Idle Threats
Another word on Iran. Hawkish-minded commentators seem to be observing that the Iranian regime doesn't appear especially frightened by the prospect of American air strikes. They're concluding from this what they invariably conclude from everything -- that we need to be more hawkish in our posture in order to frighten Teheran. They assume that the Iranian leadership's lack of fear is based on their estimation of our military capacities, our resolve, or something along these lines. They ought to consider another possibility -- Bush's threats aren't very scary.
American experts disagree on the extent to which air strikes can destroy or set back the Iranian nuclear program. I have no idea what anyone is basing their estimates of this question on. There's universal agreement, however, that we can't destroy everything if for no other reason than we can't be sure where everything may be. Thus, the Bush administration's démarche amounts to the following -- either abandon your nuclear program or we'll partially destroy your nuclear program. This is not a very difficult choice to make. In addition, the regime in Teheran probably believes that unilateral American strikes on Iran will create the opportunity for an enormous propaganda win for Teheran, both domestically and internationally. All else being equal, they'd prefer not to have their nuclear program even partially destroyed. But since not having the program destroyed isn't on the table, and the administration isn't putting anything else of note on the table in exchange for voluntary disarmament, it's a no-brainer to just let the bombs fall where they may.
Comments
and the administration isn't putting anything else of note on the table in exchange for voluntary disarmament,
But that's just downright false, Matthew.
As I recall, the offer made in June(?) put forward a whole host of carrots.
My guess is that the Iranians think Bush is bluffing, and that he won't attack if they persist with their current course. Similarly, Saddam seems to have thought Bush was bluffing almost up to the time of the invasion.
I also think Bush is bluffing, but am not sure. If I'm wrong and Bush ends up launching air strikes or a blockade, it will be not because the Iranians are crazy, but because they didn't fully appreciate how crazy Bush is.
Absolutely. An attack on Iran plays to ME victimology, makes us look like a bunch of war-crazed wackos and, ultimately, as Sam Gardiner points out, likely achieves squat. Those carrots offered in June were parsnips, and Persians don't particularly care for parsnips. What would a nation sitting on a pool of oil need nuclear technology for? Sure, it could be for weapons, but those weapons are pretty useless when you look around and see that the US, Russia and China have thousands, and having nukes really hasn't done a hell of a lot for Pakistan. Nuclear technology is simply the sign that "I have arrived." Even better, visions of nukes in the hands of crazy mullahs is a Pavlovian trigger to the wingers. What better way to fuck with their minds and send them off on a self-defeating bender? It's not like these guys haven't been watching what happened over the last 5 years. Bluffing was a bad play for Saddam, because he couldn't afford to have his bluff called and didn't have a fallback position. Maybe not so true for the Mahmoud and the Mullahs.
What would a nation sitting on a pool of oil need nuclear technology for?
What every lap dog lover needs to be reminded of: Peke Oil.
You can't cosh a Global Warming denier with a sock full of nickels and not hear the echo off the off-key siren song of nuclear nirvana.
Military overconfidence seems undiminished in the neocons even after Israel's recent defeat.
America has been running the same air strike play with few changes since Vietnam.
It can be defeated.
A country just needs a lot of money to buy the latest Russian hardware...
Imagine a few American carriers sunk and a few hundred of our jets shot down over Iran...and our pilots sitting in Iranian P.O.W. camps.
Iran may be unafraid because they think they can win...
"we'll partially destroy your nuclear program"
Presumably, the argument is that we will partially destroy your nuclear program again and again and again, so you'll never have a completed nuclear program. In which case, making a deal may seem a better outcome for Iran.
From the other side, the carrot the US should offer is to require Israel to remove all its settlers on the land conquered in 1967. That would get Iran's attention all right. But of course negotiating to remove Israeli settlers would of course be worse than war, doubling the oil price, etc.
I doubt that the Iranian government really cares about the Israel-Palestine question, certainly not enough to give up their nukes over it. They just use it for internal political purposes. The only thing that will get them to give us their nukes is an enforceable security guarantee.
How do we give them an enforceable security guarantee and simultareously prevent them from threatening our (nominal, at least) friends in the region?
I don't see how those two things are in any way contradictory.
You don't think that if we gave Iran a security guarantee, Iran would be emboldened to threaten the rest of the Middle East? After all, we couldn't do anything about it then.
I think you guys are projecting the neocon's Plantation Owner approach to foreign policy onto the Iranians.
Do we have any proof they actually want to dominate the Middle East?
Do they have the right to attack Kurdish terrorists using Iraq as a safe haven?
Do they have a right to do something about the drug problem Afghanistan's record opium crops are causing in their country?
They did defend themselves against Saddam's invasion of their country (during which, America supported Saddam and gunned down an Iranian civilian airliner).
I don't see any evidence from Iran of a desire to use their military for anything other than defensive purposes the neocons claim are justified.
You don't think that if we gave Iran a security guarantee, Iran would be emboldened to threaten the rest of the Middle East? After all, we couldn't do anything about it then.
Why not?
Because of the security guarantee? I mean, isn't that where you promise not to attack the other country?
Security guarantees can be conditional, right?
"I doubt that the Iranian government really cares about the Israel-Palestine question, certainly not enough to give up their nukes over it. They just use it for internal political purposes."
Offering them something they can use for internal political purposes is what negotiations are all about.
Security guarantees can be conditional, right?
I mean, right? Do we even have to set a condition? Couldn't we threaten to revoke our agreement if Iran behaves agressively? This is a peace-seeking initiative, after all.
Aggressively. I meant aggressively.
That's not much of a guarantee then.
Why would the Iranians be afraid of US air strikes? They have 130,000 hostages next door, and all those dinghies full of oil that have pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Like Bush, they're just waiting for an excuse to start it -- but unlike Bush, they understand the consequences and next steps.
I've never seen anyone explain how the US can protect its troops in Iraq after they goad Iran into war, or how they can guarantee a continuing oil supply if Iran decides to choke it off. The Joint Chiefs should be resigning en masse instead of sending plans to the White House; maybe it *is* time to dust off that old paperback copy of The Late Great Planet Earth...
scooter,
Tommy "No Plan" Franks got a $4 million book advance, and so did Colin Powell.
Why should our current military leaders miss out on the big bucks just because a few (well, tens of thousands) people will die and oil prices will skyrocket (even more)?
Self-interest is as American as baseball and apple pie.
As to the question of why the Iranians are not very frightened of American air strikes - if indeed it is true that they aren't afraid, and that their public posture is more than a carefully crafted diplomatic and communications strategy - I suspect the hawks analysis is probably largely correct. The Iranians have calculated that the US is not in a good position right now to carry out these strikes, for both domestic political reasons and military reasons. Whether their calculation is correct, time will tell.
But what is worth noting is the lame, tired hawkish presupposition that unless the people with whom you have a dispute are very, very frightened of you, and fear that you may come to their country at any moment bearing murder and destruction, you are doing something wrong.
I have observed recently that my neighbor is not detectably afraid that I will poison his dog or put a pipe bomb in his mailbox. Apparently, my foreign policy lacks credibility in his eyes. How frustrating! If we get into a dispute about one of his bushes spreading into my yard, or about whose turn it is to snowblow around the mailboxes, I would really like to be able to influence his behavior with both carrots and sticks. It's all about making "good decisions".
I have also been concerned recently that my son does not fear that I will kick the living shit out of him. Except for the fact that I have never kicked the living shit out of him, and tend to regard such behavior as ... you know ..."wrong", I cannot for the life of me understand why he lacks this fear. I really must reevaluate my paternal posture. It is a well known fact that one cannot control teenagers without the use of both carrots and very big, very bloody sticks.
The fact is, if you generally behave like a civilized person, other people are probably not going to piss their pants in fear of your violent outbursts. Civilized people do forego the particular kinds of influence that come from people being afraid of you all the time. There's no question about it. Is this a problem?
Military overconfidence seems undiminished in the neocons even after Israel's recent defeat.
Well, it was not a resounding victory, but a defeat? I think I'll quote the late Chou En Lai's answer to the question about what he thought of the French Revolution - "It's too early to tell."
America has been running the same air strike play with few changes since Vietnam.
Sure, if you don't count fiddly little things like stealth technology, cruise missiles, real-time surveillance and precision-guided gravity and standoff weapons. I mean, when you come right down to it, Bull Run and the Marne were really pretty much like Waterloo, right? Parts is parts.
It can be defeated.
By our future insect overlords from the Gamma Quadrant, maybe. Not by Iran.
A country just needs a lot of money to buy the latest Russian hardware...
