Curiously enough, one feels a little better about the Iranian nuclear threat after reviewing accounts of their missile tests this week. This would not normally be the case, when it is unclear how many missiles, of what class, were fired to what result. However, I should think the competent officials in the Pentagon have the correct answers to that, since Iran is fairly well observed from space, and that both they and the Israelis learned a great deal about the disposition of Iran’s missile inventory by tracking back from the event.
But it was the fact the launch pictures from Iran were photoshopped, that gives some relief. They were obviously altered, as repeated smoke patterns and other evidence pointed to the addition of at least one extra missile to improve the show. I’m getting good at this sport: I looked at the first picture flashed up on the BBC (four missiles) and realized, immediately, that it was faked. This was before examining any smoke patterns: it just looked fake. I was amazed all the buzzers had failed to go off in the BBC web editor’s BS indicator.
From what I can gather, the Iranians at least partially succeeded in test-firing only one Shahab 3—their long-range missile that could (if properly aimed, etc.) hit Tel Aviv; or targets in southern Europe for that matter; or U.S. and allied military installations throughout the Middle East. They also launched perhaps six little missiles, over two days, including at least one that failed to rise Wednesday, tried again Thursday. Doctored photos accounted for the rest. Accompanied by the usual Iranian rhetoric about “setting fire to Israel,” the display was an attempt at tragic hubris, subverted by elements of comedy and farce.
We needn’t laugh, however. The same description could have been given to the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11, that just happened to work; and to any number of Hezbollah and Hamas operations against Israel. People still get killed in large numbers even when the psychopath is a clown.
Moreover, the event was sufficiently real to drive the oil price back to a new record, after its mild recent relaxation. I see no reason why the indicator price per barrel should not pass $200 by summer’s end, in what must follow from growing tensions between Israel and Iran alone. One notes reports, such as the unconfirmed ones out of Iraq, that Israeli aircraft are frequent visitors at U.S. air bases, including one near Basra just five minutes flight time from the Russian-engineered Iranian nuclear complex at Bushehr.
Israel’s recent very bellicose rhetoric is itself subverted by the posturings of her corrupt and incompetent prime minister, desperately clinging to office against a real fear of jail. But it must be said that all mainstream politicians in Israel are contemplating an attack on Iran. And if decided upon, the logic then becomes, better sooner than later.
Likewise, one is struck by the very serious remarks of the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—not characteristically given to overstatement. “We will defend American interests and the interests of our allies,” she said at a press conference while visiting Tbilisi. And then, repeating, to help it sink in: “We take very strongly our obligation to defend our allies and we intend to do that.”
Needless to say, the Iranian provocations are in defiance of the usual Security Council resolutions.
The reasons for attacking Iran’s military infrastructure—and most certainly not invading the country, no one has the stomach for that—are as ever more complex than simply to knock out the reactors and the missile plants. Iran is, now that Saddam Hussein is history, the principal source of disorder throughout the region, and Iran’s proxies (which now included both Hezbollah and Hamas) depend on a reasonably hale as well as belligerent Iran to flourish, themselves. The Arab states all know this as well as Israel.
An Israeli strike would be implicitly backed by an American guarantee to follow it up, should the Iranians succeed in hitting Israel herself, or third parties. It would certainly spike the oil price, though also probably create conditions for its subsequent drastic fall. But the chief end of such a mission must be to leave the Iranian regime humiliated and powerless—which is the standard signal throughout the region for the vultures to move in.
Myself, I fear a repetition of the Gulf War result, in 1991, when the snake was scotched, but not killed.
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