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I was reading yesterday an article about the possibilities of air strikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities and how for the moment, these would have to go on hold because of the current stage of events in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The assumption seems to be that it is the Israelis supplied and supported by the Americans would actually carry out the raids in “due course”.

Now whilst I agree that the Iranians are annoying little mindless shits and there would be very few tears shed here or in the Middle East if they got a severe kicking. However if you stand back for a moment and think about it, does any of this make much sense ? The more I think about it, the less it seems to and what is almost certain is that this is not a simple black and white issue.

Forget Mr Gobby Dinner Jacket…

Over the decades we have become used to Middle Eastern Leaders shooting their mouths off over this or that and too often for all their bragging and noise, there is little substance to what they say. Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction turned out not to exist which fact effectively damaged both Blair and Bush, probably fatally in a political sense. So what to make of the supposition that Iran is going to build a nuclear arsenal and what is the truth behind it all ? Are the words coming out of Iran, words of strength – “This is our intent…” or fear – “We feel threatened by…”

Iran

There are several factors at play here the most important of which being that Iran is not one Government that controls all actions, Iran has a series of ‘power bases’ that act independently, the Clerics do not control the Revolutionary Guard for example and so on.

Although as Persians they are not considered Arabs, they are Muslim and as such, for them too Jerusalem is a “Holy Place” so are they likely to launch a nuclear strike, even if they had the capability, on Israel ? Probably not any more likely than them launching one on Mecca. As their recent “mass launching “of missiles, the key element in a credible ‘nuke’ strategy showed, their capability is very limited in this area their technology little better than Scud Mk IIIa.

From a military perspective, if the threat from Iran was for missile launched nuclear weapons, the West can afford to wait because their response would be via nuclear strikes probably submarine launched, 30 minutes and it is all over along with all traces of a once great civilisation and even the least intelligent member of the Iranian ruling elite must be aware of that. Besides which, Israel isn’t Iran’s real threat. The Iranians know that sooner or later the Arabs will turn on them so a nuke capability as a “threat” is more likely to do with that eventuality rather than “wiping Israel off the map” which is a moronic statement to say the least.

The Threat

The real threat from the Iranians lies in their support for militant Islamic groups whether Hezbollah, the Taliban or Insurgents in Iraq and their proven willingness to arm and fund them, mind you the Saudis are not averse to funding such people by surreptitious means either but then again, that may be just paying DaneGeld.

The direct threat to the West is that the Iranians will pass both the material and expertise to construct and detonate ‘dirty radioactive bombs’ on the streets of London, New York, Paris, Berlin and so on which is what we really have to deal with. Unfortunately through the Revolutionary Guard ‘upgrading IEDs to ‘insurgents’ in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we already know that the Iranians are “Slack Alice’s” in this context and never to be trusted.

Looking for Solutions

If we take a cold view of the current situation, the problem for the “West” is that energy supplies based upon oil and gas are “owned” by unfriendly, politically and commercially unreliable countries such as Iran, Russia, Venezuela and so on which was not a ‘problem’ whilst the “West” was the only market but is today with a booming China and, to a lesser extent, India.

The real solution for the West lies in taking a totally “military and strategic view” of energy supplies regardless of financial cost so that we arrive at energy security independent of the Middle East, Russia, Nigeria and so on. We are unlikely to eradicate the need for oil but making ourselves self sufficient from sources we control in the Anglo sphere – whether Canadian Tar Sands, Alaska and “our” Off-Shore etc. will drive the cost of energy supplies right down and give our economies “breathing space”, in other words:

Be ready and armed for war but set out to win it by marginalising the importance of the current energy producers and therefore their income and economic control – as if they have any !!!. Rather than conventional warfare, we can win this one through our Engineers, Chemists and Physicists designing and building sustainable energy and transport technologies plus, maximising what ‘conventional’ energy sources we have already available to us.