Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Well, clearly Jack and I are laying at least even money on this. Though he's got it much more thought-through. For me, I'm just beginning to hear the all too familiar beat of the war drums and am smelling trouble. Of course, I wouldn't for a second put a strike past Obie or Bibi.

I think it depends upon an Iranian "misstep."

For going on thirty years, the Ayatollahs and the RevGuards have been the cagiest adversaries the Feds have faced. Their answer to encirclement (beginning with moving the fleet to Diego Garcia, following Clinton and Zinni's penetration of the 'Stans, and culminating in AfPakIraq) has been to open their economy to Chinese and Indian activity, and to pursue security arrangements with Russia, India, China and Turkey (1999 and 2008 especially).

They've rolled up CIA operations, taught Hizbollah how to be nearly impenetrable and responded to the arming of the Baluchs with a patience you'd never find in Dee Cee.

I think it's fairly clear that US wants the Ayas to close down Hormuz, because that's the violation which would justify some kind of intervention. All this scuttlebutt, over the last week, about NATO having a commitment to keeping the straits open is really curious when you attend to the situation. The Iranians aren't threatening to close them in a vacuum. It's a contingent threat, and it proceeds from a very aggressive US/EU/UN/NATO threat of embargo. In other words, all the provocative moves are Western.

Unlike in the past, though, the Iranians cannot afford a reduction in production. Closing Hormuz would hurt them more than it would the US and Europe.

Ahmadinejad was elected primarily on a promise to undo the neoliberal reforms enacted by his predecessor, Rafsanjani. His actual mandate, as the President, has little purview over foreign affairs. Where he has some power is domestically, especially with control of or alliance with the Ministry of the Interior. He hasn't really been able to get as much accomplished as he'd like, and as he promised, and as we saw over the last few years, the West was certainly willing to use "reformists" to provoke costly domestic unrest which was linked with calls to not only liberalize the Revolution, but to restore the economic reforms Rafsanjani'd pushed through. The compromise (and I'm simplifying) was to stop both the rollbacks and the calls for reform, which leaves the Iranian economy sufficiently liberalized so as to be prey to foreign meddling and capital flight, but inadequate to the task of fulfilling the economic promises of the Revolution, which are rarely treated in the West.

So, the Iranians need revenue, which for them is hydrocarbon dollars, euros, yuan and rials. If they are forced to turn off the spigots, it will seriously damage their ability to meet payments, maintain infrastructure, pay for defense and upkeep and provide their Islamic social safety net.

Where the Iranians might "misstep" is in calling the American/EU "bluff." The US/NATO needs a defensive action from Iran which can be propagandized into a provocation and threat. The "American hikers in Iran" didn't work. The hanging of homosexuals won't sell the American public on war. No one is buying the car dealer turned terrorist story. And even the Iranian/Hizbollah dismantling of an entire CIA project rec'd little play, perhaps because it was more embarrassing than provocative.

The problem for Iran is one of apparent will. They already have a restless urban population, one which is testing its legs and dependent upon oil. If they fold up in the face of Euro-American pressure, there's a lot of stretch room for the "reformists" to take to the streets again, and demand a change of regime. That of itself could "justify" US and foreign calls for intervention.

But, if they close the Straits of Hormuz, NATO has promised to re-open them. That would require force of arms, and while the Iranians have security guarantees from Turkey and Russia, and a pact with India, they would be sorely tested because those three countries as dependent upon exports to the West, and unequal to the task of matching US/NATO air might. The Russians especially had a number of flaws and problems with the air projection exposed in Georgia.

So, to sum all that up, if the Iranians show their hand, they lose. And if they hold it close, they are subject to domestic unrest which could result in them losing.

It's never been better for the West - and this includes Israel - to take a shot at knocking the Ayatollahs out.

And it won't be done by a Republican as long as there's a "human rights and democracy" Democrat who can get it accomplished under the guise of humanitarianism. The Republicans will look like dudes doing it for oil.

Obama will look like the guy who just gave a red flag of an interventionist SOTU speech and who is coming off pulling a coup d'etat in Africa's most reliably stable petrostate.

If it's good for the defense companies, the underwriters, the redevelopment agencies, the investment firms and the hydrocarbon cabals, it's better to have the trigger pulled by a dissent neutering Democrat. The Republicans will just have to wait until at least 2016 to try to field a candidate as useful as is Obama.

So, I think there's a window, and it's closing. As the weeks and months mount, the Iranians may be able to get over their internal deadlock in the face of Western sabre rattling, and find a way to commit China, India and emerging powerhouses like Brazil to comprehensive trade deals which allow the Ayatollahs a way out of reforms but which still leave them able to capitalize domestically and meet their social obligations.