Two problems here. First problem, the money. It pretty much all comes from pumping and shipping oil. 90% of said oil comes out of the ground in a single Iranian province which just happens to border Iraq. Take Khuzestan, lay down a quick pipeline connection from existing Iranian infrastructure to the Iraqi oil transport system and, poof, there goes the Mullah's cash and the world oil market barely hiccups. Rugs and pistachios aren't going to buy a lot of munitions, but that's pretty much all the Mullahs'll have left to barter.
Then there's the cautionary recent example of Saddam Hussein. Anyone selling weapons to the Mullahs would be well advised not to do so on the installment plan. You're not going to get paid.
Second problem, that Russian weaponry. Military goods from the former Combloc have a - how to put it nicely - problematic track record against American arms going back three decades or more.
Syria had a state-of-the-art Russian-built air defense system covering the Lebanese Bekaa Valley in 1982. The IDF Air Force, flying mostly American F-16's, ground it to scrap in an afternoon against fierce opposition, on the ground and in the air. Syria - 82 planes lost. IDF - 1 plane lost.
No need, I presume, to cite statistics from more recent conflicts such as the Gulf War and the current OIF in Iraq. Suffice it to say that Iran can be rendered both defenseless and toothless in 24 hours any time we want to send up the flare. They can't stop us or even get seriously in our way. Nothing they have already bought or might buy from Russia - or even the French or Chinese - in, say, the next two or three years is capable of seriously altering this.
Imagine a few American carriers sunk and a few hundred of our jets shot down over Iran...and our pilots sitting in Iranian P.O.W. camps.
If it gives you a warm, toasty feeling inside, you imagine it. But imagination will have to do. As noted, the Iranians don't have, and cannot buy, anything capable of shooting down any significant number of American airplanes that would still be operational an hour after the initial defense suppression stealth stikers got done with them. That includes their own motley air force.
As for carriers, the Iranians have nothing with any likelihood of surviving a run through the Aegis gauntlet around an American carrier battle group. Silkworm missiles are only scary if you're in an unescorted minor combatant ship with no anti-air capability ot close-in defense systems. Good luck trying to hit a carrier with one. It would take a lot more than one to do the job on a single carier in any event. Not gonna happen.
The Iranian submarine force is mostly antiquated and all slow. And that is, of course, assuming it wasn't already put on the bottom in the first wave of strikes - not an assumption I would confidently make.
Iran may be unafraid because they think they can win...
Of course they think they can win. These types always think they can win. Or they think they can do what they want and we won't slap them down in the first place. There are large graveyards full of people who labored under this inexplicably recurrent delusion scatttered widely over at least three different continents.
There is always, of course, room for more.
Even lowly Yugoslavia managed to shoot down one of our "stealth" bombers, Dick. They aren't really that stealthy.
Nobody has actually shot back at the U.S. Air Force since Vietnam...
Against a real opponent, I think our Air Force will be about as effective as the IDF was against Hezbollah.
Killing helpless civilians makes for poor training.
Why would the Iranians be afraid of US air strikes?
You're kidding, right?
They have 130,000 hostages next door,
Hostages are disarmed people with their hands and feet tied sitting blindfolded in some rank basement somewhere under watch, gun, lock and key. In short, people you control and can kill at any time. Why you think this is an accurate description of the American portion of the Coalition military in Iraq - to which I assume you refer - is mystifying. By your logic, Saddam had a half million "hostages" during the first Gulf War. He managed to kill fewer than 200. Why do you imagine the Iranians could do better? Because they have missiles? Saddam had missiles. Get a clue.
and all those dinghies full of oil that have pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
If the Iranians suddenly cease to have (a) a navy and (b) land-based anti-ship missiles this ceases to be a realistic problem. The U.S. Navy can arrange this. The U.S. Air Force can arrange this. The U.S. Marine Corps can arrange this. All of them together can arrange this without working up much of a sweat.
Like Bush, they're just waiting for an excuse to start it -- but unlike Bush, they understand the consequences and next steps.
If they understood the actual consequences, I'm thinking they might be a bit less inclined to open the ball. Then again, maybe they figure the 12th Imam will rise up out of that well like some Islamic ballistic missile and lay waste to all of us uppity infidels if we actually do anything they don't like. The thought processes of the religiously insane are not a subject in which I claim any relevant expertise.
I've never seen anyone explain how the US can protect its troops in Iraq after they goad Iran into war,
Protect them from what?
Airplanes? The Iranian air force will cease to exist in the first hour of any real fight. None of their aircraft will get anywhere near Iraq.
Missiles? Iran has lots of inaccurate small ones, but they're short range jobs. Geting close enough to Iraq to use them will be a suicide mission. A failed suicide mission. A-10's and F-16's will grind any launch sites into powder within seconds of first launch. U.S. bases are pretty well built to resist damage from artillery-style rockets.
Bigger missiles? Long-range ones? Iran doesn't have very many and most of them can't be salvo fired. Many types require a fixed launch site. Fire the first and the site will not live long enough to fire a second. All are of questionable accuracy. Most will not survive an initial wave of airstrikes. Then there are the block 3 and 4 Patriot missiles to get past.
or how they can guarantee a continuing oil supply if Iran decides to choke it off.
Well, as noted in a previous post, that requires certain means that Iran cannot confidently expect still to have even 60 minutes after opening hostilities. The U.S. military can protect the oil traffic of other nations and comandeer most of the oil production of Iran itself.
The Joint Chiefs should be resigning en masse instead of sending plans to the White House; maybe it *is* time to dust off that old paperback copy of The Late Great Planet Earth...
Never read it. Could be you should have resisted the temptation too. It seems to have given you a lot of goofy ideas.
That's not much of a guarantee then.
What?! A guarantee that America will not attack you unless you attack someone else is not much of a guarantee? There's a number of countries in the world that would jump at that one, and Iran is on that list.
"Suffice it to say that Iran can be rendered both defenseless and toothless in 24 hours any time we want to send up the flare. They can't stop us or even get seriously in our way."
Dick, hadn't you heard? Some toothless Iraqi dudes with duct tape and Russian ordnance have been doing a good job at tying up the army of a large Western power since May 2003.
The Iranians are somewhat better organized, have 130,000 targets (who are already losing one war) sitting within spitting distance, and can lob Exocets, Silkworms or whatever's current at every supertanker from Qatar, UAE, Dubai, Iraq and Saudi Arabia (not just Iran) that tries to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. As I wrote previously, they can't get in the way of your stealth bombers and carriers, but that really isn't the point, is it?
Dick, if the Iranians really are no match for quick wham-bam US aerial bombardment -- if that *really* would finish them off as a fighting force -- can they *really* be that much a global threat? Can they *really* be the 21st century equivalent of the Nazis, like all the cable news channels (and your fine, fine leaders) say?
Sounds like they're really worth starting *another* war for.
Even lowly Yugoslavia managed to shoot down one of our "stealth" bombers, Dick. They aren't really that stealthy.
Yeah, they are. The F-117 downed in Yugoslavia was unlucky enough to be within range of an SA-8 battery when it opened its bombay doors to drop ordnance on a low-level run. Bad timing. Them's the breaks sometimes. The Yugoslavs fired off a lot of SAM's over most of a year. They got lucky once. Nobody wins wars with that kind of batting average.
Nobody has actually shot back at the U.S. Air Force since Vietnam...
The Yugoslavs must have gotten that F-117 with pure clean living and righteous thoughts, then, I guess. Doesn't writing this sort of close-quarters contradiction give you a headache? It would me.
Besides our friends the Serbs, of course, there are the Iraqis who certainly did a shitload of shooting at the U.S. Air Force during the Gulf War. Am I the only one who remembers the Baghdad sky lit up like July 4th with missiles and AAA going every which way while good 'ole Bernie Shaw called the play-by-play from a hotel roof on CNN? Sic transit gloria mundi, Bernie.
The Iraqis, of course, resumed their attempted target practice sporadically thereafter during the many years of no-fly zone enforcement.
Nobody shot back. Sure buddy.
Against a real opponent, I think our Air Force will be about as effective as the IDF was against Hezbollah.
Iraq was a real opponent in 1991 and 2003. They didn't do so well. Hezbollah is a quasi-covert, non-uniformed, hijack-a-real-country-and-use-its-citizens-as-human-shields outfit. The U.S. Air Force is of limited use against internal insurgencies and militias. Hence its rather limited role in the Iraq campaign since mid-2003. Iran, on the other hand, is a real country with a military and everything. Much easier to accurately take down.
Killing helpless civilians makes for poor training.
If that was what the U.S. Air Force did, I'd be inclined to agree. Since it isn't, your comment lacks any point except to fulfill the apparently obligatory lefty libel when any mention is made of the U.S. military I guess. Okay, so there. You touched second base.
