Israelis Prepare for War with Iran

The postcard from the Home Front Command that recently arrived in my mailbox looks like an ad from the Ministry of Tourism. A map of Israel is divided by color into six regions, each symbolized by an upbeat drawing: a smiling camel in the Negev desert, a skier in the Golan Heights.

In fact, each region signifies the amount of time residents will have to seek shelter from an impending missile attack. If you live along the Gaza border, you have 15 seconds after the siren sounds. Jerusalemites get a full three minutes. But as the regions move farther north, the time drops again, until finally, along the Lebanese and Syrian borders, the color red designates “immediate entry into a shelter.” In other words, if you’re not already inside a shelter don’t bother looking for one.

The invisible but all-pervasive presence on that cheerful map of existential dread is Iran. If Israel were to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, Tehran’s two terrorist allies on our borders—Hezbollah and Hamas—would almost certainly renew attacks against the Israeli home front. And Tel Aviv would be hit by Iranian long-range missiles.

via Israelis Prepare for War with Iran.

Russia Simulates Nuclear Attack on Poland

The armed forces are said to have carried out “war games” in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country’s coast.

Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland’s leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus.

The manoeuvrings are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops.

Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the “potential aggressor”.

The documents state the exercises, code-named “West”, were officially classified as “defensive” but many of the operations appeared to have an offensive nature.

The Russian air force practised using weapons from its nuclear arsenal, while in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which neighbours Poland, Red Army forces stormed a “Polish” beach and attacked a gas pipeline.

The operation also involved the simulated suppression of an uprising by a national minority in Belarus – the country has a significant Polish population which has a strained relationship with authoritarian government of Belarus.

Karol Karski, an MP from Poland’s Law and Justice, is to table parliamentary questions on Russia’s war games and has protested to the European Commission.

via Russia ’simulates’ nuclear attack on Poland – Telegraph.

If Israel Strikes Iran, U.S. Will Likely Join

The United States would find it difficult not to join an Israeli air strike in the event that Jerusalem decides to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, a former top-ranking U.S. Air Force officer told participants at a conference this weekend organized by a Washington think tank.

Charles F. Wald, former deputy commander of United States European Command, said a military strike on Iran could set back the Islamic Republic’s alleged nuclear weapons program by several years, but cautioned, “I don’t think Israel can do it alone.”

The former commander’s remarks were made at an annual gathering of financial backers of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who were joined by diplomats, journalists and analysts.

“They have a fantastic military, but not big enough for weeks or months of attacks – hundreds of sorties per day,” he said.

via Read Full Article.

Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Nuclear Doomsday Machine

Valery Yarynich glances nervously over his shoulder. Clad in a brown leather jacket, the 72-year-old former Soviet colonel is hunkered in the back of the dimly lit Iron Gate restaurant in Washington, DC. It’s March 2009—the Berlin Wall came down two decades ago—but the lean and fit Yarynich is as jumpy as an informant dodging the KGB. He begins to whisper, quietly but firmly.

“The Perimeter system is very, very nice,” he says. “We remove unique responsibility from high politicians and the military.” He looks around again.

Yarynich is talking about Russia’s doomsday machine. That’s right, an actual doomsday device—a real, functioning version of the ultimate weapon, always presumed to exist only as a fantasy of apocalypse-obsessed science fiction writers and paranoid über-hawks. The thing that historian Lewis Mumford called “the central symbol of this scientifically organized nightmare of mass extermination.” Turns out Yarynich, a 30-year veteran of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and Soviet General Staff, helped build one.

Chart source: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council

The point of the system, he explains, was to guarantee an automatic Soviet response to an American nuclear strike. Even if the US crippled the USSR with a surprise attack, the Soviets could still hit back. It wouldn’t matter if the US blew up the Kremlin, took out the defense ministry, severed the communications network, and killed everyone with stars on their shoulders. Ground-based sensors would detect that a devastating blow had been struck and a counterattack would be launched.

via Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine.

2 IDF Warships Cross Suez to Red Sea

In a new signal to Iran, two Sa’ar 5-class Israeli Navy ships crossed through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea on Tuesday to beef up Israel’s naval presence near Eilat.

The passage of the ships comes several weeks after a Dolphin-class submarine passed through the international waterway for the first time.

