The Osirak Option
With the Obama administration in office, I’m now pretty confident that the United States of America won’t launch a unilateral preventive military attack on Iran. On the other hand, given that, it now seems more likely that Israel might—especially in light of the election results. This is still a terrible idea that will have bad results for Iran, bad results for Israel, bad results for the United States, and probably bad results for other people as well. This CSIS analysis by Anthony Cordesman (via James Fallows) runs through some of the main problems:
Iran’s Nuclear Program
• The more an Israeli threat to the survival of the regime in Iran, the more Iran will be determined to acquire nuclear weapons.
•Increase Iran’s long term resolve to develop a nuclear deterrent program. Could be the beginning rather than the end of such a program. Iran could start an accelerated program in building its own nuclear weapons. It could also covert it’s dispersed facilities into a full weapons development program and be brought online in a very short period of time.Iran and the IAEA
• Iran would withdraw from the NPT based on the argument that it needs to acquire nuclear weapons to deter any further aggression by Israel and the U.S.
Iranian response against Israel
• Immediate retaliation using its ballistic missiles on Israel. Multiple launches of Shahab-3 including the possibility of CBR warheads against Tel Aviv, Israeli military and civilian centers, and Israeli suspected nuclear weapons sites.
• Using proxy groups such as Hezbollah or Hamas to attack Israel proper with suicide bombings, covert CBR attacks, and rocket attacks from southern Lebanon.
The basic dynamics in the passages I’ve highlighted are very poorly understood in the American press and political system, and seem even worse understood in Israel. But there’s really no reason to think that unilateral airstrikes will do anything to the delay the point at which Iran has a nuclear weapon. Bombs will destroy facilities, but facilities can be rebuilt. And funding levels for programs can be altered. The political calculus about NPT participation can be altered. The calculus about the desirability of weaponizing nuclear material as opposed to just creating it can be altered. And a unilateral attack will alter all of those things in an unfavorable direction.
95 Responses to “The Osirak Option”
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March 21st, 2009 at 5:22 pm
What’s really important here, though, is that the warhawks get to get all excited again, like those weeks filled with tingles during the attack on Gaza.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Matt: don’t you think Obama’s overtures toward Iran are partially meant to head off an Israeli strike? I would imagine even a very incomplete and tepid rapprochement between Washington and Tehran significantly raises the diplomatic and geopolitical costs for Israel of a preemptive military strike. What I’d like to know is: why the hell can’t the Iranians see this, and respond a bit more positively? Looks to me like Ahmadinejad, at least, desires the political benefits of a hot war.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
So when Israel threatens to strike Iran in the name of their campaign to portray Iran as a nuclear threat, we must conclude that Iran will become a nuclear threat?
March 21st, 2009 at 5:36 pm
“Looks to me like Ahmadinejad, at least, desires the political benefits of a hot war.”
Well that’s certainly true if by hot war you mean Israel launching a preemptive strike all on its own. Because in that case, Ahmadinejad will be able to portray himself as the victim of an attack without facing U.S. forces. Few will support Israel (except the usual neocon dorks here at home – cue SLC).
March 21st, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Israeli Jews are paranoid–justified, unfortunately. Israel appears to be a rerun of the Crusades to Muslims–justified, unfortunately. When you pit paranoids against each other, they react predictably. The world’s only military super-power is understandably egocentric at the moment. This can’t end with all sides happy and thus there are only 2 possibilities for the future–war now or war later.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Mal,
Syria and Palestine were Christian lands before they were Muslim, and the Crusades were an attempt to win back by force what had been lost by force.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Hector– If you ask Muslims, they will respond differently. How far back in history do expect moderns to go for justification? Men are irrational–throw in religion and/or bigotry, war is inevitable.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Oh, god, not the Crusade enthusiasts again.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Re: How far back in history do expect moderns to go for justification?
Mal,
I don’t expect moderns to go into history or logic to look for justification at all. History and logic is an outmoded patriarchal concept, don’t you know. Better to resort to feeble burblings about autonomy, privileged discourses, and other postmodern BS.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I haven’t read Cordesman’s orginal analysis, or even Fallows’s riff on it. So this is just based on what you reprint and say above.
Cordesman’s analysis, as reported, includes a tremendous conflation. Specifically, and critically, an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities isn’t necessarily the same as a “threat to the survival of the regime in Iran.” However, the Iranian government might view it that way.
Your claim that “there’s really no reason to think that unilateral airstrikes will do anything to the delay the point at which Iran has a nuclear weapon” is just silly. The Iraq War proved that it’s very hard to pacify, occupy, and govern a hostile nation. However, together with the earlier Gulf War, it also proved that modern air operations (stealth and precision-guided munitions) can absolutely incapacitate an enemy’s war machinery. I don’t think there’s much doubt that we could destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities by conventional means and set their program back to square one as far as production means is concerned — probably by a decade in other words. Whether the Israelis could do it I don’t know.
Cordesman more knowledgably focuses on possible retaliation. There’s no question that from Iran’s perspective one of the purposes of arming Hezbollah in Lebanon is as deterrence in this way. Cordesman and you leave out however the additional possibility of retaliation against US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or that they might try to disrupt oil exports from the Gulf.
So retaliation is the main drawback from a cold-blooded perspective. Of course an attack would also have lots of other bad blowback politically.
So the feasibility — not the desirability, just the feasibility — of such an attack comes down to this: would it be possible to destroy these facilities and at the same time somehow deter Iran from retaliating?
March 21st, 2009 at 6:01 pm
советую…
With the Obama administration in office, I’m now pretty confident that the United States of America won’t launch[...]…
March 21st, 2009 at 6:05 pm
1) Actually, I think Israel greatest threat is not from Iran but from the USSR. Russia’s leaders have seen how the Israel Lobby rules the US Congress and will draw the same conclusion that Hitler did: the way to control the US is by holding a few million Jews hostage.
2) In the case of Hitler, Jews in Germany. In the possible case of Russia, Jews in Israel. (The Holocaust didn’t kick into gear when Hitler gained power in the early 1930s — it kicked into gear after the USA entered the war in the early 1940s.)
Whatever Iran’s capabilities, Russia could, without a doubt, turn Israel into a sheet of green glass.
Would the USA retaliate for the sake of a foreign country –given that Russia’s counterattack could destroy a hundred major US cities? Haim Saban’s campaign donations buy much influence on matters unimportant to the USA –but in that case I think Congress would tell him “sorry”.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I’m still not convinced that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. They have an obvious incentive to generate electricity using nuclear power. But I don’t see any incentive to build weapons. They do have an incentive to make us think they are building weapons, and that charade has clearly worked. But we are easily fooled. But one thing I do know is that Iran will not use nuclear weapons against Israel. The fallout would land on Iran, after all. The Iranians may have a different view of the world than we do, but they are not suicidal. We seem to base our policies on the concept that Iran would kill themselves to kill Israel. They will do no such thing, and we really need to adjust our policies to reflect that.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Russia and/or China could give Iran nukes whenever they wanted. I wonder what quid pro quo Putin is exacting from Washington for not doing so.
As I’ve noted before, China badly needs Caspian Sea oil — and has a lot of incentive to form an alliance –open or covert –with Iran.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:15 pm
“Oh, god, not the Crusade enthusiasts again.”
Oh come on, you should know damn well that Hector will always post here. And now that he’s on, expect a St Augustine quote. As for the Crusades, well, they weren’t the worst aspect of Christianity. The Inquisitions were worse. And the Colonialism in South America was even worse than that. The Spanish really knew how to take the Book of Joshua to heart. What I find interesting is the migration of Jews during the conflict between Christians and Muslims. The Jews always moved to Muslim territory to avoid being killed by the Christians.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:18 pm
The records are open now, and the attack on Osirak was the *cause* of the Iraqi nuclear program. This isn’t ancient history here, it’s incredible that it’s set for a repeat a mere 20 years later.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Once again, Iran has no nuclear weapons program – although they might just have a nuclear weapons database program, which is what any military threatened by at least two nuclear states – the US and Israel – would do.
If the US or Israel attacks Iran, there’s no particular guarantee that Iran will then seek nuclear weapons because of the obvious logic: 1) since their facilities are toast, it will take twice as long to do it as it would now – and they’re not doing it now; 2) they will NEVER catch up to either Israel or the US, so why bother when they have so much more effective ways of destabilizing both the US and Israel with terrorism and oil-related attacks?
Cordesman is just reciting the usual crap he throws out – “what ifs” intended to make Iran look worse than Israel. He knows damn well he can’t afford to criticize Israel.
