Via Allah at Link Mecca, a chilling foray into speculative history by Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University. From the Telegraph UK:
Are we living through the origins of the next world war? Certainly, it is easy to imagine how a future historian might deal with the next phase of events in the Middle East:
With every passing year after the turn of the century, the instability of the Gulf region grew. By the beginning of 2006, nearly all the combustible ingredients for a conflict – far bigger in its scale and scope than the wars of 1991 or 2003 – were in place.
The first underlying cause of the war was the increase in the region’s relative importance as a source of petroleum. On the one hand, the rest of the world’s oil reserves were being rapidly exhausted. On the other, the breakneck growth of the Asian economies had caused a huge surge in global demand for energy. It is hard to believe today, but for most of the 1990s the price of oil had averaged less than $20 a barrel.
A second precondition of war was demographic. While European fertility had fallen below the natural replacement rate in the 1970s, the decline in the Islamic world had been much slower. By the late 1990s the fertility rate in the eight Muslim countries to the south and east of the European Union was two and half times higher than the European figure.
This tendency was especially pronounced in Iran, where the social conservatism of the 1979 Revolution – which had lowered the age of marriage and prohibited contraception – combined with the high mortality of the Iran-Iraq War and the subsequent baby boom to produce, by the first decade of the new century, a quite extraordinary surplus of young men. More than two fifths of the population of Iran in 1995 had been aged 14 or younger. This was the generation that was ready to fight in 2007.
[…]
Only one man might have stiffened President Bush’s resolve in the crisis: not Tony Blair, he had wrecked his domestic credibility over Iraq and was in any case on the point of retirement – Ariel Sharon. Yet he had been struck down by a stroke as the Iranian crisis came to a head. With Israel leaderless, Ahmadinejad had a free hand.
As in the 1930s, too, the West fell back on wishful thinking. Perhaps, some said, Ahmadinejad was only sabre-rattling because his domestic position was so weak. Perhaps his political rivals in the Iranian clergy were on the point of getting rid of him. In that case, the last thing the West should do was to take a tough line; that would only bolster Ahmadinejad by inflaming Iranian popular feeling. So in Washington and in London people crossed their fingers, hoping for the deus ex machina of a home-grown regime change in Teheran.
This gave the Iranians all the time they needed to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium at Natanz. The dream of nuclear non-proliferation, already interrupted by Israel, Pakistan and India, was definitively shattered. Now Teheran had a nuclear missile pointed at Tel-Aviv. And the new Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu had a missile pointed right back at Teheran.
The optimists argued that the Cuban Missile Crisis would replay itself in the Middle East. Both sides would threaten war – and then both sides would blink. That was Secretary Rice’s hope – indeed, her prayer – as she shuttled between the capitals. But it was not to be.
The devastating nuclear exchange of August 2007 represented not only the failure of diplomacy, it marked the end of the oil age. Some even said it marked the twilight of the West. Certainly, that was one way of interpreting the subsequent spread of the conflict as Iraq’s Shi’ite population overran the remaining American bases in their country and the Chinese threatened to intervene on the side of Teheran.
Yet the historian is bound to ask whether or not the true significance of the 2007-2011 war was to vindicate the Bush administration’s original principle of pre-emption. For, if that principle had been adhered to in 2006, Iran’s nuclear bid might have been thwarted at minimal cost. And the Great Gulf War might never have happened.
When is it okay—finally, irrevocably, without guilt, and (most importantly) publicly—to engage in a serious and potentially impolitic global discussion of the empirically extant cultural differences that actually do exist in this world, not as some racist fantasy conjured up by self-justifying hegemons looking to colonize the Other, but as extraordinarily dangerous and blindingly obvious systemic geopolitical flaws, some of which are ideological in nature (and so are potentially remedied by diplomacy, sanctions, or a concerted effort to infect them and weaken their resistance to enlightenment ideals by introducing into their ordinarily self-contained systems competing viral memes), others of which are irredeemably structural in nature, and so can be defeated only by the kind of honest and assertive use of massive force that a sizeable coalition of likeminded and singularly committed foreign policy idealists are willing to bring to bear to defeat them—a coalition of the serious and the willing who recognize that failure to take action now will result in far greater tragedy down the line?
Has that moment finally arrived? Or will modern history continue to buck the catastrophic odds and withstand, yet again, what is beginning to look like the perfect storm of nuclear exchange and consequent global power shift?
Who knows? But Chinese cars suck, man (in fact, they’re called fucking bicycles, last I checked), and while I’m a big fan of the Russian vodka, standing in line for toilet paper ain’t quite the same as playing Halo II on a 60” HDTV in my quiet little non-radioctive mountain town…*
Discuss?
****
Related.
Halo 2 sucks!
Normally, as an unreconstructed von Ranke-type historian, I frown on Niall Ferguson for his use of counter-factuals – it’s hard enough, if not impossible, to establish matters wie es eigentlich gewesen, let alone to posit what might have occurred. But here, that luxury doesn’t exist – Ferguson’s picture of a possible future is too chillingly plausible.
However, could China, or Putin’s Russia, for that matter, perhaps factor in here in a manner not anticipated by Ferguson? That is, that they might perceive their continuing interest in keeping the oil flowing as a cue to clamp down on Iran, or even arrange unpleasant “accidents” for Ahmadi-Nejad and various Mullahs?
