Is war with Iran inevitable? Over at the National Review Online, Michael Ledeen appears to think so, which is maybe not so very surprising. But he quotes – at length – an article by Robert Tracinski in the Intellectual Activist Daily that raises a chilling and seemingly ineluctable spectre:
It is, indeed, “five minutes to midnight”‚Äînot just for Israel, but for the West. The time is very short now before we will have to confront Iran. The only question is how long we let events spin out of our control, and how badly we let the enemy hit us before we begin fighting back.
We can’t avoid this war, because Iran won’t let us avoid it. That is the real analogy to the 1930s. Hitler came to power espousing the goal of German world domination, openly promising to conquer neighboring nations through military force and to persecute and murder Europe’s Jews. He predicted that the free nations of the world would be too weak‚Äîtoo morally weak‚Äîto stand up to him, and European and American leaders spent the 1930s reinforcing that impression. So Hitler kept advancing‚Äîthe militarization of the Rhineland in 1936, the Spanish bombing campaign in 1937, the annexation of Austria and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, the invasion of Poland in 1939‚Äîuntil the West finally, belated decided there was no alternative but war.
That is what is playing out today. Iran’s theocracy has chosen, as the nation’s new president, a religious fanatic who believes in the impending, apocalyptic triumph of Islam over the infidels. He openly proclaims his desire to create an Iranian-led Axis that will unite the Middle East in the battle against America, and he proclaims his desire to “wipe Israel off the map,” telling an audience of Muslim leaders that “the main solution” to the conflict in Lebanon is “the elimination of the Zionist regime…”
Few people in 1914 saw things as clearly as we do now…the building of alliances, the accumulating tension in Europe, and the setting of numerous invisible hair triggers across the Continent and the colonies. Without being alarmist, I wonder if, in future, students will look back on 2006 and observe similar developments and point to some of the same drift, blindness, and ambition that characterised the beginning of the last century.
For the record, and for what it’s worth, I don’t think that open war with Iran is either inevitable, or a particularly good idea: The best thing for the mullahcracy would be for us to cement their rule over an otherwise restive, and predominantly young populace – one that has no memory of the Shah’s regime, SAVAK or the revolution – is for us to go in there with air and leave the job half done. What’s good for them cannot be good for us.
On the other hand, I do wonder how many well-meaning people believed just the same things in the Summer of 1914, in the Autumn of 1939? But if we are in fact backed into a fight, we should make it clear up front that we are done with nation-building for a while.
Next time, we just take them apart.
Rehashing a private e-mail that I had with Lex, I’ll use 2 quotes. 1) Mark Twain: history may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. 2) Those who fail to learn from the past are forever condemned to repeat it – Santayana.
The situation now kind of reminds me of the 1930′s when Germany was making noises re:Czechoslovakia, and claiming that the German minority was being persecuted and disenfranchised. The allies gave Germany what they wanted, and promised to defend the czechs against aggression. We all know what happened next. The same thing looks like it’s happening in the middle east.
Add to the mix a country with a president that belongs to a sect that welcomes the apocalypse, and an anniversary date of a major event in it’s history fast approaching. Like 1914, the tinder is dry and all you need is a match to set it off.
Much as I hope cooler heads prevail, I don’t think we’ll be that lucky. I do hope I am wrong. We really can’t strike first (the Israelis might) due to the events of the past few years, especially in light of how they have been portrayed by the MSM. If anyone wants, I can elaborate in another post, but I’ll add another adage from the far eat:
riding the tiger isn’t the challenge. The challenge is figuring out how to get off. I mean this more for our opponents than I do for the west.
First, we vaporize Waziristan, the so-called “tribal areas” of Pakistan. A pre-emptive nuclear strike, maybe a dozen or so warheads, enough to make the whole valley uninhabitable. Not that many people there, actually, none of which could remotely be considered “innocent”, but somewhere in which would be found Osama and the rest of Al Queda. Then, when we have the undivided attention of “Syran”, we launch a Western-style “Jihad” to ride the world of Islamic fascism forever. Either that, or we wait for them to do the same to us. Is there really a choice?
