Tom Holsinger explains why he thinks his future scenario re: Iran (W. leads an invasion before they get nukes) is more likely than mine (no invasion, they get nukes, 10-100 million or more dead within 20 years). Or does he?
America's ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, recently made a statement on the ABC News Nightline television program which irrevocably commits the Bush administration to use any necessary means, up to and including invasion, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The Reuters story on this states:
"The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, on Wednesday compared the threat from Iran's nuclear programs to the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
"Just like September 11, only with nuclear weapons this time, that's the threat. I think that is the threat," Bolton told ABC News' Nightline program.
"I think it's just facing reality. It's not a happy reality, but it's reality and if you don't deal with it, it will become even more unpleasant."
This statement is incendiary and, from a experienced diplomat like Bolton, could only have been with full authorization from the highest levels of the Bush administration. It is an admission which the Bush administration cannot politically afford to disown once Iran announces it has nuclear weapons or a test of a nuclear device. The Republican Party base would rise up in a fury which would utterly destroy the Bush administration's effectiveness if it fails to take military action in such an event and, as importantly, the public careers of every Bush administration official in national security positions would be over. In addition to the consequences of doing nothing for the United States and the world.
It is unlikely that Iran's mullah regime will announce termination of its nuclear weapons program, and still less likely that the Bush administration would believe it absent really intrusive inspections which the mullahs cannot permit for their own domestic political reasons. This is especially true as I believe that it is highly likely that Iran already has nuclear weapons purchased from North Korea, or made with purchased North Korean plutonium. See this Times of London story, and two past Winds of Change articles from Trent and myself - Count Down to Iran's Nuclear Test, and The Case for Invading Iran.
The Washington Post has reported that the Bush administration's new policy towards Iran now has regime change as its objective:
"The internal administration debate that raged in the first term between those who advocated more engagement with Iran and those who preferred more confrontation appears in the second term to be largely settled in favor of the latter. Although administration officials do not use the term "regime change" in public, that in effect is the goal they outline as they aim to build resistance to the theocracy.
..."The upper hand is with those who are pushing regime change rather than those who are advocating more diplomacy," said Richard N. Haass, who as State Department policy planning director in Bush's first term was among those pushing for engagement."
StrategyPage contends that it is unlikely Iran's mullah regime can be changed from within, as the mullahs have repeatedly shown that they will massacre peaceful opposition. While armed domestic opposition could probably overthrow the regime given significant American support from an adjacent sanctuary (Iraq), that would take more than a year to implement. This is not enough time given the advanced state of Iran's nuclear program and its ability to purchase North Korean plutonium or ready-to-use nuclear weapons. Furthermore the mullahs won't just sit there while we foster armed rebellion in Iran - they'll come after us, and they likely have nuclear weapons to do it with.
Likewise they won't just sit there if we bomb their nuclear program, and that will give them a greater incentive to use any nuclear weapons they already have.
The safest way to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat, given the at least significant possibility they already have nuclear weapons, is to eliminate their regime as fast as possible, and that means invasion combined with "counter-force" and "decapitation" bombing.
But that invasion is the safest way to achieve this goal does not mean that the Bush administration will do it that way - there are vast institutional and political obstacles to the staggeringly large ground force commitment such would require, notably a massive call-up of almost all ground force reserves for two or more years even if an invasion commences on a "come as you are" surprise attack from a standing start (which would be wise against an enemy who has nuclear weapons).
We'll probably stumble into an invasion after lesser means of eliminating Iran's mullah regime fail, which means giving them a fair chance of using nuclear weapons on our forces in Iraq, Saudi Arabia's oil ports, and Israel.
But we'll get there. Ambassador Bolton's statement has committed us to that.
Considering that the US and Iran are now on track to enter into their first, formal direct negotiations since 1979, I would suggest that what Bolton, who will not be in position in 12 months time, has to say is of less relevance than you think; ambassadors don't make policy - they implement policy, and policy is often subject to change. Bolton has a history of making statements that go beyond his competence or his authorisation; I suspect Condi will be trying to get that leash a bit tighter. Certainly, this contradicts the Haas quote - and reinforces that the administration is divided and has no coherent policy that it can agree on; so we'll continue to see diverging tracks, confusion and, er, inaction.
Whilst it is amusing to watch writers on this site tout imaginary items such as pre-enriched material obtained from a third-party, or worse still, bespoke nukes ready to go down that (non-existent) test shaft, the reality is located elsewhere ( my money's on islamic death rays ). You're quite literally imagining a parallel Iranian nuclear programme, for which no substantive evidence actually exists, which is either complete or close to completion, as a justification for a fantasy military intervention that is just not going to happen. I suspect that most people on this site are looking to fix "facts" around a policy rather than derive a policy from facts. Anyway, if Iran already has nuclear weapons, developed in secret in invisible facilities, then bombing its civilian programme would be redundant. If the civilian programme is what there is - then this little more than hysterical posturing about a vague possibility that may or may not eventuate many years in the future.
The facts are that Iran will eventually develop the capacity to enrich to HEU if it masters the fuel cycle - this will put it in the same position as Japan, South Korea, Brazil and a number of other countries; the NPT guarantees Iran this right and selectively deciding to deny this to Iran is not going to work in the longer term - they are going to develop the technical and scientific expertise for this. Whether it chooses to go from capacity to weaponisation will depend on the strategic environment that confronts it - if we want to obviate that, then perhaps we have to change the strategic environment.
There are two ways of doing this - change the environment or change the regime. Regime change from the inside will only happen as a response to changes in the external security environment - we've seen this happen in the 1997-2001 period; externally imposed regime change may well be impossible - and the price of attempting military intervention is unfeasibly high.
There is no Northern Alliance or civil war in Iran that can be exploited, and I doubt that many Iranians looking over the border at the mess the "new Mongols" have created would wish to repeat the experience. Democracy promotion drives launched from a "Riga Station" located in an undemocratic authoritarian heredeitary monarchy and financed by treasury purchases from China/Saudi Arabia are unlikely to help much.
Bolton's statement while interesting is not dispositive. The remainder of your argument in this post seems to concentrate on the advisability of a course of action that you're clearly convinced is the right thing to do. And you may well be right.
At this point the domestic political situation is such that, absent a direct provocation from Iran, Bush's presidency would not survive an invasion of Iran and the invasion would be unlikely to last much longer. Going into a situation that has a pretty fair likelihood of becoming a rout (albeit for domestic political reasons) would seem to me to be a policy that the “officers on the ground” that Mr. Bush spoke of this the other day would resist.
Iran may present that provocation yet. They may already have done. But if so it's being kept under wraps.
According to strategypage north korea does not have nukes (or they would have tested one) so it is not likely that Iran has bought any nukes from north korea.
feb 27:
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/korea/articles/20060314.aspx
Tom, as I'm sure you know, the Korean situation is completely different; essentially the Norks are holding the population of Seoul and suburbs hostage to conventional and chemical/bio artillery as much as to a nuclear strike.
I continue to doubt that Israel would tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, and believe that their intel sources are better than yours - and they are not acting - officially - like they believe Iran currently has weapons.
And I'll point out that through the 60's we faced a similar problem with the Soviet Union, who was perceived as unstable, ideologically driven, etc. etc. etc.
I'm not someone who believes we need to "learn to live" with a nuclear-armed Iran. But, bluntly, I don't see enough facts on the ground to support your position (that immediate bombing and invasion is necessary). I think that Bush is doing a masterful job of aligning the world behind our position (although with not enough teeth and not as fast as I would like) as evidenced by the fact that the Iranians asked to talk.
I'll also point out - having read the history of out nuclear weapons program - that it's far from given that first-generation nukes will work, which is why everyone tests.
When Iran tests, we shift to a whole different game.
A.L.
Iran has a population that is overwhelmingly pro-American and overwhelmingly apathetic about Israel. What exactly would bombing achieve? Take a population of 70 million and make them hate us and hate Israel? Isn't that something we should try to avoid?
We know that many of the sites are way, way underground and that if there is a bomb program it is hidden. It is hidden even from many members of the regime. Iran claims that Israeli spies are trying to identify the sites. Well good luck to them. What good will it do in the end?
ET, Tom doesn't advocate bombing. Read his previous posts. He advocates invasion for reasons that include those you've raised.
"Ambassador Bolton's statement has committed us to that."
There's a real Rorschach element at work here, because i didnt read anything so dire into Bolton's words. In fact they are no different than what Bush has been saying for quite some time outright. Bush said a couple years ago and repeated recently that Iran would not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. Certainly that is no less provacative than Bolton's statement.
Now at the end of the day I dont think diplomacy will prevent that, so taking Bush at his word would lead me to conclude we will attack Iran. I'm still not remotely sold that an a bombing campaign, or even a limited but intense raid, cant degrade the Iranian program enough to buy a few years time. Tom's invasion argument is built on a number of assumptions I disagree with. In my opinion, the plan now is to push diplomacy until it either crumbles like it did over Iraq, or until sanctions can be imposed followed by embargo, and somewhere in that chain of events fighting will surely break out.
Thanks for floating this.
I'm not sure I 100% agree with the thesis, but as Mark's pointed out, the dovetailing of Bolton and Bush would generally lead one in that direction.
In fact, Bush's current domestic woes make it all the more conceivable that he'd be willing to take the political fallout for taking Iran head-on as a Clinton-esque "legacy gambit." (Why not? Bush Jr. may be a less-skilled triangulator than Clinton, but it's still his primary domestic strategy.) Given the benefits to "world peace" that lopping off the mullahcracy would have, it's a conceivable gambit, and the regime has shown that it is perfectly willing to hand the US plenty of pretext.
A.L.
You were not the intended audience for that statement.
The Bolton statement was a promisary note to the Republican conservative base.
No politician on the Republican side will get in the way of that base when it demands that it be cashed in.
Dan,
Do we believe you or Israel's former intelligence chief Rafi Eitan?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1138622510390&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Given that South Africa produced seven gun-type fssion devices using 320kg of highly enriched uranimum in 10 years -- from 1979 to 1989 -- for $200 million, I know where I'd place my money betting on Iranian nukes. My bet is placed on "Rafi Eitan."
"Rafi Eitan suspects that Iran already has enough enriched uranium fissionable material to manufacture at least one or two atom bombs of the Hiroshima type. "Otherwise Iranian President Ahmadinejad would not have dared come out with his declaration that Israel should be wiped off the map," repeating it in various versions. "
Look, you guys have to start seperating analysis based on actual intelligence and analysis based on drawing conclusions from circumstances. We are sitting at the world's largest card table, and assuming the other guy's hand because of the act he is putting on is as rookie as rookie gets.
There are at least two reasons to act like you have a big hand- because you dont have a big hand and you are bluffing, or because you have a truly monster hand and you are hoping your opponent has a great hand and will think you are bluffing and get torched. Either one of those possibilities indicates caution on our part in assuming anything about Iran.
Tom said: "The Republican Party base would rise up in a fury which would utterly destroy the Bush administration's effectiveness if it fails to take military action in such an event and, as importantly, the public careers of every Bush administration official in national security positions would be over."
Now that's a fascinating argument. The American public, or at least the third that call themselves Republicans, is so commited to military confrontation with Iran that they will take to the streets demanding the careers of Bush's national security team.
Pray tell, where is the evidence for the broad public support of an invasion, that we can expect these dire political consequences? Tom is plainly a supporter of invasion, and will be pretty chuffed at Bush & Co if it does not occur. But there can't be more than a tiny percentage of Americans who share his position at this point.
postakomment
To paraphrase a line from the movie "The Princess Bride":
"I don't think that post means what you think it does."
Note: Strategypage didn't say the Norks don't have nukes, "Some Defense Officials" did.
This is what is known as a "Pravda moment," when the offical organs of the state say all is right in the world just before the wheels come off.
