IRAN ISAREL OBAMA

Iran is the world's second largest oil producer. That is poised to increase the country's value in the coming decade with the world energy demand expected to double in that period. It has been pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme too since the late 1990s as a measure of deterrence. More so after the recent US-Iraq war, being viewed by the Islamic regime of Iran as America's way of ensuring uninterrupted supply of oil. Some experts call it the US’s next logical step. It already has richest and third richest states in terms of oil reserves -- Saudi Arabia and Iraq under their sphere of influence. But Iran’s efforts towards development of a N-bomb has ruffled feathers in another middle eastern country; Israel considers this a direct threat to its existence. Though at some level their foresight is justifiable.

Three have many instance of crude statements bring made by the Iranian top leadership from time to time including Ayatollah Khomeini describing Israel as the “Cancerous Tumor of the Middle – East”. But things between Israel and Iran was not always that bad .After the Islamic revolution in Iran which toppled the Shah Pahlavi Dynasty relations between Iran and Israel became Sour. The revolutionary were of the view that Israel is illegally occupying the holy land. From the days when Jewish refugees took refuge in Iran east while Persia to save themselves from the wrath of Shalmanesser V and the Babylonians who invaded Israel in late800 BC to the day.

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When Iran supplied Oil to Israel during the Six day war in 1948 which led to the formaticn of the state of Israel since the things have gone from good to bad and now turning worse.
Now America has been a vociferous supporters of Israel since its inception and therefore America too acknowledges Iran as a threat to Israel and world security. This may be only another reason for it to run a clandestine pogrom of its energy security and global dominance. But this has not stopped Iran from adding fuel to the fire; I have been secretly funding and giving political support to Hamas’ in the Gaza strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon; both the terrorist organizations supposedly carrying out Jihad to take out Israel.

President Obama was expected to become the new American peace broker between Israel and The Muslim world but he too has not been very effective. There have been conflicting statements being made by Mr. Barack Hussein Obama on a regular basis, On the one hand he talks about restraining Israel from inciting the wrath of the Arab world and on the others land he shakes hands with the Russians to encircle Iran with its Missile Defense Program. President Obama hopes Russia will find more reasons to go along with U.S. efforts to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb. Russia publically opposes any Irannian effort to develop nuclear weapon but it is also against imposing new sanctions on Tehran.

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Lately the Israeli leadership has got quite aggressive towards Iran’s Nuclear development program There have been repots floating in the media about prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planning an air raid on Iran’s Uranium Enrichment plant . A senior pentagon official said it was jus a clear message to the United States and other Countries that Israel was prepared to act militarily.

On the Israel front Obama has been Untypical with respect to past American presidents. Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel appears to be masterminding the effort to force Israel to tone down or better yet force Netanyahu from office’ so as to get more compliant and fearful Israeli leader into the prime – ministers office. In reality Rahm gives cover to Obama dramatic policy shift towards Israel . That new reality is that Israel is no longer an ally of the United states. It is rather an obstacle in the way of better relations with the Muslim world and the Arab nations in particular . This was the obvious after the address to the Muslim world at the Cairo University.--(please add the month i donot reacall when the speech was given)---

President Obama’s obsession to create a positive image of America among the Muslim nation could prove detrimental towards Israels Objective of dominating middle – east affairs’. But his stand on the Iran issue reassures Israel of Americans support ;maybe this is due to the strong Jewish lobby in American Politics which he cannot afford to ignore.

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It is expected that Iran will have nuclear capability by the end of 2009. And with the re-election of the Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad radical who is an outspoken critic of United States Foreign policy and Israel also President Ahmadinejad now boasts of renewed support of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah khameni thing are not looking any better.

And among all this Mr. Obama was surprised with the Nobel Peace Prize,A “surprised” and “deeply humbled” Mr Obama said he doubted he deserved the honour, but vowed to wield it as a “call to action” to lead a united world against its greatest challenges. It is claimed by many that Obama's wilingness to hold a unconditional dialogue with Iran is one of the important reasons for the Peace Prize. But one thing is clear from a question raised by a french newspapers editor,“Could a Nobel Peace Prize laureate decide to attack Iran?” a US-Iran war is not on the cards any time soon.

But sure enough Obama will have a tough time’ with two radical leaders at the opposing camps – But this is the kind of time he’s ben having since his election. Until then it is only hoped that president’s Obama; Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad work something out for the stabilization of the Middle – East.

On 26 July, the Indian Navy launched its first indigenously built submarine which also happens to be nuclear powered. The INS Arihant, codenamed Advanced Technology Vessel 1 (ATV 1), has been in development since 1983 after being first envisioned by Raja Ramanna in the 1970s (the scientist had also worked on India’s first indigenously built nuclear bomb ‘The Smiling Buddha’). The programme got delayed many times due to bottlenecks in procuring equipment for the nuclear reactor which further intensified after the US sanction in 1998. For almost a decade after that, the programme was kept a secret. Even the hint that Indian scientists were working on a light water reactor came only in early 2007. Till 2008, Indian Navy Chiefs would deny the existence of such a project on record though the nuclear reactor, a miniature version of which is to be fitted into the sub, had gone critical in October 2004 at Kalpakkam.

Currently INS Arihant is undergoing harbour trials in the Bay of Bengal during which time the nuclear reactor will reach its criticality (a stage where the disintegration of uranium with respect to neutrons stabilises). The nuclear powered Submersible Ship Ballistic Missile (SSBN) first began to take shape in 1998 when the steel fabrication work began at Larsen and Tubros’ Hazira fabrication plant.

The nickname of the sub, Baby Boomer, is curious. Is it a snide remark or a compliment? The term is often used to describe someone who was born during the post-WWII baby population explosion in the West. Some consider the term disparaging while most baby boomers consider themselves gifts to the mankind as they were born during a phase when the economy was looking up. Now, with the launch of INS Arihant, has Indian defence begun to look up?

