WASHINGTON – While military action against Iran is a last resort, the U.S. has the resources to attack if needed despite the strains of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the top U.S. military officer said Thursday.Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the focus now is on diplomacy to stem Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its support for insurgents in Iraq.
But, he told reporters, “there is more than enough reserve to respond (militarily) if that, in fact, is what the national leadership wanted to do.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons could set of an arms race in the Middle East. “The risk of an accident or a miscalculation or of those weapons or materials falling into the hands of terrorists seem to me to be substantially increased,” he said.
I think alot of folks have simmered on the “bomb Iran” talk recently, and I can’t help but to agree with the chill. Mainly because the Iranians are ducking fumb and we’re constantly overestimating them.
I’ve worked with nukes and I know what goes into making a functional bomb. It ain’t easy. Iran is still shopping for flour and eggs, don’t think they’ve even started to bake the cake. And that doesn’t even touch the immense technological hurdle in shrinking a bomb so that it can be mated to a proper delivery system, whether that be a Shahab-III or one of their crappy ass new fighters that would get shot down before it got to within 300 miles of its target.
Iran is ripe for another revolution. Absolutely ripe. The bulk of their population was born after the ’79 revolution, there are mass protests weekly, and the Mullahs are desperately trying to drum up nationalistic fervor to ward off a potential coup. Why give it to them? I’d rather patiently work these clowns from the inside instead of bombing their shitty, backwards nuclear program that’d reunite Persia against the West.
In the end, we all want the same thing. Mullahs out, democracy in. The debate is in how we do it. Fostering internal revolution seems the most effective way to get what we want, bombing is too short term and can’t change governments. And invasion? That’s just not going to happen folks.
We’ve got some time on this. I say we use it.
Invasion has never been on the table, and I’m curious as to what we can do to catalyze a revolution. I’m skeptical that the CIA is capable of pulling something like that off.
However, I do believe a lot is going on behind the scenes. Should we have confidence a revolution will take place?
The Iranians are dumb, but they are not working on this thing alone. They have plenty of help from people who know what they are doing. Iran’s timetable is not driven solely by Iran’s capabilities, because Russia, China, Pakistan, or North Korea could accelerate Iran’s program significantly at any time, leading to a Big Surprise for us.
And of course, Iran has a major incentive to seem like they’re dumb and far from solving the problem right up to the very day they actually have solved the problem.
John, for the time being, I fully agree with you. Your position is the same one I have advocated at my place, and it is Michael Ledeen’s position. I know of no one who is a savvy as him on issues Iran.
But foment revolution we must. It must be more than talk. We must financially support the revolution as well as actively participate in it (and I mean participate, from the inside, by causing the same thing we have had such difficulty with in Iraq – an insurgency that would gain popular support from the inside).
If we merely talk and hope, then we assure bombing in the future. If we want to avoid war there is a way to do it, but we must lay hold of it like we really want to avoid war.
While fomenting revolution inside Iran may be the right thing to do, our recent history says the US will make more enemies and end up an even bigger target if we attempt to do it.
We keep telling folks, “Here is some money and some training, go try to overthrow the government, we will support you,” or “Yeah, we are leaving, but we will continue to support you with money and arms.” Then, after they are well down the path, past the point of no return, we pull our support and let them go it alone. The classic example is South Viet Nam, but there is also the lesson of Iraq in March 1991. Lots of folks died and we looked even worse.
If we are going to support, then we need to get EVERYONE on board with it so that if we get a new president, congress, JCS, that we follow through and finish the job.
Another issue is that other players, especially Russia have taken a major interest. I thought that at one time, UN sanctions (enforced, of course, solely by the US) would be the way to go, but I don’t think the support is there.
Seems that the best way to go is to make sure they don’t get what they need and to realize that they are waaaay more bark than bite.
Was it the Plan? If so, why don’t they tell us?
Aside from the 9-11 need to go into Afghanistan in the beginning is it too much of a stretch to think that there was wisdom in the “Democracy to the right and Democracy to the Left theory” and Iran was the goal from the beginning? Yes, Iraq had its hand in the terrorism pot and supported it, but Iran was a much bigger destabilizing factor in the region.
The advantage in this theory is that we “wouldn’t alienate the population in Iraq” because of Saddam brutal reign, if we flipped it to democracy first and Iraq was also a logistically easier target to attack with bordering friendly staging areas.
If the “Left-Right” hypothesis is correct then why doesn’t the American leadership own up to the strategy, sounds like a good one?
On that note ;
Why don’t they also admit to the “WMD” stockpiles found?
And, Why did they not talk about the “Iranian made IED’s” which my S-2 was tracking in summer of 2005 when I was there, and not wait until 2007 to mention it in the news?
I think the President’s poll numbers would be a lot better and the support for the war would not be hurt by pointing some of this out to the people, assuming It was the plan?
I would bite the no-bomb use the internal revolution card. The only issue I have with that is GW1. That war we decimated the republican guard turning them into a shadow of their prior force. We decimated their internal structure and government control asperautas.
Even with this roughly 80% of Iraq Shia/Kurd rose up in revolution against a mere 20% Sunni and were utterly crushed. That was what a couple dozen helicopters and some reserve forces.
Iran maybe unable to match a US military but the Baji and that minor air force, conventional forces would make short work of the a revolution. People revolutions only work in places were the governments are not going to massacre their own people. The mullahs will lose no sleep laying waste to hundreds of thousands of their own who they will right off as corrupted by infidels anyway.
The US will have to voice a commitment to support FULLY including with military power any people revolution in Iran that the Iranian government tries to forcibly crush. That is the only hope for a Iranian revolution without the US first doing a extensive enough bombing campaign to destroy the Iranian government ability to fight.
yeah there’s no telling whether or not this internal revolution thing would work or not. I just don’t see any real long term advantage in strategic bombing, not yet at least.
I’m pretty sure that we have a good idea of what’s going on in there though. Our patience is obviously calculated.
I disagree that Iran is dumb. Nutty as a fruitcake but crafty as a fox is still dangerious.
Yes, they are behind us in technology, but so was the U.S. behind Germany prior to WWII. We caught up, and so can Iran. And as someone else noted above, they’re not doing this alone.
However, you are very correct that they have a lot of technological hurdles to overcome.
Is it unlikely that they could threaten the U.S. with an ICMB Nuke right now, but what if everything suddenly fell into place for them?
They don’t have to target North America to be a problem. What if they target the green zone in Baghdad or Jerusalem? I’m sure they would have no problem turning either city to glass if it meant eliminating U.S. and Israeli influence in the Middle East.
Course there is that whole issue of us being able to retaliate from half a world away with conventional as well as nuclear ordinance…
Who are we kidding?
Bush hasn’t the manhood to take on the Iranians.
They know it. Europe knows it. Everybody knows it.
It’s not going to happen.
And the Admiral tapped for Central Command was chosen for his opposition to such an idea.
The Iranians are going to go nuke, and the only question remaining is how many cities they will destroy, and how many people die as a result of Bush’s bay area attitudes.
the day Iran test a underground or even an above ground nuke, then anything is possible. Israel will not sit by and take it after what the Iranians have promised to do to Israel when they have one.
I agree, we should be fermenting a internal civil war, start setting of IED’s and assainations. Give them a dose of their own medicine.