Iran And Litmus Tests

by hilzoy

About Iran: three main points, two of which involve disagreeing with von. That's unfortunate, since I prefer agreeing with him, but them's the breaks.

First, von wrotes in a comment that "Iran also lacks the capability to inflict significant harm on our assets in theater", and uses this as (part of?) an argument that "to pretend that we couldn't inflict substantial damage on Iran while escape immediate repercussions is to engage in fiction -- one not useful to this debate." Since I buy into the "fiction" that we cannot inflict substantial damage on Iran without immediate repercussions, at least if we're talking about inflicting damage militarily, I should explain.

As I see it, our decision to invade Iraq was disastrous on a number of levels, one of which was that we gave Iran considerable leverage over us by ensuring that our army would be, for the foreseeable future, occupied with important tasks in Iraq, during which time it would be an extremely convenient target for Iran. Had we not invaded Iraq, we would not only have our army intact and only preoccupied with one war; we would not have left them scattered about a neighboring country like so many hostages. As it is, however, there they are; and while it would be nice to pretend we do not have to take this into account, that would be, in von's terms, a fiction.

Iran could do all sorts of things to make our lives more difficult in Iraq. It could urge its proxies to attack us more frequently; possibly, quite a lot more frequently. Matt Yglesias claims that Iran could send Iraqi militias a lot more sophisticated weaponry than they seem to have used so far, and even if the very worst of the Bush administration allegations about Iran supplying the militias is true, it's hard to think that Matt's wrong on this point. To quote two sources I trust on this point, here's Andrew:

"Whether or not they can reach these shores, as long as there are U.S. forces in Iraq they don't need to do much more than smuggle more and more sophisticated weapons systems to those we already fight in Iraq to hurt us. Imagine an insurgency armed with surface-to-air missiles and as many explosively formed penetrator IEDs they want. The losses we're taking in Iraq now would pale in comparison to those we would face if we went to war with Iran. Is striking at Iran worth that risk?"

And Wes Clark says that "this is a struggle that will be costly for all involved, will further isolate the region, and whose ultimate outcome is likely to be decided by future incumbencies. Leaders on both sides should recognize that war is the most unpredictable of human endeavors, and that unanticipated consequences almost always follow."

Moreover, there's always the truly awful possibility that Iran or its proxies might attack our supply lines. Here's Andrew again, on the likely results of a Shi'a uprising leading to attacks on supply lines:

"The results would be devastating. For those who think the Israeli actions in Lebanon have been horrid, the results of a U.S. fighting withdrawal from Iraq would be orders of magnitude worse. U.S. forces would, by and large, be able to get out of the country, but they would leave thousands if not tens of thousands of Iraqi dead behind.

This ought to make it quite clear that the U.S. cannot afford such an outcome. Whatever good U.S. forces have accomplished in Iraq over the past three years would be completely destroyed. Our enemies would have a massive victory they could use to rally more fighters to their cause. Iraq itself would not only devolve into chaos, but we would have an inordinate amount of blood on our hands. Whatever mistakes this administration has made thus far, they simply must find a way to avoid inciting the Shiites against the U.S. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate."

These look a lot like "serious repercussions" to me.

Second: speculation about war with Iran generally involves not a US strike out of the blue, but a pattern of provocation by the US that ultimately leads to some Iranian retaliation, which in turn allows us to attack Iran. Some analysts, like James Fallows, don't say explicitly that this might be intended by the US. Others do:

"At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for," says Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs."

There are all sorts of reasons why this would be an incredibly bad thing to do. For one thing, it would be immoral; for another, it would be immensely damaging to our national interests. But one point that I haven't seen made often enough is that this is an incredibly reckless thing to do when we have troops in theater. It amounts to using the people in our armed forces to provoke Iran, or to tempt it into retaliation, as if they were bait in a trap. We should never, never forget that if the Bush administration is trying to provoke Iran, then what it is trying to provoke Iran to do is to attack our troops so seriously that we seem to have no choice but to retaliate; and moreover, that those same troops are likely to pay a very steep price if we do attack. (See point 1 above.)

We owe them better than that.

Third: In normal circumstances, I would agree with von's point about litmus tests. I think that they are, under normal circumstances, profoundly unwise, though I'd disagree with some of his points of emphasis. However, these are not, to my mind, normal times, and in this case I think that some sort of litmus test would be appropriate. (I'd assume that such a litmus test would be subject to the same sorts of unspoken exemptions as, say, most promises: I say I'll meet you for lunch, but you and I probably both know that there are some range of circumstances -- say, your spouse having to be taken to the hospital immediately -- in which you can legitimately fail to show up.)

There are, after all, a lot of things such that, if my Congressperson voted for them under almost any foreseeable circumstances, I would never vote for him or her again given any remotely credible alternate candidate. If, for instance, my Congressperson voted to invade Canada, or to launch nuclear weapons at the UK, or to legalize hunting criminals for sport to save on prison costs, or to cull the unemployed, then under almost any foreseeable circumstances, as far as I am concerned, that would be that.

Most of the time, we don't need to bother to make this explicit. Of course we're not going to invade Canada. Not invading Canada is, I suppose, a litmus test issue for me, but it's one I don't need to bother to inform my representatives about, since I assume that the occasion to use it as a litmus test will not arise.

But this time is different. This time, to my amazement and horror, there seems to be some possibility that we might do one of those disastrous things. Moreover, we have a President who is apparently willing and able to do completely disastrous things, no matter how many people oppose him. So I might as well say so.

Moreover: some of the reasons von gives for opposing litmus tests basically involve bad consequences. For instance: a litmus test on Iran would remove the possibility of attack, which would harm our negotiating position (if we were willing to negotiate; it seems odd to credit the Bush administration with having anything worthy of being called a 'negotiating position' with respect to Iran.) If an attack is called for, it might make people in Congress less willing to go along with it. And so forth.

Here I think it's important to estimate the risks and possible benefits of any litmus test correctly. Publius and me calling for a litmus test on Iran is not likely to "remove the threat of military action from the table." We are not that influential. Heck: even kos is not that influential. All we are likely to accomplish is to make it clear that when Congresspeople consider the use of force in Iran, they should be aware that there is a potential political downside to using it. That might, as von notes, make them unduly hesitant if an invasion were called for, though it would also prevent them from being unduly eager to support military action against Iran if it were not called for.

Question: which scenario is more likely? Personally, I think that it's very unlikely that we will find ourselves in circumstances in which it would make sense for us to invade Iran as things are, with our armed forces preoccupied, our army and marines sitting right next door with bulls-eyes painted on their backs, and our credibility in tatters. Since it would take something truly extreme to make military action a good idea, and since given anything extreme, Americans would probably support military action, I'm not terribly worried about that possibility. The possibility that Bush might get us into war with Iran, and that Congress would fail to oppose his action decisively enough, strikes me as a much more serious danger.

