Redstate

...around us, not around the Iranians. A nuclear Iran will jump overnight into the second tier of the world's powers, along with Russia, China, and a host of others, some more aggressive than others. American remains alone in the top rank, for the moment. It's possible that many of the second-tier powers see their primary interest in pulling the US off our pedestal of pre-eminence and establishing a world order of rough peers in balanced competition. A good way to do this is to test not just our resolve, but also our simple ability to retain our position in the face of increasingly numerous and geographically dispersed challenges.

We will fight this battle alone and we will ultimately lose. Unless we can form up a new grand alliance of freedom-loving powers. An alliance anchored by the US, Britain, Japan and India can form a muscular counterweight to a world dominated by Realpolitik.

Iran has put together a nuclear program since 1979 for one reason: to push us out of the Gulf and ME for the Persian Empire 2.0.

Merely threatening us won't do; they'll have to strike us and then have the ability to strike us again. They tried conventional means to get the US Navy out of the Gulf in the 1980s and found guerilla warfare doesn't work on the Sea.

Iran of course already HAS nukes, later this year they will have their production line finished and have produced something on the order of 100 nukes or so; mated to ballistic missiles capable of being launched on freighters.

Iran is dangerous with nukes because they are not like say, Brazil or South Africa. They both wish eagerly to confront the US believing their "fighting Spirit" or Islamic holy mission of jihad and have no idea of the response they would get when (not if sorry) they nuke our cities.

Osama believed the US would collapse with Twin Towers, Saddam that the prospect of casualties would protect him from US invasion as he thought it detered Bush 41. Sadly the Iranians discount our strategic forces and don't understand our strategic posture.

Meanwhile I see no ability or desire in the US to rally the nation for US unilateral action on conventional means while we still have time, and more importantly, the initiative.

I thought that they wouldnt have nukes for another five years... lol..

I dont know whats going to be worse.. the election cycle (and dont think iran isnt playing into that as well), $4.00 a gallon gas (if not more - depends upon how far we let the speculators dictate prices) - which will shatter our economy, or listening to defeatist about Iraq.

What we need is for us to some how snip this problem - and keep a lid on speculators while Iraq continues to stabilize and get her legs.

Well, I did hope that this would be delayed a bit longer. I am pessimistic about the future and actually expect either Pakistan or Russia to fully back Iran once they acquire nuclear capability.  This of course will lead to unthinkable consequences for Israel and eventually the US.  Sorry, just a bit too depressed about the future of my children.

I don't see a good way out of this situation...

You could be right about the no nukes for five years, Paul.  It's not clear from the text whether "go nuclear" means having nuclear weapons, or something less scary.  

The linked text that actually quotes Ahmadinejad says

"Our enemies try to prevent our scientific progress through widespread propaganda but inshaAllah (God willing) this (new) year will be the year when the Islamic Republic of Iran will fully avail itself of peaceful nuclear technology," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the news agency ISNA. In a meeting with visiting Syrian Vice President Farouk Al-Shara, Ahmadinejad said Iran's use of peaceful nuclear energy will be to the benefit of the Islamic world and the "friends of Iran."

...about Iran's internal motivations, since I haven't the slightest idea if they're crazy like loons or like foxes, or whether they seriously believe that Allah wants them to wage violent war on the rest of the world, or whether their own people will stand for such a thing. To my mind, anyone not inside the Iranian circles of power is largely guessing about all this, and that includes the corrupt and incompetent CIA. (Doesn't stop all of us at RS and elsewhere from speculating rampantly.)

But my real point was about Russia and China, explicitly abetting Iran's rise to nuclear status. Again, if Iran becomes nuclear, they will permanently join the front rank of nations and become one of the world's great powers. (NoKo doesn't qualify because they are not really a nation, more like a one-man-band.) Russia and China (and possibly Brazil) have a clear geopolitical motivation to see Iran succeed. That's because their own relative positions are greatly enhanced if the world ceases to be hyperpower-dominated and goes back to the balance-of-power style. Anything and anyone who opposes the US fits this model. It's perhaps overstating the case to say that we're in a long, slow war of attrition against everyone else in the world who craves leading-nation status, but it's not far off the mark. We can't win this war on our own.

Side point: the fact that Russia and China are using the UN Security Council as a tool in their offensive against us on behalf of Iran proves yet again, as if more proof were needed, that the UN has outlived its usefulness.

They have been promising this for a long time.

