Saber Rattled
UPDATE: ConfYank and NeptLex smell BS in alleged flight deck report of preparations for same. I’d suggest the blabber may well be telling the truth, its an ignorant messenger who’s garbled it, attributing inaccuracies. Happens all the time. Interesting however, if there’s enough information in Kos yapper’s report to ID and get the blabber in trouble. Certainly hope it’s true, because this (see below) is about 28 years overdue. Better late than never, in this case.
UPDATE: Liberal hawk to neo-progressive nutroots: can the Cheney bashing and consider the usefulness of wacking Iran … nuke facilities plus water and power utilities, to bring them to their knees if the blasted mullahs won’t listen to reason. Well, that’s not exactly how he wrote it, but close enough. Sheesh, and I thought I was a twisted warmonger just for wanting to level all their military facilities, highways in and out and the oil fields. And maybe Tehran if they actually did try anything.
Times of London: Pentagon’s “Three-Day Blitz” plan of attack on Iran includes 1,200 targets:
THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.
Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus”.
President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust”. He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran “before it is too late”.
Great news. Should complicate Iranian defense plans and scare the crap out of the Iranian military at all levels. May run the risk of alienating the Iranian population, but that is a risk no matter how Ahmadinejhad is (effectively) confronted.
One Washington source said the “temperature was rising” inside the administration. Bush was “sending a message to a number of audiences”, he said ? to the Iranians and to members of the United Nations security council who are trying to weaken a tough third resolution on sanctions against Iran for flouting a UN ban on uranium enrichment.
It’s all saber rattling at this point. Don’t expect to see anything soon. Iraq is the current agenda item.
Bush is committed for now to the diplomatic route but thinks Iran is moving towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. According to one well placed source, Washington believes it would be prudent to use rapid, overwhelming force, should military action become necessary.
…
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, irritated the Bush administration last week by vowing to fill a “power vacuum” in Iraq.
…
Bush noted that the number of attacks on US bases and troops by Iranian-supplied munitions had increased in recent months “despite pledges by Iran to help stabilise the security situation in Iraq”.
It explains, in part, his lack of faith in diplomacy with the Iranians. But Debat believes the Pentagon’s plans for military action involve the use of so much force that they are unlikely to be used and would seriously stretch resources in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I dunno, I kind of doubt that. It’s not like there are massive airstrikes going on in those places, or like the plan as briefly alluded to here says anything about ground troops. The question I suppose is where all those massive airstrikes would stage out of. Iraq and Afghanistan could be problematic as bases, due to local issues. Carrier groups, Guam, even the United States.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:24 am Comments (11) on Sunday, September 2, 2007
11 Responses to “Saber Rattled”
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September 2nd, 2007 at 12:12 pm
I concur, Jules. If all the planners are looking are air strikes, the only real problem is logistical (i.e., having enough fuel and ammunition for the aircraft to operate). Toss in cruise missiles, and the scope is much wider.
The problem with this strategy is that air power alone won’t stop Iran. At best, this will only set back Iran’s plans a few years. It could also destabilize Iran to the point that they aren’t able to play outside their sandbox as much as they would like for a while. But that would be it.
I just hope Bush doesn’t flinch on this one. Iran needs a serious smackdown, and I don’t mean a stern letter from the UN Security Council.
September 2nd, 2007 at 1:34 pm
TRJ, if we are planning an air power demo we also need a good combat SAR plan. Iran has some fairly robust EW capabilities.
September 2nd, 2007 at 3:15 pm
IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei is complicit in Iran’s weapon’s program. I’ve always distrusted him.
This is from a review a new book:
“…The second part of the book tells the story of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. One of the principal villains of the piece is IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei; it seems his Nobel Prize is something similar in value to that given to Yasser Arafat. ElBaradei was slow to waken to the Iranian danger, delayed reporting the extent of violations, and enabled Iran to continue working toward building nuclear weapons.”
The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran
By Yossi Melman and Meir Javedanfar
September 2nd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
The sixth fleet is in Dubai. That is not far away.
September 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm
True enough, VotC. Although I think that we have enough countermeasures to greatly reduce (but not eliminate) that risk. Still, it’s a genuine possibility, especially if Iran has foreign “advisor” (*cough* Russians *cough*) helping them out. Again.
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:21 pm
TRJ:
You mean, like the Saddamites had?
September 2nd, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Pretty much, Grimmy.
Regarding the update…..I read that Kos diary, and I tend to agree with the analysis. I’m not Navy, but I know what an LSO does, and the chances that he or she would legitimately be in the planning loop for something like this is virtually none. Sorry, ain’t gonna happen. Even Kos agrees with that. Besides, the career path for this LSO is bizarre, to say the least (how does a non-pilot become an LSO? Is that even possible?). And, if true, unique enough to identify the person in question.
At best, the “source” is passing on rumors, which is both bad OPSEC and lousy judgement. Something that I find hard to believe in someone who guides jet fighters into carrier deck landings, a task that I’ve heard described as one of the most dangerous in the world.
So my BS meter is blaring away at 105 decibels, Jules. I’ll go with CY and NeptLex on this, plus Hot Air.
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:54 pm
I wish yo’all would stop using terms like CY and LSO and SAR. Just a suggestion from the ignoramus up the road…
September 3rd, 2007 at 12:20 am
Sorry, Heather, you can take the people out of the military, but you can’t take the military out of the people…..
CY: Confederate Yankee
LSO: Landing Safety Officer. He/she coaches the aircraft landing on carriers. A very demanding job.
SAR: Search And Rescue, the rapid recovery of downed pilots, in this case, inside a combat zone, never an easy task.
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:26 am
OTOH, Trident missiles avoid the need for SAR, and one sub load would put Iran physically where they are mentally.
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:58 am
If we could take out Iran’s shiny new Russian anti-aircraft defences early on it would send a nice little message to Moscow. I plan to be in front of my big TV with a case of beer and a bag of chips for this one.