Did he bother to mention Israel’s estimated 250 nuclear weapons as a possible motivation for Iran having a program? I bet not. Neither did he mention the rationale for having a nuclear weapons research program – but NOT a development and deployment program – by a country threatened by those nukes.
So take Cordesman with a good-sized pillar of salt.
As for Matt being confident Obama won’t attack Iran, once again the issue boils down to this: who is going to blink?
Obama wants Iran to stop enriching. Iran can not and will not do that.
Therefore Matt is saying essentially that Obama will blink and continue to allow Iran to enrich throughout his term of office, just like George Bush did.
My bet with Arnold Evans involves who is going to blink over the next two years and the following two years: Obama, Israel or Iran. I say Obama can’t afford to blink for another four years because of pressure from the Israelis and the neocons, but it’s just possible that he might. I say Israel can’t afford to blink for another four years or they become a paper tiger. I say Iran absolutely will not blink unless they are offered such a huge deal by the US – including assistance with their nuclear energy program, full diplomatic recognition by the US, and a guarantee against attack by Israel by the US – that they have no choice but to accept and suspend enrichment. Email me when Obama makes THAT kind of deal with Iran over the screams of Israel and the neocons!
So that leaves the bottom line: Obama and/or Israel cannot blink. Iran can not and will not blink.
Diplomacy fails, War ensues.
It’s that simple.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:54 pm
So that leaves the bottom line: Obama and/or Israel cannot blink. Iran can not and will not blink…Diplomacy fails, War ensues.
Or maybe not and we learn to coexist with one more nuclear power.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:03 pm
What happens if a site with enriched uranium is successfully bombed? Is this the equivalent of a dirty bomb? Does fallout affect other local countries? How badly?
Steve
March 21st, 2009 at 7:14 pm
OT RSH: There was a mention of a “Richard Hack” in last night’s Terminator show. You must have written thousands of letters.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Re Steve’s question: “Does fallout affect other local countries? How badly? ”
It’s like a dirty bomb. Depends upon whether an underground facility is bombed and whether radioactive material stays buried or is thrown up into the atmosphere. Also, how strong the wind is and in which direction it is blowing.
If Israelis pick a still day, then radiation is likely to stay in Iran. My guess is that even with a 10 knot wind, most of the fallout will be 20 to 40 miles downwind.
Bombs will probably disperse nuclear cores so I would think a CHernobl like burning meltdown is unlikely. I haven’t really studied the targets enough to really say, however.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Given that Iran is going to have a nuclear weapon, would you rather we had bombed them first?
March 21st, 2009 at 7:48 pm
1) The Neocons have triggered several events that have hurt Israel. The IRaq invasion tied the US down for 6 years and gave Iran breathing room. It badly strained the US military’s supply of stores and personnel. Plus it put $2 Trillion of debt onto the US government.
2) Plus the Neocons supported the election of a President who really screwed the pooch on the economic front. This major meltdown is going to have a significant effect on our military strength and readiness over the next 8 years –it has badly weakened us.
3) If the USA is forced by heavy debt to pull back from overseas, that will leave Israel exposed. The US is her only real friend –and even our support is purchased.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:52 pm
If Israel has the will, the will to find a final solution to the problem of taking absolute,total and exclusive control of Palestine, then they will attack Iran.
Obama would react cautiously.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:54 pm
“Better to resort to feeble burblings about autonomy, privileged discourses, and other postmodern BS.”
Right, because if you care at all about autonomy, you must be drunk on post-modernism.
Have you even read any of the stuff that mainstream philosophers (in the Anglo-American tradition) write on autonomy? Post-modernists they are not.
But fighting a strawman–and cheerleading for 800 year old immoral wars–is easier than engaging the literature, I guess.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:59 pm
> The Iraq War proved that it’s very hard to
> pacify, occupy, and govern a hostile nation.
> However, together with the earlier Gulf War, it
> also proved that modern air operations (stealth
> and precision-guided munitions) can absolutely
> incapacitate an enemy’s war machinery.
During Gulf War I the Coalition forces had a dozen airbases, including the world’s largest and most modern, within a hundred miles or less of the Iraq border and with direct flight paths to the key targets. They also had a half-dozen aircraft carriers milling around the Arabian see desperately looking for something to do. Said forces were able to spend a week shooting down Iraq’s air force and five more weeks pounding targets over and over.
A quick look at the map will convince you that the Israel and its air force are not in even remotely the same position with respect to Iran. If they foolishly choose to attack they will get at most one strike, and that at long range.
Cranky
March 21st, 2009 at 8:06 pm
“If Israelis pick a still day, then radiation is likely to stay in Iran. My guess is that even with a 10 knot wind, most of the fallout will be 20 to 40 miles downwind.”
Iran can build “dirty” bombs with its enriched Uranium and the plutonium it’ll get out of it’s Russian built reactor. If an attack by Israel releases radioactive material on Iranian soil…well you see where I’m going with this, no?
March 21st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
El Cid: Nope, Zack Stentz, one of the two writers of last night’s episode, is an alumni of this very blog. He also knows me from the Sarah Connor Society Web site and the official Fox Terminator wiki forums.
“Or maybe not and we learn to coexist with one more nuclear power.”
This is what I call “blinking”. Obama and Israel have to give up the BS.
As for the effects of bombing Iran, a group of scientists indicated that if nuclear bunk buster bombs are used, the resulting radiation will kill tens of thousands of civilians in Iran and possibly cause up to three million deaths over Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Conventional bombs are unlikely to do as much damage – but then are also unlikely to penetrate deep enough to seriously destroy the Iranian facilities.
What conventional bombs CAN do is disrupt the massive electrical power requirements of the facilities. But those, of course, can be rebuilt. Which then means you have to bomb REPEATEDLY to get the same results.
And of course, by that time, the Russians WILL sell Iran the S-300 anti-aircraft systems, so the next Israeli attack will lose a half dozen aircraft in the process. So Israel then has to resort to cruise missiles from its submarines (if they didn’t in the first attack), and probably have to use nuclear warheads on those.
In short, ANY attack on Iran will escalate into full scale conventional war and probably involve nuclear weapons on the part of Israel and/or the US.
What it probably will NOT escalate to is Iran starting a full-scale nuclear weapons program.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
What I find interesting is the migration of Jews during the conflict between Christians and Muslims. The Jews always moved to Muslim territory to avoid being killed by the Christians.
Always…except when they didn’t. Jews also fled to Holland. Moreover, I do wonder to what extent the tolerance of the Ottoman empire was based on Islam per se, or rather, as I suspect, the fact that it was an empire and had more room for differences. Jews were sometimes protected in Christian empires as well. Moreover, for the the last 60 years, most Jews would rather live in any nominally Christian country than any Muslim one (and yes I am aware of tiny communities in Turkey, Iran, and Morocco, but they are communities that are left and not places where Jews are fleeing to.) So your use of “always” is dubious.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I think the bottom line is where the Islamic religion considers Jews to be “evil” vs where the Christian religion believes Jews to be “evil”.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Muslims believe Jews killed God (or his son, depending on your interpretation), whereas Christians do. Since Muslims do not believe Jesus was in any way “divine”, I doubt they view Jews with the same animosity that the Catholic Church has shown for two thousand years.
Which is a real joke since Jesus by all accounts was a good – even fanatical – Jew who had no intention of forming a new religion, still less one that would persecute his own people in his name for the next two thousand years for a death that by some accounts didn’t even occur in reality.
Cranky: Do keep in mind the rumor that Israel was intending to use Georgia air bases to attack Iran. That was allegedly one big reason they were supporting Georgia with military advisers and equipment.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:24 pm
There are more pieces on the chess board. Soon parts of Iraq might become satellites of Iran–and the Arabs won’t be too happy. I honestly believe the Saudis fear Iran much more than they despise the state of Israel. Also, Pakistan will either rediscover the “serenity” of dictatorship or it will implode and explode, scaring the shit out of India. When the going gets rough, strange alliances are born.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
I would hope that if Israel tries to launch an air strike against Iran we would shoot down the planes over Iraq. And we definitely have the technology there to be able to do it, as well as the responsibility to under the SOFA. If we do not shoot down the Israeli jets there will be hell to pay in Iraq for our 150,000 soldiers.
Time to put those F-22 Raptors to work boys!
March 21st, 2009 at 9:56 pm
But the Saudis are putting a good deal of distance between themselves and the United States in one of the most important arenas of American Middle East policy – Iran.
