Posted on 06/02/2006 7:19:04 PM PDT by AntiGuv
Not Bush. And That Might Be a Problem
While it is almost certainly more crucial to America's future than, say, immigration, the question of what will happen between the United States and Iran in the next year or so is of surprisingly little public concern. Pollwatcher Stu Rothenberg tells me it's a complete nonissue in this year's midterm congressional elections. As for 2008's presidential race, well, what might be seen as the bellicosity of the Bush administration's Vulcans is drowned out by the mighty bellowing against Iran of prospective Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Sadly but not surprisingly, the American people, who when asked aren't excited about the prospect of war in Iran (only 13 percent said they were for such action in one recent poll), may never get the chance to vote for a president who shares that distaste.
Of course, the whole point could be moot by the time the White House battle gears up. This week the tensions between the U.S. and Iran over its uranium enrichment program seem destined either to boil over or to cool down immensely.
Yesterday, it was announced that a package of incentives will be offered to Iran to give up its nuke program by the previously-at-loggerheads team of the U.S., China, Russia, and three European nations. It's a pretty quick coming to fruition (we'll soon see how palatable that fruit is) after 27 years without official diplomatic contact, of a plan by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice wants the U.S. to join in with the multilateral negotiations over Iran's nuke program—though only if Iran scuttles its uranium program first. (They have not leapt up eagerly to meet this demand.) It seems as if the bruited attack of the GOP realists on the Iran policy front is paying off.
U.S./Iran gamesmanship over the past months provides evidence for any outcome you care to guess at. We can presume that Ahmadinejad doesn't relish a U.S. attack, hence such seeming outreaches as his notorious letter to Bush. But then again, it could just be that he's such an apocalyptic millenarian twelfth imam-in-waiting freakazoid that he does want to start a nuclear war, or at least doesn't care if he causes one. The U.S. has made the concession of entering negotiations and offering this week's incentives, while of course keeping active invasion plans on the table. And the State Department and Pentagon are both redoubling efforts to undermine the Iranian regime domestically—a regime currently being rocked by underreported unrest by its Azeri minority.
The L.A. Times report on the new regime-disruption efforts says U.S.-based Iranians against the current regime "were left disappointed by their first look at the new campaign and by the fact that officials had not begun distributing money to exile groups." That's great news, if it holds up; overenthusiastic exile groups are most likely to push untrustworthy propaganda on the American government and its people in their zeal to see their homeland liberated from the mullahs.
Creating further disquiet for those hoping for a peaceful solution to the Iranian conundrum, the Pentagon's fresh anti-regime shop is chockablock with vets of its Office of Special Plans, which brought us Ahmed Chalabi and a zeal for war in Iraq that produced recommendations and declarations that proved less than reliable.
If the Chalabi manqués of the Iranian dissident and émigré world get their way, the potential costs are large. Iran, through its control of the Straits of Hormuz (through which 40 percent of the world's oil passes), could cripple world oil supplies, leading to $200-a-barrel oil prices. And in war games conducted for The Atlantic in 2004, as summed up recently by Charles Peña in the American Conservative, "retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner identified 14 locations for Iran's nuclear-related facilities but developed a pre-emptive strike target list of 125 nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities with approximately 300 aim points—20 of which would require penetrating weapons or bunker busters." Col. Gardiner has recently been saying that U.S. military operations in Iran have already clandestinely begun.
Peña's American Conservative article presents a sobering account of the ways a preemptive attack on Iran could turn out badly. The litany includes Shehab ballistic missile attacks galore on American troops in Iraq and on Israel; an all-gloves-off approach to Iranian-fomented chaos in Iraq; and very messy conflicts with Russia and China. Also, if we really really really believe we are vulnerable to Islamic terrorism and that our jihadist enemies are ready, willing, and able to perform acts of unmitigated horror on our homeland, a full-on assault on Iran could unleash the power of, say, Iran's Hizbollah lackeys on American soil.
