates are good. So there is no stress on wanting to do it,” he told Reuters. “I don’t really want to set up a euro bank account in Dubai in order to trade with Iran – that would crazy.”

Michele White, general counsel with Intertanko , an association which represents the majority of the world’s tanker fleet, said: “We have witnessed a reluctance by our members generally to return to Iranian trade given the prohibition on use of the U.S. financial system – essentially no U.S. dollars.”

One can almost smell Saudi intervention here, which we first described two weeks ago when we reported that not only has Saudi Arabia banned Iran from sailing in its territorial waters, but has taken proactive steps to slow Iran’s efforts at increasing oil exports, interfering with third parties and making Iran’s procurement of vessels virtually impossible.

And then they told me that Iran can't ship their oil anywhere!

Who says there's no good news about Islam?

Islam is the FASTEST DYING RELIGION in the world

According to Shaykh Ahmed Katani, in Africa, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity every year:

Islam used to represent, as you previously mentioned, Africa's main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa [a land of 1 billion] has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa...In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Ever year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed. ...

United States

According to research carried out by the respected Pakistani-born American Muslim Dr. Ilyas Ba-Yunus (1932 - 2007), 75% of new Muslim converts in the US leave Islam within a few years.

Growth of Islam in the US stems from immigration.

Roughly two-thirds (65%) of adult Muslims living in the United States were born elsewhere, and 39% have come to the US since 1990. May, 2007

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life says its latest report contains "the most up-to-date and fully sourced estimates of the size and distribution of the worldwide Muslim population." . . .

When it comes to the U.S., however, the Pew survey offers a figure significantly smaller than those favored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other organizations. Pew says there are 2.454 million Muslims in the U.S., about 0.8 percent of the country's total population.

HT: Gerard

I stand with the union on this issue!

Air France stewardesses mutiny over order to wear headscarves

Air France stewardesses, furious at being ordered to wear headscarves in Tehran, say they will refuse to fly to the Iranian capital when the airline resumes the service later this month.

Female members of flight crews have been ordered to cover their hair once they disembark in Tehran and unions are demanding that the flights be made voluntary for women.

I am with their union on this one.

The Iran deal in one photo

One sentence crystal ball

Wretchard T. Cat

8 hrs · 

“Radicals will grow in strength on both sides, namely the Salafist ISIS and the Shia militias, eventually driving the entire region towards destabilization, inevitably threatening global energy supplies and the global economy.”

The Worst Case Scenario In The Middle East, In One Sentence

Ali Khedery, the longest continuously serving American official in Iraq (2003 – 09), recently sat down with Reza Akhlaghi of the Foreign Policy Association to discuss...

BUSINESSINSIDER.COM.AU|BY MICHAEL B KELLEY

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Michele Bachmann's ding-dong moment redux

Having already pointed out that Michele Bachman is a ding-dong, further evidence of her basic cluelessness is her commentary on the Iranian protesters government seizure of the English British embassy.

ABC News reports,

In light of the British Foreign Ministry pulling all U.K. nationals out of the British embassy in Tehran after students stormed the building in protest, GOP presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann told a crowd in Waverly, Iowa, today that she would close the U.S. embassy in Iran.

One small, tiny note: The U.S. hasn’t had an embassy in Tehran since 1980. Following the Iranian Hostage Crisis, where 52 Americans were held for 444 days, the United States cut all diplomatic ties.

According to reports, Bachmann applauded the U.K.’s move, adding, “That’s exactly what I would do [if I were president]. We wouldn’t have an embassy in Iran. I wouldn’t allow that to be there.”

The campaign tried to backtrack today, but it ain't selling. You can bet, though, that this is being much more widely reported than President Obama condemning Tuesday the takeover of the "English embassy" in Iran. Well, just as there is no American embassy in the country, neither is there an English embassy there - or anywhere else in the world. The embassy is the British embassy, encompassing more than only England.

