Shades of the missiles of October

Iran will strike US if Israel attacks
Iran to send warships to US coasts
Ok, this is how the Big Boys play their silly games.
Big Boy 1: If you don’t do what I want, I will bomb you.
Big Boy 2: You won’t bomb me, but if someone else you are buddy-buddy with does, then I will bomb you. Oh, and by the way, that buddy-buddy, we are arming and financing groups who hope to blow them off the map, which, come to think of it, is just a good idea. Another thing, you know your fleet, which has been sitting off our coast for years … well, we are going to send our own to sit off your coast.
If you think this is about Iran … well, you would be partly correct. It also is pretty much what happened 50 years ago that literally brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and it could have happened if the two sides didn’t blink. Scary isn’t it.
Well, in this case, Iran sees itself as the U.S. under John Kennedy and the U.S. playing the role of the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev, with Israel playing the role of Cuba.
In October of 1962, the world held its breath while the U.S. and the Soviet Union stared down the barrels of their nuclear-armed missiles over the Soviet Union’s installation of nuclear-tipped rockets in Cuba that could reach about a third of the United States.
Cuban Missile Crisis
Now, there are some similarities, but I really think it only is in the mind of the Iranians.
First, the U.S. has not installed its missiles in Israel. I think sometimes much to our chagrin; Israel has developed its own missiles and its own warheads (something Mr. Castro never did).
Of course, Cuba was concerned that the big, bad U.S. was going to try again to overthrow his regime (it botched the first try, which it usually does, it seems). Israel has put up with the Iranian regime trying to overthrow (actually see the entire state and its people eliminated) its government for more than three decades. Iran has spent a lot of money on the project and done a wonderful job arming its proxies with a lot of rockets and mortars and other stuff that goes bang and boom.
Second, like it or not, the U.S. (sort of by default) is like the enforcement arm of the United Nations. It is (whether the Iranians or the American people like it), unfortunately, looked to as the world’s constable. You might not agree with this assessment, but it is what the U.S. was doing in Korea, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, for many years, what we now know as the “Korean War” (1950-1953) wasn’t called a “war.” It was called a “police action” or “conflict.” Again, most of the world is waiting for the U.S. to do something, like it did with Libya last year, with Syria.
Now, the problem for the Iranians is similar to that problem that faced the regime of Saddam Hussein 10 years ago: They have a severe credibility gap. Whether you believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or not, Iraqi deceptions and actions did not really lend credence to their denials. Such is the case now for the Iranian government.
Whether or not you think the Iranians plan to build one or more nuclear devices and possibly use them on Israel, their denials do seem to lack a certain amount of credibility. In other words, they say one thing, but a lot of the available evidence indicates that they are doing something else.
Now, I don’t blame the Iranians for building nuclear weapons. It makes perfect sense in many ways, especially if you are trying to recapture a world role from 2,500 years ago. For many reasons – religious, economic, ideological – the Iranians want to be treated and looked at as THE Big Kid on their block. Their neighbors are not so sure that is what they want and a lot of the world would rather the nuclear genie stays in its bottle and not spread to any more.
So, where will all this go? Haven’t a clue. Israel may decide that the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran is too great to its survival and bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. The U.S. will probably try to jawbone Israel into not doing it, but in the end, that decision will be Israel’s.
Of course, the U.S. may end up playing cop and bop the Iranians itself. But that will take an awful lot of prompting from other world actors and continuation of Iranian saber-rattling. Unfortunately, the rattling of sabers to get attention is a time honored practice among humans, and it usually gets out of hand.
So, unfortunately, I suspect that the situation with Iran will get infinitely worse before it gets better. A lot of people probably will die and a lot of property will be destroyed. Why? Because competing self-interests could not be resolved any other way.