The release of the November IAEA report on Iran, which indicated potential military dimension to Iran’s nuclear research, inaugurated a new phase in an ongoing saga of diplomacy and saber rattling between the Iranian government and concerned nuclear states. With endless headlines dedicated to the looming threat of another catastrophic Middle Eastern war, it becomes easy to lose sight of the real nuclear threat in our backyard.

Years of quiet work have yielded a nuclear program far more advanced than Iran’s with significant military dimensions at the hands of a vast and irrational government. This threat at our doorstep is not Cuba and it is not Venezuela. Our threat in the Americas is Brazil and unless the United States takes proactive steps to counter the Brazilian nuclear threat the day may soon come where Brazilians will not just occupy our spas and salons – but our streets and homes.

Consider the nuclear program itself. It was born in competition with Argentina during the 1970s and 1980s. A Uranium enrichment program larger than the infamous Iranian one, sustained heavy water production – a key ingredient in making Plutonium 239 which makes for more efficient bombs than Uranium 235, and even offering to provide enriched Uranium to the Iranians in 2010 negotiations. Unlike Iran, Brazil has never abided by the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s Additional Protocols which allow for more thorough investigations of their nuclear program. Like Iran, Brazil hosts abundant energy resources. Oil, gas, and a renewable supply of ethanol from cane sugar fuels the Brazilian state. It would seem such as large nuclear infrastructure would be unnecessary and yet a massive nuclear industry exists so improbably.

Moreover, their claims to not seek nuclear weapons are contradicted by their research and strategic ambitions. Brazil claims it has forsaken nuclear weapons by joining the NPT, but research nevertheless continues on simulating thermonuclear explosives. This research was started to first model American warheads but has caused a silent storm in Vienna as IAEA analysts wonder about their true intentions. As of 2009, Brazilian physicist Dalton de Ellery Girão Barroso declared Brazil already has knowledge and technology to, if its wants, develop an atomic bomb. The only missing puzzle piece is a delivery system. Without a weapon delivery system, it would seem that Brazil’s nuclear ambitions would be moot but work is undergoing to build nuclear attack submarines in a move that confounds the US Naval Institute. Nuclear attack submarines, much like the American USS Los Angeles-class, are stealthy and meant to interdict naval fleets and launch stand off cruise missiles against unsuspecting targets. Brazilian stockpiles of Harpoon missiles can be readily retrofit to accommodate warheads for strike anywhere within grasp of their stealth submarines. Lastly, Brazil’s rocketry program is far more advanced than Iran’s with an indigenous production capability. With little effort orbital rockets can be converted to ICBMs, capable of unleashing warheads across the world.

While we may rest at ease if it were an ally like Israel developing a nuclear weapon, Brazil has shown that it is like Iran, an unstable, zealous nation that jeopardizes its citizens for the sake of nuclear power. The emergence of a proto-communist bloc across the South American continent and the Caribbean, consisting of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil has slowly been cementing over the past decade with the reelection of Hugo Chavez in 1999. The 2003 election of the Workers’ Party Lula de Silva to President saw Antonio Palocci, his Trotskyist Finance Minster, riding his coattails to being a chain reaction of domestic reforms that have only served to isolate Brazil in the global economy. His successor, the former Marxist militiawoman Dilma Rousseff, has only been a boon to the Brazilian nuclear program. Despite adopting socialist polices in name, Brazil has continually ignored the rights and economic justice of their citizens in their quest for the bomb. Amnesty International frequently cites ongoing encroachment and destruction of Brazil’s indigenous population while Brazilian slums, favelas, grow in size annually. The government has been swift in its suppression of dissent within the favelas, dispatching its military forces to violently put down any unrest.

Perhaps it is only a page from history – the page of the War of Canudos where the Brazilian army ravaged a settler outpost killing 20,000 of the 30,000 inhabitants. Canudos was wiped straight off the map. The continued militancy is strong within the Brazilian people as well. This February 21st marked annual religious demonstrations across the nation with thousands pouring on the streets for the chaotic Carnaval, or “Festival of the Flesh.” As the Brazilian people march toward an atom bomb, it would be distinguished as the only South American Bomb – precipitating regional strife and heightened tensions with strategic rival and American ally, Argentina.

