Just in case it’s Iran we invade next
It’s hard to keep up with all the countries we’re going to invade. Just when I was getting around to working on why invading Iran was a bad idea, now maybe it is Syria that is next in our sights. But just in case Israel bombing the hell out of Lebanon continues to be blamed neither on Israel nor on Hezbollah but on Iran, here are some pertinent facts from “Iran: Consequences of a War” by Paul Rogers, published by the Oxford Research Group. Facts from the report; interpretations and questions by me.
Israel does have the capability of projecting air power to Iran thanks to us selling them long-range versions of the F-15 and F-16, as well as over 500 large earth penetrating bombs (p.4). Could any of this have motivated Iran and other nations to acquire longer-range weapons of their own? And what does Israel need bunker-buster weapons for if not to go after the sort of hardened underground facilities that the Palestinians do NOT have?
The US routinely keeps one aircraft carrier battle group near the Persian Gulf and sometimes two during rotations. (p.7). This would presumably provide all the air power needed for the US to launch yet another one of those mythical “surgical” attacks that – because all the trouble they cause is weeks and months later – are regarded as easy and painless by civilian leaders.
We’d presumably want to take out the 1000Mw reactor near Bushehr (p.7), but since it goes critical this year an attack that broke the containment structure would spread radiation not only over Arabs and Persians we don’t care about but maybe over US soldiers (whom the Bush administration doesn’t much care about) and over oil production facilities that we do care about.
We’ve already used drones to map Iranian facilities (p.8). And, actually, this is not a bad thing to have done. I’d hope we’d be doing useful intelligence on a nation of concern to us.
The report expects both that early round of strikes by the US would seem to be very successful and that civilian casualties would not be apparent until much later (p.9). This will be more than enough to paralyze the Democrats yet one more time while the US media announces another triumph for the Great Leader. Naturally, it will be an utter illusion.
Iran’s responses (p.10) could include: a) rapidly restarting their nuclear program – and they’d have no reason to limit anything they would do after being attacked, b) tell Hezbollah to go all out. Perhaps now we understand why it is so advantageous to the US to have Israel take out Hezbollah now, prior to an Iranian attack. However, there is Iraq to consider and Iranian efforts to further destabilize Iraq could intensify. c) close the Straits of Hormuz, having a major impact on oil prices, d) direct use of Iranian Revolutionary Guard elements in Iraq.
The report goes on to discuss some of the longer-term and wider consequences of a war with Iran. Suffice it to say they are mostly all bad for our national desire to drive our SUV’s in peace.
The conclusion:
The termination of the Saddam Hussein regime was expected to bring about a free-market client state in Iraq. Instead it has produced a deeply unstable and costly conflict with no end in sight. That may not prevent a US or an Israeli attack on Iran even though it should be expected that the consequences would be substantially greater. What this analysis does conclude is that a military response to the current crisis in relations with Iran is a particularly dangerous option and should not be considered further – alternative approaches must be sought, however difficult these may be.