Defiant Khamenei Emphasizes Iranian Hegemony (Daniel 8)

Defiant Khamenei emphasizes Iranian regime’s aggressive policies
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addresses crowds of Iranians in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad for a celebration of Nowraz. (AFP)
Every year, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivers a few speeches, with the annual address in Mashhad, a city in northeast Iran, considered to be the most important.
It is imperative to meticulously examine the points made by Khamenei in this speech, which is delivered after the Persian New Year. The comments by the most powerful man in Iran outline the path the Islamic Republic will take in the next year.
Iran’s lawmakers in the Majlis (parliament) and military generals view Khamenei’s annual speech as direct instructions to be followed. Policymakers should also search for the important issues that Khamenei deliberately and shrewdly evades.
In his most recent annual speech, which he gave on March 21, Iran’s supreme leader highlighted several important issues. First of all, he went on at length to explain that the Islamic Republic ought to maintain its core revolutionary principle of opposing Western countries.
Intriguingly, Khamenei did not make any distinction between the US and European countries in this year’s speech. After the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, was reached between six world powers and the Islamic Republic, Iran’s supreme leader employed a softer tone toward the European nations in his annual speeches.
The main reason behind Khamenei’s shift this year is the fact that European countries have been incapable of assisting Tehran in bypassing the renewed US sanctions. After the Trump administration reimposed the primary and secondary sanctions that had been lifted or waived under the nuclear deal, both American individuals and companies and non-American entities could be punished for continuing to trade and have business dealings with the Iranian government. Many European firms and corporations, including French energy giant Total, subsequently abandoned their plans to invest in Iran.
As a result of this move, Khamenei’s main military institutions, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its elite Quds Force branch, and Iran’s militia and terror groups, which were the main beneficiaries of the increased cash flow following the nuclear deal, witnessed a significant drop in their income.
The supreme leader was initially hoping that the EU would come to his aid. However, as Hassan Rouhani’s government searched for assistance from European governments in helping Tehran increase its revenues and trades, the Islamic Republic soon realized that the EU’s projects and mechanisms, such as INSTEX — the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges — were totally ineffective.
This is why Khamenei ridiculed the EU, stating: “This financial channel they recently set up resembles a joke, a bitter joke… Europeans should have stood up to the US after it left the JCPOA and should have lifted all sanctions against Iran.”
But European companies will not risk their business with the US or access to the US financial systems by dealing with Iran.
Khamenei demonstrated escalating antagonism toward those state or non-state actors that his regime views as enemies
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
The second critical comment that Khamenei made was linked to deploying more hard power, rather than diplomacy and soft power, for carrying out domestic and foreign policies. He emphasized that the country’s military infrastructure ought to be advanced.
His move is in clear defiance of the international community’s pressure on Tehran’s military adventurism and advancement of its ballistic missile program. Khamenei pointed out that: “We shall continue to strengthen our military power in spite of the enemies and will not relent under pressure.”
In addition, Khamenei demonstrated escalating antagonism toward those state or non-state actors that his regime views as enemies and rivals. For example, he lashed out at Saudi Arabia and further incited anti-Western sentiments. He referred to Western politicians as savages. “Deep inside, Western politicians are savage individuals in the true sense of the word. You should not be surprised at this. They wear a suit, they wear a tie, they put on perfume and they carry a Samsonite briefcase, but they are savages and they act in a bestial manner in practice,” he said.
Iran’s supreme leader did not take responsibility for the most important issue in Iran: The economic difficulties and challenges that many Iranians are facing on a daily basis. He blamed the West for the nation’s economic crisis and labeled the coming year as one “of opportunities, possibilities and openness” and a year for “boosting production.”
How can the Iranian people regard the new year as a “year of opportunities” and “boost production” when the country’s leaders have not taken any concrete steps to address the regime’s financial corruption, misuse of public funds and the widespread banking crisis, which are among the major reasons behind the present currency and economic crises? In fact, these problems are systemic and exist deep in Tehran’s economic infrastructure.
Khamenei made it clear in his important speech that he is determined to defy international norms and standards, continue to expand the stranglehold of his military institutions, further destabilize the region, and evade responsibility and accountability for Iran’s economic crisis.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News’ point-of-view

Pakistan’s Nuclear Terrorism

Nanda: The real threat to stability in South Asia is terrorism originating in Pakistan
• Ved Nanda
• March 29, 2019 at 12:01 pm
Tensions have now eased on the Indian subcontinent, but in mid-January after a suicide bomber in Pulwama, Kashmir, killed 40 Indian paramilitary police, India and Pakistan — two nuclear-armed neighbors — faced off.
Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), a Pakistan-based terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for the bombing. Twelve days later the Indian Air Force (IAF) struck a JeM camp at Balakot, deep inside Pakistan. That was followed by Pakistani jets crossing into Indian airspace and a dogfight ensuing between the two Air Forces, in which an Indian plane was shot down and its pilot captured. Pakistan returned him to India after a few days and further escalation was avoided by both sides.
But as a recent article by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has aptly stated, we are witnessing a “smoldering volcano.” These neighbors have fought four major wars since India was partitioned in 1947. The critical question now is, what has changed with Pulwama and Balakot?
The Balakot strike, which India called a “preemptive strike” to prevent another imminent JeM attack, marks a policy shift in India’s decades-long strategy of self-restraint — enduring proxy terror attacks, funded and actively supported by the Pakistani military and intelligence services. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have deterred India from conventional retaliation for these government-backed terrorist strikes.
After coming to power in 2014, Prime Minister Modi of India suggested that he would no longer tolerate such proxy attacks. And in 2016, in response to an attack in Pathankot and Uri, Modi conducted a “surgical strike,” sending India’s armed forces across the border inside Pakistan.
This time, after Pulwama, the air strikes have sent a clear and resounding message to Pakistan — that India will not be intimidated by nuclear coercion: its response henceforth will be swift and proportionate and Pakistan must cease its proxy terror policy.
After Pulwama, India removed Pakistan from its “most favored nation” status, imposing 200 percent duties on all imports from Pakistan. This, however, is a symbolic gesture. A more serious action is blocking the water of three rivers flowing into Pakistan. Under the 1960 Indus Waters Treaties that govern the sharing of waters between India and Pakistan, India was entitled to make full use of these three rivers, but it was letting a percentage of their waters flow into Pakistan. “Blood and water cannot flow simultaneously,” announced Modi. Of course, the Balakot strike is of a different magnitude.
How relevant is international law, which prohibits the use of force in resolving international disputes? It is politics, not international law, that will resolve this conflict. But under international law rules, a country can use force in its self-defense to prevent an imminent attack. This was the U.S. justification for its invasion of Afghanistan, which the United Nations blessed, and it is the same justification that India has used for its military operations inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has been facing mounting international pressure, even from Islamic countries, to restrain terrorist groups operating from its territory, attacking India and Afghanistan. After the Pulwama attack, the White House urged Pakistan to punish those responsible for the attack.
While Pakistan has tried to convince the international community that it is taking adequate and appropriate measures against such groups, all these measures, such as after the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack and the 2016 Uri attack, have been cosmetic. The terrorists, sanctioned by the government, have resurfaced soon after the announcement of such sanctions and the “banned” terrorist groups have always reincarnated under another name.
The real threat to stability in South Asia is terrorism originating in Pakistan. With the Balakot message and the continuing international pressure, perhaps Pakistan has learned that it is in its interest to control terrorist groups and stop the proxy attacks in India and Afghanistan. It indeed is in Pakistan’s interest to do so, because it also remains vulnerable to terrorism and has suffered immensely from such attacks.
Ved P. Nanda (vnanda@law.du.edu) is Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Ved Nanda Center for International and Comparative Law, University of Denver Sturm College of Law.  His column appears the last Sunday of each month.

