Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Benjamin Netanyahu urges Congress to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Barack Obama disagrees. Who’s right?

Ayatollah Khamenei, the highest religious leader in Iran, believes the Shia messiah will arrive as soon as Israel is destroyed. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the highest political official in Iran, believes Islam is required to destroy Israel and then, the United States. They’ve said so for a decade, repeatedly, unwaveringly. And they continue to pursue nuclear technology, lying to the United Nations, cheating inspections and breaking promises.

The Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area packs 3 million people into 500 square miles. That’s half the population of Israel living in an area the size of Hennepin County.

A one kiloton nuclear weapon can destroy about 80 square miles, not much damage in an area so large. That’s why America built MIRV warheads – Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles capable of dropping several bombs from one missile, spreading the damage much farther. The Iranians don’t have MIRVs, yet, but the same effect could be achieved by dropping small bombs from many jets, or shooting many nuclear rounds from tanks.

Or better still, suicide bombers could detonate bombs on building rooftops built miles apart. The US Army’s Mk-54 SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition) weighs a little over 50 pounds and literally fits into a backpack. Backpacks could be placed in minivans left on parking ramp rooftops. Nuclear bombs could be quietly infiltrated one-at-a-time over months until enough are assembled for a massive strike.

There are parking ramps at Mall of America, downtown Minneapolis, Southdale and Maple Grove Crossing. Terrorists could drive their minivans to their assigned parking ramps at 5:00 a.m., set their timers for 12 hours, take a Metro Transit bus to catch the Empire Builder at the Amtrak station and be drunk in Chicago when Keith Ellison’s congressional district disappears.

If a schmuck lawyer in St. Paul can figure this out, people who spend their entire lives studying warfare in the Middle East can figure it out. Taking down Tel Aviv would be more difficult only because the Israelis work very hard to prevent it. And because the Iranians don’t have nukes. Yet.

The Obama Administration asks us to believe that religious fanatics who are literally on a mission from God will turn aside from carrying out the mission when they finally have the means at hand. I am not persuaded.

Joe Doakes.

The administration doesn’t believe it – and to be fair, most people don’t, either.

“Normalcy bias” – the belief that tomorrow will probably be about the same as today – is a fairly normal phenomenon among individuals, to say nothing of institutions.

At 6 AM on December 7, 1941, most Americans believed there would eventually be a war with Japan. Most would have said you were nuts if you had said you believed that they’d be in the middle of it within two hours.