no comments at present but worth noting link.

A guy over on Kos said it best: It's like you're riding in a car with a drunk driver, and when you ask him to slow down, he gets mad and stomps on the gas.

Bush is now out of control that way, and he's bound and determined to get this country into wars we can't afford. This maniac has already invaded one country for no good reason, and now he wants to start bombing Iran and Syria.

Congress better do something damn quick to put this monkey in a cage. But first, they have to take the loaded gun away from him.

"Death before being dishonored any more." - Col. Ted Westhusing

that delivered the ABC evening news called the facility an Iranian outpost. Gave the impression the place was something sinister and unsanctioned.

I did inhale.

Friday, January 12, 2007
The President's power to attack Iran

In response to Joe Biden's warning to Condoleezza Rice that an attack on Iran would "generate a constitutional confrontation in the Senate," Josh Marshall says: "A comment like that doesn't come out of the blue." Maybe, but it is worth underscoring what the administration's views are as to its authority to attack Iran.

Last April, Seymour Hersh wrote an article in The New Yorker warning that the administration "has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensifed planning for a possible major air attack." That article was published just as I was finishing writing How Would a Patriot Act?, and so I added an Epilogue examining the Bush administration's views as to the President's power to commence a war, or order an attack, against Iran.

The Epilogue emphasizes that the radical theories of presidential power adopted by the administration (and applied to general lawbreaking, warrantless eavesdropping, torture, indefinite detentions of U.S. citizens) applied clearly and fully to Iran, i.e., that those theories -- which were and still are the formally adopted positions of the Executive Branch -- absolutely mean that the President has the power to commence a war with Iran, and that not only would he not need Congressional approval to do so, but Congress would lack the power to stop him even if it tried:

much more with links at Unclaimed Terrority

anyone remember sy hersch's piece in the New Yorker last spring? it's clear this administration (at least Cheney) has lusted to go to war with Iran for some time now...hell we've got war already on two fronts, to these morons we might as well open up another on a third one.
www.minor-ripper.blogspot.com

Will do his best to have as many war campaigns going as he can acheive before leaving office. I made a bet with my Dad 3 years ago that Bush would have a minimum of 3 wars going before he finally gets out of office. Dad did not believe that Bush could be so insane. I hope I lose the bet, but Bush is a homicidal sociopath with blood filled delusions of grandeur. Given the rumors I'm afraid and sickened that I will win.

The guy loves to kill and destroy. He lives for it. Breathes destruction and killing. He feels superior, heroic, manly, master of the universe and validated when he kills and destroys. The american people and all the people he targets are mere blood sops and tools for his egomania. Cheney is the exact same way. All of humanity is disposable and expendable to them, with the exception of themselves.

The Plan for Economic Strangulation of Iran
The Plan for Economic Strangulation of Iran

American Chronicle
Abbas Bakhtiar
January 10, 2007

It is said that there is more than one way to skin a cat. It seems that United States is trying to skin this cat –Iran- in anyway that it can, including economic strangulation. While people are concerned with Iraq and the gathering armada in the Persian Gulf, United States has been quietly carrying out a not so covert economic war against Iran.

...huge snip...

The current American financial attacks on Iran are being felt in Tehran. These attacks although a recurring theme, has never been as intense as it is now. These attacks will cause some pain in Tehran but will not dissuade the government to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Iran in all likelihood will address (short term) its production problems and will reduce its local consumption by increasing the prices (adding to an already high inflation) and rationing. These attacks do and will hurt Iran, but not to a degree that United States desires. These attacks although sever, can be seen by some in Iran as a blessing in disguise, for it now force the Iranians to address some unpleasant questions with regard to their economy in general and energy consumption and subsidies in particular.

