Just as a side note, it’s interesting that the people who are having strokes over the claim that the Administration is developing a plan or series of plans for military action in Iran are the same people who had strokes over the lack of planning in the war in Iraq.
I tend not to get very exercised about this, since I’m sure that there are plans being updated every day for – among other things – the invasion of Canada. All those midlevel officers in the Pentagon have to do something every day, and having detailed contingency plans for just about everything is probably a pretty good thing for them to be doing.
The disclosure of these plans is a part of the dance in which the Administration tries to manage perceptions within Iran while the press tries to manage perceptions of the Administration within the United States.
AL: I don’t have an issue with the idea that we are game-planning Iran, but I do have a problem with this:
“The disclosure of these plans is a part of the dance in which the Administration tries to manage perceptions within Iran…”
In other words, don’t pay attention to the rumors you hear of war, Bush is just trying the mess with Iran’s head. And yet, when one tries to say the same thing about Iran, that this nonsense about destroying Israel is just an internal powerplay by elements within the Iranian government, all the hawks scream that Hitler shows we need to take threats seriously.
To put it another way: don’t take the American president seriously, but take the Iranian president seriously.
Nate, on one hand, I agree 50% with you – which is why I’m not in the “Bomb Iran Now” camp – and on the other, I think there’s a substantive difference between our position – which involves making what I consider to be reasonable demands on Iran in order to be sure that they are not pursuing a nuclear weapons program, and setting out a series of harsh consequences for those demands not being met – and the position of figures in the government of Iran, which has a history of actively supporting anti-US and western terrorists, shows little affection for international law, and makes public statements that suggest that the obliteration of a neighboring state are the goals of those in power.
If Bush was saying he was going to just “nuke the ragheads”, you’d have more of an equivalence. he hasn’t and we don’t.
A.L.
Well, I’m leaning toward the “Bomb Iran Soon” camp, should anyone find one.
Which is why I find the Hersh article very disappointing. If Seymour Hersh is writing articles about the imminent attack of Iran, then given Hersh’s established credibility, there is only one conclusion possible: that an attack is long distant and not being planned.
Hersh couldn’t get the Monday stock prices right on Tuesday.
Hersh floated the “U.S. Special Forces in Iran” story a few months ago to general derision, and repeats it now based on the same information, i.e., none.
This is reasonable grounds to believe that he has similarly made up all of this story which he has not cribbed from other more credible sources.
The two stories in today’s Sunday Times of London on Iran, and the Washington Post story, should be given more weight. Hersh these days is right about as much as a stopped clock.
The one thing of note in Hersh’s story is his recognition that the Bush administration’s objective is regime change. The more people who see such stories, the better.
Likewise Hersh’s contentions about planning for American nuclear weapons use on Iran will IMO have the opposite effect of what he intended – people will link “Iran” with “nuclear weapons” with an “oh s***t! meaning.
P.R. flackery is not needed to convince the public that Iran’s mullah regime is a threat to us. Likewise no P.R. flackery is required to convince the public that we should use military force to stop Iran from having nuclear weapons.
But it does help to remind the public that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Hersh’s article does a fine job there.
I’m not in the Bomb Iran Now Camp.
I’d settle for a wait of a day or two.
Magic number:499888
The LL and the MSM have been co-opted by the enemy in the GWOT
A.L.
I’m not a fan of Hersh’s. I think he’s out to toot his own horn.
The US is faced with a major a strategic nuclear threat by Iranian President MAD and his religious mentor, Imam Yazdi.
Unlike the Russians they will not be deterred by Mutually Assured Distruction Policies (MAD). They are cultlike religious fanatics that truly believe in their religious prophecies and the 2nd coming of the 12 Imam. They are even extreme for the other Iranian mullahs.
They will nuke Israel in a heartbeat once they have the capability if it will hasten the return of the 12th Imam. Just read previous posts at RBT.
We have two clocks ticking. One is how long before the Mad Mullahs go nuclear and the other how long before the Joyless Generation will rise up and overthrow this tyaannical regime.
The former may come sooner than the later. Hence the new American strategic policy of regime change. The CIA, the bureaucrats of State, the LL, and the MSM are balking at this and are otherwise engaged in Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Screw them all, the Army of Davids (e.g. Instapundit) now have the power at their fingerprints to bring this important alternative info to the American people who have been left out of the loop by the MSM.
If is wasn’t for brave bloggers in Iran and Dr. Zin at Regime Change Iran, no one would ever know that there is unrest building in Iran. We must take every opportunity to exploit this rift within the ruling Mullahs and with the Iranian people to topple this fascist theocratic regime.
The alternative whether it involves tactical nukes or not is not pleasant. The Little Satan will attack if they feel sufficiently threatened. The Big Satan will take the blame if the Little Satan strikes whether we are involved or not. So if it comes down to it, we will either do it with the Israelis or do it alone so that we do not encounter the wrath of the other Arabic countries.
This will be a ligtening, very lethal, no holds barred, one night stand strike. It will be a joint air/ground special forces ops and then get the Hell out of Dodge.
Instead of consuming time picking at nits it’s up to the Blogos to facilitate the free flow of info into and from within Iran so that the American people can hear first hand the news that the MSM can’t or won’t report.
