Does any serious person believe that Iran will surrender its nuclear ambitions?

Does any serious person believe that Iran will surrender its nuclear ambitions?

The fact is, US policy makers have little understanding of the mindset in the Islamic world. They may think they understand it on an intellectual level, but they do not have the "feel" for what they are dealing with. Granted, this requires that they abandon virtually every instinctive standard of human interaction into which they have been acculturated over the course of their lives, but it is not an insurmountable task. T.E. Lawrence achieved prominence due to his ability to get inside their thought processes, and convey them to his superiors.

This current lack of insight has profound ramifications for our world in the coming near days. The western world is fast approaching a showdown with Iran's president Ahmadinejad, over what may be the most serious issue of the new millennium, nuclear proliferation, coupled with Islamic terrorism. To the western mind, Ahmadinejad is not acting rationally. He recently called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also questioned again whether the Holocaust really happened, following up on his earlier denial of the Holocaust. He has recently not only defied the IAEA, but openly declared success at Uranium enrichment, as well as promising to increase his countries rate of production of enriched uranium.

It is shocking to many why he would be so deliberately provocative, while he should be acting in a fashion to reassure the international community that he is not a threat, so as to forestall diplomatic action, sanctions or even a military strike by the US he could not possibly win. Conversely, he seems to be doing everything in his power, from testing missiles and torpedo's to goading the West's sensitivities, in what appears to be a campaign to pick a fight. He is making statements that clearly place him on a war footing with Israel, and in violation of the UN onus about non-defensive warfare. He also said recently, "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm" , Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians, where he also said "The land of Palestine, (referring to the British mandated territory that includes all of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank) "will be freed soon". In October he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

The pundit class is rife with speculation as to his true motives or game plan is. They optimistically label his behavior as jockeying for a diplomatic position rather than the actual seeking out of violent confrontation. They are wrong. He really is picking a fight, and he will continue progressively more outrageous behavior until he gets it. The puzzle which is boggling the minds of the Western "experts", is why he should want a fight which is sure to annihilate him, cause grievous harm to his country, and what could he possibly gain?

The answer to that question lies in the Muslim mind. Ahmadinejad lives in world steeped with false pride in their culture, their place in the world, their accomplishments and even their relationship with God. The Umah believe that their religion, its precepts and cultural mandates are the final word from God as to how he wishes, no demands that humans live. Despite their believed perfection, the Muslim world has seen its world position do nothing but wane, since the Western Renaissance. Wherever you find Islam as the dominant religion and culture, you find a backward society with a dismal economy, totalitarian rule, little concept of human rights, and much misery. By contrast, those societies the Muslims believe that God retrograded and outmoded through his revelations to Mohammed, the Christian world and the Jews, enjoy freedom, prosperity, respect, and technological preeminence. Even people "not of the Book", such as the Buddhists', Shinto'ists, Hindu and Atheists, seem to be pulling away from the Muslim world and leaving them farther behind than ever.

While this trend is not new, inescapable awareness of it, in the Muslim world, is. With the advent of the information age, to say the Muslim world is reeling with "Future Shock", is a bit like describing a triple amputation as a "flesh wound". They have spent hundreds of years believing themselves to be "the best", but the images coming over the new Computers (they did not invent), on the televisions (they did not invent), through the satellite dishes (they did not manufacture or invent), from satellites (they did not launch), clearly show the world is leaving their culture behind. Even worse, those images show that the world is outstripping them by engaging with gusto in virtually all the activities and behaviors they believe are forbidden by God. Their whole belief system and way of life are in crises.

Ahmadinejad is the leader of the one country in the world, where Islamic Fundamentalism triumphed over modernity, establishing Sharia as the way of life. According to Islam, this should have made Iran God's favorite country. Ever since the end of the Caliphate, devout Muslims have been told that their lands and countries have been suffering because they were not sufficiently in compliance with Gods laws. With the overthrow of the Shah, and the rise of Iran's theocracy, it has become the leading example of Islam as a form of governance as well as an ideological paradigm, in much the same was as the USSR was the showcase for the actual application of the principles of Communism. With the theocracy in place in Iran for 30 years now, and with the successful transition of power from Ayatollah Ruyallah Khomeini to Ayatollah Khameni, as well as several sets of turnover in the governmental institutions, there should have been enough time for the "benefits" of strict Muslim rule to have manifested themselves. They have not. The people are more poor than ever. They lack comforts and luxuries. They do not enjoy world preeminence in economics, science, freedom, respect or worst of all, happiness. If the people of Iran look upon the lifestyle of the rest of the world, and see that they envy even some of what we have in our lifestyle, it cuts to the very core of their belief in their way of life. A couple of years ago, it looked as though Iran might be on the verge of another revolution, one that sought a more secular way in the world.