Riyadh does not endorse U.S. efforts to isolate Iran and to put additional pressure on the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And the Saudis firmly oppose any move by the United States or Israel to use military force in an effort to shut down the Iranian nuclear program.
After a week of conversations in Riyadh with Saudi government officials, academics, businessmen and journalists, the reasons for this Saudi reluctance are not a mystery. There are reportedly some officers in the Saudi armed forces who favor a confrontation with Iran, but most Saudis forsee short-term dangers and long-term strategic damage in any such policy.
In simplest terms, the Saudis recognize that Iran is a major regional power, a potentially agressive neighbor that is not going away. Iran is much more capable of making trouble for Saudi Arabia than the other way around, and therefore the Kingdom’s security over time requires accommodation with Iran, however difficult it may be to manage the relationship. Americans and other foreigners may come and go, but Iran and its nearly 80 million people—almost four times the population of Saudi Arabia–will remain, a few miles across the Gulf.
http://www.mideasti.org/commentary/saudi-arabia-iran-and-us” rel=”nofollow”>link
March 21st, 2009 at 9:57 pm
link
March 21st, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Re: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Muslims believe Jews killed God (or his son, depending on your interpretation), whereas Christians do.
No room for ‘interpretation’ here. A Christian is bound to believe that Christ was God, fully divine to the same extent as the Father. As the Creed of St. Athanasius puts it, Christ is “equal to the Father as regards His godhood”. Christ (i.e. the Logos) is the eternally begotten Son of the Father, yet he and the Father are both equally divine and of Godly nature. If anyone denies this, he falls into the error of Arianism.
As for Jesus, he explicitly claims divinity at many points. And what do you make of the descent of the dove, when a voice spoke from heaven saying, “This is my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” The entire doctrine of the Trinity is contained in that scene.
Fostert, as for the Crusades, I don’t believe I actually endorsed them. While they certainly had a legitimate casus belli, and met the criterion of jus ad bellum, they obviously fell short of the jus in bello, as they were conducted with atrocious savagery: not just towards Muslims but also towards Jews, Orthodox and Monophysite Christians. That said, we should remember that they were defensive wars, fought in response to four centuries of Muslim aggression.
March 21st, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Muslims believe Jews killed God (or his son, depending on your interpretation), whereas Christians do. Since Muslims do not believe Jesus was in any way “divine”, I doubt they view Jews with the same animosity that the Catholic Church has shown for two thousand years.
Muslims consider Jesus as a prophet who came before Muhammad. He’s supposed to come back, fight alongside of the Mahdi and get killed and be buried next to Muhammad’s grave. They don’t have a deocide grudge, because in Islamic tradition Christ didn’t die. God took him and someone else pretended to be him and was crucified.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:33 pm
And the interesting thing, Ed, is that the story of the crucifixion actually supports the contention that someone else died in his stead. Apparently if you read between the lines, the story of the Roman Longinus whose blindness was healed is actually a code for his realization that whoever was on the cross was not Jesus. And the crucifixion was faked after a deal was made between Jesus supporters and Pilate that Jesus would go underground if they let him live.
Hector, let’s put it this way about the dove: it’s bullshit. When I talk about Jesus, I’m talking about the reality revealed by archaeological studies and studies of things like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Stuff that puts Christianity in the status of a joke created by a Roman double agent for his own benefit.
Jesus was a Jew who didn’t give a rat’s ass about your “Christianity”. His followers would have stoned you to death for claiming he was God or even directly related to God.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Have the Jews always been that big of religious zealots that they stone people for death for blasphemy, or did that just start at the time of Jesus?
Sounds to me like a harsh and barbaric people, not the type of people American tax dollars should go to support.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Blowing up enriched uranium with conventional explosives will not create a dirty bomb – enriched uranium is not very radioactive.
Second, if you had a few thousand centrifuges, you could produce enough highly enriched uranium to make a single fission bomb in a year. You could fit those centrifuges in a typical factory building, and they would require only a few hundred kilowatts. Note – a big power plant will routinely produce hundreds of megawatts.
The key is knowing how to build the centrifuges – they require know-how, not vast resources. It is likely that a conventional strike on Iran would leave that know-how intact.
There is of course a strong incentive for Iran to build nuclear weapons: it is the only reliable way of preserving their sovereignty, in particular the only reliable way of deterring the United States. The disincentive is fear of a preemptive strike (on that nuclear program) by the United states or Israel.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:59 pm
The359,
Since you appear to be new to this blog, let me introduce you to Mr. Hack. Mr. Hack believes that practicing Christians are deluded Chimpanzees who should eventually be exterminated by a master race of “Trans-Humans”. In fact, Mr. Hack lived out the logical implications of his Nihilist beliefs, when he robbed a bank at gunpoint, and threatened to terminate the clerks with extreme prejudice, to feed his smack habit. It makes sense why someone with Mr. Hack’s Nihilist philosophy would become a smack addict and bank robber. What makes less sense is why any civilized person should listen to him.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:00 am
Well, everybody in the Middle East were fanatical nationalists trying to conquer each other’s countries for thousands of years.
The Hebrews of the time were no different – until the Romans, who were really GOOD at that sort of thing, kicked their asses and ruled them for hundreds of years.
Paul was nearly attacked by a mob for arguing against Jesus’ brother Peter that Paul’s doctrine of Jesus’ resurrection was wrong. He “checked in” (as we say in Federal prison) with the Romans for protective custody. Forty of Jesus’ followers vowed never to eat, drink or sleep until they killed him. When the Romans learned of that plot, they escorted Paul out of town back to Rome.
A century or how ever many later the descendants of Jesus show up in Rome claiming to be part of the original Church of Christ and wanting a cut of the action the Roman Church was getting. The Bishop of Rome (he hadn’t taken to being called Pope yet) told them to kick rocks.
Christianity spouted the whole story of the Jews killing Jesus because they didn’t want it discovered that Jesus was in essence betrayed by the founder of the Christian Church who was actually a Roman double agent working against Jesus.
Christianity is the biggest joke in history except for the hundreds of millions of people it ended up killing due to its bullshit.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 am
Aw, now Hector is channeling SLC!
I wonder if they’re really one and the same! Can’t be two such morons on the planet, can there?
GCochran: While there is an incentive for Iran to have a nuclear weapon for the purpose of taking regime change off the table, the problem is precisely as you state: all that does is make a regime change attempt more likely. The Iranians aren’t any dumber than most chimps – they can figure that out.
And again, a single fission bomb is next to worthless for that purpose without an effective delivery system, so a few thousand centrifuges are not enough to bother about. You need the 50,000 the Iranians are shooting for – which requires quite a bit of power and space.
The reality is the Iranian leadership has no interest in nuclear weapons. The Iranian MILITARY has an interest, but has not been authorized to do anything about it but basic research.
The entire Iranian “nuclear crisis” is so much ruminant evacuation vomited up by the Zionists and the neocons. That’s the whole story.
The question for people who think Obama is the Second Coming is: why does he believe it?
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:19 am
You could throw a warhead on existing Iranian missle technology and make a tactical nuke. That’s all it would take honestly to change the whole dynamics of the conversation. Parking a carrier group outside of somewhere with a tactical nuke makes gunboat diplomacy into an extermely dangerous game of chicken.
To be completly frank, if I had a nuke sitting in my living room I’d mail it to the Iranians. It would end a bunch of bullshit tensions and make people act like adults.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:23 am
Sounds to me like a harsh and barbaric people, not the type of people American tax dollars should go to support.
Wait, are you talking about Obama’s stimulus plan?
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:28 am
You are talking to ba’s anti-semitic sockpuppet, I have no idea how it feels about Obama’s stimulus plan but I guess it doesn’t care.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 am
Re gochran at 35: “lowing up enriched uranium with conventional explosives will not create a dirty bomb – enriched uranium is not very radioactive.”
But the experience of the USA’s Manhattan project was that plutonium was the way to go –because it is possible to separate it from uranium with chemical processes.
A nuke based on uraniums is largely of value due to its simplicity –the rapid merger of two subcritical U235 pieces with a gun firing mechnaism.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:45 am
рекомендую…
On the other hand, given that, it now seems more likely that Israel might—especially in light of the[...]…
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:50 am
Ed, I’m not sure you could get any Iranian nuke of any significance down to the size that you could put it on a warhead anytime soon. AND be able to deliver that warhead accurately enough to make it worthwhile, nuke or no nuke.
What’s the CEP on an Iranian missile? What’s the CEP with an additional X hundred pounds of warhead – without testing?
And even if you did that in order to deter a US carrier group, there would still be Israeli subs with cruise missiles – or US subs with cruise missiles – out of detection range.
