the consequences of an attack on Iran

Iran has recently rejected the IAEA-backed proposal regarding it's nuclear program, with the major failure of nuclear talks (that started last October) from both sides.

Along with this Israel has been the biggest hypocrite of all time calling for the disablement of Iran's nuclear program by force "if required", whilst ignoring the fact that they themselves illegally possess nuclear weapons of their own.

A preemptive long range strike (probably primarily against the Nantanz enrichment facility) by the Israeli Air Force sadly still isn't a far cry from reality.



Which most likely will be in the former of an Operation Opera style attack primarily using Israeli F-15's and F-16's.

However regardless of how serious this attack is on the Iranian public (even if the attack is only meant to knock out a few compounds) I somehow doubt the current regime in Iran will treat it like the Syrians did on a recent Israeli air strike against them.

Iran geographically lies on in western Southeast Asia and most of it's eastern border is on the oil rich Persian Gulf, it is right in the centre of Eurasia which is as put by Dick Cheney "the fertile choke point of civilization."

If attacked for stupid and arrogant reasons by Israel, if Iran then chooses to prevail (rightfully so) this could result (very likely) in disastrous consequences.

The first response would probably be a retaliatory missile strike against Israel using Shahab 3 and Sejil 2 ballistic missiles.



These will probably be launched at neither Israeli air force bases where the attacking planes originated from or at Dimona where Israel's own nuclear weapons are stored rather than at major Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv and Haifa, however this could change regarding the circumstances of the Israeli attack.

However one has doubts that Iran will repeat recent history, such as the Scud strikes from Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1991, which saw 32 missiles launched mainly at Tel Aviv and Haifa, two people were killed in these strikes, several were wounded and quite a lot of property was damaged, but in the end it was nothing compared to what it was built up to be.



The days following an Israeli attack (regarding what voices are speaking in Tehran) would probably see increased attacks from groups such as Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon against Israeli forces in the Shebba Farms.

Major attacks against British and American soldiers in their bases in the south of Iraq from Shia sympathizers (some 13,000,000 of them in the south of Iraq), several of whom are in underground groups just waiting for their moment to strike, this could see the American and British soldiers in the regions dying after fighting against unbelievable odds from the masses directly backed by their neighboring Iran.

And last but far from least.



If Iran feels continually threatened after a first strike and if the United States continually backs Israel after it's preemptive attack Iran will probably to the best of it's ability close off and burn the oil reserves in the Persian Gulf, along with devastating attacks that could destroy oil refineries in the Emirate countries, attacks against Saudi Arabia could be very likely if they turn a blind eye to Israeli F-16's flying through their air space to strike Iran!

Following such attacks oil at $100 a barrel would look like an unbelievable bargain!

At the end of the day western hypocrisy and one sided support for Israel will be to blame for the acts Iran will be forced to carry out to ensure it's self defence!

the Saudis recent military endeavors

During Operation Desert Shield the US sent a large troop contingent to Saudi Arabia promising to remove them once the war ended. After the war, the troops remained, helping secure the country.

The Saudis weren't very tolerent of the foreign fighters on their land and now with rivalry with Iran and the fact that Saudi is the main supplier of energy in the world market and not wanting sinful foreign soldiers defending their lands they have shown some recent military endeavors.



First came the deal to buy 72 Eurofighters for over £4 billion pounds while then considering ordering a further 72 (may be 72 Boeing F-15E's instead) boosts their air power to that of the strongest in the region.
That is just air power.
Add older aircraft such as the Panavia Tornadoes onto that that are still in storage as a means of attrition (in case it comes to that).

Now onto the ground forces, the Saudis never had an overly big army, this may change in the mere future as it intends to be able to mount its own powerful regional force, just last year Saudi Arabia and Russia signed a “framework agreement for military cooperation” that opened the way for Saudi Arabia to buy Russian arms.



This means for $2 billion the Saudis will receive the following military hardware:

* 30 Mi-35 attack helicopters
* 120 Mi-17 'Hip' utility helicopters
* 150 T-90S main battle tanks
* 250 BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs).
* "several" dozen S-400 missile defense systems

The S-400 is an impressive system (much better than the Patriot that failed to protect the US barracks at Dharan during the Gulf War) that was originally intended for Iran, it seems the Saudis are trying to buy the Russians interest with a much bigger arms contract!

a no tolerance policy

In August of 1990 when Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait the US launched Operation Desert Shield channeling American air, sea and ground forces into and around Saudi Arabia on the pretext first of preventing Saddam from launching an invasion there as well:



This saw a mass deployment of US troops onto Saudi territory, however even though the Saudis were happy to "rent" a superpower to do all the necessary fighting it wasn't ready to tolerate the various faiths of the foreign soldiers that were ready to fight and die for their land!

