Frozen Turkey

Iran's mad mullahs, playing right into the hands of the U.S, and Israel, on Friday slashed its export of natural gas to Turkey by 70%. If Turkey needed any more persuasion by U.S. diplomats that Iran is a bully and a coward, this was it. If Iran was looking for allies in its ongoing attempts to develop nuclear weapons and to fight off world-wide efforts to stop it, cutting off a country's gas supplies in the middle of a bitterly cold winter would seem to be about the worst way to go about it. The Turks should be furious and now looking for a way to prevent this type of attack on its sovereignty again in the future. As well as looking for a new natural gas supplier, I should think.

Apparently, Iran's coldly (heh, heh) calculated move is a warning to the Turks not to entertain thoughts of allowing either Israeli or American flyovers of its territory in a potential attack on Iran. Iason Athanasiadis points out however,

Wayne White, a former deputy director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia, pointed out that he doubted whether "the issue of violating a country's airspace would be a major consideration with respect to Jordan, Saudi Arabia or perhaps even Turkey if the Israelis decided to go forward with such a strike".

"If one is doing something that bold, controversial, outrageous, the issue of violating airspace would be very much secondary to other considerations," he said.

In other words, if we or the Israelis decide to go, we go, with or without the permission of anyone to fly over their airspace. Interestingly, the article points out that during Israel's 1981 strike against Iraq's nuclear reactor in Osirak, U.S. supplied surveillance aircraft in Saudi Arabia and Jordan "failed to detect" the Israeli flyovers on their way to and from Iraq. Electrical interference from solar wind or Saturn's position behind Jupiter looking up Uranus, or something like that.

TAGS: Iran, mad mullahs, Turkey, natural gas, Israel, Osirak, Iason Athanasiadis