Stephen,
Be real man. Surely you bloviate for effect?
Waziristan is part of Pakistan. Pakistan is our nominal ally who just helped the Brits uncover a plot akin to 9-11. Western style Jihad? Who would participate? What’s your endstate dude? Nuclear weapons are not the panacea you paint them as- believe it or not. You’ve watched “Fail-Safe” and “Dr. Strangelove” to many times….
Plus, I don’t think we’ve been “waiting”. We are actively engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan were we are killing them…In the 1980′s and 90′s we were waiting.
b2
If I may inject a touch of humor to make a serious point:
“Lonestar, now you see that evil shall always triumph, because good is dumb,” Lord Dark Helmet in the 1987 lampoon Spaceballs.
In a lot of ways, the reason we always run into this trouble is that that bad guys are never constrained in the evil of their plots and goals, and the good guys are always dumb enough to think that the better nature of humanity will prevail.
While I kind of wish merely aerial strikes against either or both Syria and Iran would solve this situation, frankly it would not. There is no easy way out of this and it could easily become US against the world (with “US” being a rather small crew of folks relatively speaking).
On the other hand, while it is an interesting intellectual exercise to opine as to why the bad guys hate us, it’s far more useful to accept the fact that they do and deal with the next moves. Too many in our populace would rather ponder the “why they hate us” question rather than expend their energy on fruitful pursuits like liberty.
Alas, I believe that we need to “get it on” with these people, and sooner rather than later. The longer we wait, the more destructive the solution will have to be.
(Full disclosure: Lest I be accused of purloining someone else’s idea, it appears that a cat named “Spengler” used the “Dark Helmet” analogy back in 2005. Here I was thinking this was an original idea.) Link to the article in question is below:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GF21Aa01.html
Stephen, I think you overestimate the destructive power of nuclear weapons. The majority of their energy is released in forms that are line-of-sight, and the rest is in the form of shockwave that don’t propagate over ridgetops very well. The end result is that if you want to sterilize Waziristan you’d need to put a nuclear weapon in every fold and crease in the hindu kush. Not terribly cost effective, even laying aside the political ramifications mentioned above.
So what about destroying Iran’s oil infrastructure. Bombing pipelines, refineries, and oil transfer stations will strangle the mullahs financially. It would complicate their ability to fund their proxy wars in Iraq and Lebanon as well as their nuclear weapon research program. It might cement their support with the people, but I’m less enamored of the Iranian resistance than some. Particularly since they’ve been somewhat less than effective. To my mind as long as they don’t have the ability to influence anything outside their borders the mullahs can have 100% support for all I care.
The downsides are that we’d be wiping out ~5% of the worlds oil production, China would scream bloody murder, and Russia would be pissed at loosing a weapons customer. Iran might try to shut down the Straights, but I think that would result in international support for regime change
I published the following article as early as March 20 2006. (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-20-2006-91513.asp)
With Iran broken to five pieces and partly nuked, Hizbollah would have gradually ceased
to exist.
However, administrations are inclined to be naive and peoples pay with millions of casualties at the end.
It is high time now to solve the Lebanon problem, by annihilating the anti-Islamic, Satanic regime of Iran. The sooner the better!
===================================
Exterminate Iran Now!
Three atomic bombs against Iran are all we need for a Century of Peace. The imminent nuclear bombardment of Iran will automatically cancel the forthcoming tribulation of Europe.
The antihuman murderous clique of the top Iranian officials and mullahs works ceaselessly to drive the entire world into an inferno of ultimate annihilation in a nuclear furnace. Using their puppet president as a tool to fool gullible Asiatic diplomats and indecisive European and destabilized American statesmen, the hidden masters of Qom are convinced that through a global holocaust they enforce the re-appearance of the Twelfth Imam, the legendary figure of the Shia version of Messiah. According to their paranoiac mind, they have nothing to lose?