The Iranians simply wouldn’t bother with any of that crap – unless they have their own version of the military-industrial complex, i.e., build it so it’s PAID FOR, not to be used.
Same thing with dirty bombs. Nuclear forensics would pinpoint the source if it was clandestine and what’s the point if it isn’t? You get nuked either way. The Iranians simply aren’t that stupid.
All this speculation about the Iranian program isn’t worth snot. The reality is they HAVE NO PROGRAM! It’s entirely made up.
Again, the question is: Why doesn’t Obama SAY SO?
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:02 am
It’s a lot easier to enrich uranium than it used to be: centrifuges beat the heck out of gaseous diffusion. And although highly-enriched uranium doesn’t make the best bomb, it makes the easiest bomb: a gun-type bomb is far easier to design and make work than an implosion bomb. Don’t underestimate the difficulty of designing and making an implosion weapon: India seems to have tried seven times before succeeding.
If I was aiming for a minimal deterrent, I’d go for a gun-type HEU bomb – not that I’m a real expert.
And again, for the less-informed readers, almost all the difficulty of a bomb like that is in the isotope separation. If Iran kicked out inspectors and ran the centrifuges full blast, they’d have material for one bomb in a year or so. There is really not that much difference between their program and a minimal weapons program. I don’t think they could fit such a bomb on of their missiles (too big, I think) but then there are airplanes.
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:55 am
Yes I agree Israel would be taking a imprudent, ill-advised, calculated risk that is sure to go bad, very, very bad. It will not curry favour with the Middle-East or much of the rest of the world. Obama would be grossly remiss to sanction an attack on Iran by allowing Israel to fly over Iraq to say nothing of how Iraqi government officials, who are mostly Shiite with close ties to Iran, would react. The likelihood of Israel faring any better with Iran’s neighbours is slim at best.
Lebanon and Gaza share a boundary with Israel so airspace was not a problem. However the most direct route to Iran Israel would need to fly over Syria and Iraq. Alternate routes would entail flying either south over Jordan into Saudi Arabia or north over Syria and Turkey. Those countries have no vested interest in supporting another war in the region. They are more concerned with keeping the region from spiraling out of control as is.
So we’ll see what transpires if Israel chooses to ignore protocol and attacks Iran anyhow.
Inarguably it would be the biggest blunder in history — a fatal mistake … IMO.
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:57 am
This thread makes my head hurt.
I liked Hector better when he was ranting away about Hipsters.
Look, here’s the facts: 1) Iran has no strategic motivation to seek a nuclear weapon; 2) Israel has no realistic ability to launch a crippling attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Okay, let’s deal with the second item.
Osirak was a big ‘to do’, and various parties in the region, particularly the Iranians, learned a lesson from it. Essentially, what the Iranians learned was not to put all their eggs in one basket.
As a result, Iran distributed its nuclear program and built in multiple redundancies, it hardened its sites against attack employing concrete bunkers and underground installations and located many of them in urban areas.
That means that in order to successfully cripple Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, Israel would have to hit anywhere from a 12 to 30 different targets, hardened targets, long long range targets, and targets in populated areas.
Even a single Iranian target would be far more difficult than Osirak, due to fortification and distance. A dozen? Thirty? That’s pretty unlikely.
For an attack of this sort to succeed, you would need multiple bombers converging on each attack site. Say three apiece. That’s 36 to 90 bombers. You would need a significant escort of fighters to provide cover for the bombers. Say, 3 to 5 per bomber. Anywhere from 108 to 450 fighters. Because of the distance, you would also need massive refueling either on bases or in air. If you refuel in air, you need anywhere from 20 to 100 more aircraft.
So, we’re looking at anywhere from 150 to 600 frigging aircract. This isn’t a raid. This is the frakking spanish armada!!!
Now, Mr. Skeptic, you ask, isn’t it possible to cut some corners? Certainly young Hector (and stop playing with yourself!)
You could, for instance, shorten your list of targets, pick the low hanging fruit, the vulnerable points in the chain. The trouble with that is that the Iranian system has built in redundancies. So a less than comprehensive strike may turn out to be ineffective. Do you want to take the chance on an ineffective strike?
How about we use the same bombers over and over, but instead of dropping all their bombs on one target, each bomber group goes after three or four targets? Could work. But these are hardened targets. So again, cutting corners may mean that some or many of your strikes are ineffective.
How about we make multiple strikes? Blow things up, go home refuel, restock, go back up and blow more things up. This, Hector, is why your dog doesn’t like you. A lightning raid, perhaps we might get away with. The longer it goes on, a sustained bombing campaign, the more likely we’ll meet effective resistance or retaliation. It needs to be clean. In, out, go home. Much like Hector’s sex life, but with more of a bang.
Now, all this is assuming that Israel’s bombers and fighter escorts can wander on into Iran, cruise about in a country almost the size of the Louisiana purchase, and hit their targets without warning to the Iranians and without resistance of any sort.
How likely is that? How likely is it that the Russians won’t tip off the Iranians that their spy satellites have spotted a fleet. The Israeli fleet has to pass through at least a couple of other countries in order to reach Iran. It’s got to cover a lot of miles undetected. What are the odds that no one blows a whistle? What are the odds that a fleet, particularly a fleet that size is just going to sneak in undetected? It’s not going to show up on the Iranians radar? Won’t trigger their air defences?
Yeah, right.
Okay, so we take out their radar? Okay. We also have to take out their communications, otherwise, when all their radar installations blow up or go offline, they’re going to figure somethings up. That means as well, taking out civilian as well as military communications, because if we confine ourselves to military… well, one of those wiley persians might just pick up a regular phone.
Even then, there might be air defenses – missiles, ground emplacements, fighter jets, airstrips. Better neutralize them too. Which also means taking out civilian airfields, cause you never know what’s squirreled away in those hangars. Basically, the more you can discombobulate the country and paralyse its function, the better your chance of getting away with that stunt.
What was our targets list again? 12 to 30? Factor in communications centers, radar stations, military and civilian airfields, etc., your target list is up to around 200. Of course, a lot of these targets will be softer targets, more easily hit, and requiring a lot fewer explosives.
So really, we only need to, oh, say double the fleet?
What are we up to? 1000 aircraft?
Ouch!
So, once again, can we go cheap? Can we cut corners? The more corners get cut, the more risk. Iran’s a big country, it takes hours to cross, even by flight. The more organized the Iranians are, the better they’ll be to respond, counterattack, and duck and cover. If an Iranian facility has an hour or two hours notice of the bombers coming… well, thats time to batten down the hatches, evacuate essential personnel, haul away or secure files and equipment, and ensure more survives than ought to. With an hour or two warning, they might have time to get enough birds or missiles up and running to shoot down some of Israel’s birds, maybe actually defend some or several targets. And of course, as the trip in gets more difficult, the trip back out gets hideously more difficult.
So, its a conundrum. Maximum force is required. Less than maximum force, the Iranian nuclear program might not be impaired or sufficiently impaired. Is it really worth it to set the Iranian nuclear program back 3 months at best? 6 months? Particularly at the price of motivating them in ways they might not be motivated now? It seems to me that we need a knockout blow or nothing. Bloody the enemy, might just leave him pissed off and bitching for revenge.
And there’s other downsides.
An attack of this magnitude isn’t just a raid. It’s war. Pearl Harbour time. Full scale and full on.
Also, even at its most surgical, a lot of the hard and soft targets are in civilian locations and will affect civilian populations. Minimum hundreds die. Possibly thousands or tens of thousands. Big release of radiation, contamination issues… hundreds of thousands? We’re talking a major humanitarian atrocity.
And of course, the fleet will have to pass through at least one or two other countries. Let’s just figure right now that Syria and Lebanon will not be agreeable. Turkey wouldn’t even let the US invade through its territory, so scratch them. The Saudi’s won’t do it. So the most likely route is through Jordan and Iraq. The US controls Iraq, and more particularly, it will continue to control Iraq’s airspace. The US allows a fleet like that through its airspace, allows refueling on ground or in air, it might as well carry out the raid itself. Does America want this bloody shirt on its door?
Then there’s the collateral consequences. The US might support Israel, but frankly, no one else will. Hamas and Hezbollah might find themselves billion dollar arms budgets. I don’t see a lot of stability coming out of this.
Of course, there is a genuine shortcut – Israel could deploy nuclear weapons against Iran. Then the airfleet drops to a manageable group, perhaps as few as a dozen or couple of dozen aircraft.
