David Sanger of the New York Times has a new book out on Obama’s foreign policy. He was on Terry Gross’s show, Fresh Air when he made the statement in the headline. So, Iran is a threat to the U.S. on a par with the militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan who are at war with the U.S.? I’d have hoped that Terry Gross, the best broadcast interviewer, would have asked him why in the heck Iran is a direct threat to the U.S. But she didn’t.
I’ve included in the excerpt a question about what disclosures made him queasy. Again, Iran stuff. Why? Is this the new cold war? With a country of 70 million that as Steve Walt notes has launched no wars in a period in which Israel and the U.S. have launched a dozen?
GROSS: Tell us about President Obama’s use of power and his foreign policy.
SANGER: I found striking that when President Obama came to office and vowed to get the country out of its defensive crouch, he talked a lot about restoring traditional American engagement – that he, you know, would talk to our adversaries. And his supporters I think found in this a sort of moment where he was turning away from the sort of with us or against whites of the Bush years. And his critics, including some Democrats, including at one point Hillary Clinton, found naivete and softness.
And I think both sides have been surprised. I think the left has been surprised by his aggressiveness; the drone attacks, the bin Laden raid, Olympic Games [code for Israeli-U.S. computer initiative aimed at Iran]. I think that many others have been surprised that his use of American power has been very direct when there has been a direct threat to the U.S., but he has insisted that other countries take the lead when our interests are somewhat remote and theirs are direct. Think Libya, even think Syria, where he has demanded that the Arab League or NATO or others take the lead. And he's been very criticized about this by, among others, Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee - or I guess now the certain Republican nominee - for ceding American leadership. And I think that is the essence of the Obama doctrine, that he acts quite strongly and quite unilaterally whether the U.S. has direct interest. But he is trying to force the rest of the world to pay for it and take the price when it's not, and throughout he is quite insistent on very in and out U.S. action. No more long occupations. No more costly wars. And this is part of the limitations of living in this age of reckoning, where we simply can't afford to do what we've always done...
GROSS: re you queasy at all that anything you've revealed in this book is going to hurt our national security?
SANGER: You know, Terry, it's a subject I take very seriously, and the program that you described before, Olympic Games, the program against Iran, is something I was particularly concerned about in that case. And I went off and had some very serious conversations with members of the administration, where I described to them what I discovered.
And basically the way I ended up writing about this was that anything that was historical, anything the Iranians have already figured out about what they were being attacked with and who was attacking them, I felt perfectly free to publish and I describe in here some detail about the president's personal involvement in the program, which I suspect the Iranians didn't know but suspected.
Here, by the way, is Steve Walt's war tally. His post is called the arrogance of power. Once again, the realists are to the left of the left:
Since World War II, the United States has fought at least eight wars (Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Iraq War I, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Gulf War II), and we've intervened in other countries countless times. Israel has fought at least six wars since independence (the 1956 Suez War, 1967 Six Day War, 1969-70 War of Attrition, 1973 October War, 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and 2006 war in Lebanon), and it started the wars in 1956, 1967, 1982, and 2006. It has also conducted innumerable cross-border raids and covert actions. Iran has fought one war during that same period -- against Iraq -- and only because Saddam Hussein attacked. It has also provided material support to groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, but its overseas activities are paltry compared with ours.
In what way, exactly, is Iran a “direct threat” to the US? It may be a threat to neo-con fantasies and imperial ambitions of some Americans, but that’s not a threat to the US, let alone a “direct threat.”
“In what way, exactly, is Iran a “direct threat” to the US”
It’s not. Even if Iran had nukes the possibility they could launch one and hit the US is zero. Why do you think, in spite of the occasional noise, the US doesn’t really give a rats ass about N Korea having nukes…..they can be intercepted when launched from those distances. The only thing the US couldn’t intercept would be a nuke bomb planted within the US.
I should qualify my statement above be saying there is an exception to US nuke defenses….it depends on how many are unleashed on the US at one time….according to the FAS, if Russia unleashed all or even half it’s nukes on us we wouldn’t survive that becuase we couldn’t intercept all of them fast enough to prevent some hitting their targets..