I published the following article as early as March 20 2006. (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-20-2006-91513.asp)
With Iran broken to five pieces and partly nuked, Hizbollah would have gradually ceased
to exist.
However, administrations are inclined to be naive and peoples pay with millions of casualties at the end.
It is high time now to solve the Lebanon problem, by annihilating the anti-Islamic, Satanic regime of Iran. The sooner the better!
===================================
Exterminate Iran Now!
Three atomic bombs against Iran are all we need for a Century of Peace. The imminent nuclear bombardment of Iran will automatically cancel the forthcoming tribulation of Europe.
The antihuman murderous clique of the top Iranian officials and mullahs works ceaselessly to drive the entire world into an inferno of ultimate annihilation in a nuclear furnace. Using their puppet president as a tool to fool gullible Asiatic diplomats and indecisive European and destabilized American statesmen, the hidden masters of Qom are convinced that through a global holocaust they enforce the re-appearance of the Twelfth Imam, the legendary figure of the Shia version of Messiah. According to their paranoiac mind, they have nothing to lose…
Iran: the abomination of the desolation
The term may have been used with respect to Apocalyptic Jerusalem, but it rather suits today’s vertigo of oppression and intolerance, as practiced throughout the Iranian plateau.
In the western half of Iran’s surface, Azeris, Turks, Kurds, Loris, Bakhtiaris, and Arabic speaking Aramaeans of Khuzestan total no less than 27 million people who aspire to independence, freedom, democratic rule, human rights, socio-economic progress and peace. They all passionately desire to get rid of the barbaric sub-culture of Shia theology, knowing very well that the ruling bogus-Islamic criminals of Qom – Mashad – Tehran want just to utilize them for their Satanic purposes of nuclear domino.
In large part of Iran’s south-east, several millions of Baluchis have placed all their hopes for independence, democracy and socio-economic progress on the forthcoming – and long expected – American attack and annihilation of Tehran. More than four millions of errant Afghanis avoided the Taliban cholera only to fight the Ayatollah abomination on daily basis, and this has lasted several decades already. It is a desperate misery that is a shame for all the Mankind.
A Cemetery of Peoples named Iran
Persians represent 50 to 55% of the entire population of this country – cemetery of peoples. Approximately 10% of the entire population of Persians have left Iran over the past 27 years, and prospered in various countries and continents, keeping always in mind and deep in their heart the perspective of free Persia – Cradle of Civilization, as truly this great land has been for almost three millennia. Among Persians, those who highly evaluate the great pre-Islamic past of the Achaemenids, the Arsacids and the Sassanids are the worst enemies of the Satanic regime of the Ayatollahs.
Those who still practice Parsism, the latest phase of Zarathustra’s lofty religion, represent a lethal enemy of the bogus Islamic madness of the inhuman monsters who tyrannize Iran. They are our brothers and our sisters, they have full right to practice their religion in their own country, and the World owes so much to their ancestry that we cannot avoid interfering without defaming our own past.
Alexander the Great has been the common denominator for all, Christian Westerners, Jews, Persian Parsists and all Muslims who ascribe themselves to the Human race and to World Civilization.
For the Common Heritage of Alexander the Great, the Western powers must come to help of the tyrannized peoples of Iran, face the challenge immediately, and evacuate all their nationals from Iran as soon as possible.
Very little time is left if we truly want to avoid the Satanic domino effect that has been well orchestrated by the most antihuman and the most perverted minds the world has ever known.
Three atomic bombs against Iran are all we need for a Century of Peace.
Two bombs against Japan in 1945 guaranteed 61 years of Peace. Three similar bombs used today – not tomorrow – against Iran will guarantee a peaceful century of progress and prosperity, based on new technologies and space exploration – this is the wonderful prospect the Ayatollahs fight to avert.
In full cooperation, America and Europe must use nuclear weapons against Qom, Mashad and Tehran now, March 2006. In the same way now the majority of the Japanese are happy with the event that ended WW II the descendants of the numerous oppressed peoples of today’s Iran will exalt the use of three atomic bombs against Iran today.
