Comments on: World War III and the Blogosphere

By: Briony

Briony — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 07:07:46 +0000

Hi guys guys! Thanks for the invitation so much. I will try to come back as soon as possible. .
I am from Norway and learning to speak English, give true I wrote the following sentence: “It does so since excessive sweating will make other people think that you have poor hygiene.“
With respect , Briony.

By: David

David — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:36:56 +0000

The initial scenario started out in a fairly reasonable way, but rapidly got more and more fanciful (or speculative).
As one respondant said “it’s just one possible scenario“
Another option that Iran an use at any time is the use of the 65cm diam. torpedo launched from the Kilo class subs they bought from the Russians many years ago. I don’t think those subs are sea-worthy any more, but that weapon has the range and punch to sink any tanker (or war ship) in the Straights of Hormuz without the sub leaving the dock. And this sort of attact (if done at night) would be largely “untraceable” and would bottle up the Straights to all shipping — thereby crippling the world oil supply.

By: breed

breed — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 03:36:46 +0000

Iran is a young nation, we must defend Iran from the arrogance of the old. The Youth will prevail.
–peace even with war

By: John

John — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:02:53 +0000

If Iran does get WMD, look how close our Army is to them. If they wanted to take out half of our Army they could. It would take to long for us to recover those ground assets. Our Airforce and Navy would finish Iran off, but we would probably cease to be the power that we are today. Other adversaries would make there moves, such as China on Taiwan, North Korea on South Korea, and other places that we are keeping a eye on. It would be hard to put out all these fires at once with the forces we have today, but threat to use weapons of mass destruction. Then there goes W.W.III the very thing we have always been trying to prevent. Remember: Fools rush in. We must use more diplomacy and get the World to participate. This would conserve precious resource such as: men, and material.

By: Mark Pyruz

Mark Pyruz — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 07:27:05 +0000

The key to a successful Iranian defense lies not in random acts of violence around the world or even a quick retaliation to a US air and cruise missile strike. Rather, a successful defense must provide for a sustainability of hostilities in the Gulf region.
The Hezbollah rocket artillery strategy employed against northern Israel is the example to be followed. Hezbollah was able to create conditions of an economic siege by sustained rocket artillery attacks, particularly on Israel’s sea port of Haifa. Should the Iranians somehow be able to maintain a similar condition on the Gulf, this would represent the greatest danger to the West .
I suspect Iran already possesses a small stockpile of nuclear weapons, possibly obtained from Ukrainian sources. If this is indeed true, I don’t believe they would be used in a first strike capacity, and would probably not even be used in retaliation to a limited, conventional attack from a foreign power (depending, of course, on the scope of such an attack). Their primary purpose, like all nuclear stockpiles, is to provide a means of deterrence. This, in a region of the globe already stacked with such weapons of mass destruction, such as that fielded by Israel. However, an offensive strike against a nuclear power intensifies the risk of use, as evidenced by the Israeli mobilization of its nuclear forces during the darkest days of the Yom Kippur War.