I know – I’m probably whistling in the dark there.
How many problems in this world could have been and could be solved simply by taking what people say as what they mean?
It would certainly … clarify the problem we have right now. I’m perfectly willing to treat Ahmanidejad with the respect needed to believe every word he says. The Europeans, for one, could do with a good dose of taking other people seriously.
I guess I’m just not as nuanced as John Kerry, who said he voted to approve the President’s authority to take action on Iraq because he never thought Bush would use it for anything but a threat.
Which is either a lie or stupid. Or I guess it could be a stupid lie.
Steven – I take the Iranian leader at his word. I have no doubt whatsoever that he wants to annihilate Israel with a fanatical hatred hard for Americans to process.
Longest sentence ever.
……;;;;;;;,,,,,,,:::::::…..—
There ya go. Put ‘em wherever you need ‘em.
; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends th’ ingredience of our poison’d chalice
To our own lips.
The problem is that some of us have reached that point, and likely some others never will.
There are those whose entrenched ideology will not allow that such difference can exist between nations (though evidently they can exist between parties, if the more hostile posters on Huffington and Kos are not merely trolls. The rarity of acting out on the threats suggests that those beliefs, if held at all, are held only in theory.
In any case, here we are, discussing it. I could hope that if the discussion becomes wide enough, and the screaming voices against the discussion is not loud enough, that the seriousness will cause reflection among those in the “other camp” (those Jonesing for the Caliphate, not those Jonesing for Anything But The West, that would be the Screamers).
If the threat of even more determined force causes moderation, it’s all good. If it causes a “hardening of views,” then fears of a self-fulfilling prophecy will have come true.
But that shouldn’t stop the policy any more than a drowned rescuer is proof that all children stranded in floods should be left to die. It’s a risk, and you can’t avoid risk. Nor can we avoid the decision we’re talking about here – how to control the nuclear monster growing in Iran.
If we do nothing, Iran develops and in all likelihood uses a nuclear device, at the least killing a large number of people, at the worst triggering a conflagration that will leave billions dead and, ironically in the face of the desires of the apocalyptic Jihadis, knocking human progress back at least hundreds of years (though recovery will probably be swift, the consequences are literally unimaginable).
We don’t want that, obviously.
If we appease Iran, same thing, maybe faster.
If we clobber them, we could end the threat and bring moderation to the region, or we could trigger a new cold war, possibly in an unpleasant “US against the world” scenario, or at worst, well, same as the above.
Basically, the situation sucks. But we’re stuck with it, and we have to assess it as honestly as we can, run the “numbers” and pick the alternative that makes the best sense.
A rogue state, with a history of supporting terror, brutal suppression of dissent, and violent and bombastic threats, is on the verge of having a nuclear weapon.
We will either deal with it before or after the bomb goes off.
But we will have to deal with it.
Hmmm.
1. Russia is Iran’s military weapons vendor so there’s little doubt the Russians will back Iran. In fact a very very big problem right now is that Russia agreed to sell Iran about 30 SA-15’s. These are very capable SAMs that are supposed to be able to hit just about anything. It’ll make the job of taking out these nuclear facilities a real bastard of a job for anybody, and it might even require stealth aircraft to do the job.
So America might get stuck with Europe’s fucking butcher’s bill yet again because of those bastards.
No idea what’ll happen if American aircraft hit those nuclear sites. If there’s a lot of collateral damage to the civilian population then it might incite the Shia’a.
Any way you look at it America is going to end up bleeding because of the feckless Europeans. And these fuckers are our allies.
Frankly I’d prefer to stay out of this fight. Let the Iranians get their nuke. Let the Iranians threaten the shit out of Europe. Maybe Iran will launch on Israel. Maybe not. Maybe we should rip up NATO and tell the EU that they’re on their own. This is a problem of their making so it’s time they stood themselves up and showed the world just how much of a fucking “counterweight” they are.
And if they can’t do the job or fuck it up, then that’s their problem.
…
I know it’s unrealistic. It just really fucking pisses me off that every time the fucking Europeans shit on the world it’s America that has come on over with a broom to clean it up. Just about every single problem you’ll find in the world today is the fault of some European country or another. It’s time they paid the price instead of American soldiers.
Okay, that should be “bombastic threats of violence.”
Violent threats? What was I thinking?
I predict no “Great War of 2007.” I think the Iranians will overthrow the mullahs with help from mostly grey-haired men who wear nondescript desert cammies and speak Farsi with Louisianan, Texan, and Oklahoman accents.
It’s already begun: mass strikes daily in Teheran; open celebration of Zoroastrianism; protest marches; mysterious groups of armed men descending on villages and leaving weapons in their wake, etc.
Funny: I was talking to my 78-year-old father today about the B-36 bomber, known as the “Magnesium Overcast” because of its enormous size. We discussed how in the late forties and early fifties, our presidents made no bones about what they’d do to defend us. They ordered great machines of annihilation to be built and shown to the world as a warning. In the arena of national defense, our politicians and intelligence services generally stood shoulder to shoulder with the president.