Indian Point Still Having Problems (Revelation 6:12)

Indian Point 2 returned to service, but shuts off again about 12 hours later
Dennis Malles, of Malles Auto Body in Montrose and the Montrose Business Association, talks about the future of local businesses after the closure of the nearby Indian Point Energy Center nuclear power plant.
Peter Carr/lohud
BUCHANAN – Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant was back online and generating power Sunday, nine days after a malfunction on the non-nuclear side forced a precautionary shutdown in the reactor. But hours later it shut down, again.
On March 15, the initial shutdown began around 3 p.m., ending at 2 a.m. on March 24, according to Jerry Nappi, a spokesman for the nuclear plant’s owner, Entergy.
But that was short lived — 12 hours and 45 minutes later, the system tripped again, around 2:45 p.m. on Sunday, over a similar malfunction to the one that caused the problem in the first place.
0 FOR 2: Both Indian Point reactors down at same time
The first shutdown of Indian Point 2 came while the plant’s other reactor, Indian Point 3, was down for its scheduled refueling. That means that for nearly 9 days, the plant was not generating power. The last time both reactors went down at the same time was in the spring of 2009 when Unit 2 had an unplanned shutdown while Unit 3 was down for maintenance.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the reactor was safely shut down and there were no threats to public safety.
Entergy announced in January 2017 that, as part of an agreement with the state of New York, it would shut down Indian Point by 2021. Unit 2, which went through its final refueling and maintenance last year, is slated to close in 2020.
Contributing: Thomas C. Zambito

Thousands Trample Outside the Temple Walls (Revelation 11)

At least two killed in Gaza as thousands of Palestinians demonstrate near Israeli border | Fox News
March 30, 2019
At least two teenagers have been killed in clashes with Israeli military as tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered at the Israeli border to mark a year of the protest movement.
The latest demonstrations honored the “Great March of Return” that started on March 30, 2018. Nearly 40,000 Palestinians marched to the border in heavy rain to mark the anniversary. Protesters want an end to a years-long blockade of the Gaza Strip and for refugees in Gaza to be allowed to return to ancestral homes in Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) put the number of protesters at around 40,000 and said explosive devices, stones and burnt tires were thrown over a wall in the direction of Israeli Military, according to the BBC.
The IDF said they responded with “riot dispersal means” including live ammunition.
The teens, both 17, were killed and dozens of protesters were wounded, a Palestinian health official and the Daily Beast reported. They said another man was shot dead by Israeli forces overnight near the border fence.
From March to December last year, 189 Palestinians and one Israeli have died during the protests, including 35 children, three paramedics and two journalists, according to the UN Human Rights Council. During that period, 6,106 Palestinians were injured.
“The Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel,” said Santiago Canton, chairman of the Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry..
A UN investigation found that Israeli snipers had shot at children, medics and journalists during the protests.
“There can be no justification for killing and injuring journalists, medics, and persons who pose no imminent threat of death or serious injury to those around them. Particularly alarming is the targeting of children and persons with disabilities,” said Commission member Sara Hossain. “Many young persons’ lives have been altered forever. 122 people have had a limb amputated since 30 March last year. Twenty of these amputees are children.” Israel has denied the allegations.
The protests came on the heels of a week in which rockets were launched from Palestine into Israel and the Israeli military retalited with bombings of Gaza.
Hamas, the Islamist group prominent in the Gaza Strip, told the BBC it would try to keep Saturday’s protests peaceful and a safe distance from the fence, as Egyptian and UN mediators tried to prevent escalation.

The Sixth Seal: More Than Just Manhattan (Revelation 6:12)

New York, NY – In a Quake, Brooklyn Would Shake More Than Manhattan
By Brooklyn Eagle
New York, NY – The last big earthquake in the New York City area, centered in New York Harbor just south of Rockaway, took place in 1884 and registered 5.2 on the Richter Scale.Another earthquake of this size can be expected and could be quite damaging, says Dr. Won-Young Kim, senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.
And Brooklyn, resting on sediment, would shake more than Manhattan, built on solid rock. “There would be more shaking and more damage,” Dr. Kim told the Brooklyn Eagle on Wednesday.
If an earthquake of a similar magnitude were to happen today near Brooklyn, “Many chimneys would topple. Poorly maintained buildings would fall down – some buildings are falling down now even without any shaking. People would not be hit by collapsing buildings, but they would be hit by falling debris. We need to get some of these buildings fixed,” he said.
But a 5.2 is “not comparable to Haiti,” he said. “That was huge.” Haiti’s devastating earthquake measured 7.0.
Brooklyn has a different environment than Haiti, and that makes all the difference, he said. Haiti is situated near tectonic plate.
“The Caribbean plate is moving to the east, while the North American plate is moving towards the west. They move about 20 mm – slightly less than an inch – every year.” The plates are sliding past each other, and the movement is not smooth, leading to jolts, he said.
While we don’t have the opportunity for a large jolt in Brooklyn, we do have small, frequent quakes of a magnitude of 2 or 3 on the Richter Scale. In 2001 alone the city experienced two quakes: one in January, measuring 2.4, and one in October, measuring 2.6. The October quake, occurring soon after Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, “caused a lot of panic,” Dr. Kim said.
“People ask me, ‘Should I get earthquake insurance?’ I tell them no, earthquake insurance is expensive. Instead, use that money to fix chimneys and other things. Rather than panicky preparations, use common sense to make things better.”
Secure bookcases to the wall and make sure hanging furniture does not fall down, Dr. Kim said. “If you have antique porcelains or dishes, make sure they’re safely stored. In California, everything is anchored to the ground.”
While a small earthquake in Brooklyn may cause panic, “In California, a quake of magnitude 2 is called a micro-quake,” he added.

