Deinonychus antirrhopus

so much for having that dialogue...

That's it?

You have *nothing* to say about the Iran problem?

Flip that question on its head:

Yes or no, is it acceptable for Iran to develop nuclear weapons? If the only solution is military force, would you be in favor?

The end game is that Iran will have the bomb and the US will swallow the bitter pill of disgust and acceptance of the then status quo.

Europe will be gutless and not stand with the US. Europe doesn't have the manpower, nor willingness to impose sanctions. Existing US sanctions only help European and Chinese ventures.

The US can't do it alone. We won't stike targets, nor will Israel. We won't invade because Iraq is enough to keep us busy.

The best strategy is to flip the leadership of the Revolutionary Guard (yes, the protectors of the Revolution and Mullahs) by appeals, and bribery, to institutional self-aggrandizment, (look at how the military worked with Khomeini during the revolution) have them take out the Mullahs, and then have them become protectors of the state, as in Turkey. This is a long term mission and requires substantial resources deployed in a covert fashion. It can't be seen as a US led coup though.

The ironic thing is that the Iranian population are probably the most pro-American in the region for they've seen the other side of the coin. To maintain the favor of the population we need to rid them of the Mullahs yet be benign in our involvement post-coup.

The race is on though - which comes first - the bomb or the coup? I figure the bomb.

I blogged about running a decision tree analysis on this here. Here and here are my two follow-up comments.

What manpower (beyond bureaucrats) is required to undertake sanctions? It's not exactly a blockade we're talking about.

More to the point, assuming Russian cooperation, sanctions are actually moderately viable. Consider Iran's neighbors:

Afghanistan
Iraq
Turkey
Turkmenistan

All of those have US forces operating from within them. Throw in the Persian Gulf/Arabian Sea, and if we wanted to, we could certainly impose and enforce sanctions.

Similarly, if Europe wanted to assist us, the European states certainly have the naval forces to check vessels at sea (and they were, at least nominally, participating in the sanctions against Iraq, after all).

So, T-man, I'm not sure that sanctions against Iran would necessarily require a substantially different force from that required to sanction Iraq.

I'll agree w/ you, however, that Europe (and China) is unlikely to be willing to undertake such sanctions.

Dean,

Recent events in Ukraine are likely to have the Russians less eager to align with the US. IMHO, of course.

China's national interest is to be friendly with Iran.

The ironic thing about this issue, is that Iran could be what the Neocons thought Iraq was going to be, the example of a modern, tolerant stabilizing influence in the region. It won't be that with the Mullahs in charge, nor if we liberate them. It has to be organically developed.

What we're seeing is the collison of, primarily, two national wills, and a host of hanger on's ambitions. Iranian people want a nuclear industury, which is a huge source of pride and national self-confidence, and the Mullahs want nuclear weapons, definitely for geo-strategic reasons, and most likely for religious and Jew-hating reasons (containment and M.A.D. were built on rational-actor premises - how much does this apply to religious crazies with their fingers on the bomb?) The US sees the instability that follows from the Iranians having the bomb, most especially the current leadership. It would be an easier pill to swallow if the leadership was, well simply, democratic.

The Hangers-on are Europe, Russia, China, etc who are looking to further their own interests at the expense of world security.

In the end, I think the Iranians will suffer the sanctions in order to get the weapons.

Whether the sanctions will ever come to be, I don't think so. Europe's primary goal seems to be to thwart the exercise of US power projection and the sweetness of maintaining trade relations with Iran in a sanction environment is too appealing. Lots of profits to be made by busting the sanctions.

So, if the US goes it alone, the scale of the job will make Iraq look like child's play. Never underestimate nationalism, and the population of Iran will turn against the US just like in Iraq. Targeted strikes are out of the question for both the US and Israel for logistical reasons.

The only card that the US can play is to mobilize the nation for war, up military spending, up recruitment, stall Iranian nuclear initiatives while preparing for war, and then going at it hard and with full commitment. That means political dealing on the home front, tax hikes, and other things as well. I don't think that we'll go that far.

I don't think that the half measures we're going to see play out over the course of this crisis will, in the end, stop the Iranian national will. Nuclear power is definitely a go, and the odds are great that the Iranians will soon be a nuclear power. Perhaps, they'll act responsibly with that power, but that's a hell of a gamble on our part. Perhaps we should start learning Farsi, huh Robin :)?

It's a poker game, and the Iranians with their complicit enablers, the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese, have a stronger hand. They know that the only way to stop them is for the US to make a complete national commitment to stopping them and we're not going to do that.

So, in the end they have the bomb.

Gosh, the question doesn't seem that tricky to me. I'll answer both:

1) Yes
2) No

Unfortunately, #1 almost certainly won't happen, because folks like Mr. Drum won't let it happen.

I would never favor a draft, however. If we can't get enough young people to volunteer then the cause is lost, in my view.

I expect that if the President actually called on young people to volunteer we'd have all we needed, though.

The draft is problematic. On the one hand, volunteers tend to be eager and capable. On the other hand, a large, all-volunteer Army of the Republic leaves the timid and incapable running the home economy. I'm quite serious: Misallocation of the best manpower was a serious problem during the Second World War.

Of course, nowadays some of the skilled labor could be replace with 'droids, at least if you can get around the opposition of the labor unions. Cloning is impractical in a short war because of the time to maturity problem.

Yes or No, is it spam when a blog is trolled and OT links or comments are posted?

OT

http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/var/am_sup.htm

http://instapundit.com/archives/019440.php

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/lgf-fallujahchem-slideshow.php

The draft part of the question is just silly. The thing that keeps us from ramping up to Cold War levels of recruitment is authorization not lack of willing young people. Unless Kevin thinks we need more people than we would have needed against the USSR?

I can work with stuff like Kevin has, watch:
I like oranges, should I go fishing or not?

And TangoMan, what makes you think Israel would balk at another bombing run? Remember Entebbe, these are not risk averse people.

Ron,

I'm not saying that Israel would balk at the prospect, I'm saying that the logistics are more difficult. The bombing run on Osirak was a straightforward operation compared to an attack on a distributed and fortified network in Iran, the flight times are longer, going through more challenging airspace, and the fighter signatures can't be so easily disguised.

"If this requires a military draft, would you be in favor?"

It is impossible for an invasion of Iran to require a draft, since a draft would be at best redundant (as it was in WWII) and at worst disastrous (as in Vietnam); it won't be helpful in any event, and therefore can never be a necessary condition for victory.

Drum's a pretty wimpy looking guy. I doubt he could beat his wife.

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