The debate over Iranian nukes boils down to the fact that the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs are so intertwined that if North Korea has nukes, a serious examination of the relationship will show that it is a absolutely certain that Iran has them too.
In order to win the Iranian nuclear debate, and stave off action against Iran's nuclear facilities, opponents of American military action against Iran have to attack the possibility that North Korea has nukes.
It one of the warning signs I have been looking for that the proponents of military action against Iran were winning the debate inside the Bush Administration.
I don't happen to agree with Tom's analysis or his assumptions, but I find dan's counter-argument to be equally far removed from reality:
"The facts are that Iran will eventually develop the capacity to enrich to HEU if it masters the fuel cycle - this will put it in the same position as Japan, South Korea, Brazil and a number of other countries; the NPT guarantees Iran this right and selectively deciding to deny this to Iran is not going to work in the longer term - they are going to develop the technical and scientific expertise for this. Whether it chooses to go from capacity to weaponisation will depend on the strategic environment that confronts it - if we want to obviate that, then perhaps we have to change the strategic environment."
There are any number of reasons why Iran is not comparable to Japan, South Korea, or Brazil. One of those reasons is that the Iranian nuclear weapons program is a going on 30 year commitment now. The Iranian people have been fed a pretty steady diet of how nuclear weapons are important to Iran's place in the world, and a requirement before Iran can recieve its proper respect. So the Iranian people, even the ostensibly moderate ones, are fairly uniformly behind the acquisition not of civilian nuclear power but of weapons. Likewise, while the formal statements of the Iranian government are all about obtaining civilian nuclear weapons, there are any number of less formal statements by high ranking government officials made in public forums and on Iranian TV publicly stating both the intention to acquire and more importantly to use those weapons once they are acquired. Moreover, the Iranian 'civilian nuclear power' program has gone hand in hand with a 'civilian space program' since its inception. But both of these 'civilian' programs are administered and developed on military installations, and in the case of the 'space program' the only products thus far have been military weapons. Considering Iran's relatively weak economy and industrial capacity, 'space programs' and civilian nuclear power would seem to be overly ambitious designs. You'd think that they'd want to do things like build schools,roads, and hospitals first, or at least have cities out of something other than mudbrick that don't collapse in every 5.5 tremor. But considering Iran's military and imperial ambitions, namely the destruction of Isreal and eventual rebuilding of the Persian empire, a nuclear weapons program is almost a requirement for fulfilling those ambitions.
But what I really want to here you explain is your plan. Tell me exactly what you would do to 'obviate' the 'strategic environment' in such a way that Iran would give up its military and imperial ambitions?
Duh.
Here...
"Likewise, while the formal statements of the Iranian government are all about obtaining civilian nuclear weapons..."
I meant 'civilian nuclear capacity', as hopefully is clear from the context.
Not.
Rafi Eitan's statements on Iran having at least two Hiroshima type nukes are based on the hard reality of the South Africa's covert nuclear program.
You might want to try this reading list:
OUT OF (SOUTH) AFRICA: PRETORIA’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS EXPERIENCE Lieutenant Colonel Roy E. Horton, USAF Institute for National Security Studies Occasional Paper #27 August 1999
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/rsa/nuke/ocp27.htm
BIRTH AND DEATH OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMME Waldo Stumpf, Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa Ltd, -- Presentation given at the conference "50 YEARS AFTER HIROSHIMA", organised by USPID (Unione Scienziati per il Disarmo) and held in Castiglioncello, Italy, 28 September to 2 October 1995.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/rsa/nuke/stumpf.htm
South Africa and the Affordable Bomb By David Albright Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - January 1994 –
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1994/ja94/ja94Albright.html
Nuclear verification in South Africa by Adolf von Baeckmann, Gary Dillon and Demetrius Perricos - IAEA Bulletin Volume 37, Number 1 1994 - Verifying South Africa's declared nuclear inventory, and the termination of its weapons programme, was a complex task.
http://www.fas.org/news/safrica/baeckmann.html
The facts on the ground are that the IAEA has samples showing Iran has seperated plutonium and created HEU for over 10 years at unmonitored facilities.
The time line of South African proliferation was 320kg of HEU, in ten years, to arm seven Hiroshima style gun-type nuclear devices, for a cost of $200 million dollars.
Based on that reality, it is so certain that Iran has nukes that those who say they don't have got to put forth a detailed case as to why they don't.
Your arguement is notably lacking in those details.
Among Tom Holsinger's post, Joe Katzman's 1/20/06 post, and Dan's comment here (#1), a pretty broad spectrum of Western opinion is represented. Dan scornfully says that US and EU-3 concerns about Iran's 'nonexistent' weapons program are unfounded. A closer read shows that even Dan sees that acquisition of fuel cycle infrastructure and expertise means that Iran gets the bomb if it wants.
Moving from the court of law to that of common sense, there is no way that Iran's actions over the past 2 decades can be explained away. Given that Pakistan (and likely North Korea) succeeded with more modest resources, the questions would seem to center around engineering and program-management competence in post-1979 Persian society. It's, um, unlikely that the program can't find enough talented and motivated Iranian physicists and technicians. It's plausible that corruption, inter-agency squabbling, and bureaucratic infighting could be holding the project back, akin to the fate of some Nazi initiatives during WW2. But developing a nuclear bomb isn't that hard, and it keeps getting easier.
The political realities are quite different from the technical and military ones.
My conclusion is that, barring Iranian use of atomic weapons, military action against Iran would be political suicide for the Bush Administration. I'd assume that the plans of the mullahs and the IRGC are predicated on this analysis.
Trent is correct that Bolton's statement is an irrevocable commmitment to the GOP base - something which they will use to effectively destroy the Bush administration and the careers of its appointed officials in the event the Bush administration does nothing when Iran officially goes nuclear.
Those who deny this also deny all the other evidence pointing the same way. Bolton's statement should be read in the context of everything else the Bush administration is saying about Iran's nuclear threat.
Again, those whose minds and ears are closed can ignore everything. But there are many who don't. Here's one who has noticed the obvious, and he wrote this before Bolton's statement on Nightline, though it was published afterwards. That's the MSM news cycle - I as a blogger just worked faster.That latter sentence is true, but it doesn't prove that Bolton did it with administration approval. It could just as easily mean Bolton is so concerned about the threat that he's willing to put the administration in a position whether it either has to step up, or back down and risk conservative wrath.
"The time line of South African proliferation was 320kg of HEU, in ten years, to arm seven Hiroshima style gun-type nuclear devices, for a cost of $200 million dollars."
Again- this is analysis by comparison of circumstance. Following this logic I could 'prove' that Pakistan has an H-bomb arsenal because the US had one x number of years into their nuclear program. The fact that one nation is able to engineer something in such and such a timeframe and cost does not follow that a different nation has automatically done it.
My point is Iran is dangerous and must not be allowed a nuclear arsenal, but it is not productive to necessarilly assume the worst based on minimal intelligence and a lot of supposition. It is not harmless to assume the worst. The timeframe we have to work with is critical to our decision making.
"Trent is correct that Bolton's statement is an irrevocable commmitment to the GOP base - something which they will use to effectively destroy the Bush administration and the careers of its appointed officials in the event the Bush administration does nothing when Iran officially goes nuclear."
As i need to constantly remind my liberal friends- Bush is not running for anything. Moreover nobody in his administration is a big player either (assuming Condi is serious about not running). If Iran announces it has gone nuclear tomorrow- Bush wont be blamed by the Right. If Iran announces it a year from now- its already campaign season starting for 08 and Bush just becomes a lame duck a little sooner. I dont see how the political implications are of any relevance.
"It is not harmless to assume the worst."
True. But neither is it harmless to assume the best.
You are asking for something that we cannot have, and that is hindsight. We cannot perfectly foresee what Iran will do once it has nukes or when it will obtain them. If we could, there would be little point in a debate.
The only way we will ever has hindsight is if the worst actually comes to pass, and then people like you will complain that we should have had the foresight to see it coming. At that point, there will also be little point in a debate. The big mistakes will already have been made.
The question is whether we prefer our big mistakes to be errors of action or of inaction.
That's some remarkable logic. It has been Iran's policy to destroy Israel for a while now, to the point that Khamenei was happy to inform European premiers in person, without mincing words.
Given the shocking state of Israeli deterrence and the general craven nature of Western leaders, what reason would Ahmadinejad have to think there would be any meaningful response? And he was right, wasn't he?
"True. But neither is it harmless to assume the best."
Assuming the best would be that the Mullahs are all going to drop dead of heart failure at 3pm and a progressive pro-US government take over with no nuclear ambitions. No-one is assuming that. In fact, im not assuming anything. My intent is to defang Iran one way or another, the only question is how and when and i dont believe we have enough information to make that judgement yet. Circumstances need to play out. Could that be a blunder? Of course, but going off half-cocked is almost always a blunder. So we are ahead in that department.
"You are asking for something that we cannot have, and that is hindsight. We cannot perfectly foresee what Iran will do once it has nukes or when it will obtain them. If we could, there would be little point in a debate."
Very true. But the same could be said of any number of nations. Realistically we need to weigh the dangers of waiting against the dangers of not waiting.
Right now i see the argument playing out here that 'Iran already has nukes!' as a kind of emotional goading as opposed to cold logic. Even assuming Iran already has a few nukes does not follow that we should invade or attack immediately, in my mind. Im having trouble following this thread of reasoning- apologies to Trent and Tom but their argument seems to me one assumption built upon another built upon another, and when any one is questioned specifically they point to the seriousness of their implications. Well yeh, but they are only that serious if they hold together, and i dont know that they entirely do. Moreover it wont do to ignore the certain downside of again defying the international community (this time without even the Anglo support) and doing something drastic on our own.
Mark Buehner (#24)
I don't think all of WoC's readers hold the international community in the highest regard.
There are industrial democracies, each with its own history, elites, institutions; each balancing national interest and moral precepts on the world stage. Then there are the majority of states, with governments run by the top dogs of their respective societies, pursuing agendas of naked self-interest. Add transnational bureaucrats and NGOs and the picture is complete.
On the whole, bouquets or brickbats from this fractured but generally ill-intentioned community should mean little to Americans. Praise for the US will be sparing no matter what actions we do or don't take.
On the domestic political side, where is the evidence that the American electorate sees Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons as being worth an OIF-scale expenditure of blood and treasure? It's not even a close call.
I'm eliding the issues of right/wrong, prudent/imprudent. If the lame-duck president does push for this action, the Bush-hating parts of the intelligence establishment will leak material that puts his plans in the worst possible light. With most voters looking through the lens of Another Vietnam, Republican officials hoping for re-election will desert Bush in droves.
Unless something very bad happens, these hawkish plans will have no support beyond the committed party base. An attack on Iran would cause a Republican electoral rout in 2006 (or 2008).
"Trent is correct that Bolton's statement is an irrevocable commmitment to the GOP base - something which they will use to effectively destroy the Bush administration and the careers of its appointed officials in the event the Bush administration does nothing when Iran officially goes nuclear."
I'll say again, you're asserting a politcal reality that I can't observe anywhere in America today. What is your evidence that any meaninful fraction of self-identified Republicans (let alone the larger electorate) either (a) see this as an irrevocable commitment, or (b) would care enough to politically punish officials who violate it?
Personally, I see no evidence that the Republican party leadership or base is interested in another war in the Middle East. A few, such as Tom and Trent, advocate such a policy strongly. But whether or not their arguments have merit, nothing indicates that this is a major issue for Republicans-as-a-whole heading into the 2006 midterms. This whole thread seems to fall under the heading of "Pundit's Fallacy".
Several points:
1) Bolton represents a specific Conservative, Republican supporting, demographic.
2) Bolton’s statement was aimed at that demographic like a laser and was meant to be a hostage to the Bush Administration’s future conduct.