For the millionth time, y'all! It's not about Iran as nuclear power per se. It's about the US hegemon securing control of the Persian Gulf region with all that nice black, gooey stuff down below. China, most particularly, and Russia are the real opponents here in the new Great Game of Big Powers vying for ME oil. CheneyBushCo. are NOT really worried about a nooculer Iran right now. What they ARE worried about is Iran as part of a China-Russia triad--a serious threat to US hegemony. This is a power play for the Middle East with nuclear spin for effect.
And for the billionth time: We bomb Iran and the game turns to immediate catastrophe for the US and the greater world. Iran's huge oil production will drop off the world market. Probably the Saudi's massive production will be seriously curtailed as the narrow Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz becomes a battle field. Hell Chaos will follow if the morons bomb - and being morons....
I don't think of myself as a "lefty," Dick.
If you look back to Vietnam, when our Air Force faced a real air defense, their losses where quite high...closer to WWII-like casualties.
Since then, we have attacked countries like Grenada, Panama, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, which had primitive air defenses and poor leadership.
Iran *may* be a different story. They have the money to buy an air defense grid with both the quality and quantity needed to *win* against a U.S. attack.
Iran may even have the ability to field fighters...a threat we haven't faced in over 30 yers...nobody flying for America has ever faced that threat in combat...
Our friend DIck is another guy who is incapable of thinking clearly about anything because he's too busy slobbering over all the fancy hardware the U.S. military has.
Dick is probably correct that the conventional Iranian military would be brushed aside like it hardly existed by the U.S. We are the most aggressive, militarized, and dangerous advanced country in the world, we spend over 20 times as much on arms each year as the Iranians do, which is no doubt why they sensibly feel the need for a nuclear deterrent. But if Dick took his nose out of his Tom Clancy novels long enough to pay even ten minutes of attention to our resounding defeat in Iraq, he would start to understand why the conventional military showdown he longs to have hardly matters. It would take a ground invasion of Iran to wipe out their nuclear program, we cannot manage such an invasion with our military at its current size. If we bomb them, it will probably not wipe out their nuclear program, and they have a thousand ways to harm us in retaliation.
And oh yes, Dick, our military is indeed responsible, both directly and indirectly, for many tens of thousands, probably over a hundred thousand, civilian casualties over the last 4 years. Sorry to confuse you with the sad facts. It doesn't make me any happier than it does you.
Dick Eagleson,
Check out this link.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/4/23/220813.shtml
If the Iranians have some of these it could get ugly fast in the Persian Gulf even for our Navy. And I can think of all kinds of reasons why Russia might want Iran to have a few of them.
But hardware that fancy isn't required to do the real damage: sink one or two tankers and the economic consequences will be, um, interesting. As Bin Laden and Hezbollah have demonstrated, overwhelming military capability just ain't what it used to be.
Dick, hadn't you heard? Some toothless Iraqi dudes with duct tape and Russian ordnance have been doing a good job at tying up the army of a large Western power since May 2003.
Okay, once more from the bridge. Iraq is a problem because of an internal insurgency that presents essentially no large or fixed targets against which to work with modern air power. The Zarquawi hit was a rare exception and, as usual in such situations, we ran the table.
And, one should note, despite being in very close quarters with those 130,000 "targets" in the American portion of the Coalition Forces, the insurgents have never been very good at killing them and they're getting worse. The casualty rate for U.S. ground pounders in Iraq is only modestly higher than it is for training accidents in nominal peacetime. I live not far from Camp Pendleton where such mishaps tend to make the local news so I have some familiarity with this.
Mostly, these days, the various Iraqi insurgents content themselves with blowing up regular Iraqi civilians for the chaos value. Attacking U.S. formations is a quick ticket to "martyrdom." Attacking Iraqi army formations is quickly getting to be not a whole lot better.
Iran, on the other hand, is a target-rich environment. They have conventional military forces, command and control nodes, air defense radars and missiles, a navy, both surface and submarine, a missile force, armored formations, artillery units - all the big boy toys. They have, in other words, what the U.S. military was designed to attack and defeat. If the word is ever given, the U.S. military will do so. Full stop.
The Iranians are somewhat better organized,
Before the shooting starts, maybe. Afterward? Well, that's the question isn't it?
have 130,000 targets (who are already losing one war)
Despite the concerted efforts of the dingbat left to wish it so, the Iraq campaign is far from lost. The linchpin of the whole affair is whether enough Iraqis will grab the opportunity they've got and run with it. I'm encouraged by the number who want to do so.
sitting within spitting distance,
You must be some spitter. Look at a map. Most U.S. troops are a loooong way from the Iranian border.
and can lob Exocets, Silkworms or whatever's current at every supertanker from Qatar, UAE, Dubai, Iraq and Saudi Arabia (not just Iran) that tries to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Not if they are all smoking holes in the ground first. It's not what you bring to the party, gents, it's what you can keep until you can use it.
As I wrote previously, they can't get in the way of your stealth bombers and carriers, but that really isn't the point, is it?
Congratulations, you're not as delusional as MonkyBoy.
Come to think of it, in this crowd, perhaps that is a distinction worthy of note. Wear it with pride, Scoot.
Dick, if the Iranians really are no match for quick wham-bam US aerial bombardment -- if that *really* would finish them off as a fighting force -- can they *really* be that much a global threat? Can they *really* be the 21st century equivalent of the Nazis, like all the cable news channels (and your fine, fine leaders) say?
No, Iran is not an existential threat to the United States, though the current regime seems to think it is, or can be. This is not to say, of course, that Iran can't be a royal pain the ass for an extended period if not restrained or, preferably, rebuilt along more pacific lines.
The current Iranian regime certainly is, an existential threat to other countries in the world, especially those in their part of the world whose names start with 'I.' History shows rather conclusively that rewarding unwarranted aggression with success leads to more unwarranted aggression. Best to draw the line earlier than later. Czechoslovakia and all that.
Of course "earlier" in this case, would have been the Carter administration. So we stupided that one away by electing that self-righteous peanut farmer. Still, having let the mess get out of hand in the first place, we should magnanimously step in now and clean it up before it gets worse.
Sounds like they're really worth starting *another* war for.
They're already on record as considering themselves at war with us. Then there's the original casus belli, the Embassy takeover in 1979. No statute of limitations on acts of war so far as I know. They have also covertly supplied munitions to hostiles in the Iraq insurgency. We're already at war with Iran. The only question is whether we're going to take sufficient official notice to decisively end the thing on favorable terms. I'm cautiously optimistic we will.
For the millionth time, y'all! It's not about Iran as nuclear power per se. It's about the US hegemon securing control of the Persian Gulf region with all that nice black, gooey stuff down below.
If by "control" you mean "sell us the oil, take the money and don't make gratuitous trouble with your neighbors or elswhere" then - yeah - we're looking to "control" the Middle East. And this is bad how?
China, most particularly, and Russia are the real opponents here in the new Great Game of Big Powers vying for ME oil.
China certainly seems to have this view. Russia, I think, not so much. They are, after all, net oil exporters, not importers as are the Chinese. They have nothing particularly to gain and a lot, potentially, to lose by indulging fantasies of regaining their lost imperium.
CheneyBushCo. are NOT really worried about a nooculer Iran right now. What they ARE worried about is Iran as part of a China-Russia triad--a serious threat to US hegemony.
And, again, U.S. "hegemony" is bad how? I'm dubious any such Triple Alliance would be any more workable or stable than other such lash-ups have proven in the past. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there could actually be something to this rather far-fetched notion, how does the existence of an alternative "hegemon," each component of which has a long history of genuine - as opposed to rhetorical - imperialism, make the world a better place?
This is a power play for the Middle East with nuclear spin for effect.
No, it's another necessary move to stamp out messianic Islamic regimes that seek external conquest for Allah.
And for the billionth time: We bomb Iran and the game turns to immediate catastrophe for the US and the greater world. Iran's huge oil production will drop off the world market. Probably the Saudi's massive production will be seriously curtailed as the narrow Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz becomes a battle field. Hell Chaos will follow if the morons bomb - and being morons....
As noted previously, taking down the Iranians pre-emptively avoids or greatly limits these eventualities. Or perhaps you think things would be better if we twiddle out thumbs until Iran makes a serious run a "wiping Israel off the map" and Israel responds with the Samson Option?
Dick, I was briefly wondering if maybe you were right, and that attacking Iran (without an occupation) wouldn't be a big deal. Thankfully, you revealed yourself to be delusional about the current status in Iraq, which clarified things for me.
Hehe, Dick,
America should risk ruin and attack Iran because...they might be a threat to Israel?
It all becomes so clear.
A country that hasn't attacked anyone in what? 300 years? Sacry!
Even if America does get its ass kicked, well, no skin off Israel's nose, right?
How dumb do you guys think Americans are?
How about Israel attacks Iran, and if it turns out they have a brand new $20 billion modern Russian air defense, we'll sell Israel a new Air Force at, say, a 20% discount?
