We are At War with Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been conducting an unprovoked, one-sided, clandestine war against the United States of America since 1983. By my count, as of June 2005, the government of Iran has killed 5,798 of our countrymen. Iran's oil is half gone, its economy is crumbling, and its young population is restive. Iran has little to lose and everything to gain by attacking us. When America has been sufficiently weakened, Iran will incinerate Israel.

Iran is obsessed with America. However, as we will see, America was not the first country with which Iran developed a fatal obsession: we were preceded by Great Britain and Russia. But Iran’s xenophobic relationships with Britain and Russia ended before nuclear proliferation began. This makes Iran’s fixation on America dangerous not only for us and Iran, but ultimately for the whole world.

The government of Iran has been using some of its nuclear reactors to produce polonium-210 since at least 2004. Polonium-210 is radioactive, highly toxic, and extremely dangerous to handle; it has no practical use except as a neutron source to trigger a nuclear explosion. By now, Iran possesses at least 50 nuclear fission warheads, at least two submarines purchased from Russia, and at least 12 KH-55 "Granat" nuclear-capable cruise missiles purchased from Ukraine. Neither the submarines nor the cruise missiles are needed to attack Israel; they are for a clandestine assault upon America.

It is likely that Iran will soon attempt to strike Manhattan and Washington with nuclear missiles. Depending on the day and time, and upon the nuclear yield of the weapons used, a combined total of between 9 and 26 million Americans may die. The attackers will then destroy their own ships or submarines so completely that it will be impossible to identify Iran as the aggressor. Without a blatant "smoking gun" to identify Iran as the culprit, our government may hesitate to counterattack, or worse, attribute the assault to terrorists and retaliate against the wrong country.

How did we arrive at this dangerous moment?

The purpose of this blog is to alert the American public of the danger Iran poses to America. This is an urgent task, for Iran could strike at any time, even today. However, experience has taught me that for The Case Against Iran to be convincing, it will have to be built slowly, carefully, and without hysteria. This will take time and effort: time on my part to present the facts coherently, to document them properly, and to separate my opinions from the facts; effort on your part to patiently review what is presented here.

References

In order to assure you that this is a serious effort, I will end this initial posting by listing my bibliography. These are the books, magazines, and web articles I have used over the past three years to build The Case Against Iran. Not all of these references are about the Middle East; but as you will see, these additional books and articles provide invaluable context that is missing from the other sources.

Authored Books, Journal Articles, HTML Articles, and PDF Documents

1. “A Terrifying Plot, Years in the Making”, U.S. News and World Report, June 28 / July 5, 2004

2. “Ahmadinejad’s Letter to Bush”, The Washington Post, May 9, 2006, translated by Le Monde, Paris, France, and distributed by Reuters news service

3. Ajami, Fouad, “Son of the Ayatollah”, U.S. News and World Report, May 22, 2006

4. Barlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B., Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business & Bad Medicine (New York, 2004: Doubleday)

5. Barnes, Julian E., “Sliding Toward an Uncivil War”, U.S. News and World Report, March 6, 2006

6. Bergen, Peter. L., Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden (New York, 2001: Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.)

7. Berra, Tim. M., Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: A Basic Guide to the Facts in the Evolution Debate (Stanford, California, 1990: Stanford University Press)

8. Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, with an introduction by Aldous Huxley (New York, 1995: Barnes & Noble Books)

9. Bowden, Mark, “The Desert One Debacle”, The Atlantic, May, 2006

10. Braude, Joseph, The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for its People, the Middle East, and the World (New York, 2003: Basic Books)

11. Brinkley, Douglas, Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress (New York, 2003: Viking, an imprint of the Penguin Group)

12. Brisard, Jean-Charles, in collaboration with Martinez, Damien, Zarqawi: The New Face of Al-Qaeda (New York, 2005: Other Press)

13. Chase, Alston, Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist (New York, 2003: W.W. Norton & Company)

14. Clarke, Richard A., Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (New York, 2004: Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster)