My call is not new; writing in March 1995 in the Turkish Daily News, I suggested Turkey to spearhead the ultimate dissolution of Iran, which is the only way for the ultimate democratization throughout Western Asia, the rise of free republics of Khuzestan, Lorestan, Bakhtiaristan, and Baluchistan, the unification of Azerbaijan, and the final merge of Turkey, Kurdistan and Azerbaijan into a 115 million people democratic society inspired by the secular principles of Kemal Ataturk. The Iranian consul at Istanbul reacted then vehemently, denouncing my proposals.
Quite unfortunately for that funny fellow, his country did not achieve much over the past 11 years to prove his ridiculous assertions as serious; the Satanic Republic of Iran proved to be the progenitor of all monsters and perversions, oscillating from antihuman hatred and destructive madness to deliberate defamation of the Iranian civilization.
Euro and Dollar must become one currency.
If the Americans are reluctant and the Russians and the Chinese gullible enough to believe they can manage the Satanic Republic of Iran, there is still enough brain and historical memory in Europe. It would be idiotic and suicidal to think in terms of economic prevailing and monetary pride, when the future of the Mankind is at stake. There is much more to unite Europe and America than what (Euro and Dollar) may divide them. If French Franc and Deutsche Mark became one single currency, the same can happen in the near future to (thoughtlessly competitive) Euro and Dollar.
By committing themselves to immediate nuclear bombardment of Iran, Britain and France, backed by the rest of Europe, will convincingly prove to America that unilateralism is not an option and to the rest of the world that the 1945 Victory of Civilization and Freedom is definitely and forever non-negotiable.
In today’s world, the West proved to be the de facto Vicar of the World Civilization; all the Human Heritage passes exclusively through today’s Western Universities: Islam and Confucius, Egyptian, Assyrian-Babylonian, and Iranian civilizations along with Classical Studies, Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as early cultures in various continents.
Nothing is better studied and cultivated anywhere else in the World than in the West, so nowhere – and from no one – can possibly a claim of representativity be raised. This is the correct Danish / Western answer to the idiotic claims of the Islamic Conference Organization as regards the Prophet Muhammad’s unworthy – and certainly undeserved – caricatures. The matter is not whether the Freedom of Speech prevails over the religiosity and the lost piety of the Mankind or vice versa.
The matter is that today’s Muslims de facto do not represent the real, historical Islam anymore, so they have nothing to claim as theirs except their illiteracy, and their tolerance of barbaric sheikhs and cannibalistic ayatollahs.
An imminent nuclear bombardment of Iran will not only free the oppressed peoples of the Iranian cemetery; it will also shake the entire Muslim World, stimulating the civilized elements (that exist in great number but are terribly oppressed at the local level by the barbaric and murderous sheikhs) to reject the idiocy of the Wahhabi Satanic perversion.
Europe in need of a modern Heraclius, not Justinian
If the sociopolitical forces that prevail in Europe opt for ‘modesty’, ‘tolerance’ and cowardice, America will not face the major problem; Europe will.
Engulfed in a pathetic anti-Americanism, inactive Europe will face inner strife of disproportionate dimensions, unexpected invasions, and implosion. The misery caused through intermingling with uncivilized, barbaric and antihuman elements will generate – soon or late – a healthy and dynamic rejection of methods and approaches so perversely sought by the circles of Benedict (rather Maledict) XVI, and a new Heraclius will rise to lead Europe to the East. Justinian’s reconquista of the West cannot be a model for today’s Europe.
Heraclius’ expedition against Praaspa, the battle at Nineveh, and the destruction of Ctesiphon should rather preoccupy the supposedly serious conclaves at Brussels, London and Paris; since this is going to happen, the earliest it happens the easiest and the most anodyne will be for Europe.
The imminent nuclear bombardment of Iran will automatically cancel the forthcoming tribulation of Europe.
You know professor, and all due respect, but before I let this past the moderation filter, I had to Google you up and make sure that you were both real and serious.
