America and Iran: big bombs
and base politics
The United States air force’s sophisticated new ‘bunker-buster’ weapon could become a critical factor in any escalation
of tension over Iran’s nuclear programme, writes Paul Rogers
THE United States department of defence has confirmed that it is rushing into production of the world’s largest ever bomb, one designed specifically to destroy underground targets. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator weighs just short of fifteen tonnes, more than 80 per cent of which is made up of a massively hardened ferro-cobalt alloy casing. When dropped from high altitude, the bomb will drive through earth and concrete before two-and-a-half tonnes of explosive are detonated to destroy the target (see ‘US “Bunker Buster” Bomb ready Soon: Pentagon’, Agence France-Presse/defence news, October 8).
The Pentagons sense of timing here – and those of its political masters – is acute. This, after all, is a moment when the United States is deeply troubled by the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, facing continuing difficulties in Iraq, concerned about North Korea; and when military specialists are playing a prominent role in advising Barack Obama’s administration over the next phase of its strategy (see ‘AfPak: the unwinnable war’, October 15). But in particular, it is the deep tension between the US and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear plans that makes the arrival of the new weapon a significant political as well as technological event (see Mariano Aguirre, ‘Barack Obama, Iran, and the nuclear danger’, October 20).
The growth path
THE new weapon, more than ten times as powerful as the current BLU-109 bomb, is planned principally to be delivered from high altitude by the stealth B-2 strategic bomber. It has been under development for some years as a ‘technology demonstration programme’, funded by the Defence Threat Reduction Agency; its delivery is a joint project of two of the largest United States arms companies, Boeing and Northrop Grumman (see ‘The United States, nuclear weapons, and Iran’, January 12, 2006).
The project was until recently believed to be a research programme that would only gradually move to the development stage, but it is now clear that the whole programme has been accelerated and that the first of the new weapons could be deployed within nine months (see ‘Pentagon eyes accelerated “bunker buster” bomb’, Reuters, August 2).
The history of weapons of this size began with the ‘grand slam’ bombs of the Second World War, but subsequent developments in explosive technology were the basis of the far more powerful bombs developed during the Vietnam War. These could be used to instantly clear rainforest to provide landing-sites for helicopters, as well as against tunnels and other targets. The largest was the 7.5-tonne BLU-82B (‘Big Blue’) bomb whose explosive was a mixture of ammonium-nitrate and powdered aluminium with a polystyrene soap binding-agent in aqueous solution. When close to the point of detonation, this produced blast overpressures of up to 1,000 psi (position-specific iterated), close to those of a small tactical nuclear weapon.
These bombs were again used against Iraqi trenches in the January 1991 war following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, and in Afghanistan in late 2001 during the operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda paramilitaries in the mountains around Tora Bora. Several journalists who visited areas where the bombs had been dropped reported scenes of extraordinary devastation. These bombs were blast-effect weapons rather than earth-penetrators but were used also to attempt to destroy the entrances to caves (see ‘The “Mother Of All Bombs” – how the US plans to pulverise Iraq, March 7, 2003).
MOAB to MOP
IN THE months before the war to terminate the Saddam Hussein regime was launched in March 2003, reports circulated that a very much larger blast-weapon was being rushed into deployment. Its technical designation was GBU-43/B, its everyday one the Massive Ordnance Air Burst weapon; the latter immediately earned it a name that played on Saddam’s own description of the 1991 war: the ‘Mother of All Bombs’. Indeed, it was expected to be used then. In the event, the early stages of that war involved rapid manoeuvre warfare and the MOAB wasn’t used, although it remains available for the future (see ‘What happened to the “Mother of All Bombs”?’, December 3, 2003).
The MOAB, like its Vietnam-era predecessor, is not specifically designed for destroying underground targets – as a massive blast-weapon it is classed more as an area-impact munition. One of the main differences between it and the earlier ‘Big Blue’ was that that had to be carried by a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, relatively slow and with limited range. The MOAB, by contrast, was from the start intended to be carried on long-range strategic bombers such as the B-52 and B-2.
In parallel with this type of weapon, there has been intensive research into more sophisticated penetration devices (often referred to as ‘bunker-busters’). These are designed (as their name suggests) to go through earth, rock or concrete at great speed, driving through many metres of solid material before exploding within underground chambers. The US air force has had these weapons for years, the BLU-109 being the standard system; many such ‘bunker-busters’ have been sold to Israel.