I don't think of myself as a "lefty," Dick.
My apologies then. I duly note for the record that you are not lockstep loony lefty deranged, just independently deranged.
If you look back to Vietnam, when our Air Force faced a real air defense, their losses where quite high...closer to WWII-like casualties.
Closer in a mathematical sense, maybe. Our total troop losses in WW2 air combat were in the high five figures. In Vietnam, they were in the low four figures for a war that lasted over twice as long.
Also, the actual number of AAA batteries was quite a bit higher in the Hanoi-Haiphong area than it had been in almost any part of WW2 Germany. Plus there were SAM's, which the Germans were in the process of inventing late in WW2, but hadn't really gotten into mass production yet.
Compared to our current situation, in which air combat losses are asymptotically approaching zero, Vietnam was a bloddy mess. Compared with flying to Hamburg or Ploesti, though, no, not so much.
Much of the Vietnam-era loss was due to restrictive rules of engagement. In WW2 we attacked flak batteries wherever they were sited without worrying much about collateral damage. In Vietnam, that was not the case. We couldn't carpet bomb the AAA, but precision-guided weapons - TV and laser-guided bombs - were in their gestational period during much of the Vietnam air war and were never in abundant supply. Consequently, we hadn't anything like our present-day capability to pre-emptively suppress flak and SAM's. We didn't have stealth either. Still, we did a lot better than we did in WW2.
Since then, we have attacked countries like Grenada, Panama, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, which had primitive air defenses and poor leadership.
Grenada, Panama and Afghanistan I'll spot you. But Yugoslavia had good modern air defenses by Soviet Bloc standards. Their AAA would have been quite vexing for any air force except ours and any other that employs U.S. equipment such as the Israelis. Iraq had pretty good defenses - quite numerous too - in both 1991 and 2003, not to mention during the no-fly period in between. Same deal though.
Poor leadership? Yup. Thing is, the only thing good leadership could have done that would have changed the outcome would have been to not screw with us in the first place. With the hardware they had, there was simply no way either Yugoslavia or Iraq, either time, was going to seriously challenge American air supremacy. We spent a lot of time and money getting to be better than anybody else in the world and, hey, whaddayaknow, it worked.
Iran *may* be a different story. They have the money to buy an air defense grid with both the quality and quantity needed to *win* against a U.S. attack.
No, they don't. They haven't the technical base to attempt building any such thing and, as no one else has done so either, there's nowhere for them to buy one. They have bits and pieces from Russian, Chinese, French and lord knows where else sources but, if push comes to shove, it's all gonna be scrap metal in minutes.
I'm curious. What is it you think you know about - I guess - Russian or Chinese air defense weaponry that convinces you this goofy fantasy of an Iranian killing field for the USAF is at all plausible? Or is it just that you don't really know anything much and merely harbor an illogical hope that the U.S. is heading for a fall for emotional/ideological/personal reasons? If the latter, what is your basis for viewing the U.S. as the bad guy in all this?
Iran may even have the ability to field fighters...a threat we haven't faced in over 30 yers...nobody flying for America has ever faced that threat in combat...
Utter nonsense. Libyan fighters tangled with the USN in the mid 80's. That didn't work out too well for them. Iraq tried fighting us in the air during the first 48 hours of the air-only part of the Gulf War. Had some good front-line Soviet Bloc stuff too - Mig-29's even. Never laid a glove on any aircraft of a Coalition air force - not just the U.S. All of our aircraft losses were due to AAA and SAM's and there weren't very many of those. There are still Gulf War air combat veterans on active duty.
As for Iran, they've got a very mixed bag of stuff. Quite a bit of what they got when Saddam made them the unexpected present of most of his not-yet-destroyed air force in 1991 is probably still operational. A little long in the tooth, some of it, but serviceable. Hell, there may even still be a Shah-era F-14 or two in commmission. What they don't have is doctrine, tactics, command and control, training and experience to match the U.S. or even really get in the same game. If zero hour is, say, 4:00 AM, the Iranian air force will be just so many burning piles of scrap by 5.
Again - where from come these U.S. defeat fantasies? And why?
Our friend DIck is another guy who is incapable of thinking clearly about anything because he's too busy slobbering over all the fancy hardware the U.S. military has.
I would never slobber on the hardware. It might rust.
Dick is probably correct that the conventional Iranian military would be brushed aside like it hardly existed by the U.S.
Excellent, MQ. You get to join Scooter in the "I'm not as crazy as MonkyBoy" club.
We are the most aggressive, militarized, and dangerous advanced country in the world,
Kudos again. Too bad the Iranians don't share your perspicacity. They think we're feckless pussies and never tire, it seems, of saying so and otherwise making big talk.
we spend over 20 times as much on arms each year as the Iranians do, which is no doubt why they sensibly feel the need for a nuclear deterrent.
Hell, we spend at least five times as much per year as anybody else. Why is it that most of the world's nations, nonetheless, don't seem to think they need to have nukes to keep us from being rude to them? Hint: most of the world's nations do not have imperial designs on their neighbors. Behave sensibly and the U.S. military is only something you'll see during, say, a port call.
But if Dick took his nose out of his Tom Clancy novels long enough to pay even ten minutes of attention to our resounding defeat in Iraq
Council for the prosecution assumes facts not in evidence.
he would start to understand why the conventional military showdown he longs to have hardly matters. It would take a ground invasion of Iran to wipe out their nuclear program
We don't have to wipe it out, just take it down and keep it that way until a sensible administration emerges in Iran.
we cannot manage such an invasion with our military at its current size.
As pointed out in a previous post, we don't have to occupy the whole country, just the oil-producing part. Starving the current regime should do for the rest.
If we bomb them, it will probably not wipe out their nuclear program, and they have a thousand ways to harm us in retaliation.
They can try, certainly. Without access to ready cash, though, they may find the going a bit rough.
And oh yes, Dick, our military is indeed responsible, both directly and indirectly, for many tens of thousands, probably over a hundred thousand, civilian casualties over the last 4 years. Sorry to confuse you with the sad facts. It doesn't make me any happier than it does you.
Given that all of the insurgrents we have killed in the past three+ years are, in a technical sense, civilians, you are probably right, though that 100,000 number is just some Brit MD's smoking dope. The number of innocent civilians killed through U.S. military action is deinitely over 1,000. It might even be over 10,000 though I think there is room for legitimate doubt on that score. The tendency for insurgency apologists to behave as though all the dead goblins still deserve to be alive has seriously muddied the waters on this issue.
I've never seen anyone explain how the US can protect its troops in Iraq after they goad Iran into war, or how they can guarantee a continuing oil supply if Iran decides to choke it off. The Joint Chiefs should be resigning en masse instead of sending plans to the White House; maybe it *is* time to dust off that old paperback copy of The Late Great Planet Earth...
My guess is that the ensuing destruction of the Iraq force will spell the end of the Republican Party for a generation. And how would gasoline at $5-6 play in the elections?
They're already on record as considering themselves at war with us. Then there's the original casus belli, the Embassy takeover in 1979. No statute of limitations on acts of war so far as I know. They have also covertly supplied munitions to hostiles in the Iraq insurgency. We're already at war with Iran. The only question is whether we're going to take sufficient official notice to decisively end the thing on favorable terms. I'm cautiously optimistic we will.
Frankly, I'm not seeing all of this "aggression". Exactly where are all those Iranian troops out aggressing against foreign countries? Where are those foreign territories Iran is forcibly annexing or folding into its rather limited sphere of influence?
Perhaps you are thinking of Hizbollah, about whom Anthony Cordesman reported, following a trip last month to Israel:
"One key point that should be mentioned more in passing than as a lesson, although it may be a warning about conspiracy theories, is that no serving Israeli official, intelligence officer, or other military officer felt that the Hezbollah acted under the direction of Iran or Syria."
Or is it Iraq? No country in the world would sit by with such a chaotic and bloody civil mess on their border without taking steps to make sure the factions most favorable to them actually win. The bulk of Iranian government support is going to the various Shiite parties, most of whom are on our side. And as Mr. Khatami made clear on his recent trip to the US, the Iranians are not trying to chase us out, but actually want us to stay in Iraq.
And finally... the embassy takeover?! That happened 27 years ago in the middle of a revolution. If you're trying to convince serious people about the gravity of the threat from Iran, this sort of frivolity doesn't help your case. Are you really talking about national security here, or are you just another Legion-hall nostalgist, licking his wounded pride and fantasizing about payback? Grow up.
The US has a military presence in Pakistan, Iraq, various Gulf States, Azerbaijan and and Afghanistan - and probably various other states bordering Iran that I am forgetting. They have a fairly tight noose around Iran. The notion that with all these US troops abroad in Iran's neighborhood, with no similar Iranian deployments in our own neighborhood, and with a US-Iran nuclear balance of forces of somewhere around 6,000 to 0, Iran poses a of "gathering threat" to the US is some kind of joke.
