The Case For Invading Iran

America has come to another turning point – whether our inaction will again engulf the world and us in a nightmare comparable to World War Two. This will entail loss of our freedom as the price of domestic security measures against terrorist weapons of mass destruction, though we might suffer nuclear attack before implementing those measures. The only effective alternative is American use of pre-emptive military force against an imminent threat – Iranian nuclear weapons, which requires that we invade Iran and overthrow its mullah regime as we did to Iraq’s Baathist regime.

All the reasons for invading Iraq apply doubly to Iran, and with far greater urgency. Iran right now poses the imminent threat to America which Iraq did not in 2003. Iran may already have some nuclear weapons, purchased from North Korea or made with materials acquired from North Korea, which would increase its threat to us from imminent to direct and immediate.

Iran’s mullahs are about to produce their first home-built nuclear weapons this year. If we permit that, many other countries, some of whose governments are dangerously unstable, will build their own nuclear weapons to deter Iran and each other from nuclear attack as our inaction will have demonstrated our unwillingness to keep the peace. This rapid and widespread proliferation will inevitably lead to use of nuclear weapons in anger, both by terrorists and by fearful and unstable third world regimes, at which point the existing world order will break down and we will suffer every Hobbesian nightmare of nuclear proliferation.

Iran has dramatically shortened the time required to acquire the necessary weapons-grade fissionable materials by purchase abroad of pre-enriched, but not yet weapons-grade, fissionable materials (not just from North Korea). Iran’s technicians already have the expertise to fabricate functional nuclear weapons. The latter opinion is held by, among others, Mohamed El Baradei, director-general of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, who said that Iran can produce nuclear weapons in a few months if it has the requisite weapons-grade fissionables: "And if they have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponization program along the way, they are really not very far—a few months—from a weapon."

It normally takes years to produce the highly purified fissionables required for nuclear weapons – that is the only obstacle after Pakistan let its nuclear weapons program director sell the knowledge of weapons fabrication to anyone with enough money. All estimates alleging that it will take Iran years to produce nuclear weapons assume that they will do so from scratch, but that is not the case. Iran purchased pre-enriched fissionables with the intent of “breaking out” in a short period to a fully stocked production “pipeline” of fissionables under enrichment at all stages of the process, from “yellowcake” at the low end to almost ready at the high end.

It is possible, and in my opinion has already happened, that Iran has purchased enough nuclear materials from North Korea to fabricate a few nuclear weapons and facilitate the following strategy. Iran could minimize the duration of a “window” of vulnerability to pre-emptive American or Israeli attack between their first nuclear tests (or announcement that they have nuclear weapons), and possession of enough nukes to deter attack, by postponing the announcement and/or first tests until they have a full-speed production line going – everything from enriching fissionables to weapons-grade and fabricating those into nuclear weapons, to stocks of finished nuclear weapons. At that point most or all of the latter will likely be of North Korean origin, but those will be quickly outnumbered by made-in-Iran ones under final assembly at the time of the announcement. I believe this is the plan Iran is following, and that the announcement will come late this year.

The recent spike in world oil prices gave Iran’s mullahs billions of dollars more in hard currency for use in acquiring material for their nuclear weapons program. The timing of their ongoing breakout to public nuclear weapons capability, and the public threats of Iran’s president, indicate that some recent event has given them additional confidence here. I feel this was their purchase of enough nuclear weapons materials from North Korea to fabricate a few nuclear weapons. They might have bought fully operational North Korean nukes. Such North Korean complicity carries other implications.

Whatever the reason, Iran’s mullahs no longer seem to feel a need to wait for final processing of fissionables, and fabrication of those into nuclear weapons, before their nuclear deterrent against the United States is ready. They act like they presently have that deterrent, and are proceeding to backfill their fissionable processing and weapons fabrication line before announcing that they have nuclear weapons. America’s election cycle plus the Bush administration’s fictitious budget estimates might also have a role in the timing of this announcement.