Ahmadinejad, and the clerics, know that if Iran's revolution collapses, Islam itself will be discredited in the same way that Communism failed with the collapse of its test case.

However, if Ahmadinejad can provoke the West into attacking, perhaps even destroying the regime in Iran, Muslims around the world will be able to spend the next 2000 years claiming that the Great Islamic Revolution in Iran would have succeeded, and been the envy of the world had it not been destroyed by the unbelievers and the Dhimmi. Islamic governance as a political movement will be saved from being discredited, and Iran will be held up as the martyr. This is his true game; better he and his country die as martyrs, than to slowly sink into discredited obsolescence and disrepute. He will force this fight, even if he knows it will bring utter annihilation. He will force this confrontation even if he is forced to use nuclear weapons to do it. The more pain and damage he inflicts on the Western World in the process of getting us to destroy him, the greater will his reputation and the "legend of Islamic Revolutionary Greatness" will be 600 years from now, when Muslims are bitterly weeping over the lost greatness brought to the Umah by Revolutionary Government in Iran, "back in it's heyday".

Sadly, we cannot defeat his goals by refusing engage in his conflict. The longer we delay, the greater his reputation will grow, and the more we will suffer before being forced to take him down. The only way to attack his long term goals is to openly challenge him on his motives. If western world leaders are willing to take to the airwaves, and the printed page, and the internet, and even leafleting in Arabic, they must call him out on his agenda. They must be willing to say, "We are greatly saddened that this little man, and this little country, are going to force us to bring great suffering to their people, just to hide the fact that they and their revolution have failed". "The world knows, it is obvious, that Islamic Fundamentalism is a failure." "It has failed its people in Iran, in Afghanistan, in Saudi Arabia, in Iraq, and in Egypt". "Now, simply to distract faithful Muslims from the failure of this ideology, its leaders are driving the people into a suicidal confrontation, simply to avoid having to admit failure". "We will regret being forced to kill the loud small dog, simply because it cannot acknowledge it never achieved the status of a large dog".

This will make it more difficult for the Muslim scholars of the future to proclaim the might of the "lost Great Revolution".

TECHNOLOGY AND TACTICS

Having discussed Ahmadinejad's intentions and strategic aims, let us now turn to his the tactics and technology he will use.

As Iran continues to enrich Uranium using the centrifuge method, the world is failing to realize the nature and extent of the threat due to a lack of imagination. Most of the strategic analysts are assessing the danger of a Nuclear Iran in terms of traditional methods of use of nuclear weapons and devices. They believe that in order for Iran to present an actual threat, they must have a functioning nuclear device, and a delivery system to place that device on or near its target area. They also believe that Iran does not pose a potential threat without the means to produce substantial quantities of highly enriched uranium (HEU). The experts also are operating under the classic assumption that a country with only one nuclear device, or very few, would be unwilling to deploy them in that they would be unwilling to part with their country's single greatest military asset. In the preceding section Irans aims are laid out, the point of this section is to lay out a possible scenario by which Iran and its terrorist proxy agents could carry out a nuclear strike on the US or its allies, bypassing all current safeguards that we assume are protecting us from nuclear terrorism.

Iran has a delivery system that bypasses all known or anticipated means of delivering a weapon, or smuggling a weapon into a western country.