For that reason, even if Publius and I were somehow able to deprive the administration of the ability to make credible threats, I think I'd say: well, that's what comes of having a President who is too reckless and irresponsible to be trusted with the ability to make threats. One more reason to elect sane people to the Presidency. Given our actual power, however, I'm pretty comfortable with the costs and benefits.

About our Republic: I welcome correction by those among you who are Constitutional scholars, but: I have always thought that while we do elect representatives to exercise their own judgment, the point of having them elected at all is to ensure that they are to some extent constrained by public opinion. Normally, I would want those constraints not to be too tight: I want representatives to be free to do things that they take to be unpopular but right, and to wait until the next election before having to face a referendum on what they've done.

That said, however, I also think that the Constitution rightly does not give the power to declare war to any one person, but to the Congress as a whole. Moreover, the Framers of the Constitution seem to me to have envisaged a world in which wars were declared, in which the famous power of the purse was a tool that might actually be used, not an invitation to describe anyone who advocates using it as failing to support the troops, and, importantly, in which Presidents might face reelection, rather than being term-limited out. All of these things would increase the influence of public opinion on decisions to go to war.

We now face a situation that is, I think, quite troubling from a Constitutional point of view. All the tools by which Congress might affect the decision to go to war seem to have atrophied. Moreover, the military budget is complex enough that any attempt to cut out funding for some particular purpose, like, say, a particular war, might very well not succeed. We have a President who is in his second term, and who therefore cannot stand for reelection. Moreover, he is a person who seems to give precisely no thought to the political interests of others or public opinion; and while I do not really want to say that he gives no thought to the interests of the country, his grasp of those interests seems to be nonexistent.

I think that while it's a good idea, in general, not to try to constrain our representatives too closely, the biggest danger we face right now is not that they will be too responsive to our every whim, but that a President with no political stake in how things turn out and no grasp of the national interest might do immense damage to our country and our interests, not to mention Iran. Again: I think that this is the sort of thing that only ends up looking like a good idea when normal mechanisms break down: when we end up with leaders who seem not to give a damn what we think. Likewise, grounding your teenager is not a good idea in general, but when your teenager starts staying out until all hours on school nights, wrecking cars, knocking over convenience stores, and so forth, it might be the best option available to you, given the situation.

It would certainly be odd for someone who knew about your situation to complain that you had insufficient respect for the importance of teenagers' being free to make their own decisions, as though your decision to ground your teenager reflected not a situation that was spiraling out of control, but simply your general dictatorial tendencies.

Comments

[Kendall]

What a tour de force, Hilzoy! Every point you make rings true for me. You certainly have recovered from your airplane-brain. Staggering brilliance. Now I will sit back and lurk while everybody else has their say.

[xanax]

Draft hilzoy in '08.

[publius]

well, that relieves me of the need to respond. nicely done.

there are though a couple of other points that I think are worth noting, but I'll hold off until tomorrow.

but i think you're dead on in pointing to the positive feedback effects. a litmus test (while generally unwise, as von says) would have a net effect of making sure people verify information, challenge claims, etc. of course there are exceptions built in, but it's essentially an information-producing tactic more than a line in the sand at the end of the day

it also moves the goal posts of acceptable debate, thus increasing the burden on the pro-war crowd. i'll get into that part a little more tomorrow.

[Slartibartfast]

No, of course we don't want to get in a war with Iran. All kinds of people would become quickly dead, and not all of them the other guys. And it wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't even be effective, as has doubtless been noted, in removing attention from Iraq.

So here's the question: if there's no upside to provoking war with Iran, why would the administration do it?

Again, we've got zip for cause. I'd hope that even the least observant among us realizes this: sure, there's Iranian weapons and components in play in Iraq, but we've got nothing that connects them to the Iranian government. We can go on about how many people these weapons have killed, but the truth is, it isn't the makers of these weapons that have deployed them. Again: glaringly, blindingly obvious.

And if we did have a connection, I think it'd still be insufficient. I think it'd be quite easy for Iran (and others) to point to other proxy wars where we'd provided aid to one side. So, unless Iran were to actually invade Iraq, there's no cause.

And of course there's even worse downsides: we'd probably wind up leaving Iraq in much, much worse shape than it's in now.

[SomeOtherDude]

It seems that Bush and the Republican Party could not handle 9-11. They shit their pants and had complete breakdowns. For all their talk of bravery and steadfastness, they are complete irrational cowards.

[radish]

Golly. What a wise, kind, and patient explanation. This certainly obviates the need for the angry and hostile (but short! ;-) rant I was about to post in the previous thread.

I would add only one thing. These are not our children we are talking about. These are our employees. In some senses we are responsible and liable for their behavior; to the extent that their actions are undertaken nominally on our behalf and with our consent. But there is nothing inherent in the relationship which demands its continuation. There is nothing which requires us to protect their interests should they conflict with our own. Which they manifestly do.

The litmus test in question doesn't even rise to the level of grounding a teenager. It's a job performance evaluation. That's all it is, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of millions of lives are at stake.

Yes, thank you. Sign me up for publius' litmus test, and also for the Draft Hilzoy movement.

[liberal japonicus]

So here's the question: if there's no upside to provoking war with Iran, why would the administration do it?

I don't mean to sound overly snarky or like the wacky left, but I think you are not being sufficiently imaginative. There are tons of 'upsides' for provoking a conflict. It's a lot like the guy who arsons a place after he's stolen everything.

[bob mcmanus]

"No, of course we don't want to get in a war with Iran."

Slart I really tend more toward your position than the certain war crowd. But there remain a lot of Cold Warriors around who may have nostalgia for the days of hardcore brinksmanship.

Brinkmanship did and can go to the shooting stage and calm back down without catastrophe.
I honestly can say I lost little sleep in the sixties over armageddon. But it wasn't fun either.

Six effing flotillas in the Gulf is some pretty expensive diplomacy, and they better have a good idea they can achieve something or I'll be all mad at the Bush guys. I swear.

[SomeOtherDude]

I'm sorry, I know I bring down the discourse, but the casual nature our society discusses mass death now is chilling.

[Slartibartfast]

Six flotillas? Eh?

[Katherine]

"if there's no upside to provoking war with Iran, why would the administration do it?"

Damned if I know. Because there's a 1% chance of something bad happening if we don't, and we have to treat it as a certainty? Because they're evil? Because we are bringing democracy to the region and history will vindicate us? Because we can? Because it's there?