Poor President Bush. He took office in an era of greater danger than the Cold War, yet half the country and most of the world is fighting tooth and nail to prevent him from defending us. “Decorated war heroes” and the leadership of the opposing political party now use rhetoric indistinguishable from that of our mortal enemies.
Dad is pretty bummed at how it all turned out.
Ed Said:
Wherever did you get that idea from? Allies? Europe?
They’re not allies, they’re senile grandparents who go outside in their pampers in the middle of the night and throw rocks at passing cars (being driven by gansters).
Then we have to fight off the gangsters, save the grandparent (who screams at us and hits us), explain it to the cops, and the neighbors hate us because we “caused” the problem.
I can understand your feelings, though, Ed. Send ‘em to a rest home, move and don’t leave a forwarding address.
But the gangsters are still there… in fact, when you kicked grandpa out, they moved into his attic.
Sucks.
Tom W. Said:
You’re an optimist. I like optimists.
I’ve dreamed of what a truly free Persia would be like. It’s always uncertain what will happen in the real world, especially with people like the Mad Mullahs around to make things difficult, but it could be such a beautiful place.
Channeling Mark Twain?
I’m not sure which scares me more; the idea that a Great War is a short 12-18 months away, or the fact that Jeff wrote an entire paragraph using only one sentance – and I understood it.
1)If China takes over, there will be no toilet paper. And the toilets will be squatters. So on that point, I vote for Russia.
2)If Iran takes over the world, the price of Persian rugs will be substantially lower.
3)Do you watch Desperate Housewives? In season 1, Lynette chastises Bree VandeKamp for spanking Lynette’s children while babysitting them. Later, when Lynette’s kids are running wild under her own watch, she threatens that if they continue to misbehave, Mrs. VandeKamp will come over and spank them. I think that sums things up pretty well.
4)I feel, with no rational reason for feeling so, that we’ve been on the brink of an all-encompassing war many times before (S Korea/N Korea standoff in the 90’s, Pakistan vs India standoff in 2002) and that this is going to end up better than it seems now.
I laughed out loud! That was funny.
On a more serious note, we have the same problem with Iran as we had with Iraq. The.Very.Same.
The Chinese and the Russians have enormous economical ties to Iran and in all liklihood will block any meaningful sanctions. As ed noted, the Russians are tied in with weapons and are basically desperate for dollars. They are not concerned about the oil in the ME as they have a plentiful supply. A reduction in oil output would inevitably put dollars in their pockets.
The Chinese, short sighted as they are, are tied into Iran because of the oil. They have something like a $15 billion contract with Iran to supply oil for the near term and have agreed to explore and develop Iran’s undeveloped oil reserves. The Chinese need Iran’s oil and they need it today.
With all of that in play, I do not see the sceanario above. I have said all along (and I’m sticking to it) that Israel will not allow Iran to have the bomb. Israel knows that its very existence would be in jeopardy. It knows that taking out Iran’s nuke capability would, in all liklihood, start a war that would end up with all of the ME against it. But that would be a war with conventional weapons and at least give Israel a chance at surviving.
The alternative, to them, is unthinkable.
I think the more realistic scenario is the Iranians find an excuse to lob a nuke into Tel Aviv in response to an Israeli “provocation”. Europe will not back Israel under any circumstances (no matter how lame the “provocation may have been). How does the U.S. react to that scenario?
They have to get the “nuke” first. I don’t see Israel letting that happen.
Replace the above two countries with the “USA” and “Saudi Arabia/Venezuela/etc. and you’ve got the same problem. This is one of the things I cringingly find myself agreeing with the Moonbats on(and that hurts me on many levels. We should be playing both Offense, (taking out Terrorist Strongholds, bombing facilities, winning hearts and minds) as well as Defense, (Patriot Act, monitoring bad guy transmissions AND weening ourselves off foreign oil producers). I get sick of having to suck up to these clowns and being forced to form our foreign policy around protecting corrupt regimes as well as the oil supply. You are always in a far more powerful position if you can convince the other guy that you REALLY don’t need what he is selling, BUT if the price is right and you feel like being cordial,you might buy his crap. If we could work towards putting ourselves in such a position, we then could say: “You know what? Screw it, you Europeans handle things, we’re all set over here. It’s happening in your neck of the woods, deal with it.
Sorry, folks. The point of no return has been passed. If there are historians of the future who are interested they may be able to pinpoint exactly when that happened, but it was such a slow indecisive drift that crossing the invisible line had no obvious, immediate effect.
The mullahs are gonna nuke Israel. The Israelis don’t have the muscle to prevent that, and the U.S. isn’t gonna try. We can bitch at one another about why that’s tru, but the only useful questions are when, what the result will be, and what else they’ll do.
“When” can be partially answered—on or after Jan. 20th, 2009. At the moment the attack is being held off by European bigotry and the resulting uncertainty. The mullahs don’t really mind getting Tehran wiped off the map, and don’t really believe anyone will do that anyway, but they don’t consider it a desirable outcome. The Euros keep telling people George Bush is a low-caste nutcase prone to knee-jerk violence, and that makes Ahmadinejad’s puppet-masters uncertain enough to hold off. If the next President is Jimmah II the attack could come while George is on his way back to Crawford from the swearing-in ceremony.
