Generals Say Iran Is Not A Crisis & Bush Hard Line Undermines US Security

[kpete]

Group Says Iran Is 'Not a Crisis'(LAT)
Former generals and officials seek to prevent an attack on suspected nuclear sites and to overhaul policies toward Tehran and Baghdad.

Seeking to counter the White House's depiction of its Middle East policies as crucial to the prevention of terrorist attacks at home, 21 former generals, diplomats and national security officials will release an open letter tomorrow arguing that the administration's "hard line" has actually undermined U.S. security.

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The rhetoric has increased since last week's Democratic primary in Connecticut, in which antiwar political newcomer Ned Lamont defeated three-term Sen. Joe Lieberman to become the party's Senate candidate — a victory that senior administration officials are describing as a sign that Democrats are embracing their party's extreme left.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard, one of the letter's signers and a former military assistant to Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara in the 1960s, said the group was particularly concerned about administration policies toward Iran, believing them to be a possible prelude to a military attack on suspected nuclear sites in that country.

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"It's not a crisis," Gard said in a telephone interview. "To call the Iranian situation a 'crisis' connotes you have to do something right now, like bomb them."

more at:
http://www.hoffmania.com/blog/2006/08/again_the_gener.html
http://www.latimes.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept

[necso]

1. Even if an attack on Iran

(a full-scale invasion being largely out of the question) doesn't start-out using nuclear weapons, one fears that this is a likely (eventual) outcome to Iranian retaliation for such an attack (more specifically, an outcome that occurs at some phase of the attack-retaliation cycle).

And while the recent "war" in Lebanon has hardened some against Iran, a "strategic"-bombing/special-forces/"indigenous"-insurgency war-plan for Iran promises little hope -- quite possibly less than a form of this "strategy" did in Lebanon. Indeed, the likely outcome of an attack on Iran will be failure to acheive the war-objectives (if these can even be detailed in practical, coherent, related-to-the-matter-at-hand form); rallying of the Iranian people to the government, strengthening it as opposed to weakening it; more support for the notion of (Iranian++) nuclear weapons as a necessary means of protection; and other counterproductive effects.

The best hope lies in negotiations (I would not suggest that such negotiations will be easy, quick, or entirely satisfactory) -- and as a token of good faith, any efforts and operations to destabilize the Iranian state must be stopped forthwith.

But as has been said elsewhere, the neocons are in the position of gambling-addicts who have lost more than they could afford to, and who have seen their "foolproof" "system" and "plans" come to ruin. And like obsessed, crazed, desperate gamblers, they must be overcome with the compulsion to raise the stakes -- and take another gamble on the "big win" in order to cover their losses -- and to restore some measure of believability to themselves, their "system", their "plans" and their "philosophy".

However, no such "big win" (re Iran++) appears even remotely possible, although (our) ruin seems a very real possibility.