3) The Bush Administration’s constant in behavior is appeasement of its political base. When it gets sufficiently enraged, Bush does something to throw them a bone. After the Dubai port deal, this was is.
4) Bolton’s statement was also a message to that demographic that said “Get off our backs, we are doing something.”
Of course, as Tom Holsinger mentioned up thread, those who don’t want to see this, won’t.
Mark: We seem to be meeting in the middle on this issue.
"Assuming the best would be that the Mullahs are all going to drop dead of heart failure at 3pm and a progressive pro-US government take over with no nuclear ambitions. No-one is assuming that."
True, but we could equally say that assuming the worst would be that Iran simultaneously detonates medium yield nuclear devices (150+ kt) in Tel Aviv, New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Wilmington, Houston, Tampa, Baton Rouge, and Washington DC, and meanwhile detonating several devices at altitude devasting much of Americas electronic infrastructure with EMP using a combination of shipping containers and medium range ICBM's launched from the deck of freighters as delivery devices, then sets back and denies involvement in the plot (presumably while having Al Queda take responcibility, maybe claiming to have bought the material off the Russian black market). I'd like to say that nobody is assuming that that is going to happen, but I agree that some of the Hawks have gotten so worked up over this issue that something like that seems to them to be the likely scenario. Which is fortunately, at least at the momment, pretty ridiculous.
The reality of the situation is I assume somewhere in the very broad middle, and I dare say that you are assuming the very same thing. It seems reasonable to assume that, but you don't have any more data than they or I do. But for the momment, lets just say I find your assumptions more reasonable than thiers.
"My intent is to defang Iran one way or another, the only question is how and when and i don't believe we have enough information to make that judgement yet."
I agree on both counts. I think that there are alot of plausible scenarios that noone is really considering, but I agree that the following popular scenarios (a) popular revolt in Iran, (b) the Iranians really only want nuclear power plants, © the Iranians would willing give up the bomb if only the US would cease to threaten them, and (d) Iran already has the bomb and has an operational plan for attacking the Israel and/or the US already being implemented are not particularly likely.
However, of the four, I have to agree with the Hawks that 'd' seems all too unfortunately the most likely of the unlikely things.
"Right now i see the argument playing out here that 'Iran already has nukes!' as a kind of emotional goading as opposed to cold logic."
Agreed.
Let me say that until recently, I was in the 'containment' camp with regard to Iran. Iran, due to its size, terrain, income, and population is a very unattractive military target to me and I don't believe that under current geo-political conditions the US is capable of sustaining an effective conventional war against Iran. Also, I want to leave nuking Iran as a last option - even at the risk of or port cities - simply for the sake of the innocent Iranian children. (That said, if it came down to stopping a US port city from getting nuked and a saturation attack on Iran, I'd favor the latter. But we better be really dang sure about it.) And, I do not believe that either diplomacy or covert operations would be successful with regard to Iran or even yield good results.
So, until recently, I was firmly in the camp that the best way to handle the Iranians was to accept the burden of another long protracted cold war, contain them, build alliances against them, constrain thier ambitions, present them with assured destruction in the event of an attack on us, and wait the long years required for thier society to collapse - as I believe it inevitably will.
The role of China was always the weak point in such a plan, but it was Ahmadinejad that really changed my position. My position was based on the assumption that like the Russians and the Chinese, the Iranians could be counted on to be largely rational actors. I was counting on the fact that any State that developed nukes would be largely terrified by them (as we know in hindsight that the Russians were). When the Mullahs pulled thier coup and more or less wiped out the last traces of either the old or new republic, and put Ahmadinejad in the Presidency, it put a big hole in my theory that the Iranians were rational actors. Everything that has happened since then has only confirmed that suspicion, and I now feel that this is 1933 and we are dealing with short mustached megalomaniacs looking to create 1000 year dynesties all over again. Actually, I think Hitler was mentally stable compared to Ahmadinejad. That he might be in charge of nuclear weapons frankly scares me, and the longer he stays in office without the Mullah's yanking him back into his place the more I'm worried that Iranian society has just gone off its rails. The longer he stays in office, the more compelling the 'oh just kill 'em all and be done with it' argument becomes.
Containment is just not going to work if Ahmadinejad is representative of who is actually in power in Iran, much less if the mullah's underestimated him and Ahmadinejad is actually in power in Iran. And, I believe that those people who see invasion as a solution to the Iranian problem are fooling themselves.
"Even assuming Iran already has a few nukes does not follow that we should invade or attack immediately, in my mind. Im having trouble following this thread of reasoning- apologies to Trent and Tom but their argument seems to me one assumption built upon another built upon another, and when any one is questioned specifically they point to the seriousness of their implications."
Agreed. As I said, the real heart of the argument is whether or not you believe that Ahmadinejad is typical of the people actually running Iran right now. If he is, then sooner or latter there is going to be trouble of global proportions that will cause 9/11 to be remembered only as an incident in the run up to the real conflict.
Bolton's loose cannon reputation is quite well known. As is Iran's rugged topography. And last I heard, the U.S. wasn't exactly overflowing with excess military or financial resources. Ditto for Bush's "political capital" and "leadership". The article's got all the insight and factual content of an Orson Scott Card fantasy.
I'm a first-time visitor who followed a link from DefenseTech to get here. DefenseTech is a really good site. If "Holsinger: The United States Will Attack Iran" is any indication of the quality of this site, I don't understand why Schachtman bothered mentioning it. I know I won't be coming back.
"The article's got all the insight and factual content of an Orson Scott Card fantasy."
Hey, you can bad mouth WOC and i will fight for your right to do so, but baggin on OSC is over the line!
If we could just get those orbital satellites that prevent people from inventing the chariot...
Celebrim: i am in full agreement with everything you just said. You have my proxie to continue this argument while i fill up on corned beef and guinness for the next 48 hours.
sglover said:
Bolton's statement, if it were not Bush Administration policy, would have been disavowed by now.
It hasn't been.
As for Iran's "rugged terrain," undefended terrain and distance is no obsticle to the movement of the American military
A little noted fact about Iran's military was that it it took 3-4 Iranians to match the combat power of a single Iraqi in the Iran-Iraq War of the late 1980s.
While the Iranian Army and Revoutionary Guards have many more heavy weapons now than they did in the 1980s, they still no where approached what Iraq had in 1991. (Remember, it was found after we invaded that Iraq in 2003 that it had several times the artillery ammunitions stockpile of the entire US military.) Additionally, the ratio of long service troops to conscripts in those Iranian military services are very heavily weighted on the conscript side.
At best, the Iranians today are twice to perhaps three times as good in terms of their per man combat power than they were in the late 1980s.
IOW, any conventional land campaign against Iran will be determined by logistical issues other than those caused by enemy action.
The real question is how bad the occupation campaign will be after the Iranian military is defeated will be. I expect six months of unshirted hell starting roughly four to six months after major conventional operations are completed. It will trail off more rapidly than Iraq because 1) there is not as large a supply of IED materials, 2) we have a chance of getting the Iranian Army in with a interum government we set up and 3) due to the fact it is close to impossible for Al-Qaeda's primarily Arab cadre to hide in the Persian population.
Baluchistan, however, will be a bitch from day one. The locals there don't like anyone including each other and they are MEAN.
I have time for a long response at lunch.
Joe,
My concern was that the Bush administration would do nothing once Iran publically proclaims it has nuclear weapons, or pursue the chimera of revolution there until it was too late to prevent Iran’s public possession of nuclear weapons from commencing rampant nuclear proliferation. The Case for Invading Iran was written to influence the Bush administration policy debate obviously underway at that time. I was gratified to see that the Bush administration had chosen the regime change option shortly afterwards.
Ambassador Bolton’s Nightline statement indicates that the Bush administration has decided to use whatever military force is necessary to eliminate the mullahs’ threat. Other administration statements show that they are aware of the rampant proliferation threat (by other countries based on Iran’s example) and will use force to prevent that. The two together tell me the administration is committed to invasion if necessary. In my opinion it is necessary, and use of lesser force initially (bombing of nuclear facilities) will just increase the casualties and risk that the mullahs will use some of their small stocks of (mostly North Korean) nuclear weapons.
I am now confident that we will eventually invade Iran, overthrow its mullah regime, seize its remaining nuclear stocks and eliminate its nuclear weapons facilities. This will happen no later than six months after Iran’s first nuclear test or proclamation that it has nuclear weapons, which would be sufficiently swift to avert rampant nuclear proliferation. We might invade sooner, and will almost certainly bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities prior to invading. Our bombing will likely occur before Iran’s first nuclear test or announcement that they have nuclear weapons. The latter depends, as Trent’s Count Down to Iran's Nuclear Test pointed out, on whether Iran does that this spring or waits until the fall when they have enough locally enriched weapons-grade uranium as well as North Korean plutonium.
Everyone,
I did not have time (my article was written in an hour) to explain how Bolton’s comments were an irrevocable commitment to American attack on Iran, while doing so would detracted from my other points. Here’s the explanation now.
Those statements were so politically extreme that use of anyone more important to convey them (President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld) would have created a subtext of immediate military action. I.e., if any of those four say the same thing in the future, American bombing of Iran is probably imminent.
Our U.N. ambassador is probably the most suitable person to convey such a message without causing prompt concern that we’re about to attack Iran. Additionally such statements by our U.N. ambassador were also helpful in achieving our diplomatic objectives at the U.N. concerning Iran. Acts such as these are rarely done with a single objective – the same statement or act helps serves multiple purposes. People at the highest levels of government rarely do official acts for a single reason – among other things, that would be inefficient.
But John Bolton is an individual with a past beyond that of an experienced diplomat – he is beloved by several factions in the Republican base as an outspoken hardliner. He is a suitable person to use as a means of conveying Administration messages to those factions and the GOP base overall.
Trent pointed out that the Bush administration is at the moment in greater need than usual of support from the GOP base, so use of Bolton to convey his Nightline statements serves still more purposes. Trent is also correct that one of the multiple messages conveyed was “get off our backs on Iran – we won’t let the mullahs do a nuclear 9/11 on us”, but there were still more messages and target audiences, an example being what Walter Russell Mead called the “Hamiltonians” – “we won’t let the mullahs have nuclear weapons as the ensuing nuclear proliferation would destroy the existing world system and disrupt trade no end”.
But the critical point is that John Bolton’s special relationship with the GOP base is what made his statements an irrevocable commitment to attacking Iran. Those not familiar with GOP politics will not understand this. Those who feel the Bush administration’s lame duck status makes it impervious to pressure from the GOP base should consider the recent examples of Harriet Meier’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and the Dubai port sale. Rich Lowry said on this point today:Bolton’s statement, "Just like September 11, only with nuclear weapons this time, that's the threat. I think that is the threat,", is a potential weapon for the Republican base to kill the Bush administration with, and the careers of its officials, if they do not use military force against Iran once the latter tests a nuke or says they have nuclear weapons. Trent rightly calls that giving the GOP base a “hostage” for the Bush administration’s “good behavior” towards Iran.
Use your heads – world and domestic politics will change dramatically when that happens. What is not politically possible now will become possible then. For the Bush administration to fail to use force when one of its senior officials said Iran’s nukes are a” 9/11 with nukes” threat is politically impossible. Especially given everything else its more senior officials – Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice – have said recently. Those all point to the same thing, as James Klurfeld of Newsday pointed out in his article excerpted in my first response – the United States will attack Iran at some point – very likely in the next 18 months.
Once that happens the logic of war will take over, and we’ll end up invading and conquering Iran whether or that such was originally intended. In my opinion, Ambassador Bolton’s Nightline statement was evidence that the Bush administration is prepared to do that if necessary.