We must first win the war of information to win the GWOT. To win we must first secure the will of the American people. The LL and the MSM have been effectively co-opted by the enemy’s disinformation compaign in the war of information. The American people so far have been left out in left field.
See this piece just posted at RBT re the new media feeding fenzy over the leaks by President Bush in the Plame-Wilson Affair:
*****
GWOT – Plamegate Round III
The LL and the MSM have finally outed themselves as patsies and stooges of the enemy in the GWOT
. . . . The LL and the MSM, however, will be falling all over themselves. Perhaps their time would be better spent pouring over the Saddam Regime documents, and the story of Iraq Gen. Sada on where Saddam’s WMD really went with Russian assistance. Of course this would destroy their meme, Bush Lied. People Died!
The LL and the MSM have finally outed themselves as patsies and stooges of the enemy in the GWOT. They have taken the bait – hook, line, and sinker in the enemy’s disinformation campaign in the war of information.
Or you can say the enemy has thrown them a bone and they are fighting tooth and nail over it. This is a red herring intended to destract attention from the enemy’s real goal and objectives
[…]
Finally the President is the utlimate signer of what is classified or not. The CIA is in outright organizational warfare with the Office of the President, and may have fallen into the clever French trap or at least was CYA’g with these leaks.
State and the CIA were wrong on the fundamental point that Saddam, the Iranians, the Shiia, the Sunni, the Baathists, and OBL/AQ will all cooperate when in their best short-term interests when the Big and Little Satan are involved.
It comes down to what some others have noted in the Blogo s – the President can leak whatever he damn well pleases as this is a prerogative of his office, the others can only do so with his permission. It’s illegal for the others to leak info without his permission. The President is the ultimate authority and everyone has to play on his team.
[…]
Read More
RBT
“To put it another way: don’t take the American president seriously, but take the Iranian president seriously.”
Actually, I wish more people would take both more seriously. This ain’t Arsenal v. Man U we’re kicking back and forth here.
A follow up quote from James Fallows new “Atlantic Monthly piece”:http://www.theatlanic.com/doc/200605/fallows-iran/ on Iran:
“Perhaps the American and Israeli hard-liners know all this, and are merely bluffing. If so, they have made an elementary strategic error. The target of their bluff is the Iranian government, and the most effective warnings would be discreet and back-channel. Iranian intelligence should be picking up secret signals that the United States is planning an attack. By giving public warnings, the United States and Israel “create ‘excess demand’ for military action,” as our war-game leader Sam Gardiner recently put it, and constrain their own negotiating choices.”
If Bush wants to pressure the Mullahs, he can do so without beathing the warpath publicly in the US. Call me cynical, but one has to wonder if he is going the public route to energize his flagging domestic political capital.
Sorry about the dead link above, I don’t know how to do that stuff. Go to Matt Yglecias’ blog for a good link.
And in case it wasn’t clear, where the quote refers to what the Americans and Israeli hard-liners know, they are referring to the knowledge that military strikes in Iran are the worst strategic manuever. The Fallows pieced makes the case strongly, relying on a war-gaming session run by a retired Air Force General.
I can’t believe people here are so naive to think we don’t have special operations forces on the ground in Iran. Even you even had the faintest interest in the realities in the run-up to Iraq, you knew we put people on the ground in Iraq long before the invasion. Remember all of the “Rock Stars”, and their US contacts in Kurdish Iraq? We’ve put them into African and middle eastern countries in many different times and places.
I mean, if you had some sort of plausible reason to believe we don’t have intelligence gathering military operations going on in Iran, and could bother putting them up, it would be one thing, but all you give us now is Hersh Derangement Syndrome, whereby anything Hersh says must be gainsayed in opposition, until finally he says its rabbit hunting season and you shout “Its Duck Hunting Season! Shoot Now!” and you get your feathers mussed up and beak on backwards. Sad, really.
“and the other how long before the Joyless Generation will rise up and overthrow this tyaannical regime.”
“We must take every opportunity to exploit this rift within the ruling Mullahs and with the Iranian people to topple this fascist theocratic regime.”
You can bet saber rattling is not going to make them rise up any faster. In every instance, threatening people with an attack on their country has made them them draw closer to their government. It happens everywhere. It happened with us after 9/11. It makes it easier for the government to act more extremely to deal with the external threat, with less resistance from the people.
“This will be a ligtening, very lethal, no holds barred, one night stand strike. It will be a joint air/ground special forces ops and then get the Hell out of Dodge.”
Do you forget the US bases in Iraq and Kuwait within easy retaliation range of Iranian missiles, not to mention the prevalence of Iranians and pro-Iranian Iraqi’s surrounding them? Do you forget the long Iranian coastline on the Persian Gulf, where oil tankers are easily visible for retaliation? The huge offsea fill stations, locked in place and surely pretargeted bby Iran?
You say on one hand that Iranians are loony, ready to die in a battle with the west, and then think this will be a one day thing, with no retaliation? Come on. You may or may not be right about Iranian strategic thinking and fanaticism, but you have to be stupid to think they are fanatics, then think there will be no retaliation.
The third trackback above, from Political Animal, links to a Kevin Drum article in Washington Monthly which in turn has a link to a Washington Post blog that I provide below, plus one fascinating comment in it:
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/04/goldilocks_and_.html