Iran suffers from many economic problems most of which is related to over-involvement of the government in the economy. Some of the financial problems can be attributed to the sanctions, but the majority of the existing economic problems are self-made. Weak management, inefficient use of resources, corruption, red-tapes and myriad of regulations are just a few among many problems that are facing the Iranian economy. These problems were not created by Ahmadinejad, nor can they all be solved by him; however people expect him to address many of these problems. This is what I call Ahmadinejad’s Achilles’ heel, which I shall address in my next article. Ahmadinejad was elected mainly for his promise of putting more bread on the Iranian tables. With the enormous problems facing him, it is difficult to see how he is going to fulfil his promises to the electorates.

Meanwhile Bush administration is bent on regime change in Iran, reducing all chances of a peaceful resolution to the existing US-Iran problems. One would have expected that the recent election defeat would have sent a clear signal to the Whitehouse that the American people want less and not more conflict in the region. But apparently Bush administration is going in the opposite direction. US is continuing to increase its naval presence in the Persian Gulf. The USS John C. Stennis strike group is soon to join the USS Dwight Eisenhower aircraft carrier group and USS Boxer strike force in the Persian Gulf “as a warning to Syria and Iran”. Pushing for more stringent UN sanctions, use of unilateral sanctions, increasing pressure on foreign governments to stop dealing with Iran, putting sanctions on Iranian Banks and increasing the size of US navy presence in Persian Gulf are all signs of hostile intentions by Bush administration towards Iran.

It is difficult to see how United States expects Iran to cooperate on Iraq and Afghanistan while being threatened militarily and suffocated economically. It may also all be a negotiating tactics. First show the guns and then negotiate. But in my opinion this is neither a bluff nor a negotiating tactic. Bush administration is behaving like a gambler that has lost everything except his house. Now in one last desperate attempt it is raising the bet to all or nothing.

check this out, map and all ;)

The Khuzestan Gambit
By David Eshel

Video: Military analyst believes recent US actions could signal Iran conflict soon

David Edwards
Published: Friday January 12, 2007

US forces raided a facility that Iran claimed was being used for diplomatic purposes, alleging that Iranians were funneling weapons to the enemy. Six Iranians were captured in the raid at the consulate, with one being released earlier today.

Several analysts consider parts of President Bush's latest speech as an obvious threat to Iran. One, John Pike of GlobalSecurity, notes that U.S. actions could signal a conflict in the near future.

(...)

Pike provides a time frame in which the U.S. or Israel might first strike Iran, explaining, "I think the month of February is certainly a time of heightened probability. It's very difficult to understand exactly what the thinking is at the White House and in the Israeli government but for sometime now we've been saying that 2007 is probably the time, if there's going to be military action, it's probably going to come this year. Possible as soon as next month. Probably no later that August of this year."

Nearly a year ago, Pike warned about a "cycle of escalation."

"When the Americans or Israelis are thinking about [military force], I hope they will sit down and think about everything the ayatollahs could do to make our lives miserable and what we will do to discourage them," John Pike said in Feb. 2006.

"There could be a cycle of escalation," Pike added.

( ... Link ... )

Scott Ritter Says U.S. Plans June Attack On Iran

Mark Jensen| February 19 [2005]

... On Iran, Ritter said that President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran's alleged program to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million -- a possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism...

... On Jan. 17, the New Yorker posted an article by Hersh entitled The Coming Wars (New Yorker, January 24-31, 2005). In it, the well-known investigative journalist claimed that for the Bush administration, "The next strategic target [is] Iran." Hersh also reported that "The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer." According to Hersh, "Defense Department civilians, under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran... Strategists at the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military's war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran. . . . The hawks in the Administration believe that it will soon become clear that the Europeans' negotiated approach [to Iran] cannot succeed, and that at that time the Administration will act."

Scott Ritter said that although the peace movement failed to stop the war in Iraq, it had a chance to stop the expansion of the war to other nations like Iran and Syria. He held up the specter of a day when the Iraq war might be remembered as a relatively minor event that preceded an even greater conflagration...