Death toll, hundreds of thousands or millions. It’s the 21st century holocaust.
Nope. The whole thing is nonsense. There will be no raid.
March 22nd, 2009 at 2:09 am
A couple of technical comments.
A single nuke is not a threat, its an extroverted suicide note.
First of all, a nuke without a delivery system is worthless. It’s not like Iran can fed ex it.
The two options are missiles and bombers. And frankly, its a whole separate technical challenge to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile.
So then we’ve got bombers. Anyone figure that the Iranians could successfully undertake a long range bomber attack on Israel? Don’t think so.
In any event, one nuke does nothing. To pose a credible nuclear threat, you need at least a handful.
Look at it this way: You have a nuke. Your neighbor is pissing you off. You lob your single nuke, take out one of his cities… And then his armies pour over your border, or he’s hitting you with everything he’s got…
You need to be able to hit at least a second time. You need a second strike capability. That’s why we hit Japan twice.
Now, you’ve got a small handful of nukes. Cool. Your neighbor gets scared and hits you first. Figures if he can take out your nukes, you’re screwed. You got to surrender. So, there’s a strong motivation on your neighbors part to hit you.
What do you need to defend yourself? A few dozen. You need enough nukes laying around that you’re assured that some will survive your neighbors strike, and give you full options of striking back. If your neighbor can’t count on taking all yours out on the first try, then he’d better not try at all.
So basically, I’m thinking your minimum nuclear deterrent needs to be at least a dozen, but more likely 25 to 40. Or what Pakistant has now. And effective delivery systems.
Until you get to that threshold, Nukes increase your risk, not decreases it.
Now, there are more strategic security issues at work. But that’s a primer.
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:46 am
Iran WILL FLATTEN OUT TEL AVIV IF ATTACKED.
Iran has capability to launch 200+ Shahab III missiles every 5 minutes.
Israel would be finished if acted like foolishly i.e. using nuclear weapon. In that case, Iran will certainly use Shahab III long range missile with chemical/biological warhead. Which means Israel as a country will be fucked until the second coming of Jesus.
Israel won’t attack Iran, trust me. They don’t have balls.
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:48 am
One thing that’s not mentioned in the article is that EVERY, I REPEAT EVERY ISRAELI INTERESTS OUTSIDE ISRAEL WILL BE ATTACKED ASYMMETRICALLY – INCLUDING INSIDE THE UNITED STATES.
Why do you think Iran recently has bought advanced 13000 AK 103 recently?
DON’T FUCK WITH PERSIANS THAT’S THE MESSAGE.
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:27 am
Skeptic is right – the whole concept of Israel being able to knock out Iran’s nuclear program is a no-brainer. It can’t happen.
HOWEVER…Israel’s purpose is NOT to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Israel’s purpose is to make Iran attack the US – and then let the US take out Iran’s nuclear facilities.
THAT’S the REAL problem, folks.
Now the question THAT raises is – what does Obama do if Israel attacks Iran ANYWAY, SOMEHOW – and Iran blames the US?
Does he sit back and say, “Oh, hell, Iran, we didn’t do it! It’s not out fault, it’s Israel’s! Do what you want with Israel, we’re staying out of it!”
Yeah, right…
No way that happens. What happens is that Obama says, “We will defend Israel to the death of at least as many US troops – and Iranian civilians – as we did invading Iraq and Afghanistan combined…”
And he does.
THAT’S the REAL problem, folks.
March 22nd, 2009 at 8:32 am
“Multiple launches of Shahab-3 including the possibility of CBR warheads against Tel Aviv, Israeli military and civilian centers, and Israeli suspected nuclear weapons sites.”
What is scary about this is that Israel would almost certainly employ nuclear weapons in response.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:21 am
IT should be noted that Israel apparently has 3 submarines capable of launching nuclear warheads — and is acquiring two more from Germany:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060825/israel_submarines_060825/20060825?hub=World&s_name=
Obviously, those could hit Iran from the Indian Ocean.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:23 am
Can Israel manipulate/force the United States into a war with Iran?
Possibly. But recall the last times some aggressive little pissant of a country, started running foreign policy for its superpower patron. That would be Serbia for Russia, 1914, and North Korea for the USSR, 1950
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:39 am
Re Skeptic
Actually, the USSR kept pretty much out of the Korean War, leaving it for the Chinese Reds to intervene when the UN forces approached too close to the Yalu River.
Re Don Williams
If Israel chooses to use missiles, to attack Iranian nuclear sites, they will have no choice but to use nuclear warheads as missiles are not accurate enough to hit a small target and destroy it with conventional munitions.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:50 am
Let’s explore Mr. Hack’s scenario. Hector, pay attention in back and stop torturing that cat.
Assume that Israel launches a less than effective attack. Not total destruction, but one sufficient to sting and provoke Iran into a confrontation with the United States.
What happens?
The most likely option is that Iran plays it safe. Full scale escalation is risky. So Iran makes diplomatic protests, the world censures Israel and the US, the already shaky world economy deteriorates, oil prices skyrocket, and Hezbollah and Hamas are awash with money and weapons, and the United States finds things very unpleasant in Iraq and Afghanistan. American soft power vanishes, American credibility in the Muslim world or anywhere else is gone. Iran realises it needs a backer that can go toe to toe with the US and cements an alliance with Russia. Oh, and its nuclear program, whatever its doing, proceeds unhindered.
Hmmm.
That don’t sound good at all.
What if Iran doesn’t play it cool. What if it blames the US and things go all pear shaped. That gets a mite unpredictable. We can, however, assume that American forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf will be at significant risk.
In a shooting war, two things have to be remembered: The Iranians 2009 are not Iraq 2003. There are 70 million of them, as opposed to 24 million Iraqi’s, their country is three times bigger, we have every reason to believe that they’ve made significant investments in Russian and Chinese made missile systems designed to stop or deter US air attacks.
On the other hand, its still dealing with the United States – 300 million people, vastly wealthier, a defense budget 50 or 100 times the size of Iran’s, and incredible investments in defense technology.
What it means is that Iran is a much tougher nut to crack. A ground invasion given the terrain may not be viable, except in limited regional ways. But in the long run, straight out war, the US crushes Iran. It will be far more expensive and costly every which way, but the outcome won’t be in doubt. The Iranians can see that for themselves.
So the best bet for the Iranians is to respond assymetrically, rather than get into a slugging match.
For those who are into this kind of war nerd game, the Iranians second best bet is to throw everything they’ve got as fast as they can. This means wholesale uprisings attack in Iraq, raining missiles all over the Persian Gulf sinking as much American military shippage as it can, attacking American bases in Persian Gulf ministates and blocking the strait of Hormuz. Essentially try and inflict a devastating and costly blow on local forces and push the US back so that its attacking out of Diego Garcia. Then its a matter of hunkering down and waiting out the Air war while the world runs out of oil. Not an appealing scenario.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:55 am
SLC, you are correct as far as it goes, but the fact remains that in this case the North Koreans were wagging the Soviet dog.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:33 am
Note that some would argue that the Israeli subs are a Wohlsetter second strike system –intended to promote stability by
(a) deterring Iran –because Iran would still be vulnerable to a nuclear counterattack even if it managed a surprise first strike on Israel and
(b) Ensuring that Mad Bibi won’t feel compelled to prempt an Iranian First Strike with a First Strike of his own.
I’m sure that’s how the Israeli government sold it to Washington — and I think it’s a con game. Israel has no strategic depth — a significant nuclear attack on her would destroy her. A nuclear counterattack wouldn’t change that or even provide satisfactory vengenance.
Neocon -Likudite aggression, the Greater Israel mirage , has throughly alienated Israel with 1 Billion Muslims — and hence is pushing Israel down a path in which the only end state is Israel having to launch a nuclear First Strike.
That’s what the subs are for.
The Neocons have also hitched the US to this wagon as well.
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
The warhawks can feel free to get all excited, but Israel is not going to launch a first strike nuclear attack on Iran because they fear Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Nah gonna happen.
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:28 am
I’d point out two scenarios worth considering.
One is William Lind’s: that if the US attacks Iran (as a result of an Israeli action or its own), Iran could, depending on weather and other factors, theoretically take out the entire US military force in Iraq. Lind makes a good case in his articles for this being a possibility, if not a probability.
The other scenario refers to Skeptic’s “hang back” concept of the Iranian response. It’s clear to me that this whole business, especially back when Cheney was pushing it, is based on the idea of seizing the Iranian oil fields and breaking OPEC, just like Iraq was according to Greg Palast.