But Slart, my evaluation of the costs and benefits of our foreign policy decisions DOES NOT TEND TO COINCIDE WITH DICK CHENEY'S. To put it mildly.

Did you see the Daily Show a few weeks back where Jon Stewart tries to have a heart to heart with Cheney about his Wolf Blitzer interview, and decides to speak in front of a graphic of the Eye of Sauron wearing a Darth Vader helmet? I watch that and think "well, that's a little bit over the top." But just a little.

I'm not totally convinced that they're planning to start a war, but the fact that I think it would be a horrendous idea isn't strong evidence to me that they won't. I think most things they've done have been horrendous ideas.

[bob mcmanus]

"but the casual nature our society discusses mass death now is chilling."

I am sorry if I seem callous, but I can scarcely remember anytime I was growing up in the 50s & 60s without mass death and the threat of war. Eisenhower lied to me about Gary Powers. It broke my little Davy Crockett heart.

I can't quite see the purpose, but unlike North Korea, I do think the US could send in some fighters and take out an anti-aircraft battery, and the next day a barracks blows up in Tikrit, and both sides pound their shoes at the Security Council, make dire threats, move stuff around, talk behind the scenes in backchannels.

This can go on for years. Very expensive, but hey when did Bush care about the budget.

[bob mcmanus]

"Six flotillas? Eh?"

See comment & link in previous thread. Two Carrier Groups in the Gulf, 1 Amphibious Group.

Another Amphibious group on the way, the Ronald Reagan Carrier Group, and the Kitty Hawk is being repaired by its crew, so is unusually ready to go, even tho officially offline.

50 ships?

[CaseyL]

So here's the question: if there's no upside to provoking war with Iran, why would the administration do it?

Are you asking for a rational reason?

Here's my best guess to how Cheney thinks:

1. The Mid-East is mostly ruled by corrupt despots who have driven their people into ignorance, poverty, and hatred. They also control a resource essential to the West's economy.

2. We have reached peak oil. The next 20-30 years are going to be a mad scramble to get as much oil as possible before there's none left, at which point economic growth ceases. The mad scramble will be complicated by the fact that the despot-ruled nations of the Mid-East will also be facing an inescapable Gotterdammerung of their own, since very few of those countries have built their economies on anything else but oil wealth.

3. It is intolerable for the US economy to be dependant on countries which will descend into chaos anyway. Therefore, let the chaos come on our terms, and our timetable. Thus: Destroy the status quo by upending the Mid-East. Leave all governments either non-existant or in disarray.

4. Meanwhile, plan and build a permanent US military presence in the region, in order to pick up the pieces in 10 years, when the chaos has exhausted itself and a goodly number of those troublesome persons are dead. Establish a secure cordon around the oil fields, controlled by the US. The US will be able to feed its own oil appetite, and use whatever is left as a bargaining chip in geopolitics.

Now, I'm not saying I agree with this chain of reasoning. It's monstrous, cold, inhumane - and rather stupid, since 1) it can't conceive of any way to deal with Peak Oil other than grabbing as much oil as possible; and 2) it assumes there won't be any blowback worth mentioning.

But it's the nearest I can come up with for a 'reason' to want war with Iran that isn't completely insane.

[Slartibartfast]

Bob, I just caught up to where you think there will be...and I have no idea if this is anywhere near correct terminology...six flotillas in the Gulf.

So, I traipsed over to your link at democracy-whatever, and it turns out, after a number of visits to some handy-dandy websites and no small use of Google, that Reagan is not headed East, but West. Seventh Fleet. Pacific. As in: not toward the Gulf.

Which isn't to say that we don't have a bit more presence there than we've had, but I'd check two or three references before believing anything about Joe Blow's assessment of military deployments.

[Slartibartfast]

Uh...guess it'd be cool to link to where the Reagan strike group is right now.

[Bruce Baugh]

Slarti, I see several things at work in the administration's approach to the world.

First, there is of course a classic militaristic streak in American conservatism, where fighting is considered good for the nation - builds character and all that.

Second, there's a militaristic drive peculiar to Vietnam War dodgers. Digby had an interesting piece a while back, arguing that both those who accepted the draft or volunteered for service and those who made an actual stand in opposition went through a rite of passage. Those who wished for war but without risk to themselves, on the other hand, locked themselves into a not-really-matured condition, and are stuck finding vicarious gratifaction, again and again.

Third, we're talking here about a lot of narcissistic personalities, and a fair number of highly closeted and repressed gay men. A friend of mine who provides support for victims of domestic abuse says that that's a high-risk group for violence. They lash out capriciously and arbitarily, using violence to quell other emotions.

Fourth, Cheney and his crew seem connected to folks who make absolute bugaboos out of all kinds of potential threats in the Middle East. I don't really understand why Iraq shot to the top of their list, but I know that Iran's been on the same list a long time. And indulging long-held passions and quirks is pretty clearly a high priority.

Fifth and finally, they are in many ways quite stupid or at least thoroughly unimaginative. The particular corporate culture that so many of them come from (or at least have spent time in) is very much dedicated to doing the same thing again and again, and letting others bear the cost. We saw it with Karl Rove's approach to campaign management, which wasn't brilliant, just obsessive and unrestrained, but really only has one tactic. And we see it in their approach to seeking attention, authority, and achievement. Smarter warmongers wouldn't so precisely recapitulate the PR effort of 2002, but here they are, with the same sort of complaint and even some of the same "sources". They seem to be making war because they can't conceive of anything else to do.

[KCinDC]

Slarti, you've explained yet again that attacking Iran would be disastrous and that we don't have good enough reasons for attacking it anyway. I remain mystified about the source of your confidence that this time those facts will affect Bush's actions in some way.

[Slartibartfast]

I hear you, Bruce, but: way too much unsubstantiated psychoanalysis. And, as far as I gathered during my highly conservative upbringing, fighting wars wasn't considered character-building.

[bob mcmanus]

"Uh...guess it'd be cool to link to where the Reagan strike group is right now."

Well, we will see what happens next. I presume Carrier movements are hard to keep secret.

It also could be that the RR will relieve one of the Gulf groups, and the Amphibious group heading that way is also to be relief.

[Katherine]

But we don't have to know the mechanism or get in their head, Slart. All we have to know is that it looking completely irrational to us is not a reason to assume they won't do it. I didn't think suspending the writ of habeas corpus was the smartest response to Hamdan but I sure as hell knew it was coming. I didn't think going to war in Iraq was a good idea in October & November 2002 but it was completely obvious that we would. etc.

Actually, make that etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

I don't know precisely why they do these things, but I know they keep doing them. Maybe they don't want to invade Iran, but they are sort of acting like they do, and the fact that it would make no sense has close to no predictive power when it comes to this administration.