Those who have considered the consequences of Iran’s open possession of nuclear weapons (as opposed to covert possession) have generally focused on its avowed threats against Israel and the United States. Those are certainly enough grounds for pre-emptive attack by both – Iran’s mullah regime is the one government in the entire world whose possession of nuclear weapons would most pose a direct and immediate threat to America and Israel.

Iran’s mullahs will use nuclear weapons as a shield against foreign attack while they more openly support terrorism elsewhere. American acquiescence in Iranian nuclear weapons will lose the war on terror by ceding terrorists a “privileged sanctuary” in Iran. We’ll have let terrorists have in Iran what we invaded Iraq to stop. The invasion of Iraq will have been a complete waste of effort, and our dead in Iraq will have died in vain.

The chief threat of Iranian nukes, however, is what they will lead to elsewhere – something which will make all of the above trivial by comparison, something which will go on and on long after Iran’s mullah regime is overthrown by the Iranian people.

If the United States does not forcibly prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons, every country in the area will know to a moral certainty that they cannot rely on the United States for protection against Iranian nuclear attack, or Iranian nuclear blackmail in support of domestic opposition to the generally shaky regimes of the Middle East. American prestige and influence there will collapse. If we won’t protect ourselves by pre-emption, we can’t be relied on to protect anyone else.

So every country within reach of Iranian nuclear weapons will have enormous strategic pressure to develop their own nuclear weapons to deter Iranian nuclear threats. As a recent strategic survey noted, Syria has many times the per capita and absolute GDP of North Korea, and Egypt several times the per capita and absolute GDP of Pakistan. If North Korea and Pakistan can develop nuclear weapons, so can Syria and Egypt, and also Saudi Arabia, all three of whose regimes are shaky. And they won’t be the only countries to develop nuclear weapons after Iran does - many more will join the nuclear “club” within a few years, some within months.

All of those countries having nuclear weapons will create a security nightmare – at some point terrorists will be able to buy or steal some (assuming that Iran doesn’t first give a few to favored terrorist groups). It is likely that at least some will use their nuclear weapons on each other, or in a domestic coup or factional fight. The latter might first happen in Iran.

Few have any idea of the degree to which international trade and prosperity relies on free movement of goods between countries. Container cargo is an ideal means of covertly transporting terrorist nuclear weapons. Once the first terrorist nuke is used, international trade will be enormously curtailed for at least several months for security reasons, and the entire world will suffer a simultaneous recession.

It won’t stop there, though. These same security precautions, once implemented, will significantly impede future economic growth – a ballpark estimate of reducing worldwide growth by 20-30% is reasonable. Consider the worldwide and domestic effects over a twenty-year period of a one-quarter across the board reduction in economic growth.

This will be just from security precautions against terrorist nukes –not physical destruction from such use nor, more importantly, the consequences of nuclear wars between or within third world states. Physical destruction from these will be bad enough, but that pales compared with the social and consequent economic effects – enormous tides of refugees, economic collapse and outright anarchy over wide areas.

We cannot avoid that washing over us from abroad even if we manage to avoid terrorist nuclear attack at home, and we are unlikely to be so lucky. Scores if not hundreds of thousands of Americans will likely be killed, and many more injured, from terrorist nuclear devices used in America when so many politically unstable countries possess hundreds of the things.

We better than most can economically afford the thoroughly intrusive security measures required to protect against terrorist nukes when the threat can come from anywhere, as opposed to Islamic extremists alone.

But the price of domestic security, when foreign security fails due to a failure of leadership and will by President Bush, will be something much more precious – our freedom.

Freedom everywhere will suffer due to those same security precautions. The greatest loss of freedom will come in those countries which are freest, i.e., especially America. Especially us.

It is obvious that Iran’s leaders cannot be deterred from developing nuclear weapons. The U.N. won’t stop them. Diplomatic solutions won’t – the mullahs’ bad faith is obvious. Their diplomacy serves the same purpose as Japan’s with us in late 1941 after their carrier attack fleet had sailed for Pearl Harbor - to distract us from the coming attack. We are at that same point now, only we know the Kido Butai is coming and have no excuse for surprise. Iran’s President has openly stated their real intentions. Iranian diplomacy merely lets the willing deceive themselves.