One of the ships, the INS Hanit, already crossed the canal in June, in what an Egyptian source said was the first time a large missile ship used the strategic waterway, which is the fastest route to get Israeli Navy vessels from the Mediterranean, where they are based, to the Red Sea and beyond.

The other ship to cross on Tuesday was the INS Eilat.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said that under a long-standing treaty, warships can freely sail through Suez as long as they have no hostile intentions against the state that owns the canal. He declined to say whether the maneuver was aimed at sending a message, saying, “I don’t want to analyze an issue that I am not fully aware of.”

The significance of the move is debatable, but could be interpreted as a message to Iran and a demonstration of a strengthening of ties between Egypt and Israel. Iran has recently deployed several of its navy ships in the Gulf of Aden and near Eritrea.

In the event of a conflict with Iran, and if Israel decided to involve its three Dolphin-class submarines – which according to foreign reports can fire nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and serve as a second-strike platform – the quickest route would be to sail them through the Suez Canal. Going through the canal would also be the only way to get to the Gulf of Oman without refueling.

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Report: Saudis Would Let IAF Jets Fly Over Kingdom to Iran

Mossad head Meir Dagan assured Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Saudi Arabia would allow IAF jets to fly over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Sunday Times reported.

The British paper reported that Dagan held talks with Saudi officials earlier this year on the topic.

However, the Prime Minister’s Office issued an official denial on Sunday morning, saying the report was “completely false and baseless.”

The Israeli media has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including former prime minister Ehud Olmert, held meetings with Saudi officials, but the kingdom has denied the reports. “The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source was quoted in the Times as saying.

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Biden Says US Will Not Stand In Way of Israel Attack On Iran

Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing.

[...]

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Biden also said the U.S. offer to negotiate with Tehran on its nuclear program still stands. Some thought the administration’s approach might change in light of the Iranian government’s harsh crackdown on protesters after the June 12 presidential election. Opponents of the ruling authorities claimed the vote was rigged against them.

“If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage,” Biden said.

Source

Israel Must Attack Iran, Insists Bolton

Former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton told The Washington Post on Thursday that the only way left to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is to support an Israeli military strike on the Islamic Republic.

Bolton said the soft approach taken by US President Barack Obama had only hastened the Iranian nuclear threat, and that today the only options that remain are to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons or intervene militarily.

With Obama almost certain to never order a military strike on Iran, that leaves only Israel.

Bolton urged Israel to decide quickly whether or not it will strike.

“Israel’s decision of whether to use military force against Tehran’s nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever,” said Bolton, adding that he is confident new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fully grasps the gravity of the situation and will respond accordingly.

via Source

North Korea May Fire Missile Toward Hawaii

North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range ballistic missile, possibly in the direction of Hawaii, a Japanese newspaper said Thursday, citing an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry.

South Korean kindergartners play near displays of models of mock North Korea’s Scud-B missile, right, and other South Korean missiles at Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 18, 2009. North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese news report said Thursday, as Russia and China urged the regime to return to international disarmament talks on its rogue nuclear program. Collapse

(Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

The conclusion was reached after analyzing North Korea’s recent activities and looking at intelligence gathered by U.S reconnaissance satellites, according to the The Yomiuri Shinbun, one of Japan’s major dailies.

Most analysts, however, doubt that a North Korean missile could reach Hawaii, roughly 4,500 miles from the Korean Peninsula and just out of reach of even an upgraded Taepodong-2, which has an estimated range of 4,038 miles, the paper reported.

The paper said the Japanese ministry is now studying the possibility of deploying Aegis-equipped destroyers with surface-to-air missiles, which could intercept a North Korean missile, sources told the paper.

Related

North Korea to Fire Missile That Can Reach US?

N. Korea Touts ‘Military Muscle’

Obama Condemns N. Korea’s Nuclear Test

The Japanese government has already deployed PAC3 anti-missile sy

via Will North Korea Fire a Missile Toward Hawaii? – ABC News.

North Korea Warns of Nuclear War

North Korea’s communist regime has warned of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions.

The North’s defiance presents a growing diplomatic headache for President Barack Obama as he prepares for talks Tuesday with his South Korean counterpart on the North’s missile and nuclear programs.

[...]

A commentary Sunday in the North’s main state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, claimed the U.S. has 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea. Another commentary published Saturday in the state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the U.S. has been deploying a vast amount of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan.