15. Cohen, Benjamin J., The Geography of Money (Ithaca, New York, 1998: Cornell University Press)

16. Danner, Mark, The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War’s Buried History (New York, 2006: The New York Review of Books)

17. Danner, Mark, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror (New York, 2004: The New York Review of Books)

18. de Bellaigue, Christopher, In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran (New York, 2004: HarperCollins)

19. Deffeyes, Kenneth S., Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak (New York, 2005: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)

20. Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York, 1999: W.W. Norton & Company)

21. Diamond, Jared, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (New York, 2006: Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Books)

22. Dobbs, Lou, Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed is Shipping American Jobs Overseas (New York, 2004: Time Warner Books)

23. Fang, Bay, “A Fight on Many Fronts”, U.S. News and World Report, September 26, 2005

24. Fouts, Roger, with Mills, Stephen Tukel, Next of Kin: My Conversations With Chimpanzees (New York, 1997: Avon Books)

25. Gergen, David, “Will America slip from No. 1?”, U.S. News and World Report, April 4, 2005

26. Ghiglieri, Michael P., The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999: Helix Books, an imprint of Perseus Publishing)

27. Goodall, Jane, In the Shadow of Man (New York, 1988: Mariner Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Company)

28. Goodall, Jane, Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe (New York, 1990: Mariner Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Company)

29. Goodstein, David, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil (New York, 2004: W.W. Norton & Company)

30. Gordon, John Steele, Hamilton’s Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt (New York, 1997: Walker and Company)

31. Graysmith, Robert, Amerithrax: The Hunt for the Anthrax Killer (New York, 2003: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group)

32. Hamza, Khidhir with Stein, Jeff, Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda (New York, 2000: Scribner, under license from Simon & Schuster)

33. Hosenball, Mark, Isikoff, Michael, and Thomas, Evan, “Cheney’s Long Path to War”, Newsweek National News, November 19, 2003

34. “Iran: We Researched Fusion”, The Jerusalem Post, via the Associated Press, May 29, 2006

35. Karpin, Michael, The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means for the World (New York, 2006: Simon & Schuster)

36. Katz, Samuel M., The Hunt for the Engineer: The Inside Story of How Israel's Counterterrorist Forces Tracked and Killed the Hamas Master Bomber (Guilford, Connecticut, 2002: The Lyons Press, an imprint of the Globe Pequot Press)

37. Katz, Samuel M., Jihad in Brooklyn: The NYPD Raid that Stopped America's First Suicide Bombers (New York, 2005: Penguin Group)

38. Kruuk, Hans, Niko’s Nature: A life of Niko Tinbergen and his science of animal behavior (New York, 2003: Oxford University Press)

39. Lewis, Bernard, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (New York, 2002: Oxford University Press)

40. Linzer, Dafna, “Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb: U.S. Intelligence Review Contrasts With Administration Statements”, Washington Post, August 2, 2005

41. Lippman, Thomas W., Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia (Boulder, Colorado, 2004: Westview Press, a member of Perseus Books Group)

42. Lorenz, Conrad, On Aggression (New York, 1966: MJF Books)

43. Machiavelli, Niccolò, The Prince (New York, 1999: Penguin Books)

44. Mayr, Ernst, What Evolution Is (New York, 2001: Basic Books)

45. McDermott, Terry, Perfect Soldiers: The Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It (New York, 2005: HarperCollins)

46. Miller, John, Stone, Michael, and Mitchell, Chris, The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It (New York, 2002: Hyperion)

47. Moin, Baqer, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah (New York, 1999: Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Press)

48. Netanyahu, Benjamin, A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations (New York, 2000: Warner Books, in arrangement with Bantam Books)

49. Omestad, Thomas, “An Impulse for Intrigue”, U.S. News and World Report, July 31, 2006

50. Omestad, Thomas, “The Flames of War, and Small Hope for Peace”, U.S. News and World Report, July 24, 2006

51. Oren, Michael B., Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (New York, 2002: Oxford University Press)

52. Orwell, George, “The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius”, Why I Write (New York, 2005: Penguin Books)

53. Patterson, Robert, Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security (Washington, D.C., 2003: Regnery Publishing)

54. Pollack, Kenneth M., The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York, 2005: from the Saban Center at the Brookings Institute, published by Random House Trade Publications, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.)

