U.S. Plans Blitz Against

The Telegraph reports that U.S. military planners are making preparations to attack 's nuclear sites in the event that diplomatic efforts fail to stop 's extremists rulers' nuclear weapon ambitions:

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against 's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

[. . .]

"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."

During 2005 there were numerous reports indicating the U.S. is making preparations for such an attack. There were reports of U.S. forces on the ground in , U.S. combat aircraft and reconnaissance drones violating ian airspace. More recently there was speculation in the German media that the U.S. is preparing to attack suspected ian nuclear sites as soon as early 2006.

The never-ending disclosures about 's nuclear intentions which have finally resulted in being referred to the U.N. Security Council coupled with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Hitler-like threats against Israel cause me to be less and less hopeful that diplomacy will be able to avoid a military confrontation with .

's current leadership seems determined to confront the West. The current Cartoon war is just the latest example of 's strategy.

Last month at the National Review Online, Ilan Berman wrote that 's President Ahmadinejad is actively seeking a crisis with the West:

In a recent closed-door session of the foreign policy and national security committee of the majles, 's parliament, Ahmadinejad laid out the cornerstone of his foreign-policy strategy. The past decade-and-a-half of "détente," Ahmadinejad told lawmakers, had cost the Islamic republic dearly. The message was unmistakable: It is now time for confrontation.

Berman also reminds us that in his manifesto, "Islamic Government," Khomeini outlined what would be come the guiding philosophy of the ian mullahs' regime:

To create a victorious and triumphant Islamic political revolution . . . to unite the Moslem nation, [and] to liberate [all] its lands.

That goal is very similar to bin Laden's goal of causing a conflagration, a war between the Islamic world and the infidels. This is one more reason why a way must be found to prevent the ian mullocracy from obtaining nuclear arms.

More thoughts at the Strata-Sphere.

Comments

[robert lewis]

So the morons in Washington are now planning to take on Iran? Very interesting, especially in light of recent reports on Valerie Plame Wilson's assignment when she was outed at the orders of Dick "If I'd known they'd let me shoot people I would have gone to 'Nam" Cheney:

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran. Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

While many have speculated that Plame was involved in monitoring the nuclear proliferation black market, specifically the proliferation activities of Pakistan's nuclear "father," A.Q. Khan, intelligence sources say that her team provided only minimal support in that area, focusing almost entirely on Iran.

Also interesting in light of the fact that Pakistan's nuclear weapons pose a far greater threat: they're already made and the ocuntry boasts a shaky military dictatorship perched atop a smoldering Islamic fundamentalist underclass.

Meanwhile, close at hand:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - While the world community scrutinizes Iran's nuclear plans, Latin America's biggest country is weeks away from taking a controversial step and firing up the region's first major uranium enrichment plant.
That move will make Brazil the ninth country to produce large amounts of enriched uranium, which can be used to generate nuclear energy and, when highly enriched, to make nuclear weapons.

ANd I'm SURE that Brazil has adequate security safeguards to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of evil doers.

The incompetency of the Bush Administration in all areas, from the ability to talk to the ability to kill caged quail without winging big campaign contributors is quite simply unprecedented in American history. These guys are "The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight."

[Railroad Stone]

Iran has little choice but to go to war with the entire western, civillised hemisphere.

They have few natural resources, except oil and gas. They know that landing a single nuclear warhead on western soil would enslave us all while showering them with riches. They only need to kill a hundred thousand of us and every arab will be on easy street for good.

We'd better move fast, we only have about a decade before Iran's plans become a reality, and their Islamic revolution could be just around the corner, again.