American Idiots Clamoring To Attack Iran

Hawks Clamoring To Attack Iran
Emile Nakhleh1 day ago
As Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman clamor for a war against Iran, they seem to have conveniently forgotten the destruction and mayhem wrought by the American invasion of Iraq 16 years ago.
These war drummers are underestimating the potential negative consequences of the war and overestimating the Iranian people’s dislike of their theocratic regime. They, like the advocates of the Iraqi invasion in the winter of 2002 and early spring 2003, are confusing Iranians’ dislike of the ayatollahs with their potential embrace of a foreign invader.
On the eve of the Iraq war, former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the Vice President Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President David Addington all claimed that the Iraqi invasion aimed at liberating the country from the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. Removing Saddam from power, they maintained, would eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and bring stability, security, and democracy to Iraq.
As developments unfolded over the past 16 years, the “liberation” claims proved to be bogus. The invasion and the decision to de-Ba’athify Iraq and dissolve the Iraqi military created an environment conducive to sectarianism, insurgency, and terrorism. The vacuum that followed the regime collapse, the incompetence of the American administration in the “Green Zone,” and the pervasive corruption of the new Iraqi governing councils was quickly filled by pro-Iranian militias, al-Qaeda, and later the Islamic State. The promise of stability and security was replaced by chaos, bloodshed, and mayhem.
The massive destruction of Iraq and the horrendous human and material cost the American “liberation” caused for the country will be child’s play compared to what could happen if Trump and his Israeli and Saudi allies decide to attack Iran. Unlike Iraq—which the British cobbled together after World War One out of the Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds under a minority Sunni rule—  Iran has been in existence for centuries with a vast territory and a huge population. If attacked, Iran has the capability to retaliate against its neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia. Its air and missile forces could quickly destroy the oil and gas facilities and the water and power grids on the Arab side of the Gulf. A war against Iran could easily spread to the Gulf and the Levant. The entire region could go up in flames.
Hubris and Ignorance
The Bush administration was not willing or interested in answering the “morning after” questions regarding the post-Saddam future of Iraq. Whenever I and others urged policy makers to consider the law of unintended consequences and what could go wrong in Iraq following the invasion, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld dismissed our concerns and arrogantly claimed that the U.S. military and civilian administration following the invasion would be able to control the situation in Iraq. Their hubris regarding America’s power and ignorance of Iraqi realities on the ground led to a total breakdown of Iraqi society following the demise of the Saddam regime.
The Trump administration seems to be equally arrogant and ignorant about Iran. It has displayed a similar disregard for strategic thinking about the future of Iran beyond the clerical regime. The Iranophobes within the administration seem to be more obsessed with Iran than the Bush administration was ever with Iraq.
Instead of relying on calm, expert-based analysis, Secretary of State Pompeo has made a series of trips to the region that have involved bullying, threats, and hilarious, if not tragic, mischaracterizations. In a recent conversation with Christian broadcasters in Jerusalem, Pompeo waxed eloquent about God’s presumed divine plan designating Trump as a possible savior of the “Jewish people,” Sunni Islam, Maronite Lebanon, Alawite Syria, and the rest of the world from the perceived modern-day Persian “Hamans.”
Instead of relying on calm, expert-based analysis, Secretary of State Pompeo has made a series of trips to the region that have involved bullying, threats, and hilarious, if not tragic, mischaracterizations.
The American foreign policy process is in serious trouble if Pompeo truly believes that Trump could be the twenty-first-century version of Queen Esther or Hadassah and that this religious vision could chart the path to a grand strategy in the Middle East. When warped religious interpretations are offered as a substitute for rationally debated policy, whether by a radical Wahhabi Salafist, an evangelical Christian, or an ultra-Orthodox Jew, democratic governments should fear for their future. Invoking the divine as an inspiration or a justification for violence against another country, much as Osama bin Laden did on the eve of 9/11, is a rejection of rational discourse and a return to the barbarism of previous epochs.
Pompeo’s imagined “shuttle diplomacy” in the Middle East has been reduced to supporting Netanyahu’s upcoming election bid, threatening Hezbollah in Lebanon, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and lambasting any state that does business with Iran. His ambassador-designee to Saudi Arabia, John Abizaid, told Congress that the threat from Iran supersedes concerns for human rights in Arab autocracies.
Furthermore, Trump administration policy operatives, including John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani, have treated an Iranian group called the Mujahedin-e Khalq or MEK as a legitimate alternative to the clerical regime in Iran. The MEK, however, is a terrorist cult that has received funding from all sorts of dubious sources and is often used as a tool by outside groups, states, and organizations, including intelligence services of regional and international state actors, to further an anti-Iran agenda.
Similarly, the Bush administration viewed Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi émigré, and the organization he founded, the Iraqi National Congress, as the legitimate alternative to the Saddam regime in Iraq. Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld fully bought into Chalabi’s snake-oil sales. Chalabi was instrumental in instigating America’s invasion of Iraq at the cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of American and Iraqi lives. Iraq has never recovered from that ill-fated, unnecessary war. Bolton and Giuliani are as susceptible to MEK’s claims as Cheney and Rumsfeld were to Chalabi’s.
For the sake of whipping up regional animus toward Iran and preparing the ground for a war against the “Persian menace,” Pompeo in effect has told Arab autocrats that so long as they keep mouthing anti-Iran rhetoric, Washington will ignore their despicable human rights record and the continued repression of their people. The thousands of political prisoners in Egyptian, Saudi, and Bahraini jails will have to wait for another day.
Arab regimes have become masters in the art of communicating with their American benefactors. During the Cold War, they received American aid as long as they brandished anti-Communist slogans. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and with the rise of terrorism, these same strongmen were happy to adopt an anti-terrorism rhetoric in order to continue receiving American military and economic aid. Their current anti-Iran public posture is the latest phase in their communication with Washington and is as equally profitable as the previous two phases.
When some regional politicians demurred about getting tough with Iran, as happened during Pompeo’s recent visit to Lebanon, he did not hesitate to threaten them with a panoply of economic sanctions. Vice President Mike Pence used similar language at the recent meeting in Warsaw to berate and even threaten America’s European allies if they dared to take a conciliatory posture toward Iran. The European reaction to Pence’s speech showed that his pathetic performance backfired. Pompeo’s Warsaw meeting ended in utter failure.
Iran Nuclear Deal
Managing Iran’s malign behavior through the Iran nuclear deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a stroke of diplomatic genius, which former Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz negotiated. The Obama administration placed Iran’s objectionable behavior in two baskets—a nuclear basket, which they addressed through the Iran deal, and a non-nuclear one, which the Obama administration was to address once the nuclear inspection became operational and Iran fully compliant. That approach would have worked: most experts judged Iran to be in compliance with the conditions of the nuclear deal. Unfortunately, President Trump decided not to recertify the agreement.
Trump’s decision contradicted the judgment of most nuclear and intelligence experts about Iran’s compliance. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), for example, affirmed Iran’s compliance in more than a dozen of its successive quarterly reports and as recently as earlier this month.
In his open testimony to Congress in January, the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stated that Iran continued to comply with the deal even after Trump announced his intention to scuttle it. Coats said, “We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.” Iran was of course cheating in other areas, according to the DNI’s testimony, but not on the nuclear agreement.
In a statement issued April 25 of last year, over two dozen Israeli senior military and intelligence officials judged that it was “in Israel’s best interest that the United States maintains the nuclear agreement with Iran.” The Israeli statement went on to say that “The current deal is better than no deal” and that “Iran’s destructive regional policies and actions, its support for acts of terrorism, its presence in Syria, and its ballistic missiles program should be dealt with outside the framework of the agreement.” This was precisely the position of the Obama administration when it negotiated the deal in the first place.
The Path Forward
Fifty-plus retired American generals and diplomats, in a statement published earlier this month, urged the Trump administration to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and work on resolving outstanding concerns with Iran diplomatically. They advised against a war because they saw no good outcome. The statement did not seek to exonerate Iran’s destabilizing behavior and its involvement in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, or Lebanon. Nor did the retired senior leaders ignore Iran’s link to terrorism. The statement, however, pointed out, among other things, that the 2015 nuclear deal “put limitations on Iran’s nuclear program that provided assurances that it would not be used to develop weapons, improved American intelligence about potential future development and significantly improved the security of the United States and our allies.”
Additionally, the retired generals and diplomats emphasized that Iran is complying with the agreement and that, under the JCPOA, Iran is barred from engaging in nuclear weapons development program, which prevents it from producing a nuclear device. “Reentering the agreement and lifting the sanctions will greatly enhance United States’ ability to negotiate improvements and enable us to address concerns with the existing agreement.”
Coming from these military and policy realists, who are dedicated to the security of this country, Israel, and America’s allies, this advice is grounded in sane strategic analysis, not in theological whimsy.

