Upping the Ante

With apologies to Lerner and Lowe in Camelot:

“I wonder Iran is thinking tonight?
What merriment is Iraq pursuing, tonight?
The candles in their war rooms never burned so bright.
I wonder what Kim Jong Il is doing…to…NIGHT?”

One can only suppose that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally worked out how to deal with Obama: stop making concessions–and rattle submarines loaded with nuclear missiles.

Netanyahu’s masochistic and ill-advised voluntary freeze on building for the better part of a year evoked further demands from Obama not to build in Jerusalem, constant acts and speeches against Israel’s best interests, virtual support for Iran, lavish gifts of anti-missile missiles to hostile nations bordering Israel, and spending twenty million dollars to adopt 100,000 Hamas who will doubtless cost the USA many more billions and up the current average of eighty terrorist acts per year on our soil.

After treating Mr. Netanyahu with egregious contempt during previous visits Obama has offered a reasonable facsimile of a full state visit, and the Prime Minister says coolly that he wants a joint press conference guaranteed, something which should have been included anyway. WHY this sudden urge to make nice on the part of Obama? Caroline Glick posited recently that donations to Democratic candidates from the American Jewish community are down considerably, it having transpired that the vocal group had given us a mistaken impression that all American Jews are ultra-liberals who have no interest in preserving Israel and can’t see what the fuss is over about giving up “just a little more land” “to ensure peace” from a country smaller than most American cities surrounded by deadly enemies who have been frothing at the mouth over destroying Israel for nearly sixty-five years.

Hey, policy by fund-raising is one of our dear leader’s few true convictions or skills, if you prefer to think of the matter that way. Whacking Israel whenever possible is a high priority with him, but not as high as filling campaign war chests, so Obama has issued a relatively civil invitation to the Prime Minister after nearly a year and a half of damaging Israel and encouraging her enemies in every way he could think of.

Mr. Netanyahu apparently knows a bit about power politics himself, as shown by this report from Sunday’s The Jerusalem Post:

“Israel is planning to permanently station a submarine carrying nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf.” Way to go, Benjy! That ought to get you a better present than a lousy iPod with The One’s speeches on it, and I suggest you take him a quart of water from the dead sea, a fired 175mm brass shell suitable for use as a vase at the White House, and a box of sand from the Negev with an engraved plaque: “This is all the land we will ever give up; the rest will have to be taken from us.”

The tale does not end there, however. It gets better, at least to this supporter of Israel. The report states that “the government has decided to station at least one of three submarines armed with nuclear missiles permanently within striking distance of Iran in the Persian Gulf.” Others will be in the Red Sea or the Med, with the ability to rotate for maintenance and resupply.

Are we having fun, yet? At the very least we should be feeling safer learning that a sub is currently en route to the Gulf…which does not necessarily preclude one being there already, now, does it?

Google came up with a wealth of interesting information, and I also consulted “Jane’s Intelligence Review” to see what I could learn and surmise about the capabilities of Israel’s three shiny new submarines…and some of the older ones. Dear Charles says that I am the only lady of his acquaintance who ever heard of “Jane’s Fighting Ships,” far less the Intelligence Review, but he and I have an agreement that I never ask him questions about his many years in the Silent Service, and that includes particularly not asking him to comment on any conclusions I draw. So, with the understanding that war-gaming types and those currently serving may gasp or snort contemptuously at my explanations, although I expect I have the basics right, I will do my best to make clear part of what Israel is doing to back up Prime Minister Netanyahu’s gentle statement to the UN a while back that Israel will never allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon.

Most of us know that a submarine is a vessal which can travel underwater for periods of time up to several months and has assorted armament including torpedoes and missiles which can be fired from considerable depths. We intuit claustrophobics need not apply, and that space is the most precious thing on one. I am horrified that the lunatics controlling Washington have decreed that females will now serve on them because conditions will bring the sailors into very close proximity and little privacy. It is bad enough that Obama and Congress are attempting to do away with “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” without setting up a situation where the entire crew could be attracted physically to some other sailor.

We do not know precisely what specifications Israel gave the shipyard in Germany, but there is ample information available on the ‘net about the possible capabilities of the three new Dolphin class submarines to see that these can do significant damage. As submarines go “Dolphin class” aren’t particularly big, although these are reputed to be among the largest in that category. At a bare mimum each will have six twenty-one inch torpedo tubes which can launch either torpedoes or cruise missiles. It is possible that they are fitted out with an additional four tubes to fire 25″ missiles as well. The subs will be able to fire the Tomahawks most of us remember from Gulf War One, as well as Harpoons. The subs may be able to fire Israel’s Popeye missiles, with a 200 mile range and 400 megatons, or Jerichos, with a one-ton payload and a distance up to 3000 miles. Obviously, increased submarine presence is an enormous upgrade in deterence since everyone and his pet camel knows that the other nukes are in the Negev Desert and where Zachariah AFB is. The subs can also strew mines and decoys and fire antiship missiles. (The foregoing facts were taken from Jane’s Intelligence Review, September 1, 2009.) Estimates are that Israel has at least 250 nukes and perhaps as many as 400, and it would only take expending one to make nations of suicide bombers and armies given to sneak attacks rethink their strategies and exert stronger control over their jihadists.

