In the wake of Cheney’s visit, the Saudis have announced through their tightly controlled media that they are preparing to deal with “any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards” arising from an attack on Iran.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_richard__080328_saudi_newspaper_3a__pr.htm
Firstly, let me preface my following comments by admitting that I’m not an expert on nuclear technical issues. Despite that limitation, I’m usually quite good at comprehending scientific issues.
The main point I see as relevant here is this — fallout from attacks on Iran’s enrichment facilities would be a moderate to minor health concern. The amount of radioactive material that would be released is very small, and it’s highly doubtful that it would travel a great distance. Therefore, the Saudis would not need to be overly concerned with the health hazards stemming from a bombing of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
However, a tactical nuclear strike on Iran would present a serious health hazard for Saudi Arabia.
It’s hard to evaluate whether these reports are saber rattling or genuine threats to attack Iran, and both appear to be true. Most analysts see Cheney as genuinely desiring war with Iran, but there’s also a saber rattling element, too. A better question might be what saber rattling actually accomplishes, since there isn’t a clearly defined objective that’s achieved by this action — although gratuitous threatening is consistent with the neocon philosophy.
I won’t attempt to recap all of Cheney’s attempts to foment war with Iran, but they are numerous. One pertinent one here is his tasking of STRATCOM to draw up contingency plans in 2005 for a tactical nuclear attack on Iran, which, quite remarkably, wasn’t based on hostile actions from Iran.
“-The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites.” — American Conservative
“-..the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States.” — ibid.
Although it would be easy to regard contingency planning as an innocuous event, please note that this is contingency planning for an unprovoked nuclear strike on Iran. And that distinction wasn’t lost on the military officers doing the planning, as shown in the following:
“-Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing–that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack–but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.” — ibid.
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_08_01/article3.html
I think the best way to view this latest news is as a ‘stepping stone approach’ to fomenting war. Even though the news appears to be aimed at a foreign audience, one of the objectives behind its dissemination is to condition the American audience to the idea of an Iranian threat. As such, this technique parallels the method that was used to inculcate Americans to the idea of an Iraqi threat before the war.
Another obvious objective would be to embellish the idea of an Iranian threat to the Saudi people. Much like in the US, vilification of foreign threats serves the interests of the Saud monarchy, a la Diversionary theory.
A final objective should also be noted — the overlap between the Israeli Likud party and the neocons means that much of the far right foreign policy we’ve come to associate with the Cheney cabal is also the policy of the Likud-niks. US foreign policy is usually a proxy for Likud foreign policy.
Here are two readings on the uses of propaganda to foment war.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?itemid=9910
http://www.bigeye.com/warstate.htm
