artfarted

I’m one of those who believe that in 1945 the United States broiled a half million Japanese in order to send a message to Stalin. Unfortunately none predicted that the Soviets might hear the Americans’ message too loud. By the end of the 1950s the US was already looking at hundreds of nuclear-tipped ICBMs itching to strike it. Soon afterward half a dozen countries had tens of thousands of such itchy rockets standing erect, just a finger-tap away from bearing Armageddon.

For better or worse, the USA has been the world’s sole superpower for almost twenty years already. In its first act as the undisputed champion, in the war against the Milosevic regime in the early ‘90s, America brought the atom back to the battlefield in the form of depleted uranium munitions. We can all now expect that from then on there will be no major war without a nuclear element in it. Bill Clinton set the wheel in motion and GW Bush happily spun it down the road.

It is as simple as just constantly talking about the use of nuclear weapons, or constantly talking about denying the possession of nuclear weapons by selected countries, if one is to slowly but surely coach the public into accepting the unthinkable: the use of nuclear bombs as a decisive weapon.






Because of the advancement in targeting and explosives, strategic command-and-control installations as well as weapons-launching sites have been driven deep underground. That started a vicious cycle of ever more powerful, ever more precise bombs, with ever more penetrating capabilities going after ever deeper military compounds. Now that even these conventional explosive wonders can’t always deliver, nuking might be the only foolproof option in order to destroy something that might be a quarter-mile underground. Sounds ok but there’s a problem: this strategic site might be too close to a major urban center.

If you’re the Israeli government fighting Arabs and/or Iranians, that won’t deter you from ordering a nuclear barrage for good measure. And it seems that Washington has already signaled to Israel that if they so decide, then just go ahead and instant-cook ‘em. Might has always made right and “justice” will always be imposed via superior firepower. So then one shouldn’t waste time trying to argue the subject in terms of morality and the like. The arguments should be solely focused on practical terms and here they are:


1. For the world Jewry the Nazi Holocaust is a never-again historical tragedy. Why, then, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear incinerations shouldn’t be considered likewise? That is a question of capital importance as it is universally accepted that a nuclear strike will highly likely be retaliated against. In fact in all cases where both embattled countries have nuclear arsenals it is absolutely certain there will be retaliation. An infant could start a nuclear war but once the bombs have struck, how does it stop?
2. The good people who dream of witnessing a state-of-the-art mushroom cloud rising in the horizon, devised two clever terms that can nicely accommodate their ambitions: limited nuclear strikes and rogue states. Both these terms were given more-or-less arbitrary definitions. Any country unwilling to bow to the United States is automatically a “rogue state”. Any nuclear strike against such a country is... “limited” - but should be a showcase for those “rogue states” standing in line, as to what Uncle Sam has in store for them.
3. It will, however, be very difficult if not impossible, even for the United States, to justify to the horrified world community a pre-emptive nuclear strike against a much weaker adversary that will result in unthinkable images broadcast to every corner of the planet. There’s one country though, that doesn’t care about apologizing to anybody; a country that has traditionally served as Washington’s executioner: Israel.
4. When half-way into the latest Israeli war, PM Ehud Olmert declared that Germany is Israel’s best friend, nearly everyone thought he referred to Germany’s support for the Israeli aims against Hezbollah. A week after the cease-fire were accomplished it was revealed that Germany had provided Israel with two submarines especially equipped to carry and launch nuclear-tipped missiles. By the way, the German government, the German volk that is, footed one third of the subs’ cost.
5. It was consequently written in the international press that Israel is considered to pack the world’s sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear bombs. Thousands of them. Now this is a true wonder and it is entirely attributed to the United States. Israel, on its own, has never conducted a test of a war-intended nuclear devise. This country is too small to even conduct rocket launch tests. It does test-fire some missiles into the Mediterranean but that’s not how the Israelis accomplish their readiness in the rocket field. They do that by working closely with the Americans. The US and the Israeli air force have no secrets among them.
6. If push comes to shove, Washington may pat the Israelis on the back, escort their subs out to the Persian Gulf and tell them when to fire. If Iran keeps working on uranium enrichment, it is likely that it will rain nukes. America will play its standard recording about Israel’s right to self defense and then will watch as all hell breaks loose.