( ... Link ... )

Don't tell Iranians, but nobody's invading Iran

January 30, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Geo-Green Alternative
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Davos, Switzerland

One of the most striking things I've found in Europe these past two weeks is the absolute conviction that the Bush team is just itching to invade Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Psssssssst. Come over here. A little closer. Now listen: Don't tell the Iranians this, but the Bush team isn't going to be invading anybody. We don't have enough troops to finish the job in Iraq. Our military budget is completely maxed out. We couldn't invade Grenada today. If Iran is to forgo developing nuclear weapons, it will only be because the Europeans' diplomatic approach manages to persuade Tehran to do so.

(...)

( ... Link ... )

Isn't this what Bush wants? Increase fear about another war to increase the cost of oil to increase their friends pockets with money?
This has all to do with fear and money. Not about actual threats.

_{repressive governments mix administrative clumsiness & inefficiency with authoritarian tendencies.}

NYT

January 13, 2007
Bush Authorized Iranians' Arrest in Iraq, Rice Says

By DAVID E. SANGER and MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — A recent series of American raids against Iranians in Iraq was authorized under an order that President Bush decided to issue several months ago to undertake a broad military offensive against Iranian operatives in the country, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday. ...

In adopting a more confrontational approach toward Iran, Mr. Bush has decisively rejected recommendations of the Iraq Study Group that he explore negotiations with Tehran as part of a new strategy to help quell the sectarian violence in Iraq. ...

Mr. Bush’s public warning to Iran was accompanied by the deployment of an additional aircraft carrier off Iran’s coast and advanced Patriot antimissile defense systems in Persian Gulf countries near Iran’s borders. Both the White House and the secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, insisted Friday that the United States was not seeking to goad Iran into conflict, and that it had no intention of taking the battle into Iranian territory. The White House spokesman, Tony Snow, warned reporters away from “an urban legend that’s going around” that Mr. Bush was “trying to prepare the way for war” with Iran or Syria.

I think it means get your troops out of our way ;) ~ candy

Posted on Fri, Jan. 12, 2007

U.S. policies have made Israel less safe, experts say

By DION NISSENBAUM
McClatchy Newspapers

JERUSALEM - After years of supporting the Bush administration's policy in the Middle East, a growing number of Israelis are openly criticizing the United States for creating more, not less, danger for Israel.

Israeli experts contend that American policies have destabilized Iraq, emboldened anti-Western forces from Iran to Lebanon and paved the way for militant Islamists to gain control of the Palestinian Authority.

"The threats to Middle East security and stability worsened in 2006," experts at Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies recently warned. "The American failure in Iraq has hurt the standing of the U.S. in the Middle East."

Perhaps most strikingly, in their annual evaluation of the situation, the Israeli analysts concluded that it was better for the United States to get out of Iraq than to add troops, as President Bush is proposing.

"There's no Israeli interest being served by continued American presence in Iraq," said Mark A. Heller, a Jaffee Center researcher who helped produce the group's annual "Middle East Strategic Balance" report.

"There's a basic overall interest in not having the United States perceived as a weak or failing power," Heller said. "But any initial goals that might have been served by getting rid of Saddam Hussein have long since been banked."

......

sraeli leaders now consider Iran to be their biggest and most pressing danger. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, constantly antagonizes Israel by questioning whether the Holocaust happened and suggesting that the Jewish nation will one day be wiped off the map.

Israel is expected to push the United States to ensure that Iran faces tough international sanctions for pressing ahead with its nuclear program - a drive that Israel fears could provide one of its most vocal adversaries with a nuclear bomb.

Should the sanctions effort fall short, some Israeli leaders suggest that their nation is prepared to launch a military strike on Iran, much the way it did in 1981 when it crippled a nuclear reactor outside Baghdad.

"In real terms, it is obvious that Israel has military options vis a vis Iran, and it would consider them, should diplomacy fail," said Uzi Arad, a former director of intelligence with Israel's Mossad who now serves as head of the Institute for Policy Strategy at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center in Israel.