55. Posner, Gerald, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11 (New York, 2003: Random House)

56. Slavin, Barbara, “Bush, Ahmadinejad to wage war of words at U.N.”, USA Today, September 18, 2006

57. Sun Tzu, Translated by Samuel B. Griffith, The Art of War, Collector’s Edition (Norwalk, Connecticut, 1991: Easton Press)

58. Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 (New York, 2004: HarperCollins)

59. Thatcher, Margaret, Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (New York, 2002: HarperCollins)

60. Timmerman, Kenneth R., Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (New York, 2005: Crown Forum, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.)

61. Timmerman, Kenneth R., The French Betrayal of America (New York, 2004: Crown Forum, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.) 9

62. Timmerman, Kenneth R., Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America (New York, 2003: Crown Forum, an imprint of Random House)

63. Tin, Bui, From Enemy to Friend: a north vietnamese perspective on the war (Annapolis, Maryland, 2002: Naval Institute Press)

64. Turnbull, Collin, The Forest People (New York, 1962: Touchstone Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster)

65. U.S. News and World Report, June 19, 2006

66. Van der Post, Laurens, The Heart of the Hunter: Customs and Myths of the African Bushman (New York, 1989: Harvest Books, an imprint of Harcourt, Brace & Company, by arrangement with William Morrow & Company, Inc.)

67. Wade, Nicholas, Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (New York, 2006: Penguin Press)

68. Weiss, Murray, The Man Who Warned America: The Life and Death of John O'Neill, The FBI's Embattled Counterterror Warrior (New York, 2003: HarperCollins)

69. Weldon, Curt, United States Congressman, and Vice-Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, Countdown to Terror: The Top-Secret Information that Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America … and How the CIA Has Ignored It (Washington, DC, 2005: Regnery Publishing, Inc., an Eagle Publishing Company)

70. Wells, Spencer, The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (Princeton, New Jersey, 2002: Princeton University Press)

71. Wolff, Edward N., Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done About It (New York, 1995: The New Press, sponsored by the Twentieth Century Fund, Inc., distributed by W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.)

72. Zuckerman, Mortimer B., “The case of the 12 zeros”, U.S. News and World Report, March 21, 2005

73. Zuckerman, Mortimer B., “From Bad to Worse”, U.S. News and World Report, July 24, 2006

74. Zuckerman, Mortimer B., “In No Uncertain Terms”, U.S. News and World Report, March 20, 2006


Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a free on-line encyclopedia. Entries in Wikipedia are sometimes changed. When a change has been made, however, the original text remains available; it can be found in the notes at the bottom of the page or via a hyperlink to some other page.

75. “al-Qaeda”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda

76. “Communist State”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_state

77. “Cuban Missile Crisis”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

78. “Flag of Iran”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_flag

79. “Imad Mugniyah”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imad_Mugniyah

80. “Military of Iran”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Iran

81. “Muslim World”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_World

82. “Muslim”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moslems

83. “My Lai Massacre”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre

84. “OPEC”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC

85. “Pearl Harbor”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor

86. “Persistence hunting”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

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88. “War on Terrorism”, Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terrorism


Other Web Sites

89. Infant Mortality Ranked by Country, posted by the GeographyIQ web site at http://www.geographyiq.com/ranking/ranking_Infant_Mortality_Rate_aall.htm

90. “Interview with Condoleezza Rice”, New York Post Editorial Board, September 15, 2005, posted at http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/53336.htm

91. “Iran seen trying to buy nuke substance”, MSNBC, via Associated Press, July 28, 2004, posted at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5528889/

92. “Iran: We’ll soon join the world’s nuclear ‘club’”, MSNBC, via the Associated Press, April 11, 2006, posted at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12267675/