I have criticized the Bush administration’s failure to recognize that American public opinion is the center of gravity of the war on terror, and to foster the resolve of the American people to win it. That is because President Bush, as a big government Republican, does not believe the American people exist as an entity. I believe, as James Klurfeld said, that he is trying to build public support for an attack on Iran, but I also believe that his past failure to speak to the American people as an entity have led to their tuning him out. “They ain’t listenin’ ta’ ya’, laddie.”
But President Bush certainly believes domestic political factions exist, one of which is the Republican base, and those of its lesser factions represented by John Bolton. Bush and Karl Rove have repeatedly demonstrated that they know how to address and move these factions. Bolton’s Nightline statement is merely the most recent example, but it carries greater meaning than usual:
We’re going to attack Iran.
Doug said:
I take it you don't listen to talk radio.
Iran's nuclear program and Ahmadinejad anti-semetic rhetoric are staples of both the "political shock" talk show hosts and of the "christian information" stations.
Both information sources played a big role in mobilizing the Dubia port deal opposition inside the Republican base.
"As for Iran's "rugged terrain," undefended terrain and distance is no obsticle to the movement of the American military"
And if Iraq was a mountain with a slip in slide down to Iran (which was a kiddy pool) we could have a nice barbacue after the invasion/pool party. Unfortunately Iran is not undefended and supply lines through mountain ranges still need to be maintained in order for American mechanized forces to move.
"A little noted fact about Iran's military was that it it took 3-4 Iranians to match the combat power of a single Iraqi in the Iran-Iraq War of the late 1980s."
A little known fact about Iraqi casualties during the Iran-Iraq war: > 500,000.
Now I agree with most of the rest of what you said- but here is my question: how many US casualties would you be willing to absorb invading Iran? Now, im not asking a trap question, its very germaine. At some point, there must be a level of casualties that have made the consequences worse than the consequences of doing nothing, right? So if its 5,000, 50,000, 500,000- pick a number.
The next question is what are the odds of us exceeding that number, and/or something else horrific happneing because of our actions. Here we run into the elephant in this argument- the immuteable Law of Unintended Consequences.
Now the bottom line is, if you can look the downside of this operation in the face, accept the projected casualties best case and worse case, and are still think Iran is such a threat now that it is worth the risk, i have to ask this question:
If Iran is so dangerous, why dont we use nuclear weapons to achieve our objectives?
I am dead serious about this. If everything you guys say is true, why dont we spare ourselves the uncertainty of combat and use nuclear weapons?
As opposed to what?
Having to take an Iranian nuke at home via terror or in some Amnerican base in like Kuwait or Diego Garcia via an Iranian super-Scud?
Or facing Hobbsian world filled with a couple of dozen unstable 3rd world tyrannies with nukes and a police state at home to deal with the terrorist blowback?
You have a very narrow vision about the alternatives involved here.
The odds are over 50% that a war with Iran right now will involve a nuclear exchange. Better we take them out sooner with the nukes going off in the Middle East.
Remember, though, that the objective here is to end nuclear proliferation via regime change...and ensuring that the regime we change in Iran to will forswear nukes afterwards.
An American preemptive nuclear decapitation attack will guarantee that the follow on regime will absolutely pursue as large stock pile of nukes as is necessary to deter a repeat attack by the USA.
Trent:
"The Bolton statement was a promisary note to the Republican conservative base." Right. Because the Republican conservative base would be so damn tolerant of an Iranian nuke if GWB hadn't promised to oppose it.
Come on.
It's an important statement in the subtle game of signalling that is going on as a part of the complex and multilateral negotiation right now.
Calling it "Fifty-Two-Fifty or Fight" isn't supported by anything I see except your own desire for it to be true. Please step back from what you are so certain of and try and look a tthe data with fresh eyes.
All of us would profit.
A.L.
dan --
Iran's nuclear program dates back to the 79 Revolution. For decades it passed without incident, very covertly. Yet SUDDENLY Iran goes out of it's way to announce it's nuclear intentions, and provocations against the West. Even it's negotiators can't shut up about how they fooled the EU-3. Holocaust denial, conferences on ending the US and Israel's existence, "lakes of fire" and other transparent threats, funneling new and improved IEDs make absolutely no sense for a hostile and implacable regime that does not have nukes and the ability to hit the US or allied nation with them. [Pakistan and India and North Korea and South Africa and Israel and Brazil all acted very covertly in developing nukes up to their tests]
It DOES (the general posture) if Iran already has them. And feels it can posture to get the assembly line up and running under the protection of already existing nukes. North Korea made it's nukes to sell for cash; Pakistan may have also sold one. As a practical matter Oppenheimer did not test the "gun-type" Uranium bomb (that's "Fat Man" btw) because he knew it would work (and was also obsolete by 1945). You won't fit one on a ballistic missile, and they don't last long (about 6 mos to a year due to radioactive decay making fission super-criticality impossible) but one certainly could fit inside a semi-trailer from Mexico or a shipping container.
Iran is dead set upon and requires a nuclear confrontation with the United States because modern culture is destroying the rural, tribal, Islamic society that elected Ahmadinejad to destroy the West before modern culture destroys them. So we will get nuclear war with Iran. That's certain. Iran obviously wants ballistic missiles capable of hitting every place in the US and the implosion Plutonium style H-bomb since the idea is to kill America and every American possible before modern culture kills their society. They don't have either yet likely but are very close with an existing small but potent nuclear umbrella.
[Iran's population is NOT pro Western or Pro American. By and large the rural population hates America and would like to see every Westerner dead, same for every Jew. The moderate young people in the major cities are about as representative of Iran as Moveon.org or Daily Kos are of America.]
The only question is when. I don't think Bush will attack Iran, but wait for Iran to attack us which is likely within the next 18 mos or so. We will of course lose a couple of cities, about 3-10 million dead. But nothing more can be done with a Democratic Party and Media that does not believe America has the right to self-defense (or deserves to be defended). Not one single Democrat is pursuing the obvious line of attack on Bush (being to lenient on Iran and their nukes); instead Feingold offers censure for listening in on Al Qaeda. [Allowing Dems and the Media to dictate a "do nothing" attitude while putting Bush on the record as continuing pre-emption allows the blame for the US dead to fall on the Dems and Media. Bush will simply say "my policy would have worked but the Democrats and Media prevented it."]
Bottom line: IRAN HAS to destroy us, or our culture will destroy them. So we will get war, and the politics in America seem to dictate on Iran's terms.
Iran can create nuclear bomb.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060310/44153405.html
Academician Viktor Mikhailov, director of the Strategic Stability Institute of Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy, academic supervisor of Russia's Federal Nuclear Center (Research Institute of Experimental Physics), holder of the Lenin and State prizes, and minister of nuclear energy from 1992 to 1998, in an interview with RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin.
Key points: Iran is better set to design weapons in many ways relative to the Soviet Union.
Iran has heavy water production; has had it for years. Its new civilian plant will be a pressurized heavy water design.
Heavy water is virtually the perfect moderator and makes uranium enrichment quite unnecessary. The Nazi scheme was so crude that it would have killed the lab crew. They intended to lower, on chains, cubes of un-enriched uranium into a swimming pool bath of heavy water. A few simple changes later: it would work. That’s all there is to it. The killer for Nazi Germany: no heavy water. The Germans never even seriously pursued enrichment of uranium: too expensive and difficult. ( During the war, it was assumed that they were doing so.)
Transmuting heavy uranium up to plutonium is easy. It can then be separated by chemical means to yield virtually 100% bomb grade plutonium.
America used the Hanford plants in the State of Washington to produce the plutonium for Trinity and Fat Man. To show you how much quicker it was, it started later than Oak Ridge and produced two bombs to one.
Hanford used ultra-pure graphite blocks as the moderator. Power was never extracted. It was totally optimized for plutonium production.
The Chernobyl reactor type is but a variation on Hanford: steam power is extracted and they run hotter. Bomb grade plutonium is routinely kicked out of these plants, so much so that at the end of the Cold War tons of surplus plutonium was stockpiled. This in a nation that had weapons by the thousand. Much of this stockpile was weakly guarded.
Highly Enriched Uranium is the nuclear explosive of primitives. It is too expensive. It does make for a very simply bomb design. It was never tested before first use. Confidence was high.
Even Trinity was regarded as unnecessary by many. Every sub-component had already been tested and re-tested. The Oppenheimer crew never wanted to bomb Japan. Trinity got rid of one weapon and stalled the attacks. The war could’ve been ended months earlier. Tibbets forced the issue by sending the 509th to Tinian. That put the onus on Oppenheimer & Co.
It ought to be apparent to all that Iran doesn’t dare test her nukes until she is really ready. Doing so would give Bush & Co a green light to attack before enough atomic retaliation is available.
Folks, stop trying to come up with your own Iranian strategy. Just listen to what they have said, on the record, when they thought only loyalists were listening.
Paraphrasing:
First, they want to create an arsenal of a nuclear superpower, no nickel and dime operation. Anything less is suicide. At that level of power, they can sit at the big table and have complete freedom of action. Smart.
Second, co-opt or absorb OPEC. Smart. Extract semi-monopoly rents from your enemies.
Third, infiltrate all of the infidel lands with martyrs. Smart. Russian and Europe may fall into their lap. Run a protection racket to extract more rent.
Fourth, upon the magic hour pop everything at one go: and that means everything. Smart… all or nothing is the only viable path in nuclear war. Trading blows… now that’s suicide. The mullahs have no intention to receive any counter blow. With any luck a muslim can launch some missiles on America from Russia. It’s a ‘Terminator 4’ plot fantasy.
Whenever the button goes down, Iran intends to be the ‘innocent’.
The romantic idea that hard hearted mullahs with fat wallets and decades of effort with world class technicians and working blueprints can’t have yet succeeded: how precious.
The world’s intelligence services and the IAEA have a flawless track record in failing to predict the tempo or status of budding nuclear powers. Failure 100% of the time. How sweet. I read here on WOC that most are awaiting their pronouncements. Oh, well.
Well, maybe there’s one exception: Oppenheimer and his buddies did inform the Communists of their progress. But that was given to them on a silver platter. The Soviet Union didn’t penetrate Los Alamos… it came to them. The first Soviet bomb was an absolute clone of Fat Man right on down to non-metric dimensions. Likewise, the TU-4 was an absolute knockoff of the single B-29 that came into Soviet possession.
When the Cold War was over, the Russians started bragging about Oppenheimer. It cut -both ways: it embellished the KGB and GRU… and cut low the reputation of their own atomic bomb developers.
I know it’s hard to believe that J. Robert Oppenheimer was a Communist; just because his wife, brother, parents were Communists and Russian archives point to him as the man that gave it all up for them. But I’m willing to believe it.
The mullahs are anything but stupid or insane. They are radicals. Ahmadi-Nejad really is like Hitler: his presidency is more in the nature of the German chancellorship. It’s by appointment only. He has installed his personal buddies all over the active leadership of the country. His superior, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, apparently is in ill health: cancer. He has a replacement in mind, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who is as radical as they come.
Like Nazi Germany, Iran figures to mop up the weak states around them and leverage themselves up into true superpower. Getting America out of the Gulf is essential. The way forward is to wear down the American voter. It’s working, perfectly.
GWB probably IS paralyzed. The mullahs are not going to provide timely pretext. The MSM demands levels proof that are unattainable. Russia and China are determined to block further American hegemony in the Gulf.
The Rubicon has already been crossed, but the savvy non-scientists out there say it not. With no direct knowledge of the process, even an element of it, they don’t know what to think or when to think.
As to the notion that our intel is going to get this one right: then what of 9-11-2001.
The EMP story is just a scare. The mullahs don’t want to put our lights out. They simply want to blow us up.
A good example of that thinking was the attempt on Baghdad’s Green Zone. Obviously schemed by the Iranians and run through a front, the notion was to bag’em all. Such a stroke would clear the deck for an American humiliation and departure. Natch.
