[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Rogue Nation

[Bill Totten]

by Charley Reese

lewrockwell.com (June 30 2008)


One gets the impression that there are some people in Washington who
believe that Israel or the US can bomb Iran's nuclear reactors, fly
home, and it will be mission complete.

It makes you wonder if perhaps there is a virus going around that is
gradually making people stupid. If we or Israel attack Iran, we will
have a new war on our hands. The Iranians are not going to shrug off an
attack and say, "You naughty boys, you".

Consider how much trouble Iraq has given us. Some 4,000 dead and 29,000
wounded, a half a trillion dollars in cost and still climbing, and five
years later, we cannot say that the country is pacified.

Iraq is a small country compared with Iran. Iran has about seventy
million people. Its western mountains border the Persian Gulf. In other
words, its missiles and guns look down on the US ships below it. And it
has lots of missiles, from short-range to intermediate-range (around
2,200 kilometers).

More to the point, it has been equipped by Russia with the fastest
anti-ship missile on the planet. The SS-N-22 Sunburn can travel at Mach
3 at high altitude and at Mach 2.2 at low altitude. That is faster than
anything in our arsenal.

Iran's conventional forces include an army of 540,000 men and 300,000
reserves, including 120,000 Iranian Guards especially trained in
unconventional warfare. It has more than 1,600 main battle tanks and
21,000 other armored combat vehicles. It has 3,200 artillery pieces,
three submarines, 59 surface warships and ten amphibious ships.

It's been receiving help in arming itself from China, North Korea and
Russia. Unlike Iraq, Iran's forces have not been worn down with bombing,
wars and sanctions. It also has a new anti-aircraft defense system from
Russia that I've heard is pretty snazzy.

So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect
retaliation, I'd have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you
think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I'd have to promote
you to idiot.

Attacking Iran would be folly, but we seem to be living in the Age of
Folly. Morons and idiots took us into an unjustified war against Iraq
before we had finished the job in Afghanistan. Now we have troops tied
down in both countries.

China has a tremendous investment and interest in Iran and would likely
see an attack as a threat to its national interests. China could strike
a large blow against the US just by dumping the financial paper we have
foolishly allowed the Chinese to pile up, thanks to the trade deficit.

For some years now, I've worried that we seem to be more and more like
Colonial England ? arrogant, racist, overestimating our own capacity and
underestimating that of our enemies. As the fate of the British Empire
demonstrates, that is a fatal flaw.

The British never dreamed that the "little yellow people" could come
ashore by land and take Singapore from the rear or that they would sink
the pride of the British fleet, but they did both.

I suppose no one in Washington can imagine the Iranians sinking one of
our carriers in the Persian Gulf. How'd you like to be the president who
has to tell the American people that we've lost a carrier for the first
time since World War II?

Exactly how the Iranians will respond to an attack, I don't know, but
they will respond. In keeping with our present policy, our attack on
Iran would be illegal, since under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.

Who would have thought that we would become the rogue nation committing
acts of aggression around the globe?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese471.html


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