Many experts question whether an Israeli or U.S. military strike could seriously damage Iran's nuclear program, but some analysts say the threat could encourage Iran to negotiate.

.....

International isolation, however, has failed to compel Hamas to make significant concessions. Now the United States is launching a renewed effort to empower Abbas, the moderate Palestinian president whose weakened Fatah Party lost to Hamas last year.

The United States is preparing to provide more monetary and military support for Abbas, a step that some worry could end up quickening the day when the near-daily clashes between Hamas and Fatah loyalists devolve into civil war.

Abbas is one ally whom Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hopes to enlist during her visit to the Middle East this weekend as she works to create a coalition of moderate Middle East leaders who share U.S. fears that militant anti-Western forces are on the rise.

The Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert backs that effort. But Rice is likely to face greater skepticism in the other countries in the region.

Last summer, both Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney found little appetite for the idea when they broached it with other Middle East leaders during Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Heller suggested that American foreign policy once again had been undermined by the country's overconfidence.

"It's kind of a flattering image that Americans have of themselves and, frankly, that everyone has of America, that somehow the United States is capable of doing anything it sets its mind to and all it needs is political will," he said. "I think it's a total misreading of reality."

full article raw story/mcclatchy

Commentary: Winds of war blowing Iran's way
Martin Walker
United Press International
January 10, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The vigorous denial by Israel of a report in London's Sunday Times alleging that its air force was training for a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities was as predictable as it was hollow. There is no doubt that Israel's fighter-bombers have been training for a long-distance mission; NATO sources say they have for weeks been watching Israeli warplanes running flights the length of the Mediterranean to Gibraltar - and nobody expects an Israeli strike on Gibraltar.

The drumbeats of war are beginning to sound from several directions. In Washington, the transfer of Admiral William "Fox" Fallon from Pacific Command to run Central Command - coordinating the Iraq war and the Afghan mission - startled the army and marines, whose enlisted thought they were serving in ground wars.

But the sphere of Central Command's operations also includes Iran.

Fallon's appointment comes as the White House wants to increase the military pressure on Tehran. Fallon is heading to the region with some heavy reinforcements of two aircraft carrier strike groups, led by the USS John C. Stennis, as well as the state-of-the-art new USS Ronald Reagan, which left San Diego last week.

And then there was the extraordinary comment from Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, one of the Sunni leaders appalled by the fate of fellow Sunnis in Iraq and the growing prospect of a Shiite alliance led by Iran.

"We don't want nuclear arms in the area but we are obligated to defend ourselves," Mubarak said at a joint press-conference last week with Israeli premier Ehud Olmert. "We will have to have the appropriate weapons. It is irrational that we sit and watch from the sidelines when we might be attacked at any moment," he added.

The abrupt resignation last month of Prince Turki Al Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, reflected the sharp debate in Riyadh over the best way to respond to the Iranian threat.

Prince Turki is a dove who had wanted dialogue and negotiation, fearing that military strikes against Iran would set the entire region ablaze. Prince Turki's predecessor in Washington, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, now acting as the Saudi equivalent of the national security advisor, is a hawk, convinced the Saudi monarchy must rally the Gulf States and Sunni nations against the prospect of a Shiite empire led by a nuclear-armed Iran.

Pessimists among the Saudi-watchers say that Prince Turki lost his side of the debate; optimists say that he returned to Riyadh to continue the argument.

more

Part One: Pretending You Didn’t Know

GlobalResearch.ca, By Juan Santos, Jan 13

The Democrats are silent as the Bush regime prepares for war against Iran -- silent in the face of a potential nuclear mass murder -- even a global war. Silent in the face of an attack that could cause an utter meltdown of the global economy, a 1930s style Depression that would send millions, perhaps billions of people into starvation-level poverty, as the prices of oil and gasoline triple.