The MOP is set apart by its sheer size and the much more devastating power it contains. Since it can be deployed on the B-2 it would be possible (with air-to-air refuelling) to deploy the weapon to a war-zone in the middle east from Diego Garcia, RAF Fairford in England’s Gloucestershire or, indeed, the B-2’s home base in the United States. The current reports state that a $51.9 million contract has been agreed with Boeing’s McDonnell-Douglas division to modify the bomb bay of the B-2 so that it can carry the MOP. The congressional approval for this move was obtained in August 2009 and the contract let on October 2.
The development of the new weapon is backed by US Central Command (the unified military system that includes Iraq in its area of operations) and US Pacific Command (whose area includes North Korea). Its core purpose seems clear, though the Pentagon has been careful to avoid any claim that the rush to deployment is connected to Iran’s presumed nuclear-weapons programme. The Pentagon’s press secretary, Geoff Morrell, says:
‘I don’t think anyone can divine potential targets or anything of that nature. This is just a capability that we think is necessary given the world we live in these days. The reality is that the world we live in is one in which there are people who seek to build weapons of mass destruction and they seek to do so in a clandestine manner’ (see ‘DoD News Briefing...’, Defence News, October 7).
The clear danger
NONE of this in itself means that the MOP is likely to be used in combat soon. After all, the weapon also arrives at a time when President Obama is seeking (along with European states and international organisations) to develop a diplomatic dialogue with Iran, in sharp contrast to the policy of the George W Bush administration. There is a sense too in which the new bomb is related to internal competition between different government departments and between the air force and the army. In the latter case, the United States army has been the near-exclusive focus of attention in Iraq and Afghanistan; the air force’s acquisition of this new weapon is a reminder that it too has significant potential to make its mark in the post-9/11 era.
But there are clear dangers in the arrival of a weapon of this size and destructive power, not least if it proves difficult or impossible to negotiate a settlement with Iran. The ambitions and unpredictability of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regime, and a regional environment where Israel’s concerns and tensions with Hezbollah have ever-present combustible potential, make such deadlock a real possibility (see ‘Iran, America, Israel: the nuclear gamble’, October 2). In the event of continuing deadlock, there would be very heavy pressure on Obama from rightwing sources to take military action – perhaps in the approach to the mid-sessional Senate elections in November 2010. In those circumstances, the United States air force would be only too willing to utilise the new capabilities in its arsenal – including the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The very existence of this weapon would most certainly add to the pressure on the president.
openDemocracy, October 22. Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England
The banks are not alright
Administration officials are furious at the way the financial industry, just months after receiving a gigantic taxpayer bailout, is lobbying fiercely against serious reform. But you have to wonder what they expected to happen, writes Paul Krugman
IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times. OK, maybe not literally the worst, but definitely bad. And the contrast between the immense good fortune of a few and the continuing suffering of all too many boded ill for the future.
I’m talking, of course, about the state of the banks.
The lucky few garnered most of the headlines, as many reacted with fury to the spectacle of Goldman Sachs making record profits and paying huge bonuses even as the rest of America, the victim of a slump made on Wall Street, continues to bleed jobs.
But it’s not a simple case of flourishing banks versus ailing workers: banks that are actually in the business of lending, as opposed to trading, are still in trouble. Most notably, Citigroup and Bank of America, which silenced talk of nationalisation earlier this year by claiming that they had returned to profitability, are now — you guessed it — back to reporting losses.
Ask the people at Goldman, and they’ll tell you that it’s nobody’s business but their own how much they earn. But as one critic recently put it: ‘There is no financial institution that exists today that is not the direct or indirect beneficiary of trillions of dollars of taxpayer support for the financial system.’ Indeed: Goldman has made a lot of money in its trading operations, but it was only able to stay in that game thanks to policies that put vast amounts of public money at risk, from the bailout of AIG to the guarantees extended to many of Goldman’s bonds.
So who was this thundering bank critic? None other than Lawrence Summers, the Obama administration’s chief economist — and one of the architects of the administration’s bank policy, which up until now has been to go easy on financial institutions and hope that they mend themselves.
Why the change in tone? Administration officials are furious at the way the financial industry, just months after receiving a gigantic taxpayer bailout, is lobbying fiercely against serious reform. But you have to wonder what they expected to happen. They followed a softly, softly policy, providing aid with few strings, back when all of Wall Street was on the ropes; this left them with very little leverage over firms like Goldman that are now, once again, making a lot of money.