And although US forces could certainly inflict all sorts of damage on Iran in various quick and limited-aim strikes, you really say nothing that gives any inkling of a realistic plan to "end this thing." The "thing" itself is largely a figment of your fearful and frustrated imagination.
There is nothing going on here but a bunch of cranky, weepy militarists crying in their Viagra about the bad turn in Iraq, and eager to restore the national hardness and their own reputations with some glorious new success. Following the events of the summer, there are some newly flaccid Israelis eager to join them.
Is Israel afraid of Iran? Sure. Israeli is a tiny country; they're a fraid of everybody. But as the reigning global hyper-uni-hegemon or whatever, It's our job to help them get a grip, rather than start acting tiny and pathetically scared ourselves.
War sounds so easy when Dick Chickenhawk describes it, doesn't he? Perhaps General Dick should be heading out to the sandbox to direct operations. 'Take Khuzestan', indeed. Nothing like reading a Keyboard Kommando to remind you that their fuckwittery lasts a lifetime. But do keep masturbating to that Big Book Of Boom, Dick.
And before people talk about Iran's 'influence' on Hezbollah, perhaps it's worth wondering just why Mossad has been busily training Kurdish militias in Iraq for the past couple of years?
To spread democracy, pseu?
Re: No statute of limitations on acts of war so far as I know.
Hmm. Maybe we ought go to war with Britain because of the aid they gave the CSA during our Civil war. Whatchall think?
DMonteith,
Good question D.
The Squall (Shkval) torpedo is not a particularly recent development. The Russians have been working on their supercavitating technology for over 30 years.
And the Iranian Navy does have this type of weapon. They claim theirs is an original development and not a Russian export model. I'm dubious. In any event, they released video footage of a test firing done during war games their navy ran earlier this year. The footage was in major rotation on all the cable news channels at the time. Google for it if you're interested. Shouldn't be hard to find.
There is one obvious, retroactive question raised by all this Shkval fuss of course. To wit: if the Shkval can really do what is claimed in some of the more breathless reportage on this subject, then how in the heck did we ever win the Cold War? Why does the USN still have any unsunk subs?
Turns out the Shkval is not without its problems. Briefly:
1. insanely noisy (emphatically not faster than sound)
2. short range (a few miles - 1/4 to 1/5 of conventional U.S. torpedos)
3. no or very iffy post-launch guidance
Rather than write my own treatise on these matters, I'll just refer all interested parties to an excellent article on the subject elsewhere.
Just as a side note, the often-reported nonsense about supercavitating torpedos being able to outrun their own sound signatures to achieve "stealth" keeps popping up, even in places that clearly ought to know better. I recall seeing a National Geographic Channel documentary recently that trotted out this same goofy notion. How embarrassing for the folks at the Big Yellow Border.
Serious props to DMonteith, though, for raising a real and rational issue here. Damn refreshing.
Dick, I was briefly wondering if maybe you were right, and that attacking Iran (without an occupation) wouldn't be a big deal. Thankfully, you revealed yourself to be delusional about the current status in Iraq, which clarified things for me.
Always happy to help out, Walt.
I don't think I ever said it wouldn't be a big deal, just that it is doable and wouldn't take very long or run our military any significant risk of major short-term casualties.
As for the occupation thing: You, and other commenters here, are correct that we would have a difficult time establishing and maintaining a full-coverage occupation of Iran with our present force structure (and as Rummy reminds us, "You go to war with the military you have").
It is far from obvious that such a thing would be necessary, however. That is not to say that occupation of some strategic portions of Iran could not be accomplished, even over a fairly long term, if necessary.
Carving off Khuzestan, for example, would, in military terms, just amount to a quite modest lengthening of the Iran-Iraq border in that area. If we make a deal to give the native Khuzestanis - who are mostly ethnic Arabs, by the way, and no particular friends of the central administration in Tehran - a cut of the revenues from the oil coming out of their ground, I think we can get a lot of help keeping central government forces, be they regulars or Revolutionary Guards, in formations or as infiltrators, out of this limited piece of territory. Compared to the bupkes the locals get now from that oil, I think we can find some takers.
As a side benefit, doing this would also cut way down on Iranian covert support of their fifth-columnists in Iraq.
In return for the effort expended holding Khuzestan, we would force the Mullahs to prosecute the rest of this prospective war at 10 cents on the dollar as we would have pulled 90% of their oil revenue out of their pockets.
We could also establish limited "islands" of occupation at other locations within Iran. The immediate environs of each of their known nuclear technology development/production sites would be obvious candidates. The smaller ones we might only have to stand on long enough for the combat engineers to thoroughly destroy. The larger ones, we might want to hang onto for some time. I'm guessing the rule of thumb would probably be anything important that's big enough to land a Herc on, we keep.
We could add oil loading port facilities and major airports to the list fairly readily, further compromising the ability of the Mullahs to garner revenue to keep the fight going. Some of these places, like Kharg Island, are already splendidly isolated from possible sources of collateral damage and could be taken down by SEAL Teams quickly and held inexpensively. No exports, no income. Tyrannies run on cash.
The Iranian military, without air cover or any way to maneuver heavy weapons into close proximity to such places, would have a serious problem taking them back even if they had more or less free movement in the rest of the country.
If a significant portion of the populace decided to grab this opportunity to turn on the regime elements remaining at large, even free movement in the rest of the country might prove problematic. This, of course, could - probably would - get quite ugly, but it wouldn't involve U.S. troops except insofar as we might offer close air support and heavy weapons backup to any anti-Mullah partisan forces that arise.
The politcal reliability of the Iranian regular military is something of a question mark anyway. Perhaps they would fight for the Mullahs like ravenous wolves, dying to the last man. Perhaps not. The Mullahs have certainly not behaved like they trust this to happen. The Revolutionary Guard are, in essence, a parallel set of armed forces, built from hand-picked zealots to keep the regular military from ever getting too uppity. If we smack the RG's as hard as possible on Opening Night and do the maximum of material damage to the regular military's stuff, while minimizing casualties, we might have some help against the RG's in the later portions of the fight.
If not, we can still win. It would be nice to keep as much Iranian popular goodwill as possible, but we can do without it if we have to. The main objective is to remove Iran as a long-term danger.
Even if no significant indigenous help materializes, however, the U.S. military has a lot of experience maintaining limited, fortified footholds in hostile territory for extended periods going all the way back to the Indian Wars of the late 19th Century and continuing up to the present day in places like Guantanamo Bay and the bases in Iraq.
Without money, the Islamist regime dries up and blows away fairly quickly. Then we spend the usual next generation tidying up the mess.
America should risk ruin and attack Iran because...they might be a threat to Israel?
No, not primarily. We should settle Iran's hash because they are a significant threat to the U.S. As I noted previously, they are not an existential threat to the U.S. - they can't, in any meaningful sense of the word, wipe us out. They can, however, do us a lot of damage if they are persistent and lucky. Lord knows they talk about it often enough. The U.S. would not fold if New York or L.A. or San Francisco were struck with a smuggled nuke, but why tolerate the continued existence of a regime of narcissist religious nutburgers who think they can knock us down and out by pulling off such a coup? Crazy people aren't allowed to own handguns. How much nuttier is it to be okay with them owning a nuclear arsenal?
It all becomes so clear.
Positively pellucid, I'd say.
A country that hasn't attacked anyone in what? 300 years? Sacry!
Previous inability is irrelevant. They haven't had large quantities of both money and fissionables for the last 300 years.
Even if America does get its ass kicked, well, no skin off Israel's nose, right?
We're in this very much on our own account. The fact that Israel gets saved as a side effect of us seeing to our own security is neither here nor there. Hell, the Iranians have threatened Saudi Arabia and France too. If there was a way to save ourselves from Iranian lunacy without saving S.A. and France too, trust me, I'd be all over it like white on rice. Sometimes you just have to take the bad along with the good. Think of it as collateral damage.
How dumb do you guys think Americans are?
I think I should be asking this question and you should be answering.
How about Israel attacks Iran, and if it turns out they have a brand new $20 billion modern Russian air defense, we'll sell Israel a new Air Force at, say, a 20% discount?
If a job needs doing, it ought to be done right. We can do it right. Israel is an iffier proposition. No shortfalls in the guts department, but they don't have our heft or our reach. Nothing against the IDF. They're tough and they're good. But they are also small. Why send a boy to do a man's job?
My guess is that the ensuing destruction of the Iraq force will spell the end of the Republican Party for a generation.
As previously, and copiously, noted, the Iranians utterly lack the ability to destroy, or even seriously ding, the current U.S. force in Iraq.
Unless you know something I don't about a secret pact between Iran and the Zoltons from the Crab Nebula?
