Posted on 01/26/2006 2:38:37 PM PST by Dark Skies
THE UNIMAGINABLE but ultimately inescapable truth is that we are going to have to get ready for war with Iran. Being of a free-speaking, free-thinking disposition, we generally find in the West that hand-wringing, finger-pointing and second-guessing come more easily to us than cold, strategic thinking. Confronted with nightmarish perils we instinctively choose to seize the opportunity to blame each other, cursing our domestic opponents for the situation they’ve put us in.
The rapidly intensifying crisis with regard to Iran exemplifies the phenomenon. On the right, it is said that the decision to let the Europeans play nuclear footsie with the mullahs in Iran for more than two years was a terrible blunder. Pacifist evasion is what the world has come to expect from continental Europe, but the decision by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to become an enabler to their procrastinations was of a different order of strategic error. An emboldened Tehran seized the chance to play them all along while advancing its ambitions in great leaps.
On the left the hands are being wrung over Iraq. It is argued that the decision to invade the wrong country has made our situation intolerably worse. Iran was always the bigger threat. While we were chasing phantom nuclear weapons in Mesopotamia, next door Iran was busy building real ones. Now we are enfeebled, militarily and politically, our diplomatic tools blunted beyond repair by the errors in Iraq.
I tend to side more with the former crowd (though let it not be said that the latter do not have a point) but it is important for all of us to understand that this debate is now for the birds. All that matters now is what we do.
The unavoidable reality is that we now need urgently to steel ourselves to the ugly probability that diplomacy will not now suffice: one or way or another, unconscionable acts of war may now be unavoidable.
Those who say war is unthinkable are right. Military strikes, even limited, targeted and accurate ones, will have devastating consequences for the region and for the world. They will, quite probably entrench and harden the Iranian regime. Even the young, hopeful democrats who despise their theocratic rulers and crave the freedoms of the West will pause at the sight of their country burnt and humiliated by the infidels.
A war, even a limited one, will almost certainly raise oil prices to recession-inducing levels, as Iran cuts itself off from global markets. The loss of Iranian supply and the already stretched nature of production in the Arab world and elsewhere means prices of $150 per barrel are easily imaginable. Military strikes will foster more violence in the Middle East, strengthen the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, fuel anti-Western sentiment among Muslims everywhere and encourage more terrorism against us at home.
All true. All fearfully powerful arguments against the use of the military option. But multiplied together, squared, and then cubed, the weight of these arguments does not come close to matching the case for us to stop, by whatever means may be necessary, Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
If Iran gets safely and unmolested to nuclear status, it will be a threshold moment in the history of the world, up there with the Bolshevik Revolution and the coming of Hitler. What the country itself may do with those weapons, given its pledges, its recent history and its strategic objectives with regard to the US, Israel and their allies, is well known. We can reasonably assume that the refusal of the current Iranian leadership to accept the Holocaust as historical fact is simply a recognition of their own plans to redefine the notion as soon as they get a chance (“Now this is what we call a holocaust”). But this threat is only, incredibly, a relatively small part of the problem.
If Iran goes nuclear, it will demonstrate conclusively that even the world’s greatest superpower, unrivalled militarily, under a leadership of proven willingness to take bold military steps, could not stop a country as destabilising as Iran from achieving its nuclear ambitions.
No country in a region that is so riven by religious and ethnic hatreds will feel safe from the new regional superpower. No country in the region will be confident that the US and its allies will be able or willing to protect them from a nuclear strike by Iran. Nor will any regional power fear that the US and its allies will act to prevent them from emulating Iran. Say hello to a nuclear Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia.
Iran, of course, secure now behind its nuclear wall, will surely step up its campaign of terror around the world. It will become even more of a magnet and haven for terrorists. The terror training grounds of Afghanistan were always vulnerable if the West had the resolve. Protected by a nuclear-missile-owning state, Iranian camps will become impregnable.
And the kind of society we live in and cherish in the West, a long way from Tehran or Damascus, will change beyond recognition. We balk now at intrusive government measures to tap our phones or stop us saying incendiary things in mosques. Imagine how much more our freedoms will be curtailed if our governments fear we are just one telephone call or e-mail, one plane journey or truckload away from another Hiroshima.
Something short of military action may yet prevail on Iran. Perhaps sanctions will turn their leadership from its doomsday ambitions. Perhaps Russia can somehow be persuaded to give them an incentive to think again. But we can’t count on this optimistic scenario now. And so we must ready ourselves for what may be the unthinkable necessity.
Because in the end, preparation for war, by which I mean not military feasibility planning, or political and diplomatic manoeuvres but a psychological readiness, a personal willingness on all our parts to bear the terrible burdens that it will surely impose, may be our last real chance to ensure that we can avoid one.
The Iranians are complaining about predator drones in their skies. No wonder this makes them nervous after the successful operation in Pakistan with them this week. Didn't the girls in the senate nix the nuclear bunker buster research that would be strong enough to penetrate the hardened bunkers in Iran? That is where I would point fingers, I think.
I think this whole war has been about Iran.We have encircled that country now. We did not attack Germany first in WWII. First we fought and beat the French in North Africa.
...."Iran first....."
I agree 100%. I've allways felt that way and could never understand Bush's obsession with Iraq while Iran was sitting there much more dangerous than Sadaam.
The plan would have already been done and Iran would have caved, if we didn't have terrorist democrats in our nation.
I see the war described in Ezekial 24 or 25 materializing before our very eyes.
We just need to 'invade' a few places for a short period of time to knock out the deep bunkers then, back-out.
