Ayatollah Khamenei vs. Fidel Castro

[Pat]

.
Is Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei Like Fidel Castro???
By johnkarls » Sat Mar 20, 2010 8:07 am


The media loves to ignore an "inconvenient truth" that detracts from President Kennedy's profile as courageous.

However, that “inconvenient truth” is relevant to Pat’s recommendation that we study the possibility, since the U.S. Government is doing nothing effective to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, of applying the same “Cold War” containment strategy to Iran that we applied to the old Soviet Union.

Digressing for a moment, we had a lot of fun ridiculing Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Presidential campaign for her idea of extending the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” to the “Gulf State Six” (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman), each of whom is expected to quickly go nuclear if Iran goes nuclear.

The reason, of course, why Hillary Clinton’s suggestion is so silly is that it presumes Arabs are more stupid that Charles de Gaulle and the Israelis.

Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO and developed French nuclear weapons because he didn’t believe that the old Soviet Union would believe for a minute that the U.S. would risk a nuclear holocaust in order to save France from a Soviet invasion using its overwhelming advantage in conventional weapons.

If Israel had not “taken a page” from Charles de Gaulle, it would have been for the last 37 years the answer to a trivia question = “What WAS Israel”!!!

Pulitzer-Prize author, Seymour Hersh, details in his book “The Samson Option” Israel’s nuclear capabilities and how it saved Israel when Egypt & Syria launched the “Yom Kippur War” in 1973. Henry Kissinger had imposed an ammunition boycott on Israel for more than a year because Kissinger was so upset with the imperious treatment Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan had been heaping on Arab diplomats since the 1967 war. So when Egypt and Syria (which had actually united into a single country called the United Arab Republic for 3-4 years immediately after Egypt achieved independence from Britain in 1958) launched their surprise attack on Yom Kippur in 1973, Syrian tanks were encountering virtually no resistance because the Israelis were rationing their ammunition.

Finally, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir convened the Israeli Cabinet (1) to re-affirm their long-standing policy that if they reached the point at which Israel had fewer than 24 hours to go to complete annihilation, they would fire their 7 nuclear missiles which, interestingly, were trained on Russian cities rather than Arab capitals (because Israel recognized that the old Soviet Union had been inflaming Arab public opinion against Israel since its independence in 1948), and (2) to formally agree that Israel had reached the point of fewer than 24 hours to go to complete annihilation.

Seymour Hersh’s “Samson Option” does not record the identity of the Cabinet Minister who, at that meeting, made the suggestion that a telex be sent immediately to Kissinger to inform him of what would be “going down” within a matter of minutes. Luckily, Hersh reports, Kissinger was available to receive the telex and immediately replied: “Commence firing as if there is no tomorrow – the re-supply planes will take off at dawn.” The Israelis did begin firing “as if there were no tomorrow,” the re-supply planes did take off at dawn, the Israeli-Syrian front lines stabilized, and Israel did not become the answer to that trivia question.

Incidentally, since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israelis have been following a policy of being as self-reliant as possible with regard to military supplies.

*****
So what is needed for a credible U.S. “nuclear umbrella” for the Gulf State Six – and also Egypt and Turkey which are also now widely rumored to be intending to go nuclear as soon as Iran does???

1. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has to believe that the U.S. would risk a nuclear holocaust to protect the Gulf State Six + Egypt + Turkey from an Iranian nuclear attack.

2. Each of the Gulf State Six + Egypt + Turkey would all have to believe that the U.S. would risk a nuclear holocaust to protect them from an Iranian nuclear attack.

3. AND EACH OF THE GULF STATE SIX + EGYPT + TURKEY WOULD ALL HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI BELIEVES THE U.S. WOULD RISK A NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST IN ORDER TO PROTECT THEM – because even if the U.S. would do so (and Charles de Gaulle and Israel certainly didn’t think so in their cases), and even if the Gulf State Six + Egypt + Turkey all believe it themselves, they still won’t rely on it unless they believe Ayatollah Khamenei believes it (whether or not he in fact does).

4. The fourth requirement is discussed below.

*****
So what was the “inconvenient truth” regarding President Kennedy???

And why is it relevant to Hillary Clinton’s sophomoric idea???

When Glasnost (“openness”) became Soviet policy in the late 1980’s under Mikhail Gorbachev, vast previously-classified Soviet governmental archives were made public.

Including the cable traffic between Fidel Castro and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962!!!

Essentially, when U.S. spy satellites discovered the Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and President Kennedy imposed a naval blockade of Cuba, Fidel Castro cabled Nikita Khrushchev to say that in the course of human history come pivotal moments at which someone is willing to make a sacrifice to achieve an important goal AND THAT HE, FIDEL CASTRO, WAS WILLING TO SACRIFICE HIMSELF AND THE CUBAN PEOPLE FOR THE SAKE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM BY FIRING ALL OF THE SOVIET NUCLEAR MISSILES IN CUBA AT THE UNITED STATES (with the observation that “mopping up” the United States afterwards should be a fairly simple matter for the Soviet Union).

And essentially Khrushchev’s reaction to all of his underlings was: “Who is this mad man and who gave this mad man custody of any of my nuclear buttons??? -- Get my missiles the hell out of Cuba!!!”

Of course, being a superb negotiator, Khrushchev maintained a good “poker face” and extracted from the U.S. the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey that were trained across the Black Sea at the Soviet Union, in exchange for his promise to withdraw Soviet missiles from Cuba which he was going to do anyway for his own reasons.

However, the U.S. media should “get over” their obsession with maintaining President Kennedy's image as a profile in courage!!!

First, because President Kennedy really was courageous in October 1962. He didn’t know that Khrushchev was planning to pull the missiles anyway. And imposing a naval blockade is under international law an “act of war” – though I am not clear whether it is an “act of war” against Cuba which was blockaded or an “act of war” against the Soviet Union if their war ships bearing down on the U.S. Navy’s blockade line were captured or sunk – or whether it was an “act of war” against both Cuba and the Soviet Union!!!

But more importantly, because an appreciation of the true state of affairs in October 1962 frames beautifully THE QUESTION THAT WE AND THE GULF STATE SIX + EGYPT + TURKEY must ponder =

Is Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who loves to say frequently (among other outrageous things) that the reason why he is acquiring nuclear weapons is to destroy Israel – (A) more like the old Soviet leaders all of whom started life as peasants and deeply loved the Russian people, or (B) more like Fidel Castro who was willing to cause the annihilation of himself and his people for some Grand Idea???

********************************************************************

Thank You
By Pat » Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:35 pm

Dear John,

Thank you for framing the issue so well.

In addition to discussing the issue of Ayatollah Khamenei's character, we should also discuss whether there is anything practical that can be done either before or after Ayatolla Khamenei acquires nuclear weapons.

With best regards,

Pat