[Slartibartfast]

I remain mystified about the source of your confidence that this time those facts will affect Bush's actions in some way.

This word "confidence" does not mean what you think it means.

[Bruce Baugh]

Slarti, there's a reason I said "a streak" rather than the whole when referring to militaristic conservatism. There are many better streaks too; it's an ugly tide that comes and goes.

Psychological speculation? Sure. But somewhere in here you asked why people might think the administration predictably irrational, and those are among my reasons. I'm not claiming proof, but it seems to fit various pieces of the picture well enough to guide my contingent judgments. It's nothing I'd take to court, but then most of life is that way.

[bob mcmanus]

"source of your confidence that this time those facts will affect Bush's actions in some way."

Not speaking for Slart, but because we may not have to. Brinksmanship can also motivate your allies to help out, and Putin was whining real hard this week. We may get the nuke program folded, in exchange for giving Iraq to Hakim & SCIRI.

Cause I don't think we can keep Iran out of Iraq. I don't think Iran can keep Iran out of Iraq.

[Slartibartfast]

But we don't have to know the mechanism or get in their head, Slart.

No, Katherine, I wasn't talking about them, I was talking about those other guys. Conservatives; an awfully big group of people to think you've got calibrated. Draft-dodgers, which is another, less big group of people to think you've got calibrated, that also encompasses lots of people who don't fit conservative, even in word. And somehow a discussion of closeted gays entered the fray; I was almost afraid to touch that one.

In short, I was responding to Bruce, and mostly confused as to how on earth he thought any of that made any sense, together or separately.

[Slartibartfast]

Time for bed. Bruce, noted that you were talking about "streaks", but I'm not sure what that means.

Katherine, noted that you don't think the administration is rational or can be counted on to act rationally. I suppose what I'm getting at is that if it matters at all what you and I think and say and do, then it will matter even more if there's a clear case for why we think and say and do the things we do. Which is why I think it ought to be ultra-clear that weapons originating in Iran isn't anywhere near reason for starting a shooting war.

But clarity has never been by best suit.

Especially now, given the time.

Off to bed.

[InSpace]

On the 'why would the Bush administration do Iran' question:

If I had been asked, after Bush's inauguration but before the run-up to war, what rational reasons might be given for invading Iraq I would have hard the darndest time giving you a good answer. Sure I can imagine that there's oil to be had, there's a tyrant to topple, there are UN resolutions to enforce, and maybe there's an eventual threat to US military interests, etc. None of those seem like rational reasons though because there would be consequences significant enough to create negative net benefits of the Iraq war.

So, when challenged as to why I think the Bush administration would want a war with Iran in light of all these potential (probable, certain) consequences, I don't really feel the need to answer. I obviously see the world in such a radically different way that attempting to explain the 'rationality' of the Bush administration would be fruitless and inaccurate.

[DaveC]

Katherine, noted that you don't think the administration is rational or can be counted on to act rationally.

I don't think that Katherine, among many commenters and poster on ObWi, can fairly judge whether this administration is rational. After all, look at the posts and comment that advocate throwing President Bush and all of his supporters in prison. (Perhaps this will be a project of mine, to document these.)

Katherine has insinuated that Maher Arer was deported to Syria simply from the motivation of pure malice and cruelty. My take is that Canada told the US that he had suspected ties to terrorists. And if he had Al Qaeda phone numbers, even by accident, then he did not need to be in the United States. Even lacking that, if Canada suspected him of having terrorist ties, why should the US let him in, if Canada wanted him not to enter their country. It is not a fact that the US, particularly the CIA, tortured Arar; there are no facts besides the deportation itself to back this claim up, much less prove forethought malign intent as suggested.

I see all kinds of irrational attacks on this administration, "Pro-Torture", etc., yet the Bush administration has not imprisoned it's critics, has not "Hit Back" in the way leftist blogs advocate, by personal attacks, hateful speech like advocating putting a bullet between the President's eyes

I never answered Gary's challenge about "who can give an opinion about the Vietnam War unless they were alive then". Well, I was around then. My cousin's husbands were there in '68, and their brother was anti-war and I read his books and pamphlets. But I didn't get the sense of intense hatred that is so apparent these days, but that may be because I was not from a big city, and there were not blogs around those days.

And my guess is that Gary did not have this experience with middle America at the time, nor hilzoy (in politics when she was 16!), nor Katherine, who was not born yet.

There are some people that disagree with the Iraq War around that have a smaller stake in the politics of the issue. There may be some one you know that even disagrees with US foreign policy, yet will still volunteer to fight for the closest thing to victory as possible - it is not out of the question that the US and its military fight for noble motives such as freedom and democracy, though the odds are slim.

[novakant]

a fair number of highly closeted and repressed gay men.

who's that?

[Hartmut]

I must have slept and dreamed all these years about the administration and its outlets threatening insulting and vilifying its critics, creating "free speech zones" etc.
Thank you for reminding me that it was all hallucinations caused by irrational Bush hatred
[/snark]
For the record: Yes, I am one of those liberals who think that Cheney, Bush and accomplices should be put behind bars for the rest of their lives and that, if American law would actually apply, it would be more likely "off with their heads" (which I oppose out of principle not because I think it would be legally inappropriate).

[Ara]

I remember a long time ago reading an article by Richard Rorty where he said something like: politicians have no idea whatsoever what to do to protect our cities, and they are simply too frightened to admit such a thing. And they grope at bizarre measures to reassure the public that they're doing something, to create an illusion of security. This was not long after 9/11, and I thought it was a courageous thing to say, because it struck me as true, and I thought it was hard to admit that, fundamentally, American cities are sitting ducks, and they can't stop being sitting ducks and yet thrive as American cities.

What I just don't understand about Von (and others like him) is how it could be that the very people who seem to be most conscientious of terrorism and how it should guide foreign-policy seem to be least aware of the actual risk this country is in and the potential for increasing it.

This is a bit cheap, but: ask yourself how often you see a security expert tell you that the solution to reducing risk is all-out warfare. Security involves minimizing our risk, it not provoking our opponents to greater depths of retaliation. Domestic terrorism could easily and cheaply be far worse than it is today. Despite 9/11, we still have it pretty good for the most part. It is not hard to imagine an America where there was a significant terrorist act every week. This manner of aggressive confrontation makes sense, as far as I can see, only if (1) the situation could not get much more worse, such that we aren't effectively losing much in risking escalation or (2) the risk is so immediate and existentially grave that it simply throws alternatives outside the realm of plausibility. (2) is a world in which it is simply foolhardy to complain about the costs of war, because we simply had no other reasonable choice. The world in which alternatives are illusory at best.