Individual responses:
#2 from Dave Schuler
Bolton’s statement alone is not dispositive, but it is in conjunction with similar but less inflammatory statements by more senior officials. See the second part of my #33.
Iran testing a nuclear device, or claiming it has nuclear weapons, would be the provocation you describe. I agree the Bush administration would invade as a first resort only in those instances. I and a whole lot of other people, such as Newsday’s James Klurfeld, feel the Bush administration will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities before then if the mullahs don’t test a nuke earlier.
#4 from Armed Liberal
Iran has a greater ground combat capability than North Korea these days. The NKPA is no longer capable of performing any mission beyond providing income for gangsters in uniform called officers. Its’s just a mob now (in both senses). That was clear years ago when conscript enlisted started taking their personal weapons off-base to rob civilians with, which included crossing the Yalu into Manchuria in small groups to rob Chinese banks. The People’s Republic of China was very upset about that, and moved another 100,000 troops to the Yalu to stop the bank robberies.
Anyone with Army or Marine Corps experience here will tell you the implications of conscript enlisted routinely taking their weapons off-base to rob civilians with.
BTW, North Korea’s nukes were tested – in China. They’re Chinese designs. Getting them small enough, and reliable enough, to work as ballistic missile warheads, is another matter. But they’ll work just fine when carried on airliners, freighters or as container cargo.
#7 & #21 from Mark Buehner
See the second part of my #33.
#12 from Doug
See all of my #33.
#17 from AMac
That is why I expect the Bush administration will just bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities first. It is Iran’s reaction to that which I feel will create public support for an invasion. This will change if Iran tests a nuclear device or announces it has nuclear weapons – those events will dramatically and swiftly change the political situation.
#19 from Colt
The Democrats contend Bolton has such a reputation as a means of creating the reputation. That is not how he has actually behaved. In any event his statement was targeted at the GOP base. See the second half of my #33.
#26 from Doug
You should get out more. In particular, you should read what President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice have actually said about Iran’s nuclear program, as opposed to what the Daily Kos says they said.
#37 from Armed LiberalIt is possible for the same words uttered by the same person to convey different messages to different audiences. I wrote the article above because there are many here who would not understand the subtext I explained. There are lots here who deny the BIG PRINT too.
"#26 from Doug: You should get out more. In particular, you should read what President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice have actually said about Iran’s nuclear program, as opposed to what the Daily Kos says they said."
That's actually pretty amusing. I don't think I've ever been to the Daily Kos in my life. And I'm quite likely to read the full text of a foreign policy speech by the three people you mention.
I do know that the invasion of Iran is going to take a political coalition that does not seem to exist right now. Yours is some of the most forceful advocacy I've read, but the public case for such an endeavor has not been made. The statements by the foreign policy principals are nothing comparable to those about Iraq in fall 2002. And the number of senators willing to support such a policy is nowhere close to the number that supported the Iraq resolution in 2002.
I could certainly be proven wrong, but I see no political will for such a war. And given that these are politicans we're talking about, I assume they know more than I do about what electoral consequences they'll face for that decision.
Doug,
I don't dispute that the political will for an invasion is not present. I contend that events will create that will, and those events are underway. Ambassador Bolton's speech was one of those. Iran's test of a nuclear device, or announcement that it has nuclear weapons, will be the last unless something almost as dramatic happens earlier.
The will to merely bomb Iran isn't there right now. Lots of people, such as Newsday's James Klurfeld, recognize that the Bush administration is trying to build that will. I doubt the Bush administration will succeed here (they ain't listenin' ta' ya', laddie), but they don't need to - the public is quite capable of reaching that conclusion on their own, and their discussion of the issue is underway on talk radio and elsewhere as Trent pointed out.
That debate is going on here too. I certainly hastened it a bit with The Case For Invading Iran. So is President Motormouth of Iran. Every bit helps.
Almost everyone only perceives the world as it is. Some can see it as it will be, and I'm one.
We're going to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. The mullahs will retaliate, and things will escalate from there (the logic of war) all the way to invasion and conquest.
IMO the only way that won't happen is if the mullahs do a nuclear test, or proclaim they have nuclear weapons, before we bomb them. Then we'll go straight in - bombing and invasion simultaneously no more than six months later.
Just for the record with respect to #39, J. Robert Oppenheimer's brother was a Communist but there isn't any evidence that Oppie himself was.
I expect to hear about Hans Bethe the communist any day now. Not because of new evidence, but because Bethe only died recently and finally can't sue for libel.
Russian post-Cold War exposure has destroyed this line of reasoning.
He's been outed.
Bohr's been trashed, too,
The Venona tapes have been devastating.
Worst, the Russian archives.
The most damning: Oppenheimer was the motivating player in establishing radio-isotopic sweeps in the North Pacific by air to detect the first Russian blast. At the time EVERYOTHER player was against it, all thought it a total waste of time.
When the first evidence indicating a blast was at hand the other two experts on his own committee dismissed it totally. Oppenheimer had to grind and grind on them to get them around to his point of view. They thought he was paranoid, but hey, its his reputation that'll be trashed... Oppenheimer was now reversing course realising that his faith in Stalin was quite misplaced.
After the bombshell went public Russian proudly stood up and confirmed it. Oppenheimer's peers were shocked. Russia had completed her bomb so quickly and with a destroyed economy. The difference: Oppenheimer had given Stalin the blue prints. Russia had no dead ends at all. Even their own national laboratory admitted that they had received COMPLETE technical readouts in a timely manner. Fuchs could never have had access to the range of materials in the Russian archives. Only one man had total free run at Los Alamos: JRO.
The Iranian president, as with Hitler and Osama Bin Laden told everyone in advance what they intend to do.
Bin Laden even declared war on the West and the USA in particular. The response - we need evidence of his involvement in warlike/terrorist acts against the USA. His word was not enough. Then came 9/11 qnd for a time things changed.
We are now back to the we need evidence of warlike/terrorist acts. In this day it is too late when someone sets of a NBC warfare weapon off in a suburban area.
What will it take for seemingly sane people to accept that maybe we should take the leader of a country, or a terrorist movement, at his word and act upon those words.
The difference: Oppenheimer had given Stalin the blue prints.
There is not a shred of evidence for this in the Venona decrypts. As a logical matter, the Soviets could have pieced together material from several spies (which we knew they had, and some of whom were of course apprehended at the time) and of course the work of their own scientists.
Have you got your marching orders on Bethe yet, or hasn't his obituary made it to McCarthy Central?
Here's a Fox Poll on the subject. I have no idea how reliable it might be, but it does confirm that the public is paying attention to this issue, and so means that some form of public debate on it is going on.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188116,00.htmlFull poll results in Adobe Acrobat Reader format at:
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/poll_031606.pdf
OOOPs
I erred in not being precise about the Bush administration's intentions in authorizing Ambassador Bolton's ABC Nightline statements here.
IMO the Bush administration did NOT intend that Bolton's statement be a "hostage" to the GOP base irrevocably commiting the Bush administration to stopping Iran's nuclear program by whatever military means is required when diplomacy fails. IMO it will have that effect, but not intentionally.
I feel the Bush administration was trying to convey related but less drastic messages to the GOP base, and screwed up. If anyone here feels the Bush adminstration is not capable of screwing up so badly, speak now or forever hold your peace.
I believe the messages the Bush administration intended with Bolton were:
And they went too far. I think. It's possible that they're that Machiavellian (irrevocable commitments of resolve are a known negotiating technique - it's classic game theory), but past experience makes it more likely that they simply screwed up.
It doesn't matter, though, that the Bush administration probably screwed up by giving the GOP base a "hostage" for the administration's "good behavior" (aka military attack) concerning Iran's nuclear weapons program. It will have that effect, and results count, not intentions.
The GOP base really will destroy the Bush administration and the careers of its officials if they do nothing after Iran tests a nuke or says it has some.
So we will attack Iran. It's just a question of when.
IMO the most likely scenario is that we'll bomb Iran's nuclear facilities and things will escalate from there to invasion and conquest. The next most likely is that the mullahs will test a nuke first, and then we'll invade. But it's going to be one or the other now.
http://heikoheiko.blog spot.com/2006/01/iran-and-iraq.html
(you've got to paste this back together, blog spot.com whithout a space between blog and spot doesn't allow me through the spam filter)
I've commented on the issue extensively above. I continue to support the liberation of Iraq, but take a rather different stance on Iran.
In summary, I don't believe it can be taken at acceptable military cost, either we are talking hundreds of thousands of dead US soldiers and trillions in expenditure, or WWII style carpet bombing resulting in millions to tens of millions of dead Iranians.
It's not just that Iran is bigger (for both population and land area it's about a factor 3) and militarily stronger than Iraq was in 2003, there's also the fact that the humanitarian argument is next to non-existent.
Iran is much better governed than Iraq was, there's no ethnic minority suppressing the rest. In Iraq the Kurds were on the side of the coalition and the Shia were at least neutral. So, the army basically just gave up and the original invasion of Iraq cost the US about as many soldiers as taking Fallujah did a year later.
In Iran, many, if not most cities, including Teheran, would be defended Fallujah style, ie taking them would require urban fighting.
There is a multiplier effect from not having support (international and from the Iranians themselves)
that goes well beyond the mere military strengths of Iran today and Iraq in 2003.
It's clear to me that no country would join the US and that the US would get kicked out of Dubai, Iraq, Afghanistan. They'd also lose basing and overflight rights in Europe, requiring them to invade from the sea with all the equipment being carted in direct from the US via enormous distances over the sea route.
France and Germany were opposed to the Iraq war, but Germany, for example, was still an ally and provided plenty of useful, valuable assistance. It would not do that in the case of an unprovoked invasion of Iran, it would tell the US to go pack up immediately and refuse them use of their airspace.
The US doesn't need foreign support to bomb Iran back into the stone age and subsequently take an empty desert, but it's inconceivable that they would do that.
For all practical intents, an invasion is impossible (barring an Iranian nuclear first strike).
My guess is that the USA is able to get the show on the road with two weeks or less of notice from here on out.
Neither side is stupid enough to announce a policy without means to back it up.
Tom,
I think Bush has been informed of how off hand statements can lead to war ala August 1914. Or April Glaspie in '90.
Thus Bolton's statement is no error.
Thus the war is on.
In fact I'd say it was already under way in the same way we were at war with Germany in the summer and fall of 1941. Probing attacks not quite rising to the level of a declared war. USS Reuben James DD-245 sunk Oct 31, 1941 with the loss of 115 out of 160.
Special forces will be whipping up unrest in the cities and keeping an eye on things.
#49,
Uh, I think France and Germany are edging closer to the USA position on Iran. Proximity concentrates the mind.
I do not believe either will provide troops. Neither will they squawk overly loud.
The Strategic Petrolium Reserve is topped off.
General Abizaid's statement on Iran of March 14, 2006 would seem to be timely.
They've got a similar position, namely diplomacy, ie trying to convince the Iranians to agree to some confidence building measures.
I think you are seriously mistaken, if you think Europe would merely choose not to supply troops, if the US chose to try an unprovoked invasion.
Germany provided considerable support in the case of Iraq. Britain even assisted with 40,000 troops.
I think that an unprovoked attack on Iran would be enough to get the US kicked out of Germany (and plenty of other countries including the UAE, Afghanistan and Iraq), and while they were still there they'd be grounded with flight rights being refused.
It's really quite simple, an invasion cannot be pulled off at acceptable cost and therefore it won't happen (barring a nuclear first strike).
blert #39 & #44,
Off topic so I'll be brief. I've read Haynes & Klehr and others on VENONA and can't recall any strong evidence there or elsewhere that Robert Oppenheimer was a Communist or a Soviet agent. Left-wing sympathies, yes. Party family members, yes.
Could you provide a mainstream reference in support of your charge of, effectively, treason against Oppenheimer?
