Mowing Iran's Grass

It is being reported in various locations that Iran launched an attack on the joint U.K./U.S. base at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean. They fired two intermediate range ballistic missiles at the base.

One failed in flight, another was attacked by an anti-air missile fired by a US Navy ship. Neither reached the target, which is 2400 miles from Iran. It was not previously known that Iran had operational weapons of this range.

Such weapons threaten many targets in Europe, Africa, and India. Combine these missiles with the crude nuke Iran could possibly cobble together and you've got a threat to much of the world. 

This certainly makes fools of those who claimed Iran was no threat. The threat is real, and it's in a region that produces martyrdom-seeking suicide bombers. Who's to say they won't try to revenge themselves on, for example, Rome and the Vatican, in addition to Tel Aviv?

You can't build ballistic missiles in a blacksmith shop. We need to keep bombing until their industrial capacity is destroyed. Instead of a ceasefire, we may need to go back periodically and "mow the grass*," - get rid of whatever they've rebuilt until they're ready to "play nice."

*An Israeli term of art for periodic attacks to keep an enemy weak, originally applied to Gaza.

Saturday Snark

IRBM attack on Diego Garcia leaves Kent looking dumb.

Dame Diana Rigg, of fond memory.

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Not Surprised

COTTonLINE gave you a heads up about a likely bombing attack on Iran almost a month ago. Here is some of what we posted on March 27.

US long-range bombing assets are massing at Diego Garcia. The means one of two things.

Either they are there to add weight to the pressure Trump will put on Iran to reach a no-nukes deal, or they are there to bring pressure and, if the diplomatic effort fails, bomb to destruction Iran's nuclear program using (non-nuclear) ground-penetrating high explosive bombs. Carrier based assets will aid in this latter effort.

Long range bombers delivered most of the attack on Iran, and according to Jennifer Griffin, Fox News' longtime Pentagon reporter, carrier based EA-18 electronic warfare planes supported the mission. There were also submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles fired at surface targets. One source even claims a B-52 dropped a bunker buster too.

This last point could turn out to be important, namely that B-52s can operate more-or-less safely over Iran. They are capable of carrying well over a hundred 500 lb. dumb bombs per mission, of the sort that can carpet bomb cities into rubble fields. Trump warned that Iran has "many targets left" and he is willing to destroy them too if surrender is not forthcoming.

I wonder when and how this ends?

Something Brewing

Diego Garcia is an island in the Indian Ocean located roughly halfway between Singapore and Dar es Salaam. This article and another similar one suggest US long-range bombing assets are massing at Diego Garcia. The means one of two things.

Either they are there to add weight to the pressure Trump will put on Iran to reach a no-nukes deal, or they are there to bring pressure and, if the diplomatic effort fails, bomb to destruction Iran's nuclear program using (non-nuclear) ground-penetrating high explosive bombs. Carrier based assets will aid in this latter effort.

The intelligence behind this article comes from open-source unclassified civilian satellite look-down video. There is not a lot of overhead privacy in this modern age.