The article looks at the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and as the drums for direct military intervention to derail Iran’s purported covert military nuclear weapons program beat louder in both Jerusalem and Washington, an overlooked issue is the possibility of international “collateral damage,” to use the Pentagon’s favourite euphemism for civilian casualties. This news complicates the situation for advocates of a “clean” surgical strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities as how would Moscow and Pyongyang react when they start receiving their dead technicians back home?
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As the drums for direct military intervention to derail Iran’s purported covert military nuclear weapons program beat louder in both Jerusalem and Washington, an overlooked issue is the possibility of international “collateral damage,” to use the Pentagon’s favourite euphemism for civilian casualties.
On 14 November South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo stated, "Hundreds of North Korean scientists and engineers are working at about 10 nuclear and missile facilities in Iran, including Natanz, The North Koreans are apparently rotated every six months." Russian technicians also remain at Iran’s first nuclear electrical energy facility, Bushehr. So, any aerial strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities could result in significant numbers of dead Russian and North Korean specialists as “collateral damage,” with all the diplomatic uncertainties that might ensue from Moscow and Pyongyang as the body bags start arriving home.
The [
link to www.cia.govwebsite, (secure)] which listed the report, describes the Chosun Ilbo website as “conservative in editorial orientation -- strongly nationalistic, anti-North Korea, and generally pro-U.S.”
For those looking for more smoking guns, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reports that among the Iranian sites the North Koreans have been involved in are three research centres carrying out simulations of how to trigger nuclear weapons.
The news complicates the situation for advocates of a “clean” surgical strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
History seems to be repeating itself. The world has in fact lived with an “Islamic nuclear bomb” for the last thirteen years, when on 28 May 1998, a few weeks after India's second nuclear test, Pakistan detonated five nuclear devices in the Chagai Hills in Balochistan’s Chagai district. Pakistan began focusing on nuclear weapons development in January 1972 under the leadership of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who famously declared seven years earlier in 1965, “If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry. But we will get one of our own.”
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