Huge Explosion In Iran's Nuke City

Huge Explosion In IRAN's Nuke City:

Less than two weeks after a mysterious explosion destroyed an Iranian missile development base, and the same day the Israeli Military reported on the effect of that explosion, Iran's official news agency FARS reported that a loud blast was heard in the city of Isfahan at 2:40 pm local time (6:10am EST).

Iran operates a uranium conversion plant near Isfahan, which has a major role in the nuclear weapons process. first went into operation in 2004, taking uranium from mines and producing uranium fluoride gas, which then feeds the centrifuges that enrich the uranium.

Since 2004 (thank you France) , thousands of tons of uranium flouride gas were stockpiled at Isfahan and subsequently sent to the enrichment plant in Natanz. Search and rescue teams called to the scene confirmed the blast, but as of yet no injuries have been reported.

Iran's uranium enrichment plant is located just outside the city of Isfahan – one of Iran's largest cities.

According to the FARS report, a security official confirmed that the explosion had occurred, but refused to give further details.

Which makes these two pieces all the more relevant:

Why the Israeli Air Force will bomb Iran this spring

Why the strikes are likely to succeed

Is Iran really this stupid? Iran Plot Questions Mounting

Mounting Questions on Iran Terror Plot:

Soon after Attorney General Eric Holder announced the arrest of Iranian-American Manssor Arbabsiar in connection with an alleged Iran-directed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, administration officials had harsh words for Iran, but many experts voiced skepticism (NYT). Kenneth Katzman, an Iran expert at the Congressional Research Service, says he and many of his peers believe that elements of the plan--such as the alleged intent to use a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the killing--simply don't comport with what they know "about the way Iranians conduct terrorist attacks" and "the way they implement them." Katzman also notes that the attack, if it had succeeded, would have drawn a strong retaliatory U.S. response, which is something Iran "does not want."

Katzman's observations may be summed up thusly:

1. "The main element that falls apart dramatically is that the assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington was supposed to be carried out by Mexican drug cartel members. Iran has never used surrogates with whom they are unfamiliar. Non-Muslim proxy groups are never used."

2. "The second element that doesn't add up is the plot's origination with this Texas car salesman of Iranian origin. The Iranians almost always use active members of the Quds Force, or Iranian surrogate organizations. They do not go to ex-members or retired members, or relatives of members to carry out dedicated and organized plots."

3. "The third aspect is that this plot might have involved a fairly sizable bombing that could very well have killed a number of people in Washington. The Iranian regime would have known that had it happened, it would have triggered calls for immediate military action against Iran."

3. That the plot's ttarget was the Saudi ambassador to the United States: "That aspect of the alleged plot is actually the one that is most logical. Not specifically that they would go after Ambassador Adel Al Jubeir, but that they would be going after the Saudi regime and Saudi high officials. There's clearly strategic competition, or worse, between these two nations, so [for Iran to be] trying to hurt the Saudis is something that makes sense to us as experts."

But:

I can't comment on the administration's response, but I can say that certainly with more study and more analysis they may ultimately either walk back some of what they've said or soften it, or in some ways just simply drop it. The questions I have outlined are themes being put forward by other experts who know about Iranian terrorism and really know how Iran acts and operates. ...

My peers [and I] are all sort of shaking our heads saying: This just doesn't add up to what we know about Iranian terrorism, and we think we know Iranian terrorism because we've been writing on it and watching it for a very long time.

Reuters adds:

But many outside experts, and at least some officials inside the government, remain wary, with some expressing concern that the administration of President Barack Obama is inflating the significance of a questionable plot to score political and diplomatic points against Tehran.

A former U.S. intelligence official said it was unlikely that FBI Director Robert Mueller and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would publicly tout the alleged Iranian government angle if they had qualms about the intelligence.

"There are too many people who are defending it to think it's totally bogus," a former intelligence official said.

