EMPhasis

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now:

33 minutes—about the time it takes to get a pizza delivered—is all it takes for a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile to travel halfway around the world and obliterate an American city. In less time, if detonated high above the homeland, its Electromagnetic Pulse would incapacitate everything from ATM and hospital machines to traffic lights and computers for thousands of miles. Life would never be the same.

In my opinion, the Corner post greatly underestimates the problem.

Try this as a thought experiment:

Iran asks a bunch of ambassadors, nuclear and ballistic weapons experts over for a demonstration. They first bring them down into a cave to show them a nuclear device. They show them the size and weight of the bomb. They then take them a safe distance away and show them a rocket. The payload of the rocket is a box about the same size and weight as the bomb.

They then launch the rocket and when it is about 300 miles up they ask an ambassador to push a button. When the button is pressed, the nuclear bomb in the cave goes off.

What has Iran just demonstrated? That they can launch a missile from a ship at sea and obliterate every piece of technology in every city on the eastern seaboard of the US, perhaps even reaching as far inland as Chicago. The destroyed technology would include: city water systems, all communications systems, medical systems, transportation systems (including cars), electrical systems, distribution systems, etc. In other words, Iran would have shown that they could bomb a third of the US back to the pre-industrial age with a single bomb that they could hide on a ship at sea.

Iran already has missiles like the one in the thought experiment. All they lack is the bomb...so far.

Now, after such a demonstration of power, what would Iran do? They could say that there are already 5 such ships floating the world's oceans, one somewhere near Europe, one off the Pacific coast of Japan, one off each coast of the US. They could also start setting terms: give us a tax on every barrel of oil that ships through the Straights of Hormuz, or we eliminate Japan...actually, make that every barrel of oil sold or shipped everywhere in the world. While we're at it, how about turning over 1 hour of prime time television on all channels to Islamic education and conversion efforts. Maybe a required class in every elementary school working to convert the young to Islam.

The technical hurdles for this demonstration will be all jumped over within a handful of years. Current estimates of Iran's getting its first bomb range from 6 months to 2 years. Which means that probably before Obama leaves office after 4 years, or certainly if he leaves office after 8 years, this scenario will be technically possible.

There's a scary world coming around the corner.