With each passing day, more and more Uranium is being enriched and more heavy water is being produced while the world looks to the Middle East in fear. If the exact same rhetoric is applied to Brazil as it has been to Iran, American bombers would have long destroyed the Brazilian program if not for petty politics. The sad truth is that with the Iranian dilemma, the science and technology can be so well obfuscated by generalization and fear mongering and the political and military history so misconstrued and miscontextualized that selling a war is quite easy.

It should be clear that the Brazil nuclear program is certainly no threat and nor is Iran’s. Iran is upheld to not only stricter scrutiny than Brazil but has accepted more stringent inspection for a nuclear program that’s much narrower in scope than Brazil. The only difference is that the Iranian program is conceived to be a strategic threat rather than a right of all nations who are signatories to the NPT. While there historically was an Iranian nuclear weapons program, it has been dissolved by former Iranian President Khatami in 2003 and current IAEA evidence points stems from work at the Parchin military base, which was inspected and deemed clear of weapons work in 2005. Of course, we can collectively throw caution into the wind and embark or enable yet another disastrous misguided crusade. At that rate, we might as well be bombing Brazil instead. They’re closer to us than Iran, right?

i didn't proofread or anything yet. i tried to ride poe's law as much as i could...lessee if any local newspapers bite.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on the Middle East, Proliferation, and Why Israel Couldn’t Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To

On a sunny afternoon in late February, Vanity Fair met with Col Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Sec State Colin Powell (2002-5), who is currently an adjunct professor of government and public policy at the College of William & Mary. Fresh from a meeting with legislators in Washington, Wilkerson arrived at the Blue Talon, a stylish brasserie located curiously in the heart of colonial Williamsburg, to talk about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and their implications.

VF: How close is Iran to having a nuclear weapon, and what should our response be?

LW: I’ve spent almost two full days now on the Hill, essentially talking to Democrats and Republicans, senators and representatives and their staffs, about the catastrophe that would result if we use military force against Iran. What I understand from talking with the intel community and with people in the White House is that our position, and I agree with this position, is that Iran has not made a decision to weaponize. Iran may be looking for a Japanese-type, latent capability. The inclination, I think, of the current government is not to make that decision. What I’m very concerned about is that our diplomacy, such as it is, mostly sanctions, is forcing them into a decision that we don’t want them to make, which is to weaponize. Confronted with Israel, which is already possessed of nuclear weapons, and Pakistan, already possessed of nuclear weapons, I think Iran does want the latent capabilities.

VF: But that’s not the same thing as saying we want to weaponize now?

LW: In that space, there’s room for diplomacy.

VF: So the irony is that if we rattle the sabers too much, we’ll force them to do exactly what we don’t want them to do.

LW: Precisely. And that’s what some neo-conservatives and their allies want to happen. They want regime change.

VF: That was one of the arguments for the Iraq war. Out of the chaos a new nation will be built.

LW: Look what’s happening right now in different countries. Egypt is looking grim, and Libya is looking grimmer. In fact, this morning I got a report from Iraq that’s pretty grim. Look what we have happening in Iraq right now. We have al-Sadr arming one side of the Syrian problem, and we have al-Malaki arming another part of the Syrian problem. And people think this can’t jump borders and become a regional and perhaps even a global confrontation? It certainly can.

VF: Israel makes the argument that if they delay a military strike, all of Iran’s nuclear facilities will be bunkered down so deep they’ll be unreachable.

LW: The truth is, and my Air Force colleagues have given me some of this, the Israelis could not take out Iran’s facilities now. The Israelis could not mount, without going to desperate ends, a 100-plane strike, which is going to be necessary. They can barely get a hundred airplanes out of their fleet. If they go to the end of their operational tether without refueling help from us, I predict that it will be as big a failure or worse than their incursion into Lebanon in Jul 2006. And I say that for two reasons: one, they will fail militarily, and two, regardless of their exquisite public-affairs campaign to portray it otherwise, the world will know they failed. So, this is a disaster for Israel if it goes ahead and executes.

