Iran War: We'd really better think about what this would mean

"God may smile on us, but I don't think so." - anonymous Pentagon adviser quoted by Seymour Hersh April 2006 on Bush administration plans to pressure Iran militarily

With the military option looking unfortunately much more likely than at the start of the summer, it's worth looking at what the Cheney-Bush propaganda for making war on Iran will look like.  Here are a few articles on the subject of attacking Iran, in no particular order.

This article provides a good overview of the risks involved in the US attacking Iran:  Contemplating the Ifs by Patrick Lang and Larry Johnson The National Interest Spring 2006.  One of the most interesting points they make involves the question, "what would the Chinese do?"  They write:

They hold a substantial amount of U.S. debt.  What happens if they decide to find some other currency to hold instead of the dollar? This could add an entirely new and dangerous dimension to an attack on Iran. Put simply, the United States spends too much and saves too little, and Asia saves too much and spends too little. The Chinese would view a disruption in the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf as a damaging blow to the U.S. economy.  Although the dollar traditionally has been the currency people seek during a crisis, the growing imbalance with China creates new dynamics that could convince the Chinese that holding dollars no longer made economic sense. Under such a scenario, dumping dollars on the international market would trigger an inflationary spiral in the United States.

The scenario of an inflationary spike triggered by China’s dumping of dollars may strike some as fanciful. The point for U.S. planners and policymakers, though, is to recognize that war brings unintended consequences that go well beyond the tactical realities on the ground where the fighting occurs.  At a minimum, we should contemplate how a pre-emptive military strike in Iran could harm other U.S. foreign policy interests.  A crisis in Iran would not occur in a vacuum.

Iran and the Irrationality Factor by Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com/CommonDreams.org 03/21/06:

When it comes to the Iranian nuclear program in particular, the Bush administration has been nothing short of brilliant in connecting only those dots that put itin the worst possible light, while isolating it from every other nuclear program on Earth, from what Jonathan Schell has dubbed our global "atomic archipelago." At this, top administration officials continue to prove themselves unbelievably competent; in part because, without those Downie-esque "broad topics" to cover, the press -- with rare honorable exceptions like a recent Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler Post piece, U.S. Campaign Is Aimed at Iran's Leaders -- has proved so abysmally incompetent in creating more reasonable patterns on its own.

But let's, for a moment, imagine a Washington Post reporter taken from the South Asia bureau and assigned to an overarching global nuclear beat. Let's imagine that he or she started with India, a country which, unlike Iran, would be in thorough violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), had it ever signed on. With a major military program and now nuclear-armed, it has come to the brink of nuclear war more than once with its nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan. Our President, of course, just visited India and offered it a non-proliferation-whacking sweetheart deal on nuclear fuel and technology. Next door, of course, is nuclear-armed Pakistan, a shaky military regime and U.S. ally that has lost control of some of its border regions to the Taliban, elements of al Qaeda, and a growing fundamentalist opposition which, should it ever come to power, would find itself instantly in possession of a full-scale nuclear arsenal.

Skip Afghanistan (nothing but warlords and opium) and you've made it to Iran, whose nuclear program, begun with American help back in the days of the Shah and continued with secret aid from our ally Pakistan, is now in question. Then jump over to Israel, which, like India, has never signed on to the NPT and possesses (but refuses to publicly acknowledge) a near-civilization busting arsenal of 200-300 nuclear weapons. You can read the American press for months at a time without the slightest mention of the Israeli nuclear arsenal, though the as-yet-nonexistent Irani dominates the front-page day after day. ...

What we face, in fact, are two fundamentalist regimes, American and Iranian -- each in the process of overestimating the hand it is playing; each underestimating its enemy; each in the grip of a different kind of irrationality. It's a frighteninglycombustible mix.  (my emphasis in bold)

In Mideast tumult, Iran's clout rises by Howard LaFranchi Christian Science Monitor 07/31/06:

Still, the list of factors contributing to Iran's growing sense of power is long - from the removal of two neighboring enemies in Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the rise of friendly Shiite forces in Iraq, the expansion of radical Islamism, and drawn-out international diplomacy over Iran's nuclear program.

Iran is thought to funnel about $200 million a year to its pet causes in the Islamist movement, including an estimated $100 million going to Hizbullah. That investment has spread Iran's influence westward and raised fears in Lebanon's Sunni neighbors of a rising radical Shiite crescent. It also provides Iran with a footprint in the heart of the Middle East and - with its lesser investment in Hamas - the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ...

"Ahmadinejad especially is saying: 'We are a player to be reckoned with,' " says Alex Vatanka, an Iran specialist at Jane's Information Group in Alexandria, Va. "Above everything else, he wants to maximize Iran's position in the Muslim world."