"it's just a lot of hot air"
ditto

my utterly uninformed guess
this is about
iraq

message to iran :

don't tip that fragile set up
over

but as for an attack

no way

the military is dead set against another crusade

and there would be no simple
"roughing up " exploding message
that would accomplish anything

"The Republicans will just have to wait until at least 2016 to try to field a candidate as useful as is Obama"
exactly correct

but not for the reasons provided

"I think it's fairly clear that US wants the Ayas to close down Hormuz"

uncle "wants " !

patent nonsense

apparently
u guys seem unaware
of the mental condition
of our armed forces today

they want some system wide R&R

the arab spring simply adds
a whole new layer of "no "
to that

---------------
why confuse
washington making a lot of noise after withdrawal from bagdad with the build up
site your parallels ?

hot air now
was inevitable
but
going to condition hot war however
is almost as close to impossible between now
and november
as the art of the possible gets

mini me?

look they haven't done anything serious
without tacit uncle support
since the suez crisis of 56

i put the odds beyond simply long

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"It's never been better for the West - and this includes Israel - to take a shot at knocking the Ayatollahs out."

even if that were true
and it isn't
why bother
the turbin power crowd
is the necessary public pretext
the resident evil
for one hindred uncle fingers already in the soup
from
morroco to sinkiang

"And it won't be done by a Republican as long as there's a "human rights and democracy" Democrat who can get it accomplished under the guise of humanitarianism. The Republicans will look like dudes doing it for oil."

ya that makes a good fiction story ...
if you start at 1916
and stop at 1968
a story often told by bob dole back in the day

"Democrat wars "

now ?

come on

need i list the record
of the GOP potus pack since '69 ?
its been mutt and jeff time

"a dissent neutering Democrat"

like who since johnson ??

---------------------

"... As the weeks and months mount, the Iranians may be able to get over their internal deadlock in the face of Western sabre rattling, and find a way to commit China, India and emerging powerhouses like Brazil to comprehensive trade deals which allow the Ayatollahs a way out of reforms but which still leave them able to capitalize domestically and meet their social obligations"

complete gibberish
are you suggesting iran is having trouble marketing its oil already ??

real trouble
not a phoney bit of turban spinning

------------------
its laudable to trash the white hat hegemony party
but isn't the ohbummer record adequate for that already ??

"I think there's a window, and it's closing "

nope there's a closed door and uncle's foot is trying to keep it closed
and that door is as likely to slowly open
despite that foot
as to stay shut

containment is NOT about direct war
in any context

it is about proxy fights only

apparently you have little conception of just how wiling uncle is to pick a fight

when it makes sense

if it ever made sense with iran
it would have happened under reagan

recall the proxy invasion by iraq ?

i'm not going into the why of containment not topple
it has evolved since 79 of course

but the RIC troika was already tacitly in place
by 81-82
on a direct iran move
since then the relative value of the three to iran has shifted greatly need less to say

crow i didn't know you fancied yourself
an expert on uncle hegemonics great game play

maybe you ooughta post here on it

the dunking stool awaits you

crow like black guards are better
staying well above the specific machining that generates
four square social reality anywhere
on the ground

beyond cheering
the riotous nebulous spontaneous flairs
that shoot up from this planet's social contradictions

what else stays molten enough but a flash mob
to pass
the anarco's high bar
of stateless self organization

As sometimes happens, the sages are divided here -- the sages being Owen & myself. Ha. I thought Jack's comments were pretty interesting, and certainly had a lot more useful detail brushed in than what I usually see on this topic. I sorta still fall in the Owen camp on odds -- I think outright war is more unlikely than not -- but I certainly don't share Owen's conviction.

I lean more to no than yes on this question. Iran is lots bigger then Iraq and Afganistan both. It'd be an unmitigated clusterfuck of an occupation leaving no hands free to smother fires elsewhere or seize opportunities. TPTB know better and will be content to tap dance ever on the edge of this particular cliff without taking the plunge.

Not that the newsfeeds won't draw a nervous eye every new moon or so. There might always be an ace hidden up someones sleeve. Or uncle might just suck at cards.

I wasn't arguing for occupation. I think bombs and an air war, if it happens, Leon. The end game is domestic overthrow in the hands of the "reformers" if there's any game at all.

Aye, I'm sure that would be the plan, but how many shore to ship missiles could be hidden in coast that looks like this? And how many of them could be sniffed out and silenced from the sky? I'd put dollar or two on 'lots' and 'not enough' respectively. If Iran makes a serious attempt to close the strait, boots would end up on the ground.

I'll give long odds. I'm not sure why you mention Israel. They don't have the capability for a sustained air campaign. They're just yapping yorkies.

Uncle has the capabilities to bomb some nuke sites, but the real goal of regime change requires more than bombing; see Serbia, Iraq, Libya. An invasion plan would have to acknowledge the topography of Iran. There's a reason why the population is concentrated where it is, the flatland has the consistency of jello.

This is why Iran was a linchpin of the Cold War. The Soviets would have a hard time with an armored advance if the roads and bridges were destroyed. That delay would give the US time to arrive to protect the crown jewels, Saudi Arabia.

This isn't to say that our overlords have dismissed the idea. They're persistent, but the military is resistant because they realize the difficulties. But no, I don't see it happening any time soon.