You are both, it appears, and although I am myself no stranger to the shedding of blood, I have to admit that I find that a little shocking.
I don’t disagree at all that for their own people’s sake, Iran could very much stand a little regime change. But for heaven’s sake, we’re not going to nuke them unprovoked.
Only after they attack New York.
But then, it will be too late!
As it was too late, when France and Britain entered war to express solidarity with Poland in 1939.
Free world won at the end, but can you imagine the real cost?
Yet, Britain and France, although ‘unprovoked’, would eliminate Hitler, if they attacked Germany in 1935.
Last, but not least, remember this: Islamic extremism is far more inhuman than Nazist ideology. Despite Internet, online magazines, blogs, and the traditional mass media, the West still ignores – totally, dramatically and at its own prejudice – the following:
- what is in the mind of hundreds of millions of Muslims
- the behavioural system of the Muslim masses, and the threat it consists in for the entire Mankind – irrespective of these masses’ later radicalization
- the nature and the functionality of the bogus-Islamic extremist ideology that, due to machinations, goes unchallenged and unmatched throughout all the Islamic countries
- the social mechanisms that turn every day thousands of people to ‘Islamist robots (or puppets)’
- the identiity of the real accomplices of the Islamist conspiracy, who are considered as moderate leaders in the West
What is even worse is that there are forces in the West that do not want this real knowledge of the ‘other’ be properly diffused in the West.
Extreme naivety and idiocy or malignant conspiracy? This can be anyone’s guess!
This thread has taken a rather interesting turn lex. . .
There were virtues to obscurity…
I think that everyone talking about slinging nukes needs to remember that we’re not the only nuclear power in the world. Specifically there are two (Russia and China) who we need to be concerned about, and are concerned about us. MAD still applies, even though there isn’t any direct competition between our systems we still pose a threat to one another.
If we start throwing nuclear weapons around like ticker tape in a parade Beijing and Moscow are going to get very nervous. They might even decide to take some action now while they have capability rather than wait and possibly lose it. Worse yet, if we jump straight to nukes when attacking Iran what’s to keep China from using nuclear weapons against Taiwan, or Russia from nuking Turkey because of a dispute over the Bosporus?
In response to a WMD attack or to end a total war? Sure. Everyone knows those are the rules and can adjust their policy accordingly. Low yield nuclear bunker-busters in an otherwise conventional war? Maybe. These don’t aren’t the city destroyers and have very limited effects, basically conventional weapons but more effective. But first strike in the opening moves of a war would make the rest of the world fear us the same way we fear a nuclear Iran, just magnified 19000 times.
Gee, Lex, you thought I was the loose cannon. Enjoy, and check your SIPR next week.
Well Lex you kept scratching around the edges and you’ve brought out the worst. Even the pundits don’t carry the conversation any further than that 1914/1939 similarities. Even Zane.
When I read stuff like the Professors I realize it’s all paralysisng fear brought on by a felling of helplessness or we are running out of options. I say it’s like building a Leggo project or acquiring a new airplane for the Navy. One step at a time, easy does it and never bite off more than you can chew.
If we give into helplessness and humiliation we really do resemble our Islamo-facist enemy. While I personally take the beady-eyed. electrical engineer running Iran seriously, he can be contained without breaking out the heavy stuff. Proportionality and a realistic approach are needed first. One of those is to keep them from ever having nucs and the means to deliver them…
B2
Iran has been at war/jihad with us since 1979. They haven’t forgotten. We never really got it through our thick heads enough to be able to first know it much less forget it.
Iran’s ethics consist of anything allowable to further allah’s cause. Essentially, no ethics at all; none for dhimmis, none for the umma. Just none. Inshallah.
IMO anything less than a full effort from our side is unethical. Politically inevitable, but irresponsible and ultimately very costly. We put down rabid dogs, but we are supposed to “manage” Iran with clever “nuanced” diplomacy. Somebody will get bit. Recently it was the little satan. Any other satans around?