At the same time, Iran is seeking to influence US and international actions towards it by suggesting either the benefits it can bestow - or the trouble it can unleash. "A lot of what they are doing can be seen as an effort to build deterrence vis-à-vis the US," says Mr. Vatanka. ...

Where there is growing consensus is around the idea that, no matter what role it played, Tehran may have overplayed its hand: that a continuing war could be decimating Hizbullah beyond the point Iran anticipated, and that a longer conflict may not help it at home or abroad. That could be one explanation for Ahmadinejad's call last week for acease-fire in the conflict.

"He probably wants to go back to the status quo ante," says Daniel Benjamin, a terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "That would allow Hizbullah to say, 'We [succeeded] again.' "  (my emphasis)

Dangerous brinksmanship San Francisco Chronicle editorial 04/13/06:

Before Iraq, most Americans might have assumed that the notion of using nuclear weapons to keep another nation from developing a nuclear capability would have been so reckless and hypocritical as to be unthinkable. Or, in the words of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, "completely nuts." 

In Iran, time is on our side, if only sanity will prevail. A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, is expected to visit an Iranian nuclear site in Natanz this weekend. Most experts are convinced Iran is several years away from achieving a fuel for warheads. ...

But President Bush should take one option off the table. He should make it clear that this nation will never use nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike against anyone.

This is a briefing paper that Pat Lang says has been circulating among military planners:  Iranian President Ahmadinejad, Islamic Eschatology, and Near-Term Implications by Chuck Vollmer 01/26/06.  In Eschatology? - Wow! (Sic Semper Tyrannis blog 03/15/06), Lang says:

I find this "briefing" now circulating in the armed forces to be worrisome.  In the "bad old days" we had a lot of "younger sons," and members of the heredity military caste (like me) in the officer corps of our armed forces.   They were a lot less concerned with "solemnity" and more concerned with "seriousness."

Now a "sea change" has occurred and officers are more solemn about eschatology and such like that than the the leaders of our beloved "ruffians" of yesteryear were likely to be. Such things as this briefing seem to be more likely to be thought of as a challenge these days than intelligence on the eccentricities of the enemy.

Iran-Sliding to War? by Paul Rogers (Oxford Research Group) March 2006:

Given the risks that would result from American action against Iranian nuclear facilities, it is relevant to ask why Iran causes such concern in Washington.  Part of the explanation does go back to the fall of the Shah.  Not only was this a severe shock to the United States since the Shah’s Iran had been its key client state in the region and a perceived bulwark against the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, but the manner of the revolution was an added shock.  It happened with a rapidity that caught almost every part of the American government by surprise, and was made much worse by the holding of US diplomats hostage in Tehran for more than a year.

While this memory is deep-seated, especially in the State Department, it is only a partial explanation.  Three other factors have to be taken into account. One is the central importance of the security of Israel to successive American administrations.  Jewish support for Israel within the United States may have weakened in recent years especially as many liberal Jews became increasingly critical of the policies of the Sharon government, but this has been counterbalanced by the increased political power of the Christian Zionists and the pro-Israel neo-conservatives.

The Christian Zionists may not exhibit the political sophistication of the traditional Israel lobby but they have become an important adjunct to it, representing a sector of the electorate numbering in the tens of millions that tends to vote Republican in Congressional and Presidential elections.  Israel regards Iran as its only major threat in the entire region, and has done so more or less continually since thefall of the Shah 27 years ago.  It follows that US domestic support for Israel shares this view, andprominent pro-Israeli politicians in the United States are particularly strong in their rhetoric against Iran.

Iran has also become a greater problem for the United States because of the failures inIraq. ...

Finally, the US relationship with Iran remains deeply connected to oil security across the region. With the United States and China increasingly reliant on Gulf oil, and with the rest of the industrialised world similarly dependent, the Persian Gulf is just too important for Washington to allow an independent “rogue state” to enhance its power base.  (my emphasis)

Playacting Diplomacy Again on Road to War by Norman Solomon  Minneapolis Star Tribune/CommonDreams.org 04/18/06 :

When reality can't hold a candle to perception, then reality is apt to become imperceptible. And in matters of war and peace, when powerful policy wonks in Washington effectively strive for appearances to be deceiving, the result is a pantomime of diplomacy that's scarcely like the real thing. When the actual goal is war, the PR task is to make a show of leaving no diplomatic stone unturned.

That kind of macabre ritual was underway on April 10 when White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters: "The president has made it very clear that we're working with the international community to find a diplomatic solution when it comes to the Iranian regime and its pursuit of nuclear weapons."

