Conservatively Speaking

 

·         Police Order Naked Bicyclists to Put on Helmets.

·         Israel Could Crush Iran and Its Nuke Plants

·         Persian Gulf States Worried About Iran: Obama Dithering

·         Obama Job Approval Falls to New Lows.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand —  Police picked up two naked men on a late night bike ride in a New Zealand town but let them off with a warning: put on helmets.

“They were wanting to experience total freedom,” said Senior Constable Cathy Duder, who stopped the pair about 10 p.m. on a recent night in the beach resort town of Whangamata. She told them: “You may experience total confinement. You should head home and get helmets.”

The duo turned tail and headed directly back to their house, Duder told The Associated Press on Wednesday. She said she did not see them again during her shift, and it was not known if they donned helmets and resumed their ride.

Public nudity can attract a charge of offensive behavior in New Zealand, but Duder said she cut the two men a break.

“It was dark and there was no one else around. They were jovial young men who had not intended to cause offense,” she said.

She described the two as “happy young men in their mid-20s … they appeared to be as sober as two judges.”

The Dec. 7 encounter, which has only just come to light, probably signaled the start of what Duder described as summer hijinks in Whangamata, a popular surfing and holiday getaway where partying is common during Christmas and New Year season.

The left wing website Daily Kos predicts Democrats will “get killed” in the 2010 elections saying, “86 percent of Republicans plan on turning out or are likely to turn out. Only 56 percent of Democrats are–similarly believe they’re going to turn out or likely to turn out. Only 32 percent of African-Americans, only 41 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds. We have numbers like that, we’re going to get killed…”

Obama reportedly told representatives of the Chinese government recently that the US may not be able to restrain the Israelis from launching a massive military strike on Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities for much longer.

According to the Israeli Newspaper Ha’aretz on December 17: Obama has warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for much longer, senior officials in Jerusalem told Ha’aretz. They said Obama warned President Hu Jintao during the American’s visit to Beijing a month ago as part of the US attempt to convince the Chinese to support strict sanctions on Tehran if it does not accept Western proposals for its nuclear program.

The Israeli officials, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the United States had informed Israel on Obama’s meetings in Beijing on Iran. They said Obama made it clear to Hu that at some point the United States would no longer be able to prevent Israel from acting as it saw fit in response to the perceived Iranian threat.

However, Iran appears to be in denial of the danger and continues to be its own worst enemy with a constant campaign of bluster, hyperbole and threats.

As with a number of well-known Middle Eastern leaders, including the late and largely unlamented Saddam Hussein, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad continues to put what purports to be national pride before common sense or a rational approach to international relations.

The Iranian government, its military and intelligence services go out of their way to needle the West in a manner that suggests that they still harbor the illusion of surviving such a military confrontation.

Iran incapable of defending its strategic targets

The truth is that Iran is quite incapable of defending its air space and strategic targets against a determined Israeli attack, let alone one that involved US air assets.

Iran’s air force and air defense forces are a generation or more behind its potential foes. According to the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington in May 2009, “Without Russian air defense systems, Iran is a sitting duck.”

CSIS said, “Iran’s current air defense umbrella is antiquated and could not stop an Israeli or US strike. Iran’s air defense network could be easily penetrated by the air forces of Israel and the United States.”

The CSIS report continued, “Iran’s aging US and Russian-origin assets could not intercept Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighters … Iran lacks the modern weapon systems, integration and C4I battle management to reduce the potential destructive effectiveness of any offensive interdiction missions by Israel.”

The report, titled “Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Development Facilities”, said: “One can predict a very low attrition rate to an Israeli strike.”

Indeed, there are so far unconfirmed reports that the five-day Iranian air defense exercise held in late November to test the defense of its strategic nuclear sites was an abject failure. Middle East sources have reported, “From the word go on Sunday, November 22, Iran’s five-day drill demonstrated that its air force and air defense units were unequal to their mission of keeping the skies over its nuclear sites clear of incoming strike aircraft.”

The Iranian navy is limited to counter-attacking allied naval forces in the Gulf in the event of a major conflict, while the Iranian army has no one to attack directly, with Iraq, Syria and Jordan between its armored forces and the borders of Israel.

