Mike Cohen - At Large

Oh-boy another clock!!!!

209 days and counting down.... See it here - www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/Iran

looking at the site - a favorite site of mine when I was foreign producer/editor for a Philippine network's morning show something caught my eye. It probably was there before - a clock showing a count down to conflict or airstrikes versus Iran by the United States.


When I looked today it was a little over 200 days to conflict...

It may seem strange but looking at the present statements from Iran's leadership on the need to acquire nuclear technology one can expect the clock to speed up a bit.

It is clear no mater who you ask in Iraq that there has been support by Iranian interests for insurgents in Iraq- albeit - untraceable directly to government - a BBC report a few weeks back showed near the border at Basra interceptions of components that were believed to have been parts for IED's.

The same can be said for Afghanistan... Where reports increasingly are that some form of aid to hold-outs have been seen and heard and weapons and other goods transported into the afghan wilderness.
Looking at the clock, countdown, or, timer some dates were mentioned;

SOURCE: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/Iran-timeline.htm

7 November 2006
The US Congressional elections of 2006 will be held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006. It is unclear how the United States election cycle would influence the timing of strikes against Iran. If the White House is risk averse, it would be unlikely to launch strikes in the run-up to the 2006 election [or the 2008 election]. However, as soon as the election concludes, risk averse domestic political inhibitions about the uncertain consequences of striking Iran might be greatly diminished. Alternately, it might be conjectured that the White House might judge that military strikes would rally the country around the President and his party. This would argue for timing the strikes as little as a week before the election, a pre-planned October Surprise.

2006
Some analysts predict that Iran could acquire a nuclear weapon as early as 2006. As of mid-2003 the CIA reportedly assessed that Iran was two or three years away from developing nuclear weapons. IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei told Der Spiegel 21 February 2005 that if Iran was determined to have nuclear weapons - as the US believes it is - it was “likely to have a bomb in two or three years”. These estimates would seem rather pessimistic. A more realistic date would seem to be around 2010.

2007 The year 2007 begins to mark the closing of the window of opportunity for military strkes against Iran.

I hope things come to better alternative than what has happened in Iraq- the consensus among many is that Iran's leaders feel trapped between Iraq on one side and Afghanistan on the other seeing a very likely scenario that the US can hit them from either side and of course the sea if needed.

The Gulf & Hormutz...

Iran however does have a Navy and recently did develop a version of rocket powered submarine launched torpedo that is a variant of russian design- the design - which is based on a rocket powered torpedo that exploded in tests causing the Kursk disaster.

The Iranian test was publicly broadcast and its obvious intent was to show their technological prowess and capability - Iraq did not posses- building weapon deigned ed for Naval warfare- Iraq has tiny coastline with the Gulf and this was never high on Saddams priority list.

Iran does have Six Kilo Class Submaries most have been recently delivered and are new... Iran's Naval forces are more advanced in both riverine and coastal warfare skills if the Iran-Iraq war were to be an example.

The only thing Iraq was better at was using it's Air Force and at that time Iran under US-UK-UN sanctions could do little except doing swap deals with the contra's for spare parts for its own air force.

But even thus hindred they were able to control Iraq's small coastal fleet.

But a rocket powered torpedoes aside - any phase of any air or ground operations is made difficult by Iran's more advanced weapon technologygy programs which have not - like Iraq's under Saddam - been saddled by sanctions over the last decade prior to the conflict.

Iran's Military Industrial complex is at least by report very advanced..Youou can see more on the weapons and development programs that include advanced fighter aircraft designs.

Iran also has very close ties and is the major consumer of Russian and Chinese arms industry firms making them very adapt and more modern itheirer capabilities - also - any actions would most likely not be supported by the UN or rest of the World - even America's mosstaunchestst allies in NATO might stand aside if a conflict were to develop.

So far it has all been talk- but a clock still is ticking..Letsts hope it's stopwatch that will be stopped and reset toward peace in a region too long in conflict!!!
philippines news-and-politics