But there’s an even bigger problem: while the wheeler-dealer side of the financial industry, aka trading operations, is highly profitable again, the part of banking that really matters — lending, which fuels investment and job creation — is not. Key banks remain financially weak, and their weakness is hurting the economy as a whole.
You may recall that earlier this year there was a big debate about how to get the banks lending again. Some analysts, myself included, argued that at least some major banks needed a large injection of capital from taxpayers, and that the only way to do this was to temporarily nationalize the most troubled banks. The debate faded out, however, after Citigroup and Bank of America, the banking system’s weakest links, announced surprise profits. All was well, we were told, now that the banks were profitable again.
But a funny thing happened on the way back to a sound banking system: last week both Citi and BofA announced losses in the third quarter. What happened?
Part of the answer is that those earlier profits were in part a figment of the accountants’ imaginations. More broadly, however, we’re looking at payback from the real economy. In the first phase of the crisis, Main Street was punished for Wall Street’s misdeeds; now broad economic distress, especially persistent high unemployment, is leading to big losses on mortgage loans and credit cards.
And here’s the thing: The continuing weakness of many banks is helping to perpetuate that economic distress. Banks remain reluctant to lend, and tight credit, especially for small businesses, stands in the way of the strong recovery we need.
So now what? Mr Summers still insists that the administration did the right thing: more government provision of capital, he says, would not “have been an availing strategy for solving problems.” Whatever. In any case, as a political matter the moment for radical action on banks has clearly passed.
The main thing for the time being is probably to do as much as possible to support job growth. With luck, this will produce a virtuous circle in which an improving economy strengthens the banks, which then become more willing to lend.
Beyond that, we desperately need to pass effective financial reform. For if we don’t, bankers will soon be taking even bigger risks than they did in the run-up to this crisis. After all, the lesson from the last few months has been very clear: When bankers gamble with other people’s money, it’s heads they win, tails the rest of us lose.
The New York Times, October 20. Paul Krugman is professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugman was the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics.
The first step: Israel into the dock
What makes this significant – since the US lobbied hard first to keep the Goldstone Report from even reaching the HRC, and then for others to vote against the HRC resolution – is that many states who voted for it, or abstained, would normally
have been in the US corner. This is not a good sign for the US and Israel of how the General Assembly will go, and perhaps even the Security Council,
writes Dr Alan Sabrosky
THE UN Human Rights Council Resolution based on the Goldstone Report is a damning condemnation of Israel. The original meaning of being ‘caught red-handed’ was literally being ‘caught bloody-handed’, with the victim’s blood on one’s own hands. In Gaza, Israel has been caught red-handed in that
literal sense, and for the first time in its history, is approaching the dock in the international court of opinion and, hopefully, of justice
as well.
This case could be a watershed event. For Israel and its US government puppet-patron, the moment of truth in the UN is rapidly approaching. So let us look at the key elements of the HRC special session that sent this resolution to the UN General Assembly.
Voting patterns
VOTING patterns on the HRC are important, as they provide insights into what might happen later on the Security Council and in the General Assembly:
1. Of the permanent members of the Security Council, Russia and China supported the resolution, Britain and France did not
vote (the equivalent of hiding under the table!), only the US opposed it;
2. France and Norway did not vote for or against the resolution, but they did support the conclusions of the Goldstone Report;
3. Both major Sub-Saharan African states (Nigeria and South Africa) voted for it;
4. Two of the Asian ‘Big Three’ (India and China) voted for it, the third (Japan) just abstained;
5. Two of the usual US supporters in SW and SE Asia (Pakistan
and the Philippines) voted for it; and
6. Three of the four largest Latin American states (Argentina, Brazil, Chile) voted for it, the fourth (Mexico) abstained.
What makes this significant – since the US lobbied hard first to keep the Goldstone Report from even reaching the HRC, and then for others to vote against the HRC resolution – is that many states who voted for it, or abstained, would normally have been in the US corner. This is not a good
sign for the US and Israel of how the General Assembly will go,
and perhaps even the Security Council, which could easily
have a majority of 10 or 11 supporting the resolution (in whatever form it reaches the them), with France and Britain either abstaining or not voting. Very bad for the US, for even though its veto would kill any punishment of Israel there, there would be enough votes to ask the General Assembly officially to invoke the ‘Uniting for Peace Resolution’.
