Iran: five matters to think about
One of CWL’s regular commenters posted this at “Why We Might Invade Iran.” Sums up some of the horrifying possibilities.
Posted by
unagidon
on September 19, 2007, 4:20 pm
I have been hearing a lot of chatter in the news about Iran becoming the gravest threat to the world and I think that chances are far better than even that Bush is going to do a massive strike against them.
1. His big problem now is that the US has effectively changed sides in Iraq and the main US support seems to be with the Sunni. He thinks that hitting Iran will both weaken the Shiites and will reassure our Sunni client states.
2. While a Democratic president is quite capable of nuking Iran too, he or she won’t be doing it for the larger economic and political reasons that Bush wants to. In any case, Bush and his posse aren’t running again, so in that regard they have nothing to lose.
3. If you think about it, if the Adminstration is really and truly unilateral in their thinking, it makes sense to do it. It will change things real fast in the region and we will be locked down there for quite a while, since then the region will truly be destabilized.
4. The neocons have consistently believed that one can effect a regime change by doing something stupid like this.
5. One of our regional st ategic partners (rhymes with Schmisrael) [MOBS: I think we could just say Israel] has a government that would love to see us do it, especially since it would involve little direct risk to themselves.
UPDATE: And more here: IRAN: Retaliation for any Israeli Attack http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Israel.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190249402-22FbyUYQVCBQrpEVfsl6wA
Does anyone remember the threat/counter-threat, alliance, etc., outbreak of WWI. Well, okay we’re all too young for that. But…..
UPDATE: At Salon and thanks to Pat Lang: more food for chewing over.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/19/iran/print.html
Shouldn’t we make a distinction between taking out uranium plants and “invading Iran?” Even with the losers in W’s administration, I doubt they would invade Iran. Secondly, it appears more likely that Nato might be involved with the removal of uranium rather than any move that is unilateral.
I must admit that after the Iraqi debacle talk of an “invasion of Iran” is depressing. Are we becoming alarmists or is there real data supporting this?
Obviously there is no report from the Pentagon that says that the United States is going to attack Iran on such and such a date. And we always have to take third party reports with a grain of salt. And finally, visceral reactions to political possibilities, which we experience as (what Alan Bloom called) moral indignation seems to be culturally ingrained in Americans, including me, and we have to take that kind of subjectivity into consideration as well.
Having said that, let’s see what Bush says:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070828-2.html
This is last month’s speech to the American Legion. Some bloggers have pointed out that it speaks more harshly and directly about Iran than the president has recently. What struck me about it is that Bush explicitly says that “Al Qaeda” is responsible for the Sunni part of the insurgency and Iran is responsible for the Shiite part of the insurgency in Iraq. Neither of these is in fact true, but if they were true, then 1) The Surge would be a success, since the president’s main selling point on The Surge is that the US has gotten Iraqis in at least one province to fight against “Al Qaeda” and 2) it would make a great deal of sense to attack Iran.
I could link to any number of columns speculating on whether we will attack Iran or not.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gareth-porter/cheney-lieberman-and-ira_b_60705.html
As you may remember, there was a flurry of speculation in the first quarter of the year (sorry for the financial talk; I’m a businessman). We did not attack Iran at that time, of course, and current naysayers are pointing to this as the Liberal Boy who cried Wolf.
But we have seen lately a dovetailing in the news of reports about a continuing Iranian development of its nuclear resources coupled with reports of Iranian training camps for insurgents to fight us in Iraq. We should be aware (and I don’t think that there is any controversy about this) that if we DID attack Iraq, it would not be a white glove surgical strike against nuclear facilities as done by Israel against Saddam. First of all, the facilities are more dispersed and more secure, so that they would have to be hit much harder, and the use of tactical nuclear weapons to get to these has always been on the table. But second, and perhaps more importantly, we have an army next door to Iran, much of which sits within a hostile Shiite population. An bomb attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be an act of war (which they have abundantly made clear) and Iran would definitely retaliate against our conveniently located forces. So it we did a bomb attack, we would also have to destroy Iran’s ability to retaliate, both by air and on the ground.
