July 9, 2008

Feeling Oats In Iran

Now, this isn’t at all inflammatory. Iran test-firing twenty or so ballistic missiles with 2,000 mile ranges simultaneously is nothing at all to get excited about. After all, Iran only mounts conventional warheads on them!

The point in Israel farthest away from Iran is a village just south of the Gaza Strip called Nir Itzhaq. If you include the Gaza strip, there is a small town about six miles away for Nir Itzhaq, called Rafa, which is on the Egypt-Gaza border. The point in Iran farthest away from Israel is a little corner of Baluchistan, near a small village called Askan a mile or so from the border of Pakistan.

As the Great Prophet III missile flies, it is 1,764.38 miles from Askan, Iran to Nir Itzhaq, Israel, as this detail from a Google Earth screen capture shows. While you've kind of got to hand it to the Iranians, in that "Great Prophet III" is a pretty cool-sounding name for a multi-stage ballistic missile, it's not hard to see why some guys in uniform in Tel Aviv are maybe a little bit more nervous than usual today.

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