What this means is the actual target of any US ground offensives would be the oil fields in Khuzestan, right across the border from Iraq. The rationale for public consumption would be the US would be trying to dry up Iranian funds to support their war effort. Yeah, right…
Naturally, the Iranians know this. So what they would reasonably do is apply the Vietnam strategy and the Saddam strategy. Let the US invade, then spend the next ten years bleeding the US with guerrilla war. Persians have a history of patience. Iran has literally hundreds of thousands of young people they can call on for guerrilla war, already armed with weapons and available for callup at any time in their militia. Estimates range from a few hundred thousand to eleven million. The country itself has a high population of young people they can expend for the next several decades. They can keep a guerrilla war going against the US for a decade or two at least.
The US can’t possibly win that, even if US air power literally destroys the entire economic infrastructure of Iran.
This is why I doubt Iran would bother with Lind’s strategy, although they might feint it to draw the US into Iranian territory where the advantage would be theirs. The US military leaders, being morons, would undoubtedly take the bait, too.
If Israel attacks Iran, the only viable strategy for the US is to attack Israel to prove to Iran we had nothing to do with it. Naturally, this isn’t going to happen.
So once again, the question is: WHY is Obama pursuing a hostile policy towards Iran based on a non-existent nuclear weapons program?
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
“Iran could, depending on weather and other factors, theoretically take out the entire US military force in Iraq.”
In the same sense that Bulgaria, given favorable circumstances, could have knocked out the Wehrmacht in WWII.
Utter bullshit.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
So much logic on display, so little expectation of novelty. Either side could use sabotage –maybe commandeer a passenger jet or a large truck. Assassinations have always been a sexy course. The nations of this area feel threatened and will over-react to perceived danger–usually hiding behind the preempt excuse. Pakistan can/will supply nukes and jets for a price –It’s a cliche to say expect the unexpected–but in this region, know that war is inevitable –the combatants are known–the weapons still to be chosen. Best case scenario is–not this year.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
War Nerding? Okay, I’m up for it.
I don’t believe that Iran has any substantial military capacity to invade Iraq, and I think it would be a mistake in a number of respects for them to try.
The big lesson of the Iran/Iraq War was that Iran didn’t have much logistical capacity to support an invasion beyond their borders. Foreign adventure is often the big challenge for any military force. It’s one thing to lounge around the barracks. But on a sortie in force in enemy territory, you need massive logistics – food, water, ammunition resupply, medical, communications, etc.
Particularly, it’s difficult to do when you’re being opposed by enemy forces. After Saddam shot his wad, he was on the defensive for the bulk of the war – about 6 years. In six years the Iranians never penetrated very far in. Of course, that’s not limited to Iran/Iraq. When China attacked Vietnam in the 80’s, logistical handicaps as much as determined resistance kept them from getting more than 30 miles.
Under what circumstances would a takeover of Iraq work? The best and easiest option is to let the Iraqi’s do it themselves. SCIRI and Dawa are Iranian clients, so theoretically, if push comes to shove, they’ll close ranks.
Alternately, the next best option is that the Iranians invade, but invade with tacit Iraqi support. American forces are deployed for occupation, not border defense. It’s not clear that in a general crisis they could respond fast enough, so its possible that they could be rolled up.
American soldiers, despite politicians hoopla, are not superhuman. Instead, they’re highly vulnerable. Seriously, their success is not from fighting prowess, but coordination of highly destructive toys – air support and armour, and they have a massive logistics footprint. Disrupt the logistics, things start looking bad.
The key ace in the hole for American troops, and the only thing that would keep them from being eaten alive is air support. Various categories of air support. I’m not sure that there’s any meaningful way to disrupt that air support. Blockade the Persian Gulf, and American forces can probably still continue to run air support through Israel or nearby bases or even Diego Garcia for some stuff. Air power is America’s big trump.
But its a trump with limited effectiveness. Examination of air power campaigns, Iraq 1, Serbia, Desert Fox, Iraq 2, seems to suggest the strength and weakness of air power. The strength is that it can paralyse an enemy, it becomes difficult or impossible to move forces significantly in the face of enemy air superiority. On the other hand, once those forces hunker down in place, they are hard to dislodge. Military analysts were repeatedly surprised at how much of the enemy force remained intact and viable in Serbia and Iraq.
Which makes sending out a massive Iranian expedition in force into the Mesopotamian flood plain against American air superiority a massively bad, even suicidal idea. On the other hand, it makes a lot of sense to keep that Invasion force secure in bunkers and prepared to resist a ground invasion.
The wild card, of course, is missiles. The Iranians on their won, got not much. On the other hand, Russia and China and possibly European nations have been working on tactical missile systems intended to counteract America’s various categories of air superiority. Have they come up with something? Is it workable? We can speculate. Odds are probably not. But war is full of surprises, as the knights at Agincourt discovered from English Longbowmen.
Can the United States invade and occupy the borderland oil fields? Doubtful. Saddam tried the same thing back when Iran was much more vulnerable. It went to crap. A limited tactical occupation of foreign soil, hostile population, enemy territory. Its hard slogging going in, and harder slogging holding on.
And if you lose control of the Straits of Hormuz, its fatal slogging. So tactically, you’d have to invade and control the strait of Hormuz and suppress Iranian activity around that. Not easy, you’re talking a massive amphibious operation under hostile fire and then holding on in enemy territory.
Both cases call for trench warfare. Very expensive in lives.
Of course, this raises the question of ‘what army’ are we going to do this with? Do the math: America has just under a million men under arms. Factor out the air force and navy, we have a half million in the ground army and marines. 100 to 150 k of those are in Iraq. About 50 k are in Afghanistan. 30 k in North Korea. Another 20 to 40 in the Pacific theater – Japan and the Phillipines. 70 k in Europe.
Factor in international bases. Factor in Continental forces. Not all of the Ground Army is combat troops. Even with Halliburton, we have to have a lot of truck drivers, mechanics, clerical and support personnel.
What’s left? Cub scouts?
There’s a reason George H.W. Bush called Cheney and his ilk the ‘crazies in the basement.’
So what sort of force can we deploy to a pair of limited territory holding ground invasions? 100 k? 200 k? It is to laugh. We don’t have 200 k to spare. We probably don’t have 100 k, but maybe we could scrape together something.
And what sort of resistance will the Iranians bring? Even if we kill them at the rate of 10 to 1 or 20 to 1, they’ll still wipe us out. They may well be prepared to take such losses.
The whole thing is a big no go.
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Re Richard Steven Hack
OT but I’m sure that Mr. Hack will be celebrating the events described in the attached link, although his joy will be at least somewhat tempered by the fate of the perpertrator.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/21/BA8H16L3BI.DTL
Re Skeptic
Mr. Skeptic seems to forget in his discussion, that the US has several thousand nuclear weapons available, far more then needed to make a parking lot out of Iran.
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
SLC,
Thanks, it would be good for everyone in this thread to know what sort of fellow our Mr. Hack is. The logical implications of his Nihilist, Trans-Humanist nonsense are well demonstrated in this Oakland area shooting.
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
And I have a close friend in Mister Reality.
Yes, the United States has a large fleet of nuclear weapons. So what? So does Israel?
American deployment of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, in what would almost certainly be a pre-emptive war of choice is all but unthinkable.
If that route is chosen, the civilian casualties will be immense. In the hundreds of thousands, even millions. It will be a holocaust without any moral justification.
It will also be an intensively destabilising act. The United States will be finished in the Muslim world. We may be looking at oil boycots and embargoes.
We may also be looking at economic sanctions, how much of the American economy is now dependent on Europe, China and Japan. Suppose they just dump all their American dollars? A radical and dangerous course yes, but they’re faced with a radical and dangerous state.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty? Gone. Every nation that feels vulnerable will pursue their own nuclear weapons – Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Egypt, Algeria, Romania, Phillipines, Japan, Brazil, Venezuala, Argentina, Columbia, Spain, Cuba, Turkey, you name it. World destabilization.
Ultimately, the blowback of such a transgressive act is impossible to predict, but there are the possibility, even likelihood of a whole bunch of very bad outcomes.
Even putting nuclear weapons on the table is destabilizing.
So, let’s put a lid on the crazy talk.
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
But Hector, is Mr. Hack a ‘hipster’?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Oh, and as far as your historical claims – you do realize that Syria, Palestine, Egypt etc. were not originally Christian areas, but had their own vital religions, were forcibly conquered by the Romans, and then had Christianity forcibly imposed as the state religion in the third century.
