Comments on: Stratfor on Iran

By: bc

bc — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 01:34:27 +0000

You know, the young in Iran hate the leadership. Not a little. A lot. Iran is running the oldest play in the book. How to rally the people round your admittedly stinky flag? Start trouble. Preferably provoke the first punch. Even Iran’s disgruntled young moderns will have no choice but to defend the homeland once the chips are down. And Islam is nothing if not a culture based on riteously indignant counterpunching. The question is, are we stupid enough to take the bait?

By: mgd

mgd — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 13:39:05 +0000

I’ve heard that Iran is making war cries to keep US troops in Iraq to keep the new Shia dominated government in power. Makes sense to me.

By: MarketWizard

MarketWizard — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 03:03:34 +0000

The wild card is of course a “counter proliferation” weapon that the United States has been developing since the early days of “star wars”. This is not the “missile defense shield”, but rather a technology that can use planetary occurences as weapons by controling “energy” and its conduits in very interesting ways (think Tesla). One CIA spinout is a company called Phazar (Nasdaq: ANTP) and Ionotron (Nasdaq: IOTN)

We have a “new weapon” and it comes just in time.

By: Rocket's Brain Trust

Rocket's Brain Trust — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 22:14:20 +0000

The Case for Invading Iran

HT Winds of Change and Stratfro via Chicago Boyz

Here are four essays from the last several days re the case for a premptive strike or other actions against Iran.

The Case for Invading Iran
by Guest Author …

By: Jay Manifold

Jay Manifold — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 13:25:24 +0000

I found the StratFor piece to be a frustrating mix of the obvious and the erroneous, and am therefore motivated to come up with something of my own that I hope to post here soon … for now, I will say only that the article’s avoidance of mention of Ahmadinejad’s eschatological motivation is a critical flaw.

That said, I thank Jonathan for posting it, because the more people who are paying attention to this situat, the better; it has the unfortunate potential to dominate the decade in a way that utterly eclipses 9/11.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 01:56:47 +0000

mgd,

It’s not what Iranians as a whole stand to gain — obviously they are going to get screwed if their country is involved in any serious warfare, and they are already being abused by their leaders. What this is really about is what those leaders stand to gain by ginning up external threats. Seems to me that the leadership is following a classic dictatorial pattern for increasing its power.

By: ForNow

ForNow — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:59:02 +0000

I suspect that there is, in Iranian culture, a streak of flaky extremism. It’s not the whole story, but it seems to be there.

I would not rule out too easily that Iran’s current leadership has at least somewhat crazy plans in store.

By: JeremyR

JeremyR — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:53:21 +0000

Hrrrrmph. Stratfor is about as accurate as Debka, but at least Debka is entertaining in a National Enquirer sort of way.

By: Karl Gallagher

Karl Gallagher — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 21:28:11 +0000

If you want to blue-sky options, we could arrange for the Security Council to declare Iran a Russian “protectorate.” The Russians have the firepower, don’t mind casualities, could use the money, and are already an oil-exporting nuclear power so the strategic balance wouldn’t change.

By: mgd

mgd — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 21:17:27 +0000

Can someone explain how Iran’s recovering of “its position as the leader of the Islamic revolutionary movement for itself and for Shi’ism” would be worth alienating just about everyone else on the planet? What do they really stand to gain?

By: shannon Love

shannon Love — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:53:55 +0000

Perhaps Iran knows that it cannot make an actual deployable nuclear weapon and they are looking for a face saving means of hiding that fact. Perhaps they are seeking to goad the US or Israel into making an attack that they will then blame for their inability to complete the weapons.

As a bonus, they might also expect a rally around the flag effect.

By: Joe Katzman

Joe Katzman — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:30:26 +0000

As noted in the comments to my Winds’ article “Our Darkening Sky: Iran and the War” … actually, the Saudis have 96 Tornado IDS long-range strike fighters on their east coast at Dhahran, just across the Gulf. Would they use them? Probably not.

Still, an Iranian bomb implicitly threatens the Saudis as much as it threatens Israel. Past Winds of Change.NET articles have noted Saudi small steps toward a nuclear capability of their own, and involvement in Pakistan’s program. Indeed, the Saudis would be likely to be one of the first “secondary proliferations” to spin out of an Iranian bomb. If so, this would have 2 consequences:

[1] Neatly occupy the pole position slot in one of Belmont’s “3 conjectures” scenarios re: intra-Islamic nuclear war.

[2] Given the deep instability of the Saudi regime, and the high level of sympathy with al-Qaeda in the kingdom, a Saudi regime with the bomb could justifiably be painted as al Qaeda owned nukes just waiting to happen.

And the clattering train rolls on…

“Who’s in charge of the clattering train?
The axles creak and the couplings strain
And the pace is hot and the points are near
And Sleep has deadened the driver’s ear
And the signals flash through the night in vain
For Death is in charge of the clattering train”

By: TM Lutas

TM Lutas — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 18:54:15 +0000

It is asserted but not demonstrated that only Israel and the US could do this sort of strike. At least one other power comes to mind, Turkey. They're neighbors to Iran, historical rivals, and seem to have the air power necessary. The US could put up an air wall to draw away Iranian fighters and only cross into Iran far enough to ensure that Iran splits its forces. So why not Turkey? Are the Iranians such better flyers?