This letter was referenced in a GQ thread, asking whether it was real or not. I am not worried about the authenticity of the letter, but I want to ask, do you think the writer has a point?
There seem to be a number of points that, to me at least, are worthy of discussion:
Firstly, is it correct that without Iraq there is no one to stop Iran becoming the dominant power in the ME without intervention by the US and allies?
Secondly, the oil, if Iran controls the ME oil supplies will they cut off supplies to the US and the rest of the west? If so this is a very worrying prospect.
Finally, what could be done to prevent Iran becoming the dominant power in the ME?
I have put this in GD as I suspect that there are no actual factual answers available and that any responses may generate some debate.
The various wealthy and Sunni dominated countries of the Middle East aren’t going to let themselves be controlled by Iran regardless of the state of Iraq.
Also, the general in that letter seems to be a little confused about the dates of the war he apparently watched hundreds of thousands of people be killed in.
I don’t know the answer to your first question, however, as to your second:
Oil, thankfully, exists on the free market. Iran has to sell to someone, it will eventually get to the US or the West or whoever Iran doesn’t want to sell to.
As for you last question, we’ve been told by policy experts (in school) that a strong Israel, and now a strong Iraq, are to prevent anti-west domination in the ME. How sound that logic is, I don’t know, but the message seems simple enough.
I certainly hope this letter wasn’t written by a retired general because the level of ignorance it displays is frightening.
Iran is utterly incapable of projecting global military power. They don’t have the industrial base, the population base, the technological base – nothing. The best they can do is bully their neighbors. Even so, their power is limited. Iraq is less than half the size of Iran and the two of them fought to a stalemate. Furthermore there’s no chance of Iran engineering some grand Islamic alliance to attack the West. The region as a whole is just too fractious. Almost every nation in the Middle East has some form of internal sectarian strife. The idea that they could present a unified front is laughable.
So if Iran can’t attack the United States or Europe directly, there are only two potential threats they can muster. One is cutting off our oil. But that’s not a credible threat. As mazinger_z points out, oil is traded on the free market. If Iran stops selling to us we can start buying from whoever they ARE selling to. Adding another middle man will increase the price marginally, but by nowhere near the price jumps we’ve already seen over the past year. They can’t stop selling entirely. That would destroy their economy as well. The have to sell it to someone. And if it’s on the market, we can buy it.
The other threat is the threat of terrorism. Iran can’t attack us with conventional military forces. However they could smuggle a nuclear bomb into one of our cities and detonate it. The question is, why would they want to? A sovereign nation isn’t like a terrorist organization. Iran can’t go into hiding until the heat dies down. A nuclear attack on an American or European city would be answered in kind followed by the immediate military conquest of Iran. (Because we, unlike Iran, CAN project global military power.) From their perspective a terrorist attack is all downside and no upside. (Which is the same calculus we used with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.)
Overall the piece is poorly reasoned and displays a tenuous grasp of geopolitical reality. I also find it particularly rich that in one paragraph he bemoans the lack of bipartisanship in Washington and then spends the next five paragraphs excoriating the Democrats. :rolleyes:
I’ve not got anything much to add really, it looks like it may be made up after all as it would be very concerning for an American General to display this approach.
Iran was actually set up to be the dominant power in the middle east, primarily as a bulwark against the then soviet union, then the shah was deposed, the soviets had their boy in Egypt before Sadat kicked em out and went hat n hand to the US.
So policy for the last several decades has been to have a ying/yang balancing act so that no one could effectively start a pan arab movement.
More like controls access to those oil supplys, if the oil is coming out in tankers from the straight of hormuz. During the missile phase of the Iran/Iraq conflict, insurance companies refused to insure tankers that were transiting the straight, leading the US to reflag several Kuwaiti tankers.
Rich countries have options and can pay what ever the price is on the open market , but for poorer countries it can effectively wreak havoc on their economies. Given a prolonged boycott or siege a lot of brushfire situations might crop up which is a bad thing in the global market as countries scramble to find alternate sources of fuel by what ever means possible.
What we are doing now works, carrot/stick and they are fully aware of other options. Soon enough the wheel will turn and we get someone that wants reproachment.