Another way to put it is: people who neglect the possibility that terrorism could get very much worse seem to approach foreign-policy on a problem-solution frame rather than on a strategic action model. People can and will retaliate. We simply do not have the resources to prevent that. This is a war where there is no possibility of total obliteration of the enemy. We cannot kill all terrorists. We cannot get terrorists to obey any single decision maker. Accept that and figure that into your reasoning, before you suggest another beligerent course of action in which the enemy magically goes poof in the end!

[liberal japonicus]

Hmmm, interesting stuff, though it seems like it is about to fly off into space.

About rational thinking, back when people listened to music on incised discs made of hydrocarbon byproducts, I was a big fan of the cut-out bin, where the album covers were actually cut. It was not simply to find good records that had gone unsold of which there were a few, but to find really really bad records of which there were quite a few. I remember thinking 'Wow, someone thought this was a good idea'. I never framed it in terms of rationality, because I never thoughtrationality doesn't operate all the time and that it doesn't even operate most of the time.

So when I say that I don't think this administration operates in a rational manner, I am not making a default claim that everyone else does and this administration is an aberration. However, what I would suggest is that this administration is doing it's irrational thinking when people's lives and the future of the world we live in is at stake. I am happy to allow irrational thought when lives are not on the line. But when our margins for error become too fine and the costs of being wrong become too great, I think a higher standard is called for.

[liberal japonicus]

because I never thought rationality doesn't operate all the time and that it doesn't even operate most of the time.

hmmm, some problems with negation there. I was trying to say that I don't think we are rational for even a large minority of the time.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ok, I'm confused, so would somebody please clarify this for me? Is the line, "Bush is faking Iranian aid to the insurgents to justify attacking Iran!" or, "Iranian aid to the insurgents was just one more predictable reason invading Iraq was a bad idea!"?

We've got Iran shipping weapons to the insurgency, and the question of the day is why we're trying to invent a provocation? Sorry, quite indendent of whether we should invade Iran, provocation, quite real, already exists. We're in a war, Iran is aiding the other side, that makes them a party to the war. We are already at war with Iran. We just happen to be restricting the combat to Iraq.

Secondly, I'm having a bit of difficulty grasping the difference between our military being "scattered about a neighboring country" and it being "poised to invade". Seems to me that if you want to invade a country, having a good bit of your military sitting in a neighboring country is actually convenient.

Finally, with major portions of the Democratic party demanding a more or less immediate pullout from Iraq, how can our troops be "pinned down" there? If we can leave, we can darned well leave by way of the Iranian border.

All of this does not go to whether invading Iran is wise. But I do detect major contradictions within the anti-Bush storyline on Iraq and Iran.

[Hartmut]

A) I would not put it beyond the current administration to completely fake any evidence.
B) Given the origin of weapons there would be several other countries (including US allies like Saudia Arabia, Pakistan etc.) on the to-be-invaded list.
C) Ever heard of something like the need for supplies and routes to get them to the troops?
D) Maybe the troops in Iraq can't spare time for any excursions to Iran because they are completely occupied occupying another country at the moment and having trouble with it.
E) who actually started the war that is supposed to be on already?
F) why do I actually waste my time while knowing that I won't change your opinion anyway?

[liberal japonicus]

Brett,
I think of it as a two parter. I feel like the Bush admin is faking or at least overstating the evidence. But even if everything that this administration is saying thru anonymous sources which cannot be confirmed in any way is 100% true, it still does not rise to the level of justifying an invasion of Iran. Or even a bombing campaign.

I tend agree with what the Shah's grandson said, that one bomb dropped on Iran would keep the Iranian regime in power for another 20 years and radicalize 70 million Iranians. This holds regardless whether the admin is keeping everything anonymous because it is true or because it is false.

[Amos Newcombe]

DaveC: But I didn't get the sense of intense hatred that is so apparent these days

I was around then too, and I have the opposite view: the hatred was more intense then. At least today we don't have National Guardsmen shooting and killing demonstrators with no accountability or consequence. And on the other side, there was rock-throwing and other violence at demonstrations, and chants of "off the pigs".

[Slartibartfast]

We've got Iran shipping weapons to the insurgency

Point of non-trivial nitpick: we've got weapons from Iran showing up in Iraq. What we don't have is the Iranian government shipping weapons to Iraq.

But supposing we did, what then? Is that in itself an act of war?

Aside for further consideration: we do have Qods Force people operating in Iraq, so: given that (and I'm not sure this is true; this is the US DoD's claim; Wikipedia agrees, for what that's worth) the Qods Force answers only to Ayatollah Khamenei, if the supreme ruler of Iran is telling troops to fight our troops, does that constitute an act of war? If so, what then? If so, who is pushing whom?

[OCSteve]

there's Iranian weapons and components in play in Iraq, but we've got nothing that connects them to the Iranian government.

That bothered me a bit too, as did the anonymous officials and restriction on pictures this weekend, etc. This is a little more troubling though (via CQ), as there seems to be documentation and a third country involved. Powerful amour piercing sniper rifles sold by Austria to the government of Iran, and one-eight of that entire shipment now recovered from insurgents in Iraq along with special ammunition of Iranian manufacture:

Within 45 days of the first HS50 Steyr Mannlicher rifles arriving in Iran, an American officer in an armoured vehicle was shot dead by an Iraqi insurgent using the weapon.

I guess I should flip that around – it bothered me less when there seemed to be no smoking gun evidence.

[Slartibartfast]

I'm guessing it's a faked shipment, though.

[Hartmut]

If that is true, then indeed someone has to do a bit of explaining. But I would demand first that the rifles are presented to the public and that the manufacturer admits or it is proven otherwise that those are indeed the same ones delivered to Iran. I will not accept anything of this just based on say-so or I am inclined to suspect another "We found the WMDs" scam.
Btw, that would be 1E6$ worth of ordnance. What idiot would store all of it in one place?
Clarification: I do not claim that this is a fabricated story, I just want more corroboration.

[Slartibartfast]

Some odd stuff going on over at CNN, regarding their coverage of this.

First, there's a video that's clearly a CNN segment that's linked to as video of the US government making the case for Iranian involvement in Iraq. Wierd.

Second, in that video, there are shots that are purportedly of Qods Force personnel, practicing with various weapons. One of them bears a whole lot of resemblance to the Steyr (link is to a gallery). In the video, you can see a logo on the soldier's rifle where the Steyr logo is on the gun.

That aside, though, this is a gun that one can purchase in the US, if one has roughly four large to spare, so I'm not sure where this gets us.