March 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Skeptic,
Yes, I know that. If you can find enough Mandaeans or Zoroastrians around, I’ll be the first to argue they should have a state of their own, too. (As I would do for the Jews, although I think the current state of Israel is bigger than it should be). What I want from you is a logical explanation of just why the conquest of the Middle East by the Muslims was justified. Better yet, let’s see you justify the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
It would be better to say that Hack and the hipsters both draw on different varieties of nihilism, rather than to say that one is the same as the other.
March 22nd, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I myself think that proponents of –and apologists for — large scale massacres by nation states are in no position to criticize a bank robber. Especially given the current state of the financial system.
The massive lies, deceit, betrayal, and malign corruption of the Bush Administration has left proponents of the state, of the legal system, of the Constitution and of organized religion without a fucking leg to stand on.
In the coming Depression, anyone who doesn’t operate with the brutal amorality –and limited loyalties — of Tony Soprano will look like a fucking moron. Or a hypocrite. Both, actually.
The Vatican, the churchs, the US Congress, and the White House are rapidly losing their moral legitimacy. Their popular support won’t be far behind.
March 22nd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Look at SLC, for example. Proud defender of a tribe which numbers among its members such moral giants as Bernie Madoff, Richard Fuld, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Maurice Greenberg of AIG, Jack Abramoff, Judith Miller, Scooter Libby, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Haim Saban,etc. Who were those guy’s rabbis, SLC?
Who would SLC criticize Richard Hack — other than for having limited vision and flawed tactics?
But of course, SLC’s repeated cites of Richard’s past career is really just beating a rhetorical point to death –rather than expressing any real outrage.
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Look at the fucking Pope, for ..er.. instance.
Speaking today of the evil cloud of war that has killed so many people in Africa.
But the Pope himself has killed more fucking African Catholics than the warlords — with his stupid shit campaign against the use of condoms, resulting in a massive pandemic of AIDs and the deaths of millions.
http://www.avert.org/aafrica.htm
For what? A stupid and ruthless religious fanaticism that is not supported by anything in the Scriptures.
There are many good people who are Catholic. Some of their grassroots priests are worthy of respect.
But I spit on the Vatican.
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Skeptic,
You have to remember that SLC doesn’t actually care about the security of the United States or Israel. He just gets off on the prospect of brown people being incinerated (Hama Rules!).
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Why was the Muslim conquest justified in the period 640 through 710?
Well, I’d have to put it down to the incompetence of the Persian and Roman/Byzantine Empires of the age. Each corrupt, incompetent Imperial states that wrecked their economies, spent their treasuries and slaughtered not only their own armies but a good portion of the conquered peoples.
By the time the Arabs came boiling up out of the Peninsula, the lands comprising Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and even Iraq had changed Imperial hands three times in the previous generation. The local populations endured despotic Imperial rule by first the Romans, then the Roman/Greek Byzantines and then Persians.
Let’s be serious here. The Arabs had existed as Feudal tribes and middling little City states all over the Arabian peninsula, ruled or influenced at various times by Greeks and Persians, Egyptians, Romans, Assyrians. They had never amounted to anything. Then all of a sudden, they got their act together, and came storming out, at almost the exact point that two giant corrupt Empires had battered each other to the point of collapse. And then they swept through in a series of conquests to rival anything the world has ever seen, and not only that, but to hold it all together, and build something enduring. It’s almost enough to make you believe in Divine Intervention.
As for the despotic rule of Islam, its worth noting that the Muslims initially were not pushing the faith. Indeed, in the early days, they were quite reluctant to let outsiders into Islam. You practically had to marry into an Arab family. Their religion and politics counselled respect for conquered peoples who were ‘followers of the book’, such as Christians and Jews, and in fact if you look at the early Caliphates, Christians and Jews often rose high in the ranks. Moreover, they could claim to be related to the peoples they conquered, and unlike remote rulers in Rome, Constantinople or Persepolis, they made their capitals in Baghdad and Damascus.
The power of the Caliphate faded within a few centuries. The Great Caliphates swiftly gave way to local fiefdoms. But even when the political and military power faded, the faith of Allah persisted.
Christianity had every chance to make a comeback. It didn’t. End of story.
As for the fall of Constantinople, that was the Turks not the Arabs. And in the end, there was nothing left to it but a pathetic city state, roiling in its own decay.
Perhaps they were all hipsters.
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Myself, I’m calling for the re-establishment of the Songhai Empire and its spread worldwide, as promoted by special cadres of griots and the building of a worldwide Timbuktu University.
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
You may end up waiting a while there, cid.
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Re Don Williams
Look at SLC, for example. Proud defender of a tribe which numbers among its members such moral giants as Bernie Madoff, Richard Fuld, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Maurice Greenberg of AIG, Jack Abramoff, Judith Miller, Scooter Libby, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Haim Saban,etc. Who were those guy’s rabbis, SLC?
The tribe also numbers among its members such worthies as Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Rirhard Feynman, Murray GellMann, Steven Weinberg, Jonas Salk, Albert Saban, Harold Varmus, just to name a few.
Who would SLC criticize Richard Hack — other than for having limited vision and flawed tactics?
But of course, SLC’s repeated cites of Richard’s past career is really just beating a rhetorical point to death –rather than expressing any real outrage.
But Mr. Hack has shown no remorse for his crime (and I bet that the robbery for which he got caught was not his first); in fact, he brags about it on this blog, in addition to advocating the assassination of police officers. I think that Mr. Hack was lucky he got caught when he did, before he killed some hapless bank teller and got sentenced to the little green room up at San Quentin.
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:14 pm
My theory is that Iran is quite paranoid about its safety and gave much consideration to the best possible countermeasures against possible aggression.
They cannot really try too many things among those colorfully described by Skeptic. But they tried one which is the same method as the second:
1. Station missiles underground, and lob at Israel until a ceasefire is reached, ignore collateral destruction.
This was tried in 2006. Important variation: Hezbollah was only testing the concept, not the “real thing”, so they got almost exclusively rather crappy Katyushas.
2. Station missiles underground an lob at tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz until a ceasefire is reached. Ignore retaliatory destruction, except for tallying it for the purposes of reparations required among ceasefire conditions.
This is true “MAED”, mutually assured economic destruction. The beauty of it is that it is largely reversible, slow, and still painful to the opponent. Shortage of oil can be swiftly delivered to the Western Hemisphere.
Our countermeasures: bombing crap from the sites where missiles are launched. Probably riddled with thousands of tunnels. Send in Marines. Who would face similar tactics as IDF faced in Lebanon, except for much worse ratio in numbers.
During 2006 war, Hezbollah launched a single anti-ship missiles, with quite devastating effect. The real stash is in Iran. There are rumors of Russian-made supersonic torpedoes (or water skimming missiles) that make Persian Gulf resemble a duck pond.
Finally, SLC dream: making Iran smooth as glass (as in “never again”?). It still does not let tankers pass through Strait of Hormuz. Oil traffic would probably resume after several years, but perhaps only under some conditions, like Total and Absolute Embargo on Criminal State of Israel (remember that in this scenarion, Israel is a criminal state).
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Grads, I think, not katyushas.
I’m not sure if Iran has any Shkval or other supercavitating torpedos. They’re not really that necessary for knocking out oil tankers though.
Here’s a fun one, what if Israel decides to attack Iran without telling us (because if I asked you for permission I knew you’d say no, solid four year old’s logic there), and that means that Iran would be able to get in a solid first strike against any military or tanker traffic if they wanted to. As opposed to allowing us to get some AEGIS equipped ships in place around oil transfer stations and the like.
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
The basic dynamics in the passages I’ve highlighted are very poorly understood in the American press and political system, and seem even worse understood in Israel.
You couldn’t be more wrong. Israel has what we foreign policy specialists call “skin in the game.” All of their incentives are aligned to make sure that zero ordnance falls on Tel Aviv. The idea that you, blogging from the comfort of Busboys and Poets, have a better idea about what will keep Israel safe is hilarious.
Unlike Iraq-to-US-in-2003, Iran represents a real threat to Israel. The missiles can reach. The game theoretic calculations of nuclear strike vs. deterrence, 6 million in population vs. 70 million, and US support vs International Opinion has all been done. Sure, they operate on hunches, too. But they have much more incentive to get it right.
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Re: It’s almost enough to make you believe in Divine Intervention.
What you call Divine, I call Diabolic.
Re: And then they swept through in a series of conquests to rival anything the world has ever seen, and not only that, but to hold it all together, and build something enduring.
As Daniel Larison likes to point out, the Arab Muslims in fact ‘built’ very little. Most of their culture was borrowed: from the Greeks, the Persians, the Hindus or the Syrians.