My my I agree with Fredblogs. In any case Russian intercontinental missiles are no longer ballistic (i.e. with a predictable trajectory) and therefore are invulnerable, even in principle, to the antimissile defenses we built out off the star wars boondoggle. Even with ballistic missiles the defense doesn’t work except in one test where the incoming carried a tracking beacon. This was a predictable response on the part of the Russians when work began 30 years ago.
No, they actually can’t be intercepted, not with current technology. Star Wars defense was as fictional as the movie it was named after. We are counting on the fact that the leader of North Korea enjoys his life too much to want to die in a retaliatory strike, not any fictional intercept capacity we have.
And you get your information on missile defense from where Fred?
According to the experts, like folks like FAS they can be, just not all of them…that’s the problem …but not a problem Iran would ever give us.
@Fredblogs Wrong again. They absolutely can be intercepted. Especially NK’s missiles because of the geography. So can any Iranian missiles heading west, but it is a bit more difficult. BPI works.
@ Fredblogs,
Dude, wtf are you saying? This means ‘our’ Arrow
windmissile shield is worthless too. What are ‘m Eyrabs gonna do with this kinda info, eh? Loose lips sink ships and lost minds…errr……uhmmm….Well, I’m willing to be proven wrong. Point me at a report that says they have had a successful test under realistic conditions. That means, no homing beacons on the missile, nothing known in advance about the exact trajectory, just an ICBM from thousands of miles away successfully intercepted.
Understand, it is not about Iran being a threat, which it is not. It’s not even a threat to Israel. (Israel is the primary threat to Israel. First, by stealing Palestine from the Palestinians, and then using the inevitable pushback against this criminal aggression as an excuse for continued aggression and expansion.) By threatening everyone in the region — largely because they support justice for the Palestinians — and alienating/antagonizing the rest of the world with their brazen — but perhaps more important, savagely disproportionate — violence, the Israelis are setting the stage for their destruction.
(Many people point to Israeli nukes and persuade themselves that these weapons will somehow protect Israel. But there is another way to look at it, and an unblemished five-thousand year pattern of anti-Jewish reaction to support it. Those nukes make a violent paranoiac a threat to the entire world, confirmed in spades by The Sampson Option — Israel’s threat to nuke the West if it doesn’t protect Israel against some future defeat at the hands of the Arabs. In this context, those very Israeli nukes could provoke its eventual destruction)
No, the business with Iran is just that, business. The US political class and MIC need a boogieman to replace the old USSR. Iran has been selected for that role.
As usual, it is almost entirely about $$$$$$$$$$$$$.
Israel has never threatened to “nuke the West”. The Sampson option is that if the Middle Eastern enemies of Israel manage to destroy Israel, they (the Middle East enemies of Israel) are all going down with it.
actually, they have. Martic Van Crevel has warend that Iran’s nukes are trined on Europe and that they will launhc a strike if Israel is allowd to fall. Gold Meir repeated this threat.
From 2003:
link to guardian.co.uk
>> The Sampson option is that if the Middle Eastern enemies of Israel manage to destroy Israel, they (the Middle East enemies of Israel) are all going down with it.
In other words, the oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist state of Israel has developed a nuclear assault capability that permits it to act with impunity.
No wonder the Zio-supremacist state doesn’t want Iran to develop nukes: Israel itself wouldn’t be threatened, but it’s regional hegemony sure as hell would be.
For years “Israel” even denied they had the nuke. They are aimed at western cities for a reason Fred – ie Nuclear Extortion
Freddie :
I haven’t heard anybody to threat any other to be nuked. Nuclear weapons are used as a “threat” as they lie in storage unused but available if needed. Originally they were made just for that purpose as a warning, that we have those big bang’s, if you attack us. Like you later text shows :
fred, it is the samson option, not sampson. and aside from the famous dayan/ van creveld quotes there is this:
link to en.wikipedia.org
iow, the threat is not limited to ‘Middle East enemies’, it means taking out the world.
@Shingo
Sorry, that’s just something anti-Israel people and people like this Creveld made up out of whole cloth.
@tree
Nice quote, from and I’m quoting from your source (the Guardian)
“the pessimistic opinion of Martin van Creveld”, a professor at a university who is speculating. Not any kind of official Israeli position. Not even a statement from a government official.
@Annie Robbins
Quote from “Ron Rosenbaum”, a writer who is being inflammatory to sell more books. Also a poem by a poet.