VF: Wouldn’t there be intense rallying for our support, especially now during an election year?

LW: Yes. That makes Obama’s situation dicey because, and I think that’s probably what Netanyahu is thinking about, this period of vulnerability, if you will, is political, it isn’t military. And if Obama is re-elected, then Netanyahu’s got problems, because I think he’d be attacking Iran in utter defiance of the US.

VF: What if Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney were elected president?

LW: If we’ve got Santorum, or even what appears to be a pliable Mitt Romney, who has neo-conservatives in his advisory group, then it’s a whole new game for Israel, which is one reason why I will admit, though I’m disappointed in Obama, I’m probably going to vote for him again. And I’m a Republican.

VF: Let’s say Iran feels so threatened in the region they go ahead with plans to weaponize. How is that going to affect the balance of power in the Middle East?

LW: I think what we’d see happen if Iran actually weaponized and tested, and you’ve got to test, as everybody knows, then Saudi Arabia would buy a nuclear weapon from Pakistan, and it would end right there. We would have deterrence. We’d have a stalemate. We’d have the Saudis with the capability, we’d have Iran with the capability, we’d have Pakistan with the capability, and of course India and others, and it would stop right there. I hate to see proliferation. I’d rather see it going the other way. But deterrence would work. These are rational entities.

VF: What do you think would happen if Israel does launch a strike? Would it ignite an all-out war in the region? Encourage more terrorist attacks? Close the Strait of Hormuz? Cause oil prices to soar?

LW: All of the above. Close the Strait of Hormuz? I don’t think the Iranians would even try. If they did, we could reopen the Strait of Hormuz rather easily. I don’t see that as a big problem; what I see as a big problem is that the threat would cause the market to become extremely volatile, because no one would want to risk it. This is the kind of conflict that will make insurance rates go up, people will not want to take the risks, and so forth. And the price of oil will go up. And I guarantee there will be countries in the world, and companies, who will just salivate at that prospect and will want to make it go on. Exxon Mobil. Or Royal Dutch-Shell, or Saudi Arabia. Or, for that matter, al-Malaki in Iraq, who now knows he’s sitting on as much oil as Saudi Arabia’s sitting on. His plans are to be at 13 mb/d, which rivals Saudi production. But your point about the volatility of oil? I recently participated in Beijing in what was called a “petroleum disruption exercise.” We posited a terrorist attack against Saudi production, for example. We had shippers and insurers participating in the exercise, Lloyds of London and so forth, and the price of oil went out of sight. Four hundred dollars a barrel. Shippers wouldn’t ship, and insurers wouldn’t insure. So these are possibilities. And talk about disrupting an already fragile economy in Europe, and a fragile economy here, for that matter. We are looking at the possibility of taking the turmoil in Syria, the so-called Arab Spring, which I like to call the Arab Awakening, and igniting that in a way that is very detrimental to the world’s interest. And certainly regional interests. We’re looking at the possibility of sucking everything into a conflagration; that is essentially what our attacking Iran ignites. It’s a distinct possibility. And incidentally, some of my neo-conservative colleagues, I use that term loosely, want that. They think that out of the cauldron of turmoil and fire and blood, and they even quote Jefferson in this regard, will grow these incredibly solid and prosperous and tolerant Jeffersonian democracies. Which is preposterous.

VF: Who in the administration or in the Dept of Defense is pressing for a military strike?

LW: Inside the Pentagon, civilian and military, I cannot find a single voice in favor of striking Iran.

VF: What happens next?