But the official added: "I'm having a real hard time believing it is as orchestrated and centrally run as they seem to be implying. If it weren't for the fact that there were so many people standing up and publicly talking about it who ought to know, then I would be even more skeptical."

Blair: Iraq was a quagmire. So let's bomb Iran!

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the one hand:

LONDON — Former British prime minister Tony Blair said he was "desperately sorry" over the deaths in the Iraq war, in extracts released Tuesday from his memoirs.

Blair said he was "sorry for the lives cut short", but maintained it was right to remove dictator Saddam Hussein from power, in extracts from "A Journey", his account of his decade in office.

He said the aftermath of the 2003 invasion was "terrible" and said he wept over the loss of life.

And former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the other hand:

He said it was ''wholly unacceptable'' for Tehran to seek a nuclear weapons capability and insisted there could be ''no alternative'' to military force ''if they continue to develop nuclear weapons''.

Speaking to BBC journalist Andrew Marr, Mr Blair said: ''I am saying that I think it is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapons capability and I think we have got to be prepared to confront them, if necessary militarily.

''I think there is no alternative to that if they continue to develop nuclear weapons. They need to get that message loud and clear.''

Actually, he could be right on both counts, but the juxtaposition of reports was striking.

The Coming War

I was going to use Well, Well, Well as my opening song but I thought Pride of Man was an even better fit. So you are probably wondering what an old hippie is doing here? Let me explain. Donald and I are old internet friends from the days when I used to comment regularly on Winds of Change. That would be when Joe Katzman was doing regular posts there. He has since moved on to Defense Industry Daily. Let me add that I'm a former Naval Nuke. As geeky as you can get and still be on the front line. So much for history. What about today?

I was reading a bit on American Digest by Gerard Van der Leun who used to write regularly for Penthouse that linked to two pieces by Donald (I'll get to them in a minute). Donald and I started an e-mail exchange about them and Donald then asked me to write it up. I got delayed a bit by breaking news on amateur fusion which I am heavily involved in. That covers current events. So how about some real meat? I'm with you. So here it is.

Donald discussed (as many of you regular readers know) the opening moves of what we both believe will be a coming war in the Middle East involving at minimum Israel and Iran. The first moves involve information warfare (propaganda used to be the old term).

The war against Israel has never ceased by its enemies, but the intensity and tactics they use varies. It's no original thought of mine to classify the current phases as information war (more accurately propaganda war). David Kilcullen, in "Countering the Terrorist Mentality, New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflict," cited at the US Naval Institute's blog, explained the Islamists' concept this way:

We typically design physical operations first, then craft supporting information operations to explain our actions. This is the reverse of al-Qaida’s approach. For all our professionalism, compared to the enemy’s, our public information is an afterthought. In military terms, for al-Qaida the ‘main effort’ is information; for us, information is a ‘supporting effort.

And it seems that for Israel, not even an afterthought. Then, the media are unrelentingly hostile to Israel anyway, so what's the point?

“We know one thing for sure, in the media we are going to lose the war anyhow,” says Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for Israel’s Defense Ministry. “It doesn’t matter what we do, if we let them into Gaza, they will speak against Israel. If we stop them it will also be a bad picture.”

The Israelis are stepping up to the plate. No, not the government. The people. The effort is described in this Pajamas TV video.

Donald then goes on to give some military analysis of the strategic situation Israel faces. Let me excerpt a bit:

Hamas and Hezbollah will be invaded quickly by the Israeli army while the IAF attacks Iran. But then IAF planes will join the fight and the two H's will draw the full weight of Israel's military. Israel will not hold back this time. They will strike hard and quick with the aim of destroying both entities once for all. Casualties among Gazans and Lebanese will be very high but this will not deter Israel this time for they know that their actual survival as a nation is at stake.

As for Israel's civilians, they will suffer in great numbers, too. Hezbollah's and Hamas's rockets are much larger, more accurate and more sophisticated now that two or four years ago. Almost every populated part of Israel is already in range of terrorist rockets.

