|
Edited on Wed Jun-13-07 02:33 PM by The Magistrate
Iran nowadays poses a problem both actual and political, and the worst threat to us in the situation is the bellicose incompetence of the administration.
It is important to sort out the various components of this problem, and engage them seperately and appropriately.
The most important element in the long-term Iranian drive for nuclear weapons. Given the nature of its ruling regime, that would be a dangerous and unsettling development. A great many powers, including Russia, traditional predators on old Persia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia would find it a most disconcerting development. It is unlikely diplomatic and economic pressure will disuade Iran's government from this program; it is widely popular among its people, on simple grounds of national pride, for such weapons are seen as indicating first rank status in the world. It is also unlikely that any military measure short of full-bore invasion and occupation would be able to force a halt in the program, and unlikely air strikes and even commando raids could do more than delay it, while steeling resolve to proceed to success. In any case, such actions in the near future would be hideously premature, as Iran is as yet well short of the capability needed to produce useful quantities of weapons-grade material. Unpleasant as the prospect of Iran's clerics in control of atomic weapons may be, this may be one of the many problems that cannot really be solved with available tools. That is not something people like to hear, of course, but it is often the case in this life.
Seperate from this is the question of Iranian activities in Iraq. There is no question these are considerable: our invasion of Iraq and subsequent, readily foreseeable events stemming from it, have gone a long way towards towards gratifying a long-standing goal of Iran's government, to utilize the Shia majority there to capture the place as a satillite, and they are making every effort to get this achieved while the getting is good. The claims by the administration that Iran is behind many attacks on U.S. soldiers are bogus, but the matter is much less clear-cut than it was before the so-called 'surge' now underway. A great deal of the 'surge' activity in Baghdad is aimed at Shia militias supported by Iran, and not only in Anwar Province but in some Baghdad neighborhoods, U.S. forces are now openly co-operating with and arming Sunni militia forces. This complicates the potential interactions tremendously. While there is a tremendous hostility between jihadis of Salafist bent and Shia Iran, neither the Iranian 'special services' or the jihadis would scruple at the double-dealings necessary for covert co-operations on a small scale in this situation, each being sure that the balance of the skullduggery would favor their own goals at the end.
This sort of hole and corner business is traditionaly regarded as falling far short of sufficient cause for full-scale war. It is generally handled by arrest or assassination of agents, and small-scale cross-border engagements targeting facilities and routes that directly support the activity. Generally both parties know the rules and have their own reasons for keeping things at the 'incident' stage rather than escallating to open, major conflict. One of our major problems nowadays is that the present administration here has no conception of restraint, or respect for the traditional applications of state-craft, particularly where these concern the use of force. Its decisions are mostly based on domestic political considerations, where they are not based on pure pride and personal swagger.
The administration is going to try and flog the idea of military action against Iran, and will do so in the hopes of altering the political realities here in the United States. They will attempt to blur all these distinctions, and refer to these various items in the same breath as if they were interchangeable. They will be hoping to wrong-foot Democrats, and imagine rousing yet again the patriotic willingness of the people to rally behind military action in its initial stages. Democratic politicians are going to have be circumspect and considered in their responses. "All options are open" noises will strike most as necessary, and probably are, but expressed opposition to any immediate action, and exposure of the falsities on which any claims of urgent need for immediate action are based, is also necessary. The great underlying fact is that the people are pretty well fed up with military adventurings in the Middle East, and the blood-lust that set in in September 2001 is largely spent. The 'budget' of that blood-lust was a number of U.S. military casualties approximately equal to the number of our civilians killed in those attacks, and roughly a hundred of 'them' dead for every one of 'us' killed. Both have been exceeded....
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
