The U.S. Intelligence community, in its annual Global Threat Assessment, refuted Netanyahu’s oft-repeated claim about Iran building a nuclear weapon stating, “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”
By Dennis KUCINICH
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
In my article, “The High Price of War with Iran: $10 Gas and the Collapse of the U.S. Economy,” I reminded readers of how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been behind the push for America to destroy Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Iran. I reviewed the severe economic consequences for the U.S. if it attacks Iran. Today, I cite the human health and atmospheric effects of a U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear research facilities. The resulting nuclear fallout would bring a catastrophe unprecedented in human history.
Last week, President Trump said “very bad things are going to happen” to Iran, if that nation’s leaders do not sign a new nuclear deal. The President is right. He can make very bad things can happen to Iran.
But Iran is not the only country to which “bad things” are going to happen if Iran’s nuclear research infrastructure is destroyed by the U.S., as is revealed by a careful study of the spread of radiation created by the promised bombings.
America has been Netanyahu’s pawn for decades. Will the wealth, lives and security of our nation be sacrificed yet further to an agenda which brings only debt to our nation and death to innocents abroad?
The return of Donald Trump to the White House for a second term has enabled Netanyahu’s right-wing party to accelerate the pulverization of Gaza, expand settlements and to repel the Houthis pro-Gaza attacks on Red Sea shipping.
Netanyahu viewed Trump’s first election in 2016 as a new opportunity to topple Iran’s leadership. Trump, in partnership with Netanyahu, withdrew the U.S. from a multi-lateral agreement which limited Iran’s nuclear development in exchange for sanctions relief.
An attack by B-2 bombers on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would destroy the targeted sites, and unleash radioactivity endangering the lives of tens of millions in Iran and hundreds of millions beyond. Due to radioactive drift, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, eastern Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan also would be severely impacted.
In practical terms, given proximity to Iran, and the direction of the wind, high levels of radiation-induced illness, some fatal, and sharp increases in cancer and birth defects would occur. Radiation would contaminate and ruin food supplies, agricultural land, farm animals, and water resources hundreds and even thousands of miles from Iran.
The eastern regions of Turkey, northwestern India, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan would be exposed to moderate contamination. Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Egypt’s Sinai could be affected, depending on the wind.
Israel has long fanned existential fears by conjuring the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran, while being indemnified by the U.S. for its self-styled “defensive” aggression in Gaza, where at least 50,000 Gazans have been killed and over a million Palestinians driven from their homes.
While the widely publicized intent of President Trump to bomb Iran imperils Iran and neighboring countries, it also makes Israel vulnerable to a massive counterstrike from Iran and puts in the bullseye all U.S. troops in the region within 2,500 miles of Iran.
The attack B-2 bombers headed to Iran are designed to carry nuclear “bunker busters” as well as conventional 500 lb gravity bombs. The objective is to take down Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which includes nuclear reactors and research labs. Nukes bombing nukes equals massive radioactive fallout.
“There will be Bombing.”
“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Trump said in a telephone interview this past Sunday with NBC News. “It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Civics lesson: Official threats against another state are a violation of the UN Charter, Article Two, Section 4, which “prohibits the threat or use of force against …. any state.” Both Iran and the US signed and ratified that agreement nearly 80 years ago, in recognition of its organizing principle: “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…”.
It is a war crime to aggress against another country. Under the US Constitution, no president has the right to unilaterally take our nation to war, absent an imminent threat to the United States. The Constitutional Convention placed the war power in the hands of Congress. This was in contrast to the British Crown’s expansion of war for empire.
The litany of reasons not to attack Iran is eerily similar to the reasons America should not have attacked Iraq: Iran is not a threat to the United States. Iran has not attacked the United States. Iran does not have the intention or the ability to attack the United States. That being the case, the opportunities for a false flag incitement are ripe.
Significantly, last week the U.S. Intelligence community, in its annual Global Threat Assessment, refuted Netanyahu’s oft-repeated claim about Iran building a nuclear weapon:
“We continue to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003”.
In the 16 years I spent in Congress, I was often one of the only members who rose to question the Bush Administration’s plans to attack Iran, time and again calling out the dangers of attacking nuclear research facilities and calling for diplomatic means to block Iran’s potential development of a nuclear weapon.
The agreement, arrived on July 14, 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plain of Action (JCPOA). It took the U.S. China, Russia, Germany, France, and the UK thirteen years to craft a workable agreement which limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium to weapons grade. The agreement was a landmark for international cooperation. It put the spectral genie of Iran’s potential development of a nuclear weapon back in the bottle.
That did not satisfy Netanyahu, however. He longed for the toppling of the Iran regime, and continued to hype existential fears among Israelis. Trump cancelled the JCPOA, at Netanyahu’s behest, setting in motion a series of events which may lead the US to attack Iran soon.
From Deal Breaker to Deal Maker?
Scott Ritter a former UN Weapons Inspector and Marine intelligence specialist provides a detailed account of Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, in his book, entitled Deal Breaker.
The JCPOA which Trump took down had blocked Iran’s production of enriched uranium (processed to increase the percentage of uranium-235 (235U) at the Natanz and Fordow nuclear facilities.
It blocked Iran’s development of weapons-grade plutonium and frustrated even covert attempts to produce fissile (capable of undergoing nuclear fission) materials used for nuclear weapons.
Eight years after the cancellation of the JCPOA, President Trump is apparently demanding Iran voluntarily take down its nuclear infrastructure which provides nuclear power, nuclear research and yes, with no JCPOA, can, at this moment, enrich uranium to near–weapons grade.
The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has issued a fatwa (a religious ruling) against the use of nuclear weapons.