This battle is brewing, the only question is when. Will it be this summer? Israel will take the first hit this year, but next year probably will hit first. And as Daniel pointed out, the US will not be able to sit it out. Our troops and naval vessels are targets for Iran if the balloon goes up at all.

Well is the balloon going up? I think so.

What do the Israelis think? Daniel Jackson has a post published on this site on that gives a view of Israeli preparations from first hand experience.

The coming war is on everyone's mind.

One group I met was made up of a core of young women who started walking the trail a month and a half ago, about a month after they got out of service. They are joined by friends, their guys who are still serving, and others, like me, they meet and enlist in their Progress. One woman commanded a missile battery in the Negev, two others were education officers, a few of the guys walking with them were submariners, and one of the beaus is a Navy XO who took his spring leave of two weeks to walk the trail with his belle. He says with a smile he's not sure when he'll get another chance.

None of the ones serving gave straight answers but we all played a game of twenty questions.

Here's my take.

It's a two by two table. Either Israel takes the first round or strikes first. Either Tel Aviv gets the first BIG hit or Jerusalem. While the obvious scenerio is with Tel Aviv, the market center getting hit, there is far more potency for Iran to strike Jerusalem hard. I'll come back to this later. No one here has any doubt that Iran has a big weapon and that they will use it. To play the American Game (like in 1991) will mean that Israel will have to wait for Iran to fire first. The longer that time plays out, the greater the risk that the first strike will be atomic. A Hiroshima sized weapon will hurt.

So who are the major players in this game assuming America sits out the opening round? They would be Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. So where do the Saudis fit in? Evidently they are covert allies of Israel. Well covert as far as most of their population is concerned. Not so covert if you read The Sunday Times.

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.

“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” said a US defence source in the area. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department.”

Well isn't that interesting? It seems everyone knows the bubble is going up except the US people. Well at least our so called Main Stream Media has not breathed a word of all this excitement to the American people. I wonder why?

An attack on Israel or one of our Carrier Battle Groups (CBGs) in the opening rounds would definitely bring in the US at the beginning of the war. The American people will not stand for a major attack by Iran on Israel. What might they stand for?

Suppose Iran attacks Saudi Arabia? The Saudi oil fields would be a good place to start. And the closing of offshore exploration in America is a good opening move.

What would the Israeli riposte be? Take out Iran's refinery capacity. Why? Iran imports considerable refined oil. About 40% of Iran's oil consumption is imported. Kill the refineries and they need to import 100%. That would place them under severe economic strain. Very severe. And yet the actual military/civilian casualties from such a move would be small. Refinery workers mostly.

Now let me go back a bit and look at why attacking Saudi Arabian oil fields first might be a good idea. Americans have no great identification with the Saudis. Given the 9/11 attackers were mostly Saudis there is definitely a reservoir of ill will towards that country. So an attack on Saudi Arabia might not provoke an American response other than opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and opening the country for oil drilling.

There is a lesson from history here. Had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor American entry into World War Two might have been much delayed. Sentiment at that time was that America wanted to get rid of the responsibility for the Philippines. So just attacking that country might not have provoked an American response. Admiral Yamamoto is supposed to have said after the Pearl Harbor attack something to the effect of "We have awakened a sleeping giant and have instilled in him a terrible resolve". The question is are the Iranians motivated more by hate of the Great Satan or cold calculation?

I guess we will have to wait to find out won't we?

Two books I really like about the Pearl Harbor attack are:

At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

and

Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History

If you liked the above you can read more of my (mostly libertarian oriented) writing at Power and Control and Classical Values. I hope you enjoyed the above and I really hope Donald, Daniel, and I are wrong. I fear we are not.

Let me also note that much of the above is rank speculation and real events will probably not match the above speculations. Either in part or in whole. I provide this as food for thought. War Games if you will. May I also add that you ought to read the two Sense of Events pieces linked above to get the full flavor of the possibilities of coming events.