It goes almost without saying that any serious attempt by Iran to launch a military strike on US or allied forces based in Iraq, the Gulf, Pakistan or Afghanistan, or indeed the strategically vital oilfields of Kuwait, northern Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, could be expected to bring an immediate Western military response with catastrophic consequences for Tehran.

A growing missile threat
This leaves just Iran’s growing missile capability for Israel and the West to ponder.

It is fair to say that Iran has made considerable strides in such technology with the overt help of North Korea and covert assistance by Pakistan, China and very probably a number of renegade Western commercial companies.

Iran does now have a limited ability to strike at Israel and Western targets throughout a wide area of the Middle East.

It was widely reported on December 16 that Iran test-fired an upgraded version of an advanced missile system believed to be capable of hitting Israel and even parts of Europe in an apparent show of strength aimed at discouraging attacks on its nuclear facilities. The test of the medium-range Sajjil-2 was reportedly a success and encouraged Iran to claim that it could retaliate effectively against a future US or Israeli military strike.

The Foreign Office in London said Iran has the “clear intention to extend the range of its missiles”, calling the launch “the wrong signal to send when the international community is trying to find a diplomatic solution” to its growing nuclear program.

James Lewis, a senior defense expert at CSIS, said that Iran probably has up to 300 shorter-range Shahab missiles, while the Sajjil remains in the test phase and currently “it’s not a sophisticated program”. But, Lewis added, “they’ve been putting a lot of money and effort into this program for more than a decade, and we have to take their claims seriously.”

Wednesday’s test was the third for the Sajjil-2 since it was unveiled in May. The missile has the longest range of any in Iran’s arsenal, about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) - putting Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy, and US bases in the Gulf region well within reach. It could also reach parts of southeastern and eastern Europe.

Nuclear capability still years away

However, while Iran may have recently tested a “nuclear trigger” under laboratory conditions - if unconfirmed reports coming out of London are to be believed - and have enough enriched uranium for a single crude nuclear bomb, it still remains likely that Iran is at least five years away from having a genuine nuclear first-strike capability against Israel, even assuming that this is the path it is taking - something Tehran consistently denies. Abridged from a copyrighted article  by Richard M Bennett who is an intelligence analyst.

Before that stage is reached, a considerable amount of weapons-grade material would have to be produced; the bomb and its trigger tested, probably more than once and then the advanced technology developed to build a significant number of miniaturized nuclear weapons to fit the nose cones of its missile force.

Iran is highly unlikely to be able to develop or procure in the foreseeable future the type of advanced strike aircraft capable of delivering an air-dropped nuclear weapon over the required distance and which would have undoubtedly provided a quicker option for developing a nuclear strike force.

Therefore, the Iranian threat in the immediate future will rest on a relatively small number of missiles with conventional warheads, for if Tehran was to use any of its known stocks of chemical or biological weapons in missile attacks on Israel, the response would quite certainly be that which would have followed a nuclear attack; the total devastation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

If Iran continues to be at odds with the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, then it must be a distinct possibility that Israel will indeed launch a massive air assault, feasibly backed up by cruise missiles launched from submarines in the Arabian Sea sometime next year.

Even a successful Israeli attack will still hold grave dangers for Washington, however.

A very significant proportion of the munitions that the Israeli Defense Forces would drop on Iran would be “Made in the USA”. It remains a valid point that Iran may reasonably not be too concerned with who actually drops the bombs and be far more vengeful against those who made the weapons, trained the pilots, built the aircraft and who Tehran ultimately blames for sponsoring and protecting its attacker.

Nor could the Iranian military be 100% certain that any such attack would not include covert US involvement and particularly satellite targeting intelligence and electronic warfare assets. Iran’s response may therefore be to blindly strike back at any and all available targets, whether Israeli or Western, and by any means left to it, including missile strikes and attacks by its worldwide network of supporters, including Hezbollah and Hamas.

As far as Iran closing the Straits of Hormuz and cutting off oil flow. It is possible but unlikely, and in any case the US Navy would destroy Iran’s naval forces in 24-36 hours if they tried..