At 112 m long and with water displacement of about 6000 tonnes, the sub may not be a baby, but it’s no giant either. While it surpasses the current Indian fleet of Kilo and Charlie Class subs by 2000 tonnes, is longer than the Charlie Class sub India had taken on lease from Russia by 9 m and at a submerged speed of 24 knots (44 km/h) — otherwise 15 knots (28 km/h) — it matches the USS Ohio Class in speed, the speed is not enough to chase warships. The extra length is to accommodate 4 missile tubes, and its 10 m beam is the same size as that of a Charlie Class sub.

Some speculations in the media about the design of the sub have now proved wrong. The towed sonar at the aft may be like the Akula Class, but the design is neither of Akula II nor of the Graney Class, which have twin hull designs and are powered by reactors with more than double the power of the one used in Arihant. In all probability, the new sub is a result of Russian consultancy based on its experience with Charlie II Class subs and India’s own experience of handling 1500 tonne German HDW 209 Shishumar Class subs in the form of INS Shalki and INS Shankul.

The INS Arihant will be fitted with 6 torpedoes, 6 Agni III ballistic missiles and 6 K 15 missiles [the latter is another well guarded project of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)]. The missile tubes will also be modified to possibly fire Brahmos missiles, which would upgrade Arihant’s Classification from an SSBN to an SSGN (where ‘G’ stands for guided missile).

The fire power of INS Arihant, believed to complete the nuclear deterrent triad of India, is not too awe inspiring without Agni III. The K-15 (misconstrued often as Sagarika), with its 700 km range, is not of much use against Pakistan, let alone China, if in the situation of a war India must hit deep inside the enemy territory.

At the heart of the Arihant is an 85 mW nuclear reactor which will power it for at least 3 decades. It is a light water reactor and is based on Russian design after the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) failed to provide a stable design necessary for a reactor enclosed in a small space. The reactor capability is in stark contrast with capabilities of the Indian first Nuclear reactor ‘The Cirrus” which was a 40 mW heavy water reactor gifted to the BARC by Canada for research. It is propelled by a single 7 blade propeller; the sonar has been supplied by Bharat Electronics Limited. The indigenously built submarine-sonar USHUS has been in use in Sindhughosh Class (kilo Class) submarines for a long time.

INS Arihant: Too little, too late

The country is already too late. After India declared its nuclear doctrine of no first use in 1998, it lacked a water based second strike capability so that it may complete the triad of ground, air and water attack bases. To fill this void, the DRDO pushed forward the development of nuclear capable Brahmos and Akash cruise missiles, which could be launched from a frigate or destroyer. Due to this, the indigenous submarine programme was put on the backburner. But what a submarine second strike capability brings is stealth and deep penetration attack, neither of which was possible with regular attack ships. A diesel-run sub has to emerge from beneath the sea again and again to exhaust the accumulated carbon dioxide (or snorkel), thereby risking visibility and counterattack by the enemy. A nuclear powered sub, on the other hand, has no such constraint of frequent waste disposal. However, Diesel-electric submarines have the advantage of low noise. The coolant pumps and turbo-machinery needed to operate the reactor create a lot of noise in nuclear submarines even at low power levels. Recent technological advances in sound damping, noise isolation, and cancellation — which are incorporated in the INS Arihant — have made nuclear subs quieter and substantially addressed the issue.

The US had developed its first nuclear powered submarine in the early 1960s about the same time as the Soviets. But the Soviet nuclear submarine programme slowed down after the disintegration of the USSR. Now the Chinese have around 100 submarines of which 10 are Nuclear Submarines most of which are products of their indigenous weapons development program ‘Project 48’. China will soon be deploying its Type 95 and Type 96 nuclear sub in the Indian Ocean on account of its recent military closeness with Sri Lanka and Myanmar. To keep up in the arms race, India got into a shopping spree of second-hand arms, ordering aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and Akula Class nuclear submarine Nerpa. The second will arrive by the year-end; to compliment it India decided to produce a few licensed diesel-run submarines, namely, the Scopene subs from the Mazgaon docks. But this is no solution. The countries supplying these have figured out India’s dire need and are seemingly arm-twisting the Government of India by constantly raising the prices of critical components.

Indigenous technology is the way to go but like most of our indigenous defence equipment, the INS Arihant has its share of shortcomings. In 2008, a Sindhughosh Class submarine had collided with a civilian ship off the Diu coast. Investigation revealed that the USHUS sonar navigation had failed to detect the ship as the submarine was surfacing.

The submarine is yet to undergo several more rounds of trial to test its overall efficacy as a stealth war tool. The most critical aspect to be tested is the working (mainly efficiency) of the 80 mW reactor. Once the reactor is found to be performing steadily, for several days and months it will do the rounds of the Vizag harbour while its controls are tested. That will follow high-speed runs in the sea. Then come underwater trials. For the next two years of testing time, the crew will remain unchanged.

SLBMs will be tested from INS Arihant thereafter. It is believed in Navy circles that even after all these tests meet with success, it generally takes about 5 years for the crew to get fully accustomed to the handling of the sub.

But for now the India has joined a exclusive club of countries who have developed a nuclear submarine. The hulls of two more ATVs have been completed by L&T at its Hazira facility and are to be transported to the Ship Building Centre for assembly soon after the Arihant vacates dock space। And with the breaking of coconut on its hull, India’s precious ($ 2.9 b) ‘Baby Boomer’ propels its way in the country’s maritime area with the promise that it will be more aggressive than what is being politically called a “technology demonstrator”.

Edited by Surajit Dasgupta.