Against a pre-emptive holocaust
Jerusalem Post - January 27, 2007 http://static.jpost.com/images/2002/site/pixel.gif
Rattling the Cage: Against a preemptive Holocaust Larry Derfner
Almost imperceptibly, the debate in Israel over what to do about
Iran’s nuclear development has gone over the edge. The unthinkable is
now not only thinkable, it’s speakable, it’s writeable, it’s doable.
In the last few weeks or so, it has become acceptable, legitimate, to
argue for an Israeli nuclear first strike to knock out Iran’s nuclear
facilities.
This ultimate escalation in the debate happened mainly, I think,
because it came to be widely understood that Iran’s nuclear
operations are probably too well buried, hidden, defended and
widespread to take out with conventional weapons. Destroying them the
“normal” way might also require a ground invasion, which, after
what’s happened in Iraq, doesn’t appeal to many people. Moreover, in
another outgrowth of the debacle in Iraq, it now seems unlikely
thatPresident Bush, or his successor, will be politically able to go
to war against Iran.
So, as most Israelis seem convinced that Iran will inevitably nuke
Israel once it gets the capability, which is expected to happen
sometime within the next decade, the Israeli nuclear option has made
its public debut.
IF YOU READ the “talkbacks” on The Jerusalem Post or Haaretz Web
sites, not to mention the radical right-wing blogs, the idea of
nuking Iran has been boiling in the minds of more than a few people,
Jews and gentiles, for a long time.
But this idea has now traveled beyond the boundaries of the crackpot
Right, and is reportedly on the menu of options for dealing with Iran
that the IDF is preparing to put at the government’s disposal.
According to The Sunday Times of London on January 7, the Israeli Air
Force is training to launch “low-yield nuclear ‘bunker-busters,’” or
“mini-nukes,” against the facilities Iran has buried under 70 feet of
concrete because there’s no conventional way to wipe them out.
The military sources quoted in the story spoke of these as surgical
strikes in which the nukes would explode deep underground, thus
limiting the radioactive fallout.
That’s good to know. After the IDF’s performance last summer in
Lebanon, when it couldn’t provide many of its fighting men with the
most basic equipment or even food and water, we should all sleep
soundly knowing that when Israel fires its nukes at Iran’s nukes-in-
the-making, wherever they all might be, everything will be under
control.
Then, in The Jerusalem Post on the Friday before last, Benny Morris,
one of Israel’s leading historians and possibly the world’s number
one historian of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, made a barely-
veiled appeal for Israel to nuke Iran and thereby save itself from
what he sees as certain destruction. This is really depressing. I
have always admired Morris’s work as a historian for its combination
of boldness and balance, and he may still be an outstanding
historian, but as a political commentator he is implicitly advocating
an act of unimaginable evil, of monstrousness.
IN HIS essay “This holocaust will be different,” Morris declares it a
fait accompli that Iran will destroy Israel with nuclear weapons, and
he maintains that the only way to prevent this would be for Israel to
nuke Iran’s nuclear facilities first. He points out that some of
these facilities “are in or near major cities,” then asks a
rhetorical question about Israel’s “incompetent” and “demoralized”
leadership: “Would they have the stomach for this? Would their
determination to save Israel extend to preemptively killing millions
of Iranians and, in effect, destroying Iran?” His answer is no, and,
just slightly between the lines, he’s saying that the answer should
be yes: that this country’s leaders should have the stomach and
determination to save Israel by killing millions of Iranians and, in
effect, destroying Iran.
If the future was as knowable as Morris evidently thinks it is, if it
really was guaranteed, a fait accompli, an event ordained in advance
by some higher power, that Iran was going to launch nuclear weapons
at Israel, then I would agree - we should nuke them first, even if it
means killing millions of innocent Iranians.
But, of course, the future isn’t knowable - even by people who know
and understand the past. Yet a lot of Israelis, not just Benny
Morris, have become so unhinged by Iran’s nuclear program and
Ahmadinejad’s threats that they can only imagine one possible future,
and it is Israel’s extermination. So for them, Israel has the natural
right to do whatever’s necessary to prevent that future from
occurring, and if the only thing that will do it is a nuclear attack
on Iran, then a nuclear attack on Iran it must be. After all, the
overwhelming consensus here is that a nuclear Iran is a risk that
Israel cannot allow itself to live with.
MY OWN view is that while a nuclear Iran is obviously a danger, and
something that should be strongly resisted by diplomatic means, I
don’t think Iran is going to nuke Israel because I think Iran’s
leaders understand what the price would be - the certain annihilation
of Iran and the deaths of many, most, or all of its 69 million people
- and neither Ahmadinejad nor the mullahs are willing to pay it.