As for the fall of Constantinople, the last Emperor and his court died in hand-to-hand fighting, not ‘roiling in their own decay’ as you put it. Unlike the kind of effete p*ssies that pass for enlightened hipster “men”, Constantine Paleologue and his court were real men, who preferred to go down fighting, even in a hopelessly lost cause.
Don Williams,
The Vatican’s stance vis-a-vis condoms is not the subject of this thread, so I will not digress too much. Suffice it to say that while I largely disapprove of condoms, I do acknowledge that if one is going to violate Christian teaching and the natural law by f*cking around with prostitutes or whatever, then it is better to do so with a condom. However, Pope Benedict is quite correct that in order for AIDS to be successfully combated, the emphasis needs to be on behavior change. Condoms will help some, but improved sexual morality in Africa would help much more.
March 22nd, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Re Hector’s comment “However, Pope Benedict is quite correct that in order for AIDS to be successfully combated, the emphasis needs to be on behavior change.”
————–
So how’s that working out, Hector. We have ..what? .. over 14 MILLION orphans so far?
March 22nd, 2009 at 8:49 pm
I just looked up “Songhai Empire,” and I have to say, it’s boundaries seem almost perfectly coterminous withe “the shittiest place on earth.”
“However, Pope Benedict is quite correct that in order for AIDS to be successfully combated, the emphasis needs to be on behavior change.”
The Holy Father is right. They need to start putting on condoms like everybody else.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Dude, you disapprove of everything after the sixth century.
But the missiles with nuclear warheads cannot. At least not the Iranian ones.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Well, Hector, your vote for infantile superstition is noted. I’m curious why you would call it ‘diabolic’ since this implies a superiority of the diabolic over the divine.
And I can’t believe I’m arguing the Byzantine Empire. And based on what? Some fool of a final Emperor in dying days, having blown every other option, decides to go down fighting? And this makes up for the succession of child emperors, blind emperors, incestuous backbiting families, civil wars, usurpations, abandonments, incompetence, brutalisation of their own peasantry to the point that many welcomed the turks as liberators.
I’m sorry, it just doesn’t do the trick. The Byzantines are the historical equivalent of Michael Jackson. Glorious in their prime, hung around way too long, played too many unsavoury games, and eventually, faded away into a wee obnoxious squelch.
You want to tilt, go ahead. History has rendered its verdict and not even the Byzantines would have been proud of their last few centuries.
As for Hipsters, well, you’d be surprised what they can do when they roll up their sleeves.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Re: I’m sorry, it just doesn’t do the trick. The Byzantines are the historical equivalent of Michael Jackson.
Your analogy to Michael Jackson is a notably poor one, given this fact….
“The kindness that Mehmed had shown to the Emperor’s surviving ministers was of short duration…. Five days after the fall of the city [3 June] he gave a banquet. In the course of it, when he was well flushed with wine, someone whispered to him that Notaras’s fourteen-year old son was a boy of exceptional beauty. The Sultan at once sent a eunuch to the house of the [Megas Doux] to demand that the boy be sent to him for his pleasure. Notaras, whose elder sons had been killed fighting, refused to sacrifice the boy to such a fate. Police were then sent to bring Notaras with his son and his young son-in-law, the son of the Grand Domestic Andronicus Cantacuzenus, into the Sultan’s presence. When Notaras still defied the Sultan, orders were given for him and the two boys to be decapitated on the spot. Notaras merely asked that they should be slain before him, lest the sight of his death should make them waver. When they had both perished he bared his neck to the executioner. The following day nine other Greek notables were arrested and sent to the scaffold.”
If anyone was the 15th-century Michael Jackson, it was the child-rapist Turkish Sultan. As for a resurrection of old Byzantium, don’t rule it out. The rising power of this century will be resource-rich Russia, and she has never forgiven the Turks for the rape of Byzantium (both metaphorical and literal), or for their 20th century butchery of the Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Piotr’s analysis is sound. The only thing I’d disagree with is his suggestion:
1. Station missiles underground, and lob at Israel until a ceasefire is reached, ignore collateral destruction.
This was tried in 2006. Important variation: Hezbollah was only testing the concept, not the “real thing”, so they got almost exclusively rather crappy Katyushas.
Interesting notion, and it was tested out in the 1980’s during the Iran/Iraq War as the ‘War of Cities’ when both sides tried to break the stalemate with missile bombardments and air attacks against cities, principally Baghdad and Tehran.
Unfortunately, the ‘War of Cities’ was largely ineffective, good for inciting anger and antagonism, and revenge attacks, but of no particular military value.
The trouble is that comparing missiles is sometimes appleas and oranges.
The Katyushas that Hezbollah used were small missiles, about 20 feet, with a range of 20 miles or so, and were developed by the Russians as an ‘area attack weapon.’ Their accuracy was about a quarter mile at best. So what you’d do is launch hundreds and blanket an area. They were small, cheap, easy to mass produce, and easy to move and store. Hezbollah accumulated 15,000 or so, and deployed them one at a time. Making them quite intimidating, but rather ineffective from a military standpoint.
Long range missiles such as are capable of reaching from Iran to Israel are a different kettle of fish. They’re much larger, much more expensive, and orders of magnitude fewer in quantity. They’re unlikely to pack much of a punch with conventional explosives. So bottom line is that there’s little strategic or tactical use. At best, it would be a nuisance/terror attack, and quite likely to backfire.
At best, we might see a missile barrage as symbolic retaliation. But I don’t see a whole lot of strategic advantage.
But Piotr’s theories of MAED are sound, and may well inform Iranian strategic thinking.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I suspect if Israel attacks Iran, Iran may launch a few missiles at Israel for PR purposes, but reserve most of them for US military bases in the Gulf where the targets are closer and more militarily significant.
Every US military base in Iraq will be hit with as many missiles as Iran can fire at them since that’s where the only significant ground force and air power are located (not counting airbases in other areas in the Middle East.)
Hizballah using missiles against Israel is primarily a PR tactic, as is Hamas’ use of missiles. There’s no military advantage, but it makes the civilians nervous and soon you get pressure on the government to stop whatever it’s doing that’s causing the attacks. Not to mention that in a tiny country like Israel, having a quarter of the population hiding in bomb shelters half a day every day leads to economic problems. Hizballah now has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv, supposedly, so the next time it will be worse.
Iran has numerous land-based missile sites all around the Straits of Hormuz. Cleaning those out will take days or weeks and both US airpower and ground-based Marine and SEAL assaults.
Iran also has over a thousand small boats capable of carrying various explosive devices and man-portable missiles. They have explicitly developed “swarm” tactics against the US Navy which, the last time that was tested in US war games, sank 14 US Navy vessels almost immediately. The Navy’s only response so far is that it’s “hard to coordinate swarm tactics”, which means the Navy has no clue, since the definition of swarm tactics is that they are NOT coordinated.
Anyway, my point was never that the US can or will defeat Iran in such a war – my point was that the US President and the US Pentagon is STILL too stupid not to TRY. And the problem is, once you try, you get five years of war like in Iraq or seven years like in Afghanistan.
Anybody want the US to fight Iran for the next ten years? In this economy?
No? Then don’t start one.
Unfortunately that means Obama AND Israel have to “blink”, as I said. Iran continues enrichment and that’s the end of it.
So either you believe Obama AND Israel is lying OR stupid when they says they’re going to absolutely prevent Iran from developing nukes (which actually isn’t hard since Iran isn’t – so all they have to do is say so!) or you believe there’s going to be a war.
It’s that simple. There is no third alternative.
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I find Mr. Hack’s analysis to be generally sound.
I will express a caution that war is always an inherently risky proposition, and that there is always an element of unpredictability. History is full of nations and empires that thought a particular war was going to be a splendid little adventure, and were appalled at how badly it turned out.
In the larger sense, Wars have often been disastrous, even for the victors. A classic example would the the Byzantine Empire whose perrenial wars of conquest and civil wars continually left it impoverished and reduced in the face of genuine challenges.
Generally, its never a good idea to go looking for a fight.
That ain’t hipsterism, that’s good old fashioned common sense.
As for Hector, I think I’ll leave him swilling around in the 15th century. He seems to have found his home there. I hope that it turns out differently for him, this time around.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 am
I, for one, am in awe of Russia’s historical concern for the butchery of minority populations. Do you even read the bullshit you write?
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:28 pm
If those crazy Jews do attack Iran – as D. Wiliams suggests…they have everything to fear from Putin’s Russia.
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