Diplomacy will not stop Iran from acquiring the bomb. Iran uses diplomacy far too cynically for anything to be accomplished by the suit and tie crowd. To prevent Iran from going nuclear, we will eventually need to physically wrest the genie from Iran’s fist.
Target 1 should be Ahmadinejad, target 2 the mad mullahs, target 3 the revolutionary guards (use cluster munitions delivered continually by stealth cruise/ballistic carriers until only the rubble still bounces), target 4 any & all nuke facilities. And whatever air-defense assets need to be reduced to ash to enable striking 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Don’t talk about it, don’t telegraph the punch, don’t warn the target, don’t try to get the UN to actually do anything (ha!), just wait until 1 & 2 are definitely in the cross-hairs, take them out and start it off. Yes, the entire world would protest. In public that is. Privately, they would be relieved and secretly impressed some american had sufficiently large brass ones to actually pull the trigger. I would be too. Think how Kim Il-Sung’s pucker factor would escalate viewing that day’s news.
With Ahmadinejad and the mullahs reduced to bad odor, they cannot rally nationalistic support to them. It would create a risky power vacuum. Is something worse than the current Iran possible? Perhaps encourage the Iraqi kurds to annex Iranian kurdistan … and start looking at Syrian Kurdistan. (Take turkish kurdistan by democratic methods – wanne-be-european turkey would have to play ball. Right?) Suggest the Iraqi shia annex the arab portions of Iran.
What is Iran gonna do? Not sell us oil? So it goes to china … relieving pressure elsewhere in the market for that fungible good.
Form hizbollah cells around the world? They already did that. Or tried. Flushing them out would offer some advantages. With the revolutionary guards taken out, much of the support infrastructure went away too. W/o rev guards, who activates the hizbollah sleeper cells? With the Rev Guards a smoking hole, perhaps they just keep napping. Inshallah.
Support Syria and their twist on the usual insanity? They are already doing that. Cut off the Revolutionary Guards cuts off their support for Bashar’s regime. Whither on the vine time.
Toss some more terror master-minds back into the wild? Get ‘em out of Iran and they become more killable. Turn Mossad and Delta loose with blanket authorizations. The huntin’s good and no bag limit.
Sponsor militias and death squads in Iraq? Are they holding back now? Can it get much worse? If they do something more overt, maybe we can finally wipe out the Mahdi Militia.
Let’s get to end-game and finish this thing. And do it before the hidden iman nut-bags get a weapon only they would be loony enough to use.
But living mostly in the real world, it seems far more likely the west will have to take a nuke detonated in times square before it will get decisive enough (or enough quiet from the pacifists) to take off the gloves and git ‘er done. And by that time, Ahmadinejad and the mullahs will be hiding in some bomb-proof place (hip-deep in hookers at the Las Vegas Mirage could work.) and the Rev Guards will be dug-in as well. Gitting it done will be immeasurably harder, more expensive and less decisive. The unintended consequence of conducting oneself as a boy scout in all things.
(Ironic how the bluest city in a blue state generating large amounts of defacto terrorist support (NYT) seems to be the target that gets the jihadis the most worked up.)
Western civilization, like a crack addict, will ignore the oncoming anschluss in favor of political correctness and avoiding ethnic profiling. Will persist in overlooking its own co-dependent relationship with religious extremism and blunder onwards deeply concerned with Mel Gibson and his chemical/social issues. Will throw decent sensible men from office in favor of left wingers (who can buy office with family money) deeply in denial concerning the very realness of the threat. Will continue to mostly ignore terror operations apprehended prior to execution because they lack the shock and sharp anguish of real blood in the streets.
Just hope me and mine are not at ground zero when the runaway train jumps the rails. Counting on ‘big world, small family’ as a strategy sure feels complacent. Beyond voting for candidates who seem to get it (and making the occasional obscure net post), what else can we do? (My enlist-by date has long since passed. Our military is probably better off anyway.)
(Time for me to go to irey.com and make a contribution.)
Does W have a window to be decisive immediately after this fall’s elections?