[cleek]

We cannot kill all terrorists. We cannot get terrorists to obey any single decision maker. Accept that and figure that into your reasoning, before you suggest another beligerent course of action in which the enemy magically goes poof in the end

right. and the people in charge of the US foreign policy probably know that perfectly well. but, it's also clear that they like to talk about TWoT as if terrorism itself can be defeated "on the battlefield", and to use that idea as a way to advance policies that are simply unrelated to stopping terrorism.

it's all a big lie and it's been a lie since mid 2002. it's a shame it's taken nearly 5 years and hundreds of thousands of lives for people to even get a whiff of what a fraud this has all been.

[Slartibartfast]

$10k would kind steep for one, I think. There might be options, but this place has them on sale for $4k.

[cleek]

so I'm not sure where this gets us.

it gets us to the point where we can put three anonymous sources in a room and declare conclusively that Austria is fighting a proxy war against the US.

therefore i demand that all the super-patriots in attendance get off their asses and run to their local recruiting offices. march off to war, brave lads. fight the good fight.

[OCSteve]

Hartmut: I just want more corroboration.

Slarti: That aside, though, this is a gun that one can purchase in the US, if one has roughly four large to spare, so I'm not sure where this gets us.

No argument. Assuming there is corroborating evidence (by that I mean that Austria verifies that the serial numbers on these captured weapons are from the lot of 800 purchased by the Iranian government) - I think things just got uglier. You would think that serial numbers and any other traceable evidence would have been removed though.

[SomeOtherDude]

It seems the various Iranian groups are supporting their religious brothers in the Iraqi army and those weapons end up in the hands of the Shia militias, who also support the Iraqi army. This resembles the US’s position, except the Shia dominated Iraqi army see the Iranians more like Brothers and neighbors, while the U”S is pure occupier.

It also seems to be the case that our allies, the Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians and other Sunni states are supporting Sunni insurgent’s actively killing Americans.

The Bush Administration is in way over its head.

[H. Haller]

And, as far as I gathered during my highly conservative upbringing, fighting wars wasn't considered character-building.

But if Cheney is not a conservative, (but rather a radical), then what?

Given that Cheney and Bush believe that the Democrats are hopelessly unfit to wage the GWOT, their # 1 consideration must be political: how do we keep the White House in 2008?

If they think that a war with Iran will make that more likely, then we will get that war.

[hilzoy]

About weapons and their provenance: this, from Spencer Ackerman, makes a lot of sense to me as well.

[SomeOtherDude]

I mean, didn't Ahmed Chalabi prefer the Iranians, as soon as he began to live in Iraq?

[Slartibartfast]

That sounds reasonable, hilzoy. It's certainly plausible that the main purpose of the weaponry is to help various factions kill each other more efficiently; other targets of opportunity could be considered to be a bonus.

[Slartibartfast]

I'm wondering if we're going to hear people try to make the connection between EFPs and nuclear weapons, though. Any bets?

[Hartmut]

H-bombs are somewhat like nuclear shaped charges ;-)

I just read (in Der SPIEGEL) that the CEO of the Steyr company doubts the report. According to him noone has actually asked him/the company for serial numbers or the like yet. The rifle in question would not be produced by his comany anymore but by others on licence in several countries.

Of course this is no proof that the US claims are bogus per se. We obviously just haven't heard the last word on this story yet.

[Anarch]

Crucial point that's thus far been omitted:

speculation about war with Iran generally involves not a US strike out of the blue, but a pattern of provocation by the US that ultimately leads to some Iranian retaliation, which in turn allows us to attack Iran.

According to the Downing Street Memos, this was almost exactly the same strategy that Bush and Blair pursued against Saddam: ratchet up the pressure to intolerable levels until the other side felt compelled to react, then crush them for it. There are certainly differences between the two -- for starters, Iran is actually a threat -- but they're similar enough that I can't trust the Administration as far as I can throw them.

[cleek]

just for the record, i'm actively wondering who will be the first ObWi front-pager to bestow the Anti-American label on those who dissent from the shiny new Iran war.

[Hartmut]

Slight correction to my last post:
replace anymore with alone
and it's of course 'company' not 'comany'

[Slartibartfast]

H-bombs are somewhat like nuclear shaped charges ;-)

Nah, I was going more for the direct route: shaped-charge implosion; straight fission. Still, points for inventiveness.

[OCSteve]

Hartmut: Hadn’t seen that yet, thanks.

Interestingly, the Telegraph article does not hedge anywhere – I don’t see any qualifiers like “suspected” or “allegedly”. I’m really not familiar with them – can anyone comment on their general credibility? Or on this defense correspondent Thomas Harding?

[Anarch]

Is the line, "Bush is faking Iranian aid to the insurgents to justify attacking Iran!" or, "Iranian aid to the insurgents was just one more predictable reason invading Iraq was a bad idea!"?

What's incompatible with those two claims, provided you a) distinguish between the Iranian government and other groups within Iran (possibly including of government officials, of course) and b) understand that by "faking" we generally mean "dangerously (and culpably) over-exaggerating" and other variations on a theme of take-a-rumor-and-pretend-it's-fact?

We've got Iran shipping weapons to the insurgency...

No, we don't, or at the very least there's a lot being left unsaid. Weapons are crossing the Iranian border to various groups in Iraq, that's without question. What is highly in question is 1) whether those weapons are being sent by the Iranian government, 2) to which groups the weapons are being sent, 3) for what purpose they're being sent -- in particular, are they being sent to fight Americans or other sectarian groups or both -- 4) how much is actually being sent by which groups in and/or through Iran and 5) whether the level and quality of aid actually rises to a casus belli. And there are probably myriad subsidiary questions I've omitted.

We're in a war, Iran is aiding the other side...

False, because -- and this is crucial -- there is no "other side". We're not fighting a standard Clausewitzian war here, we're fighting a war of occupation against a crapload of different sectarian interests, many of whom seem to be cheerfully killing each other as well as trying to resist the occupation. No matter what the Bush Administration would have one believe, the insurgency is not even remotely close to a monolith.

Finally, with major portions of the Democratic party demanding a more or less immediate pullout from Iraq, how can our troops be "pinned down" there? If we can leave, we can darned well leave by way of the Iranian border.

This, on the other hand, seems completely inconsistent: presumably if "major portions of the Democratic party [are] demanding a more or less immediate pullout from Iraq" -- and I don't know that that's actually the case, btw -- why on god's green earth would said major portions want the troops pulled out through yet another war-zone in Iran? The whole point of the withdrawal is to let our troops stop fighting, not give them a change of scenery.

[Also, you might note that the people advocating the withdrawal are not the people doing the "pinning down". A small but rather important distinction.]

