Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

A Replay of the WMD Threat...This Time for Real!

Just about as I thought would happen, and documented it in previous posts, the moves towards a strike on Iran are becoming quite evident. I predicted 2008 as the year, and early Spring as the season, that we would go all out to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons. I have noted that the powers that be have made it quite clear that we cannot let Iran become a nuclear power in the Middle East, beginning with President Bush. He has only two years in office to solve the Iranian nuclear problem. I propose that he will pull the trigger if Iran does not give in.

The unspoken reason to put 21,000 more troops in Iraq is to forestall Iranian attacks on us in Iraq. There will be further escalations, as I have stated before, until there are some 250,000 to 300,000 troops in Iraq and Kuwait. When we strike Iran, their considerable army and “irregulars” could pose a significant problem for us in Iraq. We needed more air support near Iran, so a second carrier group was directed to go to the theater. I haven’t heard about more Air Force assets being ordered into the theater, but it will happen in the latter part of 2007, I predict. They can stage there rapidly.

What do we intend to do?

First, we are pressurizing Iran with real military power converging on them. A simple message: We can hit you whenever we decide to, if you persist in developing nuclear weapons, and we have already taken many rational steps to neutralize your main responses in Iraq and elsewhere. Save yourselves the agony of a strike, and accede to the UN resolution’s requirements.

Second, we are busily refining our target lists and plotting the disposition of troops, armor, air defenses, and command networks in Iran. I would not be surprised to hear that special forces have made numerous excursions into Iran to discover important sites and troop movements to map them into the target list. Nor would I be surprised to hear that Global Hawk, or other recon drones, have been scouring Iran for months to support target list development.

Third, we are most certainly developing the logistics system to be used in the event we go at Iran, with the pre-positioning in Kuwait and Iraq of long lead items for the assault, especially heavy munitions. Then too, we have been manufacturing replacement equipment of all kinds for the army at a fast clip, and orders for ammunition have mounted enormously. We have needed time to build ourselves up again.

Fourth, we have undoubtedly been shuffling the deployment schedules for ships to build up the naval presence near Iran to a war level. The visible pressure will rise all this year.

Fifth, it is also most likely that we are feeding dissident groups in Iran with money and other technical assets to help them grow into a position of real influence within the nation.

Sixth, in parallel, we are continuing the diplomatic push through the UN, and with the UK, France, and Germany, to attempt some early resolution of the nuclear issue. This has been going on for years with nothing to show for it. It would be nice if a breakthrough could occur out of the blue, but I seriously doubt it will happen.

Seventh, a massive campaign will be launched soon to convince the American people that a nuclear Iran is the terrible threat to peace it really is. This effort will peak in about August or September of this year, and it will be sustained for the 5 to 7 months before the onset of war.

The specter of war with Iran will be infused into the election campaigns of the Presidential hopefuls, and there will be an enormous debate about it that will put the idea strongly before the public--either we take Iran’s nuclear capabilities out now, or we will lose a city or two downstream to fanatics who were given the bomb by Iran. Millions of us would die in such an attack, and we would have grave difficulties in pinpointing the culprits with any certainty.

It would be national suicide for Iran to strike at us, or at Israel, in an identifiable manner. But the AQ’s of the Islamic Movement could do the deed. This is the nightmare scenario that propels us toward war with Iran to snuff out their nuclear program, just as that scenario did, partially, in Iraq.

Can we succeed in this? Many say that we cannot find all of the nuclear sites, and will fail to stop the Iranians from acquiring the bomb, or at most we will delay it for a few years. The only way to be sure is to put troops into Iran... and sift the sand.

What is the alternative?

Labels: Iran

# posted by Mannning @ 12:32 AM