93. “Iranian Hardliner Says Iran will Produce Atomic Bomb”, posted by Regime Change Iran at http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/2005/02/iranian-hardliner-says-iran-will.html

94. Isidore, Chris, “The zero-savings problem: Some savings measures show households are flush, but consumers are spending every dime they make”, CNN-Money, August 3, 2005, posted at http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/02/news/economy/savings/

95. Kunstler, James Howard, “The Long Emergency: What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?”, adapted from “The Long Emergency”, 2005, by James Howard Kunstler, and reprinted with permission of the publisher, Grove/Atlantic, Inc., posted March 24, 2005 on the Rolling Stone web site at http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7203633/the_long_emergency

96. Lee, Bok Ku (pseudonym), “A Defector's Story: My escape from North Korea – and South Korea”, The Strategy Page web site, June 5, 2003, posted at http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/74-348.asp

97. McCoy, Frank, “Black business courts the Japan market; penetrating this tough nationalistic market takes great products, great service and a great deal of perseverance”, Black Enterprise, June, 1994, posted by the Find Articles web site at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_n11_v24/ai_15429440

98. “Mexican leader criticized for comment on blacks”, CNN, Sunday, May 15, 2005, posted by CNN.com at http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/14/fox.jackson/index.html

99. “Muslim Victims of September 11th Attack”, compiled from the Newsday victims database and posted at http://islam.about.com/blvictims.htm

100. “President Bush and Secretary of State Rice Discuss the Middle East Crisis”, Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, August 7, 2006, posted at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060807.html

101. “Primal Quest”, posted at http://socrates.uhwo.hawaii.edu/SocialSci/louisher/images/

102. “September 11, 2001 Victims”, posted by Alex Spektor at http://www.september11victims.com/september11victims/COUNTRY_CITIZENSHIP.htm

103. Terry De La Mesa Allen, Jr web site, posted at http://www.virtualwall.org/da/AllenTD01a.htm

104. “US hostage freed in Beirut”, BBC News, November 2, 1986 posted at http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/2/newsid_2537000/2537987.stm

105. “What is a ‘weapon of mass destruction’?”, The View From The Republic, The Republic (Vancouver), February 6, 2003, posted by The Republic at http://www.republic-news.org/archive/56-repub/repub_56_view.html


References Consulted after November 26, 2006

106. "1983 Beirut barracks bombing", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Barracks_Bombing

107. "Multinational Force in Lebanon", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_in_Lebanon

108. "Lebanese Civil War", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_civil_war

109. Seper, Jerry, "Judge faults Iran in '96 bombing", The Washington Times, December 23, 2006, posted at http://washingtontimes.com/national/20061222-115037-3440r.htm

110. "Khobar Towers Bombing", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khobar_Towers

111. "Rahim Safavi", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahim_Safavi

112. "TWA Flight 847", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_847

113. Hare, Robert D., Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (New York, 1999: The Guilford Press)

114. "Fact Sheet: Iran-Leading State Sponsor of Terror", The Israel Project web site, posted at http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/c.hsJPK0PIJpH/b.2060919/k.93A0/Iran_Press_Kit.htm

115. The Caged Prisoners web site, posted at http://www.cageprisoners.com/prisoners.php?id=1340

116. Musharraf, Pervez, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York, 2006: The Free Press)

117. Arena, Kelli, et al, "Terror plot leaves Britain on highest alert", CNN.com, August 11, 2006, posted at http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/08/11/terror.plot/index.html

118. "U.S. military deaths in Iraq hit 3,030", The Yahoo News web site, via the Associated Press, January 19, 2007, posted at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_us_deaths

119. "International Atomic Energy Agency", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAEA

120. "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty

121. "2006 North Korean nuclear test", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_North_Korean_nuclear_test

122. "Abdul Qadeer Khan", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.Q._Khan

123. "Uranium enrichment", Wikipedia, posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_enrichment