Third Undersea Cable Cut

Many readers are reporting that another undersea fiber optic cable has been cut, apparently caused by another wayward anchor. It looks like Iran has completely lost Internet connectivity."

Comments

Re:Third cut?

[russotto]

I'm not a tinfoil hat type, I don't see conspiracy where ever I look, but why would it have to be the US?

You must be new here. The US _is_ the source of all evil, according to Slashdot received wisdom.

Re:Third cut?

[Zeinfeld]

"A communications disruption can mean only one thing - invasion."

Who the hell thinks this comment is funny?

War is never funny. A war with Iran is likely to cost tens of thousands of US ervice lives and a hundred thousand or more Iranian lives within a few weeks. Cutting the cables is very likely intended to be a prelude to war. Most likely it is simply another provocation intended to cause Iran to commence the hostilities, if it was intended to support an actual invasion they should have waited until the last moment.

Iran is not going to be the pushover that Iraq was, although their military spending is only 1% of US spending, their cost basis is much lower. They have bought a lot of missiles, they have proved that their missiles are capable of sinking an Israeli naval ship with advanced electronic countermeasures. They are more than likely capable of sinking the supercarriers. They are certainly capable of sinking any tanker that is stupid enough to lumber through the straits.

The Iranians can certainly level the green zone and decapitate the US occupation. They can mount a land invasion and cut off the US forces by capturing Basra. They have had four years to gather comprehensive knowledge of the US order of battle etc. in Iraq from their HUMINT assets on the ground. The US does not even have an embassy in Iran, all US operatives in Iran are illegals and it is highly unlikely that the CIA has a tenth the number of agents in the whole of Iran as the Iranians have in Basra or Baghdad.

The US is unable to occupy Iraq, Iran has three times the population. Russia and China rely on Iranian oil supplies and are going to take every step necessary to prevent the US from gaining control of the middle east. They are just as willing to use nuclear weapons as the Bush administration is.

What we are looking at here is quite likely the end of US superpower status. If the US goes head to head with Iran and loses a supercarrier it will immediately sink to being on the same rank as China and Russia. That is not funny at all.

Re:Third cut?

[Zeinfeld]

Second, you're absolutely right that it would be suicidal. My understanding is that the Iranian Sunburn missiles can rather easily take out our supercarriers. Don't we just happen to have three right there in striking range? Is the idea that we get Iran to take out our supercarriers to JUSTIFY the ceaseless war and kick it up a notch?

Well one possibility is that they plan to use nuclear weapons after they lose the carriers. My working assumption is that Bush is a clinical psychopath and that he actually enjoies getting people killed, gives him a buzz. If so using a nuclear weapon would give him the biggest buzz of his life.

Before you dismiss this as Bush hatred, consider the peculiar reaction Bush had to the Texas executions, his insistence on keeping open the option to use torture at huge political cost despite the evident fact that the US is no longer using torture. I cannot explain this situation in political terms, it makes no sense.

These adventures in the middle east have not made the US stronger, they have made Iran stronger and the US weaker. A war with Iran will have the same effect resulting in a single pan-Shia state.