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Obama Must Consider Military Option on North Korea

By Kathleen Troia “K.T.” McFarland
National Security Expert/Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

North Korea snatched two American journalists and is holding them hostage under the window dressing of calling them ’spies.’  They’ve detonated two nuclear bombs. They’ve tested medium and long range ballistic missiles and they’re preparing another round of tests. They’re getting so close to joining the ranks of great nuclear nations that they can taste it.

Both Presidents Clinton and Bush tried diplomacy and failed. It’s now up to President Obama to try a different road.

The world is now at a crossroads and must make a decision within weeks – if not days. Will it stand by while North Korea becomes a nuclear weapons state? If so, others will quickly follow –- in northeast Asia, in the Middle East, perhaps even in South America. Think of it as a giant nuclear domino game — where one country going nuclear leads inevitably to its neighbor doing the same. Here’s how this would break down:

In Northeast Asia: In response to North Korea, Japan, and possibly South Korea, will believe they have no option but to become nuclear states themselves, which both could do in short order by converting their nuclear power programs into nuclear weapons programs.

In the Middle East: Iran will interpret the world’s inability to halt North Korea’s program as a green light for its own efforts. They will buy more missiles and nuclear technology from North Korea — reports are they already have people standing by in Pyongyang. A nuclear Iran will set off an arms race in the the most dangerous part of the world, as the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and perhaps even Turkey feel the need to offset Shiite Iran.

Is there anything we can do to stop the world from slowly slipping toward nuclear Armageddeon? Actually there is. It’s time to draw a line in the sand on nuclear proliferation and the place to start – immediately – is with North Korea.  There can be NO NoKo Nukes. But the U.S. can’t do it alone.

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NK Detonates Underground Nuclear Bomb

North Korea’s state media has confirmed the communist state has conducted a nuclear weapons test.

It is believed the blast was much stronger than Pyongyang’s first test in 2006.

South Korea says weather agency officials detected what they called an artificial earthquake in the communist North this morning.

The government in Seoul immediately accused North Korea of conducting a nuclear weapons test.

It has called an emergency security meeting of its cabinet in response to the announcement.

Two hours later the secretive communist regime confirmed via its state media that it had detonated a nuclear device, saying the underground test was successful and was part of the country’s nuclear deterrent policy.

In response, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak called an emergency national security council meeting, while Japan’s government said it had set up a crisis task force.

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Russia to Test Fire at Least 5 New Ballistic Missiles

Russia will conduct at least five test launches of a new-generation intercontinental ballistic missile this year, the deputy defense minister was quoted as saying Tuesday.

Col. Gen. Vladimir Popovkin said the Bulava missile needs thorough testing because “the reliability of all aspects of the rocket needs to be achieved” in comments carried by state news agency RIA Novosti.

The submarine-launched Bulava missile has a reported maximum range of about 6,200 miles and capacity for up to six individually targeted nuclear warheads. It has been hailed as a key future component of Russia’s nuclear forces, although mixed results in testing have tempered enthusiasm.

Popovkin, speaking in Istanbul, said if the test launches were successful another five would be scheduled, the agency said.

The Bulava is to be test-fired from the Dmitry Donskoi nuclear submarine this year, Navy Admiral Oleg Burtsev told RIA Novosti separately.

Source

The Taliban’s Nuclear Threat To Pakistan And the World

As insurgents close in on Islamabad, The Daily Beast’s Gerald Posner reports that Taliban forces are on the verge of seizing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal—which has the capability to hit India, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

This morning, Taliban units took control of the Buner region of Pakistan, bringing their burgeoning insurgency within 60 miles of the capital city of Islamabad. The government called the advance a breach of a recently signed peace agreement. But what did they expect? Any store owner who has faced ever-increasing protection payments to local gangsters could have told the Pakistanis that their recent string of capitulations to the Taliban—striking peace deals and ceding territory—was doomed to failure.

You think the stock market looks bad over the last two years? Let a Taliban spokesman announce that Mullah Omar has his finger on the Islamic Bomb.

The Taliban advance should be causing high Richter-scale reactions inside the Obama White House. Counterterrorism officials have long warned that al Qaeda is desperate to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is in play if the Taliban insurgency should unseat the government of Asif Ali Zadari.

Source

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