The potentials for horror for tens of millions of people in the region are almost unspeakable. Such a war would quickly spread to Iraq -- where Halliburton’s "Green Zone" in Baghdad would be turned to instant rubble by such missiles as were left for an Iranian counterstrike, giving US soldiers in the Zone their own taste of Lebanon, even as Shia Muslims turn a face of cold steel -- or wild, inconsolable grief and rage -- toward the death of every US and British soldier, mercenary, spy, journalist, and profiteer in Iraq.

According to Agency France-Presse, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said, "The Americans know better than anyone that their troops in the region and in Iraq are vulnerable. I would advise them not to commit such a strategic error. I would advise them to first get out of their quagmire in Iraq before getting into an even bigger one."
Iraqi Shi’ite leader Moqtada al Sadr has announced that his Mahdi army would retaliate for a US attack on Iran.

A major defeat in Iraq could lead immediately to a military draft, radicalizing, at last, the anti-war movement in the US.
That war would spread throughout the region is all but certain. Whether it could be contained to the region is entirely uncertain.

IPS News (Alternet), By Trita Parsi, Jan 13

President George W. Bush's address on Iraq Wednesday night was less about Iraq than about its eastern neighbor, Iran.

President George W. Bush's address on Iraq Wednesday night was less about Iraq than about its eastern neighbor, Iran. There was little new about the U.S. strategy in Iraq, but on Iran, the president spelled out a plan that appears to be aimed at goading Iran into war with the United States.

While Washington speculated whether the president would accept or reject the Iraq Study Group's recommendations, few predicted that he would do the opposite of what James Baker and Lee Hamilton advised. Rather than withdrawing troops from Iraq, Bush ordered an augmentation of troop levels. Rather than talking to Iran and Syria, Bush virtually declared war on these states. And rather than pressuring Israel to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the administration is fueling the factional war in Gaza by arming and training Fatah against Hamas.

Several recent developments and statements indicate that the administration is ever more seriously eyeing war with Iran. On Wednesday, Bush made the starkest accusations yet against the rulers in Tehran, alleging that the clerics were "providing material support for attacks on American troops."

While promising to "disrupt the attacks on our forces" and "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq," he made no mention of the flow of arms and funds to Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda from Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

It was called "The Sixth Sense". When it was over, I said "great plot twist at the end there!".

She said "Really? You didn't see that coming? It was obvious from the beginning; all the clues were there."

Surprise.

Note from Flynt Leverett: Most Important Parts of Bush Speech About Iran -- Not Iraq
January 12, 2007

(New America Foundation Senior Fellow and Geopolitics of Energy Initiative Director Flynt Leverett: photo credit: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer)

I asked former CIA and Bush administration National Security Council senior official Flynt Leverett for a quick summary of his thoughts on President Bush's Address to the Nation.

Here is Flynt Leverett's response to The Washington Note:

The most important things that President Bush said last night dealt with Iran, not Iraq:

According to the President, the Iranians are providing "material support" to attacks on U.S. forces. That is a casus belli. It fits in with the administration's escalating campaign -- encompassing rhetoric and detentions of Iranian officials in Iraq -- to blame Iran for a strategically significant part of the ongoing instability and violence in Iraq.

In the context of describing the deployment of additional U.S. forces to Iraq, the President also noted the importance of securing Iraq's borders. I suspect that at least some of the additional U.S. soldiers going to Iraq will end up on the border with Iran.

Moreover, the President strongly implied that the U.S. military would start going after targets in countries neighboring Iraq to disrupt supply networks for insurgents and militias.

The deployment of a second carrier strike group to the theater -- confirmed in the speech -- is clearly directed against Iran. Since, in contrast to previous U.S. air campaigns in the Gulf, military planners developing contingencies for striking target sets in Iran must assume that the United States would not be able to use land-based air assets in theater (because of political opposition in the region), they are surely positing a force posture of at least two, and possible three carrier strike groups to provide the necessary numbers and variety of tactical aircraft.

