As a pre-emptive strike, I’ll just say that I am surprised to see noone in this thread has yet raised the argument “Why would Iraq want nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, like they claim, when they are sitting on all of that oil?” I always love this argument because you just have to ask such a person: “Well, then, explain why the U.S. pursued nuclear power when we are sittin on all of that coal?”
Not that I am saying that we should trust that Iraq is not pursuing nuclear weapons and apply the necessary diplomatic pressure on this issue, but we also need to weigh the evidence objectively rather than jumping to conclusions, like we did so well with Iraq. People are very good at seeing the most nefarious purposes in other people’s actions.
My wife recently brought home an Atlantic magazine that was left on a plane. In it were two articles which were very appropriate to this discussion. Atlantic Online
[ul][li] The opinion of each person interviewed reflected their current status. Those who are in the government have a positive opinion of taking the hostages; those out of the government were either reluctant to speak or had a negative view of what was done.[/li][li] The Russian Embassy was an option, but the U.S. was chosen because the Shah had been allowed to enter the U.S. and the Iranians thought this was part of a plan to return him to power. They did not know he was dying.[/li][li]There was no intent for holding the Embassy for more than a couple of days. They knew it would be a popular thing to do, but had no idea things would get so out of control. This presented serious problems for the students on matters as simple as how to feed the hostages.[/li][li] The person who came up with the idea says that if he had to do it over, he won’t do it. The main reason he believes this and others agree, is that the people it brought to power have not been good for Iran.[/ul][/li]
[ul][li] Militarily speaking there are three actions that could be taken.[/li][list][li] Launch missiles attacking elite units of Iran’s army. Can be done independant of other two options and is the likely to cause the least problems. Would last about 5 hrs.[/li][li] Bomb all known nuke sites in Iran. This would last about 5 days and cause many problems. Could be done independant of other two options.[/li][li] Invade Iran, but stop short of taking Tehran. Requires the other two options being performed. The troops now in Iraq could be used, but a major problem would be in getting the machinery needed into the area. This could not be done without Iran knowing what was going on. The plan would be to get rid of the regime, but to then get out.[/ul][/li][li] One recommendation made was to have airfields built to receive the needed machinery, in case we decided to invade. This idea was discarded since Iran would know why they were being built.[/li][li] The possibility of letting Israel do the bombing was considered and instead a recommendation was made to tell Israel not to do it because:[/li][ul][li] Israel’s planes don’t have the range and would need to be refueled. This would require our support, which would be no secret to Iran or the rest of the world.[/li][li] If Israel didn’t get every target, Iran would retaliate.[/li][li] Israel doesn’t have all the needed target info, again would require our assistance.[/ul][/li][li] A very big problem is that at present Iran is not putting a great deal of pressure on in Iraq. That would change if we take any action against them, even building the airfields.[/li][li] The possibility that we could attack has to be kept “on the table” even though there is no good scenerio for taking such action.[/list][/li]
The list of participants in this war game put on by Atlantic was very impressive and I believe their reasoning and final recommendations are encouraging. It should be mentioned that they pointed out that this was only a brief war game. Within the government more detailed and various types of war games should be carried out. The bad news is that they seemed to question whether this was done before the action in Iraq.
I recommend anyone who can get their hands on this issue of Atlantic read both articles. I hope I haven’t done them an injustice in this post.
I wonder if the clowns running Iran today actually THINK about the consequences of this propaganda? Sure, most of it is for local consumption…but when they openly call for the death of the “Great Satan”, surely they should wonder a bit?
Take the example of Nasser and Israel. Before the 1967 war, Nasser was constantly making threats against Israel-he was going to “drive the Zionists into the sea”, etc. He then pushed the Israelis into a corner…then woke up one morning to find his airforce destroyed!
The Israelis may well have concluded that Iran’s threats are not idle…and the Iranians might have reason to regret this.
Well Nasser also massed his troops on his eastern boarder in apparent preperation for an attack on Israel. Nasser’s threats were less rhetoric and more policy statements, the Israelis attacked when it appeared he was actually going to follow through.
I’m sure the Iranians understand that when threatening the US verbally, its important not to actually threaten the US physically as well. If they massed thier troops on their boarder with Iraq and started chanting death to america, then they might have to worry about some preemptive striking.
And for the record, the Pres of the US did call Iran “evil” in a major speech, so the rhetoric goes both ways.
Bunch of Iranians screaming “Death to US!” ceased to be newsworthy and became a stereotype long time ago. If those Iranians want to get back in the news, they better sing “Yankee Doodle” or something.
Fitz, many in Iran who remember from 25 years ago are still pissed that the US imposed the Shah on them, after they previously and democratically elected their own government.
And these Atlantic war games forget one thing–the good possibility that all of Iran will resort to guerilla warfare in response to an invasion. Guerilla tactics have proven to be more effective than conventional attack/defense against the likes of Israel and the US.
Possibly true, but this will have a highly destabalizing affect on Pakistan-India relations. It would be foolish to do anything that would start another nuclear arms-race between those two.
Which, as an aside, could explain the current administrations insistence on January elections in Iraq. A pro-American government in Iraq, however, does not by any means guarantee a pro-American population OR, more importantly, a pro-American Iraqi National Military, which is what would be needed to bring any pressure on Iran from that direction.
I hope this administration figures that out before they start something with possibly disasterous results in that region.
U.S. policies in the Middle East inspire a lot of passion. It may seem odd from a westerners point of view for a lawmaking body to erupt in something so…colloquial, but that is just a cultural difference. The POTUS in his SOTU address called three countries Evil. People in the Iran, Iraq, and NK probably thought that was odd as well.
Well, they’ve already sortof got one going, but seem to be making progress on disputed areas. And since both are (and want to remain) US allies, they’d probably consult before using.
Well, it could turn out like Egypt in the 20s, when Britain declared them independent without negotiating clear terms. So you’d get anti-British gov’ts elected (yes, Egypt briefly had parliamentary democracy), but the British Embassy still called the political shots, the economy was controlled primarily by foreigners and there was still a huge British military presence at the Suez. I would imagine something similar happening in Iraq post-election, with the US exerting control through its embassy in Baghdad.
Looking at some maps now, it seems as though the US may have been planning to contain Iran all along, with the only possible barrier to this being Iraq. There is a CENTCOM base in Qatar, nicely placed at S. Iran along with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Iraq and Turkey to the west. Turkey may have issues with being used as a US staging ground, but the other sites could hit Iran from all sides except the NE.
It still looks strategically and tactically unsound.
Strategic:
1 - The U.S. is unlikely to get ANY Middle Eastern country besides Israel and maybe Kuwait to lend support for an attack on another Islamic country.
2 - There is no logistical means of moving the necessary number of troops and equipment into place without giving Iran months to prepare.
3 - The Iraqi insurgency would seize on the oppurtunity to swell their ranks and overthrow any elected government.
Tactically:
1 - The terrain would make it impossible to protect supply lines from guerilla style attacks.
2 - The population density in the east would make any assault from the Iraqi border an urban assault nightmare.
Now all of this could be negated by a sufficiently horrendous terrorist attack linked to Iranian material and/or logistical support on western interest. But that is going off into pointless speculation.
Not true, they said the invasion would be for regime change; that Tehran would not be entered; and we would get out very soon (nothing like Iraq). However, the reason that this and the other two military actions were ruled out was that the Iranians could give us serious problems in Iraq if they even smelled that preparations were being made for an attack. Iran could also put a hurt on us via oil supplies.
I also stated that I may not have done justice to the Atlantic and suggested that those who could should read the article.