So basically, you are all cherry picking quotes from people who are pulling this stuff out of thin air. Does any one of you have a single statement to that effect from a prime minister of Israel backing your statements? How about a defense minister?
So basically, you are all cherry picking quotes from people who are pulling this stuff out of thin air.
ok, find us a source to support your allegation then. this is the first i’ve heard the samson option was limited to the ME enemies. even wiki doesn’t support that view and they are about as pro israel as any source on the internet due to the proliferation of pro i editing clogging up that site.
do you have even one source?
do you have even one source?
Of course not. Fred simply does his mind-reading trick that he’s famous for here and decides that reality does indeed fit his fantasy and the rest of us are just too untalented to understand the unspoken. He alone knows what the Samson Option means, and he knows it not from any reputable source, but from his own amazing powers of telepathy.
“this Creveld” BTW is one of the most recognized and celebrated military historians in Israel, but Fred’s never heard of him, so he’s just some “pessimistic professor”.
Not any kind of official Israeli position. Not even a statement from a government official.
The official Israeli position is that they don’t even have nuclear weapons, period. I’m sure you buy that one whole hog. If van Creveld says that Israel has missiles pointed everywhere, then that’s as close as you are going to get to an official acknowledgement of that fact. Israel doesn’t need the several hundred nuclear weapons it has to take out the Middle East. It’s prepared to blackmail with a more global disaster.
@Annie Robbins.
You are the ones making an allegation, not me. Find me a source that proves that the U.S. has never threatened to nuke Micronesia and Ethiopia. You can’t prove a negative so the burden to provide evidence is on the person who claims that something _does_ exist, not on the person who claims it _doesn’t_ exist.
So, one prime minister’s quote, please. A defense secretary or equivalent will do. A current general speaking in an official capacity would be fine.
Wikipedia is apparently where you and your fellow posters’ quotes come from. Wikipedia is only as good as its sources and in this case every single source there that talks about Israel harming anybody besides its enemies comes from a non-governmental source who are obviously, and in some cases openly, speculating. A few professors and a poet are all that supports your contention that what would be a _major_ scandal, and the lead on the news world wide if anyone in an official capacity had ever said it is Israel’s position.
nope, here’s your timestamp June 8, 2012 at 11:35 pm
link to mondoweiss.net
i didn’t enter into the conversation til the next day, to refute your allegation:
if you do not even have one supporting link for this ridiculous allegation just admit it. according to you the samson option references the Middle East enemies of Israel.
one supporting link will suffice.
Sorry, that’s just something anti-Israel people and people like this Creveld made up out of whole cloth.
No, it’s a direct quote
link to en.wikipedia.org
Golda Meir confirmed it.
No, an allegation is when you are accusing someone (or a country) of something. You are “alleging” you and your fellows, that Israel has threatened to nuke Europe if Israel goes down.
I said it was made up by people like Crevald. A direct quote from someone who is pulling things out of thin air is still pulled out of thin air.
As for Golda Meir confirming it, that’s nice. Prove it. If Gold Meir confirmed it, cite your source, a verifiable and reliable one, not “in some magazine no one can access from 40 years ago”.
@Annie Robbins
As I said, first prove that the U.S. has not threatened to nuke Ethiopia and Micronesia. You are making a specific accusation that Israel has threatened to nuke Europe. As the Atheists say “that’s nice, prove it”.
Burden is on the person who claims something exists, not on the one who claims it doesn’t. It has to be that way because the person claiming something exists _should_ be able to come up with proof easily, if he’s right. Whereas the person claiming that something doesn’t exist would have to search the whole world and all that it contains to say “nope, I didn’t find it”.
As I said, first prove that the U.S. has not threatened to nuke Ethiopia and Micronesia.You are making a specific accusation that Israel has threatened to nuke Europe.
you have completely lost your bearings fred. this conversation is about the definition of samson option. i have provided one source referencing two sources describing it as ““bring down the pillars of the world..” and “..let the Earth roll toward the Nothingness.” which is my understanding of what the samson option means. the only reference in the blockquote (iow, not my words) to europe was used as an aside by the author (not me), used as an example, and placed in parenthesis followed by the words “for instance”. that is not “a specific accusation”. it was simply part of the text to explain what it meant, and it directly followed “bring down the pillars of the world..” the author could have just as easily chosen other pillars of the world besides europe or russia, obviously.