There are only 2 real options, and which way we do it depends strictly on accurate intelligence.
If Iran already has deployable nuclear weapons (And I think that is a distinct possibility), you are correct.
If, however, it can be determined otherwise, only a ground invasion will do the job. It doesn't matter how deep they are buried when you carry the ordinance inside and light it from a mile away. It's the only way. I hear a lot of talk about "Bunker Busters", but I seriously doubt they will penetrate these facilities.
This is, of course, all based on MHO, not being an expert or having any intelligent data on what Iran has inside. Hopefully, W does know.
Not quite 600 days...
[From DOE - Strategic Petroleum Reserve Web Site]
Quick Facts and Frequently Asked Questions
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a U.S. Government complex of four sites created in deep underground salt caverns along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast that hold emergency supplies of crude oil.
Inventory
* Current inventory: Click to open inventory update window
* Highest inventory - The SPR reached its highest level of 700.7 million barrels in late August 2005. The Hurricane Katrina loans and sales reduced it during Fall 2005.
* Current storage capacity - 727 million barrels
* Current days of import protection in SPR - 59 days
(Maximum days of import protection in SPR - 118 days in 1985)
* International Energy Agency requirement - 90 days of import protection (both public and private stocks)
(SPR and private company import protection - approx. 118 days)
* Average price paid for oil in the Reserve - $27.73 per barrel
Drawdown Capability
* Maximum drawdown capability - 4.4 million barrels per day
* Time for oil to enter U.S. market - 13 days from Presidential decision
Past Sales [click on link for more details]
* 2005 Hurricane Katrina Sale - 11 million barrels
* 1996-97 total non-emergency sales - 28 million barrels
* 1990/91 Desert Shield/Storm Sale - 21 million barrels
(4 million in August 1990 test sale; 17 million in January 1991 Presidentially-ordered drawdown)
* 1985 - Test Sale - 1.1 million barrels
When Iran has the bomb, to whom can that threat be credible?
Israel? Certainly.
Europe? Of course!
The US? Hardly.
But how about Mother Russia? Of course!
We, the leadership of Iran, recognize the Islamic government and our brothers fighting the infidel in Chechnya and support them totally.
Sorry, Putin is too smart not to know this, and Russia will give in if we don't allow this fall back position to proceed until fruition..
You are right. Tony Blair stood by George Bush and Britain shouldered a good portion of the burden of liberating Iraq (rightfully so since Britain in the 1920's post colonial era had a large part in creating "Iraq" and the social/cultural/political conditions that are so difficult to resolve there).
Britain is/was our only true ally in the western world and should NOT be mentioned in the same scornful breath as France and Germany.
Unfortunately the chattering classes and the press are equally insufferably arrogant in both Britain and America.
I also believe that, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, going against Iran will be untenable without full UN support. I believe that is why our Generals are starting to discreetly leak affirmation to the press that US troops are "stretched" in Iraq.
While we're at it, a surprise night strike against the mansions and Mercedes in the elite Tehran neighborhoods might take out a lot of the Mullah politburo.
ping
"I know I'm going to take flak for this, but from the beginning I wished President Bush had gone after Iran first.
I'm aware of all the arguments and rationale, but that's just the way I felt."
You are absolute right. In my humble opion the best order to deal with the axis of evil would have been:
North Korea - Iran - Iraq
After all it was Kim Jong-Il who was incredibly successful with only pretending to have a nuclear warhead (if he really had one, he would have done the same as India and Pakistan, test it first and then admit it afterwards), who encouraged Adolfinejad.
But that would have been a hugely unpopular campaign to sell that to the American public.
Good analogy
The words of Winston Churchill:
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
It is only "unthinkable" to dismiss an invasion with conventional forces if we are prepared to dismiss the notion of a nuclear-armed terrorist state as "unthinkable", as well.
No sanctions will stop Iran from its progress toward The Bomb now. They're too close.
No world opprobrium will have effect against them. They are too close.
Even a blockade of their oil ports will not stop them. They are too close.
There is only one thing that will quench the mullah's thirst for the power associated with possession of nuclear arms: The Bomb itself. And they are getting pretty damned close to having it at this point.
Having said that, there is only one solution that can STOP THEM from obtaining nuclear weapons at this late date, and we all know what that is:
Force.
Whether air power alone can inflict enough damage upon them to effectively block them from achieving their goals, I can't say. Perhaps nuclear air strikes would accomplish this, but I don't believe the United States, nor even Iran's sworn enemy of Israel, would risk the use of nuclear weapons in a first strike.
I daresay the ONLY way that may effectively end Iranian nuclear ambitions - not merely postpone them, but END them - must be an armed invasion that not only locates and destroys all their nuclear development strikes, but overthrows the Iranian leaders and nueters their military.
That means boots on the ground - hundreds of thousands of them. I don't believe the United States military is sufficiently strong enough at this time to accomplish this. Simply not enough feet to fill those boots. I could be wrong. Can one say, "draft"? (And by the way, I was drafted myself once, in 1970).
I'm just a dumb old guy. But I can see as much as I've said here. I'm able to see it because it's, well, obvious. Our leaders cannot see as much?
The Clinton administration disgracefully - traitorously - permitted the government of North Korea to go nuclear. But we would expect such malfeasance from them.
If the Bush administration diddles around much longer, I fear Iran may go nuclear, with eventual results much more devastating for the civilized world (as the author of the original article points out). What are they waiting for?
Remember Sir Churchill's warning!
- John
Not sure we can count on Turkey, but we've got them East, West, and from the water.
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