Why do I think this? Because Stalin and Mao had hydrogen bombs that
could have blown up the world, and they were far, far more
bloodthirsty than the Iranians, and they weren’t only ideologically
insane but maybe clinically insane as well, yet they never pushed the
button. As crazy as they were, they weren’t that crazy.
The Iranians, for all their genocidal talk, have never by their deeds
shown anything remotely approaching the fanatic will to actual
genocide that Stalin and Mao demonstrated. The Iranians have weapons
of mass destruction - chemical and possibly biological, too. They
also have missiles that can reach anywhere in Israel. If they are so
bent on wiping us out, even if it means their own extermination, why
haven’t they showered tiny little Israel with WMD-armed missiles? The
answer, again, is that while the Iranians are crazy, they’re not that
crazy.
I believe that even if they think they could take out Israel with a
first strike before Israel could retaliate, they realize that the US
would immediately nuke Iran to rubble, and would have the backing of
the world’s other nuclear powers. The US wouldn’t necessarily do it
to avenge Israel, either.
If the US president were a raging anti-Semite who’d become
deliriously happy over Israel’s destruction, he’d still destroy Iran.
If Iran nuked Israel, the US president, backed by every other nuclear
power, would push the button on Iran for the purpose of protecting
America and the rest of the world from a country that, by doing the
unthinkable, by using its doomsday weapon on an enemy, had proven
itself too dangerous for the world to live with. By nuking Israel,
Iran would become the rabid killer dog that has to be shot before it
kills again.
BUT THEN I may be wrong. After all, I don’t know the future, either.
Maybe Iran really is as crazy as Benny Morris and a lot of other
Israelis say.
How can Israel take that risk? Because the risk of living with a
nuclear Iran is much, much, much smaller than the risk involved in
nuking Iran first. If Israel uses its nuclear weapons against Iran,
which is nearly 80 times Israel’s size, the very least that would
likely happen is that Israel would immediately be showered by Iranian
missiles carrying chemical and possibly biological weapons.
Another possibility is that some other nuclear power, acting on the
rabid dog principle, would nuke Israel. A further possibility is that
an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran would be the beginning of the end
of the whole world.
What’s not just a possibility but a very strong probability, though,
is that since some of Iran’s nuclear facilities “are in or near major
cities,” Morris is absolutely right: Millions of Iranians would be
killed.
Let me repeat that: Millions of Iranians would be killed. By Israel.
By Israel acting not in response to an attack, but in response to
general threats of a future attack.
What would such an act be? It would be genocide. It would be a
holocaust.
Those who think they can see into the future might try to call it a
“preemptive holocaust.” But a holocaust it would be.
March 3rd, 2007 at 6:52 am
What will happen if the US Nukes Iran? The US will become the new “Axis of Evil”.
Bush desperately wants to start a war with Iran as a last gasp effort to salvage something beyond ignominious defeat for his “Legacy”. All of the scenarios spelled out in the War Games the Joint Chiefs did in the last five years have said that starting a war with Iran will inevitably lead to a nuclear first strike against Iran’s Natanz and Esfahan facilities.
The War Games Scenario for the Iran War goes like this:
1. The US or Israel [with US cooperation] prepares to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz and Esfahan. A few Generals and Admirals resign but the attack happens anyway. The attack causes major surface damage but does not penetrate through the layers of reinforced concrete and steel to the level of the Centrifuges and Uranium processing facilities. The attack is a failure but it starts a US/Israeli war with Iran.
2. Iran announces it is withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran attacks any oil tankers passing through the Straights of Hormuz and the US Aircraft Carriers and their escorts in the gulf using swarming speedboats, torpedoes, mines and silkworm cruise missiles and sinks at least 1 carrier and several other ships causing 2000-3000 US casualties.
3. The US Air-force starts large scale bombing of Iran’s infrastructure.
4. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard invades southern Iraq with 300,000-400,000 ground troops and cuts off all supplies to US forces in southern and western Iraq.
5. The US bombs areas of southern Iraq where Iranian soldiers are blocking US supplies and the US bombing causes mass civilian casualties.
6. The Iraqi Government orders the US to leave Iraq immediately or be attacked by the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi Shiite and Sunni Mullahs issue a Fatwa directing all Insurgents and Militias to attack US soldiers and not each other.
7. US forces are besieged by 300,000 Iranians and 200,000 Iraqi Army, Insurgents and Militia soldiers. After 60 days of intense fighting and 10,000-20,000 US casualties, the US bases in Iraq run out of fuel, ammunition and food.