No, an allegation is when you are accusing someone (or a country) of something.
for your edification, an allegation is not the same as an accusation and is often used in ones own defense:
link to merriam-webster.com
you have alleged (in israel’s defense of course) the samson option references “the Middle East enemies of Israel”. the implication being, it solely references “the Middle East enemies of Israel”.
this was prior to my participation in the conversation.
people provided you with multiple examples and you deflected them without offering anything supporting docs at all. it was only after your accusation we were cherrypicking and and subsequent request for more supporting links i asked you for one:
link to mondoweiss.net
obviously you have absolutely nothing to back this up. and instead you’re referencing Ethiopia and Micronesia???
laughable divert. good bye.
Fred you are such a tiresome little ziopup. You demand this and that proof and sources, whilst always making absurd hasbara claims for which you provide not one iota of evidence. You are one mixed-up troll, who doesn’t need feeding.
kathleen just linked to an important emptywheel post about sanger. if i weren’t having computer issues i would link.
Here’s a link.
ah, thank you very much lysias.
Kathleens comment over there:
“Obama’s Secret War Against Iran Dooms Diplomacy and Imperils American Interests
link to raceforiran.com
“Second, the Sanger article makes undeniably clear—if it were not sufficiently evident already—that the reason for the President’s hostility toward Iran has nothing to do with American security. Rather, Obama’s aggressiveness—which carries with it a willingness to put significant long-term American interests at risk—is motivated by a perceived imperative to prevent the Israelis from doing something that they cannot credibly do in the first place: namely, strike and destroy Iran’s nuclear program. ”
Shows how insane it all is. Here is big dog US trying to placate a batshit crazy pissant country and a bunch of domestic US fifth column foreign loyaltist, twisting itself into a prezel and entangled in this web of satisying a bunch of psychopaths and Israel first congressperps.
I can’t wait, literally cannot wait till this Israel first kingdom blows sky high…and it will. Faster please.
Kathleen has posted numerous insightful comments here about Terry Gross.
Aug 2011 , Jun 2010 (1) and Jun 2010 (2)
Terry Gross never really challenges the Washington consensus on Iran or Middle Eastern policy in general. This is apparent in the many interviews she has done regarding Iran. I suppose she retains certain loyalties. This site has reviewed her position on Israel and the occupation in the past:
link to mondoweiss.net
With respect to Gross, I rather prefer Christopher Lydon, formerly of The Connection and now of Radio Open Source: link to radioopensource.org
good luck with that ranjit. phil is enamored of the bumbling gross. only his wife and his psychiatrist know why.
I’d have hoped that Terry Gross, the best broadcast interviewer, would have asked him why in the heck Iran is a direct threat to the U.S. But she didn’t.
that it just inane. yes, how is it that the ‘best’ could have missed that line of inquiry, which would seem to be the only question worth asking before moving on to the rest of the advertisement for his book? i had posted a portion of the transcript of her intereview with bronner after cast lead, a schematic of uninformed questions, missed follow ups and gushing stupidity. i guess gross can add this interview to her ‘the greatest hits of the best’ CD.
You won’t believe this…or maybe you will..
Diane Feinstein is on the news right now accusing Obama ( and/or of there being a “mole” in the WH) of deliberately leaking the information on the US cyber warfare and accusing him of jeopardizing US security.
Now I wonder why Feinstein is doing that.
american, google marcy wheeler’s ‘gang warfare to protect israel’s secrets’ for background on why feinstein is doing that. as i mentioned earlier i’m having computer issues or i would link to it. marcy takes a dig at feinstein and wraps it up.
edit, just realized lysias just linked to it upthread. check it out.
Thanks annie.
american, my pleasure. btw, i lasted all an hr or so w/a broken mouse. ran over to my neighbors down the block who have a garage full of spare parts and picked up 3 of them. so i should be set for awhile.
“NYT”s Sanger says Iran nuclear program is ‘direct threat to the U.S.”
The neocon wars and the Republicans have done more to damage the social security upon which millions of American seniors depend than any enemy of the Zionists could ever do.
Paul Ryan is a direct threat to the US. Iran isn’t.
“Paul Ryan is a direct threat to the US.”
