| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| WhoÂ’s REALLY Blowing Up Iran? |
| 2011-12-15 |
| By Michael Ledeen It just has to be Israel, according to the pundit class. You know, that warmonger Netanyahu. Or maybe it’s us. Maybe it’s Obama, who after all killed bin Laden and Qadaffi, toppled Mubarak and bin Ali, and has proclaimed that “Assad must go.” Who else could be behind the “mysterious” wave of assassination, sabotage and explosions all over the country, from military bases to factories, from pipelines carrying natural gas to the Turks to automobiles in downtown Tehran carrying nuclear physicists to or from work? Before we get to the whys and wherefores, a bit of detail: the huge detonation at Karaj, which, as I have explained, surprised the attackers and distorted our understanding. The operation was aimed at the Revolutionary Guards Corps, specifically at General Hassan Tehrani Moghadam, who was both the architect of the national missile program and one of the nastiest officials in that legendarily nasty organization. The attackers did not know that there was a large quantity of rocket fuel on the base that day (which was the reason Moghadam was there). The special fuel came from North Korea, and it was supposed to double tne range of Iran’s missiles. The explosion that killed Moghadam and scores of his comrades ignited the rocket fuel, with dramatic results. To date, 377 dead have been reported to the supreme leader’s office. Among the dead are the attackers–they couldn’t escape the big explosion–and at least four North Korean officials, who were there for the celebration. The attackers came from the internal opposition, and so far as I know they had no ties to any foreign anything, not a foreign intelligence service, not a foreign military organization, not a foreign government. I’ve been a lonely voice for quite a while, saying that the opposition (call it the Green Movement, for lack of an updated logo) would become more violent, that the movement was, if anything, more powerful than it was at the time of the big demonstrations a year and two years ago, and that the regime was full of opposition sympathizers and collaborators. Because it’s obvious that whoever’s blowing up Iran, they’ve got a lot of help from some very important insiders. Don’t take it from me; ask Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He knows that if his enemies can blow up those installations, they can blow up most anything. Of late, Khamenei hasn’t been particularly active in public events. Like his buddy, Hezbollah chief Nasrullah, he’s keeping his head down and his profile low. The sources upon whom I rely for such information tell me there is more to come, and I’m sure that the supreme leader believes just that. He may not know the provenance of the army amassed against him and his regime, and he may well convince himself, as our own entrail readers have convinced themselves, that he is under siege from the satanic forces in Washington and Jerusalem. But I don’t believe it. Maybe–probably, even-Stuxnet. I don’t think the Greens are up to that one. Maybe, if you insist, some of the assassinations of the physicists, although I rather suspect they were suspected of disloyalty and were rubbed out by the regime. But this is a major campaign, and I think it represents the revenge of the Iranian people against their torturers, murderers and oppressors. |
| Posted by: |
| #3 WhoÂ’s really blowing Up Iran? Who cares, as long as they keep it up. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2011-12-15 22:09 |
| #2 Look RA, Ledeen is one of these people who think that because they've been to a place and spoken to locals, they are experts on it. Actually, he knows as much about Iran as Tom Friedman knows about China---diddly squat. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-12-15 15:02 |
| #1 I'm not a chemist, nor even a rocket scientist. But I have a problem with new fuel doubling the range of a missile. That means the fuel contains more energy per unit of mass or volume. To, say, double the blast in the combustion chamber means the combustion chamber may not hold it. The acceleration would be substantially higher. The missile structure would be stressed beyond the design limits unless there had been a substantial fudge factor built in, which means extra unnecessary weight. Or they could burn it more slowly so the same energy is exerted from less fuel and thus burn it longer. But that would require completely rejiggering the plumbing, valving, and aiming or controlling mechanism. Anything's possible, I suppose, but this is stretching it. OTOH, it did blow up satisfactorily, so there's that. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2011-12-15 13:58 |