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W. J. Hennigan reports at the LA Times that as diplomats rush to reach an agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program, the US military is stockpiling conventional bombs so powerful that strategists say they could cripple Tehran's most heavily fortified nuclear complexes. The bunker-busting bombs are America's most destructive munitions short of atomic weapons and at 15 tons, each is 5 tons heavier than any other bomb in the US arsenal. "The Pentagon continues to be focused on being able to provide military options for Iran if needed," says a senior US official. "We have not taken our eyes off the ball."
Obama has made it clear that he has no desire to order an attack, warning that US airstrikes on Iran's air defense network and nuclear facilities would spark a destabilizing new war in the Middle East, and would only delay Iran by several years should it choose to build a bomb. "A military solution will not fix it," says Obama. An attack "would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program, but it will not eliminate it." That being said the latest iteration of the massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) was successfully tested on a deeply buried target in January at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The test followed upgrades to the bomb's guidance system and electronics to stop jammers from sending it off course. B-2 stealth bombers would be required to drop the MOP, which is designed to burrow 200 feet underground before it detonates. Multiple MOPs probably would be aimed at the same target to bore deeper and achieve maximum destruction. A US attack could spark a broader war in the world's most volatile region. Iran has hundreds of medium-range missiles capable of hitting Israel, Jordan and other American allies, according to defense intelligence estimates. "It would create huge problems," says Michael E. O'Hanlon. "That said, it's hard to rule out if talks fail."
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday July 11 2015, @02:55AM
I know many Iranians. I regard every last one of them as a wonderful human being. I also correspond with Iranians via email and linkedin inmail.
Iranians are heavily into my piano music.
I once had a cat named Pishi, Persian for cute cat, or kitty-cat. She was named by Kori Gandehari, a claassmate at Caltech. His uncle taught me Linear Algebra at UC Davis.
My cousin glenn thobe is a physicist and electrical engineer. He is also fluent in Russian. Because he "had some connections in the State Department" he was invited on a five month unescorted visit to the Soviet Union at a time when Communists were far more afraid if Americans than Americans were ever afraid of Russians.
If you want to prevent the senseless murders of tens of millions, make friends with an Iranian, they are effusively friendly, gentle and thoughtful people. Chances are they speakEnglish better than you do.
If you want to know why Iran feels the need to defend itself, study uts history.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:30AM
I also know several people from Iran. Wonderful people as you say, but its not the common people of Iran we need to worry about, its the Theocracy in control of the country that is the cause for concern. A government that believes that all the world should be Shiite Muslim, follow Shari laws, and that Jews should be eradicated from the face of the Earth.
Of course the American government is just as bad in similar ways, as are all governments in general, they all believe that the rest of the world would be a better place if everywhere was just like their country.
I've studied Iran's history, and everyone else should too. As you point out Iran has reason to feel the need to arm themselves against Western governments,
Once Iran has nuclear devices there is a great risk that one of them would end up in the hands of some militant group or another. The MAD doctrine during the cold war that kept the USA and USSR in check and prevented the use of nukes by either government no longer applies. I don't support the use of military force, Sun Tzu said that if a leader has to send in the army to win a fight they have failed not only to win a way but also as a leader.
We need to keep working at a diplomatic solution until we work something out, until some group of radicals use a nuke somewhere. And then all F'n Hell is going to break loose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2015, @05:57AM
[Iran believes] that Jews should be eradicated from the face of the Earth.
Looking back on the last 50 years, one could just as easily substitute "Israel" and "Palestinians" so that's not exactly saying much.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 11 2015, @06:25AM
Of course the American government is just as bad in similar ways, as are all governments in general, they all believe that the rest of the world would be a better place if everywhere was just like their country.
I've never ever heard that expressed by any american government official at any level. Are you sure you didn't just make that up out of pure hate? Seems to me the US government goes to extraordinary lengths to preserve other cultures, even to the point of declaring it a hate crime to insult or discriminate against another culture.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by penguinoid on Saturday July 11 2015, @09:12AM
Laws are one of America's few exports.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @05:03PM
The U.S. is the second largest merchandise exporting country in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2015, @10:56AM
What about spreading democracy or instigating overthrow of a country's government?
Political correctness only applies to US citizens. The immigration policies of the US clearly discriminate against some countries and give preferential treatment to others.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Saturday July 11 2015, @12:49PM
You want to know what the government officials actually believe when it comes to the ME? I live next to a conservative college that cranks out a LOT of government officials as well as government think tank types and their beliefs can be summarized as follows....do what Israel says, no matter what, even if it is harmful to the country, because if you don't? Then Jesus won't have a place to park his fluffy cloud and he won't come back.