LW: Here’s another tidbit for you. I was in Havana when Ahmadinejad was there. I can’t reveal my sources, but not only did the Cuban government give him a third- or fourth-level award, which really made him angry because it wasn’t the top or even the second-level award, they also delivered him a message from Fidel Castro: get off this nuclear kick. Fidel is very anti-nuclear, as you might imagine, given his experience with the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think he, Kennedy, and Khrushchev all realized that they took the world to the brink of extinction. Here’s our archenemy in Cuba advising our archenemy in Iran that they’re on the wrong track. Mind you, if we attack Iran, the Chinese will be ecstatic. Not only will we be mired in yet another interminable war, but from this one we might not recover for half a century.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/03/lawrence-wilkerson-middle-east-nancy-schoenberger-israel-iran-nuclear-weapons

babyfinland posted:

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on the Middle East, Proliferation, and Why Israel Couldn’t Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To

On a sunny afternoon in late February, Vanity Fair met with Col Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Sec State Colin Powell (2002-5), who is currently an adjunct professor of government and public policy at the College of William & Mary. Fresh from a meeting with legislators in Washington, Wilkerson arrived at the Blue Talon, a stylish brasserie located curiously in the heart of colonial Williamsburg, to talk about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and their implications.

VF: How close is Iran to having a nuclear weapon, and what should our response be?

LW: I’ve spent almost two full days now on the Hill, essentially talking to Democrats and Republicans, senators and representatives and their staffs, about the catastrophe that would result if we use military force against Iran. What I understand from talking with the intel community and with people in the White House is that our position, and I agree with this position, is that Iran has not made a decision to weaponize. Iran may be looking for a Japanese-type, latent capability. The inclination, I think, of the current government is not to make that decision. What I’m very concerned about is that our diplomacy, such as it is, mostly sanctions, is forcing them into a decision that we don’t want them to make, which is to weaponize. Confronted with Israel, which is already possessed of nuclear weapons, and Pakistan, already possessed of nuclear weapons, I think Iran does want the latent capabilities.

VF: But that’s not the same thing as saying we want to weaponize now?

LW: In that space, there’s room for diplomacy.

VF: So the irony is that if we rattle the sabers too much, we’ll force them to do exactly what we don’t want them to do.

LW: Precisely. And that’s what some neo-conservatives and their allies want to happen. They want regime change.

VF: That was one of the arguments for the Iraq war. Out of the chaos a new nation will be built.

LW: Look what’s happening right now in different countries. Egypt is looking grim, and Libya is looking grimmer. In fact, this morning I got a report from Iraq that’s pretty grim. Look what we have happening in Iraq right now. We have al-Sadr arming one side of the Syrian problem, and we have al-Malaki arming another part of the Syrian problem. And people think this can’t jump borders and become a regional and perhaps even a global confrontation? It certainly can.

VF: Israel makes the argument that if they delay a military strike, all of Iran’s nuclear facilities will be bunkered down so deep they’ll be unreachable.

LW: The truth is, and my Air Force colleagues have given me some of this, the Israelis could not take out Iran’s facilities now. The Israelis could not mount, without going to desperate ends, a 100-plane strike, which is going to be necessary. They can barely get a hundred airplanes out of their fleet. If they go to the end of their operational tether without refueling help from us, I predict that it will be as big a failure or worse than their incursion into Lebanon in Jul 2006. And I say that for two reasons: one, they will fail militarily, and two, regardless of their exquisite public-affairs campaign to portray it otherwise, the world will know they failed. So, this is a disaster for Israel if it goes ahead and executes.

VF: Wouldn’t there be intense rallying for our support, especially now during an election year?

LW: Yes. That makes Obama’s situation dicey because, and I think that’s probably what Netanyahu is thinking about, this period of vulnerability, if you will, is political, it isn’t military. And if Obama is re-elected, then Netanyahu’s got problems, because I think he’d be attacking Iran in utter defiance of the US.

VF: What if Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney were elected president?

LW: If we’ve got Santorum, or even what appears to be a pliable Mitt Romney, who has neo-conservatives in his advisory group, then it’s a whole new game for Israel, which is one reason why I will admit, though I’m disappointed in Obama, I’m probably going to vote for him again. And I’m a Republican.

VF: Let’s say Iran feels so threatened in the region they go ahead with plans to weaponize. How is that going to affect the balance of power in the Middle East?

LW: I think what we’d see happen if Iran actually weaponized and tested, and you’ve got to test, as everybody knows, then Saudi Arabia would buy a nuclear weapon from Pakistan, and it would end right there. We would have deterrence. We’d have a stalemate. We’d have the Saudis with the capability, we’d have Iran with the capability, we’d have Pakistan with the capability, and of course India and others, and it would stop right there. I hate to see proliferation. I’d rather see it going the other way. But deterrence would work. These are rational entities.

