[Southack]

First of all, I'm going to tell you something that will shock you: Iran is bluffing.

Any real program by Iran to go nuclear would have been covert and would have simply waited until President Bush left office before going public with an atomic fait accompli.

Now, that being said, we can't afford to take the chance that Iran isn't bluffing.

So a variety of actions have been going on. A federal mandate to switch diesel to natural-gas and coal production has been implemented, for instance. Starting this year clean diesel is being sold, old diesel outlawed.

Interestingly enough, the U.S. has the world's largest supply of coal, which makes coal oil, which can be refined into gasoline or into clean diesel. The U.S. also has access to large supplies of natural gas, which again can make clean diesel.

E85 has been federally mandated. Now ethanol is in a large portion of our gasoline nationwide, reducing our demand for foeign crude oil.

70% more oil drilling permits have been approved since President Bush took office. The Alaska Petroleum Reserve has been opened to new drilling, and ANWR is up for new drilling (to be passed shortly by Congress).

These events did not occur in a vaccum.

Then U.S. troops were based in Afghanistan. Later, additional U.S. troops were based in large numbers in Iraq. NATO was further brought in to Afghanistan and activated in Turkey. U.S. naval assets were brought in to the Persian Gulf area.

In sum, the above places U.S. and allied forces to the North, South, East, and West of Iran. Iran is outflanked. Surrounded. The military game is over before it begins.

Next, the EU was brought in to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program. This is important. Here's why:

Iran is bluffing.
Iran's real goal is to drive a wedge between the EU and the U.S.

To drive this wedge, Iran wants to prod the U.S. into doing something that the EU will disapprove (at a level heretofor never seen).

This is why Amadinejad is making a never-ending series of provactive statements. This is why Iran publicly broke the UN seals on their 48 uranium-hexaflouride gas centrifuges (a real atomic program would have done so in secret).

But frustrating Iran is President Bush's simple strategy:
#1: let the EU do all of the negotiating with Iran, and
#2: let the EU and Iran know that there is a line that if crossed, means the U.S. will take military action on a scale not seen since 1945.

And not only does this strategy frustrate Iran's real goal of driving a wedge between the EU and U.S., but it also boxes in Iran as well as provides the only viable policy option for the *next* U.S. President to continue.

Even a Democratic President elected in 2008 would be unable to change from having the EU do all of the negotiations with Iran, and certainly wouldn't let Iran know that the U.S. would refrain from GWB's policy of doom should a line be crossed.

Now, with all of that said, don't be surprised to see the first U.S. military action be something benign such as an oil blockade that keeps all of Iran's oil in Iran while keeping out the lifeblood of Iran's economy: money.

Such a blockade is easy to criticize from a variety of angles, but the pieces are in place for that to be a President's first response to Iran appearing to step over the line.

So the U.S. runs on coal oil and clean diesel for a while. Life goes on.

Such a move would be employed to force Iran's hand...to prod *Iran* into doing something that would justify to the EU the U.S. wiping out that which crossed the line.

Which is to say, if Iran really isn't bluffing, the U.S. will go nuclear on Iran at some point, but don't be surprised if that isn't our *first* response to Iranian transgressions.

[nathanbedford]

Tempting as it is, I cannot agree with you that Iran is bluffing. One can't be sure as you say, one can only put the probabilities on a scale and by that measurement the notion that Iran is bluffing loses on two counts: first, Iran has very little to gain and much to lose in bringing about a confrontation over nonexistent nukes. By Iran, I mean the mullahs presently in power who can twist the lion's tale easily enough without provoking him. In other words, the mullahs can keep their authoritarian control over Iran by railing against America and Israel without running such high risks. Second, to forgo the quest for nukes runs counter to the essential nature of aggressive Islam which the mullahs who are in control of Iran personify to a man. What does their revolution mean if not the expansion of Islam? The purity of Islam? How better can the infidels be brought to grace then by the nuclear sword?

So, the mullahs are not bluffing or at least, as you say, we must proceed under the assumption that they are not bluffing. What to do about it?