And several powerful states would not be at all unhappy to see the US discomfited here. Russia would take great pleasure from being on the winning side of a General Assembly vote that turned a US-inspired weapon against its own creator. China would see it as an opportunity to reaffirm its own growing prestige, as would India, which in addition has long been a strong and active supporter of UN peacekeeping operations. Countries like Brazil and Nigeria have little reason to support the US and none to support Israel, while even Japan could easily surprise the US – and take satisfaction from doing so.
Reservations about the resolution
US CRITICISM of the HRC resolution should be disregarded, as Washington only parrots Israel’s wishes here. So can the odd criticism that the initial report lacked an Israeli perspective, simply because Israel refused to cooperate with Goldstone – not surprisingly, since the report made it clear that nothing Israel might have
added would have exonerated it in any way.
But other reservations need to be addressed. One is that the resolution did not mention Hamas. I agree it might have been better to have included Goldstone’s condemnation of Hamas offences as well, but it is legitimate as it stands for five reasons: (1) Israel committed the great majority of the violations; (2) Israel had an overwhelming preponderance of military power; (3) Palestinians suffered almost all of the death and destruction; (4) Israel has a long, sordid history of ignoring UN commissions and resolutions, and of attacking UN facilities and killing UN staff, as when the clearly marked UNRWA facility in
Gaza was bombed; and (5) the HRC focus is properly on the actions of the oppressor (Israel) and not on those of the oppressed (the Palestinians).
Another is that it did not accord Israel the right of self-defence. But Israel’s claim to self-defence in its savaging of Gaza is specious, because Israel – like all occupiers and oppressors – has no inherent right of self-defence against its victims. Who, for instance, would have accepted Nazi Germany’s assertion that its brutal reprisals against the Czechs for their assassination of a Nazi commander named Reinhard Heydrich was an exercise in self-defence? No one, and no one should accept Israel’s claim, either.
A third is that holding Israel accountable for its actions will somehow endanger the Middle East peace process. But there is no peace process, simply meaningless discussions to the dead end (for Palestinians and the rest of the region) of Israeli hegemony, and under Netanyahu or any electable government in Israel, there is
not and cannot be one. There
will be an enforced peace imposed from outside of the Middle
East, over the objections and obstruction of Israel, or there will be none at all.
Prospects
Netanyahu’s assertion that he will prolong the diplomatic battle over the Goldstone Report and the subsequent HRC resolution is akin to a lawyer for a serial murderer trying to delay the trial in the hope that the witnesses will die of boredom or old age. It is also predictable. Since promises, excuses and offers of aid no longer suffice, it is inevitable that bluster, threats and blackmail will come to the forefront.
But Netanyahu knows that AIPAC has too much money for anyone else to outspend it within America, and the US (if it uses it) has too much muscle to be ignored by many of the smaller UN members. Give the US six months to lobby for votes, and this whole thing could fail. If that happens, a unique opportunity will be lost.
So rather than attempt to evade the certain US veto on the Security Council and its intransigence throughout this process, confront it head on as soon as possible in the General Assembly, where there are no vetoes. Explore all ways of invoking the ‘Uniting for Peace Resolution’ (UNGA 377A) – this is the instrument of choice, and its time is now.
Done properly, this could be the start of a real diplomatic revolution on the path to an enforced peace
in Palestine and an end to Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.
But if those countries supporting justice for Palestine do not act now, while attention is focused and the momentum is building, it will all have been for nothing. They will have no one to blame for their failure except themselves.
Sabbah Report, October 21. Dr Alan Sabrosky is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College.
He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net
Detention, torture of
New Age reporter
All those blood curdling incidents involving police and party activists that I’ve read so far since the Awami League took over power makes me really enraged. I feel we should get united against all those who are taking away our right to personal dignity and freedom. How can we tolerate a force like RAB torturing an innocent reporter of Newage in public in a way that will even put to shame the most barbarous perpetrator?
The bulk of the blame goes to the ruling party that uses forces like the police or RAB to act as their accomplice to fulfil their heinous interest.
People voted the Awami League to power in good faith. But with each day, the people are seeing what they have gotten themselves into.
And Sheikh Hasina cannot evade
her responsibility by giving mere lip service.
Tinku
On e-mail
Omrah, hajj and our leaders
It is usually noticed that after coming to power some people go to perform hajj. I don’t know who bear the expenditure. If they use the privilege of their position then do they earn any ‘neki’?
I don’t think Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq, Moulana Bhasani, Shahid Suhrwardi or Sheikh Mujibur Rahman did anything like this but they are till today widely respected.
Waheed Nabi
UK
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