There isn’t time to overthrow Iran’s mullah regime through subversion before the end of this year, and President Bush’s toleration of factional disputes in our national security apparatus means that we lack the capability to do so, period.

Iran seems to be in a pre-revolutionary state such that its mullah regime will collapse from purely domestic reasons within a few years even if we do nothing, but by then it will have openly had nuclear weapons for several years, possibly used them against Israel and/or been pre-emptively nuked by Israel, and widespread nuclear proliferation will have started with all the horrors that will bring.

Only military force THIS YEAR can prevent this nightmare. Bombing alone won’t do it – it will only postpone things, and Iran’s mullahs won’t just sit there while we’re bombing them. War is a two-way street. They have spent years preparing for this conflict, and will try to stop Persian Gulf oil exports. There will also be an instant massive uprising by Iranian-led Shiite militias in southern Iraq.

Half-measures in war only make things worse. If we really want to find out how much Iran’s mullah regime can hurt us, and relearn the lessons of Vietnam, we need only bomb without invading. That will maximize our losses. Those who advocate mere bombing have not considered that Iran might already have some nuclear weapons.

Israel does not have the military capability we do. Israeli air attack against Iran’s dispersed and hardened nuclear facilities will at most postpone Iranian production by a few months. The United States Air Force can postpone it for as long as we keep up the attacks, but the mullahs will counterattack such that we’ll be at war whether we want to be or not, only with no chance of victory while we’re afraid to win.

The only effective way to stop the mullahs from building nukes, while minimizing our losses from their counter-attacks, is to overthrow their regime by invasion and conquest as we did against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

Democratic military experts agreed in a recent Atlantic Monthly article that eliminating Iran's mullah regime with a ground invasion is feasible - they were more optimistic about it than I am (my emphasis:

I believe the durations mentioned in the Atlantic article should be at least doubled – it won’t take us only 7-10 more days to overthrow Iran’s regime than it did Iraq’s, not to mention locating and destroying the known and secret nuclear facilities scattered over a wide area. I feel the Atlantic panel significantly underestimated logistic problems. Our forces must pass through mountains to get to Iran’s capital of Teheran, while getting to Baghdad required passage only through deserts and broad river valleys. Iran is much bigger than Iraq, so our ground forces will have a greater distance to travel, while even minor resistance in mountain passes will cause significant delays.

The Atlantic article concluded that eliminating the mullah regime was feasible – we agree that Iranian ground resistance will be minor, especially compared to our forces’ extreme effectiveness - but the Atlantic panelists felt that the consequences had too high a price. I agree that the occupation campaign afterwards will be much worse for us, in terms of intensity and required manpower, than the occupation campaign in Iraq – they felt the necessary manpower required for several years’ occupation duty would be prohibitive. They did not, however, even attempt to weigh that against the consequences of letting Iran have nuclear weapons, the effects of it already having some, and the probable duration of an occupation campaign.

I do. The tradeoffs between the cost of an extended occupation in Iran, and its desirability, change dramatically if we must search for easily concealed, ready-to-use nuclear weapons, as opposed to merely destroying the physical ability to produce them.

I also feel the occupation campaign in Iran will take much less time than the one in Iraq for the following reasons:

(1) Iran has a functioning civil society and democratic tradition while Iraq didn't. The mullahs veto candidates they don't like, more in the past few years than earlier, but the systems and mindset for a functioning democratic society are present.

(2) We can use many of the Iranian army's junior officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel as a cadre for the new democratic regime's security forces. We couldn't do that with Iraq's army as the officers and non-coms were almost exclusively Sunni Arabs aka Baathist regime loyalists, and the mostly Shiite conscripts had almost all gone home.

3) Iran has at least one order of magnitude, and probably several orders of magnitude, less loose explosives than were present in Iraq, for possible use in improvised explosive devices. The mullah regime die-hards will die much faster than the Baathist die-hards in Iraq, because the ones in Iran will be attacking our forces mostly with direct-fire weapons. That is suicidal against American forces.

