Thursday, September 19, 2019

It's called "Nitro Zeus"

Senior officials said they were looking at cyberoptions, which would cause few or no casualties and would be considered a “proportionate response.”
American war plans have long included such options against Iranian oil production facilities, a feature of a plan called Nitro Zeus, developed years ago to cripple Iranian infrastructure without resorting to bombing.
The secret cyberattack in June wiped out a critical database used by Iran’s paramilitary arm to plot attacks against oil tankers and degraded Tehran’s ability to covertly target shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf, at least temporarily. Iran spent months trying to recover lost information and restart some of the computer systems — including military communications networks. It is not clear whether it has succeeded.
"Trump Weighs Retaliation Against Iran and Names National Security Adviser" by Peter Baker and Eric Schmitt
With Trump trying to have it both ways -- naming a super-hawk to be his national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, and reviewing lists of Iranian targets at the same time he laments the folly of U.S. conflicts in the Middle East -- the "secret cyberattack" seems to be the preferred option, particularly with Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif announcing on CNN that there will be an all-out war if Iran is targeted by a military strike. Presumably, a "secret cyberattack" would not prompt an all-out war. But, while ratcheting up pressure on Iran, it merely kicks the can down the road. Eventually there will be a reckoning. Hopefully it will be when Trump fails re-election next year and the U.S. returns to the JCPOA.

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