New York Subways at the Sixth Seal (Revelation 6)

How vulnerable are NYC’s underwater subway tunnels to flooding?
Ashley Fetters
New York City is full of peculiar phenomena—rickety fire escapes; 100-year-old subway tunnels; air conditioners propped perilously into window frames—that can strike fear into the heart of even the toughest city denizen. But should they? Every month, writer Ashley Fetters will be exploring—and debunking—these New York-specific fears, letting you know what you should actually worry about, and what anxieties you can simply let slip away.
The 25-minute subway commute from Crown Heights to the Financial District on the 2/3 line is, in my experience, a surprisingly peaceful start to the workday—save for one 3,100-foot stretch between the Clark Street and Wall Street stations, where for three minutes I sit wondering what the probability is that I will soon die a torturous, claustrophobic drowning death right here in this subway car.
The Clark Street Tunnel, opened in 1916, is one of approximately a dozen tunnels that escort MTA passengers from one borough to the next underwater—and just about all of them, with the exception of the 1989 addition of the 63rd Street F train tunnel, were constructed between 1900 and 1936.
Each day, thousands of New Yorkers venture across the East River and back again through these tubes buried deep in the riverbed, some of which are nearing or even past their 100th birthdays. Are they wrong to ponder their own mortality while picturing one of these watery catacombs suddenly springing a leak?
Mostly yes, they are, says Michael Horodniceanu, the former president of MTA Capital Construction and current principal of Urban Advisory Group. First, it’s important to remember that the subway tunnel is built under the riverbed, not just in the river—so what immediately surrounds the tunnel isn’t water but some 25 feet of soil. “There’s a lot of dirt on top of it,” Horodniceanu says. “It’s well into the bed of the bottom of the channel.”
And second, as Angus Kress Gillespie, author of Crossing Under the Hudson: The Story of the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, points out, New York’s underwater subway tunnels are designed to withstand some leaking. And withstand it they do: Pumps placed below the floor of the tunnel, he says, are always running, always diverting water seepage into the sewers. (Horodniceanu says the amount of water these pumps divert into the sewer system each day numbers in the thousands of gallons.)
Additionally, MTA crews routinely repair the grouting and caulking, and often inject a substance into the walls that creates a waterproof membrane outside the tunnel—which keeps water out of the tunnel and relieves any water pressure acting on its walls. New tunnels, Horodniceanu points out, are even built with an outside waterproofing membrane that works like an umbrella: Water goes around it, it falls to the sides, and then it gets channeled into a pumping station and pumped out.
Of course, the classic New York nightmare scenario isn’t just a cute little trickle finding its way in. The anxiety daydream usually involves something sinister, or seismic. The good news, however, is that while an earthquake or explosion would indeed be bad for many reasons, it likely wouldn’t result in the frantic flooding horror scene that plays out in some commuters’ imaginations.
Horodniceanu assures me that tunnels built more recently are “built to withstand a seismic event.” The older tunnels, however—like, um, the Clark Street Tunnel—“were not seismically retrofitted, let me put it that way,” Horodniceanu says. “But the way they were built is in such a way that I do not believe an earthquake would affect them.” They aren’t deep enough in the ground, anyway, he says, to be too intensely affected by a seismic event. (The MTA did not respond to a request for comment.)
One of the only real threats to tunnel infrastructure, Horodniceanu adds, is extreme weather. Hurricane Sandy, for example, caused flooding in the tunnels, which “created problems with the infrastructure.” He continues, “The tunnels have to be rebuilt as a result of saltwater corroding the infrastructure.”
Still, he points out, hurricanes don’t exactly happen with no warning. So while Hurricane Sandy did cause major trauma to the tunnels, train traffic could be stopped with ample time to keep passengers out of harm’s way. In 2012, Governor Andrew Cuomo directed all the MTA’s mass transit services to shut down at 7 p.m. the night before Hurricane Sandy was expected to hit New York City.
And Gillespie, for his part, doubts even an explosion would result in sudden, dangerous flooding. A subway tunnel is not a closed system, he points out; it’s like a pipe that’s open at both ends. “The force of a blast would go forwards and backwards out the exit,” he says.
So the subway-train version of that terrifying Holland Tunnel flood scene in Sylvester Stallone’s Daylight is … unrealistic, right?
“Yeah,” Gillespie laughs. “Yeah. It is.”
Got a weird New York anxiety that you want explored? E-mail tips@curbed.com, and we may include it in a future column.

Palestinians Call for Mass Protests Outside the Temple Walls (Revelation 11)

Palestinians call for mass Gaza border protests on Saturday | The Jerusalem post
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Palestinian demonstrators protest at the Israel-Gaza border fence, in the central Gaza Strip January 25, 2019. (photo credit:” IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA / REUTERS)
The organizers said they are hoping that tens of thousands of Gazans will join the mass protests.
Factions in the Gaza Strip are urging Palestinians to participate in Saturday’s mass protests near the border with Israel afternoon prayers. The factions urged Palestinians on Thursday to “maintain the peaceful and popular nature” of the protests, and said they don’t want to give Israel an excuse to use force against the demonstrators.
Saturday’s protests marking the first anniversary of the “Great March of Return” weekly demonstrations coincides with Land Day, an annual day of commemoration of the events that took place in Israel in 1976 after the Israeli government’s decision to expropriate thousands of hectares in the Galilee.
The organizers said they are hoping that tens of thousands of Gazans will join the mass protests.
The call for mass participation in Saturday’s protests near the border with Israel came as Egyptian intelligence officials held talks in the Gaza Strip with leaders of various Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to discuss ways of averting an all-out confrontation between the Palestinians and Israel.
The Egyptian security delegation, headed by Gen. Ahmed Abdel Khaleq, arrived in the Gaza Strip late Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon, the delegation headed back to Israel to brief Israeli officials on the outcome of their talks with the Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.
Sources in the Gaza Strip said that the Egyptian intelligence officials demanded that the Palestinian factions work towards preventing Palestinians from engaging in violence during Saturday’s protests. The Egyptians reportedly relayed a message from Israel to the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to the effect that Israel will respond with full force to any attempt to infiltrate the border or harm its soldiers.
The Egyptian officials are expected to return to the Gaza Strip on Friday, said Talal Abu Tharifah, a senior official with the PLO’s Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Egyptians, he said, will brief the leaders of the Palestinian factions on the results of their talks in Israel, especially with regards to the demand that Israel ease restrictions imposed on the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave.
Talal Abu Tharifah said that the organizers of the “Great March of Return” have made it clear that Saturday’s demonstrations will be “peaceful.”
Khaled al-Batsh – head of the National Authority for the Great March of Return, the body that launched the weekly protests in March 2018 – called for “preserving the popular nature” of the protests so as not to give Israel an excuse to use force against the Palestinians.
“Our people have decided to march towards freedom regardless of the cost and sacrifices,” said al-Batsh during a press conference in Gaza City. He called on representatives of the media and human rights organizations to come to the sites of the protests to witness the “historic” event.
The organizers of the protests urged Palestinian participants to display discipline and “watch out for the bullets of the soldiers and snipers.” They also called on the protesters to stay in five encampments that would be established near the border with Israel and “cooperate with the organizing committees to maintain the safety of the residents.”
Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said on Thursday that the weekly protests near the border with Israel will increase and expand in the coming days and weeks. He said that calm and stability on the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip was “dependent on the extent of the Israeli government’s adherence to understandings that were reached to lift the blockade on the Gaza Strip.” The Israelis living near the border with the Gaza Strip will continue to live in anxiety as long as the Palestinians are suffering due to the blockade, he added.

