“Four Iranian missiles can destroy tiny Israel,” blared Fars, The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) news agency. DEBKAFile counters as follows:

[these] sources point [to the fact] that the experiences of the Gulf war show that this number of ordinary missiles could not cause anything like the damage calculated by the writer. What Zarey may be referring to are the stubborn rumors going around Western intelligence circles since early 2005 that during the breakup of the Soviet Union, Tehran laid hands on black market nuclear cruise missiles form the Ukraine and 3 to 5 more from Belarus.

THE SAME SOURCE cites “Western intelligence as suspecting that Tehran obtained those warheads from Belarus or from unconventional arms traffickers based in the Muslim Republics which were part of the USSR up until the 1990s. And indeed the Fars report did not specify what warheads the ‘conventional’ missiles would carry.”

Equally disconcerting: War president extraordinaire Barack Hussein Obama knows too well that his waning popularity rises when he kills people abroad. DEBKAFile predicts that “Obama is set to attack Iran’s nuclear sites by the fall of 2012.”

Indeed, Iran apologists have framed Iran’s nuclear belligerence as the “ultimate safeguard against an American attack.” The reference is, presumably, to Iran’s legitimate quest to defend against an American army that advanced on a neighbor—Iraq—and conquered it in the absence of provocation. I agree. But this is not Iran’s sole reason for arming itself with nuclear capability.

Iran’s leaders have made no bones about the need to solve the Jewish Question for once and for all. (In case you’re a public school graduate, this is code for liquidation.)

That Iran fears an out-of-control, aggressive U.S. is likely—and understandable. However, Iran’s madman-in-chief hasn’t threatened the United States; he has threatened Israel. Yet Iranophiles seldom depict Israel’s nuclear program as an equally legitimate, last-ditch defense. Instead, they contort like Cirque du Soleil contortionists to downplay the real threat Iran poses to Israel.

UPDATE: Via PBS’s FrontLine: “At the same time, it is not just Israel that may attack Iran. The Guardian reported on Wednesday that the British military is rapidly developing contingency plans to aid the United States in case it attacks Iran, based on the belief that “the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities.” Efforts are evidently underway to determine the optimal location for deployment of the Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles to participate in such strikes.

Apparently, Iran’s resilience in the face of economic sanctions, as well as the cyberspace attacks on its nuclear facilities last year, has surprised Western observers. They believe that within a year, Iran will be moving all of its nuclear materials and more advanced centrifuges to the Fordow enrichment facility, built under a mountain near Qom. There they will be protected from most missiles and bombs, even though the Obama administration has quietly supplied Israel with bunker-buster bombs, something that even the George W. Bush administration refused to do.”

Read more.: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/11/news-rhetoric-suggesting-potential-israeli-attack-on-iran-escalates.html#ixzz1czfsz4Dp

As I pointed out in 2002/2003, when Bush was circling Saddam Hussein like a shark his prey: bluster has been a large part of the Islamic culture. It is possibly that Iran’s regime is putting on a show. But if Iran doesn’t intend to attack Israel, why does A-Jad (short for Ahmadinejad) not stop the threats? The Iranian leadership has never allayed Israel’s legitimate fears.

UPDATE II (Nov. 7): FACEBOOK CYBER-EJACULATE. I am interrupting this frivolous topic with news of the most “urgent” of facebook posts. I have been forced to post the following in response to “The white noise, the inability and unwillingness of Facebook participants to focus the mind on the topic of a post—their shameless habit of posting about every bowel movement experienced during the day to my Wall; the utter cyber-ejaculate spewed with confidence. I am expected (I have a life) to “moderate” what amounts to a meaningless stream of, “I hate Israel; I love Israel; Israelis should die; Israelis may live.”

What does it say about debate (at least on my FB thread)? I’m clearly permitting the wrong “friends” on the Wall, although FB has now made it near-impossible to be more selective in the posts allowed on a Wall.

I hinted at it before, here, but the more I am forced to interact online in the course of doing my thankless job; the more it repulses me. (And after experiencing this Cesspool of anti-Semitism and irrationality, my “professional” day of reckoning is closer.)

If you have a half a brain, you won’t enjoy this.