It has been an honor to be allowed to post here. Thank you Donald.

Turkey & Iran to force blockade?

Uzi Dayan, the former deputy Chief of General Staff, wants Israel to state formally that if the Turkish Navy accompanies a second peace flotilla it will be taken as an act of war. The Jerusalem Post reports.

Israel must send Turkey a clear message that if Turkish warships are sent to accompany the next flotilla trying to break the embargo on Gaza, these will be considered acts of war by Israel , Uzi Dayan, former deputy Chief of General Staff, told Army Radio Monday morning.

"If the Turkish Prime Minister joins such a flotilla,” Dayan said, “we should make clear beforehand this would be an act of war, and we would not try to take over the ship he was on, but would sink it.”

“If Israel doesn't make this clear beforehand, the Turks will grow increasingly self-assured, and we may indeed find ourselves facing such a scenario, which could have been averted.”

Elsewhere, the Jerusalem Post reports that the Iranians want to get into the act.

The Iranian Red Crescent is planning to send two ships to Gaza this week it was announced on Monday.

AFP quotes Red Crescent director for international affairs Abdolrauf Adibzadeh as saying: "One ship will carry donations made by the people and the other will carry relief workers. The ships will be sent to Gaza by end of this week."

In the words of the late James Durante, "Everyone wants to get into the act."

The Whole World Is Watching

While it may be the case that Israel's intelligence community misread the indicators revolving around Turkey's breakneck pace to radical Islam, the American counterpart has been clueless. Erdogan has been blatant in his thumbing his nose at the US since 2003 when he refused to allow the US led coalition access to Turkey from which to stage the invasion of Iraq. His most recent role as the facilitator of the Brazil Iran nuclear material scam was completely in Obama's face. The O-Meister did not even twitch.

It is clear that Erdogan has no intention of pulling back from the brink. He means what he says that he intends to break the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. Now, the Jerusalem Post reports that Iran's Revolutionary Guard says they want to go along for a ride. He has islamified his control of the Army and Intelligence upper ranks with loyal cronies so a coup from secular forces is a pipe dream.

It would appear that Admiral Mullen's concern for "unintended consequences" has now materialized. Deploying US ships to the Persian Gulf would appear to open the sealanes to Israel from Turkey. The prospect of a Turkish Iranian force "escorting" a peace flotilla to Gaza is nothing short of an invasion--a provocation to war.

This is not a game theory scenario. This is real. Already Erdogan is spending millions to prepare new ships to head to Israel. The man is spoiling for a fight. His verbiage makes absolutely no sense to Western circles; but, it is perfectly clear to his audience and their normative system. The pragmatic objective is to destroy Israel. This is not paranoia. He is not interested in a "fair" inquiry; in fact, he is loathe to anything of the sort. The man means war.

Israel has many aces up its sleave. It has gone round and round with Turkey in war games so both sides know what to expect. The stakes are higher now because Israel's strike will be followed by the missile barrages from Gaza and Lebanon. Everyone will be involved.

Mr. President Barack Hussein Obama MUST determine which side he is on. He has been elected to the post of commander in chief. War is coming in no uncertain terms. How will Mr. President react? Will he hold back and let Iran take out a carrier or two? Will he permit a Turkish Iranian invasion of Gaza? How much destruction of Israeli cities and population will he permit before he can behoove himself to act?

Turkey and Iran are betting the farm that Mr. President is all talk and no action. It is time for Mr. President to make Turkey know in no uncertain terms that setting sail to attack Israel is unacceptible. He could even ask his friends at NATO if they would help out.

The first step is to censure Turkey as a NATO member for financing the "hate boat" and for its war build up against Israel.

The second step, simultaneous with the first, is to deploy US naval forces to the south of Cyprus.

The third step is let Mr. Putin know VERY CLEARLY, in your best communication oratory style, to stay out of this mess completely. Use the teleprompter.