We know that Bush will act unilaterally if he has to, and the sunset of his presidency does not make him less likely to. So the question is, does Bush think that he could attack Iran and win?
What do you think.?
Please note that in my post I said that I thought the chances were better than 50/50. I would welcome reassuring arguments to the contrary.
This is overheated speculation based upon five highly questionable assumptions and no new facts. If any such plans for massive strikes against Iran existed there’s enough opposition within the Pentagon to guarantee that they would have been almost immediately leaked to the NYT or WP.
Patrick said: “This is overheated speculation based upon five highly questionable assumptions and no new facts. If any such plans for massive strikes against Iran existed there’s enough opposition within the Pentagon to guarantee that they would have been almost immediately leaked to the NYT or WP.”
You may note that I did not say that there would definitely be an attack in the short term. As for plans for an attack, how about the BBC?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6376639.stm
As for Pentagon opposition, I don’t think we have really seen that work very well in the past six years. Have you?
Now as for the assumptions, it is a fact that the focus of the government’s claims about the core of the insurgency has changed from the Sunni to the Shia; it is a fact that Bush has been acting unilaterally relative to his own party; it is a fact that Bush and his adminstration (and especially Cheney) think and act unilaterally; and it is a fact that the neo-con “think tanks” and publications are all calling for an attack on Iran. Do I know for a fact that Israel wants us to attack Iran’s nuclear sites? Do you have a good reason for thinking that they don’t, given Israeli government hyperbole about Iran’s direct and immanent threat to Israel and the fact that Israel did one of these strikes against Iraq and possibly one just recently against Syria?
I think your denial sounds rather over heated.
Just to examine Unagidon’s point 1 above:
“He (Bush) thinks that hitting Iran will both weaken the Shiites and will reassure our Sunni client states.”
That may be a fact for U but others may interpret it as a highly questionable assumption.
I don’t deny that U is hearing “a lot of chatter” supporting his view that “chances are far better than even that Bush is going to do a massive strike against them” (in an unspecified time frame but presumably before Bush leaves office). He apparently puts great store in this kind of chatter.
Others hear different kinds of chatter. For example:
“’There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,’ a source with close ties to British intelligence said. ‘There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.’
A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. ‘All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.
‘There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.’
A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. ‘American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.’”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1434540.ece
I don’t understand where we would get the army necessary for an attack on Iran. While I’m sure Bush and Cheney would love to attack Iran, surely even they realize that the physical reality that we don’t have enough troops makes another invasion possible?
Or perhaps they think that all it would take is a few airstrikes, with no need for any kind of post-attack large-scale troop presence? It’s hard to imagine they could still believe such a thing, after Iraq, but who knows?
Oops – should say “another invasion impossible” not “possible.”
I really hope the new blog site will have a preview option…
Patrick said: “Others hear different kinds of chatter.”
True. You have your chatter and I have mine. And I think that we both agree that a US attack on Iran would be a deeply stupid thing to do. And I think we can also both agree that it is entirely possible that all the chatter is designed to pressure Iran on a purely diplomatic basis.
On the other hand, the force of your argument seems to rest on a belief that the Administration will act in a rational manner. So far they don’t seem to and a case in point is the fact that Bush has to lie in his speech to the American Legion to get support for his rotten and irrational war.
How would we do it? Adm. Fallon is sitting in the middle of the Persian Gulf with a flotilla of battle ships mounted with missles, etc.; aircraft carriers, etc., are also there. I don’t think a land invasion is what we’re talking about, but a massive bombing campaign that would take out nuclear facilities as well as conventional weapons systems to prevent retalitory attacks on neighboring countries. But remember, I am only a one-star arm-chair general!
What do they think is going to happen after the bombing campaign, exactly? Democracy will spring forth out of the desert, Iranians will sing the praisers of their American liberators, and a new democratic Iran will act as a model for the rest of the Middle East to emulate it?
