If the mainstream media hadn’t just tried to link the acts of a random madman to a peaceful movement aimed at restoring limited government and fiscal responsibility I’d say we couldn’t accuse them of not having good intentions… However, one thing the Rep. Giffords tragedy has show is that liberal media outlets often want so badly for something to be true that they’re willing to run with it with just a few indictors to go on. I’m worried that this is going to be the case with Iran now that Stuxnet has generally accomplished its goals:
Identified in June, Stuxnet is being called the most sophisticated cyber weapon ever unleashed, because of the insidious way in which it is believed to have secretly targeted specific equipment used in Iran’s nuclear program.
Computer experts have examined the worm for months, and many believe Stuxnet was created by Israel or the United States as part of a covert effort to hamper Iran’s alleged drive for an atomic weapon. But the extent to which the operation succeeded had remained unclear.
In recent weeks, however, a rough consensus has emerged that Stuxnet has had a measurable effect. In addition to the remarks from U.S. and Israeli officials, the Institute for Science and International Security, an independent think tank, judged in late December that Stuxnet appears to have “set back Iran’s progress.”
Stuxnet “will undoubtedly reshape international security and foreign policy forever,” said John Bumgarner, chief technology officer of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit research organization that studies cyber conflict. “It’s a tipping point that will usher in a cyber-defense revolution in military affairs.”
While Stuxnet is an incredibly awesome story, and it’s fun to think of Iranian mullah-nuts pulling their beards out for months trying to wonder why their centrifuges were all playing suicide bomber…it ultimately doesn’t change their will or desire to obtain nuclear weapons.
What I’m afraid will happen now is that liberals at the Los Angeles Times will become obsessed with “breathing space.”
After years of warning that an Iranian atomic bomb is right around the corner, Israeli officials now say Iran is at least four years away from deploying a nuclear weapon, maybe more. And Obama administration officials agree, although they shy away from endorsing a specific time frame. “We’ve gained some breathing space,” a senior U.S. official told me last week. “The good news is that we have slowed down the nuclear clock.”
Breathing space is fine, but it really all depends on what one plans on doing with that extra time. Is the goal to slow the clock down or is it to destroy the clock? What if Stuxnet hadn’t worked? What then?
Crazy is patient. Crazy outlasts politicians and sanctions and the weak-kneed will of bureaucrats at the United Nations who all talk a great game—until the s**t hits the fan.
Do a little research on who has done all the heavy lifting in Afghanistan over the years. Afghanistan was one of those wars the United Nations was supposedly on board for, yet there are a lot of nations that are perfectly capable of helping out that have been MIA for years.
In short: The United Nations as it currently exists is painfully useless. Anyone expecting it to play a productive role in ultimately bringing the Iranian nuclear standoff to a peaceful end should probably not take a vacation to Las Vegas anytime soon.
Douglas Ernst Blog 