Month: November 2007

Iran

Iran, Iran, Iran ? What to do about a nuclear Iran ? There seem to be two schools of thought:

  1. Iran’s Nukes: Still Room for Diplomacy (Time)
  2. Five reasons to bomb Iran now (Jerusalem Post)

Let’s face it, the US has fewer and fewer options when it comes to Iran.

What we’ve learned from Iraq is what question to ask. It’s not: ‘will you bomb Iran ?’ It’s ‘what will you do after you’ve bombed Iran ?’

America had no plan for Baghdad + 1.

Do they really have a plan for Tehran + 1 ?

When the Stealth bombers return to base after flattening Natanz what will the Americans do ?

You can bet the Iranians have planned for an American raid and have spread their nuclear technology far and wide, creating dummy facilities, deep bomb-proof bunkers and hiding key equipment.

They know Israel and America might try a pre-emptive strike, as the Israelis did against Iraq in 1981.

Bombing isn’t a silver bullet. Far from it. They may obliterate some key sites, but they won’t stop Iran’s nuclear programme dead. You can be sure a raid will accelerate, not to mention justify, Iranian determination to go nuclear. Bombing will only buy time.

Sitting in Tehran, America looks a real threat. The US occupies Iraq – on Iran’s western border – and Afghanistan – on Iran’s eastern border. America also has a history of anti-Iranian aggression, ranging from the Iranian hostage crisis to the Iran-Iraq war, when America actively backed Iraq against Iran.

The Iranian leadership knows there is one deterent to perceived US aggression: nuclear weapons.

The US won’t mess with a nuclear armed state. North Korea proves that.

Bombing won’t work and, other than blowing up a few Iranian nuclear installations, could detonate a region wide conflagration that makes Iraq look like a walk in the park.

So, let’s think for a moment what Iran could do if America or Israel launched an attack:

  • close the Straights of Hormuz. Between 15 and 16.5 million barrels of oil transit the Strait of Hormuz each day, roughly 20 percent of the world’s daily oil production.
  • flood Iraq with high tech weaponry and put a $10,000+ bounty on every dead American
  • launch long range missle attacks on Isreal and American targets in the Middle East
  • massively increase its support and funding for anti-Israel Islamic groups like Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad
  • sponsor, arm and encourage al-Quaeda to repeatedly attack America, at home and abroad.
  • encourage and arm radical, anti-American Islam across the Middle East focussing on US allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt

Basically, Iran has a range of responses to an American or Israeli attack. After the bombing raids, America has even fewer choices.

The US won’t, indeed can’t, invade Iran and is powerless to effect regime change. When the Stealth bombers return, what’s left for America to do other than brace herself for the inevitable retaliation and fall back on… diplomacy.

After all, the road to a stable and peaceful Middle East runs through Jerusalem not Natanz.

wordpress

I’ve moved to WordPress. Bit of fiddling, some directory permissions head scratching and a splash of photoshop and we’re back on the road.

The design’s an update on the old one and I’ve added a neat little tag cloud and twitter integration. Blogging fun here I come.

sub-prime crisis

Looks like the US sub-prime mortgage lending crisis is going to explode. Millions of Americans have been sold unsustainable home loans and are about to get a nasty shock that will reverberate around the globe.

Get this:

  • financial institutions collectively own $1 trillion (£480.6bn) worth of sub-prime debt.
  • One in five US mortgages now falls in the sub-prime category
  • There have been 1.7 million foreclosure proceedings in the US in the first eight months of 2007, and up to 2 million families are expected to lose their homes over the next two years, according to estimates by the US Congress’s Joint Economic Committee.
  • One in ten homes in Cleveland, Ohio is now vacant, and whole neighbourhoods have been blighted by foreclosed, vandalized and boarded-up homes.
  • Sub-prime mortgages carry a much higher risk of default because most offer a fixed-rate loan for two or three years, and then switch to a much higher adjustable rate after that.
  • Matgages were sold by unscrupulous and little regulated mortgage brokers, who received handsome commissions for selling expensive and unsuitable products.
  • All around the US, aid agencies report a “tidal wave” of foreclosure cases
  • “There is a natural level of foreclosures that goes on in an economy in good times and bad… it’s part of the nature of how our economy works“. Robert Steel, US Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance

Like the saying goes, “when America sneezes, the whole world catches cold”. That phrase was coined after Wall Street Crash of 1929 ! Batten down the hatches. We might be in for a bumpy economic ride…

Thanks George.

Google

Looks like Google’s internet advertising revenues have finally exceeded ITV1’s ad income. That’s a hell of a milestone.

Internet advertising overtakes TV advertising. Who clicks on all those irritating online ads anyway….

Ok, time for some Youtube madness….

Oh my fucking God look at the size of this spider….. Haaaa,Hoooo. Makes me shudder !

The War on Terror….

Wildly popular rendition of the Romanian pop song Numa Numa, performed by 2 Derby teenagers…