Posted on 09/15/2009 5:48:48 AM PDT by dscott8186
Since the opening shot by Iran at Khobar Towers in 1996, the response of the US handling the conflict has been confused at best and misguided at worst. Iran has been battling the US in the Middle East on a number of fronts using proxies for decades with little consequence to itself. In terms of a military strategy for a smaller country against a superpower, it has been a resounding success. This is not to say that the initiator of a proxy war is immune to consequences such as economic ones. Iran’s research and development on nuclear weapons has been certainly hampered but ultimately not stopped.
The beauty of a proxy war for a small country with designs of expanding it’s power and influence is to frame a conflict in limited terms commensurate to their resources and abilities. In other words, Iran has chosen to fight at the time and place of their choosing. This strategy limits the response of a superpower like the US to only reacting to the circumstances of the confrontation instead of pro-acting against the actual perpetrator, the initiator or mastermind. Because of this, US efforts have had limited success repeatedly due to the failure to recognize and properly respond to Iran in addition to the proxies. Obama has confirmed this continuing failure of response by saying he is focusing on killing Osama Bin Laden and defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban.
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And of course Iran is to some extent a proxy for our longtime enemies, the Russians.
Excuse me, Dan, but Iran’s war with the U.S. began in Nov. 1979 not 1996, when they took our embassy workers hostage, and escalated again in 1983 with the Beirut Marine barracks bombing. You’re leaving out a lot of history.
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