Speedboats & Laptops

Iran's testing and probing of our naval defenses in the Persian Gulf continues:

The incident took place in the Gulf, in international waters dozens of miles from the Iranian coast, the US said.

The Iranaian boats withdrew soon after the warning shots were fired.

US officials say the vessel - the Westward Venture - was working for the US Military Sealift Command under a 65-day charter, an official told the BBC.

 the Westward Venture used the correct measures prior to firing the shots: it sounded its horn, and gave the Iranian boats a verbal warning, before firing flares, 50-caliber machine guns and M-16s in the direction of the boats.

Shortly after the incident, a routine inquiry was made of the Westward Venture by Iranian authorities, according to US officials.

What could be the purpose of these low-level provocations?  Several far from mutually-exclusive possibilities:

1) To be nuisances;

2) To see how close they can get without triggering a U.S. response;

3) To wear down our vigilence and nerve, particularly in a presidential election year where the Democrats are guaranteed to win;

4) To trigger a U.S. response that they can then seize upon as "proof" of an American "attack";

5) To do to us as they did the Brits last year if they can get close enough.

Strategically, #4 seems like the direction in which the mullahs are headed.  Which is part & parcel of why I think we should militarily engage the mullahgarchy on our own timetable, rather than passively waiting for them to either attack first or keep poking us in sensitive spots until we are forced to respond on theirs - or, even worse, not respond at all.

That timetable is, of couse, wrapped around the point of no return of Iran's nuclear weapons program.  If we wait until Tehran has nukes, it will be too late, and at least regional Armageddon will be assured; if we're going to destroy the mullahgarchy, we have to move before that point.

That makes this little development, as Artie Johnson used to say, "veeeeeely intelesting...." (via Newsmax Insider):

Reports have surfaced that a laptop computer with significant information on Iran’s covert nuclear program fell into the hands of U.S. intelligence in 2004.

The date is important, since in November 2007 the National Intelligence Estimate declared that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003....

“The notes describe the technical basis for the IAEA’s outstanding questions about the scope and direction of Iran’s alleged nuclear weaponization studies,” ISIS states. “Specifically, it describes some of the information contained on a laptop obtained in Iran by an intelligence operation in 2004, as well as additional information provided by IAEA member states to the IAEA more recently.

“The information presented . . . describes several aspects of what could be nuclear weapons development.”

That information includes instructions on how to communicate within the Iranian program using only first names, and a reference to the “timing of firing devices leading to an explosion at an altitude of about six hundred meters [~1,968'].”

Heinonen said at the briefing that “this altitude excludes the hypothesis of conventional explosives as well as chemical or biological charges,” according to the ISIS report.

The IAEA’s evaluation of Iran’s “Tests of High Power Explosives” is “unambiguous,” Gabriel Schoenfeld writes in his Connecting the Dots blog for Commentary Magazine:

• “The high-tension firing systems and multiple EBW [Electrical Bridge Wire] detonators fired simultaneously are key components of nuclear weapons."
• “There are a limited number of non-nuclear applications."
• “The elements available to the Agency are not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon."
• “The Agency does not have sufficient information at this stage to conclude whether the allegations are groundless or the data fabricated.”

This was, just to reiterate, a year after last fall's bogus, Bushophobic, flagrantly irresponsible NIE claimed Iran had "halted" it's nuclear weapons development.  And, just recently, it emerged that Tehran has doubled its operating weapons-grade nuclear fuel-generating centrifuge inventory to over six thousand from where they were just last November.

The proverbial Rubicon is just four months away, gentlebeings.  We have that long to liberate Iran and bring the "war on terror" to a victorious conclusion.  Otherwise victory will only be possible at a cost the American people are highly unlikely to be willing to pay.