Last year, I visited Mlitta, a town in southern Lebanon which Hezbollah has turned into its version of an evil Disneyworld. One of the displays featured huge poster boards sporting Google Earth images of “the next targets.”
In his Alef article, Ali Reza Forqani, an ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader, goes further. After justifying a war against Israel, Ali Reza Forqani delves into how Iran should conduct its war:
Israel must come under heavy military strikes from the first blows until the last. The first step of the first stage of Iran’s military attack on Israel must lead to the annihilation of ground zero points in Israel. Iran can use its long-range missiles to accomplish this task. The distance from Iran’s eastern most point to western most point of Israel is about 2,600 kilometers. The Israeli targets deep inside Israeli territory are well within the reach of Iran’s conventional missiles.
Lest anyone misread Iran’s intent, in a section subtitled “People of Israel must be Annihilated,” Forqani outlines how to conduct genocide:
The residents of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa can be targeted even by Shahab-3 missiles. These three areas which are located very close to each other are very densely populated and the population there accounts for about 60 percent of Israel’s entire population. Therefore, it is possible to use Sajjil missiles to target the infrastructures in this area including power plants, fuel and energy installations, water and sewage treatment facilities, transportation and communication infrastructures; and in the next stage Shahab-3, Ghadr and Ashura missiles can be used to target and strike residential areas in the cities until the final annihilation of the people of Israel.
He then outlines Iran’s missile capability, explaining how Iran could best exploit each missile in its arsenal and bragging that used properly, “Iran Could Destroy Israel in Less Than Nine Minutes.” That the Iranians might soon be able to fit the Sajjil with nuclear warheads should only heighten concern.
Iran may be lots of things; deterrable does not appear to be one of them.
Considering these are scenario's in case Iran is attacked first, it does seem they understand the concept of MAD. Because with their ability to destroy Israel in 9 minutes right now, if that was their intent and they didn't care about repercussions, they'd have attacked and killed you all already. You can't blame them for this kind of response after hearing for the last decade or so that they're part of an axis of evil and that all military options are on the table against them. And it also sounds like they're doing a good job of deterring Israel from attacking them too. The MAD concept works. Even the worst of dictators would like to live and dictate another day.
so let us hope that there is no war, and all these politicians stop their threats against each other when we know it's all rhetoric and either side would be stupid to actually do anything. Cheers bud.
First, don't believe for a moment it is only "if Iran is attacked first". Second, they try to pull this crap off, they will be vaporized in a flat minute. Stop dreaming. Gosh, why would they be called "an axis of evil"? Maybe because they voluntarily without coercion took on the genocidal Jew-killing predilections of the original Axis. But in any event, no, the deterrence comes not from the perpetually self-inflating assets of iran itself but the conventional mass-produced artillery-rocket assets of the Hezzies. This Shabib-3 stuff is not intended as deterrent but as a wishful-thinking peek into ICBM offense. And, if tried, Iran will cease to exist as a state entity.
WWPBD? (What Would Peter Beinart Do?) Of course I know the leftist answer to this. "Farsi is bar none the most complicated complex ineffable vague and untranslatable language in the history of people, what was really meant was they would shower the Jews with candy.
And if the quote is as presented the reference was made to "the people of Israel" rather that the usual "Zionist regime." See, they really do want peaceful co-existence.
As long as we can agree that an Israel ethnically cleansed of all Jews, particularly the Jew free Palestinian paradise where all historical record of Jews even having existed has been erased and any and all contact with any Jews anywhere on the planet at any time unto the end of time shall be punished by death…..then yes, we agree.
Michael Rubin is absolutely right. This is a regime that wants to kill every last Israeli and Jew and to bring an end to humanity through its apocalyptic visions of the “return of the hidden imam” which guides it at its very core. The only solution is to support the Iranian people in getting rid of this terrorist, fanatical, and illegal regime. In contrast to these maniacs, the Iranian people have no qualms with Israel and recognize the legitimate sovereignty of Israelis and the right of Israeli to exist.
If Iran should ever fit the Sajjil with nuclear warheads and word gets out before they use them, we can look forward to some interesting at-length rationalizing from Team O before the adults in the Middle East pull the plug.