The Nuclear Bowls of Wrath (Revelation 16)

335 Million Dead: If America Launched A Massive Nuclear War on Russia and China
Overall, an all-out U.S. attack on the Soviet Union, China and satellite countries in 1962 would have killed 335 million people within the first seventy-two hours.
“Overall, an all-out U.S. attack on the Soviet Union, China and satellite countries in 1962 would have killed 335 million people within the first seventy-two hours.”
It is no exaggeration to say that for those who grew up during the Cold War, all-out nuclear war was “the ultimate nightmare.” The prospect of an ordinary day interrupted by air-raid sirens, klaxons and the searing heat of a thermonuclear explosion was a very real, albeit remote, possibility. Television shows such as The Day After and Threads realistically portrayed both a nuclear attack and the gradual disintegration of society in the aftermath. In an all-out nuclear attack, most of the industrialized world would have been bombed back to the Stone Age, with hundreds of millions killed outright and perhaps as many as a billion or more dying of radiation, disease and famine in the postwar period.
(This first appeared several years ago.)
During much of the Cold War, the United States’ nuclear warfighting plan was known as the SIOP, or the Single Integrated Operating Plan. The first SIOP, introduced in 1962, was known as SIOP-62, and its effects on the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact and China were documented in a briefing paper created for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and brought to light in 2011 by the National Security Archive. The paper presupposed a new Berlin crisis, similar to the one that took place in 1961, but escalating to full-scale war in western Europe.
Although the war scenario was fictional, the post-attack estimates were very real. According to the paper, the outlook for Communist bloc countries subjected to the full weight of American atomic firepower was grim. The paper divided attack scenarios into two categories: one in which the U.S. nuclear Alert Force, a percentage of overall nuclear forces kept on constant alert, struck the Soviet Union and its allies; and a second scenario where the full weight of the nuclear force, known as the Full Force, was used.
Under SIOP, “about 1,000” installations that were related to “nuclear delivery capability” would be struck. The scenario, which assumed advance warning of a Soviet attack and an American preemptive strike, would see the Alert Force attacking 75 percent of these targets. The attack would be a largely “counterforce” strike, in which U.S. nuclear forces attacked Soviet, Warsaw Pact and Chinese command-and-control and nuclear forces. The report states that 83 to 88 percent of all targets would be destroyed with 70 percent assurance.
In an Alert Force attack, 199 Soviet cities with populations of fifty thousand or greater would be struck. This would turn 56 percent of the urban population and 37 percent of the total population into casualties, most of whom would eventually die due to a post-attack breakdown of society. In China, forty-nine cities would be struck, turning 41 percent of the urban population into casualties and 10 percent of the overall population. In eastern Europe, only purely military targets would be struck, with a projected 1,378,000 killed by American nuclear attacks.
An all-out Full Force attack would be much worse. A Full Force attack would devastate 295 cities, leaving only five cities with populations of fifty thousand or more unscathed. 72 percent of the urban population and 54 percent of the overall population would become casualties—as the National Security Archive points out, that amounts to 108 million likely killed out of a total population of 217 million. In China, seventy-eight cities would be struck, affecting 53 percent of the urban population and 16 percent of the overall population. Casualties in eastern Europe would more than double, to 4,004,000.
Overall, an all-out U.S. attack on the Soviet Union, China and satellite countries in 1962 would have killed 335 million people within the first seventy-two hours.
The SIOP-62 report does not attempt to estimate U.S. casualties in a nuclear war. However, a 1978 report prepared for the Pentagon’s Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), “The Effects of Nuclear War,” spelled out in grim detail what would happen if the Soviet Union unleashed its arsenal on the United States.
The OTA report states that, in the event of a Soviet attack against U.S. nuclear forces, other military targets, economic targets and population targets, an attack could be estimated to kill between sixty and eighty-eight million Americans. With enough warning, major cities and industrial areas could be evacuated, but that would only lower the number of dead to between fifty-one and forty-seven million. Attacks on U.S. allies, including the NATO nations, Japan and South Korea, would undoubtedly occur but are not modelled in the study.
Another report, “Casualties Due to the Blast, Heat, and Radioactive Fallout from Various Hypothetical Nuclear Attacks on the United States,” postulated a Soviet attack against “1,215 U.S. strategic-nuclear targets. The attack involves almost 3,000 warheads with a total yield of about 1,340 megatons.” Because the attacks are carried out against hardened facilities, particularly MX and Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic-missile silos, the attacks are envisioned using SS-18 “Satan” ICBMs, each carrying ten 550-to-750-kiloton warheads. Attacks against U.S. bomber and refueling forces are carried out by ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles fired from off the coastline.
The result of even this modest attack, which largely spares U.S. cities to attack nuclear forces in the Midwest, is thirteen to thirty-four million deaths and twenty-five to sixty-four million total casualties. Still, bombarded by 1,215 nukes, the United States would lose far fewer people than Strategic Air Command estimated the Soviet Union would lose in 1962.
The discrepancy is probably because of the larger yields of U.S. nuclear weapons in the 1960s versus Soviet nukes in the 1980s, but also because at the time of the SAC report, Soviet nuclear forces were primarily bomber-based. The Soviet Union had between 300 and 320 nuclear weapons in 1962, all but forty of which were bomber-based. Bomber bases may have been closer to major population areas. A major draw of U.S. nuclear weapons to Soviet cities would have also been the presence of local airports, which would have functioned as dispersal airfields for nuclear-armed bombers. On the other hand, the Soviet attack would largely hit ICBM fields and bomber bases in low-population-density regions of the Midwest, plus a handful of submarine bases on both coasts.
As devastating as these projections are, all readily admit they don’t tell the entire story. While these three studies model the immediate effects of a nuclear attack, long-term problems might kill more people than the attack itself. The destruction of cities would deny the millions of injured, even those who might otherwise easily survive, even basic health care. What remains of government—in any country—would be hard pressed to maintain order in the face of dwindling food and energy supplies, a contaminated landscape, the spread of disease and masses of refugees. Over a twelve-month period, depending on the severity of the attack, total deaths attributable to the attacks could double.
While the threat of nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union has ended, the United States now faces the prospect of a similar war with Russia or China. The effects of a nuclear war in the twenty-first century would be no less severe. The steps to avoiding nuclear war, however, are the same as they were during the Cold War: arms control, confidence-building measures undertaken by both sides and a de-escalation of tensions.
Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. In 2009 he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami.