The new deal which the President is seeking, at best, could end up looking a lot like the JCPOA, and, at worst, puts him in the position of issuing a non-negotiable demand for Iran to voluntarily take down its nuclear infrastructure, or the US will do it militarily.
Iran has rejected direct negotiations with Washington under such circumstances. It has, however, maintained indirect communication with the U.S. through Oman as the President escalates the threat of a massive bombing attack.
B-2 bombers are in place, equipped with the most powerful weapons in America’s arsenal ready to be activated from Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, 2,400 miles southeast of Iran. The B-2 has the capacity to attack and return to Diego Garcia without refueling.
In someways this showdown with Iran was set in place on July 25, 2024, when Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed Congress. In a spell-binding speech for which he received over 50 standing ovations, Netanyahu skillfully aligned Israel’s and the U.S. policy on Iran:
“If you remember one thing, one thing from this speech, remember this: Our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory,” Mr. Netanyahu declared.
At this point, the measure of consequence needs to be assessed. The only difference between war games, preparing for war and actual war, is in the intent.
Israel intends to destroy Iran and needs the US to do it.
Joint US-Israeli Air Force war games have been held recently in preparation for an attack.
The U.S. has nineteen B-2 bombers. Each cost over $2 billion. Their unique flying wing design, with the plane wrapped in radar-absorbing materials help it avoid detection. The B-2s use sophisticated electronic countermeasures to jam or stymie opposition radar and missiles.
Iran is ill-equipped to defend against the B-2 bombers’ stealth warfare. At best the shortened detection range will limit Iran’s ability to lock onto the B-2 with surface-to-air missiles.
Each B-2 can carry sixteen, 2,400 lb., B83 thermo-nuclear gravity bombs, also known as nuclear bunker busters, which explode deep inside the earth. Each B83 bomb has the explosive capacity of 80 Hiroshimas which means each B-2 bomber is capable of delivering the destructive power of 1280 Hiroshimas.
Once the B83’s detonate they destroy underground structures and send shockwaves through rock. Earthquakes and massive ground displacement result, with radioactive debris being flung into the atmosphere.
There is a metaphysics at work here of bringing to oneself that which one fears. The United States is preparing to attack Iran because of Israel’s fear of Iran.
Trump: “It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
The U.S. will first attack Iran’s underground missile cities at Khorramabad, and Panj Pellah, Bakhtaran, with nuclear bunker busters or Massive Ordnance Penetrators aimed at underground missile sites, to incapacitate Iran’s ability to retaliate.
The use of nuclear bunker busters will send nuclear debris into the immediate atmosphere, and it will be carried aloft by the wind.
Simultaneously, the U.S. will strike at the Fordow enrichment plant, buried deep in a mountain. A combination of 30,000 lb. Massive Ordnance Penetrators (GBU-57s) capable of burrowing 200 ft into the earth before exploding, and nuclear bunker busters, will be deployed, creating a multiplier factor in blast physics, collapsing tunnels and sending radioactive materials into the atmosphere and far beyond. Fordow is heavily fortified and may be able to withstand the initial attack.
The Natanz underground facility will be similarly struck, with radioactive matter breaking into the atmosphere.
The ground-level Bushehr Nuclear Power plant will be destroyed, its reactor vessel breached, the reactor core will meltdown, massive release of radioactive materials (cesium-137, iodine-131, strontium-90, and plutonium) will be go into the atmosphere, and, depending upon the wind, and the weather, radioactive plumes will drift over other countries.
Countless civilians will perish from radiation poisoning and severe burns. Birth defects will be present for generations to come. Nuclear explosion refugees will be created. Chernobyl-type effects will require people to leave their homes, never to return.
Tehran’s Research Reactor, Isfahan Nuclear Tech Center, Arak Heavy Water Reactor, Natanz Surface Facility and the Parchine Military Complex are ground level and surface level structures which be targeted and destroyed, either by either nuclear weapons or so-called conventional weapons.
Iran Can Still Hit Back
Iran’s underground missile system is widely distributed. Faced with imminent destruction, Iran, at the first sign of an attack, will simultaneously launch multiple rockets from many underground sites, a “shower of missiles” numbering in the thousands.
These deadly projectiles can change trajectories and targets while in flight, making the vaunted missile defense of Israel less effective. While Israel’s 2000 lb. bombs, the type dropped on Gaza, are more precise, the Shabab-3 has the potential of inflicting much more significant damage over a larger radius of Israeli cities.
U.S. Troops in Region will Pay
Tens of thousands of US troops, Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines, Space Force are stationed within reach of Iranian missiles. They are under no threat unless Iran is attacked.
Iran’s short-range missiles, Fateh-110 and Zolfagher, can reach Saudi Arabia. Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles, the Shabab-3, Emad, Sejjil, and Ghadr can travel up to 1,550 miles (2,500 km), to Israel. Its intermediate range missiles are capable of striking 2,485 miles deep into eastern and central Europe,
It is not in the interests of the United States to attack Iran.
The United States is risking becoming the most hated nation on earth, using nuclear weapons again, bombing nuclear facilities, creating radioactive consequences for potentially dozens of nations and tens of millions of people born and unborn.
America has been Netanyahu’s pawn for decades. Will the wealth, lives and security of our nation be sacrificed yet further to an agenda which brings only debt to our nation and death to innocents abroad?
During his campaign, President Trump stated repeatedly that he aimed to have a strong military to avoid war. Military strength must be matched by diplomatic strength. He must come up with a deal that avoids a U.S. war with Iran, without a foreign leader’s self-interested meddling. “Very bad things” do not have to happen if good people prevail. If America nukes Iran, our nation will never escape the fallout.
Original article: kucinichreport