The quote appeared the next morning in a New York Times news article under a headline that must have pleased the war planners at the White House: "Bush Insists on Diplomacy in Confronting a Nuclear Iran."

Ambrose Bierce defined diplomacy as "the patriotic act of lying for one's country." But there is nothing less patriotic than lying to one's country - especially when the result is a war that could have been avoided if honesty had substituted for mendacity.

Iran: Consequences of a War by Paul Rogers (Oxford Research Group) February 2006:

This paper takes as an assumption that any military action by the United States or Israel would have as its function the inflicting of severe damage on Iran’s nuclear installations and medium range missile programmes, while, in the case of the United States, endeavouring to pre-empt any damaging Iranian response.  It also does not investigate the possibility that the United States would take the kind of military action necessary to terminate the current regime in Tehran.  That would require major deployments of at least 100,000 ground troops, either by the United States on its own or in coalition with other states.  At the present time, the United States does not have such spare capacity, mainly because of the need to maintain up to 150,000 troops in Iraq, up to 30,000 in West Gulf states and around 18,000 in Afghanistan.  There is no other state that has both the capacity to provide such numbers of troops and is remotely supportive of such a level of US military action. ...

Israel has maintained a nuclear capability since the late 1960s and is believed to have around 200 nuclear warheads, principally for delivery by aircraft or surface-to-surface missiles. It may also be developing warheads for submarine-launched cruise missiles. Even so, Israel regards it as essential to its security that it is the only state in the region with a nuclear capability. S ince the Iranian Revolution at the end of the 1970s, successive Israeli governments have regarded Iran as the greatest long-term regional threat. ...

The close links between Israeland the United States are far more widely recognised across the Middle East than in the US or Europe.  As a result, any Israeli military action against Iran would be seen as essentially a joint operation, with Israel acting as a surrogate and doing so with direct US support. ...

From a US perspective, there would be two main reasons for taking action against Iranian nuclear facilities. One would be to damage the overall programme to the extent that any plans to produce nuclear weapons could be set back at least five years and preferably longer, but a second would be to make it clear that the United States is prepared to take significant preventative military action in this regard, and would, by implication, take action against other Iranian activities that it might find unacceptable, not least any Iranian interference in Iraq.

The core problem is that any military action would, in practice, have to involve more than just a series of attacks on a small range of directly nuclear-related sites.  Moreover, once such action started, it would be virtually impossible to maintain any relationship with Iran except one based on violence. ...

It is very difficult to predict the level of Iranian military and civilian casualties, but two points may be made. The first is that, as in Iraq during the first three intense weeks of war, early civilian casualty reports will be incomplete and the full extent of casualties unlikely to come to light for several months. However, anyreports of civilian casualties which do emerge would be widely disseminated by the Iranian media and by commercial media networks such as al-Jazeera elsewhere in the region. The second is that any surprise attack will catch many people, be they civilian or military, unawares and unprotected. There will be no opportunity for people to move away from likely target areas as was possible in the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

Military deaths in this first wave of attacks against Iran would be expected to be in the thousands, especially with attacks on air bases and Revolutionary Guard facilities. Civilian deaths would be inthe many hundreds at least, particularly with the requirement to target technical support for the Iranian nuclear and missile infrastructure, with many of the factories being located in urban areas.  If the war evolved into a wider conflict, primarily to pre-empt or counter Iranian responses, then casualties would eventually be much higher. ... (my emphasis)

Just to emphasize the point:  Defending Israeli attacks on civilian areas in the Israel-Lebanon War has given the Republicans practice in defending the mass killing of civilians.  But the cold reality is that no matter how "surgical" the air strikes are, a lot of people will die, both civilian and military.  And we're talking here about a preventive war, blatantly illegal under international law and immoral by any standard of value worth the name.

No one in America should have to ask, "Why do they hate us?" after an attack like that.

A US military attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure would be the start of a protracted military confrontation that would probably involve Iraq, Israel and Lebanon as well as the United States and Iran, with the possibility of west Gulf states being involved as well.  An attack by Israel, although initially on a smaller scale, would almost certainly escalate to involve the United States, and would also mark the start of a protracted conflict. ...

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.  Whatthis 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.  (my emphasis)

An American - or Israeli - attack on Iran will make the disaster of the Iraq War seem minor in terms of its consequences.  That doesn't mean that suicide bombers will be blowing themselves up in American cities the day after an air strike on Iran.  But it does mean big-time, long-lasting, violent trouble for the United States.

Anyone who thinks this will be a "cakewalk" is badly stoned on OxyContin or otherwise detached from reality.