Heiko,
You err in not examining the Iran-Iraq war. The Iraqis won equal force engagements. Basically equal numbers meant an Iraqi win, the Iraqis had a slight advantage when only moderately outnumbered, and the Iranians had a slight advantage when they outnumbered the Iraqis two or three to one.
The Iranians are wimps in stand-up fighting compared to the Iraqis. This was proved over and over again during the Iran-Iraq war. Their numbers mean nothing.
Iran's ground forces are less capable today than they were during the Iran-Iraq war, as they are far more politicized today. The pressure of war due to the need to win caused political interference in officer promotions and appointments to decrease. Since then the principal mission of the Iranian armed forces has been to not overthrow the government, i.e., military competence is a threat to the government, and all officer promotions/appointments are made based on political reliability.
You can deny the realities of third world armed forces all you want. Most of us here don't. Iran's ground combat capability is effectively nil - the most which can be said of it is that the Baseji and some of the Revolutionary Guard will try to fight (miserably, but they'll try). Logisitics and terrain will be the principal problems American forces have in conquering Iran, not enemy resistance.
A.L., - the ROKA alone, without our help, could occupy all of North Korea in six weeks. That's the U.S. Army's opinion, not mine. The NPKA won't fight - it exists only on paper now. The ROKA's problems will be logisitics and terrain, just as ours in Iran's, only North Korean terrain is far, far more mountainous than Iran's.
Back to Heiko,
We can conquer a lot more than we can hold. Our major problems in Iran will come during the occupation after the conquest, and the occupation campaign in Iran will make that in Iraq look like a walk in the park.
But our occupation campaign in Iran will be shorter in duration than that in Iraq, albeit far more intense while it lasts, because the mullahs' will lack the resources Iraq's Baathists had - notably significant support from adjacent friendly governments. Baathist/Al Qaeda resistance in Iraq would have been broken long ago absent sanctuaries in Syria and Iran, plus support from the Syrian and Iranian governments, and money from Saudi Arabia.
The importance of govt. support and adjacent sanctuaries is critically important in occupation campaigns. The Baathists and Al Qaeda had that in Iraq. The mullahs won't in Iran due simply to geography.
And Iran does not have even a tenth of the stored munitions which were present in Iraq to use as improvised explosive devices.
Tom,
there is no disputing that Iran and Iraq fought to a draw in the 80's. I would argue though that this was due to the fact that Iraq attacked Iran after the Islamic revolution had seriously weakened Iran, and Iraq had better access to modern weapons.
In 1990 it took 500,000 troops to liberate Kuwait and no attempt was made to take Baghdad. In 2003, Iraq had suffered from sanctions for over a decade and part of the country had already split off and half the number of US troops did the job.
Today, Iran's had nearly 20 years to recover from the Iran Iraq war.
I don't share your feeling that the Iranian army today is ineffective due to politicisation and weaker than Iraq was.
I believe it's much stronger, because:
1. The country is unified with no major ethnic splits and sectarian fighting (in Iraq it was only the Sunni Arabs, some 5 million people, that really had to be fought seriously).
2. It has had much better access to weapons than Iraq over the last 15 years.
3. It's a bigger country with 3 times as many people overall.
In my calculus that means the US would require 2 million soldiers to take Iran.
Iran would get plenty of support from its neighbours, if it was attacked without provocation. As I said that would include throwing American troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Dubai.
The difficulty is not in taking empty desert. That was no problem in Iraq even in 1990. The problem is taking cities when there are people strongly motivated to defend them in house to house fighting.
I believe that taking Iran will be the equivalent of taking hundreds of Fallujahs, and that the US army cannot do without the draft or bombing Iran into the stone age with millions to tens of millions dead.
Unlike you, I don't think the Iranian government is seriously threatened by internal dissent, and certainly won't be when the country is attacked. Iranian soldiers aren't just going to throw their weapons down and run away, praying for a new government (as most Shia recruits did in Iraq).
You say that resistance in Iran would need foreign support, something that al Quaeda had in Iraq, but the Mullahs won't have.
I think Iran will have much more support than Iraq had, most importantly, indirectly, through nations like Dubai or Afghanistan kicking US forces out.
You underestimate in my opinion how serious anti-US feeling would be, pretty much everywhere, and the degree to which this would motivate action that would hurt the ability of the US to conquer Iran without having to rely on WWII style carpet bombing (nuclear weapons wouldn't be required in my opinion, conventional aerial weaponry is quite enough to flatten a country to the point of no longer being able to offer serious resistance).
The US doesn't have enough troops in the region to successfully attack Iran. Worse, it currently plain just has not got enough troops to do the job, and even leaving Europe and Korea without any US troops would only give them another 150,000 or so, which would take time to move into the region.
I just don't see a realistic military option.
Heiko,
You said, "In 1990 it took 500,000 troops to liberate Kuwait and no attempt was made to take Baghdad" as if it meant something. Quoting a famous line from The Princess Bride, "I do not think that word means what you think it means."
Read these books:
How To Make War;
From Shield to Storm: High-Tech Weapons, Military Strategy, and Coalition Warfare in the Persian Gulf;
Getting It Right: American Military Reforms After Vietnam and into the 21st Century
and study this web site for months,
then get back to us.
Let's pause a minute and look in the mirror, after we have invaded Iraq, and while we are contemplating an invasion of Iran.
I hear lots of talk about what a peace-loving country we are, along with discussions of intolerable threats against the USA, and then practical discussions about how well an invasion of Iran would work out.
Way back in September 1939, Adolph Hitler gave a speech to the Reichstag on the eve of invading Poland. Some key paragraphs:
Today we know that Adolph Hitler was one of the great monsters of history, and it should have been the duty of every German citizen to resist him. But he sure sounds reasonable here, doesn't he? If you had been reading the German press at the time, and you listened to his assurances about all his efforts at peace-making, would you have recognized the evil behind the mask? Or would you have been a good German, and supported him in his efforts? (I can't be confident that I would have been able to figure out the truth.) But at what point would you say, enough? After Poland? Later? When?
Think about the many justifications for Iraq, and how it has worked out. Think about the grim scenarios proposed here for Iran.
How will history judge us, decades from now?
#49 Heiko Gerhauser -- I think your assumptions are off, considerably. "Hundreds of thousands of dead US soldiers?"
Really? By comparison in all of WWII, the US lost about half a million men. Or thereabouts. Iran has no mechanized forces to speak of, no air, primitive air defense, and very little experience in urban combat (of which the US is now the master, thanks to Iraq). The Iranians have no concept of and indeed cannot fight mobile wars, as they have deliberately hamstrung their military as in all Muslim nations except Turkey, to prevent internal coups. They can sit in their cities, impotent, while the US moves and destroys targets of their choosing.
Didn't the predictions of "Stalingrad on the Euphrates" show the utter folly of that kind of thinking? Baghdad fell with a few thunder runs. No army can stand up to HEAVY US forces supported by air and artillery. Human wave attacks will just get Iranians deader quicker. Spooky and A-10s are built just for that sort of thing; as are cluster bombs and napalm and other nasties. We could topple Iran with very few comparative casualties (we took something like 22,000 dead in Okinawa alone and 50,000 in the Norman Hedgerows). Iran simply isn't very good militarily. HOLDING the nation and logistics are another matter, but if the US wanted to we could kick the door down and break anything we wanted.
As for international reactions, I think you're being naive. Dubai's existence is only guaranteed by the US Navy. Absent the US, the UAE will cease to exist, gobbled up by the KSA, Oman, and Iran. Gulf states will make the usual hypocritical statements since they loathe and fear the Iranians more than we do (they are target #1 for Iran's Lebensraum and "Persian Empire, Part 3" project). Europeans will breathe a hefty sigh of relief, and it's dawning on some (like Chirac) that absent the US bailing them out of Muslim attacks they are indeed defenseless. Spain must be eying unstable Morocco with it's abject poverty and no military to speak of in Spain to stop a latter-day Moorish invasion and re-thinking it's American hostility.
Cartoon Jihad, Francafada, and all those very very poor Muslim nations across from Europe (rich, and defenseless) has Europe IMHO realizing they still need the US to protect them. If "France, Germany, and Spain kick us out of Europe" who will defend them from Muslims intent on getting rich by raiding them? Their militaries do not exist except on paper. [Germany is back-peddling as fast as it can after Schroeder ticked off Americans who want German bases closed.]
The other reality that is now clear is that Europe's military forces don't exist. Absent the UK not a single European country can move, supply and fight without extensive US logistical support, and the European troops excluding the UK could not fight their way out of a paper bag. Dutch troop's pre-emptive surrender in the Balkans or Germany's "run/hide" strategy in Afghanistan are good examples of this. Who cares if the Euro's don't send useless troops that only take up effort that could be used for effective fighting men?
The real politics are all domestic. Democrats would impeach Bush for attacking Iran (and perhaps Bush wants Dems to float this idea). Americans have hated and loathed Iran since 1979. Media and Dems have a stranglehold so far but NO ONE trusts Iran. However, I don't think Bush will attack Iran since he lacks political capital. Iran WILL strike at the US to destroy us; and of course our strategic nuclear forces will simply kill the Nation of Iran in response.
#57 Heiko -- Iraq's Kurds depend on the US for existence. The Shia want us around as insurance that the Sunni Baathist military cadres don't beat them when they've got the game won. Iranians are not Arabs, but Persians (and despised by Arabs). KSA is #2 on the Iranian Hit Parade and has been since 1979.
These are real interests, only the US presence in the Gulf has preserved the independence and regimes in the Gulf and only the US prevents the Shia in Iraq from being crushed by the Sunnis or the Iranians. Real interests talk, nonsense walks.
It's not central to my argument. The military costs I see are mostly to do with urban combat to take cities that are actually being defended seriously, the most relevant recent example is Fallujah.
But this is made worse, because Iran is actually not all that badly governed, and therefore the humanitarian case for installing a different regime is massively weaker.
That together with the military costs means less support, in the US, among Iran's own population, and among US allies and neutral countries.
And that reduction in support multiplies the military difficulties manifold. If countries like Iraq and Afghanistan refuse to be used as launching pads for an invasion, and countries like Egypt, Germany or Turkey refuse overflight rights, things are made that much harder.
It just cannot be done (barring a nuclear first strike), so the US won't try.
If the US did try, you'd find even me, a very pro-American German who continues to support Iraq's liberation, while 80-90% of Germans don't, wanting strong measures, such as booting the US military out of Germany, giving zero support of any kind, and actively making life difficult for the US by supporting other countries refusing overflight rights or passage (eg in the case of Egypt through the Suez canal), or even economic sanctions.
You do not appreciate the amount of anti US hate an invasion would create, worldwide, and that this hate would find an expression that would hurt, and hurt badly. And rightfully so, because the US could only win through instituting the draft (which is a non-starter anyway, but so is the whole idea of invading), or killing millions to tens of millions of Iranians through bombing the country into the stone age.
Jim,
in WWII the US was willing to use extreme force, including carpet bombing of whole cities. I've got no doubt that the US could turn Iran into a big pile of rubble without losing any soldiers, and without using nuclear weapons.
WWII did result in the deaths of tens of millions, roughly 60 million. The US only fought naval battles and air battles for most of the war. It only attacked a weakened Germany using ground forces in 1944 when the Soviet Union (which suffered 20 million deaths altogether) was attacking simultaneously. Germany at the time had about as many people as Iran today.
The US managed to lost 70,000 soldiers just taking the Huertgenwald/Dueren area, in spite of having used carpet bombing. Dueren was absolutely flattened in a fire storm caused by 160,000 bombs, and that on a town where at the time there were 20,000 people left in it.
A determined defense of urban areas isn't a high tech business. Small arms and determined defenders are all that's required. Baghdad fell because it didn't have determined defenders. Fallujah fell, because that small a number of insurgents could be handled, and that without flattening Fallujah without regard to civilian life.
