Neo Math
1) Republicans in danger of not even being able to vote fraud 2006 mid-terms
due to low turnout by disgusted Republicans, and intense exit polling, thus
jeopardizing 2008 presidential elections, key to a larger expansion of PNAC.
2) Israel own expansion plans must include South Lebanon due to rapidly shrinking
water supply, even with seizure of key Palestinian areas behind its security wall.
3) Israel tips hat to Republican re-election in return for carte blanche hands off
by Cheney Administration bent on WWIII or WWIV, depending how insane you read PNAC.
4) Deteriorating Iraq situation provides perfect escalation from Lebanon blitzkreig
by sacrificing Americans soldiers in Green Zone for a larger invasion plan of Iran.
‘Oh my G-d, look what they (Syria, Iran) did to US troops in Iraq and Lebanon(sic)!’
5) September 11th is 5-year anniversary of new US national holiday, occurring the same day as key Islamic religious holiday, the perfect opportunity to pull a Pearl Harbor on Tehran, and elevate a new generation of arm-chair generals into combat-status double-dip pensioners, pushing mid-terms landslide to Republicans.
6) Two months of US carpet bombing paves the way for John McCain-Jeb Bush in 2008.
Brilliant! You have to hand it to them, they’re every bit as shrewd as Adolf Hitler.
Your choices then are:
1) Hold down your job and your house, and pretend to be a loyal Brown Shirt.
2) Enlist, leave the wife and kids at home, and join the Tehran victory parade.
3) Quit your job, sell your home, and move to Canada, umm, strike that, Mexico.
link

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 23 2006 8:30 utc | 4

jj, it seems to me that this was long-planned. We look for election-winning announcements, congress etc. but an invasion needs partners. 1191 Persian Gulf War, Goerge Herbert Walker Bush bot troops, an international coalition, money from non-participants like Japan.
Likwise, Persian Gulf War the second also tried to assemble a coalition. This seems the prototype, let every country know what you (US) intend, then do it anyway.
We have been waiting for a US attack on Iran since at least June of this year (2006) so this attack by Israel clearly seems like the opening move in that game.
Israel’s generals and leaders apparently walked in and out of the Pentagon between 9/11/2001 and Operation Iraqi Liberation (Kwiatkowski), why should they have stopped.
Where is Canada in this, I don’t like the direction my country has taken.

Posted by: jonku | Jul 23 2006 10:37 utc | 6

Well, I have my doubts about Iraq turning into the American military’s worst defeat since the Chosin Reservoir. The Iraqi insurgents aren’t dumb, if cutting the logistical umbilical cord from Kuwait was easy they would have already done it. — Lexington
Cutting the logistical cord would be a lot easier for Iran. They can shut down the strait of Hormuz; they have the support of shias in southern Iran, and presumably the Iranian army has better funding, weapons and training than the Sunni insurgency.
BTW, there was a good piece on TomDispatch several years ago about Rumsfeld’s transformation of the military and the role of nuuclear weapons in RNA: nukes function as our reserves.
If the American war-fighting networks begin to unravel (as partially occurred in February 1991), the new paradigm – with its “just in time” logistics and its small “battlefield footprint” – leaves little backup in terms of traditional military reserves. This is one reason why the Rumsfeld Pentagon takes every opportunity to rattle its nuclear saber. Just as precision munitions have resurrected all the mad omnipotent visions of yesterday’s strategic bombers, RNA/NCW is giving new life to monstrous fantasies of functionally integrating tactical nukes into the electronic battlespace.

Posted by: Vin Carreo | Jul 23 2006 11:38 utc | 8

Why do we all know the word ‘kamikaze’ but almost none of us knows ‘Basiji’?
Google ‘human’ ‘wave’ ‘basiji’ and read about the Iraniann kids who marched, wave after wave, into machine gun fire and across minefields in the Iran-Iraq war. They say there are more than 11 million Basiji in Iran now.