The Growing Iranian Nuclear Horn

IRAN LIKELY STILL DEVELOPING NUCLEAR WEAPONS – SURVEY
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Netanyahu warns against nuclear Iran at 2012 UN General Assembly. (photo credit:” REUTERS)
Nearly half of Middle Eastern survey respondents say they are skeptical that Iran has stopped working to achieve nuclear weapons, according to a poll taken by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and reported by the Hebrew daily Israel Hayom.
The latest survey conducted by professional pollsters on behalf of the ministry found that 43% of Middle Easterners say Iran did not stop its nuclear program. The number of North American respondents who believe similarly is also high at one-third or 33%.
The survey also asked whether or not respondents were interested in their countries having ties with the Jewish state. In general, 75% of respondents believe that ties with Israel can be beneficial to their countries.
When broken down by Middle Eastern countries, 43% of Iraqis, 42% of Emiratis and  41% of Moroccans said they were in favor of ties with Israel. On the other hand, only 32% of Tunisians, 21% of Algerians and 23% of people from Saudi Arabia said they were in favor of such ties.
According to the report, the survey also examined how much respondents agreed that the Palestinian Authority is a roadblock to regional peace. Strikingly, the majority of respondents had no opinion: 53% in the Middle East, 52% in Western Europe and 51% in North America.
A senior official from the Foreign Ministry told Israel Hayom that “when it comes to the Palestinians, the important figure is actually how uninterested the global public is in the conflict.”

The Bloodshed So Far Outside the Temple Walls (Revelation 11)

Gaza border protests: 190 killed and 28,000 injured in a year of bloodshed
Using UN data we explore who has been affected, how they were injured and what life is like in Gaza today
Fri 29 Mar 2019 07.00 GMT
One year ago, Palestinians trapped in Gaza began a protest movement at the frontier with Israel that was intended to last six weeks.
Men, women and children demanded recognition of the right of Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere to return to their ancestral homes in Israel and for an end to a punishing blockade that has made life unliveable.
Israeli snipers fired live ammunition, killing and maiming dozens. This lethal response on 30 March 2018 triggered anger and disbelief across the world but has not stopped.
A year later, the rallies continue. Thousands have bullet wounds through their legs. The streets of Gaza are filled with people limping or in wheelchairs. Children, journalists and medics have been killed, even when they were standing far back from the fence. The UN has said Israel’s military may have committed war crimes, deliberately targeting civilians.
Protesters have hurled rocks and molotov cocktails and attempted to damage and break through the fence using wire cutters and, in some cases, explosives.
The Israeli army has said its forces have opened fire to protect against attacks and incursions. Four troops have been injured during the protests, and one soldier was killed by a bullet fired from Gaza.
How has life in Gaza changed since the protests began?
Gaza’s economy is in freefall, according to the World Bank, which blames the blockade, multiple wars with Israel, and internal rivalries among Palestinian factions.
The health system has all but collapsed while the vast influx of casualties from the protests threatens to overwhelm it. High numbers of patients with complex limb wounds have significantly depleted supplies. More than half of drugs in Gaza are at “zero stock” levels, meaning less than a month’s supply remains.
World Health Organization
Quality of wastewater flows into the sea
Almost all tap water is undrinkable – either tainted with sewage or salt water from the sea. Authorities have at times said they had to pump raw sewage into the Mediterranean.
Gaza Wash Cluster/CMWU
Medical applications for exit via Israel
Israel has prevented patients from entering its well-resourced hospitals for medical emergencies. Very few Palestinians in Gaza apply for exit permits because they know they will be rejected. Those who do have a high chance of being denied or having their applications delayed.
World Health Organization
Hours of electricity supplied each day
Gaza receives electricity from Israel and Egypt but it is paid for by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. A rivalry with Hamas has meant the PA has occasionally stopped payments to punish its political foes, leading to daily blackouts.
GDP per capita
The economy in Gaza is crumbling, the World Bank has warned. Every second person lives in poverty and economic growth is negative. Foreign aid, recently cut by the Trump administration, is not enough to support life in the strip.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
Unemployment rate
Most young people in Gaza have never left and say they have no hope for a future inside what they call the “world’s largest prison”.

US Approves the Saudi Nuclear Horn (Daniel 8:8)

US approves companies’ nuclear work in Saudi Arabia
Agence France-Presse, Washington, MAR 29 2019, 11:12AM IST UPDATED: MAR 29 2019, 11:45AM I
The United States has given the green light to companies to work on six nuclear projects in Saudi Arabia, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday, despite lawmakers’ worries that the kingdom could seek weapons.
Questioned during a Senate hearing, Perry confirmed that the Trump administration has approved six applications to do initial nuclear work in Saudi Arabia and two in Jordan.
Perry, who said the Energy Department approved 37 of the 65 applications it received globally since 2017, promised the United States was committed to ensuring the Saudis do not reprocess spent fuel to make nuclear weapons.
“What I’m really concerned about, senator, is that if the United States is not the partner with Saudi Arabia, (or) for that matter Jordan,” Perry said, “they will go to Russia and China for their civil nuclear technology.”
“I can assure you that those two countries don’t give a tinker’s damn about nonproliferation,” he said.
“We’ve got a history of nonproliferation, and nobody in the world will do it better than us.”
The approvals, first reported Wednesday by news site The Daily Beast, were not earlier announced, with Perry saying the companies wanted to shield proprietary information.
But Democratic lawmakers have voiced alarm that the Trump administration is rushing in secret to approve civilian nuclear energy in Saudi Arabia even though the kingdom — the world’s largest oil exporter — has not sought a so-called Section 123 agreement, under which a country assures the peaceful use of technology.
US companies cannot legally transfer nuclear material to countries without Section 123 agreements.
President Donald Trump has pursued a close relationship with Saudi Arabia, saying openly that the kingdom was good for US business even if the powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is confirmed to have ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October.
Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post who wrote critically of the crown prince, was strangled and his body dismembered after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to handle wedding paperwork.
Representative Brad Sherman, in a hearing Wednesday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, accused the administration of working with the Saudis to do an “end-run around the law.”
“If you cannot trust a regime with a bone-saw, you should not trust them with nuclear weapons,” said Sherman, a Democrat from California.
Prince Mohammed has warned that the Saudis will pursue nuclear weapons if their arch-rival Iran obtains them.

Trump Secretly Builds the Saudi Nuclear Horn (Daniel 7)

Trump administration approves secret nuclear power work for Saudi Arabia
Published Wed, Mar 27 2019 • 9:23 PM EDT Updated Thu, Mar 28 2019 • 7:36 AM EDT
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has approved six secret authorizations by companies to sell nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia, according to a copy of a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
The Trump administration has quietly pursued a wider deal on sharing U.S. nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia, which aims to build at least two nuclear power plants. Several countries including the United States, South Korea and Russia are in competition for that deal, and the winners are expected to be announced later this year by Saudi Arabia.
Perry’s approvals, known as Part 810 authorizations, allow companies to do preliminary work on nuclear power ahead of the deal, but not ship equipment that would go into a plant, a source with knowledge of the agreements said on condition of anonymity. The approvals were first reported by the Daily Beast.
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said in the document that the companies had requested that the Trump administration keep the approvals secret. “In this case, each of the companies which received a specific authorization for (Saudi Arabia) have provided us written request that their authorization be withheld from public release,” the NNSA said in the document.
The NNSA and the Department of Energy did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
Many U.S. lawmakers are concerned that sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia could eventually lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told CBS last year that the kingdom would develop nuclear weapons if its rival Iran did. In addition, the kingdom has occasionally pushed back against agreeing to U.S. standards that would block two paths to potentially making fissile material for nuclear weapons clandestinely: enriching uranium and reprocessing spent fuel.
Concern in Congress about sharing nuclear technology and knowledge with Saudi Arabia rose after Oct. 2, 2018 when U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Part 810 authorizations were made after November 2017, but it was not clear from the document whether any of them were made after Khashoggi’s killing.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a congressional hearing on Wednesday to release the names of the companies that got the approvals by the middle of April, and Pompeo said he would look into it. Sherman also said the Trump administration has attempted to evade Congress on sharing nuclear power with the kingdom. Pompeo said the administration was working to ensure any shared technology nuclear power would not present proliferation risks.
Last month, Democratic House members alleged in a report that top White House aides ignored warnings they could be breaking the law as they worked with former U.S. officials in a group called IP3 International to advance a multibillion-dollar plan to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.
IP3 did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether it was one of the companies that got a Part 810 authorization.
Separately, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has accepted a request by Senators Marco Rubio, a Republican and Bob Menendez, a Democrat, to probe the administration’s talks on a nuclear deal with Saudi, a GAO official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday.