Could special forces take a small area for a while? Sure.
Europe isn't defenseless. Apart from Russia and the US nobody has the military means to threaten it. Europe's armies may be poorly suited to foreign interventions, but they can easily repel a sea born invasion by any conceivable adversary (barring Russia and the US).
Kurds are treated well in Iran, and Iraqi Kurds have good relations with Iran. Much of the present Shia leadership spent years in exile there. They may appreciate US troops now, but they won't, if Iran gets attacked without provocation. Saudi Arabia has no plans to attack the UAE, nor is there any evidence that the UAE have to fear an Iranian invasion.
Germany is currently happy to have US bases, indeed, we appreciate having US troops on German soil. That would change, if the US attacked Iran without provocation.
Finally, I don't think Iran's going to attack the US or Israel with nuclear weapons. If it does, it'll be subject to regime change, but I don't think that'll be done with nuclear weapons.
Beard,
It appears you haven't read the links in the starting article, notably The Case For Invading Iran. Here is what will happen if we don't:Heiko Gerhauser #62
Comparing current American military operations to WWII… you might as well use WWI or the Napoleonic Wars.
Precision munitions have made everyone of your notions obsolete. Carpet-bombing is history. The mullahs deliberately will not invest in mechanized warfare: it’s nukes and martyrs for them. Smart bombs made the second battle of Fallujah totally one-sided.
Traditionally, mountains favored the defense. That is no longer true. They are a trap when you don’t control the air. Smart bombs can be delivered just as well in the mountains, ask the Taliban, and the effect is even more devastating. Why? Cause the cost of establishing fortifications is so much higher, their number is reduced. Yet that smart bomb comes right through the roof, anyway. A defender’s movement is constricted: lots of climbing to do. Yet the American assault flies right overhead to take even more advantageous ground. Any mountain defense scheme will fall apart fast.
With smart bombs and the USAF, America can waltz through Stalingrad in a week, and with shockingly low friendly casualties.
Without George Bush’s father, the world would still have two Germanys.
How quick they forget: America, best friend – worst enemy.
The plain fact is that Germany is the single biggest facilitator of the mullahs. She is selling the critical components to Iran’s oil and gas industry. Profits are FAT. Risk premium is high.
Bush’s biggest headache must be political. The MSM wants to run the war… into the ground. In that sense, his situation is very much like FDR. How Bush & Co convince America that it’s time to roll again… make the mullahs overplay their hand?
My bet is that they have learned from Hitler, and will not declare war on us, nor provide a clean shot like the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor. Rather, they intend to build and build their nuclear program – like the Soviets; and then pop it on us at one go – like the Japanese.
Once it’s obvious that they have achieved nuclear breakout there must be a tidal wave of followers.
Anyhow, it comes from the top: Iran is not for turning.
Heiko,
Your last statement is a non-starter in the US.
Finally, I don't think Iran's going to attack the US or Israel with nuclear weapons. If it does, it'll be subject to regime change, but I don't think that'll be done with nuclear weapons.
Why?
If the US or Israel was attacked with nuclear weapons the US people would lynch any president or remaining leader that didn't turn Iran and likely all muslim lands into glass.
We wouldn't give 2 cents for your reasons.
blert: The full story of the early years of the atom age has yet to be told. I believe the first Uranium "gun" bomb went off by accident at Port Chicago.
The Russians likely got info for their bombs from more than one source. I'm sure they were eager to get information from multiple sources before investing resources on such a project, Ivan being such an avid practitioner of disinformation himself. Nazis might have had the bomb after all.
Now, to the future: If there will be open war with Iran, based on Iran's nuclear capability, what does this mean for the enablers, Pakistan and China?
Blert #64,
Jim brought up WWII, pointing out how less than half a million US soldiers died. True, but the US entered the war late, never actually invaded Japan, and only entered the European battlefield when Germany's war machine was already decimated by years of air war, lack of petroleum and most importantly fighting with the Soviet Union. It also had no qualms about turning whole cities into piles of rubble.
Precision bombing requires knowing whether the target is civilian or military. That's the Achilles heel of all modern technology in warfare. Fallujah illustrates the limits of precision bombing. The US lost as many soldiers taking a single, medium size and logistically completely isolated city as it had in the original invasion.
As long as the US cannot use its full military might, to protect civilians, and the Iranian side knows this, guerilla warfare will be hugely effective.
The US must be in a position where it can credibly threaten turning cities into wastefields, if they choose to offer continued resistance.
The US isn't because it would be obviously immoral to incinerate millions of Iranians in an act of blatant aggression.
Germany's public, like indeed the American public, won't accept the indiscrimante slaughter of a people on flimsy pretexts.
The whole discussion is about a hypothetical invasion, though, which is impossible to execute and therefore won't happen.
In the purely hypothetical situation that the US leadership were immoral and willing to invade Iran, and the equally unlikely case that the US public would let them get away with it, when they realise what an invasion really means,
I think that all European, Mid East, Asian and South American countries would boot out US forces, refuse overflight or transit rights, would impose serious economic sanctions on the US (including an oil embargo) and most countries would support Iran logistically, and turn a blind eye to any more serious support to Iran offered by islamic countries.
#65
I'd think this would cause a serious escalation in the war on terror (ie countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia would be subject to regime change, with the credible threat of turning their cities into glass, if they refused).
It's one thing to conquer Iran now, and quite another to do so after having been the victim of a nuclear first strike (or at the very least there needs to be solid evidence that an Iranian nuclear first strike is imminent).
Im another one who arrived here from a link on DefenseTech.
Theres a lot of talk here that is quite hysterical.
The talk I find most hysterical is the talk that assumes that should the Iranians acquire nuclear weapons, the US will immediately be at risk of being attacked with them.
This is just crap. There really isnt a whole lot of deniability when it comes to nuclear weapons, and just as Russia, China, and a host of other potantial nuclear adversaries are detered by the 10000-weapon nuclear arsenal of the United States, so too will Iran be deterred.
In fact, the relative security of a nuclear detente may be exactly what is required to permit the Iranian political sphere to evolve into a true democracy.
Tom [#63],
You make a compelling argument, but there's a long history of compelling arguments leading good people to commit horrifying evil in the name of necessity. The domino theory and Vietnam come to mind, but so does the invasion of Iraq and the torture of captives in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
All compelled by a chain of reasoning that appears to provide no room for escape. So people who think of themselves as good pursue policies that could result in the deaths of thousands, perhaps millions, of innocent people in Iran and elsewhere.
What is morality? Morality is something that tells me that there are things I cannot, I will not, do. The kind of person I am, and the kind of person I want to be, would never do those things, so I refuse. If a chain of reasoning leads me to such a conclusion, then I know, from my moral foundation, that that chain of reasoning is flawed, whether I can identify the flaw or not.
I am trained as a mathematician, so I know about the failure modes of precise, hard chains of reasoning. Once you've reached the journeyman level as a mathematician, failures don't arise because you make a logical error. They arise because you include an assumption, a hypothesis about the nature of the world, that turns out to be false, and then you follow a valid chain of reasoning from there, reaching a false conclusion. Most often, something you consider negligible turns out to be important after all.
Morality helps protect us from these errors in reasoning chains, when we come to apply our reasoning to the world. If your logic leads you to a morally unacceptable conclusion, then you need to go back and look for the erroneous assumption. Even if you can't find the error, your morality can keep you from doing evil.
I've read your articles. You construct a compelling scenario. But it is certainly not the only scenario, and it may well not be the most likely one. There are many assumptions embedded in it about how other actors will behave, and what tools we do and do not have available to us.
Where your argument leads us, is to the United States launching a pre-emptive strike against Iran, causing vast amounts of death and destruction to a people who, by and large, currently think reasonably well of us, even if their leaders don't. (Not to mention the cost in blood and treasure to the USA.)
The bottom line is that you are proposing that the United States should behave in an immoral way on the world scene, in the name of necessity and self-preservation. We've heard that story before [#59].
There are other answers to our current dilemmas. Go back to the drawing board and apply your considerable intelligence, knowledge, and sophistication to finding them.
Heiko Gerhauser said:
I see that your grasp of Iranian demographics is matched by your understanding of US military capabilities.
The Iranian revolution is over and its popular fervor died with the 500,000 Iranian battlefield deaths in the War with Iraq. Persian Patriotic expression and willingness to die for the Mullahs are two very different things.
As for demographics of Persian nationalism, Iran is a 51% ethnic Persian Empire the way the Soviet Union was a 51% ethnic Russian empire before its fall.
The South East of Iran is Baluchistan and is filled with Sunni Muslim non-Persian Baluccis. The Baluccis on both sides of the Iran/Pakistani border are in open revolt against both governments and there was a report the other day that Iran's Balucci governor was heavily wounded and 22 other officials killed in an ambush there last week (I did mention the Baluccis were mean).
The oil filled south western provinces of Iran are filled with a majority of ethnic Arab Shia. Shia Arabs who are hearing how good their cousins now have it over the border in Iraq.
The mountainous Northwest of Iran is filled with a majority of Sunni ethnic Kurds. Kurds who are hearing how good their cousins have it over the border in Iraq.
This leaves out numerous other small ethnic and religious groups inside Iran.
There are also reports American Special Forces are operating in with the Arabs and Kurds inside Iran. Not the least of which from the Iranians.
There are implications in those demographics, and developments, if you are willing to see them.
Heiko
Are you suggesting then that the US allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons without any form of military intervention to prevent this, simply because we have not been attacked yet? Only then will we have Europe's blessing?
Is this your position?
I am glad to see more sources on what the Iranians have(fission vs fusion). Now let's get over being mad and live w/ it.
We can turn Iran into a nuclear wasteland but we do not have the troops to ran the country and we would have just as much centifrugal national forces if not more than Iraq. Israel has to live w/ it too and take our word Iran turns to the wasteland(this isn't pulling out three guys sitting in a jail or flying across a couple of states to bomb one site). Israel using nukes would turn the world into a total sewer because the genie would really be out of the bottle let alone to the problem w/ the Islamic world.
Living w/ it means talking to the Iranians. It really doesn't matter how far we get because engagement loosens lips and creates situations for further fragmentation within the power structure in Iran. That is progress and we see it publicly now w/ the engagement of the Iranians in trying to stablize Iraq.
In short lets put the bluster back in the box and start talking.
#72
The inherent fault with much argument here is the assumption that Iran would want to use nuclear weapons in a nuclear first strike. There is no evidence for that.
And yes, as it stands, without such evidence, Europe, rightfully in my opinion, will perceive a US first strike aimed at conquering and holding the country (which even without using nuclear weapons would kill millions or end in disastrous defeat) as evil and would take action to punish the US in any way it could short of going to war with it.
Fundamentally there is no humanitarian case for invasion. Iran is no worse governed than Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. In many respects, it's more democratic and liberal than Saudi Arabia (eg women are allowed to drive, there are more Jews in Iran than in all 20 odd Arab countries combined, minority religions are allowed to worship freely).
#71
My point wasn't that there were no ethnic minorities, but that they weren't systematically suppressed and that there was no widespread desire for separation.
Guess what, the supreme leader is actually not Persian, but Azeri.
I know that Kurds in Iran are well treated, much better than they've been treated in Turkey, and unimaginably better than in Iraq.
Kurdish and Persian are also closely related, as I know from a Kurdish Iranian friend of mine.
Arab speakers and Balochi speakers each make up 1% of the population.
I don't think that any of these groups would be neutral, let alone friendly, in case of a US invasion. And that includes the Kurds.
Beard,
For a mathematician, you seem to have a surprising problem distinguishing cause from effect, probability from magnitude, and the concrete from abstract.
Iran's mullah regime will lose power to domestic revolt within about five years - that and the aftermath will be far more bloody than what will happen during our occupation campaign.