Will the attack succeed? In a way that isn’t important—the result could be anything from the annihilation of Tel Aviv to a successful interception resulting in largely-inert wreckage somewhere in Jordan. Either way neither the Euros nor the American Left will tolerate any kind of useful retaliation.
The useful question is what else they will do. If we go with the scenario often suggested in Iraq—moving US troops to enclaves outside populated areas as a quick-reaction force—there’s a good chance you can kiss them goodbye. We here in the continental U.S. are out of range of missiles, but there could be some smuggling and likely will be. It depends on how many “packages” the mullahs have. But will they go after Europe, pur encourager les autres? I dunno. But I wouldn’t move to Vienna any time soon.
Regards,
Ric
I wonder if maybe Machiavelli had a handle on this: one does not avoid a war, one only postpones it – to the benefit of one’s enemy.
If a man walks into a gun store in a rage, announces loudly several times for all to hear that he intends to go home and kill his neighbor – then the gun store owner proceeds to sell him a weapon and ammunition and the man does in fact go home and kill his neighbor would society not hold the gun store owner to account?
Is the world going to hold Russia, China, and NK to account for their role in Iran’s development of a missile capable of hitting Israel? Not. Is the world going to hold Russia to account for their transfer of nuclear technology to Iran? Not.
Now Russia is selling Iran advanced AA missile systems that are potentially capable of intercepting even cruise missiles. Thanks Al Gore.
How about that? When American airmen are killed in Iranian airspace their grieving families can thank Al Gore. “Gore’s office was not available for comment.†Gee, you think?
I think this conflict is inevitable and will occur within 6 months. The EU3 has had its shot and failed miserably. Any toothless sanctions are going to hurt the Iranian people more than the mad mullahs.
I see a 3-4 day bombing campaign against the nuclear sites, military targets, and even the mullahs themselves. Hundreds of cruise missiles and air strikes by stealth fighters (possibly even the new Raptor? Keep an eye on the 27th Fighter Squadron) to take out their air defense. Several days of bombing by conventional bombers once the AA is taken out and air superiority is acquired. Probably some special ops against the more hardened targets.
Obviously we’ll try to protect the civilian population as much as possible. Initial bombing will stay away from any targets close to population centers while we flood the airwaves telling civilians to clear out. Hopefully the country will use the opportunity to institute regime change. Hopefully that change will consist mostly of collecting mullah body parts and hosing down the walls. I agree with analysis I’ve read around the ‘sphere that it is going to be a tightrope walk to do what we need to yet keep the general population from aligning behind the mullahs in the spirit of nationalism.
It’s going to be a bitch of a year.
Don’t let Ted Stevens hear about any whacko citing oil dependency as a cause for WWIII.
He – will – kick – some – ass.
Then he’ll travel the country and give a play by play to the consituents.
If the “world community” won’t enforce the Non-Proliferation Treaty, then of what use was the vaunted four-decades long charade? I’m referring to the entire, drawn-out PROCESS: all the negotiations, trans-Atlantic delegations, press releases, photo-op’s, Presidential Addresses, even the friggin’ signing ceremony, then the execution of any regularized (should I say Elbaradeized) “enforcement” regimes.
In 2006 it looks like the heralded “NPT” doesn’t even bloody exist.
In terms of US “SE Asian strategy” keep in mind:
No oil=no Iranian economy. No U.S. trade=no Chinese economy. China won’t kill its milk-cow, and Iran’s single commodity economy is vulnerable.
-Steve
WWIII? IT’S ALL BECAUSE THE GODDAMN BRITISH COLONIALIST SOUTHERN BAPTISTS! AND IRANIAN TEA TRADE!
tw: Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Winston.
An Israeli preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear assets will be limited in scope and in all likelihood be conducted using conventional weapons.
A retaliatory strike? Try over one hundred tactical fission weapons and a smaller number of fusion weapons scattered across every Arab capital, key population and infrastructure target. They will target agriculture, water production/delivery, ports, and especially oil production/delivery nodes.
One tactical nuclear bomb inside of Israel could make the country impossible to defend, not to mention unlivable. It doesn’t even have to be “dirty” to achieve that end… but it will in all likelihood be as dirty as the mullahs can make it.
Just about every Israeli weapon will be cobalt or strontium jacketed. They will be fuzed for what is called a “high graze” detonation in order to generate a substantial footprint of persistant (as in centuries-long)lethal contamination.
It may well be the end of Israel, but they will not go alone gently into the darkness. There is no favorable end game for calculating Russians or Chinese here. I harbour small hope that they may have thought this through. Small hope, but it is there.
Or… or we can learn from Sarajevo, learn from Munich, or learn from Saddam’s hints to Glaspie (sp?) and just shoot the damned dog now.
TW = “called”. History called, and left a message.
OCSteve—ain’t gonna happen. You got the “bitch of a year” right, but not for the reason(s) you cite.
TMJUtah—I wonder. I don’t think Israel has that many bombs. They’ve never done any isotopic separation on their own (the factories necessary would take up a noticeable fraction of the whole country) and I don’t see even Mossad spiriting that much material out of the Russians or us.