Dude I WISH I was fucking joking but I'm not, they REALLY believe that shit hard fucking core. you have people in the halls of power basing decisions that will affect millions of lives and an entire region based on a single bit from a 2000+ year old text written by sheep herders. Say what you want about the Muslims being religious whack-a-doodles but sadly we have just as many in power that is just as whack-a-doodle when it comes to religion and in a way I'd say its worse as at least their religious whack-a-doodle beliefs are based on a kind of nationalism, ours gives us shit like AIPAC and our leaders actively subverting our own interests for the interests of a foreign power half the world away because a book written in that region thousands of years ago says a certain area has to have a certain race on it so a dead messiah can float down from the sky!
So even if we were to switch to 100% renewables, even if we never took a drop of oil from the ME ever again (which last I checked we are getting ours from Canada and South America not the ME) it really wouldn't matter, we'd still be starting shit because a section of the most powerful elites believe it is the "sacred mission" of the USA to be the attack dog for Israel and to do what they say, no matter what.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday July 12 2015, @09:25AM
No, there's not. If there's one thing a fanatic won't trust, it's another fanatic. There's a really good chance the fanatic you want to hand a nuclear weapon to will wind up using it on you because you're not pure enough.
Plus, having invested that much time and energy in developing a nuke, would you just hand it to crazy Bob who probably would fuck it up and nuke himself instead? No, that makes no sense.
A country like Iran, as crazy and irrational as American media likes to make them out to be, is not at all crazy and irrational. First, owing to the aforementioned time and effort to procure those weapons, they're not going to do anything but keep them under their very immediate and very direct control. Second, is it so crazy and irrational, really, to arm yourself against a crazy, irrational regional nemesis that itself has over 200 nuclear weapons and very, very frequently bombs the crap out of men, women, and children who live in adjacent countries (that's Israel, for those of you who missed it)? I think not.
It's not even crazy or irrational to arm yourself against America, which has A) Assassinated your democratically elected leaders, B) incited your regional rival Iraq and that wonderful human being Saddam Hussein to invade you and spark a devastating war that erased an entire generation of your young men, C) has wink-wink given your other crazy regional rival nukes, no questions asked, D) invaded the country on your eastern border once, and E) invaded the country on your western border twice, and F) has undertaken a decades-long jihad to destroy your economy through sanctions. I put it to you that rarely has any country had so many 100% sound causus belli (Latinists check my grammer?...) to get nukes.
Me, taking my 'Murica fuck yeah! glasses off, which I quite like to do on a regular basis, see no reason to do anything with Iran but leave them the hell alone to live in peace.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Saturday July 11 2015, @10:54AM
I am glad you wrote this. Americans only ever get served a view of nations in the Middle East filtered heavily through xenophobia and bullshit. Before the first time I travelled to Turkey (yes, it's in Asia Minor not the Middle East but it gets lumped in in the American popular imagination) I had real trepidation because of their historical reputation for bloodthirsty, brutal behavior. What I encountered was *the* kindest, gentlest, most hospitable people on Earth, bar none. They make the Thai look like a bunch of dicks.
Likewise I believe Iranians get a bum rap. First, the vast majority of Americans probably have no idea they're not Arabs, and that Persian/Farsi is an Indo-European language, not a Semitic one. (Much like they have no idea that Turks are not Arabs and that they're more closely related to Mongolians than Arabs, with a language from the Altaic group not the Semitic group). They are more related to the West than they are to Arabs, and we to them. Americans probably also have no idea that Persia, which is what we now call Iran, was the Roman Empire before there was a Roman Empire, and have an extremely deep, cultured history of refinement, poetry, math, engineering, and beauty. The ancient Greeks, whom many in the US have been recently lauding for their contributions to civilization, were pikers next to the Persians. Persians are the exact opposite of what any reasonable person could call a barbarian.
How fresh and pleasant it would be for bigots to stop hating and actually learn about the people they so often and so blithely talk about exterminating.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2015, @12:27PM
Great. So you know many people who won't kill you for insulting their religion.
Pity there are millions of others over there who will.
Unfortunately we now have a significant percentage here. How long until we have middle east "difficulties" (muslim vs muslim) here?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2015, @01:05PM
Why do you find it important or useful to insult someone's religion in the name of what you currently call freedom?
In some places it is wrong to insult religion. In other places it is wrong to insult capitalism, communism.
Why don't you go visit DPRK and insult their leader?
Unfortunately we now have a significant percentage here
Where is "here"?
Why is "here" more important than "there"?
People like you need to get an education.