The Sixth Seal Long Overdue (Revelation 6:12)

ON THE MAP; Exploring the Fault Where the Next Big One May Be Waiting
By MARGO NASH
Published: March 25, 2001
Alexander Gates, a geology professor at Rutgers-Newark, is co-author of ”The Encyclopedia of Earthquakes and Volcanoes,” which will be published by Facts on File in July. He has been leading a four-year effort to remap an area known as the Sloatsburg Quadrangle, a 5-by-7-mile tract near Mahwah that crosses into New York State. The Ramapo Fault, which runs through it, was responsible for a big earthquake in 1884, and Dr. Gates warns that a recurrence is overdue. He recently talked about his findings.
Q. What have you found?
A. We’re basically looking at a lot more rock, and we’re looking at the fracturing and jointing in the bedrock and putting it on the maps. Any break in the rock is a fracture. If it has movement, then it’s a fault. There are a lot of faults that are offshoots of the Ramapo. Basically when there are faults, it means you had an earthquake that made it. So there was a lot of earthquake activity to produce these features. We are basically not in a period of earthquake activity along the Ramapo Fault now, but we can see that about six or seven times in history, about 250 million years ago, it had major earthquake activity. And because it’s such a fundamental zone of weakness, anytime anything happens, the Ramapo Fault goes.
Q. Where is the Ramapo Fault?
 A. The fault line is in western New Jersey and goes through a good chunk of the state, all the way down to Flemington. It goes right along where they put in the new 287. It continues northeast across the Hudson River right under the Indian Point power plant up into Westchester County. There are a lot of earthquakes rumbling around it every year, but not a big one for a while.
Q. Did you find anything that surprised you?
A. I found a lot of faults, splays that offshoot from the Ramapo that go 5 to 10 miles away from the fault. I have looked at the Ramapo Fault in other places too. I have seen splays 5 to 10 miles up into the Hudson Highlands. And you can see them right along the roadsides on 287. There’s been a lot of damage to those rocks, and obviously it was produced by fault activities. All of these faults have earthquake potential.
Q. Describe the 1884 earthquake.
A. It was in the northern part of the state near the Sloatsburg area. They didn’t have precise ways of describing the location then. There was lots of damage. Chimneys toppled over. But in 1884, it was a farming community, and there were not many people to be injured. Nobody appears to have written an account of the numbers who were injured.
Q. What lessons we can learn from previous earthquakes?
A. In 1960, the city of Agadir in Morocco had a 6.2 earthquake that killed 12,000 people, a third of the population, and injured a third more. I think it was because the city was unprepared.There had been an earthquake in the area 200 years before. But people discounted the possibility of a recurrence. Here in New Jersey, we should not make the same mistake. We should not forget that we had a 5.4 earthquake 117 years ago. The recurrence interval for an earthquake of that magnitude is every 50 years, and we are overdue. The Agadir was a 6.2, and a 5.4 to a 6.2 isn’t that big a jump.
Q. What are the dangers of a quake that size?
A. When you’re in a flat area in a wooden house it’s obviously not as dangerous, although it could cut off a gas line that could explode. There’s a real problem with infrastructure that is crumbling, like the bridges with crumbling cement. There’s a real danger we could wind up with our water supplies and electricity cut off if a sizable earthquake goes off. The best thing is to have regular upkeep and keep up new building codes. The new buildings will be O.K. But there is a sense of complacency.
MARGO NASH
Photo: Alexander Gates, a Rutgers geologist, is mapping a part of the Ramapo Fault, site of previous earthquakes. (John W. Wheeler for The New York Times)