Not only were coalition troops on station in Saudi Arabia not allowed to drink any alcohol, they were also not allowed any Bibles, Saudi customs officers confiscated Bibles, the Jewish soldiers were not allowed hold any religious services on Saudi territory.

The Americans found a way around this by instead sending the Jewish soldiers via helicopter to ships in the Gulf to hold their services there instead!

Before the January 15th UN deadline date was announced for Saddam to pull his forces out of Kuwait Operation Desert Shield was expected at the time to last a long time, the large coalition military presence was indeed very costly to maintain.



* $1.2 billion a month for the American military machine
* $2.2 billion for the large amount of air power
* $4 billion for the Muslim allies sent to the Saudi Desert

All of this and the fact that the coalition forces (comprising of Western GIs) helped neutralize Saddam Hussein's Iraq and in turn ensure Saudi Arabia's safety, while despite this their way of life wasn't even tolerated!

the curious case of the BAe Saudi arms deal

It was revealed in 2006 that Saudi Arabia had agreed to buy 72 Eurofighter Typhoon F-2 fighter jets off BAe (British Aerospace) would produce these aircraft and sell them to the Saudi's for £5 billion pounds, that would make it the biggest arms deal in British history.

Right from the start it was to be shrouded in acrimony and controversy, later in the year the Saudis threatened to instead to pull out of the deal and buy some French Rafales when a UK Serious Fraud Office investigation into the Al Yamamah ("the dove") defence deals, but even though there was a serious amount of controversy the deals kicked on regardless.



24 these aircraft will be at the Tranche 2 build standard, previously destined for the UK RAF, the first being delivered in 2008 (Saudi Arabia currently have two already). The remaining 48 aircraft will be assembled in Saudi Arabia and delivered from 2011.

Saudi Arabia are even thinking of buying some 24 more jets in the mere future or as some other reports suggest as high as another 60 or even 70!



British Aerospace has long been the subject of allegations of bribery in relation to its business in Saudi Arabia, the Al Yamamah arms sales in the 1990's saw them sell Saudi Arabia 24 of their Panavia Tornado ADV's, BAe was accused of maintaining a £60 million Saudi slush fund, however investigations into these have been discontinued in 2006 when the deal for the Typhoon came to life.

It's attorney general has stated that the deal was in the public's interest since it was "to safeguard national and international security", probably meaning the security of the strategic and oil significance of Saudi Arabia and the significance of the amount of money anyone on the British side of the deal gets to pocket!



It also sees Saudi Arabia acquring a significantly hi-tech airplane, better than anything and in more quantity than anything that it's neighbors currently possess.

The United States Department of Justice gave its approval for the sale that was needed because the Eurofighter contains a significant amount of American technology and the United States does ironically own most of BAe meaning that BAe need American permission to build such planes to defend British skies!

Now pity they wouldn't stop bullying Sukhoi and let them give Iran some Su-30 Flankers!

religion in this 21st century

In this new 21st century there are more atheists arising in western society than any other time in history, technology (specifically the internet) has made the world much much smaller, anyone from anywhere can talk to anyone from anywhere (except North Koreans of course).

Everyday advances are made in science (which in itself is slowly proving creationism and other aspects of Christianity to be falsehoods), so when we hear in the news that some Saudi family is suing a genie over alleged harassment and then having a court coming to the conclusion from medical sciences that Epilepsy is not caused by evil genies many of us make the ignorant assumption that Saudi Arabia is a backward cave society that just found its way out of the 7th Century.

That however could not be further from the truth, Saudi Arabia has a society well advanced from their Nomad heritage!



A lot of their wealth comes their vast amounts of oil reserves that they sell in large amounts mainly to the United States who are close friends with them, however the Saudi's didn't like US troop bases in their country at all!
Which is why in 2003 American forces pulled out not to strain political relations.

The thing is religion seems to be part of the state over there, it has an infamous religious police called the mutaween, who have the power to arrest unrelated men and women caught socializing, seize products regarded as "un-Islamic" and strongly enforce how Muslims dress and what they eat!

In March 2002, they forcibly barred schoolgirls from escaping a burning school in Mecca because the girls were not wearing head scarves and black coats. Consequently, 15 girls died and 50 were injured!

Reading that last paragraph and thinking about it really does put a lump in my throat!