By: demophilus

demophilus — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 06:57:43 +0000

@JMD: Well put, but I'm not sure about some of your implications. I don't want to be picayune, if only because I suspect you're simplifying for the sake of brevity -- rounding off your last figures, as it were. That happens, on teh Internets. FWIW, let me toss a few stray thoughts out for your consideration. This isn't backscatter; consider it a further attempt to define common ground. I'm not too sure that "The American people would not be willing to strike a country with nuclear weapons due to strong suspicions that a nuclear attack from a non-state actor used a weapon from a certain regime." If we got hit, and people saw American children of all races burned by nuclear fire, I don't think people would care too much about matters of proof. We attacked Iraq on the mere suspicion of WMD, much less their sponsorship of an actual nuclear attack. An actual WMD attack, with real evidence of Iranian sponsorship? Ooh. IINM, we have OPLANs for that sort of thing, and once an event triggers an OPLAN response, all POTUS has to do is convince his minders that he's not insane. He doesn't have to put things up for a vote. I'm also not too sure that nuclear deterrence "falls apart" if you include non-state actor scenarios. At this point, it's still hard for a non-state actor to either build or procure a critical yield weapon (unfortunately, "fizzle" yields may be less challenging). If we ignore that, a critical device would have to come from a state actor. Of course, it could be stolen; at that point, it would behoove the state involved to inform us ASAP, and they probably would, if they knew we would hold them responsible for any such "accident". As you suggest, the more troublesome scenario is that a state actor would deliberately provide a weapon to a non-state actor for a proxy strike. Let's examine that. You're a politician, albeit a religious maniac, and you have a bomb. You want to hand it over to known homicidal psychopaths -- I'm sorry, freedom fighters. How do you know you can trust them? Sure, they swear up and down they're going to ship it to New York, or Tel Aviv. How do you know it's not headed towards Mecca, or Riyadh? Sorry, but I tend to think that Iran's mullahs want nukes more for deterrence, and a misplaced sense of national pride, than the option of handing them off to AQ. They've got thermonuclear, infidel Russia to the north, nuclear Sunni Pakistan to the east, nuclear (maybe thermo-) Jewish Israel to the west, and the infidel, thermonuclear US all over the Persian Gulf. They're surrounded. Their conventional weaponry is second or third rate; although they fought the Iraqi war machine to a bloody stalemate, we took it down twice, at a fraction of the human cost. And we've got bases all around them. Their economy sucks, their streets are awash with Afghan heroin; the whole world thinks they're a joke. Their fearless leader came to New York and got bitch slapped by the President of Columbia -- the university, not the country. Do they want the bomb? Wouldn't you, surrounded by enemies and approaching irrelevancy? Do they need the bomb? Maybe, but only like they need more problems. I'm not saying they're rational, but as I recall, things weren't too rational during the MAD days, either. Have you ever watched DR. STRANGELOVE? Do you remember the 80s, with Pershing IIs and SS-20s about 15 minutes flight time apart? How about that MX basing plan, with the "Peacekeepers" on rail cars riding a subway system the size of Utah? So, I'm sorry, but I don't think a policy of nuclear deterrence against Iran, or North Korea, or anyone else, is any crazier than anything I've already lived through. I obviously appreciate your carrot and stick argument, seeing as I'm hefting the stick myself, but if you're going to carry a big stick, it behooves you to walk softly. I really don't mind saber rattling, and if any kind of attack on Iran is our best option, well, there it is. I just prefer that it be our LAST option -- before, of course, a mass conversion to Shia Islam. Otherwise, we're in complete agreement. Thanks for listening.

By: NOLAN

NOLAN — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 04:02:33 +0000

I tend to think simpler than some… perhaps because I come from a simpler time.
We undoubtably have GPS fixes on all of Iran’s various weapons factories. Picture a lone B-52 wandering around over Iraq where they had plenty of help. They announce an emergency. They have lost about half of their many engines so will have to jettison their weapons load. Completely innocent and totally believable, after all they are a sixty year old plane.
They happen to be carrying half dozen cruise missle that have been preprogrammed for the afore mentioned targets. The missles drop to about one hundre feet and then their own brains take over and they head for Iran. We call and warn the Iranians they better get out of the target areas because we have lost control of the missles.
suddenly all of their nuclear capability is set back a few hundred years. We apologize profuselly and offer reparations to the relatives of those who didn’t believe our warning and get out of town. So sorry Charley, here’s a million bucks.

By: mhack

mhack — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 03:37:40 +0000

If we get involved in a war with Iran, we can be absolutely certain of two things:
1. A lot more of our troops will die.
2. The threat of terrorism against our nation will be greatly increased.

By: Phil Gannon

Phil Gannon — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:29:04 +0000

Sounds plausable and possible. This would make a great Tom Clancy novel. As well as a movie. Fact is we as a nation had better be prepared to deal with whatever comes our way. With extreme prejudice 4 sure ! And remember this,with a properly delivered pre-emptive first strike there will be no need to apologize !
Stay Frosty !

By: j house

j house — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:24:39 +0000

Limited application of US hard power, applied with covert disruption efforts, may be enough to significantly delay the Iranian nuclear effort. The notion that the US must conduct a full-scale attack or invasion of the Iranian homeland is not grounded in the reality of the threat currently posed by Iranian resolve to develop an indigenous uranium enrichment capability and ultimately, a nuclear deterrent against Israel and a Sunni dominated ME.
How Iran responds to a limited attack is the true unknown. In any event, surely the price of oil will exceed $100–120 a barrel and will require the US to change its security posture in the Persian Gulf (or possibly lose ships), especially if attempts are made to block the Strait of Hormuz.