Venezuela, Iran & others: a coalition? (New title)

[Entropy]

Just to be the Devil's Advocate, why assume 1) a land launch and 2) a nuclear weapon?

http://defensetech.org/2009/02/04/ir...an-emp-weapon/

Assuming Iran's ballistic missiles could be modified to launch from a sea platform, then what is the purpose of Iranian missile bases in Venezuela?

Secondly, using a nuke for a high-altitude EMP burst isn't such a great strategy unless it's followed up with something else. What are the Iranian's going to do afterward, besides get their asses handed to them? Under what circumstances would they be willing to light off a nuke above the US instead of on the US?

Then there are the practical issues of launching a ballistic missile from a pitching ship, transporting missile and nuke from Iran to the US littoral without getting intercepted, ensuring the missile will operate after exposure to a marine environment, etc.

Again, it's theoretically possible and we should always keep a close eye on the Iranians, but the risk-reward calculation for attempting something like that isn't a favorable one in my opinion.

[AdamG]

Assuming Iran's ballistic missiles could be modified to launch from a sea platform, then what is the purpose of Iranian missile bases in Venezuela?

Gotta do training, storage and logistics somewhere. The missile(s) don't care where they're launched.

Secondly, using a nuke for a high-altitude EMP burst isn't such a great strategy unless it's followed up with something else. What are the Iranian's going to do afterward, besides get their asses handed to them? Under what circumstances would they be willing to light off a nuke above the US instead of on the US?

You're assuming you need a nuke to generate a city-crippling EMP burst. I've read otherwise. See http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb3.htm

Then there are the practical issues of launching a ballistic missile from a pitching ship, transporting missile and nuke from Iran to the US littoral without getting intercepted, ensuring the missile will operate after exposure to a marine environment, etc.

Reference ship-launched ballistic /SCUD missile launches, I've read otherwise.
See http://www.missilethreat.com/scenarios/

Again, it's theoretically possible and we should always keep a close eye on the Iranians, but the risk-reward calculation for attempting something like that isn't a favorable one in my opinion.

You're assuming rational thought amongst our opponents. That can be fatal.
(Or, as Foamy the Squirrel said : "It wouldn't hurt you people to think like a serial killer every now and then...")
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8eICCKMNEc

[Entropy]

You're assuming you need a nuke to generate a city-crippling EMP burst. I've read otherwise. See http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb3.htm

Theoretically yes. A lot of things are theoretically possible. Until I see some evidence that someone, especially the Iranians, are developing such a weapon then I'm not going to worry about it too much. Not only that, but why would Iran EMP a US city? Under what scenario or circumstances would the Iranians, or anyone else, use such a weapon? They burn out some electronics and then what?

Reference ship-launched ballistic /SCUD missile launches, I've read otherwise.
See http://www.missilethreat.com/scenarios/

Has anyone, anywhere actually tried to launch a scud off a ship? This is another case of something that is possible in theory, very difficult in practice and of limited utility. This isn't a capability that could be done without testing - when I see Iran or any other nation start trying to launch ballistic missiles off of freighters, then I will begin to take this "theat" seriously.

You're assuming rational thought amongst our opponents. That can be fatal.
(Or, as Foamy the Squirrel said : "It wouldn't hurt you people to think like a serial killer every now and then...")
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8eICCKMNEc

We had over 30 years to watch and study the current Iranian government. I don't see much there that suggests the Iranians are irrational actors.

[AdamG]

From 2008

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests.

One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.

“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”

Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”

http://www.marketwatch.com/Community...-plans-nuclear

Iran is only half the equation, and a weak half at that - more of an enabler.
Tehran can interdict the flow of Saudi oil, and Venezuela is next up by volume on the suppliers' list.

ANALYSIS | In a reciprocal action, the United States has revoked the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States after Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez refused to acknowledge diplomatic ties with the United States. Business Week reports this expulsion is just the latest in many bouts of political feuding between the United States and Venezuela.

Business Week reports Chavez threatened to cut off the oil supply to the United States in 2008 and then backed down. It was around the same time when he backed a Bolivian proposal to expel their American ambassador for alleging the United States' involvement with rebel groups.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20101230/...es_may_be_next

[91bravojoe]

Here's the non-detailed explanation on what happened to this nomination:

America, standing tall, revoked the visa of the Venezuelan Ambassador. Har har. So is somebody's old man.

If Venezuela is to be cast as an Iranian proliferation problem (! and then some), we should be shedding yet more tears over the destruction of Valerie Plame's Iran-centric program, and the cowardly passivity of our domestic fascist coalition in response.