The key to this nuclear strike lies in the enrichment technology Iran is hell bent on pursuing. It is not in delivery systems. Iran does not need a rocket capable of delivering a nuclear device. Nor do they need a device small enough to be man portable, or advanced enough to deliver by air. There has been much written about delivery of a device aboard ship, or aboard a commercial shipping container, so I assume that we have advanced safeguards to protect or reduce the threat of delivery by these systems. I have spoken with some of you about my beliefs regarding the capabilities of orbital satellites and the capacity to scan ships at sea, for signs of telltale emissions, and where I got that knowledge of capabilities. However my current concerns supersede earlier speculation, and my concerns are based on the nature of nuclear weapons themselves. Historically, the development of the Atomic Bomb as a weapons system was driven not only by the technology, but also by the tactical and strategic nature of it's intended use. The US developed the bomb during a total war with the Axis powers, equally advanced industrial societies fully geared to war with the US. We discovered that we could construct a "gun type" device that would detonate if fueled with very highly enriched uranium (VHEU). However, our methods of enriching uranium were primitive, and very time consuming. We could not manufacture enough of the very highly enriched uranium (VHEU), quickly enough, to deploy the multiple numbers of these "gun type" devices in a fashion that would have a strategic impact on the war. Therefore, we also developed the "implosion" type device, which would also achieve nuclear detonation using uranium with a cheaper, faster, more readily produced, less enriched uranium (HEU). We deployed one of each type device over Japan, the "gun type" device was dubbed "little boy" and "implosion" device was called "Fat Man".

Iran is not seeking a large quantity of deployable weapons, intended to be placed on ballistic missiles, bombers, or submarines. They do not face the strategic constraints of a real world power, since they are not trying to win a war. Their objective is simply to take lives and cause devastation. They do not operate on a strategic or even tactical time line, since they are not seeking to remove the capability for retribution. Consequently, their motives liberate their means and methods. Iran can afford to spend any amount of time enriching uranium, so that even a tiny trickle of VHEU is sufficient for their purposes. They will slowly acquire enough VHEU for two "gun type" devices. The gun device is painfully simple, it is simply driving a VHEU projectile into a VHEU receptacle with great force (picture a baseball striking a glove). The VHUE baseball is placed with a driving charge at the rear end of a cannon, and the VHUE glove is sealed into the muzzle of the cannon. When the cannon is fired, the nuclear weapon detonates. Cannons are very easy to build from easily acquired components. Since this is not to be used strategically, and time is not a constraint, the Iranians can deploy the device in a non-traditional manner.

They can build the device on the site of its intended detonation.

In Iran they would manufacture the VHUE, and shape "the baseball" and the "glove" to desired specification. They would then smuggle these two components into the US via separate routes through innumerable imaginable means. Bear in mind that these two items contain no explosives, electronics, fuels or even have any bomb like qualities, they are just machined hunks of solid metal. Meanwhile, in an apartment rented in New York, or Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Miami, or Atlanta, two tenants will begin assembling the cannon in the middle of the living room. The apartment will be in an upscale area and the rent will be fully paid. The two nuclear scientists will have a very respectable demeanor and will behave as expected for young professionals. No one will ever look into their condo. When the device is assembled from easily obtained local components, the two hunks of VHUE, "ball" and "glove" will be brought into the city, and attached to the device. Simultaneously to this activity, other nuclear scientists will have been assembling an identical device, from identical components, at a highly secured location inside Iran such as the Isfahan facility. When both devices are complete, The Iranians will transport the Isfahan device out into the desert and detonate it to make sure it works. The world will see the blast, and there will be all kinds of diplomatic furor. The Iranians will announce themselves to be a nuclear power, and will demand some kind of ridiculous concessions from the Western World or they will "destroy the infidels and unbelievers". In all likelihood, even if the demands are met, they will be followed by yet more demands in a ratcheting cycle ending in the detonation of the device. When we fail to comply, the two or three nuclear scientists in America will set the timer on the device in the condo, and return home to Iran. The US will suffer the worlds first incidence of nuclear terrorism, and will respond in fashion dictated by the whims of whatever administration holds power. Even if the attack is suicidal, generating an overwhelming response from the US, the Iranian regime will consider it to have achieved a victory, simply in the death and destruction wrought in the terror attack, and establish Iran as the return of the global influence of a Caliphate centered in Iran, even if only for a moment.

By David Roth
August 10, 2006

Posted August 11, 2006 02:37 PM
Read more on Articles - David Roth ~ Islam, Terrorism and WMD