With the Dow Average trading above 11000 — a dubious benchmark that has been achieved on the thinnest trading volume imaginable — it’s a good time to remind ourselves that the start of Armageddon, never more than dirty bomb or missile away, may be closer than usual these days. Or are we perhaps overreacting to news stories concerning the latest nuclear developments in Iran? Here’s a timely summary from Debka.com: “In addition to developing a ‘third generation’ centrifuge for speeding up uranium enrichment, Iran is close to activating its Bushehr nuclear reactor and completing its Arak heavy water plant – both providing easy access to weapons-grade plutonium for smaller, lighter and more easily deliverable nuclear warheads. Plentiful new uranium deposits have also been discovered in central Iran.” If Europe was a powder-keg in the summer of 1914, the Middle East is sitting on enough explosives in 2010 to knock the Earth off its axis.
Iran’s rapid progress in developing a bomb will not be news to President Obama, whose response has been to push for more – thought not necessarily tougher — sanctions. Those who favor this so-far fruitless approach should read Steve Stecklow’s recent story in the Wall Street Journal concerning the U.N.’s supposed campaign to freeze Iranian bank assets. Turns out that a total of $43 million has been frozen in the U.S. to date — equivalent to about a quarter of what Iran earns on oil revenue in a single day. So much for the West’s ability to rein in a rogue state by, so to speak, repossessing its furniture.
Throwing in the Towel
For his part, Israeli Prime Minster Netanyahu appears to have thrown in the towel on sanctions, boycotting a U.S.-sponsored summit on nuclear terror that opened yesterday in Washington. That Netanyahu may have given up on diplomacy is significant, since he may ultimately have more say than Mr. Obama concerning what is to be done about Iran. Would Israel go to war to prevent the mullahs from getting the bomb? There are a dozen compelling reasons to think they would not — and should not. But in the eyes of Israel, at least, it’s possible that none of the reasons trumps the existential concern of survival. In any event, it’s clear that Netanyahu does not believe President Obama has Israel’s interests at heart. Obama’s approval rating is at 4% in Israel and presumably still sinking. And while Netanyahu is surely aware that a move against Iran could ignite a global conflagration, it must be assumed he is weighing that possibility against one that must seem even more threatening to him – i.e., that fanatics who have vowed to annihilate Israel could soon be capable of making good on their promise.
If war were to break out, falling stock prices would be well down the list of the world’s worries. But if you’ve been looking for the Black Swan that could end the stock market’s thinly supported, 13-month rally, odds of a hellish outbreak in the Middle East are not exactly remote. A Rick’s Picks subscriber who lives in Israel noted in the chat room yesterday that troop maneuvers on both sides of the border with Syria have been unusually intense for this time of year. If “serious sanction” against Iran are not enacted soon, he said, “we’re going to war.”
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Israel’s Jewish problem in Tehran
Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 6 August 2007
“There is an interesting problem with selling the “Iran as Nazi Germany” line. If Ahmadinejad really is Hitler, ready to commit genocide against Israel’s Jews as soon as he can get his hands on a nuclear weapon, why are some 25,000 Jews living peacefully in Iran and more than reluctant to leave despite repeated enticements from Israel and American Jews?”
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Jews are funny that way, Jacques. Hitler’s race laws were first promulgated in 1935, stripping German and Austrian Jews of all civil rights. There were about 500,000 Jews in Germany at the time, but that number had not significantly decreased by 1938 (the year of Kristallknacht). You’d think the Jews would have seen the handwriting on the wall; but as we know, most didn’t, and they eventually died in concentration camps. Today in Iran, occasional show trials aside, the mullahs have been much easier on Jews than Hitler was. Perhaps that explains the seeming complacency of those who have remained there. Considering that Israel would welcome them with open arms, one can only surmise that Iran’s Jews are out of their minds. RA