Certainly, forces within the administration are aware of such dangers involved in war on Iran. But it seems the downsides of waging war don't provide enough of a deterrent for the decisionmakers.
What, really, would the Bush administration have to lose in an all-out attempt to score an unambiguous, heroic victory in Iran (now that they've been denied one in Iraq?) Since Iran is out and proud about its uranium, and about believing it should have the right to possess nuclear weapons that others have, no "were there or weren't there WMDs?" embarassment is likely in any Iran war aftermath. The administration already has a pretty clear case to make that they would be preemptively taking out a menace to America, Israel, and the world.
Given a natural tendency to rally round the flag, even disasters such as $200-a-barrel oil can be spun as an incentive to make sure we fly Old Glory over Tehran, or what's left of it, all the faster. Certainly, in the game of balancing risks and benefits in the negotiating dance with Iran, we have the upper hand. The Bush administration is, sensibly, not acting as if the destruction of American cities is one of the risks it would be taking in attacking Iran. That's the glory, to them, of the "preemptive strike" doctrine—it makes declaring war tantalizingly low-risk to our domestic health and prosperity.
Studying the tea leaves of the neocon journals that held such apparent sway over Iraq decisionmaking gives those hoping for peace in Iran reason to despair. In the pages of Commentary, we find a wary declaration from Edward Luttwak that we don't necessarily have to start a war with Iran now, because given the nature of their progress toward a bomb, there will be time to start the war later. Simultaneously, in the Weekly Standard, Hillel Fradkin warns us that we must get tough, in that weird language common to war-thumpers that doesn't outright state "we have to blow these people up, and soon" but suggests it with every space between the lines:
[L]iberal democrats [must] declare that they have no intention of abandoning their way of life and see no need to do so, since they are fully prepared to defend it and because that way of life provides the resources—political, economic, and military—to defend itself.
It is necessary to inform Ahmadinejad and his radical allies that they are in for a real fight. This may not suffice to lead them to question their fundamental assumption and inspiration that we are on the run.
Since nothing we have done so far has said that we surrender and welcome our new Islamic overlords, I'm not sure how this could be interpreted—especially since it comes after a declaration that even a military victory over Iran would "not end ideological and other kinds of warfare" with the Islamic world—as anything other than a call for war to the finish.
War with Iran, beyond the obvious yet not-enough-mentioned costs in innocent human lives, is unlikely to settle the problem it is predicated on solving. The nuclear genii are out of the bottle, and deterrence against sinister regimes has worked in the past to keep nukes that do exist from being used. It is no slam-dunk case that an Iranian nuke equals Armageddon—or that any effort on our part, short of turning the nation into glass, would guarantee they never get one.
The conflicting forces and conflicting signals at play right now make bold declarations about whether the U.S./Iranian dance will conclude with economic aid or bombing raids nonsense. But it is disturbing to note how the incentives to think three times and more about the risks of war don't weigh so heavily on those who will make the decision. True believer lame duck Bush may well honestly think that a Mullahless Middle East will be a real step toward a stable democracy there, now that Iraq isn't looking so hot; it could the key to his legacy, the legacy that awaits him all too soon. Whatever bad things happen because of a war with Iran, they aren't apt to screw up the lives of the people starting it on our end too much. If Bush and his boys turn out to be wrong, well, there's always the lucrative private sector. At least in America, if not in Iran.
Or so we can hope.
True, unfortunately, but don't tell that to the "I've been railing against Bush's immigration stance for six years, I just never had the time to post about it till May" crowd.
Apparently, getting into a world war isn't as important as an issue that's been with us for decades and won't go away overnight even if we pause to actually try to solve the problem of Islamofascists with nukes.
I'd say they're of equal importance myself. It's not as if America can't walk and chew gum at the same time! ;^)
FWIW, I posted this commentary in large part because of all the internal links to more interesting commentary.