And how would gasoline at $5-6 play in the elections?
Probably not too well. Good thing it won't happen.
I continue to be amazed by these witless fantasies based on the apparent assumption that the pissant military of Iran can raise virtually unlimited havoc while our own superbly equipped, trained and experienced military can't get out of its own way.
Anyone else think "Dick Eagleson" is actually a clever spoof, along the lines of "Buck Turgidson" in Dr. Strangelove?
Dick, if you are real: we are 5% of the world's population. We do not have, and will never obtain, a monopoly on nuclear weapons. Invading and occupying nation after nation on the pretext that they will obtain such weapons is a mad policy that will in the long run doom this country. We have already suffered a strategic defeat in Iraq, which is weaker than Iran. There are 2 billion Muslims, and the Muslim world already has nukes. They will get more. We need to learn how to make peace.
And Iran is certainly not nutty. Their foreign policy is about what one would rationally expect it to be for a nation in their position. Anyone who really cared about the future security of the U.S. would be thinking about how to develop Iran as a strategic ally.
Frankly, I'm not seeing all of this "aggression".
I'd recommend a quick trip to Lenscrafters in that case. $99 bucks. Good deal.
Exactly where are all those Iranian troops out aggressing against foreign countries? Where are those foreign territories Iran is forcibly annexing or folding into its rather limited sphere of influence?
Iranian covert operators have been in Iraq for a long time. They smuggle in factory-made "IED" charges and other weaponry for favored factions.
The Iranians don't seem to intend to physically invade and occupy their neighbors any more than Tony Soprano runs his little empire by garrisoning New Jersey. They're just going to build long-range missiles and nuclear warheads, then drop a few casual remarks like, "Nice little emirate you got there. Be a shame if something was to happen to it."
Check with other nations in the Middle East about whether they feel under threat from Iran.
Perhaps you are thinking of Hizbollah, about whom Anthony Cordesman reported, following a trip last month to Israel:
"One key point that should be mentioned more in passing than as a lesson, although it may be a warning about conspiracy theories, is that no serving Israeli official, intelligence officer, or other military officer felt that the Hezbollah acted under the direction of Iran or Syria."
Hezbollah may not have acted under direct orders from Tehran, but so what? To paraphrase Rummy, "You go to war with the bought dogs you have." Just because Nasrallah slipped his leash a took a bite of leg that - maybe - wasn't pre-authorized doesn't change the fact that Hezbollah has been largely the creation, and creature, of Iran since its founding. Without Iranian money and arms, Hezbollah would be nothing. Iran has achieved a good semblance of de facto control over Lebanon. It would like to achieve something equivalent in many other Arab countries. It is certainly trying its best right now in Iraq to replicate the Hezbollah-Lebanon model.
A nation doesn't have to be garrisoned and ruled by an imperial viceroy in the old-school fashion to nonetheless be an outpost of imperium. If this is not true, how does all this idiot blather here about America being a "hegemon" with an "empire" make any sense?
Or is it Iraq? No country in the world would sit by with such a chaotic and bloody civil mess on their border without taking steps to make sure the factions most favorable to them actually win.
Funny, I don't remember the Western Europeans being especially eager to jump right in and pick sides in the various messes attending the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Of course the Europeans no longer believe there are such things as good guys and bad guys (unless it's us or Israel). The Iranians do not share this cultural relativist outlook. Neither do we. And we have very different ideas about what constitutes the "goodness of guys," so to speak. Do you have opinions on this matter? I sure do.
The bulk of Iranian government support is going to the various Shiite parties, most of whom are on our side.
Right. Like Muqtada al Sadr. One of our best buddies.
And as Mr. Khatami made clear on his recent trip to the US, the Iranians are not trying to chase us out, but actually want us to stay in Iraq.
I'm guessing if this had been said by President Bush you would have no trouble seeing it for the load of self-serving codswallop it plainly is. Is our own president the only VIP liar in the world? Surely not.
And finally... the embassy takeover?! That happened 27 years ago in the middle of a revolution. If you're trying to convince serious people about the gravity of the threat from Iran, this sort of frivolity doesn't help your case. Are you really talking about national security here, or are you just another Legion-hall nostalgist, licking his wounded pride and fantasizing about payback? Grow up.
Sure it was a long time ago. But what you or I think about that is less important than what the Iranian leadership thinks about it. They think they're at war and that it began 27 years ago.
I should note that the current administration in North Korea takes a similar view of the late Korean War of 1950-53. From a strict international law standpoint, they're right, there has never been a formal cessation of hostilities.
You may not think we are at war with either North Korea or Iran just because armies are not clashing noisily and smoke does not rise from shellholes and burning vehicles. Both Iran and North Korea would take vigorous issue with you on that.
The US has a military presence in Pakistan, Iraq, various Gulf States, Azerbaijan and and Afghanistan - and probably various other states bordering Iran that I am forgetting. They have a fairly tight noose around Iran. The notion that with all these US troops abroad in Iran's neighborhood, with no similar Iranian deployments in our own neighborhood, and with a US-Iran nuclear balance of forces of somewhere around 6,000 to 0, Iran poses a of "gathering threat" to the US is some kind of joke.
The Iranians aren't laughing. No sense of humor, perhaps. And yet they continue to talk trash. Go figure.
And although US forces could certainly inflict all sorts of damage on Iran in various quick and limited-aim strikes, you really say nothing that gives any inkling of a realistic plan to "end this thing."
See previous posts. Specific objections always cheerfully dealt with.
The "thing" itself is largely a figment of your fearful and frustrated imagination.
No it isn't. The Mullahs are in deadly earnest about what they want to do and about muscling us out of the way in order to do it. Okay, you and I are men of the world and we know it's a bit like a mouse with amorous intentions toward an elephant. Still, deluded though he may be, the mouse is entirely sincere and very determined. Unlike the mouse, Iran is actually capable of inflicting more than annoyance if left alone to do so. I'm of the smack-'em-early school of pest control.
There is nothing going on here but a bunch of cranky, weepy militarists crying in their Viagra about the bad turn in Iraq, and eager to restore the national hardness and their own reputations with some glorious new success. Following the events of the summer, there are some newly flaccid Israelis eager to join them.
Simply a sober appreciation that we're dealing here with a two-headed dice for mind-share among would-be footsoldiers of a putative worldwide covert jihadi army. The Mullahs are in a charisma contest with OBL and the Sunni Salafists. Both need to be taken down before this thing gets even further out of hand than it already has. Iran is one of the epicenters. It needs to go.
Is Israel afraid of Iran? Sure. Israeli is a tiny country; they're a fraid of everybody. But as the reigning global hyper-uni-hegemon or whatever, It's our job to help them get a grip, rather than start acting tiny and pathetically scared ourselves.
The Israelis are not afraid of everybody. As you note, they are a small contry. They have limited resources. They, therefore, wisely concentrate their fears on actual threats, not imaginary ones. Prudent concern, by the way, is not the same as leg-wetting funk. Conflation of an extreme with a non-extreme was an old debate tactic when Aristotle was a pup. Doesn't mean it's any more valid now than it was then.
War sounds so easy when Dick Chickenhawk describes it, doesn't he? Perhaps General Dick should be heading out to the sandbox to direct operations.
If I was young again and had two functional eyes, I might well sign up. As I've noted elsewhere, Iraq is at least a couple of orders of magnitude less dangerous to be a soldier in than, say, Vietnam was. That's not to say No Valor Required, of course. But it ain't Antietam, the Marne, Iwo Jima or the Ia Drang Valley out there anymore. But don't take my word for it. Go look up a returned G.I. and ask him (or her). They'll tell you.
'Take Khuzestan', indeed. Nothing like reading a Keyboard Kommando to remind you that their fuckwittery lasts a lifetime. But do keep masturbating to that Big Book Of Boom, Dick.
I love you too. When you remember your name or where you put your balls, do be sure to write again.
And before people talk about Iran's 'influence' on Hezbollah, perhaps it's worth wondering just why Mossad has been busily training Kurdish militias in Iraq for the past couple of years?
I'm guessing it's because the Kurds invited them to do so. What's your notion, there, sweetcheeks?
To spread democracy, pseu?
The Kurds have had a functioning democrcy since 1991. Spread in the rest of Iraq? Could be. I'm thinking more along the lines of preservation, probably.
By the way, is it true life ain't easy for a boy named pseu?
Re: No statute of limitations on acts of war so far as I know.
Hmm. Maybe we ought go to war with Britain because of the aid they gave the CSA during our Civil war. Whatchall think?
I think it's the mark of a big country to be magnanimous in victory. How about you?
Anyone else think "Dick Eagleson" is actually a clever spoof, along the lines of "Buck Turgidson" in Dr. Strangelove?
