The Pentagon has formally notified Congress of its intention to sell “bunker-buster” bombs to Israel:
The Pentagon on Tuesday notified Congress of the possible sale of 5,000lb GBU-28 bombs, developed during the 1991 Gulf war to destroy Saddam Hussein’s hardened command centres. Congress has 30 days to object.
Any deal would be the first sale of the Lockheed Martin-built munition to a foreign country.
In January, Dick Cheney, US vice-president, suggested that Israel might take military action if the US and European Union failed to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions.
Financial Times
Call this Bolton-style diplomacy: bullying, blustering attempts to coerce others into doing what you want them to do in an obnoxious and aggressive way, without any regard for anybony else’ opinions or considerations, and without any regard for likely consequences; “let them hate us so long as they fear us”.
The problem is that, as more and more countries end up on the sharp end of US diplomacy, they are are all preparing various ways to protect themselves from its consequences, and are thus actively undermining US policies and goals. With the US so massively dependent on foreign oil (remember that all significant oil producers (including Iran, Venezuela, Russia or even Norway) can make prices skyrocket today by withholding their capacity, as there is no spare capacity available elsewhere around the world to fill the void that would be created) and foreign capital (2 billion dollars per day are required from foreign capital holders), the military is not the only way to exert power, and the US could soon find itself in a highly uncomfortable position.
I wonder if this is the goal of the US administration: step up the provocations so that any of these countries decide on a course of action which can be labelled as an “aggression” by the US and used as a pretext for military action, the only field where the US has a clear superiority?
In the meantime, you should act and contact your Representative to warn them of the danger of provoking Iran (and pissing off a number of other countries, including the poor Europeans who are still naively trying to keep the Iranians at the negotiating table) by selling these bombs to Israel.
It’s still time to act to block that particular item of madness.