What I’m wondering is: just how bitter are they? Given a limited number of bombs, will they go for retaliation against the Arabs, or against the Arabs’ enablers and promoters? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be buying real estate in Paris right now. Or Brussels, come to think.
Regards,
Ric
Humanity seems to have an almost limitless store of self deception. We must share several genes with the ostrich.
Before WWI, we were signing naval peace treaties as Wilhelm was ratcheting up the war machine. Before WWII, we could see that Hitler and Japan were preparing to unleash their loathsomeness on the rest of the world. Although this happened in plain sight, the few brave enough to stand up and point it out were told to sit down and shut up. With any luck, the problem would prove to be an illusion or go away by itself. Most of us would rather chew off our own hand rather than get into a violent confrontation.
Of course this is a disaster waiting to happen. What else is new? If people were able to inherit the wisdom of their forebears, civilization would be much more advanced than it is. But every time a human being is born, we have to start from scratch. One forward, three back.
Yeah, we’re going to be gulled once more into saving Europe’s hide. Like it or not, our own fate is tied to theirs.
Even after watching coalition forces build for a year in Kuwait, etc., Saddam was incredulous up to the very end that he would be invaded. We may very well have purchased some badly needed credibility in Iraq.
Perhaps we need to assume a very visible war footing to disuade the mullahs, like an open-ended five hundred thousand troop military excercise in Turkey and Iraq on the Iranian border. If the mullahs think that a) we’ve found our balls, and b) their regime is at stake rather than a few facilities, perhaps we can engage their instinct for self-preservation.
There is one problem with that alternative history that makes it fairly unbelievable
That when the new Caliphate comes to power world-wide that those infidels allowed to live will be granted any rights to pen and paper.
Yeah, the usual insular espresso crowd waxing darkly about Xtians and NeoCons took Atwoods tortured A Handmaid’s Tale to its enhanced and augmented bosom, but worry about Islamists? Stuff n nonsense, they sniff, Get rid of Bu$Hitler and cut all ties to Israel and we’ll have nothing to worry about ….
No, no, they make real cars. They just recently started selling them in the EU. Four wheels, an engine, the whole works, but the cars do indeed suck. They suck even worse than anything GM makes. They’re priced even cheaper than Korean cars which is pretty damn good. But they suck way more than anything even Hyundai could put out which is pretty damn bad.
Can you share your reasoning/analysis? I’m genuinely curious.
Ric Locke:
The Israelis have had nuclear weapons since at least the late sixties. They boosted their original material from the french, if I remember correctly.
They are good (understatement alert) engineers. They also have substantial capital behind their manufacturing and research base, as well as contacts across the world in industry and research circles. They have had four decades to improve design and manufacturing capability. Nothing in the last four decades would tend to indicate against NOT increasing the capability of their arsenal.
Note that we never hear much beyond the fact that Israel has bombs, and can deliver them via missiles or aircraft. We hear as much, if not more, on their efforts at countermeasures, be they ABM/AA/directed energy weapons…
They know the price of failing to prepare for the worst. They know what form the “worst” can take – know it in a way that we cannot begin to fathom.
When we think of enrichment technology and infrastructure, we tend to assume that the facility will be sprawling and unhideable. How about a mom/pop shop ostensibly specializing in medical technology equipment tucked in a back street outside Haifa or Tel Aviv for the last thirty years, instead? This is just conjecture on my part, of course. This link takes you to a random google hit I got after inputting “Isreali nuclear reactor”. Does the author know his stuff? I don’t know – but I believe the Israelis have at least a hundred weapons and would be surprised if they didn’t have more – even if they haven’t produced fusion weapons.
I know what I’d do to protect my family. Or to avenge them.
A pan Arab region bereft of oil money and incapable of feeding or providing water for its populations would not fare well, I am thinking. Especially when divided up into zones of dead today, dead in a month, and dead in a year.
TW = “subject”. These are my opinions, and subject to my own pessimism.
Oh, and for some comic relief, here’s the next entry in that random thread I referenced above.
TW = “term”. Plan for the long term.
I’ve got nothing on the rest except to say I have no damn clue what’s going to happen, but I doubt it will be anything good.
I do know that a state sponsor of terrorism, one ruled by millenarianist theocrats that are having visions of the end-times being near, developing nuclear weapons should be scaring the shit out of every one, including average Iranians.
OCSteve—Let’s start with Peter Jackson’s observation:
Considering that that was a huge driver for the action in the first place, one would think so—but with Teddy and the Times working so hard to undermine the credibility of the action the force has been notably blunted.
PiaToR has this much right: one of the reasons the mullahs want the bomb is the example of North Korea, which the Euroleft has been gleefully promoting as an example of the limits of Bush’s resolve. By that analysis, once you have the bomb you’re nearly immune to American imperialism, and there’s some truth to that. Of course, it ignores the fact that the NoKs can hold Seoul hostage without having anything at their disposal more damaging than C4, but anything to cut the damned Americans down to size, eh?
