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How to Stop Iran: The Jellyfish Option

Are all options really on the table? Because we have ideas.

by
Yair Rosenberg
October 02, 2013
Jellyfish.(Shutterstock)
Jellyfish.(Shutterstock)

President Obama has repeatedly stated that “all options are on the table” when it comes to curbing a nuclear Iran. Nonetheless, Israeli officials and America’s Arab allies have often worried: does he mean it? Well, today’s New York Times offers us an opportunity to test the administration’s mettle. In an article entitled “Jellyfish Invasion Paralyzes Swedish Reactor,” we are informed:

In an episode that evokes B-grade sci-fi movie plots from the 1950s, but actually reflects a continuing global problem, nuclear engineers in southeastern Sweden have been wrestling with a giant swarm of jellyfish that forced the shutdown of the world’s largest boiling-water reactor.



The plant’s operator said that over the weekend, a huge cluster of moon jellyfish clogged the cooling water intake pipes at the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant on the Baltic Sea coast, forcing the complex’s 1,400-megawatt Unit 3 to shut down.

So, the question we put to the Obama administration is this: should all else fail, would you be willing to marshal a jellyfish invasion to shutter the Iranian nuclear program? Or was that “all options are on the table” rhetoric just a political ploy?

Tablet calls on all national security reporters to press the president until we have an answer to this crucial query. The credibility of U.S. foreign policy may depend on it.

Yair Rosenberg is a senior writer at Tablet. Subscribe to his newsletter, listen to his music, and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.