Freshman Democratic Representative Parker Griffith of Alabama is switching to the Republican Party. He’ll be the first Republican to hold the seat since 1866. Griffith was narrowly elected last year from a region of northern Alabama that includes Huntsville and Decatur. President Barack Obama lost the district badly to Republican John McCain. Griffith is a radiation oncologist. His switch comes as Congress is trying to pass a much-contested healthcare bill. Democrats will still control the House by a substantial margin but this is a step closer.

Persian Gulf state representatives at an annual strategy conference, the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, warned that Iran’s confrontation with the West over Teheran’s nuclear program could plunge the Gulf into war.   

 The Kuwaiti foreign minister was one of several speakers who identified Iran as a leading threat to the Gulf. Other speakers asserted that Iran was helping the Shi’ite rebellion in Yemen, which has spread into neighboring Saudi Arabia.

But the U.S. representatives at the Manama Dialogue refused to confirm the accusations that Iran was supporting the Shi’ite rebellion in Yemen even though Saudi Arabia, and other sources – including this column in Hypocrisy.com – have confirmed it.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman said Washington had not received “independent information” to confirm Iranian involvement.

Mamoun Fandy, a senior fellow at the London

based International Institute for Strategic Studies, which organized the Manama Dialogue, said Iran was fomenting tension throughout the Gulf. Fandy said Iran was also involved in stirring unrest in Egypt and Iraq.

 

“Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, Iran’s confrontation with the international community, Palestine and the suffering of the Palestinian people, the Horn of Africa, and the crisis in Yemen [threaten Gulf security],” Kuwait Foreign Minister Mohammed Sabah Al Sabah said.

Addressing the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain on Dec. 11, Al Sabah cited growing instability in Iran. He said this could further increase regional tension.

“People call for rebellion against the regime, challenging the government and calling for the overthrow of the government in place,” Al Sabah said.

Iran was also said to have topped the agenda of the Gulf Cooperation Council summit, scheduled to end on Dec. 15 in Kuwait.

“The military training [of the Shi'ite rebels] proves there has been foreign intervention,” Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said.

A senior Yemeni official agreed. National Security Agency chairman Maj. Gen. Ali Al Anisi, citing the recent capture of a suspected Iranian weapons ship, said Teheran has been directing the Shi’ite rebellion in 2009.

“There is intelligence information [to support this],” Al Anisi said. “There are indeed signs, proof of Iranian interference, but we can’t elaborate on what these indications and their details are to the media.”

Al Anisi said the Iranian-backed Believing Youth movement intends to become another Hizbullah. He said the Believing Youth has been expanding the Shi’ite rebellion beyond Yemen.

“They [Believing Youth] have a clear agenda, much like that in southern Lebanon with Hizbullah,” Al Anisi said. “The Houthi [Shi'ite] rebels are seeking to create a belt around our border with Saudi Arabia and establish themselves as an organization with genuine influence.”

Obama has set and lifted a series of deadlines to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities the most recent the end of this year. Many believe the U. S. reticence rest on the repeatedly failed strategy of talking Iran out of nukes and its war making and support for terrorists and call it foolish and only encouraged Iranian aggression. Last week Iran sent troops into Iraq and took over an oil field.

Do you believe that huge snowstorm in D.C.? Pretty  amazing. President Obama spent one day in Copenhagen and global warming is solved.– Leno

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that just 25% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President .

 

Fifty-three percent (53%) of men Strongly Disapprove along with 39% of women. Most African-American voters (58%) Strongly Approve while most white voters (53%) Strongly Disapprove.

 

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans Strongly Disapprove as do 52% of unaffiliated voters. Forty-seven percent (47%) of Democrats Strongly Approve.

 

For the second straight day, the update shows the highest level of Strong Disapproval yet recorded for this President. That negative rating had never topped 42% before yesterday. However, it has risen dramatically since the Senate found 60 votes to move forward with the proposed health care reform legislation. Most voters (55%) oppose the health care legislation and senior citizens are even more likely than younger voters to dislike the plan.

 

A Kansas mother is praising a neighbor as “Superman” after her 6-year-old daughter told her he somehow found the strength to lift a full sized Mercury sedan off her. The girl escaped with minor injuries after she and neighbor Nick Harris said she was pinned under the vehicle that accidentally rolled backward over the child. Nick says he doesn’t know how he did it. A Christmas miracle?