I think we’ve gone down that route before, and it turned out the post-”major combat operations” phase was the harder part…
I don’t think any serious military action against Iran without major ground forces is feasible…and we don’t have those forces (and even if we did, it would still be a terrible idea).
Agreed, a terrible idea. But so was Iraq and they did it anyway. I don’t think anyone commenting here is in favor of this–quite the contrary. Does raising the alarm create push-back? Or just more evidence of conspiracy scenarios?
My mention of WWI above was meant to remind us that escalating incidents are as powerful an impetus to war as a “rational” decision to go to war. Provokations and counter-provokations are in play even as we talk.
http://letters.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/19/iran/view/index1.html?show=ec
Some of the responses to Steve Clemon’s piece in Salon cited above.
The whole issue is very depressing. Invading or attacking Iran is so unrealistic on its face that it’s hard to believe there are those in power who really want to do it. And yet they are there.
If the goal is regime change, like it was in Iraq, then nothing short of a full-out, ground-troops based, invasion has a chance of succeeding (and again, not sure where we would get these troops from, exactly). If the goal is to take out the nuclear facilities, the harsh reality is that we don’t necessarily know where all the facilities are (see James Fallows in the Dec 2004 Atlantic Monthly). An attack would set Tehran’s nuclear ambitions back, but not end them.
Which leaves regime change, which, again, we have no capacity to do.
So, what planet do the Iran hawks live on, that this makes any sense?
Corriere della Sera reports that the Vatican denied a request from Secretary of State Rice for an audience with Pope Benedict (HT: Whispers in the Loggia).
The article says in part: “On Iran, the Vatican is known to detest the truculent anti-Semitism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but regards another preventive war as a disaster.”
The rest of the story is here: http://www.corriere.it/english/rice.shtml
I wonder if Benedict could be persuaded to “snub” (not sure of the word in Italian) President Bush and Co. when he visits in the Spring?
“Snobbare”
That would mean starting summer vacation a trifle early…
but, hey, who knows?
A generals’ revolt? I spent 8 years as an officer in the military during the Virtnam Era, and I doubt very seriously that anyone who has risen to the rank of very senior officer did so by being an independent free-thinking revolutionary.
They are nothing more than corporate bureaucrats in funny clothing.
Interesting and full argument in Maclean’s Magazine about what is really going on in Iraq (with Iran). Good weekend reading.
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070920_100442_7900&source=srch&page=1
I like the cover very much too.
http://www.macleans.ca/images/homepage/Macleans_Oct1.JPG
Those of us who worry about the Bush administration and Iran also have to worry about it and the African continent. At a Pentagon briefing for African and other military officials, as well as some civilians, the briefers laid out plans for a network of military bases in Africa. According to a friend of mine who was there, the briefers clearly implied that they wanted to establish this network before the end of the Bush presidency.
There was a second Pentagon briefing for many of these same people, also attended by my friend. At this session, the briefers tended to dismiss the plans mentioned at the first briefing. My friend is not given to making stuff like this up. I, myself, don’t know what to make of this, but with the present administration, why would I not be worried?
It sometimes seems there is a parallel government, doesn’t it?The government and then the Bush-appointed or approved or free-lancing government.
I was put in mind of this this evening when I got to John Burn’s story in the NYT Week in Review about Blackwater and other private security operations in Iraq. There’s the U.S. military and the “former” U.S. miltiary plus all the other merecenaries operating under the U.S. rules of non-engagement. I was struck by Burns’s story because as far as I know he favored it, but wrote more or less honestly about it.
Now wriritng from Cambridege, GB, and more or less retired perhaps he is free to write about the real role of the mercenaries and the complicity of at least parts of the U.S. government in their rules of engagement. Butns also offers a look at the critical views of the U.S. military toward the mercenaries. Take a look:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/weekinreview/23burns.html?_r=1&oref=slogin