4) Language and ethnicity differences mean that Al Qaeda's purely Sunni foreign terrorists won't be able to operate much in Iran. The latter operated only briefly in Shiite areas of Iraq - those that didn't leave quickly died horribly at Shiite hands. While there are a lot of Sunnis in Iran, few of those are Arabs - they're Kurds, Azeris, etc.

My rough estimate of American casualties in the conquest and occupation campaigns for Iran, assuming that the mullahs don't nuke us, or use chemical weapons, is that we'd take about 50% more casualties in the first 18-24 months in Iran than in three years in Iraq, mostly in the twelve month period after the initial conquest.

I agree with the Atlantic panelists that the conquest campaign in Iran would, in terms of casualties, cost little more than Iraq’s - several hundred allied KIA. I just think it would take longer.

Everyone I know of with opinions on the subject agrees that the occupation campaign in Iran would be more intense than Iraq's, but Iraq's has seen only about 1700 KIA (or is it total fatalities including accidents?) during the 33 months of the occupation to date. That is about 50 fatalities per month for an average of about 120,000 troops (1 fatality per month per 2400 troops).

If Iran's occupation entails 200,000 men and is twice as intense as Iraq's in terms of casualties, we're looking at 1 fatality per 1200 men per month. 200k x 12 months = 2400k divided by 1200 = 2000 fatalities per year. This is certainly a lot compared to Iraq’s occupation campaign, but it also indicates that American casualties in Iran will be acceptable by any reasonable standard.

In my opinion the occupation campaign in Iran will be awful only for the first year, and then conditions will improve much faster than in Iraq for reasons mentioned above in this post. My guesstimate at this point is about 3000 American fatalities over two years for both the conquest and occupation campaigns in Iran, though the first year would be ghastly.

That Iran may already have some nuclear weapons (IMO this is likely) complicates a prospective invasion. We’d had a plan for several years to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capability (i.e., the launchers as well as the warheads) – it is called variously “Global Strike” and CONPLAN 8022. The United States Air Force excels at blowing things up.

Consider also, that, if small numbers of Iranian nuclear weapons are enough of a threat to seriously menace an American invasion, they are enough of a threat to merit pre-emptive attack with American nuclear weapons. Get real - our nukes are bigger than theirs, and we have lots more than they do. And if Iranian nuclear weapons aren’t enough of a threat to merit pre-emptive use of our own, they’re not a reason to avoid invading. It is not likely, however, that the USAF will need nuclear weapons to keep the mullahs from getting any off.

Did I mention the bribes? Now is the time for some breathtaking bribes – say a billion dollars per Iranian nuke delivered to us, which would be cheap given the alternative. Once we demonstrate the will to invade and eliminate the mullah regime, such bribes would be more effective than most think. Psychological warfare was wildly successful in the invasion of Iraq.

Fear of possible Iranian nuclear weapons use against an American invasion is not a valid reason for doing nothing. A thousand more American civilians have been killed by enemy action at home in this war than American servicemen killed at home and abroad. Not invading Iran will increase this disparity by several orders of magnitude. We have armed forces to protect our civilians from the enemy, not vice versa – soldiers die so civilians don’t. We will invade Iran to protect the American people from nuclear attack. That is worth the risk posed by Iranian nuclear weapons to American soldiers, and the burden of deploying 200,000 troops there for several years. Our reserves knew when they enlisted that they’d be called up for the duration of a major war. Invasion of Iran to protect America from nuclear attack, and preserve our freedom, counts as a major war.

This would, however, make absolute hash of the Bush administration's quite fictitious future budget estimates, which are the reason why it refused to significantly expand our ground forces after 9/11 though such was obviously necessary. Those phony budget estimates are arguably the biggest obstacle to our invasion of Iran this year. Iran’s mullahs might even have counted on this in timing their breakout to public nuclear weapons possession.

And if we don't invade this year, it won't matter much after that. We'll be in the worst case scenario. And President Bush will be reviled as America’s worst President – the one who through inaction cost us our freedom.