Similarly, the President's announcement that additional Patriot batteries would go to the Gulf is clearly directed against Iran. We have previously deployed Patriot batteries to the region to deal with the Iraqi SCUD threat. Today, the only missile threat in the region for the Patriot to address is posed, at least theoretically, by Iran's Shihab-3.

In sum, the administration is laying the rhetorical and operational foundations for implementing a presidential decision to initiate military operations against Iran. No wonder the White House wants Hillary* and me to shut up.

(*Hillary is Hillary Mann Leverett, a former State Department official who also served on President George W. Bush's National Security Council staff. She is married to Flynt Leverett)

Leverett's views are consistent with many others I have spoken to over the last day. He has also been in a battle with National Security Council staff who have insinuated themselves in the "secrets clearing process" managed by the CIA Publications Review Board.

Here is Flynt Leverett's and HIllary Mann Leverett's recent op-ed in the New York Times that was published with the CIA's "blacked out"/redacted lines [which redactions were also relevant to Iran, if you'll recall - ES].

(...)

-- Steve Clemons

( ... Link ... )

relevant to Condi's tours: one opinion from a Cairo University professor:

To me, the most dangerous thing that can happen in the next two years is for Israel and the US to succeed in instilling the fear among Arab governments and predominantly Sunni societies that Iran has embarked on an expansionist project with the aim of creating a "Shia crescent" opposed to Arab interests, and in using this fear to rally a regional coalition against Iran.

For some time Washington has been trying to promulgate the idea that Iran heads an "alliance of extremists" that includes Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and that what is needed to confront it is an "alliance of moderates" -- Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

It takes no great feat of intelligence to understand that Israel will be America's natural candidate to lead the "moderates". Nor does it require great imagination to foresee that if this scenario comes into being, the Arab world will become sharply polarised Iran and Israel, and that whichever of these two sides wins, the Arabs will come out losers.

Ms Rice might be hoping for a more receptive audience in the Gulf. After all, the region's Sunni Muslim ruling families want to keep their strongest ally engaged in their part of the world...

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have bloodshed on their doorsteps, and that is not comfortable. Iraq has become a base for Sunni extremists who despise the Gulf rulers who are in the American camp.

But even more serious for the Gulf's ruling families - and less directly the authoritarian Sunni regimes in Jordan and Egypt - is the growing empowerment of Shia Muslims. It is perhaps the single biggest unintentional consequence of George Bush's decision to invade Iraq and it will be making Sunnis nervous for at least a generation.

The era of Sunni dominance is ending. Ever since an Iraqi government was re-established after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Shias have been the dominant group. By removing Saddam Hussein, the Sunni strongman, the Americans also obligingly removed Shia Iran's biggest local enemy.

The Shia minorities in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain all watched it happen with great interest. So did Shia Muslim Hezbollah in Lebanon, whose fighters gave Israel a bloody nose and a long-running political and strategic headache after last summer's war...

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

Brian Knowlton at the International Herald Tribune

President George W. Bush, facing sharp and widespread opposition to his plan to send more troops to Iraq, insisted Sunday that he had the authority to do so, even without the approval of Congress.

"I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it," he said in an interview with CBS airing Sunday. "But I've made my decision. And we're going forward."

Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, appeared on a Fox TV interview program and sharply challenged the vociferous Democratic critics of the new plan, saying, "They have absolutely nothing to offer in its place."

Like Bush, he said he doubted that Congress would use its budget authority to block the troop increase, which both men said was vital if order was to be restored to Baghdad so that political reconciliation and economic recovery can take root.

The Atlantic Monthly | December 2004

Will Iran Be Next?

Soldiers, spies, and diplomats conduct a classic Pentagon war game—with sobering results

by James Fallows

...As a preview of the problems Iran will pose for the next American President, and of the ways in which that President might respond, The Atlantic conducted a war game this fall, simulating preparations for a U.S. assault on Iran... Such simulations are [Col. Sam] Gardiner's specialty...