Am I insane, Shooters, to be chortling gleefully over this news? Of course not. America used “we’ve got the bomb” for decades and thought it a splendid deterrent. We will do far better trying to ensure peace in the Middle East if Ahmadinejad, Syria, Hizbollah, and other troublemakers within 3,000 miles really understand that they could become radioactive skating rinks in very short order and from a variety of distances and locations. Israel has been accommodating to the point of risking extinction since 1947, and other than the inxeplicable incident with the Liberty hasn’t done a thing to harm anyone. Time and again their enemies have attacked suddenly without warning, Israel gained territory, and was talked into giving it back later. I am not eligible in any way to become Prime Minister of Israel but there is no way I would ever cede land won in combat, particularly when foes started it, if I were PM. It looks to me as though Prime Minister Netanyahu may be concerned enough about the situation to remind the world blandly that if he chooses he can destroy most of the Middle East effortlessly, and if he moved one of the subs up through the Dardanelles it could hit quite a bit of Russia, and with resupply ships stationed appropriately virtually any target in the world would be possible. Obama and the Muslim leaders appear to be incapable of understanding how much havoc Israel could cause if it chose. With very little effort you could discover from totally public sources how many nuclear warheads each of the subs could carry…and how many older submarines could join the frey. You won’t like the answer.

At worst, supposing one of the three new ones were in port for refit and Israel were spattered without scrambling a single ‘plane or getting off even one land-based missile Israel has the capability to destroy at least most of the Mediterannean basin including the great capitals of Europe, and my analysis and knowledge of human nature say that if somebody pulls a Pearl Harbor, sea-going forces would launch everything they had. This isn’t anything to take lightly, and the sooner assorted rulers who think of little other than annihilating the Jews and Obama and his cohorts figure this out the safer the world will be. We know what America did–and would do again–after the Day of Infamy. This is another instance of MAD–Mutually Assured Destruction. Short of an EMP explosion it would be difficult to harm all of the USA in a single, unexpected strike, but tiny Israel could be destroyed easily by a couple of nukes, and it is obvious that in the death throes would loose everything it had.

This just in: in the wake of a fracus in the Gaza Strip Prime Minister Netanyahu has cut short his visit in Canada and cancelled his trip to Washington. This, I think, tells us much about his state of mind: business at home is more important than diplomatic nonsense which was never likely to produce any sort of real accord or restoration of the relationship that Israel and the USA have had for many decades. The Arab in the White House isn’t interested.

I don’t have room to go into another Gilbert & Sullivan operetta about sentimental dimwits who invade nations that live in perpetual high alert after having “armed” themselves with knives and paint ball guns (No, I did NOT make that up.) but the Israelis didn’t have any difficulty shooting a bunch of them with real weapons once shots were fired at them first and incarcerating the rest. By tomorrow I expect the MSM and statists everywhere to be shrieking in outrage. If Israel has any sense of self-preservation it will harden its resolve and order a couple of more submarines.

What all of this probably means as in increase in hostilities–and an increase in the price of oil. It also means increased likelihood of a crisis that Obama is not even faintly prepared to handle. I do not expect the outbreak of conventional warfare at present, since Israelis have bloodied the noses of assorted invaders for many long decades. Most of the Middle East is not prepared to face widespread death and destruction in their homelands, although there is ample money in OPEC to purchase nuclear weapons from several countries known to deal in such arms. It is high time someone explained to the mullahs that the price of eradicating Israel is far higher than those who may go up in radioactive dust wish to pay, and for “civilized” nations to make clear that their citizens cannot go around committing acts of war and barbarism without suffering the penalties of combat and punishment by their own governments, no matter how “noble” their itentions may have been. Leave attempting to distribute relief supplies to terrorists to the Red Cross, because I only know one paint-baller who has the skills to undertake such a mission, and he not only has too much sense to invade foreign nations, but when he does battle professional soldiers both sides are armed with globs of red, yellow, and blue paint and fighting for glory and improving tactics, with the biggest danger being a bruise or two.

We’ll see what Mr. Market has to say about this, but my instinctive reaction is to fill all of your gasoline tanks quickly, and then (depending upon what PM do) to cash out any gold coins storing scarcity and condition value and replace them with the least expensive form of bullion you can find. If it all goes down a mint-condition 50 Peso or scarce Double Eagle won’t be valued any higher than scrap gold. Fancies are for longterm storage of value, but in dire times the exchange rate will be dismal and you’ll turn a better profit on beans, bacon, and bananas. You wouldn’t like being offered spot minus the dealer’s fee for a $14,000 St. Gaudens.

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham
Whiskey & Gunpowder

June 2, 2010