I could. It was bizarre - it looked to me like some kind of hoax, it came across as all hammed up. But I can't tell if it is, or if it's part of some kind of 'ironic' devil's advocacy, or the real deal. I don't know enough about the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, or the speaker, to say.

One key site that would almost certainly be targeted in a bombing campaign, the uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan, houses 371 metric tons of uranium hexafluoride and is located on the city’s doorstep; toxic plumes released from a strike would reach the city center within an hour, killing as many as 70,000 and exposing over 300,000 to radioactive fallout. These plumes would “destroy their lungs, blind them, severely burn their skin and damage other tissues and vital organs.” The report’s predictions for long-term toxicity and fatalities are equally stark. “The numbers are alarming,” says Khosrow Semnani, the report’s author, “we’re talking about a catastrophe in the same class as Bhopal and Chernobyl.”

Beyond those initially killed in a potential strike, the Iranian government’s lack of readiness for handling wide-scale radiation exposure could exponentially raise the death toll, Semnani says. His study, published by the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics and the nongovernmental organization Omid for Iran, outlines Iran’s poor record of emergency response and notes that its civilian casualties from natural disasters like earthquakes have been far greater than those suffered during similar disasters in better prepared countries like Turkey. With virtually no clinical capacity or medical infrastructure to deal with wide-scale radioactive fallout, or early warning systems in place to limit exposure, Iran would be swiftly overwhelmed by the aftermath of a strike. The government’s woeful unpreparedness remains unknown to most Iranians.

Ray Jay wrote:Israel has admirably let us know their red line. If Israel does attack in March, I cannot fault them.

It did not help that Tehran's Grand Bazaar, the heartbeat of the capital's economy, also went on strike and hundreds of protesters took to the streets, chanting anti-government slogans that described the president as a traitor". Iranian state TV, which rarely reflects public anger about the regime, reported the closure of the bazaar and the discontent about the devaluation of currency.

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:Israel has admirably let us know their red line. If Israel does attack in March, I cannot fault them.

Despite the knowledge that there's a potention million civilian casualties from radiation? Sure, you can say Iran's intransigence and belligerence led to it, but generally people will look to who actually bombed a facility to blame for when the results are so deadly. I'm not sure that's really something Israel wants to be tarred with, frankly.

Anyway, Iran has enough problems - Iranian currency crisis threatens Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rule (Guardian)

It did not help that Tehran's Grand Bazaar, the heartbeat of the capital's economy, also went on strike and hundreds of protesters took to the streets, chanting anti-government slogans that described the president as a traitor". Iranian state TV, which rarely reflects public anger about the regime, reported the closure of the bazaar and the discontent about the devaluation of currency.

Now, I happen to think that it would actually help the Iranian regime if they could point to external pressures as both an excuse for their economic problems and a distraction from them. If nothing else, perhaps it shows that the sanctions are having an effect.

danivon wrote:Sure, Iran should be a peacemaker, but others can be too. If their government is not (and so is not 'blessed') that's enough to risk civilian lives? If Israel is saying 'we will attack unless x', are they not being belligerent themselves?

Quick question, bbauska - if foreign powers felt Obama (or another President) was too bellicose, and they as a result attacked the USA, would you put it down to a verse in Proverbs?