Curious, the Iranian news agency say the Bushehr nuclear reactor is to be operational (but not fueled) on tuesday and that the fuel is to be delivered within two weeks!, but...
MEN claims Russia is co-ordinating with the US to delay startup of Bushehr (there's been this weird dispute where the Russians claim the Iranians have not paid for construction and the Iranians claim they did - cheque got lost in the post?) and the Moscow Times claims talks over the funding dispute have collapsed and that fueling is now delayed beyond Sept 2007 with no delivery this month.
Weird, something going on here.
Were one paranoid, a good time to try to blow up Bushehr with an understated little pre-emptive air strike, as has been so fashionable, would be March 17-20th or so.
But, the USS Reagan spent the weekend in port in Hong Kong and that is about 4000 miles from the Persan Gulf... now, I don't know how fast an aircraft carrier can really go, but I suspect they could get there in a week, if they tried, they might even still have most of their group with them. Be a risky hustle though.
Also no sign of submarine surge to sea, or serious movement of air assets.
So it'd be a surprise if they managed to do anything next weekend, even if Valerie Plame (PSU alumnae!) is testifying before Congress on friday.
Also some interesting diplomatic meetings scheduled this weekend (Condi works sundays?!).
April would work, should any unitary executives be feeling grump for spring. After that it gets harder, I think, because carriers and crews need rest, and two of the newer ones just surged early. Probably be September before anything nasty could plausibly tried without ridiculous messing up of training etc
But what do I know?
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If you just want to take out Bushehr in "an understated little pre-emptive air strike", rather than a large number of targets all over Iran, wouldn't a few cruise missiles suffice? Those can be dropped from strategic bombers which could start from just about any US base. No need to move aircraft carriers for that.
well, that depends on your value of "understated".
I'm thinking anything short of MIRV'd ICBMs counts as "understated" for our current executive and by all accounts the non-existent Iranian strike plans, that are no longer on his desk, count for hitting something like 10,000 separate targets in the first 72 hours.
Of course they could always start small, but that might just annoy the Iranians.
(There is some theory that bigger bombing leads to less annoyance, if not positive approval by the recipients of the boms, but my impression is that it actually just annoys people more)
Heh, I bet the Russians are squeezing the Iranians. It's win/win for them. They stall Bushehr and get some points with Washington, meanwhile they go to the Iranians and say, 'Well, the prices have changed recently..."
Yeah, the Russians have been dragging their feet on Bushehr for a long time, it could have been finished 2-3 years ago.
Recent Iranian news items have pointed out rather unsubtly that the Russian company is going bankrupt and needs the Iranian payment.
Or it could be an elaborate charade.
Of course if you're a believer in the market, then the current sharp spike in petrol prices tells a story - too soon for the "summer spike".