All but inevitable?

Things seem to be pointing all over the place to an ultimate showdown with Iran:

A pre-emptive U.S. and Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is nearly inevitable, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The incapacitation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made a pre-emptive attack on Iran more likely in the next nine weeks, Israeli sources tell the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by the founder of WND.

It was Sharon who vetoed the nearly unanimous recommendations of Israel's generals that a quick strike was the Jewish state's only chance at preventing Iran from building a significant nuclear arsenal.

Meanwhile, in Washington, there is growing concern that Iran's ultimate target is the U.S.

Earlier this month, Iran's Revolutionary Guards conducted a conference on the use of weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, chemical and biological. Included in those briefings were presentations on electromagnetic pulse weapons and other military technologies deemed to be under development for use against the U.S., rather than Israel or other enemies of the Islamic republic. Even one nuclear weapon, used in an EMP-style attack on the U.S., would prove catastrophic to the nation, a congressional panel studying the vulnerability of America to electro-magnetic pulse weapons concluded last year.

Such an attack would not require Iran to use long-range or intercontinental ballistic missiles, which it does not possess. But a simple Scud missile, with a nuclear warhead, could be fired from offshore and detonated above the U.S. wreaking near total devastation on the country's technological, electrical and transportation infrastructure. It would also have the advantage of offering Iran a degree of plausible deniability, given that "terrorists" armed with one nuclear weapon could achieve the same results.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration appears to be backing this notion:

US President George W. Bush will not accept a nuclear Iran, John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday.

Bolton, speaking from New York via video hook-up to the Interdisciplinary Center's Herzliya Conference, said that Bush was determined to pursue the issue through peaceful and diplomatic means, "but has made clear that a nuclear Iran is not acceptable."

According to Bolton, Bush worries that a nuclear-equipped Iran under its current leadership could well engage in a nuclear holocaust, "and that is just not something he is going to accept."

Yet Iran, being the Islamo-fascists that they are, continue to push the envelope in this game of brinkmanship:

Ali LarijaniIran’s top nuclear official on Sunday warned Tehran would resume efforts to enrich uranium on an industrial scale if its case was reported to the UN Security Council, further raising the stakes in the crisis over its nuclear programme.

Tehran earlier this month moved to resume nuclear research, including some small-scale enrichment. But Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, which handles the nuclear issue, said in an interview with the Financial Times that a referral to the United Nations would force Tehran to broaden significantly the scale of such work.

“If the case goes to the Security Council, we’re obliged . . . to lift all voluntary measures,” he said, specifying that this included industrial-scale uranium enrichment.

By all accounts, with Sharon now on the wayside, Iran seems emboldened and fully poised to continue its quest for nuclear capability, using its oil exports as a political weapon to dangle over the heads of developed countries that depend on such oil. I do, however, believe that the Iranians are making the grave mistake of "misunderestimating" the will and tenacity of George W. Bush. Bush has shown time and time again that he is willing to put the security interests of the United States and the world ahead of the consternation of the usual Bush bashers, and I have every confidence that Bush will indeed make the right move at the right time.

But I again harken back at the naysayers who continue to believe that it is not a necessity to pursue domestic sources of oil, at least in the short term until viable alternative energy sources are available and online. If we had indeed spent the last 20 years exploring and harvesting our own natural energy resources (while simultaneously developing alternatives), Iran's threat of witholding oil would now be seen as empty and as nonconsequential--a non factor; leaving our options wide-open not only toward the likes of Iran, but to the likes of Saudi Arabia, as well.

As I've said again and again, our immediate energy independence is not only a good idea toward ensuring our long- and short-term national security; the two are in fact intertwined and inseparable.

It is high time we start putting our very existence as a nation at a higher priority than placating a select group of pseudo-scientists with a faux agenda for fear of losing a block of votes.

Do you hear that, Norm Coleman?

(Filed under Religion of Peace?, Energy Madness, Enviro-Whackism)