... our group of principals gathered... In the role of CIA director was David Kay... Playing Secretary of State were Kenneth Pollack, of the Brookings Institution, and Reuel Marc Gerecht, of the American Enterprise Institute... The simulated White House chief of staff was Kenneth Bacon... Finally, the Secretary of Defense was Michael Mazarr, a professor of national-security strategy at the National War College...

[re Israel's potential to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear sites:]

Most of the principals thought the Israelis were bluffing, and that their real goal was to put pressure on the United States to act. ...[Pollack:] "Based on my discussions with the Israelis, I think they know they don't have the technical expertise to deal with this problem. I think they know they just don't have the planes to get there—setting aside every other problem." "They might be able to get there—the problem would be getting home," retorted Gerecht, who had the most positive view on the usefulness of an Israeli strike. Bacon, as White House chief of staff... "Unless they can take out every single Iranian missile, they know they will get a relatively swift counterattack, perhaps with chemical weapons. So the threat they want to eliminate won't be eliminated." Both he and Pollack recommended that the Administration ask the Israelis to pipe down...

...The general and his staff had prepared plans for three escalating levels of involvement: a punitive raid against key Revolutionary Guard units, to retaliate for Iranian actions elsewhere, most likely in Iraq; a pre-emptive air strike on possible nuclear facilities; and a "regime change" operation, involving the forcible removal of the mullahs' government in Tehran. Either of the first two could be done on its own, but the third would require the first two as preparatory steps. In the real world the second option—a pre-emptive air strike against Iranian nuclear sites—is the one most often discussed. Gardiner said that in his briefing as war-game leader he would present versions of all three plans based as closely as possible on current military thinking...

...The panelists skipped immediately to the regime-change option, and about it there was unanimity: the plan had been modeled carefully on the real assault on Iraq, and all five advisers were appalled by it.

"You need to take this back to Tampa," David Kay said, to open the discussion. Tampa, of course, is the headquarters for CentCom units operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Or put it someplace else I'd suggest, but we're in public."...

..."Speaking as the President's chief of staff, I think you are doing the President an enormous disservice," Kenneth Bacon said. "One, it will leak. Two, it will be politically and diplomatically disastrous when it leaks … I think your invasion plan is a dangerous plan even to have on the table in the position of being leaked … I would throw it in Tampa Bay and hope the sharks would eat it."...

[re - expansion of American airbases in neighboring nations necesary preparatory to strike:] "This is a paranoid regime," Kenneth Pollack said of Iran… even if it weren't about them, they would assume it was about them. So that in and of itself will likely provoke a response. The Iranians are not inert targets! If they started to think we were moving in the direction of a military move against them, they would start fighting us right away."

Michael Mazarr, as Secretary of Defense, said he did not want the authority that was on offer to his department. "Tell the President my personal judgment would be the only circumstances in which we could possibly consider launching any significant operation in Iran would be the most extreme provocation, the most imminent threat," he said.

Even the hardest-liner, Reuel Gerecht, was critical. "I would agree that our problems with the Islamic republic will not be over until the regime is changed," he said. If the United States could launch a genuine surprise attack—suddenly, from aircraft carriers, rather than after a months-long buildup of surrounding airfields—he would look at it favorably. But on practical grounds, he said, "I would vote against the regime-change options displayed here."...

... "Pre-emption is only a tactic that puts off the nuclear development," Gardiner said after the exercise. "It cannot make it go away. Since our intelligence is so limited, we won't even know what we achieved after an attack. If we set it back a year, what do we do a year later? A pre-emptive strike would carry low military risk but high strategic risk."

During the war game the regime-change plan got five nays. But it was clear to all that several other big issues lay on the table, unresolved...

... At noon the war game ended. As a simulation it had produced recommendations that the President send a go-slow signal to the Israelis and that he not authorize any work on airfields in Central Asia. His advisers recommended that he not even be shown Centcom's plans for invading Iran.