And the plain fact is that we don’t have the resources at hand to do a LeMay on Iran. They’ve scattered the facilities from Hell to breakfast, as is perfectly proper from a defensive point of view, and dug them in fairly deep. By specific Congressional action we don’t have nuclear bunker-busters, and the capabilities of the non-nuclear ones are on display in the free Press for all to see. Dirt is cheap. Holes are almost as easy. Have a look at Saddam’s bunker, then go twice as deep for insurance. It’ll take a lot of sorties, and a lot of bombs, to cut through that, and not only do we not have the bombs, we don’t have the planes, even given that we knew exactly what to bomb.
Given the disarray, and the mulish opposition, at CIA it’s doubtful we even have the intelligence. Satellite recon is easy to spoof, not quite as easy as inflatable Shermans but not far off from that. Drive down to your local industrial area. Can you tell from the outside what’s made in a particular Butler bin? Of course not. Now consider trying to tell in a medium-res digital image taken from a hundred miles away. And you can be sure that every mistake will result in al-Jazeera showing blown-up babies on the one hand, and cheerfully humming centrifuges on the other, with not just Islamists but Pilger&Co. gleefully crying “nyaaah nyaah nyah, you missed, you incompetent khufri.”
At this point anything we could actually do is going to be remarkably Clintonian—cruise missiles targeted on what some informant tells us is important. Look how well that worked in Pakistan the other day.
That condition is going to continue until and unless the mullahs do something remarkably stupid, and they won’t do that until they’re convinced that it isn’t stupid. As I said earlier, what’s sustaining the present condition is Bush’s reputation as a cowboy. Ahmadinejad is a sock puppet, or (more correctly) a hat-on-a-stick designed to draw fire; the people behind him are smarter than he is as well as more realistic, and won’t nuke Tel Aviv until Bush is either removed or convincingly emasculated.
And Bush knows all that and calculates accordingly. By that analysis we have roughly two years, unless something else happens (a credible attempt at impeachment, e.g.). In the meantime the Israelis will be careful to attribute their lack of action to U.S. pressure, in order to soothe their own people’s anxiety, and the rest of the world will go on undermining the frantic diplomatic efforts, which are virtually certain to be futile anyway. There may be magic behind the scenes—Special Forces efforts come to mind, although I don’t see them being particularly effective—but there won’t be any bright flashes or loud noises over Iran from American efforts. We aren’t going to waste the resources on things that are bound to fail.
Regards,
Ric
There was a video of the Chinese SUV getting crash tested by the Germans going around awhile back, pretty damn funny. 40mph head-on put the whole dashboard right through the crash dummies head.
Ric,
Compelling analysis. I hope it is incorrect – but you make a strong case. I don’t really agree with you on our current capabilities but I think you are spot on with the intelligence angle.
My scenario depends on bombing to generally soften things up but follow up raids on key facilities by special ops teams. That is, I realize we likely don’t have the right bombs to destroy a buried/hardened facility. I would see follow on raids taking and destroying a few key places. The kicker there is that you have to know with certainty which facilities you reserve that treatment for. Unfortunately, I think you are correct and we don’t have that critical knowledge.
Thanks
OCSteve
On Fox News Sunday this morning, senior NPR correspondent Juan Williams stated flatly that there was no justification for risking American lives in Iran at this time.
Russia, France, China and I believe Britain were the biggest exhibitors/salesmen at the Iranian arms fair in 2004.
Lenin once wrote that when it was time for the Revolution to hang the West, a Western businessman would sell it the rope. I don’t think he ever imagined the other end of that rope would be hitched to a camel, though.
Juan Williams is an ass.
LGF points to this love talk from Iranian Prez Ahmadinejad
Sh*t. I grew up when the Cold War was “hot”, seeing the neighbor up the street dig a bomb shelter in his backyard and doing drop drills in gradeschool. Yet, I truly believe Ahmadinejad is crazier than shoe pounding Nikita Khrushchev by several degrees.
I have no access to classified material and haven’t kept up in any detail, but if Moishe’s Bagels & Isotopic Separation (Purity since 1967) was a credible scenario I think I would have heard about it :-( The Israelis punch ‘way above their weight, both technologically and militarily, but in the end there aren’t that many of them and their economy isn’t that big. And I simply don’t believe that a nuclear program that size wouldn’t have been spread across Spiegel, not to mention The Weekly World News, long ago.
They probably have enough weapons for a nasty retaliation, especially if getting home afterward isn’t an option for the pilots driving the “delivery systems”, but I don’t see them with nearly enough to effectively shut down the ME—and the mullahs, much nearer the situation and with a strong incentive to determine the real conditions as best they can, clearly don’t believe it. And I’m pretty sure they don’t have nearly enough to do a first strike and make it stick. There is no pax judaica in our future.
I stand by my earlier analysis. We won’t attack. The Israelis won’t attack, and will blame that on American pressure. The Iranians will jeer, and the Euroleft (including its outposts here) will sneer at the “paper tiger”. The mullahs will test a bomb sometime this fall or early spring—at this point I’m not confident enough to say “before the mid-term elections in November”, although I’m sure they’re trying for it, nor will I attempt to predict whether or not it will be an operational test, i.e. blow up something they want to kill.
I’ll be happy to be proven wrong. But I don’t expect it.
Regards,
Ric
Here’s another little tidbit. Appears there are a couple of Russian SAMs in the possession of some Jihadists.