[Entropy]

Adam,

That article was interesting and more than a bit hyperbolic.

I look up the reference to testing on the Caspian Sea and it's basis is one Washington Times article written in 1999. The relevant passage is this:

Iran has test fired a sea-launched ballistic missile, according to classified U.S. intelligence reports, which could be used in a devastating stealth attack against the United States or Israel for which the United States has no known or planned defense.

The reports, which are well-known to the White House but have not been disseminated to the appropriate congressional committees, detailed the test-firing by Iran of a short-range surface-to-surface missile last spring from a barge in the Caspian Sea.

Members of the congressionally mandated Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, chaired by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were briefed on the Iranian test as they were writing their final report last June, but have been prevented from mentioning it in public because the information remains classified. In the report's Executive Summary, released on July 15, 1998, the commission warned of "alternative ballistic missile launch modes" such as sea launch, but did not mention Iran by name.

The commission mentioned is the Rumsfeld Commission I mentioned earlier. All of it's predictions were wildly wrong.

Let's assume for a minute this article correctly described the intelligence report and further assume the intelligence report was accurate. Where does that put us? One possible test 12 years ago. That doesn't sound like much of a development program to me.

I could go through the whole article point-by-point, but do not have the time nor the desire. You might consider motivations here as a lot of the players mentioned were heavily involved in the Rumsfeld Commission.

Speaking only for myself, this is a group of people who share a common goal in the promotion of ballistic missile defenses. In the 1990's they used the Rumsfeld Commission to bolster political support for that goal. More recently, they rediscovered EMP and come up with implausible and self-serving scenarios that were created to "prove" that missile defense is the only way to stop the "threat." Any criticism of the threat has an "answer" so that the conclusion is always the same. From the article (emphasis added):

The only possible deterrent against Iran is the prospect of failure, Dr. Graham and other experts agreed. And the only way the United States could credibly threaten an Iranian missile strike would be to deploy effective national missile defenses.

“It’s well known that people don’t go on a diet until they’ve had a heart attack,” said Claremont Institute president Brian T. Kennedy. “And we as a nation are having a heart attack” when it comes to the threat of an EMP attack from Iran.

“As of today, we have no defense against such an attack. We need space-based missile defenses to protect against an EMP attack,” he told Newsmax.

This is, in short, a very nice piece of propaganda designed to promote a specific policy objective. It's rife with internal contradictions and exaggerations. I would suggest that you treat the claims in this article with a high degree of skepticism.

[91bravojoe]

Iran+Venezuela. The new missile gap avatar. That was Saddam for a brief moment. "He will get these weapons he doesn't have yet, then he will give them to somebody or other, and they will find a way to use them against us. We have to spend billions in response before this happens!"

Eisenhower's military-industrial complex warning continues to have infinite half-life. This Hugo Chavez guy is the best possible candidate to make Reagan's star wars dream look like a bake sale.

[AdamG]

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - The United States and Venezuela are starting the year without ambassadors in Caracas and Washington due to an intensifying diplomatic dispute that is likely to persist and boost President Hugo Chavez's long-standing antagonism.

Both sides have shown firmly entrenched stances and no willingness to compromise in the past week as the U.S. government revoked the Venezuelan ambassador's visa in response to Chavez's refusal to accept the chosen U.S. envoy.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110101/D9KFO2BG0.html

[AdamG]

(Reuters) - Iran raised the prospect on Tuesday of sending military ships close to the United States' Atlantic coast, in what would be a major escalation of tensions between the long-standing adversaries.

*

The declaration comes just weeks after Turkey said it would host a NATO early warning radar system which will help spot missile threats from outside Europe, including potentially from Iran. The decision has angered Tehran which had enjoyed close relations with Ankara.

Link to rest of tale

[Ken White]

AdamG;126118

(Reuters) - Iran raised the prospect on Tuesday of sending military ships close to the United States' Atlantic coast, in what would be a major escalation of tensions between the long-standing adversaries.

The USN will laugh themselves into a state of discombobulation ...

[AdamG]

(Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dismissed a U.S. warning to avoid close ties with Iran on Sunday, denouncing what he said was Washington's attempt to dominate the world as he prepared to welcome the Iranian president to the Latin American nation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8070Q120120108

[AdamG]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez lavished praise on each other on Monday, mocked U.S. disapproval and joked about having an atomic bomb at their disposal. * As he often does, the theatrical and provocative Chavez stuck his finger right into the global political sore spot, joking that a bomb was ready under a grassy knoll in front of his Miraflores palace steps. "That hill will open up and a big atomic bomb will come out," he said, the two men laughing together.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45938366.../#.TwxadW9rNNU