Interesting point that Chirac is caving on Iran. Please post a thread when you see more direct evidence of this. I assumed that Chirac was preparing his public to "feel" a threat and escalation of tension...to state without actually putting it into words that Paris is in great danger now or the near future.

And you will have to admit: a Parisian will take Chirac's words the way the Parisian takes his words. If it makes them more nervous about Iran getting nukes, then Chirac's plan to get them to accept Iranian nukes just backfired.

And somehow I don't see the French thinking tonight: "Yup...it looks like we might as well accept the fact that Iran will get nukes...because the submarines will get revenge when they kill us all on land." I don't see Chirac's apparent declaration of a "New Cold War" as being something conservative Frenchpeople would be in agreement with tonight. Remember that half of France is Le Pen country. Their only reason for stopping the USA in the UN is to make the USA look bad while the USA, of course, overthrows the Iranian regime anyway.

This is the problem: we have "allies" whose interest it is to get rid of the Iranian regime...but they will want to extract a pound of flesh from us as we do exactly what they want and NEED to have done.

Saudi Arabia's ruling family is running out of excuses not to help us in the WOT. If they are not really afraid of Iran's government now...it can only mean that they are allied with that government via Al Qaeda...and then we need an Iranian government that they *would* be afraid of.

I want to really underscore that there were really good reasons why Sunni regimes were allowed to "disagree" with our Iraq policy, mostly dealing with keeping their streets from protesting the Sunni leaders themselves who would be seen, correctly, as helping reverse 1000 years of Sunni political dominance in the Middle East. Sunni leaders couldn't have survived if they directly helped us reverse Sunni political power in the Middle East via Iraq.

But an Iran invasion would weaken the prospects of Shiite dominance in the Middle East. That can be sold well to the Sunni streets. Why is this not happening now? Partly because Iranian oil money is buying a lot of Sunnis off.

And it is apparent that Al Qaeda is working with the Iranian regime against their common enemy the USA.

Whose side is Al Jazeera really on now? Does the management there need to get into a car accident right now?

Meanwhile we need that Iranian oil money flow to anti-USA people cut off.

Maybe someone should post a thread entitled "The Case for Getting Saudi Arabia to Invade Iran."

Also...nobody is mentioning the idea that we let Saudi Arabia or Israel attack first and then come in when Iran launches a missile over Iraq toward Israel, with US forces fully prepared and just happening to be standing on the border (and Airborne troops just happening to be sitting on Iraqi and Afghani and Azeri airfields).

Of course, we can have a major insurgency crop up in Iran and Iran will know it is caused and equipped by the USA and attack us somewhere in the world and then the whole world will be OK with the quick regime change and revolution that then occurs.

[If Bush did this, his accomplishments would be pretty damn close to Alexander the Great.]

That is my thesis. Without an Iran liberation under his belt...he will not be remembered a great man. The Iranian regime will continue to kill US soldiers via payments and support for the suicidally stupid Sunni insurgency...which will also serve the Iranian interest of getting more and more Sunni fighters dead and gone via the Americans so the Shiites won't have to do it later.

The Republicans will look weak and stupid if the Iranians are allowed to get nukes while they continue to kill US soldiers in Iraq in order to "keep us occupied."

No Iran Revolution = Republican loss in the midterms.

Remember folks, the end-game here is the Saudis weakened and those responsible for 9-11 punished. We cannot get rid of the Saudis without getting rid of the current Iranian regime.

I predict that Porter Goss of the CIA might soon announce that Bin Laden is in Iran and Bush will ask Iran to release Bin Laden within 48 hours. Be prepared for surprises.

[with what army?]

Remember how fast we got the "Northern Alliance" on our side? Enough said.

[with what money?]

Does anyone honestly believe that one of the best business deals ever was NOT the long term good will of the Iraqi people who've made major oil deals with US companies?

Do you think only the Iraqis will be profiting from their oil for the next generation?

American conservatives have to go along with the idea that we did not liberate Iraq for profit. But, geopolitically speaking, come on!

yes, there's no point in having to rebuild another country at the taxpayer expense, which will be what we are expected to do if we invade Iran.