7. First of all, there will be no direct nuclear retaliation because Iran has no nukes and can’t produce them for a few decades. If the Iranians have enough courage or are after all, still capable of launching their conventional ICBMs against Israel, the Israelis will nuke them again or, in the best case, they will blow up the Iranian rockets in mid-air and carry out a massive Lebanon-style bombing campaign against Iran.
8. This may sound like heaven-made in the ears of the Bush Administration but let’s get close to the action. The Hiroshima/Nagasaki drama belongs to History but Chernobyl is still unfolding and still costing... There is no such a thing as a “limited” nuclear strike. Even the notorious DU bombs disperse a lethal level of radiation and slow-kill indiscriminately for years after their usage, if not collected off the ground. Even a single carefully launched nuclear warhead will create fallout and long-lasting contamination to large parts of Iran, a rather large country. Actually there will be several launches targeting many nuclear facilities as the Iranians have spread them out in order to minimize the damage of just this sort of attack. There is no way to restrict the after-effects of a “limited” nuclear strike to a limited area. That is the reason Syria may rest assured it isn’t a target of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. It is too damn close. But all of Iran’s neighbors, Iraq too, will most likely be affected by the fallout and there will be an unprecedented international uproar. Imagine the situation if a single missile hits elsewhere of its designated target; not an unlikely event. But even to get to that point, Israel and the United States will have to bypass many other obstacles.
9. All of the Israeli submarines are closely watched by the Russians, from space. The US-Israeli flotilla will have to circumnavigate Africa to get to the Persian Gulf and it is just impossible to not get detected. Even if the Americans ship the Israeli subs, hiding them inside vessels of their own and just dump them in the water off the Iranian coast, it will still be impossible not to be discovered. The intense covert operations that will precede a supposedly surprise strike will be run concurrently with an equally intense high-tech war conducted by computer networks, satellites and by on the ground reconnaissance units that will be practically impossible to fully conceal. And it isn’t just the Russians. To the Chinese, Iran is a strategic partner and vital for China’s energy supplies. Do the Israelis care? Not the least but the Americans do because a US-sponsored nuclear strike against Iran will give the Chinese a much needed pretext to “limitedly” nuke Taiwan at some point in the foreseeable future.
10. The aftermath. After the reinstating of the “total warfare” doctrine, where indiscriminant bombing is now accepted and promoted in order to win a war, going the next step of accepting nuclear weapons as a legitimate and, in fact, intelligent choice, will be catastrophic. It will break the fragile threshold that humanity has managed to maintain since 1945 and will bring mankind at its closest to another world war. The entire Non-Proliferation movement, whatever of it isn’t just hypocrisy, will practically go up in radioactive smoke. Every country whose leadership needs a facelift will declare its right to possessing its own nuclear deterrent force. Every major power that needs a quick fix in its disputes will just “limitedly” nuke the smaller guy. Every so often, a viewer from space would see atomic mushrooms rising into the atmosphere until nuclear winter sets in.






11. This isn’t a pessimistic scenario; it is a simple accounting of the way things are going, one small stupid step after another. If it concerned any other country that were at odds with Iran it might be true that the purchase of two additional smart submarines were a great idea, sending a clear message and costing only money. Israel, however, has always used the weapons it possesses with the single exception of the nuclear ones. Following its debacle in Lebanon and in light of Iran’s determination to reclaim its lost clout, it is very difficult to expect that Israel will not feel desperate and won’t act accordingly, especially during times when the US just can't hold back from stomping on Iran.
12. At the end it might all be a bizarre way for nature’s economics to finally take effect upon humans. We are the only species on our planet that doesn’t seem to have a built-in biological mechanism for its own population control. Perhaps we do have it. It might, indeed, be built-in to the one organ that made us so prolific in the first place: our brain.