Thank you.
And to think that Ryan got his economic ideas from a novelist who birthed the bank lobbyist later Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan who caused the 2008 crisis. Greenspan, according to economist Michael Hudson, was also responsible for pinning the payment of Social Security to user fees from its previous payment as a public good.
Watch the five minute clip. It’s great.
link to michael-hudson.com
Regime change is and always has been US policy in Iran since 1979, Intelligence reports whatever they say are incidental to this overiding objective, they are helpful if they confirm policy, if they don’t they are ignored. The only thing stopping more aggression from the US is the cost benifit analysis, that darn Strait of Hormuz. For an excellent analysis of Iran’s nuclear activities you must consult this piece, ‘some facts about Iran’s nuclear activities’ from David Morrison who many people regard as the best researcher in the UK, here. link to david-morrison.org.uk
Remove Yourself from the internet. This service is recommended by several computer professionals. Good idea to use it and well worth a few hundred bucks to do it several times a year to make sure nothing has snuck back in. Haven’t checked yet to see who it’s principals are and if it has any usual suspects involved but will…..
link to howto.cnet.com
The online privacy software company Abine, which makes Do Not Track Plus, also offers a service called DeleteMe, which removes your data from numerous tracking sites and keeps it from coming back. In an unusual gesture, though, they’ve made public how to do for yourself everything that DeleteMe does. Here’s my take on their advice.
Be warned, though. The following are not easy instructions, and it’s not because they’re technically complex. They require a tenacity and wherewithal that is likely to either exhaust you, drive you borderline bonkers, or both. (And no, I haven’t followed the instructions to remove myself because it’s essential to my job that I can be found by strangers.)
Step 1: Prepare yourself: You’re going to have to be polite.
These instructions require patience for the antics of others and determination to get the job done. It’s not a bad idea to get something inanimate to take your frustrations out on, because often getting your data successfully removed or changed will require the good faith of the person you’re dealing with. Things are not likely to go your way the first time around.
Step 2: Aggressively track sites that aggressively track you.
This is where the DeleteMe service comes in. They currently charge you $99 to un-track you from the tracking data clearinghouses, which in turn sell your data to others entities. You can follow Abine’s list of services and do the deed yourself, and that means writing many e-mails, sending numerous faxes, and placing enough phone calls to make you wish for a time machine so you can go back to the 19th century to do violence unto Alexander Graham Bell.
One thing that isn’t clear from Abine’s list is that most of these data aggregators will re-add you within a few months, so I recommend at least bi-annual checks to see if they’ve sucked up your data again. Be tenacious, be polite, and if this is important to you, stick with it until you get what you want.
link to abine.com
American,
Check out Ghostify.
O.K. MRW…are they better?
The threat is that they close the straits of Hormuz and threaten us with a nuke if we attack their ships. The threat is that they do what they have always done, not launch direct wars, but supply weapons and training to terrorists with us unable to retaliate because of their nukes. The threat is that the next 9/11 attack comes from terrorists in Iran and we are unable to go after them because, hey, nuke. The threat is that one of their Ayatollahs decides that Allah will protect Iran from retaliation and nukes an American city.
Fantasist and liar, chronic repetition of absurd Israel scaremongering and propaganda. You don’t know what you are talking about. Are you funding your studies with your hasbara tripe?
What do you mean “fantasist” they have already threatened to close the straits and we laughed it off because we have a navy that could destroy theirs without breaking a sweat. But would we if it meant risking a nuclear war?
Who laughed it off?
In multiple war games involving this scenario, Iran was able to close the straits and the US was powerless to stop it.
link to theamericanconservative.com
Fred :
Nuclear war between of who ?
Between the U.S. and Iran.
No, what your source says is that we would take heavy losses. It doesn’t say the Iranians would win.
Fred:
Nuclear war between someone who has those weapons and other who doesnt have those/that. And you call that as a nuclear war ?
“The threat is that they close the straits of Hormuz and threaten us with a nuke if we attack their ships.”
Then don’t provoke them into wanting to close the strait of Hormuz. This does not constitute a “direct threat to the US.” It’s no different than the US’s relation with every nuclear armed state. Do you pee your panties because if the Chinese close the straight of Taiwan, they can threaten us with nukes if we attack their ships? Does this make China a “direct threat to the US?” No, it’s a mundane fact of life.