We have Iraq on one side, and Afghanistan on the other. We have Diego Garcia. We still have (no thanks to many of us) the UAE on our side. We have Kuwait on our side. We have more equipment, better equipment and vastly better men. We have Command, Control and Communications that the Iranians can only dream of. Do you think the Israelis are just going to sit around and wait for Holocaust v 2.0? The wackjobs in running the fascist wannabe state are much more likely to nuke Russia over Chechnya than the US. That will be the best irony of all: Russia reaping the reward for their backstabbing, ham fisted behavior.

And oh yeah: the people of Iran hate the islamofascist pigs running their country into the ground.

So Iran is publicly thanking Russia and China for front running their program? Maybe Russia and China see this as an elaborate strategy to force us to back down. I think our reponse is much more likely to be very dangerous to their interests and triumphal to ours.

There is a core of toughness in Americans that the MSM and the DNC has not managed to dissipate. Iran, built on a culure of past glory fondly remembered and victimology will not stand a chance.  

say it's for peaceful uses, but he has no intention of using it for just that.

Many countries, INCLUDING FRANCE have offered to provide them with fuel rods for their PEACEFUL intentions, Russia has offered to enrich their uranium, etc.

Iran insists on doing it all themselves. To what end? Intelligence reports that while they have the current capability to produce enriched U235 in their surface facilities, they have built a huge underground facility to further enrich the U235 to weapons grade.

Don't let his rhetoric fool you, they are bent on having a nuclear weapon, and this underground facility will give them the ability to produce enough U235 at 90%+ enrichment for at LEAST 30 bombs a year.

You only need to enrich U235 about 5% for fuel and can do it with about 1,500 P-2 centrifuges. They have 50,000 in this underground facility.

I see a Big war.  And I've seen it coming for years now.  Was always a toss-up whether Iran or Syria would be the next target.  I guess Ahmadinejad just made the selection for us...

...And here I am stuck in Recruiting for the next 2 years...  I will prolly miss this one, too...

...On a brighter note,  at least my wife is pretty far from any major target...

Hunter,

Yes, we have a strong army presence in the middle east that will most likely fend off any Iranian attack.  However, actually defeating Iran by unilaterraly invading it will be impossible with the current status of the U.S.

 To a certain extent, you're right. As we all saw in both of the Persian Gulf wars, America's air force, communications and missile capacity is far ahead of any other country.  This advantage enables America to bomb any ground movements which will be exposed in the wide open desert.  This will also enable America to destroy any major fortifications and heavy arnament Iran has.

  However, as we saw in the second persian gulf war, air superiority cannot control the dynamics in the ground. That will require a large ground force, regardless of how powerful that ground force.  A small and powerful ground force may defeat any opposing force at any battle, but the ground force is vulnerable to guerilla style attacks.  Somalia and the second persian gulf war are exemplars of this fact. However, with a larger force that can maintain a presence in many parts of the country, America can stop insurgencies before they start.  America and her allies used this strategy in Bosnia and in Kosovo and it worked extremely well.  

  So how will we get these ground forces?  That's the question that nobody seems to have the answers for.  A foreign legion has been discussed:

http://www.redstate.com/story/2006/3/5/1485/88939

Other examples that didn't pan out well for the second persian gulf war such as a strong coalition of nations or a draft have also been discussed but is not definitely likely for Iran.

That is why Iran presents such a problem. We have all of our ground forces tied down all across the globe and president bush has almost no clout or respect in the world to gain allies.  Also, except for a few exceptions such as western europe, canada, and australia, any ally that will help us in defeating Iran will likely create more enemies. For example, if India decides to join us, Musharraf will be overthrown by muslim extremists and Pakistan will likely go with Iran. Israel will likely cause all of its neighbors to attack it if(definitely will) Israel decides to help us. If South Korea will send in troops to help us, North Korea might join up with Iran and start attacking.  This pattern goes on and on.

 However, actually defeating Iran by unilaterraly invading it will be impossible with the current status of the U.S.

Manifestly not so. There are about 1.3 million members of the US Army and Marines, active and reserve. Only 135K are in Iraq.

If you work from the assumption that this 135K is the max force we can generate you are mistaken. Right now both the Army and the Marines are trying to fight the war while disturbing the peacetime cycle as little as possible. A general mobilization could generate a conventional force that could take on Iran while simultaneously maintaining current troop densities in Iraq.

We can argue the likelihood of that coming to pass but to say it is impossible is just counterfactual.

A small and powerful ground force may defeat any opposing force at any battle, but the ground force is vulnerable to guerilla style attacks.

True but irrelevant. Any force, powerful or otherwise, is vulnerable to guerilla style attacks. Whether those attacks are militarily significant is another matter. In both your cases in point, Iraq and Somalia, they were/are not.

America and her allies used this strategy in Bosnia and in Kosovo and it worked extremely well.