[Hartmut]

maybe a matter of wording. I meant that H-bombs are ignited by a mechanism derived from shaped charges. If recent studies/findings are correct, the SS experimented with something like that parallel to the better known Uran project in WW2. It would have resulted in a tactical nuclear weapon that derived part of its energy from fusion. Whether a test was made is not clear (the crucial evidence rests in a closed Russian archive). The device was a bit large though (diameter > 10m, total weight >50 tons of conventional explosives).

Iranian meddling with shaped charges could therefore be construed as aiming at not just for the fission but the fusion bomb ;-)
"There are bazookas in Iran! Do you want us to wait until they are incorporated into a warhead that could turn Power Cable (Nebraska) into Ground Zero?" ;-)

[cleek]

No matter what the Bush Administration would have one believe, the insurgency is not even remotely close to a monolith.

it might be helpful if someone were to draw a diagram of which groups are fighting in Iraq, which other groups they're fighting, what they're trying to accomplish, and who they're backed by (money, weapons, support, etc.).

it might help clear things up.

i'd draw it myself, but i don't know enough about all the various players here to do it.

[OCSteve]

More generally, having read all three posts now…

I agree with publius to the extent that there is nothing at all wrong with members of the public letting their Congress-critters know their feelings on an issue. I think that “Period. No exceptions” puts it over the top though. Lots of folks seemed to make the argument, “well of course if A or B happened, they would be released from that promise”. That’s not how it was presented though – it was “Period. No exceptions”.

On to Von – I agree with him the most (surprise). Taking the threat of force completely off the table can only undermine diplomatic efforts. Plenty of carrots have already been dangled, to little good effect. How then does removing the stick and leaving nothing but the carrot lead to success? I think that even the doves in the State Department would be against that.
To be clear, we have let the EU-3 take the lead on the diplomatic front (“walk softly and carry a big carrot”) but the only credible threat of force to back up their negotiations has come from the US.

Hilzoy as always makes a thoughtful and eloquent case. One point of disagreement: We are not that influential. Heck: even kos is not that influential.

I disagree only because the netroots does have a disproportionate influence, especially during the primary season. We have seen that with Dean and Lamont. Few people are politically active. They may gripe and moan about what a politician is or is not doing, but the number who take the time to write letters, send faxes and emails, make phone calls, etc. is very small. The netroots is very capable of mobilizing thousands of people to make those calls and even show up in groups at politicians’ offices, campaign speeches, town-hall meetings, etc. Beyond the money making capability it is the willingness to actually do something. A couple thousand very active people can shape a primary IMO. I can absolutely see them pushing candidates into making this pledge such that the eventual Democratic nominee is stuck with it. That may not be a bad thing in your mind but I’d caution, “Be careful what you wish for”.

[trilobite]

We've got Iran shipping weapons to the insurgency, and the question of the day is why we're trying to invent a provocation? Sorry, quite indendent of whether we should invade Iran, provocation, quite real, already exists.

Brett, I posted a similar thought a few days ago, but since then I re-checked the sources, and y'know what? The evidence sucks. We've probably got Iranian weapons in Iraq, but it would be surprising if some weapons didn'tflow over the border, whatever the Iranian government wanted. The rest is speculation and innuendo. I simply cannot credit the story about the captured Quds troops as it stands, because I can see no earthly reason to convey this story, if true, by anonymous spokespersons, with no photographs of the weapons & prisoners.

I think you may still be reflexively assuming that there is some level of barefaced fraud that our government would not try to pull off. After years of faked budgets, scientific reports, and casus belli, I have let go of that illusion.

Hilzoy, publius, sign me up. And let me know when y'all run for office, 'kay?

[KCinDC]

OCSteve, anyone who actually gives money or volunteers or writes letters or even votes in primaries has a "disproportionate influence" relative to the average citizen. That's very different from being able to "remove the threat of military action from the table."

[norbizness]

Lisa: Two wrongs don't make a right.
Bart: Yes, they do.
Lisa: No, they don't.
Bart: Yes, they do.
Lisa: No, they don't.
Bart: Yes, they do.
Lisa: Dad!
Homer: Two wrongs make a right, Lisa.

[hilzoy]

OCSteve: II can't speak for publius, of course, but my pledge only lasts for the duration of the Bush presidency, and so I'd only ask present congresspeople to sign on. I will not support anyone who votes to authorize a war, barring extraordinary circumstances, and I will support any challenger to that person, within reason (where that means, in this context: well, unless the only opposition is e.g. a registered sex offender, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, etc.) (In other words: the sort of qualification I make because I'm a philosophy professor, and I can always think of counterexamples.)

[SomeOtherDude]

Why did Bush let Ben Ladden go?

After 9-11, and we are all forced to talk about Iran?

The American right-wing nationalists are playing a dangerous game

[Eric Martin]

Just wanted to say fine post hilzoy.

And, being nostalgic for the days of Legal Fiction gone by, I'm glad to see Brett Bellmore over here.

Not that I agree with what he wrote, because I don't (and rarely do, but it does happen), and others have done enough to explain how he was playing fast and loose with the facts and logic and general.

It's just that he's an OG. You're my homey Brett.

[Anarch]

As a random aside:

I don't think that Katherine, among many commenters and poster on ObWi, can fairly judge whether this administration is rational.

You don't have to be a Nobel prize winner to realize that whacking your hand with a hammer is pretty damn stupid.

After all, look at the posts and comment that advocate throwing President Bush and all of his supporters in prison. (Perhaps this will be a project of mine, to document these.)

I don't believe anyone has advocated the imprisonment of a third to half the country on the basis of their political beliefs. Certainly no-one here has suggested anything of the sort. I don't think anyone has even suggested that the Bush Administration be imprisoned wholesale.

Now, if you had only written "look at the posts and comment that advocate throwing President Bush and the other criminals in the Administration in prison", you could find examples aplenty. I don't know that I could sign on to that sentiment myself, since I'm not convinced that Bush is actually a criminal -- and lefties, please don't try to change my mind on this, it'll end badly -- but I am convinced that a good half-dozen of his closest supporters are and I'd be overjoyed to hear that they'd been locked in some dank oubliette for their crimes. Consider this a first entry in your project if you'd like.

[OCSteve]

That's very different from being able to "remove the threat of military action from the table."

so I'd only ask present congresspeople to sign on

Good points. I don’t think it would/could stop at Congress though. I think it would spill over quickly into the Democratic primary with demands for the candidates to sign on as well. Once Obama does so, the others are stuck. In the end you could have the Democratic Presidential nominee stuck with this pledge.

[KCinDC]

... i'm actively wondering who will be the first ObWi front-pager to bestow the Anti-American label on those who dissent from the shiny new Iran war.