Just curious how many potential attacks throughout the world have been thwarted since 9/11 that we have never heard of.
I still have faith that President Bush will do what is necessary. Unfortunatly, there probably are no good choices, only bad and worse. Trust in God, and pass the ammunition.
TW- No “question” about it, that was the mother of all sentences.
IIRC Bush as stated flatly that Iran will not become a Nukular power. He has also followed through on everything he has said he will do in the past.
King Bush II, the Uber-Hitler Chimp-Nazi-cowboy, will hopefully bomb the Iranians forward into the stone ages.
But we all know that the religious right taliban = the 12th Mahdi adventists, just as BuschHitler=Ahmacrackhead, so whatever…
So what you’re saying is we invaded the wrong country?
Stick to the geopolitical masturbation fiction indented in your post.
By the way, Rick Locke, our options with Iran depend upon whether we will invade or not. If we do not put ground forces into the country, at least to hold ground, then we have some fairly extreme options on the table.
One would be to utterly destroy Iran’s infrastructure, from the electric grid on up to the roads and more. We could black out major strongholds of the revolution.
We don’t have to own Iran if we break them, but we should all disabuse ourselves of the hope that there is hope left. The Iranians might revolt again. Jumpin Jeebus and the 12th Imam might also stop in for dinner.
When exactly will Jesus pass the pork chops?
So what you’re saying is we invaded the wrong country?
Actus’ ignorance is breathtaking.
Does anyone want to predict what this year’s State of the Union bombshell will be?
Let’s see … the Saudis kicked us out of our bases there, so now we have a whole country as a base, which makes Iraq even more important. France wouldn’t even give us fly over rights in the past to bring our bombers in, will they balk again with Iran or is the point moot now that we have nice air bases in Iraq? Oh yes, then there is that other Iranian border area – Afghanistan. How convenient that we happen to have air bases there too. And do we still have that technological marvel of a command center in Quatar? Are all these new dynamics changing anything? Or are we all still talking about Iran as if this is Reagan’s Inauguration Day and Carter’s swan song?
Israel is not going to let itself be blown off the map and we are bound to support them, whether we want to get drawn in or not. The Europeans are hopeless. The problem with looking for allies among all other nations is that those with any gumption and backbone have already left and immigrated to the United States, either legally or illegally. The ones that stay there are the sheep and the bureaucrats, Israel being the exception that proves the rule.
It seems to me that the revolutionaries don’t much care for the infrastructure, its the kids with their TV’s and music that do.
– Actus… go geoploliticaly maturbate yourself… If you can’t see clearly the manifest kmetian water drop clarity that Jeff has achieved within that brilliant counterpoise to jinguistic polystreaming revisionism, then you’re just thespeistic…. (you probably frequent Saprano’s party’s too …putz)
– Jeff heres a few :::::-;;;;;-{{{{}}}}-!!!!!!! I thought might punch up the pregnent pauses for dramatic effect…..
TW: Perhaps what that sentence really needed was a musical score, long flowing toga stage dress, and an owners manual…..Does it come in colors?
Yeah, that’s it exactly. Since you sleuthed that out all by yourself, tell me, which country should “we” have “invaded.”
And when. Or can the globe withstand a few radical, suicidal, fundamentalist regemes with nuclear arms making threats against civilization? Do your implied qualifications to critique also qualify you to offer insights that hadn’t occured to the US military?
So?
tw: Six months.
It seems to me that the revolutionaries don’t much care for the infrastructure, its the kids with their TV’s and music that do.
Respectfully, I could care less what the revolutionaries care about. It’s what they can use that is important.
Well they’ll just ask to borrow the stuff that our newly installed shiite government in Iraq will offer them, of course.
Operation Torch, North Africa, 1943.
Operation Watchtower, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, 1942.
Guess we invaded the wrong places there, too, eh?
We are fighting WW4. Don’t look for victory in this decade.
TW = “the”. “One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.” – W.S. Churchill
Ric –
Fission bombs are inherently dirtier than fusion ones anyway.
I freely admit to speculation on my part. I still don’t rule out the possibility that Israel has fusion weapons, just the same – if only to guarantee destruction of a distant target that can’t be hit by aircraft (even one-way only) delivery.
We live in damned interesting times.
– Tmj – Do you really imagine that we wouldn’t give Isreal MARK16’s if attack from Tehran was imminent?
Actus isn’t going to get worked up until Pat Robertson gets nukes.
Ric: I wouldn’t expect anything to occur until after the November elections. The Mullahs seem to be very attuned to the opinions of people like Actus, and they realize that a Democrat congress and administration will not act against them. The tests will come next spring.
I was only able to find the Mk16 referenced here.
I would imagine that Israel has plenty of their own flavors.
Tankers are another matter entirely, of course.
TW = “court”. The decision of the court will be final.
He spends too much time apologizing to actually get busy making them.
Hmmmm, it’s interesting to note that few, if any folks (especially those wacky Europeans), have truly considered what might happen to those lovable losers, the Palestinians, in the event of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel.
Here’s my take: regardless of whether such an attack would be successful or not, the Palestinians would quickly become whatever passes for “toast” in the Levant. Either the effects of a nuclear attack would turn all of “Palestinistan” into one big case of “collateral damage,” or else, in all the confusion, the Israelis would quickly impose their own Final Solution on the Palestinians to ensure they were never threatened again.