Finally, forget the oil spill and focus on the blood spilling that is to come. BP and the USCG can handle the spill, as messy as it is. If action is not taken soon, it will be on the beaches of Tel Aviv that Mr. President will be walking to sift the sand for evidence of carnage for photo-ops.

Mr. President--the whole world is watching which way you turn. This is your D-Day--your day of decision. Israelis will pay for their freedom with their blood. But you, Mr. President, will pay with your name. History will not be kind. We will never forget.

Related:

The Turkish Armada

Middle East's fuze is very short

With Friends Like Erdogan, Who Needs Enemies 

Erdogan should know

One if by land, two if by sea

The Summer Games

On the Gulf Course

Middle East's fuze is very short

.
The skirmish against Israel by the flotilla sailors turned out exactly as they planned:

The cycle is always the same: 1) Israel is accused of a monstrous crime; 2) the international media, European and Arab governments, NGOs, and anti-Israel commentators whip themselves into a lather with denunciations and recriminations; 3) Israel quickly finds itself in the eye of a media and diplomatic storm; 4) for a day or two (or longer) Israel looks guilty as sin, and average citizens in democratic countries become convinced that Israel indeed has committed a great crime; 5) then, slowly, doubt is cast on the prevailing narrative; exculpatory evidence comes to light; it becomes apparent that the charges are false or trumped-up; 6) but it doesn’t really matter. The wave of media and political furor has passed. The Israel-haters who rushed to judgment never retract their initial condemnations. Guilt makes the front pages, but exoneration is ignored. In the minds of people everywhere, the charges have stuck.

The war against Israel has never ceased by its enemies, but the intensity and tactics they use varies. It's no original thought of mine to classify the current phases as information war (more accurately propaganda war). David Kilcullen, in "Countering the Terrorist Mentality, New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflict," cited at the US Naval Institute's blog, explained the Islamists' concept this way:

We typically design physical operations first, then craft supporting information operations to explain our actions. This is the reverse of al-Qaida’s approach. For all our professionalism, compared to the enemy’s, our public information is an afterthought. In military terms, for al-Qaida the ‘main effort’ is information; for us, information is a ‘supporting effort.

And it seems that for Israel, not even an afterthought. Then, the media are unrelentingly hostile to Israel anyway, so what's the point?

“We know one thing for sure, in the media we are going to lose the war anyhow,” says Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for Israel’s Defense Ministry. “It doesn’t matter what we do, if we let them into Gaza, they will speak against Israel. If we stop them it will also be a bad picture.”

The flotilla was first and foremost a propaganda ploy, not a humanitarian mission. It was a deliberate provocation that could hardly have turned out better for Israel's foes. Thinking (correctly) that the Western world - importantly including the Obama administration - is united against Israel, at least in this event, Israel's existential enemies are ratcheting up. Hezbollah, Iran's surrogate in Lebanon and Hamas ally, is threatening unrestricted naval warfare against Israel. Said Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday,

"If you launch a new war on Lebanon, if you blockade our coastline, all military, civilian or commercial ships heading through the Mediterranean to occupied Palestine will be targetted by the Islamic resistance," said Nasrallah in a speech transmitted via video link to thousands of supporters massed in Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs.

"Whether along the northern or southern Israeli shore, we can target ships, bomb them and hit them God willing," he added, speaking on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after a 22-year occupation.

"When the world sees how these ships are destroyed, no one will dare go there (Israel)," he added. "And I am only speaking about the Mediterranean, I haven't reached the Red Sea yet."

I think that Nasrallah's threat is probably bluster, but only probably. Israel's navy is purely defensive, except for its handful of submarines. The surface fleet is centered around networked corvettes, fast and small ships packed with firepower. They are well-practiced with decades of patrol and interdiction training and experience. That can't be said about Hezbollah. But just as many North Korean and North Vietnamese pilots in the Korean and Vietnam wars were blonde and spoke Russian, we don't know whether Iran has supplied both naval equipment and personnel to Hezbollah.

