In the February 17, 2005 Wall Street Journal is an article by David Cloud entitled
"U.S. Cites Iran Threat in Key Strait, Tehran Is Believed to Be Able to Stall Shipping Out of Gulf Waterway"
The article quotes Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, the head if the Defense Intelligence Agency, as saying that the Iranians could briefly close the strait of Hormuz by using a combination of naval, air and ground forces.
He is not alone in that belief. Porter Goss, the head of the CIA and Thomas Fingar as State Department Intelligence chief also agree with Jacoby.
If the accessment is accurate, it means the Iranians can mess with our oil supply. If you really want to make Uncle Sam mad, all you have to do is take a poke at his oil supply.
It seems to me that revealing this information now is laying the groundwork for attacking Iran at some point in the future. The U.S. may be able to avoid it, and I hope we can. If the Iranians head down the road that leads to nuclear weapons, combined with the threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz I hate to think of what might happen next.
To be sure, the U.S military has it's hands full in Iraq right now. But someday soon the U.S. will be less involved with the daily security actions that are bogging our forces down.
The primary benefit of disengaging in Iraq (oh heck, you can imagine all the benefits of that). The secondary benefit to an improving security situation in Iraq is that we will have our ground forces standing on Iran's doorstep. If we keep them there for an extended length of time, we could do much to dissuade the Iranians from exerting any leverage against the present balance of power. (The present balance of power being Israel and United States versus the rest of the Arab world.)
In the meantime, the EU is about to muddy the waters, as they are so good at doing. The EU wants to use the "carrot and the carrot" approach to get the Iranians to stop looking for their own A-bomb. (If the Russians and French could figure out a way to do it without getting caught, they would sell the Iranians one of their own A-bombs.) For those of you unfamiliar with the carrot and carrot approach, one carrot(trade) would be for the Iranians, and the other carrot(oil) would be for the Europeans.
Apparently, the EU seeks to involve the Iranians with improved trade and in that way get the Iranians to fall so much in love with Belgian chocolate and French cheese they would never want to threaten their new love affair by doing something stupid. (Like putting a nuke on a missile and sending it into Tel Aviv.)
The best part for the EU is that they get the chance to pull the same smoke and mirrors act they pulled with Saddam and his oil for food program. You can bet the information and equiptment for nuclear development would come flooding into Iran after this new Iran/EU detente is fully established.
Then it would be deja vu all over again when we want to put a stop to Iran threatening our national interests. I can just see Condi Rice, or her equivalent, standing before the UN Security Council and showing the evidence to the Germans and the French and Russians, who have no economic interest in listening.
It doesn't help matters that the Russians have helped the Iranians build a nuclear reactor at Bushehr. The Germans were actually supposed to build it back in the 1970's. Now the outside is German and the inside is designed by the Russians.
The latest on this from the Associated Press is that the Russinas are going to make the Iranians promise to give back all the spent fuel rods so they (the Iranians) can't extract the plutonium from the rods and make weapons out of it. How about this quote from Russian president Putin;
"The spread of nuclear weapons on the planet does not aid security, it does not strengthen security. The latest steps from Iran confirm that Iran does not intend to produce nuclear weapons and we will continue to develop relations in all spheres, including the peaceful use of nuclear energy,".
Can somebody explain why a country, that is sitting on 125.8 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, needs nuclear reactors if they aren't pursuing a weapons
program?
I think we have been down this road before. Can you say Iraq?
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