Gee, we should think if the Europeans thought more about what might happen to their favorite “oppressed minority” if the mullahs got their hands on a nuke, they’d get more on the stick. But, given the history of Europe over the past 100 years, that would be asking a lot, wouldn’t it?
Erm… sorry bout dat…. got the numbers transposed – 61 was what I had in mind. I understand they have the same basic warhead configuration as the various Tomakawk packages, and they’re still current. Small enough to limit collateral, but still take out hardened underground facilities. Anyway my guess is we wouldn’t hesitate if it came to that.
Nope. Dubya will still be in office, and they are (as you say) sufficiently attuned to Actus & Co. to realize that he can and will act despite not having a majority any more. –Not that I don’t think he will have a majority; Democrats may or may not pick up seats, but IMO the worst likely is a reduction in the size of the Republican majority.
I still say they’ll wait for January 2009. Remember that they don’t really, at bottom, realize how our system works—Saddam spent a decade crowing that he won the ‘91 war because he was still in office and GHWB was not, and the mullahs are a bit better but still don’t have it internalized. They know American Presidents leave office from time to time, but exactly why isn’t at all clear… Bush is dangerous—look what the madman did to Saddam! Once he’s deposed they’ll be in a stronger position.
Regards,
Ric
The Israelis won’t be interested in avoiding collateral damage. Why should they be? I rather think they’ll use standoff weapons wherever possible, especially in light of Russian and Chinese involvement in helping Iran set up their air defense systems. I don’t doubt for a moment that there are a few score IDF pilots ready to do one – ways, though. Not for moment.
Has it been so long (and this question is posed generally, and not directed at anyone on this forum in particular) since we fought a total war that we truly don’t recognize the one we are involved in right now?
Read their words. Read the history. Examine the last century’s worth of dealings with criminal regimes and find the common denominator. “Peace in our time”, “… will respect the territorial integrity of the Republic of South Vietnam”, “… will reject acts of terror as means to political ends”.
Are we ready to break the habit of regretting our good intentions yet? Yes, Virginia, we do have five thousand or so nukes on the shelf. And in submarines, on airplanes, and sitting atop missiles. We hoped their existence would be the larger reason they were never used.
We faced, for many years, and for the most part, a rational threat. That is no longer the case.
We must strike the next blow first. We must break the thirty year chain of events where we respond in proportion to the attacks against us. Murdering Israeli Olympians didn’t bring down Israel. 9/11 didn’t collapse our economy. A nuke in Tel Aviv or New York will not win the war the jihadis have declared. But winning isn’t the driving force – it is the act of dying while killing that keeps them fighting.
The solution is not diplomacy nor is it moderation. Unless, of course our population, our government, and our allies are all in conscious agreement that Israel or some other target gets turned into an ashtray before we act. Or that Iran and its surrogates can relax behind their nuclear safety blanket and continue to direct, equip, and finance international jihadis for years down the road.
The enemy has had to buy or steal almost all his weapons until now. The limits on what damage they could inflict have been defined by what product they can find in the market. Not in any way by any inclination toward moderation; certainly not by any concern about collateral damage.
They are the self-proclaimed swords of Allah, and there are no innocents when God swings the blade, right?
There are times when philosophical reflection or dialogue is appropriate. We are looking at dead or alive right at the moment, and the moment is passing quickly.
TW = “foreign”. The mullahs are to foreign as Klingons are to “not from these parts”.
As to “what do we do now”, I think the United States should, very publically, give Israel full security guarantees. That is to say, any WMD attack on Israel should be regarded as a WMD atack on the United States.
What can Israel do in retaliation for a WMD attack? Of course there are fighter-bombers, etc., but let’s not forget that Israel has 3 modern submarines that appear to have cruise missle capability. While Israel can’t deliver a hundred nukes via submarine, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they could deliver a couple of dozen.
Just a point about the tactic of IDF pilots doing “one way” strikes on Iran. They may not be able to get back to Israel, but they could probably land in a US airbase in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Even if the US is totally neutral, spending the rest of the war in US custody makes a “one way” strike the safest option an Israeli pilot could have.
Wouldn’t the sovereign government of Iraq want them?
– Ric…. Actually they’ll be facing the ultimate weapon in 2009… Something that either Hillery or Condi will have at their disposal that trumps all the nuclear stockpiles on the planet…. PMS!
Life amongst the grownups.
– Lets face it Actus….In spite of the inevitable onslaught of sexist jokes, its time for a woman in the overy office….
Its not the sexism that should stop us. its the childishness and unfunnyness. No one wants to return to junior high. Not when we got a nuclear iran to blog about!
– Au contre’ sweetie. I’ve just got to believe Marx must have laughed at least once in his life.
Oh. there is plenty to laugh about in the world. The ridiculousness of our ruling classes, or of our media boobleheads, for example.
PMS? That sort of humor ended in junior high.
– Wait… wait… If you’re going to do 15 minutes of standup on the Enrichment of the Prolatariat and “Humor is the Prozak of the Masses” I need to make some popcorn first……