Big anti-Iran media campaign in September?

[Ned Pointsman]

As Ive said before - They're trying to provoke a war with Iran. They haven't got the political strength to authorise an attack on Iran, so they're going for deliberately escalating the situation on the ground to the point where war is a fati-compli.

People throwing the term 'war' round like confetti doesn't help matters, the US hasn't been to war in over sixty years, they're not about to start now.

All they want with Iran is the chance to reclaim some national 'dignity', make a big fucking mess, kill a few thousand people and bomb a load of shit that doesn't exist.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Not me... The only thing you'd get is a military strike on the nuclear programme location once the Yanks work out where it is... And that's assuming that Iran actually has one...

I think what you'd get would be an aerial onslaught on Irans infrastructure intended to cripple the country followed by punative sanctions. This would mean several thousand initial deaths and then many many more as the millions of people are left with barely functioning electricity, sanitation and heealthcare - like Iraq between Gulf Wars 1 and 2 where something like a million children died as a result of bombing and sanctions.

As for the afghan border - I dont know. Maybe that part of afghanistan is controlled by 'loyal' warlords who are unwilling to allow either Iran or the US to have any sort of base of operations there.

 

[jæd]

I don't know whether it would be that simple.

Well, what do you foresee...? A ground campaign so soon after Iraq is unlikely, and an air campaign is unlikely to be successful. That leads one to think some kind of small, limited military strike is the most possible outcome. Assuming, of course, there will be something happening...

 

[jæd]

I think what you'd get would be an aerial onslaught on Irans infrastructure intended to cripple the country followed by punative sanctions. This would mean several thousand initial deaths and then many many more as the millions of people are left with barely functioning electricity, sanitation and heealthcare - like Iraq between Gulf Wars 1 and 2 where something like a million children died as a result of bombing and sanctions.

This would drive up oil-prices... Iran is one of the top oil producers... Btw, there wasn't an extensive bombing campaign between the Gulf Wars. There were some engagements, mostly no-fly zone contraventions...

 

[newharper]

update from planet Cheney.

Scott Horton at Harper's has an update on the fall product rollout for war with Iran. He analyzes the full text of Dick Cheney's speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which I discussed yesterday based only on press reports. Horton summarizes Cheney's discussion of Iran: "Is Cheney threatening war against Iran? Yes, that’s exactly what he is doing."

But that's not all there is to the speech. Horton:

And while I pulled out the passages of the speech that constitute the most undisguised saber-rattling against Iran, the entire speech is worthy of careful study. It shows a man who has disintegrated into a moral sewer. He regales his audience with the need to use torture techniques,

http://icga.blogspot.com/

Well he doesn't give up, and there's more,

And he then proceeds to cite a positively insane op-ed by Bernard Lewis, the subject of one of my prior columns, in which the Soviet Union is held up as a wonderful model for the United States.

and ends on a jaunty,

When Fareed Zakaria is reduced to asking, "What planet are we on?" I have to wonder.... What planet ARE we on?

 

[newharper]

Hey ho.

 

[kyser_soze]

There's one very important point that seems to be missing here. While Bush can order an airstrikes and action up to 30 days, after that he has to go to Congress and get approval to continue any kind of war, which it's extremely unlikely he'd get. The chances of a full scale deployment are pretty slim...

 

[jæd]

There's one very important point that seems to be missing here. While Bush can order an airstrikes and action up to 30 days, after that he has to go to Congress and get approval to continue any kind of war, which it's extremely unlikely he'd get. The chances of a full scale deployment are pretty slim...

The chances of a full scale deployment have always been slim (or more accurately, non-existant) from a logistical point of view... But then try pointing that out...!

 

[TAE]

There's one very important point that seems to be missing here. While Bush can order an airstrikes and action up to 30 days, after that he has to go to Congress and get approval to continue any kind of war, which it's extremely unlikely he'd get. The chances of a full scale deployment are pretty slim...

What do you think Iran will do when its airspace is invaded and its facilities are bombed?

 

[kyser_soze]

I don't know - install AAA around Tehran?

Would need to have a look at balance of forces before replying...

 

[TAE]

I think the US troops in Iraq would be in a spot of bother, which might have an effect on congress' willingness to step up operations against Iran.

 

[kyser_soze]

Alternatively, it could scare the shit out of them and have a massively negative impact on public opinion - and I also think that Iranian AAA and air defences will be more of an issue than Desert Storm or Enduring Freedom...for some reason I can't place I think that US airmen being shot down will play worse in the US then soldiers deaths...

 

[Spion]

I don't know - install AAA around Tehran?

I'd imagine they've got the best the Russian arms industry can turn out already. Whether that's good enough, who knows? The AT weapons Hizb used against the IDF last year certainly were, but AA's a different ball game

 

[MikeMcc]

I was across in the US last week. Came across a guy called Anderson Harper on CNN. He comes across as an opinionated cock. He was rattling on about how the US 'has' to attack Iran.

 

[TAE]

Alternatively, it could scare the shit out of them and have a massively negative impact on public opinion

I think the opposite normally happens, but you might be right.

 

[MikeMcc]

The Times is also getting in early:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article2741225.ece

 

[Darios]

That Times piece is one of the best self-satirizing pieces I have ever read. There must have been at least a dozen places in the article where I paused and thought I could hear canned laughter in the background.....

 

[TAE]

Yes, like: "Iranian Government in its pursuit of an epoch-altering Bomb"