I'd be very interested to see how you arrive at this conclusion. In Kosovo we've handed the province over the KLA and their jihadi auxiliaries who have been conducting a below the radar ethnic cleansing of native Serbs. Bosnia is a pretty strange item to lump in here as this was your garden variety civil war and anyone who thinks we prevented violence there through our presence really needs to Google "Srebrenicia."

We have all of our ground forces tied down all across the globe and president bush has almost no clout or respect in the world to gain allies.

Again simply not true. We have fewer US troops, either in number or percentage of the force, committed overseas than we've had in well over a century.

US ground commitments in Korea are down to one brigade and will soon disappear. US ground commitments in Europe are down to a mechanized brigade and an airborne brigade vs 4 2/3 divisions in 1990. Your feelings about President Bush might be of interest to you but to portray them as fact is a lot less than convincing.

For example, if India decides to join us, Musharraf will be overthrown by muslim extremists and Pakistan will likely go with Iran.

Got a reference to back up this pretty exotic claim?

We are headed for war, and the only question now is what form it takes.

1. Which allies, if any would join the attacks?  There's a good chance of picking up the Brits, and perhaps now the French and the Germans.
   
2. What type of action?  Presumably not an invasion.  Air strikes will be designed to eliminate every possible nuclear installation.  The concern is that this won't be enough: the West will need as well to put every Iranian naval ship on the bottom of the Persian Gulf, turn the Iranian air force into scrap metal, and make every Iranian tank a smoking pile of rubbish.
   
3. What about Iranian counter-strikes? The West would keep the option of seizing the Iranian oilfields and there wouldn't be anything that Iran could do about it.
   
4. Can the Iranian government be overthrown?  They'll have to be.  Air strikes that leave the mullahs in power will only invite more trouble down the road.

is there any chance that our two new allies would become involved?

By that I mean the Afghani Northern Alliance (with US air support) and the Kurdish Peshmerga (also with US Air support). I would think that locally capable fighters like these would be natural allies, in this environment. And very capable, with support.

It would free up a lot of manpower.

Just asking from the comfort of my own armchair, no real insight.

the day its charter was drafted (by Soviet spy Alger Hiss).

However, you are disregarding all the things the UN does that don't get media attention.

Do you have a problem with conflict mediation for example?

Certain aspects of the UN bring a legitimate perception of impartially, something that no matter how hard it tries, the US will not be able to garner. Therefore in terms of some forms of mediation the UN fulfills a function the US cannot.

Sure bureacracies can be a farse, but, the UN has done at least a few good things under your radar.

Can you cite a successful one of more consequence than a dispute over the border between Lichtenstein and Belgium?

...to miss the point. Russia and China are using the SC as a tool to provide cover and legitimacy to their campaign to make Iran a nuclear power. If they succeed, the UN will share the culpability (although that's a funny word to describe an outcome that only the US and Israel will consider unacceptable).

It's beside the point, but you're right to point out that the vast majority of the UN's corrupt, money-wasting and society-busting activities do fly under the radar. I've seen some of the shenanigans at Unicef up close, for example, and they are really good at keeping it out of the press. Oil-for-Food was the one that got away, but they're doing a creditable job of sweeping it back under the carpet where it belongs.

You're right about conflict mediation, the UN has that one knocked too. Their senior diplomats' drivers never have to fight each other for parking spaces because the City of New York won't ticket them.

swallowing.

The UN doesn't do anything well, and what the UN can sort of do well, can usually be done better by somebody else.

So I agree with the OP, the UN has way outlived its usefulness.

UNICEF has been mentioned. To answer another post: take for example the UNICEF brokered cease-fire to vacinate children in El Salvadore, which ultimately evolved into an long term cease fire.

I should have stated that I'm as concerned about the events on the horizon as the next person, does the neville comment fall in the same ball-park as Godwin's law by the way? ;)

I just don't respect the knee-jerk reaction that the UN has no place.

While it may be a role that the UN wasn't intended for, the UN is valuable in post civil-war conflict prevention for example (that aside from any ethical reason to help, may help to prevent the spread of terrorism).

I don't believe it is being a liberal idealist to assume that the UN has some valuable functions to play, YES reform is needed.

Diplomats will always get a cushy ride that's seems to be an unfortunate reality (UN or not).

Who else can play the role of impartial negotiator?

finally

blackhedd: I take your point. The legitimacy that the UN put behind the the Korean War (minus communists on the SC ;) ) and the first Gulf War (and other things) may indeed be turning around on us in the wrong way and yes I am concerned!

Anyway, fire away! :)

to back up your bleak claims of insanity on the part of the Iranian leadership?