The conquest campaign in Iran will involve trivial damage and casualties save to the regime protective forces - massive casualties and damage don't happen in American conventional operations anymore due to precision-guided munitions. Massive use of artillery and non-precision aircraft munitions ("dumb" aka "iron" bombs) in conventional operations, to the tune of scores or hundreds of thousands of tons of such munitions, had been the principal killers/destroyers.
It is less costly just to us in terms of money, and more efficient, to use precision-guided munitions to achieve the same results, not merely in terms of the production cost but in terms of the costs and manpower and equipment to deliver the munitions. That also brings the collateral casualties and damage way down - the conquest campaign is arguably less gruesome now, in terms of casualties and physical destruction, than the occupation campaign for everyone but enemy forces.
Your comment about casualties in Iran is IDENTICAL to the claims that American operations in Iraq inflict casualties. Both ignore the on-going human cost of those terroristic regimes - that American conquest and the ensuing occupation campaign actually reduce the casualties and physical damage of letting those regimes stay in power or what happens when they are overthrown.
You just want to blame us for what will happen anyway, only worse, if we do nothing.
That is because you want to blame us. You gotta big problem with cause and effect. Your politics and emotions override your math.
Furthermore the cost outside Iran of doing nothing here will far, far outweigh events in Iran. Nuclear weapons are much more destructive than old-style conventional munitions.
#72 Hikeo
The Iranian president had called for nuking the US and Israel and Denmark.
The Iranian people have grown up calling for death the Great Satan (USA)
So, are we not to take them at their word just like we ignored Osama?
Are we to die idiots following your morality?
The only other option would be to take out all the religous and political cadre and our CIA has never been good at that. (see castro and exploding cigars)
There is really no choice on the US side. Sucide is not an option.
#74
Thanks for the reply.
But, would not have taken Hitler out while it was still early to have been a better option than the many millions who died after WWII was in full swing?
Iran states pretty clearly that they view the U.S. as their #1 enemy. This is a country ruled by mullahs of the same mold who sent children in to clear mines during the Iraq/Iran war - I do not think they operate on the same moral plane as us.
They are also the biggest sponsor of terror against the U.S.
I think we would need a pretty air tight case to attack Iran - i.e. that we truly felt grave danger, but it sounds like you are stating that the U.S. should wait for it to be attacked with a nuclear weapon before we removing this threat, otherwise Europe will look on us with hostility, just short of declaring war on the US.
Heiko,
You should read the CIA Factbook more carefully. You focused on languages while ignoring the part labelled "Ethnic groups"
Iran has 3% ethnic Arabs of @ 69 million people. That is more than two million, and almost all of those are in its southwestern oil province where they form a majority of the population.
I suspect that the Factbook's reference to 1% Arab speakers, which is what you fixed on, may be an error. It is also possible that the situation is something like Hispanics in America, most of whom speak English, but less of those speak it at home in preference to Spanish.#78
as you say a pretty air tight case is what's required. It is anything but at the moment.
#77
Iran's clearly stated that they do not wish to start a war with anybody and that any move would be defensive. Iran hasn't attacked any other nation for territorial gain. Saddam did, twice.
There's zero evidence that Iran wants to use nuclear weapons in an unprovoked first strike, or that it is undeterrable.
People have argued that there'd be an arms race. Yet the only nation in the region that feels threatened is Israel, which (probably) has already got nuclear weapons.
People have also argued that Iran's support for suicide bombing as a tactic is a sign that they are undeterrable. Well, Japan used suicide bombers in WWII. They gave up in days after being hit by nuclear weapons.
Joe,
The drive-by sneers of the Defense Tech guys are not an advertisement for the place. While I realize that their behavior is not indicative, their attitudes reinforce opinions that Defense Tech is a place for conventional thinking and nothing but.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/arabs.htm
That's a better overview than the CIA factbook.
"In 1986 there were an estimated 530,000 Arabs in Iran. A majority lived in Khuzestan, where they constituted a significant ethnic minority. Most of the other Arabs lived along the Persian Gulf coastal plains, but there also were small scattered tribal groups living in central and eastern Iran."
"When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980 and occupied much of Khuzestan for nearly two years, however, an anticipated uprising of the Arab population did not occur, and most of the local Arabs fled the area along with the non-Arab population.
In contrast to the Kurds, the Arab population of Khuzestan stood firmly behind the revolutionary government. Iranian Arabs rejected Saddam Husayn's call to 'liberate Arabistan' from Persian rule and overwhelmingly opted to remain loyal to their country."
Some people even claim 4 million Arabs.
At any rate, what matters is that the vast majority of Iran's Arabs are highly loyal to Iran, and certainly won't fight on the US side in a highly hypothetical invasion that just plain isn't going to happen.
Tom [#76],
You're thinking inside a particular military box here. But when you wake up and realize that you're advocating pre-emptive strikes against more and more countries, whose governments have said nasty things about ours but haven't actually done anything (yet), you might want to wonder whether you're still one of the Good Guys, or whether you have somehow slid down the slippery slope and become the Bad Guys.
Obviously, it's not as simple as that. But this isn't the sort of morality that got the WWII generation called "The Greatest Generation". This is closer to the morality that they were fighting against. There's a reason why people around the world are now scared of the USA, where they used to admire us.
Yes, I believe we have to stand up against terrorists of all stripes. And yes, I believe our troops in Iraq are performing valiantly, in spite of the near-impossible situation they have been placed in by their superiors. (Read "The Charge of the Light Brigade" sometime.)
But explaining how surgically our precision-weapon strikes could depose the mullahs in Iran, given how well our quick success in deposing Saddam in Iraq has worked out, seems a bit short-sighted, doesn't it? Are you hoping for flowers and parades in Tehran, just like we were supposed to get in Baghdad?
There are ways to defeat terrorists. But the evidence from the last three years of experience is that we are not on the right track. It's tough to admit we've got it wrong and make major changes, but if we don't, we face disaster.
Joe,
I’ll answer your first question now that this thread is about to scroll off. IMO the most likely outcome is this one from The Case For Invading Iran (my emphasis):THEN we’ll invade. Iranian retaliation for the bombing will create the public resolve to invade. IMO the Bush administration is almost there, but they’ll take “counsel of their fears” until the screaming at them to stop futzing around and “just win, baby” gets loud enough.
Again, don’t look at things as they are now. Look at them as they will be after we bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, they’ve closed the Straits of Hormuz, and gasoline prices are $6-$7 a gallon. Among other things.
And, IMO, there is a 50/50 chance that they’ll get off a nuke at us. It might not hit, or even work, but 50/50 that they’ll get one off the ground at us, during or after our bombing, or during our invasion.
My analysis says the mullahs have a really good strategic mind, or group, devising ways of hurting us if we come at them by bombing or otherwise. A bombing campaign alone, without a simultaneous invasion, will give them every opportunity to make whatever it is they’ve planned for us work. It won’t all work, and probably not most of it, but enough will that we’ll be hurting.
But Iran’s ground forces lack the simple tactical or operational competence required to be more than speed bumps during our invasion. Their ability to engage in any kind of stand-up fighting against even marginally effective ground forces (Egypt, Pakistan, India) is minimal, and nil against us.
Our ground forces, however, will suffer an incredible strain during the 2+ year long occupation campaign even if the conquest campaign is swift. We have enough problems maintaining 130,000 troops in Iraq now. When the number required for both Iran and Iraq soars to over 300,000, unit rotation will effectively stop for the duration. We’ll have to call up most or almost all of our ground force reserves for the duration – about three years given training time before deployment.
There are significant legal issues with that. So here’s my big one, the one saved for last.
I feel our invasion of Iran will require statutory action to keep enough reserves on active duty for the duration, i.e., something close to, if not, a formal declaration of war.
I can hear the screaming now.
The Iraqi Army was infested with Baathists. It laid down rather than fight: smart. A new start was absolutely required, and has been slowed, due to the Baathist legacy.
Starting from scratch has been slow and naturally involved the maximum involvement of American forces.
Iran has bifurcated militaries: Regular and IRGC. It is already apparent that the regular forces have zero morale and will lay down. The IRGC will fight as best they can; not much.
After the mullahs are out, the Iranian regular forces can be stood back up in short order. No attempt will be made to create a new Iranian Army from scratch. The occupation of the land will by the Iranian Army, overseen by the US Army from a distance.
Politically, all that is necessary is to dethrone the mullahs, and eliminate their restraints on free expression and honest voting.
All of the above can be accomplished with the forces in theater. We're moving to an oversight role in Iraq already. Without continued Iranian funding and meddling the civil disorder in Iraq must collapse.
Syria is linked to Iran. Figure her to attack Israel without provocation to bring them into the war. The result will be a tag-team conflict that snuffs out both in very short order.
The clerics are wildly unpopular across the board.
If they should be so lucky as to mobilize the masses against America -- the war will be over before anyone can sign up.
BTW, the professional Iranian military judgement is that they don't stand a chance against the US Army. And that comes from the recently deceased head of the IRGC !!
I've read every single comment taking insight and gleaning information where I can, basically I see a "self sustaining circlejerk of postulation tm". Many of you are repeat offenders, ie, "repeat posters". I find this debate using delusional personal ideology and nonfactual evidence a complete waste of time and mental resources. The best answer 99% of the time is the simplest, "look at the way everything in your country runs, simpletons". These 85 "or so" comments were not needed "why?" because you are arguing, you cannot argue when you don't have facts, "especially the most important ones". It's like arguing that a fictional cartoon character that has never been seen is transgendered, now I can understand that part of the reason you are arguing amongst yourselves is because 99% of you are mentally unexceptional "hey, I don't make the statistics" "actually I do", and the other 1% of you are convinced of your mental superiority and want to impose your views/personal opinions/ideologies "without FACTS mind you". Let's get at the core of the issue shall we, let's look at the president of Iran, he said something about killing every jew/israeli in one statement and things of that nature directed to other countries in other statements. If you think about it that's a good thing, "bear with me" why? because he is being open, honest and vocal, "now we know exactly his intentions" smarter people "me for instance" would never had divulged any details of anything "unsavory" thereby giving me the upper hand. What he said may sound like genocide and mass culling of humans as though they are animals, but it seems quite obvious that those things can be said on levels anywhere from individual to leader of a nation on a world stage without punity "I will join the choir of verbal misgivings shortly ;)"
So he said that, what else? you say. Well the part about nuclear weapons, this is the issue as his intent is REAL and FORTHCOMING that will not change. There is a real simple solution to this problem and here it is, any country/nation that does not offer full transparancy with nuclear watchdog authorities should be invaded and/or destroyed and have a regime change. Nuclear endeavors/materials/weapons are one of if not the most important and dire issues facing our world today.The corruption in the world is monumental, failures in respect to all things nuclear seem to be systemic, If the world wants every nation/country/religious faction having nuclear weapons than just say so, don't stall, I want all out nuclear war right now, otherwise adhere to the rules/safeguards/watchdogs put in place, one or the other. Personally I see where this is going, every nation in the world is an example starting with the U.S and Russia, this is a trend which may lead to our destruction "hopefully" as I foreseen, everyone wants "the bomb" call it penis envy, a fashion accessory, what have you.
I've given the solutions to the current problems, whichever way the coin flips I will be happy, I am a desert storm veteran, and I love death/destruction. The U.S thought nothing of incinerating japanese women/children, the same for vietnamese, what makes you think they or other nations care about innocents. There's a time for killing and 0 hour is so near I can taste the charred flesh. Enjoy the lives you collective animals have made for yourselves well I watch the nuclear rain fall down upon the.
the tenth word in from the bottom I meant to put was "while
Time for your meds.
That was significant.
A.L.,
One reason for the Fat Man test was that many of the nuke scientists didn't want Japan bombed.
By testing they used up a weapon that might have been used on Japan.