Posted by: gar | Jul 23 2006 15:51 utc | 10

can the less courageous lefty blogosphere stand down on issues and let Billmon, wolcott, juan cole and even the king snark tobogg take over and write without clouding the issue – as long as lebanese children are being murdered, this is the issue

Posted by: Syd Barrett | Jul 23 2006 17:05 utc | 12

They get very good salaries and OK insurance protection.
From here, Switz. the going price for someone who is trained is up to 500 dollars or more a day. That is rumor and exagerated – but Swiss, ex-foreign-legion (French and assimilated, Poles, etc.), South African, and German people can command stunning salaries. I hesiate to quote a real figure as I have no real info, lets just call it very high.
Italians and Brits get less I have heard, and the Paks/Indians/third worlders can’t compete and only go as blue helmets (a thousand dollars a month).
Their main duties are bodyguarding, driving, and fixing. The requirements are languages, street smarts.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 23 2006 19:00 utc | 14

Vin Carreo wrote:
Cutting the logistical cord would be a lot easier for Iran. They can shut down the strait of Hormuz; they have the support of shias in southern Iran, and presumably the Iranian army has better funding, weapons and training than the Sunni insurgency.
Whether Iran can shut the Strait of Hormuz and keep it shut is to my mind an open question. If it comes to a shooting war the first thing the US is going to do is destroy the Iranian navy and air force and the second thing is use airpower to prevent the Iranians from moving antiship missiles within range of ships in the Gulf. If airpower doesn’t work the next step is a ground invasion. The consequences of significant oil supply disruptions, especially given the already tight market, are so great that the Bush administration will stop at nothing to prevent it.
As for the TomDispatch piece, it pretty well summarizes everything that is wrong with modern American military thinking doesn’t it? On the one hand blind faith in the power of technology to overcome obstacles (ever wonder how many of those RMA guys are closet Trekkies? I have), on the other the inability to comprehend the difference between military leadership and business management (says a lot about American values when you think about it).
Then they wonder why their technocratic net-centric army with all its geewhiz wonder toys and a head full of fadish management theory can’t defeat 20 000 lightly armed insurgents.
Dan wrote:
The Sadrists were, in fighting terms, amateurs – although they may have gotten a bit more effective in the past 2 years. Badr, IH and Iranian special ops types are not. I’m pretty sure that the Iranians have spent the past 3 years planning this, and have the personnel and materiel already in place to execute it.
If Iran really can pull this off it would a stunning body blow to the prestige of the American military. But I’m still skeptical. Iranians are not Arabs and do not speak Arabic. They cannot blend seemlessly with the Shiite Iraqi street. Relations between Shiite Iraqis and Shiite Iranians can still be prickly, and I don’t think their interests are in perfect alignment: it would certainly serve Iran’s interests to get the US out of Iraq and deal American forces a serious enough blow to turn American public opinion against further adventurism -say, against Iran. But if the Iraqi Shiite leadership is taking the long view they must realize that the American occupation cannot be sustained indefinately, and every day we see more signs that when the Americans leave the unresolved issues between Iraq’s various communities will be settled by violence rather than parliamentary means. Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to keep their powder dry for that day of reckoning rather than enfeeble themselves by taking it upon themselves to fight what is legitimately Iran’s fight?
A UK commander in Basra was quoted as suggesting that Iran could take the city from them with a few mullahs and a soundtruck; I suspect that the same holds true for Nassariyah ( the key US logistics station on the route between Basra and Baghdad ), Najaf and Karbala – along with all points in-between.
If the Shiite street mobilizes against the occupation then all bets are off because the US would probably have to resort to such draconian means to restore order that its moral authority would be irreperably compromised. I’m sure none of America’s remaining “allies” in the south, with the possible (though increasingly slight) possibility of the British, would lift a finger to do to so because they -or more correctly their political masters- signed on to this misadventure to provide the Bush administration with a fig leaf of international respectability, not to gun down Iraqis on the streets of their own cities.
Again though, the thought that the most likely consequence of forcing the Americans out is a sectarian civil war is probably giving the Shiite leadership pause, though the situation in Iraq is so fluid that this could all change in a heartbeat.

Posted by: Lexington | Jul 24 2006 1:00 utc | 16

Lexington:
I don’t think they need Iran at all. All the Shia of Iraq have to understand is that the US is about to help the Sunnis do them in.
The US/Israeli genocide in Lebanon ought abundantly to demonstrate that the Xtians in the US will allow “even” Christians to be slaughtered wholesale if it fits the equation layed out by the Wise Men in Israel.
What hope is there that the Shia will somehow be passed over by the Sword of The Lord?
This talk of Iran gives comfort to the monstrous mob in Tel Aviv and in Washington DC that is choreographing this “clash of civilizations”.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jul 24 2006 2:30 utc | 18

“US would probably have to resort to such draconian means to restore order that its moral authority would be irreperably compromised”
What is this moral authority of which you speak? The US has none that I can discern.