VF: What do you think would happen if Israel does launch a strike? Would it ignite an all-out war in the region? Encourage more terrorist attacks? Close the Strait of Hormuz? Cause oil prices to soar?

LW: All of the above. Close the Strait of Hormuz? I don’t think the Iranians would even try. If they did, we could reopen the Strait of Hormuz rather easily. I don’t see that as a big problem; what I see as a big problem is that the threat would cause the market to become extremely volatile, because no one would want to risk it. This is the kind of conflict that will make insurance rates go up, people will not want to take the risks, and so forth. And the price of oil will go up. And I guarantee there will be countries in the world, and companies, who will just salivate at that prospect and will want to make it go on. Exxon Mobil. Or Royal Dutch-Shell, or Saudi Arabia. Or, for that matter, al-Malaki in Iraq, who now knows he’s sitting on as much oil as Saudi Arabia’s sitting on. His plans are to be at 13 mb/d, which rivals Saudi production. But your point about the volatility of oil? I recently participated in Beijing in what was called a “petroleum disruption exercise.” We posited a terrorist attack against Saudi production, for example. We had shippers and insurers participating in the exercise, Lloyds of London and so forth, and the price of oil went out of sight. Four hundred dollars a barrel. Shippers wouldn’t ship, and insurers wouldn’t insure. So these are possibilities. And talk about disrupting an already fragile economy in Europe, and a fragile economy here, for that matter. We are looking at the possibility of taking the turmoil in Syria, the so-called Arab Spring, which I like to call the Arab Awakening, and igniting that in a way that is very detrimental to the world’s interest. And certainly regional interests. We’re looking at the possibility of sucking everything into a conflagration; that is essentially what our attacking Iran ignites. It’s a distinct possibility. And incidentally, some of my neo-conservative colleagues, I use that term loosely, want that. They think that out of the cauldron of turmoil and fire and blood, and they even quote Jefferson in this regard, will grow these incredibly solid and prosperous and tolerant Jeffersonian democracies. Which is preposterous.

VF: Who in the administration or in the Dept of Defense is pressing for a military strike?

LW: Inside the Pentagon, civilian and military, I cannot find a single voice in favor of striking Iran.

VF: What happens next?

LW: Here’s another tidbit for you. I was in Havana when Ahmadinejad was there. I can’t reveal my sources, but not only did the Cuban government give him a third- or fourth-level award, which really made him angry because it wasn’t the top or even the second-level award, they also delivered him a message from Fidel Castro: get off this nuclear kick. Fidel is very anti-nuclear, as you might imagine, given his experience with the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think he, Kennedy, and Khrushchev all realized that they took the world to the brink of extinction. Here’s our archenemy in Cuba advising our archenemy in Iran that they’re on the wrong track. Mind you, if we attack Iran, the Chinese will be ecstatic. Not only will we be mired in yet another interminable war, but from this one we might not recover for half a century.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/03/lawrence-wilkerson-middle-east-nancy-schoenberger-israel-iran-nuclear-weapons

