Ayatullah Khameini said that “Any unsuitable act, whether political or security, will meet a resolute response from the Iranian nation”.
How would (or could) Iran respond ?
Send us a Sternly Worded Note, perhaps. That sounds like pretty standard empty political-speak to me; I doubt there’s any actual plan or even any actual definition of “unsuitable act” in his mind.
Capture 3 more hikers and hold them for 2 years?
Blow up something big in the Strait of Hormuz, stopping all traffic, and causing a global recession?
Step One:
this is true , for now…
Step Two:
and this will be true, but only about 5 years from now, after Iran tests its nukes.
Assassinate key leaders with predator drones?
And thereby destroying the market for their oil exports?
Go on television and yell a bunch of jibberish that will make us all point and laugh?
The ‘something big’ I referred to was, say, a supertanker, not an explosive. Iran is perfectly capable of sinking one of those right now.
Don’t think they wouldn’t cut off their nose to spite their face. It is an extreme action, but it is a very possible one. They could also sink something less big, and simply delay transit for a while.
Or any number of minor details.
**How would Iran respond to any western “unsuitable act” ? **
We may find out in the near future.
The recent news about an Iranian plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador strikes me as very odd and unlikely.
What seems very likely, to me and it is just an opinion, is that this incident is a face saving device and prelude that will allow the Saudis to look the other way and allow Israel to over-fly Saudi airspace and attack the Iranian nuclear weapons producing plants in Southern Iran.
I am not a conspiracy nut by any means, but I do not believe that the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be allowed to continue much longer without some attempt to remove the threat.
That would be foolish; the Iranians specifically designed their program to be effectively immune to that sort of attack. Short of the Israelis using nukes themselves it wouldn’t work. Nor would it work as a face saving measure.
There have been several attempts already. But as long as it is rational for the Iranians to want nukes nothing short of massive military force is going to stop them.
Which facilities the Iranians, learning the lesson of the Osirak reactor in Iraq, have built underground and bomb-hardened. We’ve been over this many times before.
Indeed. If the Israelis though they could do anything to seriously damage the Iranian nuclear programme, they would have long since done it.
Would respond? Angry public fist shaking, possible pontification.
Could respond? Unleashing Hezbollah with instructions to hit soft targets from one side of the US to the other.
Or nothing at all; “any unsuitable act” is so vague a standard that they can choose to ignore whatever they feel like short of someone dropping bombs without violating it.
That easy? Really?