A Quiet Deadly Game

Iran escalates the rhetoric as regards a confrontation with the US. One can almost hear the pitter patter of little Special Forces feet at the sizing up of targets designed to degrade or eradicate capabilities now, or at least develop precise targeting data for what, barring an Iranian reversal, is going to take place. Without an outright provocation by Iran, my guess is late Spring.

Six hundred Iranian Shihab-3 missiles are pointed at targets throughout Israel, and will be launched if either Iran or Syria are attacked, an Iranian website affiliated with the regime reported on Monday.

Iran will shoot at Israel 600 missiles if it is attacked," the Iranian news website, Assar Iran, reported. "600 missiles will only be the first reaction."

According to the report, dozens of locations throughout Iraq, which are being used by the US Army, have also been targeted.

The Shihab missile has a range of 1,300 km, and can reach anywhere in Israel.

Comments

[seekeronos]

This just might raise the stakes, ya think?

I wonder if Iran is counting on a number of Israeli nuclear subs as a second-strike solution... because even a massive conventional missile strike might be enough to trigger a nuclear response.

It might even trigger a massive, Samson-esque "Masada" (a sort of "if we are going down, we are gonna take all y'all along with us, too") response, where all major Islamic cities within a 1500mi range of Israeli borders get a shot of canned sunshine.

Wouldn't that be just too bad, now.

[nowingker]

Gee, Seek, with a doomsday scenario like that is it any wonder the Arabs want their own nukes?

Maybe it was a mistake for us to let the Israelis get nukes.....maybe we should have left their advantage at conventional weapons and not allowed them to get nukes??

I ave to say again that wishing for the destruction of millions of arabs by nuclear war is decidedly unchristian.

[Philip McDaniel]

"...wishing for the destruction of millions of arabs by nuclear war is decidedly unchristian."

How about this? "wishing for the destruction of millions by nuclear war is decidedly Muslim?"

[dumbblonde]

Perhaps those 600 missiles could be targeted first :)

[seekeronos]

"--- I ave to say again that wishing for the destruction of millions of arabs by nuclear war is decidedly unchristian. ---"

And I do agree - I do not wish for such a thing either. I'd rather those nations open up their borders to hundreds of thousands of Baptist preachers, and see them become Christian nations inside of three generations. A miracle, perhaps, that only God Himself is capable of, and I count it a blessing whenever I hear tell of an Arab or a Persian coming to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour.

However, when the People of Israel must choose between their preservation, and that of a people who are intractably opposed to their same existence -- and on the point of offering a credible threat to the same, howbeit that those same millions of Arabs shall not have a part in dissuading their rulers from ensuring their own nuclear holocaust?

Unless of course, their own sense of apocalyptic theatre and pride prevents them from sealing their own destruction.

A demonstration of hubris, perhaps... of ethnocidal proportions.

[K]

I greatly doubt that Iran has 600 efffective missiles. But my knowledge of missiles building is somewhat dated and missiles may be much easier to produce now.

But they certainly have some. My guess would be less than 50 capable of hitting Israel. But no matter, that is not the point.

The question is what Iran will do. I think they will continue to fight by proxy and supply arms and training to any group making trouble for Israel and/or the US or Europe. And wait.

The US election late next year probably won't worsen their situation. And if it does they can try something else.

There is no way in hell that China or Russia will actually help Iran in war. They don't want a war there but they won't join if it begins.

[rwilymz]

Let's see if I have this correct:

Iran and the US are wagging tongues and swords at each other, and Iran makes not-so-veiled threats against Israel as a part of that.

Yet every time I remind those folks who believe that the pan-islamist mindset is not preset and pretty much canned that the pan-islamists view Israel as the 51st state, they jump up and down and holler "No No No! You can't just define 'all Arabs' to have one worldview; they are complex and rich in historical diversity!!"

Yet we see right here, once again, that the pan-islamist mindset views Israel as the 51st state.