War plans for Iran?

The leftwing, anti-American Guardian is not exactly the most reliable paper in the world, but Dan Plesch’s article on the likelihood and the strategic goals of a possible U.S. military action against Iran is presented with logic not sensationalism. Here are the key passages:

America’s devastating air power is not committed in Iraq. Just 120 B52, B1 and B2 bombers could hit 5,000 targets in a single mission. Thousands of other warplanes and missiles are available. The army and marines are heavily committed in Iraq, but enough forces could be found to secure coastal oilfields and to conduct raids into Iran.

A US attack is unlikely to be confined to the suspected WMD locations or to involve a ground invasion to occupy the country. The strikes would probably be intended to destroy military, political and (oil excepted) economic infrastructure. A disabled Iran could be further paralysed by civil war….

The possible negative consequences of an attack on Iran are well known: an increase in terrorism; a Shia rising in Iraq; Hizbullah and Iranian attacks on Israel; attacks on oil facilities along the Gulf and a recession caused by rising oil prices. Advocates of war argue that if Iran is allowed to go nuclear then each of these threats to US and Israeli interests becomes far greater. In this logic, any negative consequence becomes a further reason to attack now—with Iran disabled all these threats can, it is argued, be reduced.

If the U.S. strategy is as described, then the intent is not to democratize Iran or even replace its government, as least directly, but rather to destroy the nuclear infrastructure along with other key facilities, with the aim of, obviously, eliminating the nuclear threat, reducing Iran’s military power and regional influence, weakening the regime, and possibly sparking a civil war. This makes infinitely more sense than the ideological leap into the abyss that we have pursued in Iraq for the last two years. If a country is led by terrorist killers who pose a danger of mass destruction to us or our allies, and the Iranian regime with their open threats of nuclear jihad certainly fit that description, then they must be toppled, as in Iraq, or, as seems to be the idea for Iran, crippled or perhaps indirectly toppled, as a result of the chaos that would be sown by a U.S. attack. We remove the danger and remove or hamstring the enemy regime, which we have the ability to do, and then we leave. We do not stay and try to reform and rebuild the country, which we do not have the ability to do.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 14, 2005 11:43 PM | Send