One can attack and occupy every Muslim country. Still with open borders Muslims might step by step replace/defeat Americans without any battle.
Same as always.
I can't see us entering a ground war with Iran in the first place ESPECIALLY if we intend to fight an offensive war only.
If we are directly involved, it will be more like Clinton's air war on Serbia -- no boots on the ground.
I didn't know we were officially "at war" with Iran.
The people of Iran are fairly pro western but very nationalistic and would likely turn on us pretty quickly.
As it is I worry that we can't keep up support for a decades long war on terror as it is. I fear that a lot more people in the USA and Europe will have to die before there's a serious effort to crush islamic terrorism once and for all and it will require fighting and occupation forces on the scale of WWII across the islamic world.
I suspect we have to get tough with Iran to get Iraq to settle down.
Sorry, it's time to gain control of our border(s). Iran's time will come later. Comprehensive immigration reform comes in a distant third.
Probably we'll be fighting the enemy in Europe again (the Balkans, anyway).
There won't be any "ground war in Iran". And anybody who suggests otherwise should be ignored.
If there's a need to knock out Iran's nuclear capability, then we'll do it WITHOUT any 'boots on the ground'.
I agree that we can achieve the objective of setting Iran's nuke program back ten years without much in the way of ground conflict. Here and there we may need some eyeballs on the ground to make sure that the penetrators disrupted a cascade, but no need to drive on Tehran just yet.
Unfortunately, we aren't the only ones with a say in the matter.
There are a couple of moves Iran can make which will push us towards a ground war, a push from Mashad towards Herat, maneuvers to close the Hormuz Strait, a general program of state sponsored terrorism with a few spectacular successes, moves against the Kurds or even into central Iraq towards Baghdad, or oil fields near Amarah or Basra, airstrikes on US targets in the Gulf or Iraq, attacks against Israel, potentially even Dimona, etc.
The root of Iran's problems lie with the mullahs. Any plan that doesn't look hard at the possibility of taking them out, even if it means going through 10 Pasdaran divisions and at least the same number of RA, is dangerously naive. No law says a ground invasion of Iran has to happen, but ignore the possibility at your own risk.
Not that Iran's a tough nut anyway. Both wars with Iraq were decided in the first ten minutes. We ate KARI, the best IADS France and Russia had to offer in less than 5, and Tiger Song, China's finest, took about 7. Iran just started on an integrated air defense system this year, with us watching, and if you believe the folks who kicked Chalabi to the curb, reading the mail all along.
Between 4 and 6 Iraqi RGFC divisions stood up and went combat ineffective is 24-48 hours this time around, during a stop action sandstorm and a media invented...operational pause. Search JSOW. This is the army Iran fought to a draw for eight long years. I wouldn't be surprised to lose some naval assets, perhaps even temporarily suspend naval ops in the Gulf (which the media will flip out over, driving oil prices way up), but the outcome is never in doubt, no matter how far we have to go to end it. That's on the military side, naturally, the political after effects are anyone's guess. In the worst case, we let them live like Afghans for a couple decades, until they hungry for a little freedom and social order.
Bottom line, if we don't gotta, fine, if they force it, be ready for it, but it won't be the end of the world. Personally, I think it will go all the way. I don't see the wild eyes laying down till their military options are gone.
One important difference (one of several) is that Iran does not one feared dictator like Iraq had.
The president of Iran does not have statues all over the country and toppling them will not have much effect.
To remove the supreme leaders would mean going after the leaders of Shia religion. Not a very promising task.
One needs remember that until 1953 Iranians were pro-American, pro-democratic and quite secular. It was the aftermath of US removal of Mossadeq that drove them to the mosque.
"While it is almost certainly more crucial to America's future than, say, immigration"
Total BS if this sell out of America goes through, we will have lost our Constitutional Republic.
I agree. The first of several lame judgments which severely cripple credibility.
The Clinton-led West disgraced itself in Serbia.
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