King Abdallah had this to say a few days ago:

"If God wills it, we will then meet with our brothers from other religions, including those of the Torah and the Gospel to come up with ways to safeguard humanity," he added. The king, who is the guardian of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, said the major faiths shared a desire to combat "the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world"...

According to the official Saudi Press Agency King Abdullah said "I have noticed that the family system has weakened and that atheism has increased. That is an unacceptable behavior to all religions, to the Koran, the Torah and the Bible. We ask God to save humanity. There is a lack of ethics, loyalty and sincerity for our religions and humanity."

This comes at the same time they are having more stricter measures on what Saudi people can view or read off the internet, internet activity in internet cafes is being strictly monitored and some 10,000 websites are blocked every month!
It's almost like the Saudi monarchy fear that its people might become self aware or become infected from that malignant disease that sometimes enters the human brain known simply as common sense.


I actually saw this sign in Dublin!

People should be free of that kind of stuff, I don't mind religions imposing their will in the media to the general public (even though it can be used to dumb down people significantly) but changing the law to meet a religions demands of standards, that is when you know society is going further and further back into the Dark Ages, I thought I couldn't be more upset with my country after they introduced that blasphemy law, and picked the time when we were getting poorer and knee deep in a recession to do it!

Anyway I think I've done enough ranting.

Bottom Line: Religion is what you feel in your heart, it doesn't have to be what you feel in your head, but if you don't honestly feel anything in your heart you're an atheist, you're not cold hearted, you might be a little further up there on the productivity scale but you shouldn't as a human be forced into anything you don't believe in.

Life is far too short for that!

An Iran Saudi Arabian conflict

Saudi Arabia doesn't have an overly big army, it came under attack once in the 20th century from Iraq in 1991 at the opening of Operation Desert Storm when several conventional Scud missiles were launched at major cities including the capital Riyadh, while these resulted in only minor deaths the Saudis didn't have to exactly fight to defend themselves, since the vast amounts of oil in Saudi Arabia (and the fact Kuwait needed to be liberated) meant the US and Britain backed them to no ends to which they would do today.



That means they still buy up hi technology (mostly air power) and have even recently ordered 72 Eurofighter Typhoon F-2s, (simply enormous aerial defence logistics), but think about this, the last time Iran was buying high technology from the US was during the Shah's time in which he had paid for 150 F-16's which were canceled and transferred to Israel and Pakistan after the revolution.

Ayatollah Khomeini had proclaimed Saudi Arabia as well as Israel at certain points of time making Saudi Arabia a potential enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran at the time was arranging its military forces executing many generals and 'Shah pilots' when Iraq attacked, several countries armed Iraq in its bloody eight year war against Iran.

Unlike the Saudi's limited (and heavily publicized) victories in Operation Desert Storm the IRIAF (Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force) got barely any recognition of its achievements, 300 engagements were fought alone over Khark Island with Iranian F-14 Tomcats and F-4 Phantom II's against Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1's (bought from France) and several older MiG's, a ratio of 5 to 1 against Iran at the start of the war!



With no spare parts to keep the F-14 airframes intact several were cannibalized and only in the Iran Contra Affair in 1985 were spare parts for their AIM-54 Phoenix missiles acquired, because of these sanctions the Iranian Air Force was slowly being starved out of existence.



But early in the war they had proven their worth in Operation Kaman 99 and in other small instances (such as the Sultan Strike), it was in 1987 a week after the US (for the second time since 1984) stated that the Iranian Air Force was completely dead, that two F-14's using an F-4 as bait lured a strike package of Iraqi Su-22's heading for Khark Island led by two Mirage F-1's hit the lead Mirage from nearly 50 miles away with an AIM-54 head on killing their flight leader and recorded the other pilots scream in Arabic "F-14! Run! Run!" before doing just that!

You might be wondering where I'm going with this, well where I'm going with this is that Iran under heavy sanctions from the west (and only air defence and MiG-29's bought from the east) would inflict serious damage on Saudi Arabia which are backed by continue to buy the latest military hardware straight from Europe and America.

Iran pretty much relies on itself and has made hundreds of conventional ballistic missiles, air to air missiles for their F-14's and F-4's and have even managed to make several aircraft like the F-5 called the Saeqeh.

Through sheer determination they managed to defeat overwhelming odds they managed to become nearly completely self sufficient in their military (while Israel and Saudi Arabia rely completely on the United States and Europe) and you can be guaranteed if Saudi Arabia and Iran ended up fighting a war (probably air to air ship to ship across the Persian Gulf) Iran would stand it's own and again prove that self determination and courage will win them any war regardless of the odds against them!