All of the steps which you recite to move us away from Muslim oil dependency are wonderful and they should have been taken in a generation ago but they were not. Now we must wait a generation for their effect, and that is time we do not have. We did not drill and we do not build refineries. Equally, we cannot transition within a generation.

The alternative to doing nothing is not, as you suggest, going nuclear against Iran. I cannot conceive of a bigger blunder. Iran's nuclear potential must be taken out but it must be done with conventional weapons. You cite our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as potential stepping stones into Iran, and so they are. But in today's age, such bases are less valuable than they were even 10 or 20 years ago. You cite that we have moved the Navy into the Gulf, and so we have. But a Navy can be moved anywhere it is wet and can be positioned in the gulf at will.

The problem with taking out Iran's nuclear potential by conventional assets is that our air power is insufficient to accomplish the task alone, and our ground forces are being wasted in Iraq. By all accounts, we simply do not have the ground forces available to mount a conventional strike. We cannot do it alone with conventional air assets. That is our dilemma and we compounding it in Iraq.

By the nature of democracy, and our alliance with other Western democracies, a protracted boycott or sanctions regime, or blockade, is doomed to failure. Worse, it must ultimately rebound against us and backfire. It will not bring sufficient pain to Iran to cause the mullahs to change their ways but it will certainly break the Western alliance. Whatever is done 'twer better if it were quickly done.

We armchair strategists lack intelligence to tell us how long a grace period we have before Iran gets the bomb. Some accounts say they have one already and some accounts say it must be more than a decade. George Bush will be out of office in about 15 months. I do not share your confidence that a Democrat will have the starch to do what's right. As a matter of fact, I think the odds are long against it. That would run counter to everything the post-Vietnam War Democratic Party stands for.

If we knew that we had 10 years, we could set in train a campaign to undermine the Iranian regime from within. But even if the CIA were to report today that we had those 10 years, given the degree to which the CIA is discredited by its blunders of in Iran, can one steak the very future of America on its findings?

I'm afraid it is up to George Bush and his Christian character.

[Marine_Uncle]

I have taken the position for the past half year or so that Iran is bluffing on it's nuclear cycle capabilities.
I weary of re-writing reasons why I believe this is the case, but concure with your over all assesment.
Regarding the oil drilling/distribution in the USA, I take a different stand.
It will take years to actually realize those alternate fuel sources, assuming the congress,president, and all the tightly associated industries where actually in concordance to work toward the day the US could become oil independent.
The US airforce and Navy will eventually be in the position to take out deep buried nuclear facilities once the current series of deep penetrating nuclear/non-nuclear bombs are put into contruction... perhaps less then a year away. Once we can destroy things at 150-200 feet plus into solid bedrock, then with certainty we will be ready to surgically take out all their underground nuclear develepment facilities.
GWB only waits for these new deep penetrators to be fully tested and approved for use.
I am getting ready for work, so will not be available for what could be interesting dialogs with the Freepers in this post.
So to all, do have a great day.

[Lazamataz]

Very cool post.

[gogeo]

I believe your premises are wrong, and that therefore your conclusions are wrong.

The Iranian leadership is not rational or sane as we understand the concepts. Raising the volume isn't a tactic, raising the volume IS THE POINT.

[1035rep]

Excellent Southhack!

[onyx]

Now, that being said, we can't afford to take the chance that Iran isn't bluffing.

Exactly.

70% more oil drilling permits have been approved since President Bush took office. The Alaska Petroleum Reserve has been opened to new drilling, and ANWR is up for new drilling (to be passed shortly by Congress).

IIRC, a recent report says there's a mother lode under the waters in the Gulf of Mexico? That said, I thought shortages of refineries are our major impediment?

I note that you didn't mention Israel?

[TomasUSMC]

The "tightening the screws strategy" just gives more time for the moslem terrorists to attain nukes. Remember they don't have to build them, they can steal or buy them or even have them given to them.

The moslems could be sneaking them into this country, already.

Go 100 percent from the start. We still have the technological edge to wipe out this Islamic Terror in a month, we just don't have the will. But soon they will catch up, THEN we will lose millions of lives before we beat them.

We can't risk waiting too long. Better to kill a few hundred thousand of theirs and err on the side of a quick victory than the other option.... millions dead on both sides.