Oh, wickedly played, sir! But it be the name I came with for all of that.
Dick, if you are real: we are 5% of the world's population.
Yes. At least assuming we ever get that illegal alien thing under control.
We do not have, and will never obtain, a monopoly on nuclear weapons.
Where did that come from?
We don't need any such monopoly and I do not advocate attempting to achieve one.
Let's go down the list, shall we.
I do not, for example, care at all that Great Britain has nuclear weapons.
I'm only barely more concerned that France has nuclear weapons.
It would be a better world if Russia and China had no nukes, but neither is run by obvious nutjobs and both have more than enough internal problems to manage without picking gratuitous fights with us. The Russian arsenal is decaying rapidly and the Chinese one is not now, and never has been, large - and that even after they stole some of our own designs.
The current Chinese government, I think, would like to be a bigger autocratic, even hegemonic, bulge in the world, but their internal politics are morphing at a rate far faster than their ability to indulge the iron dreams of aging Commies. I think the Chinese will get sense before they get tempted.
The Indians are on our side. Given the problems they have with Islamic whackjobs, I'd probably come down on the side of selling them some of our nukes if they didn't already have their own.
The Pakis? They might be trouble down the road, but it still looks possible to avoid.
The Iranians and the NorKs, on the other hand, have both made it abundantly clear that we are target numero uno and will probably need taking down as there is no indication internal dissidents will save us the trouble anytime soon in either place.
In sum, I don't care if more or less rational regimes have nukes. The crazies, however, must be dealt with.
I hope that clears things up.
Invading and occupying nation after nation on the pretext that they will obtain such weapons is a mad policy that will in the long run doom this country.
Agreed. We don't need to do "nation after nation" though, just two - maybe three. There aren't a lot of countries lining up to pursue nukes to "deter" us because they correctly apprehend that, so long as they have no malignant designs on their neighbors or the world at large, we require no deterrence. Oh, there's that Chavez idiot down south, but he's unlikely to last long enough to be a serious nuisance. We're quite easygoing, really. Don't be a megalomaniacal pain in the regional ass and we'll get along just fine.
We have already suffered a strategic defeat in Iraq,
Wishing won't make it so.
which is weaker than Iran.
Let's revisit that one in a year or two, shall we?
There are 2 billion Muslims,
Closer to 1 billion.
and the Muslim world already has nukes.
Pakistan has nukes. Not quite the same thing.
They will get more.
Well, that's kinda what this whole dicussion's about isn't it? It is by no means inevitable that this will happen and I, for one, see a significant upside in preventing it.
We need to learn how to make peace.
Fairly simple really. We explain, calmly and patiently, that Islam really needs to forget this World Caliphate nonsense and learn to play nicely with others. Then we explain that, should this better behavior not be forthcoming, we will kill as many jihadis as it takes to make this happen anyway.
You get so much better outcomes with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.
And Iran is certainly not nutty.
Well let's see, these pages are full of comments by people who think George Bush is crazy because he's allegedly an End-Times-believin', Armagedon-cravin' fundamentalist Christ-y fruitcake just itchin' to blow the whole world up to insure the Second Comin' of Jay-sus. And this despite his never having said anything of the sort.
Why is it these same sorts of people suddenly develop situational Helen Kellerism when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivers rambling rants prominently featuring the Islamic equivalent of the Book of Revelation?
Their foreign policy is about what one would rationally expect it to be for a nation in their position.
Agreed. They've announced repeatedly that they want to destroy Israel and the U.S. and impose Sharia and dhimmitude on the rest of the world. Their foreign policy, as observed, is entirely consistent with these stated onbjectives.
Anyone who really cared about the future security of the U.S. would be thinking about how to develop Iran as a strategic ally.
Ordinary man-in-the-street Iranians love the U.S. To create such a strategically allied Iran all we have to do is kill the Mullahs, kill the Revolutionary Guard and do so with as few collateral damage casualties as possible and then give the Iranians back their lamentably put-upon country.
You really are nuts, Dick. Your ability to look at Iraq, so far the largest strategic defeat in U.S. military history, and serenely retreat back into your own fantasy life is truly something to behold. The last paragraph of your post is priceless. I could appreciate the entertainment value of your posts a lot more if types like you hadn't somehow escaped adult supervision up there among our civilian leadership in Washington.
Aside from the traditional overblown Middle Eastern rhetoric about Israel, Iran has given no evidence, zero, of wishing to impose "dhimmitude", Sharia, or anything else on anybody. They spend a lower PERCENTAGE OF THEIR GDP on their military than we do, thus indicating that they are investing less in conquering other nations than we are. Nor have they invaded another nation for the past 200 years. (Incidentally, my statement that they spend one twentieth of what we do an arms was an unfortunate error -- turns out they spend about one one hundredth of what we do). Their throwing a few hundred million dollars Hezbollah's way was a clear reaction to Israeli aggression in Lebanon, and a defense of traditional ties with Shi'ites in that country. About comparable to our support of the Nicaraguan contras, although somewhat more justified.
As for the Iranian people: the hard line populist Adhemenajid was elected freely by the Iranians as a response to U.S. aggression on their borders. Prior to that aggression reformists were elected. U.S. bombing will unite them even more against us.
Iranian covert operators have been in Iraq for a long time. They smuggle in factory-made "IED" charges and other weaponry for favored factions.
Yes, and US overt operators have been in Iraq for three and a half years, quite openly bringing in lots of factory-made helicopters, missiles, machine guns, tanks, depleted uranium shells, etc., etc. I suppose a charitable description of this overt operation is that the US is “defending its interests”. Complementary Iranian actions seem exceedingly modest by comparison. Don’t Iranians have interests that need tending in the countries actually neighboring their own? And again, most of the favored factions are major players in the Iraqi “government,” and are therefore also the factions we favor.
The Iranians don't seem to intend to physically invade and occupy their neighbors any more than Tony Soprano runs his little empire by garrisoning New Jersey. They're just going to build long-range missiles and nuclear warheads, then drop a few casual remarks like, "Nice little emirate you got there. Be a shame if something was to happen to it."
That’s aggression now? I thought it was called “benevolent hegemony”, “muscular foreign policy”, “controlling one’s natural sphere of influence” or “business as usual.”
Check with other nations in the Middle East about whether they feel under threat from Iran.
Of course they do. And Iran feels under threat from them, especially since many of them provide basing for Iran’s enemies, occupy strategic positions along their shipping lanes and conduct espionage inside their countries. There is lots of fear to go around, and therefore all of these states attempt to strengthen themselves in order to achieve security and protect their interests. It’s just geopolitics. Conflict is inevitable, but the sensible course is to foster ongoing diplomatic relations to manage and defuse conflict rather than intensify it. The most pressing thing to accomplish now is a re-opening of diplomatic relations with Iran, which were broken in 1979 and have stayed stubbornly broken since then by sullen leaders in Washington and Tehran who can’t get over themselves, and by domestic pressure groups.
Hezbollah may not have acted under direct orders from Tehran, but so what? To paraphrase Rummy, "You go to war with the bought dogs you have." Just because Nasrallah slipped his leash a took a bite of leg that - maybe - wasn't pre-authorized doesn't change the fact that Hezbollah has been largely the creation, and creature, of Iran since its founding. Without Iranian money and arms, Hezbollah would be nothing. Iran has achieved a good semblance of de facto control over Lebanon. It would like to achieve something equivalent in many other Arab countries. It is certainly trying its best right now in Iraq to replicate the Hezbollah-Lebanon model.
But again, so what? That’s what countries do. They try to secure their positions in their neighborhoods by backing potent friendly factions in the nearby countries. We do it; the French do it; the Russians do it; the Australians do it. What do you expect, that Iran would want the Iraqi Sunnis to regain control? – the guys who invaded them in 1980? I’m confused about what side you’re on. Are you saying you want the Sunni insurgents – the one’s killing most of the Americans who are dying right now - to win in Iraq and defeat the Iranian-backed majority that the US is supporting?
And since Israel currently has Iran outgunned in the nuke department by, one is lead to believe, something like a score of 200 to 0, don’t you think Iran has a legitimate interest in maintaining a balance of power and some deterrent capability against its most significant regional threat?
A nation doesn't have to be garrisoned and ruled by an imperial viceroy in the old-school fashion to nonetheless be an outpost of imperium. If this is not true, how does all this idiot blather here about America being a "hegemon" with an "empire" make any sense?
Why do you think it is idiot blather, since you just agreed it makes sense? And are you now equating hegemony and imperium with aggression? Welcome to the left, and get in the back of the line. By the way, the critics of US foreign policy aren’t the ones who fell in love with the words “hegemony” and “imperium”. See the two Kristols, Kagan, Krauthammer etc.
Funny, I don't remember the Western Europeans being especially eager to jump right in and pick sides in the various messes attending the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.