Hawks Clamoring To Attack Iran

March 28, 2019
Emile Nakhleh
by Emile Nakhleh
As Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman clamor for a war against Iran, they seem to have conveniently forgotten the destruction and mayhem wrought by the American invasion of Iraq 16 years ago.
These war drummers are underestimating the potential negative consequences of the war and overestimating the Iranian people’s dislike of their theocratic regime. They, like the advocates of the Iraqi invasion in the winter of 2002 and early spring 2003, are confusing Iranians’ dislike of the ayatollahs with their potential embrace of a foreign invader.
On the eve of the Iraq war, former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the Vice President Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President David Addington all claimed that the Iraqi invasion aimed at liberating the country from the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. Removing Saddam from power, they maintained, would eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and bring stability, security, and democracy to Iraq.
As developments unfolded over the past 16 years, the “liberation” claims proved to be bogus. The invasion and the decision to de-Ba’athify Iraq and dissolve the Iraqi military created an environment conducive to sectarianism, insurgency, and terrorism. The vacuum that followed the regime collapse, the incompetence of the American administration in the “Green Zone,” and the pervasive corruption of the new Iraqi governing councils was quickly filled by pro-Iranian militias, al-Qaeda, and later the Islamic State. The promise of stability and security was replaced by chaos, bloodshed, and mayhem.
The massive destruction of Iraq and the horrendous human and material cost the American “liberation” caused for the country will be child’s play compared to what could happen if Trump and his Israeli and Saudi allies decide to attack Iran. Unlike Iraq—which the British cobbled together after World War One out of the Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds under a minority Sunni rule—  Iran has been in existence for centuries with a vast territory and a huge population. If attacked, Iran has the capability to retaliate against its neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia. Its air and missile forces could quickly destroy the oil and gas facilities and the water and power grids on the Arab side of the Gulf. A war against Iran could easily spread to the Gulf and the Levant. The entire region could go up in flames.
Hubris and Ignorance
The Bush administration was not willing or interested in answering the “morning after” questions regarding the post-Saddam future of Iraq. Whenever I and others urged policy makers to consider the law of unintended consequences and what could go wrong in Iraq following the invasion, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld dismissed our concerns and arrogantly claimed that the U.S. military and civilian administration following the invasion would be able to control the situation in Iraq. Their hubris regarding America’s power and ignorance of Iraqi realities on the ground led to a total breakdown of Iraqi society following the demise of the Saddam regime.
The Trump administration seems to be equally arrogant and ignorant about Iran. It has displayed a similar disregard for strategic thinking about the future of Iran beyond the clerical regime. The Iranophobes within the administration seem to be more obsessed with Iran than the Bush administration was ever with Iraq.
Instead of relying on calm, expert-based analysis, Secretary of State Pompeo has made a series of trips to the region that have involved bullying, threats, and hilarious, if not tragic, mischaracterizations. In a recent conversation with Christian broadcasters in Jerusalem, Pompeo waxed eloquent about God’s presumed divine plan designating Trump as a possible savior of the “Jewish people,” Sunni Islam, Maronite Lebanon, Alawite Syria, and the rest of the world from the perceived modern-day Persian “Hamans.”
The American foreign policy process is in serious trouble if Pompeo truly believes that Trump could be the twenty-first-century version of Queen Esther or Hadassah and that this religious vision could chart the path to a grand strategy in the Middle East. When warped religious interpretations are offered as a substitute for rationally debated policy, whether by a radical Wahhabi Salafist, an evangelical Christian, or an ultra-Orthodox Jew, democratic governments should fear for their future. Invoking the divine as an inspiration or a justification for violence against another country, much as Osama bin Laden did on the eve of 9/11, is a rejection of rational discourse and a return to the barbarism of previous epochs.
Pompeo’s imagined “shuttle diplomacy” in the Middle East has been reduced to supporting Netanyahu’s upcoming election bid, threatening Hezbollah in Lebanon, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and lambasting any state that does business with Iran. His ambassador-designee to Saudi Arabia, John Abizaid, told Congress that the threat from Iran supersedes concerns for human rights in Arab autocracies.
Furthermore, Trump administration policy operatives, including John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani, have treated an Iranian group called the Mujahedin-e Khalq or MEK as a legitimate alternative to the clerical regime in Iran. The MEK, however, is a terrorist cult that has received funding from all sorts of dubious sources and is often used as a tool by outside groups, states, and organizations, including intelligence services of regional and international state actors, to further an anti-Iran agenda.
Similarly, the Bush administration viewed Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi émigré, and the organization he founded, the Iraqi National Congress, as the legitimate alternative to the Saddam regime in Iraq. Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld fully bought into Chalabi’s snake-oil sales. Chalabi was instrumental in instigating America’s invasion of Iraq at the cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of American and Iraqi lives. Iraq has never recovered from that ill-fated, unnecessary war. Bolton and Giuliani are as susceptible to MEK’s claims as Cheney and Rumsfeld were to Chalabi’s.
For the sake of whipping up regional animus toward Iran and preparing the ground for a war against the “Persian menace,” Pompeo in effect has told Arab autocrats that so long as they keep mouthing anti-Iran rhetoric, Washington will ignore their despicable human rights record and the continued repression of their people. The thousands of political prisoners in Egyptian, Saudi, and Bahraini jails will have to wait for another day.
Arab regimes have become masters in the art of communicating with their American benefactors. During the Cold War, they received American aid as long as they brandished anti-Communist slogans. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and with the rise of terrorism, these same strongmen were happy to adopt an anti-terrorism rhetoric in order to continue receiving American military and economic aid. Their current anti-Iran public posture is the latest phase in their communication with Washington and is as equally profitable as the previous two phases.
When some regional politicians demurred about getting tough with Iran, as happened during Pompeo’s recent visit to Lebanon, he did not hesitate to threaten them with a panoply of economic sanctions. Vice President Mike Pence used similar language at the recent meeting in Warsaw to berate and even threaten America’s European allies if they dared to take a conciliatory posture toward Iran. The European reaction to Pence’s speech showed that his pathetic performance backfired. Pompeo’s Warsaw meeting ended in utter failure.
Iran Nuclear Deal
Managing Iran’s malign behavior through the Iran nuclear deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a stroke of diplomatic genius, which former Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz negotiated. The Obama administration placed Iran’s objectionable behavior in two baskets—a nuclear basket, which they addressed through the Iran deal, and a non-nuclear one, which the Obama administration was to address once the nuclear inspection became operational and Iran fully compliant. That approach would have worked: most experts judged Iran to be in compliance with the conditions of the nuclear deal. Unfortunately, President Trump decided not to recertify the agreement.
Trump’s decision contradicted the judgment of most nuclear and intelligence experts about Iran’s compliance. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), for example, affirmed Iran’s compliance in more than a dozen of its successive quarterly reports and as recently as earlier this month.
In his open testimony to Congress in January, the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stated that Iran continued to comply with the deal even after Trump announced his intention to scuttle it. Coats said, “We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.” Iran was of course cheating in other areas, according to the DNI’s testimony, but not on the nuclear agreement.
In a statement issued April 25 of last year, over two dozen Israeli senior military and intelligence officials judged that it was “in Israel’s best interest that the United States maintains the nuclear agreement with Iran.” The Israeli statement went on to say that “The current deal is better than no deal” and that “Iran’s destructive regional policies and actions, its support for acts of terrorism, its presence in Syria, and its ballistic missiles program should be dealt with outside the framework of the agreement.” This was precisely the position of the Obama administration when it negotiated the deal in the first place.
The Path Forward
Fifty-plus retired American generals and diplomats, in a statement published earlier this month, urged the Trump administration to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and work on resolving outstanding concerns with Iran diplomatically. They advised against a war because they saw no good outcome. The statement did not seek to exonerate Iran’s destabilizing behavior and its involvement in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, or Lebanon. Nor did the retired senior leaders ignore Iran’s link to terrorism. The statement, however, pointed out, among other things, that the 2015 nuclear deal “put limitations on Iran’s nuclear program that provided assurances that it would not be used to develop weapons, improved American intelligence about potential future development and significantly improved the security of the United States and our allies.”
Additionally, the retired generals and diplomats emphasized that Iran is complying with the agreement and that, under the JCPOA, Iran is barred from engaging in nuclear weapons development program, which prevents it from producing a nuclear device. “Reentering the agreement and lifting the sanctions will greatly enhance United States’ ability to negotiate improvements and enable us to address concerns with the existing agreement.”
Coming from these military and policy realists, who are dedicated to the security of this country, Israel, and America’s allies, this advice is grounded in sane strategic analysis, not in theological whimsy.

Antichrist Returns to Najaf after 3-Month Absence

Sadr Returns to Najaf after 3-Month Absence

Asharq Al-awsat

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Leader of the Sadrist movement Moqtada al-Sadr has returned to Najaf from Beirut after being away for more than three months.
Although his office has not commented on the reasons behind this long absence and return, it has dismissed claims that he has been ill.
Bahaa al-Araji, a member of the Sadrist Movement and a former deputy Prime Minister, announced last week that Sadr will soon return to Baghdad and will launch a new initiative regarding Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s uncompleted government.
Abdul Mahdi will attend a meeting on Wednesday at the residence of head of the Reform and Reconstruction Coalition Ammar al-Hakim, the coalition said.
“A meeting will be held to discuss many significant issues,” read a statement by the coalition’s general body, adding that Abdul Mahdi was invited to attend it.
The Coalition includes Sadr’s Saairun Alliance, Haider al-Abadi’s Victory Alliance, Hakim’s National Wisdom Movement, Iyad Allawi’s al-Wataniya Coalition and other political blocs.
Saairun MP representing Badr al-Ziadi said the law on expelling foreign troops from Iraq has been drafted.
“We are only waiting for the Premier’s decision regarding the troops that he might need to keep,” he said.
“Abdul Mahdi was supposed to hold a session on March 10, but the acceleration of events and political issues… prevented him from doing so,” he added.
Meanwhile, political blocs remain at loggerheads over the failure to complete the cabinet formation. The differences between them lie on four ministries, two of which are so-called sovereign portfolios.
Al-Mihwar al-Watani MP representing Abdullah al-Khirbit told Asharq Al-Awsat that the blocs are bickering on the candidates for the four remaining portfolios – defense, interior, education and justice – in Abdul Mahdi’s cabinet.
He said the dispute will likely be resolved after the return of Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi from his official visit to the United States.