Posted by: ran | Jul 24 2006 3:05 utc | 20

What I mean is this, Ms Manners.
If the Iraqi Shia decide to sever the supply lines feeding the US armed forces they are not in need of help from the Iranians to do so.
The slaughter of the Shia and Christians in Lebanon by the US/Israeli Axis may well (ought to!) be the bolt of lightening that strikes the scales from their eyes : playing along with the Americans is just like playing along with Sadam.
Once that realization sinks in they may well finally decide to drive the Americans from their country, and the textbook way to do so is to disrupt American supply lines.
The Americans haven’t enough troops to protect the “400 to 800 mile” trail of ants that have been able, up until now, to supply them, due wholly to Shia forebearance.
If (when?) the Shia do rise up and do so, the neocons in Washington DC will not beat their breasts, rend their garments, and apologize for their stupidity, they will look for a scapegoat to saddle with their defeat.
The Iranians will be that scapegoat : “The Iranian terrorists are responsible for our (now unmaskable) defeat in Iraq”.
The neocon “solution” to “their problem” will be “more war”, this time with Iran, conducted on the Lebanon model, without the Israeli follow-up by the ground troops they will have lost by then.
I was giving Lexington a piece of “free advice”, as always worth what he’s paid for it, that bringing Iran into the equation is consonant with the neocons’ upcoming line.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jul 24 2006 4:46 utc | 22

Lexington and Ms.Manners, you’ve forgotten the one easy weapon the Iranians can deploy into the Straits of Hormuz – mines. They may not shut down the Straits to military traffic, but it will shut down the Straits for commercial traffic. Plus, the US Navy possesses a pathetic anti-mine capability. Anti-mine warfare is not sexy, it’s not big and shiny, it doesn’t go 1550 knots at 50,000 feet or dive to 3000 feet while pushing 60 knots, so it doesn’t get much cred in The Building. Unfortunately, mine warfare is the perfect 4th generation warfare method designed to foil our 3rd generation warfare superiority. All the Iranians need to do is sink one tanker in the Straits of Hormuz, with any weapon at their disposal. That includes Zodiac boats which board the tanker and scuttle them in the Straits. So, don’t tell me that none of this stuff hasn’t been imagined, as Condi had the temerity to do, when it occurs.

Posted by: PrahaPartizan | Jul 25 2006 3:42 utc | 24

PrahaPartizan wrote:
Lexington and Ms.Manners, you’ve forgotten the one easy weapon the Iranians can deploy into the Straits of Hormuz – mines.
Respectfully Praha I have not overlooked that possibility.
You are right about the woeful inadequacy of American mine warfare forces but, as I have already said, keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is of such overriding strategic importance to the United States that it will resort to any means necessary to achieve this goal, and the US has a lot of resources to throw at the problem. If it has to buy MCM vessels commissioned by other navies at ridiculously inflated prices (price is literally no object in this situation) then it will.
The only way this doesn’t work is if Iran can actually prevent mine countermeasures forces from operating in the Gulf, which given the US’ overwhelming conventional superiority I don’t think it can.
It has been said that all Iran has to do is sink one supertanker in the Strait to close it. Fair enough, but with salvage teams working around the clock to reopen the Strait to tanker traffic Iran needs the capability to sink supertankers not once but many times for this to be a really viable threat. Even at that at the first hint that there is the real possibility the Gulf would be closed to commercial navigation one of top items on the agenda is going to be building new pipelines from Saudia Arabia to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean -anywhere that is safely beyond Iran’s reach.
I’m not saying, btw, that war with Iran is something to be taken lightly or that it will be without serious long term consequences for American foreign policy. Personally, I expect it will be a lot like Iraq, only worse. But I think getting oil out of the Gulf is going to be closer to the middle of the issues the US will be forced to confront, rather than at the top. Indeed, to me America’s top strategic issue in the Gulf isn’t the potential for disruptions in oil supplies because of Iranian actions but rather the mounting evidence that Saudi Arabia’s oil production is set for terminal decline (if you haven’t already read Matthew Simmons’ Twilight in the Desert really you must).

Posted by: Lexington | Jul 25 2006 11:21 utc | 26