just yet another reason to vote for obama

Israel ‘has decided to attack Iran’, claims US intelligence source

The consensus in the US intelligence community is that Israel has decided “on principle” to launch a military strike on Iran in order to halt its nuclear program, according to an American intelligence insider. The American source was quoted on Israel’s Channel 2 (Arutz 2) television on Monday as saying that most US intelligence analysts believe “the attack will go ahead”. The source also argued that the Israeli public remains unaware of the “catastrophic consequences” of such an attack, which, according to US intelligence analysts, will be met with thousands of missiles launched against Israel by Iran and several Arab states. The confrontation will most likely trigger a regional war and “possibly even World War III”, said the source, citing US intelligence reports on the subject. He also warned Israel that the decision to attack Iran would be “tantamount to suicide”. The Channel 2 report claimed that the American and Israeli governments are “deeply at odds” over the potential consequences of a military attack on Iran, but that Tel Aviv has already decided to authorize strikes. The latter will allegedly take place before summer, unless there is “a significant change in the Iranian nuclear program in the next few weeks”, said the report. However, sources close to the Office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the Channel 2 report as part of “scare tactics” employed by Washington. The sources dismissed the so-called “nightmare scenario” as a method employed by members in the administration of President Barack Obama, who “want to constrain Israel from contemplating an attack on Iran”. Meanwhile, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph effectively corroborates the Channel 2report, and adds that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu issued the US President with “an ultimatum” during their closed-door meeting in Washington on Monday. According to The Telegraph, Netanyahu told Obama that “unless he makes a firm pledge to use US military force” against Iran, Israel “may well take matters into its own hands within months”. IntelNews regulars will recall that, late last month, the Israeli leadership, publicly chastised the United States for voicing criticism of a possible Israeli military attack on Iran, arguing that this criticism effectively “served Iran’s interests”.

http://intelnews.org/2012/03/06/01-941

discipline posted:
Yeah but Assad is so busy killing his own people and has made relative peace with israel ever since he agreed on borders w/r/t golan, also his neoliberal reforms.. and anyway, the rockets hizballah throws are sizeable but not like, scud size or whatever, certainly nowhere near the headache the stuff the iranians would throw at them

However, if missile defense systems were being swamped with a bunch of little missiles all over the place, it increases the likelihood of the big ones slipping through. A sustained assault by smaller rockets could also have just as great of an economic and psychological impact because I'm pretty sure the civic alerts for "incoming missile" don't take the time to discriminate by "oh but its just a little one so chances are you can ignore it." If you target a specific military base or city with relatively minor attacks but spread out over a long period of time, you shut it down completely while everyone is hiding in bunkers or whatever, probably achieving greater disruption than the actual material impact of whatever you might destroy if you just popped it all off at once to see what you could burn.

discipline posted:
Reminder that Israel and probably some GCC states have nuclear weapons

Lol, no GCC states have nuclear weapons.

babyfinland posted:
http://intelnews.org/2012/03/06/01-941

I'm sure Seymour Hersh had really good sources, too.

discipline posted:
hizballah has a bunch of katyushas, or at least they used to, they certainly haven't been showing them off since 2006, and I'm sure that quiet is part and parcel of assad bending over backwards to please western masters in return for easy cash, but as the late colonel can tell you IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH

in the 2006 invasion hezbollah fired a radar guided c-802 anti-ship missile. iirc besides the team that operated it, only two hezbollah officials knew the organization was in possession of the weapon. there have been rampant accusations, probably with legitimacy, that hezbollah owns at least ten scud missiles and a large stockpile of sophisticated fateh-110 missiles supplied by the syrian regime. i don't think we can attribute silence to anything, aside from a focus on domestic organization as opposed to active military actions, beyond the fact that hezbollah doesn't show off. the organization of their paramilitary forces means they could be in possession of a weapon none of us could anticipate, and the vast majority of the paramilitary themselves would be ignorant of the fact

Edited by blinkandwheeze (March 8, 2012 00:26:04)

discipline posted:

guidoanselmi posted:
Lol, no GCC states have nuclear weapons.

there's a rumor the saudis have their wells rigged with a really nasty deadman switch

The saudis are adamant about not having a nuclear or biological weapons program, but they always specifically leave out chemical weapons. They spent tons of money in the late 90s to get a ballistic missile program. I think it's basically their safeguard against attack by former Iraq or Iran, aside from having the US as their protector. They have the ability to throw a ton of missiles at any city in the middle east with the worst kind of chemical warheads

guidoanselmi posted:
eh wikipedia helped:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/031022-pakistan_saudi-arabia.htm

Oh I totally didn't know that. That makes their spending on ballistic missiles around that same time period make much more sense. It's even possible they helped the pakistanis in that area. Oh shit actually in connecting some mental dots, the pakistanis had their own indigenous missile in development and abruptly stopped it and adopted a rather different missile. Then they came out with a new one that was very much tomahawk missiley, at the same time the saudis bought tons of tomahawks!!!