Just take out their nuclear sites, take out khamenei, ahmadinejad, and the other leading wackos, and maybe bomb all their army and airforce bases too. Bomb their submarines at the docks, and use the navy air wing to sink the rest of their patrol boats.

With no heavy weapons, the Iranians will not be able to threaten the US, Israel, or our allies in NATO or elsewhere.

So just let them have a civil war or whatever. It wont affect us.

And issue a stern warning to the world that if anyone sells iran any military or dual use item larger than a gun or RPG, they will be dealt with severely.

Reasons for an Iran Revolution with provocation from Saudis or Israelis or Iraqis or Whomever that gives the USA an excuse to openly help the revolutonaries:

1) Because Iran is allied with Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and too many in the Saudi leadership that they cannot be trusted with nukes at all...and bombing would not be an option because the most important nuke facilities are located under civilian population centers. We will have no choice but to have *somebody's* ground troops take Tehran neighborhood by neighborhood.

2) We need to stop Iranian support for the Iraqi insurgency (the killing of US soldiers is an act of war). Failure to do so will mean we will eventually (inevitably) lose Iraq to an anti-American Shiite dictatorship...because a nuclear powered Iran will be able to assassinate pro-American Iraqis at will.

3) We need to stop the flow of Iranian oil billions into the hands of our enemies. Syria would be forced to change if the Iranian oil money wasn't keeping its dysfunctional regime alive.

4) It would be nice to get Iranian oil billions flowing into American corporations.

5) This would force the Saudis into line. We won't need them anymore.

6) It would be nice to find out that there are no hidden nukes in US or European cities. If one does go off, it will probably have a half mile of damage and its use would discredit the world's left wing more than Bush.

7) The only way to discredit the left wing and make Iraqi Freedom as historically significant as the fall of the Berlin Wall is to have another huge country in the Middle East burst into a pro-American democratic frenzy. Iran is the only place for that because Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon will only democratize in a grudging and outwardly anti-American way.

[The first world will simply deter the third from using its nukes on Paris]

But conservative Europeans aren't that stupid. I live here. The German government is working for the US diplomacy effort full tilt and the Finnish and the Swedes certainly are not protesting possible US action in Iran. I just spent two days in Sweden. Every native Swedish person I met said they are agreeing more and more with US policy in this WOT (many openly worry about the Muslim population in Stockholm and decry that they are not allowed to even fly the Swedish flag anymore).

About the Saudi spigot...OK...I could live with that. But since the Iranians might attack Saudi Arabia anyway...the Saudis should have a plan to join in immediately.

I believe that we need the Saudi Army fighting with America in this war in such a way that Wahhabist priests will have no choice but to support the action.

I am expecting this war to be over when the people of Saudi Arabia have been turned around in their attitudes. The German Nazis were turned in their attitudes within 3 years and the Berlin Airlift of 1948 was the true victory against the Nazis in WW2 because that marks the moments when German conservatives decided America was on their side and pro-Americanism was in their interests.

An "Iran Crisis" might be the best way to turn Sunnis to our side. And we would have to assassinate key Sunnis beforehand who would loudly decry an Iran Revolution. Al Jazeera has been useful these past 3 years to trick young Sunni males into draining their own swamp by going to Iraq to die. However, in a new phase of the WOT, we will need to make sure that the management at Al Jazeera is ultimately on our side or they will need to get into car accidents and be replaced by the proper people.

Ok, I'll bite.................. Does anyone honestly believe that one of the best business deals ever was NOT the long term good will of the Iraqi people who've made major oil deals with US companies?

Which major oil companies?

With the taxpayer on the line for $250 Billion plus interest, just how much will the "major oil companies" be paying of that debt?

Do you think only the Iraqis will be profiting from their oil for the next generation?

No, of course not. There are a number of "foreign investors" who stand to create generational wealth by controlling a share of the profits from the iraqi oil fields. Perhaps WE THE PEOPLE should be paid back OUR investment first.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.