“Those characteristics, capabilities, or localities from which a military force derives its freedom of action, physical strength, or will to fight.” Specifically, American joint doctrine suggests that “the centers of gravity concept is useful as an analytical tool, to assist commanders and staffs in analyzing friendly and enemy sources of strength as well as weaknesses and vulnerabilities.”

Terrorism as we know it today is particularly effective against Democratic Republics because the GOG (in a strategic sense) is generally accepted to be the public or population of the country. An associated term is the “Critical Vulnerability” or that vulnerability that most directly affect the COG. In the US it is often seen as the media since it has a huge impact on public opinion.

Terrorism also directly effects public opinion in Democratic nations. This may be the case in non-free countries or groups, but in those cases this opinion has little impact on the “freedom of action, physical strength, or will to fight” of the terrorist forces.

The question to me in all this is, what is the terrorists COG? and then what is his CV? Appy this as well to Iran.

If we can answer these questions, perhaps we would have the start of a plan.

-I’m sure we would retaliate. I don’t think we would retaliate by destroying cities, especially as destroying cities might not stop additional attacks.

And can we destroy all their WMD infrastructure without occupying them? How would we know whether we got it all or not unless we could roam the country at will and get full cooperation from the people working there, which ain’t going to happen as long as someone other than ourselves is governing the place.

It’s pretty obvious that we didn’t have a clue whether or where Saddam was keeping his weapons. This does not reassure me, it simply underscores how little we know about Middle Eastern countries that we aren’t currently governing.

“BTW, I don’t think the Mullahs will threaten Russia, because the Russians might retaliate against Iranian cities. We would not and everyone knows it.”

Everyone knows that we wouldn’t retaliate in kind against a nuclear attack? Since when?

It is a hard one though, almost like newtons law of physics when you push, there is an equal and opposite reaction.. Thats all im suggesting. Maybe we can use string theory instead of the newtonian way of fighting wars. I’m NOT a liberal, I swear!

BTW, I don’t think the Mullahs will threaten Russia, because the Russians might retaliate against Iranian cities. We would not and everyone knows it.

Nicholas Kristof wrote an interesting article in the NYT (now archived, sorry) about his travels and interviews in Tehran, Iran.

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“We’ve learned to interpret just the opposite of things on TV because it’s all lies,” said Odan Seyyid Ashrafi, a 20-year-old university student. “So if it says America is awful, maybe that means it’s a great place to live.”

Indeed, many Iranians seem convinced that the U.S. military ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are going great, and they say this with more conviction than your average White House spokesman.

One opinion poll showed that 74 percent of Iranians want a dialogue with the U.S. — and the finding so irritated the authorities that they arrested the pollster.

Partly because being pro-American is a way to take a swipe at the Iranian regime, anything American, from blue jeans to “Baywatch,” is revered.

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He went on to write that only once did he encounter anyone virulently anti-American. While having a conversation with some Iranians in a cafe, he was shouted at, called a propagandist and insulted. The group doing the shouting and insulting were European tourists.

Ken, I think you’ve nailed it on the head. I worry a lot about Iran. On the one hand, we can’t allow nukes to fall into the hands of terrorists. On the other, occupying Iran could turn into the mother of all insugencies. Lebannon could become the Cambodia of the ME. I keep struggling with this and I can’t see a good solution.

I would be satisfied with destroying the nuclear infrastructure.

I’m astounded the Russians continue to enable Iran to become a nuclear state. Are they just slow learners? Do they believe, against all recent evidence to the contrary, that nukes won’t be targeted on them?

Is it possible they hope to use Iran as a proxy against the US? Or am I being too cynical?

Once they experience US occupation for themselves, some of them will change their minds. I hear many Iranian visitors to Iraq have already come away with a positive impression.

“I think it will be a more bloody occupation,
and will we gain an ally? ”

Maybe we won’t gain an ally, but subtracting a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed adversary would still more than justify the enterprise.

“I feel stupid for advocating this point, but why can’t we just send in britney and pepsi and flood thier country with credit cards and A/C?”

Because simply convincing the people that their leaders are rotten isn’t going to work, at least not in time to stop their leaders from acquiring a nuclear deterrent, which can be used against their own rebellious people as well as against meddlesome Great Satans. A lot of people there are already convinced that their leaders are rotten; trouble is, their leaders still outgun them.

I’d love to hear another viable alternative. Letting them have nukes is too risky, and stopping them from getting nukes seems to require costly US action, unless I’m missing something. I don’t think encouraging a revolt is going to cut it in the time we have left. Just pray that we actually have until at least several months after the election.

I believe a question that is high on the American mind is how moral do we fight this war? Is there a line? Luckily in this country, (referring to the political cynisism post), there are two sides pushing each view. The question for a lot of readers here is do “libertarans” or classical liberals agree with fighting a war in which we cross “the line?” I fight for freedom because I love life. But what is life without adherance to a rightous code? Do we let the expediancy of winning a battle color the rest of our lives?

Ken:
I don’t believe the people of Iran have the same oppression that Iraqi had. They were toutured for decades and some still feel a strong hated for the US. I think it will be a more bloody occupation,
and will we gain an ally? I feel stupid for advocating this point, but why can’t we just send in britney and pepsi and flood thier country with credit cards and A/C? lol..

A great point is that censorship is normal during war time. Closing down the Al Jazeera office in Baghdad was both justified and important. Can we do more to counteract them? Like we used to counteract the Soviet agitprop?

I also like his point that recruiting barbarians as Bush did in Afghanistan and the Iraquis did in Fallujah is historically a good way to make progress. Who are the equivalent groups in Iran? The students for democracy don’t seem particularly well armed. And no one would seriously contemplate asking Ali Sistani and Muqtada al Sadr if they want to run Iran … would they?

Once upon a time, regime destabilization was a CIA task. They showed in Cuba and SE Asia that this was possibly not such a great idea. Though Chile worked out well enough in the end. Is there a credible third column in Iran? There are exiles. But we’ve already shown that a significant portion of the US Government won’t support an exile based regime.

Clearly the diplomatic initiative has failed. We can count on at least one of France and Russia to veto any sanctions, just as Russia is claiming they will veto sanctions against Sudan.

The big problem with Iran is that they can afford to wait. Jim Miller points out that barbarian warfare tends to be sporadic and multi-generational. If they pretend to quiet down and wait another four years Bush will no longer be president. And sometime this generation or next, we will have another Carter or Clinton in the white house. Maybe they can even get the US to fund them like we did North Korea… So worse than just having to deal with Iran, it sort of seems we have to re-elect and then deal over the next four years.

But i don’t see any particularly good options.

Matya no baka

I’ll agree that Iran needs to be dealt with. The question is how. Will we simply retask the guys that are currently babysitting Iraq? That might work out better than you’d think at first glance, since many of the troublemakers there are being fielded by the Iranian regime. Will we (finally) boost the enlistment caps? We should have done that last year; it takes a while to train people. Will we bring back the draft? Only if we want a replay of Vietnam, which doesn’t strike me as particularly desirable.

Maybe we’ll stop babysitting Europe instead. There’s already plans underway to transfer them to bases in the United States, and I’ve got a feeling that they won’t be here too long….