“The threat is that they do what they have always done, not launch direct wars, but supply weapons and training to terrorists with us unable to retaliate because of their nukes.”
In other words, they want to act exactly like the US and Israel have done for decades? Great. Then do what other people do when faced with the US and do exactly as we do when dealing with other nuclear-armed states: don’t threaten them and give them any excuse to threaten us.
“The threat is that the next 9/11 attack comes from terrorists in Iran and we are unable to go after them because, hey, nuke.”
Then don’t threaten them to the point where they would send terrorists to the US. And why aren’t you worried about the North Koreans sending the next 9/11 attack? Oh, I guess because they’re not Muslims and Iranians are. So you’ll just (like a racist does) blur the distinctions between Persian Shia and Arab Sunni, as well as the incredibly complex dynamics at work and just say, “Muslims did it. They’re Muslims.”
“The threat is that one of their Ayatollahs decides that Allah will protect Iran from retaliation and nukes an American city.”
That’s your undiagnosed pathological paranoia, coupled with your vile anti-Muslim bigotry and not a reaslistic assessment of reality. Unless you think “direct threat to US” means “imaginary future fantasies that makes me scared.”
Fredblogs, in case you have been asleep for many years, Iran has no nuclear weapons, and it is a member of the NNPT. It’s Israel who has the nuclear weapons, about 400 at least, and it is Israel who is not a member of the NNPT and hence is never investigated. And it it’s Israel with a history of first strikes, not Iran.
Iran has never threatened anyone with nukes. But our previous administration made clear that all options were on the table with respect to Iran including nuclear war. We also threatened Iraq with a nuclear response if the used chemical weapons against US troops. Israel threatened to use nuclear weapons in 1973. There are many other examples of the US threatening nuclear war.
Fredb, what you just did is called the “Big Lie”, something about turning situation completely on it head, the bigger the distortion the better to get suckers to believe.
Iran has never thereatened anyone with nukes.
Sorry, you must be confusing Ayatollahs with Netenyahu.
American, I know your comment “remove yourself from the internet” had to come after someone’s comment, but why mine?
Sorry Harry…LOL….. I should have put it after one of the trolls but didn’t think about it.
Fresh Air promotes stale propaganda. NPR and the NY Times are both very important members of the league of Israeli propagandists. Neither of which likely appreciates the irony of two members propping up each other.
As usual, this is about the Israel-first crowd trying to get the US to fight their wars for them. And their threat: if you don’t do it, we will.
Let’s make sure there is a high cost for them starting Middle East War III. We can do this nonviolently by pledging to boycott Israel if it carries out a preemptive strike against Iran:
http://www.divestfromwar.org
Let’s PREVENT the next war, instead of protesting it after the fact!
Unfortunately link to atimes.com
Once upon a time,
Some people believed that
Iran was not a nuclear threat to (anyone)
They just wanted to have missiles of their own
just so they could “feel included.” and play with other Nations
and be taken seriously, especially by their own Arabic relatives
who were filthy rich from Petroleum exports and far more “American”
than Iranian models of Islamic culture.
Americans with liberal ideas thought that Iran shouldn’t be picked on
No more UN embargoes please! We are against Nuclear War BUT
Iran should be able to have Nuclear Weapons to raise
their sagging self esteem.
Cause every thing is fair, in love… and war… and politics!
NOTE: A Nuke wouldn’t have to hit the United States to affect in in Catastrophic proportion. Remember the affects of Chernobyl? Does the phrase: “environmental terrorism” mean anything to you? How about after the air, land and Oceans are affected by Super Nuclear Stupidity?
Hey, check this out–did you know that there’s a giant wave of Anti-Israel feeling sweeping over the good ol’ US of A? Now young Jewish Americans are getting their own BirthRight Israel indoctrination right here–don’t have to travel all the way to Israel for it! link to jspace.com
>Olympic Games [code for Israeli-U.S. computer initiative aimed at Iran].
"initiative"? Come on, Phil, skip the namby-pamby euphemisms and call it what is: an attack. We now know it wasn't just spying on or messing up the Iranian centrifuges - it was actually destroying them, just as effectively as (if not more so) a cruise missile or bunker buster would have.
In other words, an act of war.