... A similar calculation could be heard in almost every discussion among the principals, including those who had strongly supported the war in Iraq. This was most obvious in the dismissal of the full-scale regime-change plan—which, Gardiner emphasized, was a reflection of real-life military thinking, not a straw man. "I have been working on these options for almost eighteen months," he said later. "I tried them in class with my military students. They were the best I could do. I was looking for a concept that would limit our involvement in stability operations. We just don't have the forces to do that in Iran. The two lesser concepts"—punitive raids on the Revolutionary Guard and pre-emptive air strikes—"were really quite good from a military perspective." And of course the sweeping third concept, in the very similar form of Tommy Franks's plan, had been approved by a real President without the cautionary example of Iraq to learn from...

... Exactly what learning from Iraq will mean is important but impossible to say... If George Bush is re-elected, the lessons of Iraq in his second term will depend crucially on who is there to heed them. All second-term Presidents have the same problem, "which is that the top guys are tired out and leave—or tired out and stay," Kay said. "You get the second-best and the second-brightest, it's really true." "There will be new people, and even the old ones will behave differently," Gardiner said. "The CIA will not make unequivocal statements. There will be more effort by everyone to question plans." But Kay said that the signal traits of the George W. Bush Administration—a small group of key decision-makers, no fundamental challenge of prevailing views—would most likely persist. "I have come to the conclusion that it is a function of the way the President thinks, operates, declares his policy ahead of time," Kay said. "It is inherent in the nature of George Bush, and therefore inherent in the system."

...All were alarmed about the way governments now make life-and-death decisions; this was, after Iraq, the second big message of the exercise.

"Companies deciding which kind of toothpaste to market have much more rigorous, established decision-making processes to refer to than the most senior officials of the U.S. government deciding whether or not to go to war," Michael Mazarr said. "On average, the national-security apparatus of the United States makes decisions far less rigorously than it ought to, and is capable of. The Bush Administration is more instinctual, more small-group-driven, less concerned about being sure they have covered every assumption, than other recent Administrations..."

... Gardiner pointed out that none of the principals had even bothered to ask whether Congress would play a part in the decision to go to war. "This game was consistent with a pattern I have been seeing in games for the past ten years," he said. "It is not the fault of the military, but they have learned to move faster than democracy was meant to move."...

In the week after the war game I interviewed the participants about the views they had expressed "in role" and about their personal recommendations for the next President's approach. From these conversations, and from the participants' other writings and statements about Iran, the following themes emerged...

... About America's military options there is almost as clear a view. In circumstances of all-out war the United States could mount an invasion of Iran if it had to.

But for the purposes most likely to interest the next American President—that is, as a tool to slow or stop Iran's progress toward nuclear weaponry—the available military options are likely to fail in the long term. A full-scale "regime change" operation has both obvious and hidden risks...

Is it therefore irresponsible to say in public, as our participants did and we do here, that the United States has no military solution to the Iran problem? Hammes said no. Iran could not be sure that an American President, seeing what he considered to be clear provocation, would not strike. "You can never assume that just because a government knows something is unviable, it won't go ahead and do it. The Iraqis knew it was not viable to invade Iran, but they still did it. History shows that countries make very serious mistakes."

[emphases mine. Well worth reading in its entirety. Bear in mind a) this was written before the 2004 elections, and thus balanced the views between Repub/Dem to reflect the election's uncertainty; however, the real outcome provided a far less balanced, much more hardline cabinet - ES]

18 Jan 2007 15:05:10 GMT
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - U.S. defense officials on Thursday said a rumored Iranian missile strike on a U.S. naval vessel in the Gulf was not true.

"No such event took place," said one of the officials on condition of anonymity.

The bond market briefly pared losses on talk of possible military engagement between the United States and Iran, but turned back down after the Defense Department said the incident did not occur...

( ... Link ... )