My Israeli blogging colleague, Daniel Jackson, wrote that the belief in Israel is widespread that this summer will bring the "Summer Games," open warfare between Israel and its three existential enemies of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. The opening gambit is a "two by two table."

Either Israel takes the first round or strikes first. Either Tel Aviv gets the first BIG hit or Jerusalem. While the obvious scenerio is with Tel Aviv, the market center getting hit, there is far more potency for Iran to strike Jerusalem hard. I'll come back to this later. No one here has any doubt that Iran has a big weapon and that they will use it. To play the American Game (like in 1991) will mean that Israel will have to wait for Iran to fire first. The longer that time plays out, the greater the risk that the first strike will be atomic. A Hiroshima sized weapon will hurt.

For Israel to attack first will immediately set off rocket bombardments from Syria and Hizbullah. The lunatics in Hamastan will also join in but they will be the first to feel the IDF fist. There will be no pulling punches this time. The question is whether the West Bankers will also open fire. The general Israeli feeling, given their training, is that the expectation is that all hell will break loose. ...

This will not be an IAF war. The IDF is prepared. After the missiles, expect the Israelis response to be strong.

In 2006 Israel made war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and in late 2008 against Hamas in Gaza. Both operations were very violent. Yet if the Summer Games are indeed held, those two short wars will seem like patty-cake.

Hezbollah and Hamas are both Iranian clients. So is Syria. The question is just how much destruction either Hezbollah or Hamas are willing to suffer without Iran getting into the fight. In my assessment, neither terrorist outfit will be willing to fight Israel on its own, or even in a coordinated attack, because they know that Israel will retaliate furiously. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu won't be reluctant to destroy his country's enemies and will do so much more competently than PM Ehud Olmert handled things in 2006. Hezbollah and Hamas probably realize that in the next war they have to win because losing will be final.

But Israel knows the same thing. And it has to consider that if the two "H's" start launching rockets into Israel then Iran will likely not be far behind (and indeed Iran's offensive may be simultaneous). So Israel will have to go all in from the beginning.

The priority will be Iran. Submarines that Israel has recently stationed in the Persian Gulf will strike. Israel's air force will overfly Iraq without interference from the US - by the time the somnolent Obama administration has figured out what's going on, Israeli planes will be clear. (Update, June 12: "Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites." This is no surprise to students of Middle East politics. Remembers the Arab proverb,  “Me against my brother, but my brother and me against our cousin.” Saudi Arabia and Israel are not exactly brothers, but Iran is definitely the cousin here since it is Israel's enemy and the Saudis' foe. )

Hamas and Hezbollah will be invaded quickly by the Israeli army while the IAF attacks Iran. But then IAF planes will join the fight and the two H's will draw the full weight of Israel's military. Israel will not hold back this time. They will strike hard and quick with the aim of destroying both entities once for all. Casualties among Gazans and Lebanese will be very high but this will not deter Israel this time for they know that their actual survival as a nation is at stake.

As for Israel's civilians, they will suffer in great numbers, too. Hezbollah's and Hamas's rockets are much larger, more accurate and more sophisticated now that two or four years ago. Almost every populated part of Israel is already in range of terrorist rockets.

This battle is brewing, the only question is when. Will it be this summer? Israel will take the first hit this year, but next year probably will hit first. And as Daniel pointed out, the US will not be able to sit it out. Our troops and naval vessels are targets for Iran if the balloon goes up at all.

Does the Obama administration foresee any of this and is it taking actions to reduce the likelihood? No and no. For this is a president of ceremony, not substance. For the first time, the United States has a chief of state but not a head of government. There's a dark cloud forming in the East and a blood moon is coming.

Update: That the flotilla was a propaganda provocation, not an humanitarian-relief mission, is self-evident because there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

For a peaceful, humanitarian mission, the boats sure had a lot of weapons:



See also Donald Douglas' excellent essay, "The International Politics of Israel's Strategic Defense."