Ka-boom

John Lennon is famous for the quote: “What if they gave a war and no one came.” In Iran, entities unknown have modified that sentiment in a far more pragmatic way: What if you fought a war, but no one could see you.”

For the past month, two significant explosions have rocked Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities. As is the penchant of many Islamist regimes, Iran tried to explain the explosions by lying through their teeth. First, Iranian spokesmen claimed that the explosions didn’t happen, backing off that lie when satellite photography provided indisputable evidence of the wreckage. They then claimed they were conducting a training exercise—odd, given that if that were the case, they caused tens of millions of dollars of damage to their own facilities. Then, they suggested that it was all an accident—an interesting coincidence to say the least.

Sheera Frenkel comments on all of this in The Australian.

On Monday, Isfahan [a city in Iran] residents reported a blast that shook tower blocks in the city at about 2.40pm and seeing a cloud of smoke rising over the nuclear facility on the edge of the city.

"This caused damage to the facilities in Isfahan, particularly to the elements we believe were involved in storage of raw materials," said one [Israeli] military intelligence source.

He would not confirm or deny Israel's involvement in the blast, instead saying that there were "many different parties looking to sabotage, stop or coerce Iran into stopping its nuclear weapons program".

Iran went into frantic denial yesterday as news of the explosion at Isfahan emerged. Alireza Zaker-Isfahani, the city's governor, claimed that the blast had been caused by a military exercise in the area but state-owned agencies in Tehran soon removed this story and issued a government denial that any explosion had taken place at all.

On Monday, Dan Meridor. the Israeli Intelligence Minister, said: "There are countries who impose economic sanctions and there are countries who act in other ways in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat."

My money is on the latter group of countries.

Like the devastating damage done by the now-infamous STUXNET computer virus, the two explosions this month have further degraded Iran’s nuclear progress.

A shadow war has begun, and although it is fraught with dangers, it provides a counterpoint to the West’s pathetic public efforts at containment over the past three years.

War is a very deadly and very serious business, but it’s hard not to smile when thinking about the frustration of the Mullahs as they try to fight an enemy that they cannot see. Ka-boom!