And do you support that behavior? Or do you think the Iranian/US approach is preferable?
Of course the Europeans no longer believe there are such things as good guys and bad guys (unless it's us or Israel). The Iranians do not share this cultural relativist outlook. Neither do we. And we have very different ideas about what constitutes the "goodness of guys," so to speak. Do you have opinions on this matter? I sure do
I actually have very strong opinions on good and evil, and about good guys and bad guys. I even believe in original sin. The good guys are the people on all sides who work diligently against their own fallen condition, and the tragic idiocy of human politics to prevent conflict and carnage, and who struggle against the natural human disposition toward fratricide and savagery. The bad guys are the nutjobs, hotheads, fanatics, ideologues, bomb-lovers, gun-lovers and narcissists who work to provoke conflict and bring death in the name of some cleansing ideal, lust for dominance or greedy impulse. During the Cold war, there were many good guys and bad guys on each side – they successfully contained the many US nuts and Soviet nuts suffering from ideological lead poisoning. As for more recent figures: Khomeini? Bad guy. Rafsanjani? Not so bad guy. Khatami? Good guy. Ahmadinejad? Likes to hear himself talk but the book is still open and he’s not really in charge anyway. Bush and Cheney? Definitely bad guys. Rabin? Not so bad. Sharon? Bad guy.
Right. Like Muqtada al Sadr. One of our best buddies.
Hey, his party won lots of seats in the government we created and we support, and I don’t think he required a lot of Iranian backing to mobilize his many domestic supporters. The Iranians have also supported folks like Sciri and Da’wa, whom we have both openly backed on the majority of occasions in the ongoing Iraqi power struggle. The Iranians also maintain good relations with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Jalal Talabani – definitely one of our best buds. Long term, I think the Iranians just want a stable and non-aggressive country next door, with friendly people in charge.
I'm guessing if this had been said by President Bush you would have no trouble seeing it [Khatami’s statement that the US should stay in Iraq] for the load of self-serving codswallop it plainly is. Is our own president the only VIP liar in the world? Surely not.
So you think the Iranians actually do want us to leave Iraq, so we can redeploy and reorganize for an attack on Iran?
Sure it [the embassy takeover] was a long time ago. But what you or I think about that is less important than what the Iranian leadership thinks about it. They think they're at war and that it began 27 years ago.
Is that based on any actual, recent government statements, or is it just your interpretation of the Iranian outlook? On the one hand I have no doubt that there are a certain number of Iranian Dick Eaglesons whose thoughts about the United States are filled with righteous martial fury. They’re still pissed about Mossadegh and the Shah and the SAVAK and IAF 655, just like you’re still pissed about those blindfolded hostages. It’s the job of the rest of us to keep you guys in your pens. But Iran is a big complicated country, with a diversity of outlooks – including among its clergy. It has a constitutional government with a number of competing power centers, and more truly democratic elements than any other Muslim countries in the region. Détente will be a much more effective long-term strategy.
The Iranians aren't laughing. No sense of humor, perhaps. And yet they continue to talk trash. Go figure.
You mean the trash talk about being willing to sit down and negotiate with us, without preconditions, at any time? But indeed, there is some trash talk mixed in too. It’s a show of defiance and bravado – what elected leaders are expected to say when other countries are threatening them. You know … something like “bring it on.” Some of the talk is designed for domestic consumption; some designed to enhance security by winning support abroad for standing up the big, bad US.
… The Mullahs are in deadly earnest about what they want to do and about muscling us out of the way in order to do it. Okay, you and I are men of the world and we know it's a bit like a mouse with amorous intentions toward an elephant. Still, deluded though he may be, the mouse is entirely sincere and very determined. Unlike the mouse, Iran is actually capable of inflicting more than annoyance if left alone to do so. I'm of the smack-'em-early school of pest control.
I just don’t see any really serious attempts at muscling us out of the way of anything. Have you heard much from these mullahs lately? Your head seems to be still back in the 80’s. Iran’s foreign policy has settled into fairly conventional patterns and can be understood in traditional terms of power, security, prosperity and influence. I think this article gives a somewhat more realistic assessment.
Simply a sober appreciation that we're dealing here with a two-headed dice for mind-share among would-be footsoldiers of a putative worldwide covert jihadi army. The Mullahs are in a charisma contest with OBL and the Sunni Salafists. Both need to be taken down before this thing gets even further out of hand than it already has. Iran is one of the epicenters. It needs to go.
The mullahs are now mostly a bunch of old farts with all the charisma of Mike Dukakis. Why empower them with propaganda ammunition to reanimate the old cause? And where are those Iranian jihadist footsoldiers blowing up things all around the globe? Europe? Africa? Oh no…those were Sunni terrorists. Hmm... This global-jihad-run-by-the-Iranian-terror-masters stuff is just half-baked and poorly sourced Michael Ledeen-style spy novel crapola, augmented by some of the usual pleas for the US to smite all of Israel’s potential enemies. Which takes us to:
The Israelis are not afraid of everybody. As you note, they are a small country. They have limited resources. They, therefore, wisely concentrate their fears on actual threats, not imaginary ones.
Of, of course, the superhuman Israelis - hearts of lions, one and all. Man, you’ve really swallowed that whole sabra myth by the pint. Israel is a country whose entire existence has been based on perpetual fear. It is a political culture built on fear. No Arab can pick up a pebble in the Middle East without the Israelis moaning about existential threats. Now they’re really spooked because their once seemingly invulnerable army was just taken by surprise during the ground incursion in Lebanon.
If the American people were sane, they would put the Dan Kervicks of the world firmly in charge of our foreign policy, and the Dick Eaglesons of the world would be inhabiting the fringes along with the Revolutionary Communist Party and their ilk. Unfortunately things seem to have jumped the rails a bit; we'll see how much damage has to be done before sanity is restored.
Re: In sum, I don't care if more or less rational regimes have nukes. The crazies, however, must be dealt with.
Ever hear of Chairman Mao? If ever there was a nutjob tyrant from the pit of hell, that was Mao. The Mullahs (and good old Dear Leader Kim) would have to murder 100 people a minute for the rest or their lives to equal old Mao's toll. Mao's only rivals in infamy are Der Fuhrer and Uncle Tovarishch Stalin. And know what? Mao had nukes. In fact not only did he have nukes but he funded insurgencies against the US (see: the Vietcong) and he bragged openly that China would win a nuclear war against us.
Yeah,we took care of him-- with kid gloves. Nixon went over to Beijing and kissed up to the old monster. And the result was what exactly-- the ruin of the free world? No, the successful (from our POV) conclusion of the Cold War.
Your turn.
Hostages are disarmed people with their hands and feet tied sitting blindfolded in some rank basement somewhere under watch, gun, lock and key. In short, people you control and can kill at any time. Why you think this is an accurate description of the American portion of the Coalition military in Iraq - to which I assume you refer - is mystifying. By your logic, Saddam had a half million "hostages" during the first Gulf War. He managed to kill fewer than 200. Why do you imagine the Iranians could do better? Because they have missiles? Saddam had missiles. Get a clue.
I think the worry is that the Iraqi Shiites will turn on us if we commit aggression against Iran. If that happens en masse, the insurgency swells to 3 or 4 times its current size. But then, we can always just kill 'em all, can't we, Dick?
And, one should note, despite being in very close quarters with those 130,000 "targets" in the American portion of the Coalition Forces, the insurgents have never been very good at killing them and they're getting worse. The casualty rate for U.S. ground pounders in Iraq is only modestly higher than it is for training accidents in nominal peacetime. I live not far from Camp Pendleton where such mishaps tend to make the local news so I have some familiarity with this.
Maybe the number of casualties, but the severity? The U.S. have had 2155 hostile fatalties in Iraq since March 2003. That comes out to 615.7 a year, or .473% of a total force of 130,000 per year. Do we have almost half a percent of trainees dying in training accidents every year?
Or is this like when Brit Hume claimed that U.S. troops were safer in Iraq thani n California, because 3 or 4 times as many people were murdered in California as troops were killed in Iraq (ignoring that California's population is 200 times what our troop levels in Iraq are)?
The casualty rate for U.S. ground pounders in Iraq is only modestly higher than it is for training accidents in nominal peacetime.
This turns out to not be the case. According to the Defense Department, the average mortality rate is 57 per 100,000 annually in the peacetime military. In the past year, there have been 796 American soldiers killed in Iraq, which with 130,000 troops total works out to a bit over 610 per 100,000, or more than ten times the peacetime rate.
The peacetime fatality rates are slightly higher among the army and marines (64 and 72 per 100,000 respectively), but it's still clear that fatality rates in Iraq are much higher than in peacetime.
Well, he did say casualty rate, not fatality rate, so he was presumably including woundings.
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