Having no foreign policy expertise, I agree that it may just be a lot of hot air, but as a draft-eligible 21-year-old American male, you can bet your ass that I'm scared shitless at the prospect of war. "It probably won't happen" just isn't the comforting.

A tidbit of evidence lending support to the attack theory is Hollywood's softening-up work re: Persia in "300." Much like the housing bubble was nurtured with a swarm of coincidentally unanimous media commentary on the virtues of home ownership, the movies join the NYT in strengthening the implied message over the course of decades. And yeah, Iran is always a boogeyman, but that homoerotic movie seemed to come at just the right time to get 10- through 15-year-olds geared up to fight Persians in the next handful of years.

If there's one thing these fuckers know how to do well, it's write predictable plots with so much overdone foreshadowing only an idiot, or Tom Clancy, would enjoy reading them. By the time we actually get there, it'll seem--and rightly so--preordained.

A lot of the setup seems to be for years of softening up via sanctions before the bombing starts. Convincing the American public is already done, but we need people with accents, too, and bringing around the damn western Europeaners could take a few years of grave-faced royal nodding to accomplish.

Wild card, of course, is Israel, but Buffalo Bill still seems to have his psychotic twin brother chained up in the garage, awaiting the greater quantity of human flesh that will be served upon more international sanction.

The "betting against" arguments here are persuasive as they apply to uncle. The meshugenehs are another story. They've lived in a state of constant belligerence toward their neighbors. I think they are meshugeneh enough to strike within a year. Hot air from Obie? Probably. But I put nothing past the meshugenehs.

Many of the arguments here are rational and strategic. I do not think the Zionist entity is a rational actor.

All and none of the above. Really.

Just as much hot air is the meme that the previous administration (or even the one before that) had marching into Babylon as a done deal. I don't think this empire ever removes options from their war room table, one way or the other.

And that's not even considering the unpredictability of all pertinent actors.

So while there may be - if you'll forgive me - smart bombs, I don't think there is any smart money on this.

China will nix any war in the Security Council, just like Russia has with Syria. India will also be against it.

meshugeneh ?....the bibbler ?

no way

no more then
say that
ruggedly ugly
farsi ringo there
Ahmadine ben hijadi

-------------------

"I don't think this empire ever removes options from their war room table, one way or the other"

of course not
but one looks at the motives here ?

for armed confrontation they approach zero on both sides
par4 hits a good point by implication

Syria lok to the blocks to forceful uncle or nato intervention there...now
and you have a similar to compare iran to

i'd say what goes for syria
goes ten fold for iran today

Before I read everyone elses comments I thought I'd go ahead and predict that war with Iran is coming. Not sure if it's this year, the next or the one after that, or whenever but it is definitely coming.

The constant drum beat of stories in the media about the threat of Iran combined with US, European ans Israeli sanctions, threats, promises that Iran will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons, etc. aren't just coincidence It's all there in the tea leaves.

Drunk p

If you claim
eventually war between uncle and the ayatotalers is inevitable

u are claiming something even more miraculous then
Expecting one by November

containment might have been inevitable even without the hostage episode
but war?

Recall the containment of red china
Turned off on a dime

That has a low Likelihood here
But still as low as it is
It's a higher llikelihood then war

And of course by war I mean anything serious
Ie including Kosovo II

OP sez:

"If you claim
eventually war between uncle and the ayatotalers is inevitable"

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Of course I've been wrong before.

;^)

And as a father with two draft age sons and another one soon to be of draft age I'd just as soon be wrong because I feel that a war with Iran is one that could go horribly wrong for old Uncle Sam.

My reading of history tells me that every so often, especially during times of economic and social unrest, things frequently go horribly wrong. Glad to be wrong tho.

The US cannot defeat Iran militarily with a ground invasion. It would be a massacre on our side. The Iranians have up to 1.5 million active duty, reserves and militia they can call on in a fight, and many of their best units are trained to Hezbollah quality or better and are better equipped. They have invested an enormous amount of money and talent into developing their potential for asymetric warfare, with the US being the adversary they had in mind.

The US military knows this will be no cakewalk, though they may decide an air war is worth the risk, for what little effect it is likely to have.

The great danger I fear is that these "all options on the table" psychos will sacrifice a carrier group and 20,000 sailors or so to Iranian sunburn and silkworm missiles, then use that as provocation for a nuclear strike against a major Iranian city. Let's not forget they have been talking up that option for years now as well.

The Western Powers don't need to occupy Iran. They need to make it impossible for the Iranian regime to govern its own dissident elements. That's it. Under the guise of protecting Israel/keeping Hormuz open, they can do just that.

It'll be hot as hell, and from any number of power-centered vantages, it may even look rational. Libya was a proving ground, in this regard.

NATO and the EU don't need immediate regime change in Iran. They need chaos. And all the Iranians would have to do is get a missile within the vicinity of the poisonous Eretz, and it would snowball from there.