8. The US troops in southern Iraq, western Iraq and Bagdad are forced to “Retreat Under Fire” to the Kurdish north leaving behind all of their heavy equipment.
9. The Iranians seize the abandoned US weapons and bring in fuel and supplies and turn the weapons on the US.
10. The US claimes the excuse of “Protecting US Troops” and uses tactical nuclear bombs to attack the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Militia forces in southern Iraq and nuclear bunker buster bombs to destroy Natanz and Esfahan in Iran. There are 300,000 immediate civilian casualties caused by the blast and radiation and 750,000 cases of radiation poisoning in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern India.
11. All Oil production in Iraq and Iran stops for 6-9 months [25% of world oil production]. All Middle-East Oil shipments through the Straights of Hormuz are stopped [20% of world oil production]. All middle-eastern countries together impose a total Oil Embargo on supplies to the US and Israel. Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina join in the Oil Embargo. Gasoline and Heating Fuel-oil prices rise to $10.00 per gallon, Natural Gas prices rise to $5.00 per CCF and gasoline rationing is imposed. Energy intensive industries shut down. Frequent major blackouts occur crippling the server farms that power the Internet. The US economy suffers a meltdown.
12. Iran abrogates the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reprocesses Plutonium from their research reactors to produce 1-2 nuclear bombs which are used to destroy Tel Aviv. Israel responds with their own nuclear bombs destroying Tehran.
13. A general war of all Islam vs. the US and Israel ensues. All US bases in the middle-east are attacked causing 50,000-75,000 US casualties before the US forces can escape. Israel is invaded from all sides by Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories. The US and Israel are branded by the world as the “Axis of Evil”.
Imagine a world where the US is reviled by every other nation for the unforgivable damage we have done to innocent civilians. Where the US is under a Permanent Oil Embargo by all OPEC member states. Where Canada, Mexico and South America join Europe and Asia to ban all trade with the US and evict all US Military bases from their soil. Where all US citizens with any connection to the Bush Administration are under indictment by The Hague and are put on a No-Fly List banning them from from travel outside the US. Where all US multi-national corporations are boycotted or banned by the rest of the world or are forced to split and change their names to avoid anti-US sentiment.
All this and more can happen if Bush decides to Nuke Iran.
Bush is the Decider. He makes the Decisions and the rest of us have to live with the consequences. Bush’s Decisions about the Middle-East have been uniformly bad. Some of them have been worse than bad; they have crossed the line into the zone of Criminal Negligence and Suicidal Stupidity.
The worst Decision Bush has made in his two terms as President has been to insist that the use of Nuclear Bunker Buster bombs remain in the Pentagon’s planning for dealing with Iran.
Iran may be telling the truth or Iran may be lying when they say that they are only trying to enrich Uranium for nuclear power. If Iran is telling the truth and their goal is just nuclear power, then using a Nuke against Iran will guarantee that Iran will go for The Bomb in self defense. If Iran is lying then using a Nuke against Iran will only delay Iran getting The Bomb by one or two years and will guarantee that they will attempt to use it against the US or Israel.
The US B61-11 Nuclear Bunker Buster bomb is only able to penetrate hard rock to a depth of 10-20 feet before it detonates. At 20ft penetration and maximum yield, the B61-11 can only destroy a facility that is buried less than 600ft below ground. Blast forces can be blocked by simple inexpensive materials like a 100ft thick layer of gravel or bags of sand or granulated salt. The limitations of the B61-11 have been known for years and any Iranian weapons facility will have been built with those limits in mind.
If Iran is actually trying to build a Nuclear Bomb, they will probably have done what Iraq and Pakistan did by building a secret second facility buried deep under ground under the publicly visible facilities at Natanz and Esfahan.
The Natanz facility in Iran is known to have a double roof of thick reinforced concrete with 50-75ft of gravel between the concrete layers. The roof is sufficient to protect against any non-nuclear bunker buster (even the US air forces MOAB bomb). Natanz could probably also survive a low yield Nuclear Bunker Buster bomb.
If the US actually used the B61-11 bomb in Iran against the Natanz or Esfahan facilities more than 500,000 civilian deaths could be expected in iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
The short term concequence of the US starting a war with a Nuclear First Strike will be Bush/Cheney’s Impeachment and Trial for Treason. The long term concequence will be the meltdown of the US economy and a world wide depression that would probably last a decade or more. The final concequence will be massive nuclear proliferation by every country capable of developing nuclear weapons resulting in an eventual all-out Nuclear War.