You are, cleek? There's only one front-pager I could imagine doing such a thing, and he hasn't been around much, so if I were inclined to wonder, I'd be wondering whether (or possibly when), not who.

[hilzoy]

OCSteve: I think a lot depends on whether or not you think that Bush being President plays a crucial role in all this. I think he does -- thus my post. If, oh, Cheney suddenly decided to run, and won, then if I didn't abruptly emigrate, I'd keep it on for him. It's conceivable that I'd do it for some other candidate; I haven't thought it through. But for most of them, I'd revert to my normal, un-litmus-testy self.

[Slartibartfast]

Who is this "Ben Ladden" fellow, and why did we have him captive?

In this world, it's thought that Osama bin Laden walked out of Afghanistan about the same time as we established our first FOB there. Which was about three weeks after we liberated the first Afghan city from the Taliban.

You may now return to fantasyland, where things can happen all at once.

[Katherine]

DaveC's assertions about the Arar case, and my view of it, are not accurate. At all.

I think I'll spare everyone the details.

[Eric Martin]

Katherine, FWIW, I'm familiar with your take on Arar, and can attest to the fact that DaveC's comments were a rank caricature with little correlation to the truth of the matter.

[cleek]

You are, cleek?

yep. and while that infrequent poster is certainly the favorite, i won't count out the rest.

i'd be OK if y'all proved me wrong, though.

[cleek]

You are, cleek?

yup. i have no doubt it will happen - and that infrequent poster is certainly the heavy favorite. but i refuse to count out the possibility that one of the others could sneak it in before BD gets around to it.

i'd be OK if i was proven wrong all around, though.

[Anarch]

43 quatloos on hilzoy!

[Slartibartfast]

So far, not much from RedState other than the purported clamoring for war by the ghosts of 170 dead soldiers.

In other news, the ghosts of my ancestors have declared war against England, and are requiring that I gear up and get moving. No word on how much nifty high-tech swag these ghosts can secure as yet, but I'll keep you all posted.

[KCinDC]

Slarti, I'd be interested in your response to Brett's opinion that we're already at war with Iran (which means the administration's PR push has already had the desired effect on him). Do you just count him with the lunatics at Bizarro World, or is he unusually unobservant, or what?

[cleek]

i refuse to think about how a comment that didn't go through ends up posted after the comment that did.

[Slartibartfast]

Slarti, I'd be interested in your response to Brett's opinion that we're already at war with Iran (which means the administration's PR push has already had the desired effect on him). Do you just count him with the lunatics at Bizarro World, or is he unusually unobservant, or what?

I think it's absurd, but I'm not all that much up on international law. What I'd say for now is that if that were enough to be at war with someone, we've been in outright war with the Soviet Union on any number of occasions.

So, we're in a Cold War with Iran? Wake me when it's over.

[cleek]

TBogg finds an article that explains the provenance of those Steyn rifles and comes to the same conclusion i did, earlier: we need to open a new front in Austria.

[cleek]

sorry, TBogg is here. props where props is due. yo.

[Hartmut]

If Bush decides to bomb Austria, count me under his most staunch supporters.
Those guys caused two world wars and played the innocent victims afterwards. Time they get thoroughly whacked!!!!
But be careful that he doesn't misread the map and bombs Australia instead.
;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

[KCinDC]

Slarti, I just thought it might be a data point relevant to your belief that Bush won't attack Iran because it's patently obvious to everyone that his reasons aren't good enough.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Slarti, I just thought it might be a data point relevant to your belief that Bush won't attack Iran because it's patently obvious to everyone that his reasons aren't good enough."

I just want to remind everyone that this is the precise argument used for "Iran would never nuke Israel".

I'm mentioning it NOT as a support to attack Iran, but just to remind everyone that the danger is found in many places.

[Larv]

Bomb Austria? Do we have to? How about if we just stage a massive invasion/ski vacation where we all stumble clumsily about the slopes, act like ugly Americans, and then head to the Gasthaus and eat all the goulash and drink all the Heisse Schokolade. That'd show 'em.

[ajay]

We've got Iran shipping weapons to the insurgency, and the question of the day is why we're trying to invent a provocation? Sorry, quite indendent of whether we should invade Iran, provocation, quite real, already exists. We're in a war, Iran is aiding the other side, that makes them a party to the war.

Brett: no one has yet made clear a) which specific weapons are coming across and more importantly b) whether they are doing so with the knowledge and consent of the Iranian government. It's worth remembering that the IRA used Barrett .50 sniper rifles (what a coincidence!) and other arms shipped to them by their supporters in the US. By your logic, that was an act of war by the US on the United Kingdom, and we should have bombed Boston.

In fact, the evidence that any weapons at all are coming across the border is dodgy as hell. Anyone ever sat on a jury? Would you convict on what we've seen so far?

Secondly, I'm having a bit of difficulty grasping the difference between our military being "scattered about a neighboring country" and it being "poised to invade". Seems to me that if you want to invade a country, having a good bit of your military sitting in a neighboring country is actually convenient.

Well, trust me, there is a difference in reality. Maybe not in Civ 4. But the US troops currently in Iraq are not sitting resting and training in large safe camps in a friendly country, like the US troops in England in May 1944. They are extremely busy already trying to secure Iraq.

Finally, with major portions of the Democratic party demanding a more or less immediate pullout from Iraq, how can our troops be "pinned down" there? If we can leave, we can darned well leave by way of the Iranian border.

Leaving Iraq to collapse into chaos? I thought you'd be against that.

[Slartibartfast]

your belief that Bush won't attack Iran because it's patently obvious to everyone that his reasons aren't good enough

Supposed belief, KC.

If you please, I'd like you to point out where I said that it IS patently obvious to everyone, etc, so I can point to it when I retract that statement. My memory says I said something like it ought to be obvious, and that it should be made clear, etc, but my memory isn't what I remember it used to be.

Clearly our friend Brett is an example of it not being obvious to everyone, though. If that's the concession you're looking for, I abase myself.

Sprinkle the above liberally with emoticons; I'm fresh out.

[von]

A response has been posted.

[Lars]

In this world, it's thought that Osama bin Laden walked out of Afghanistan about the same time as we established our first FOB there. Which was about three weeks after we liberated the first Afghan city from the Taliban.

Thought by who? I thought the preponderance of the evidence was that he stayed in Tora Bora, slipping out just ahead of the advance of our "allies."

[Slartibartfast]

...until late November, 2001.

I think Gary Farber has linked this article a few times, although I could be mistaken, so: what the heck.

[Katherine]

Sebastian--that's fair enough; some of us were probably overstating the case.

There are still plenty of things that I count on Bush and Cheney not doing because of either rational or moral considerations or both. Invading Canada, bombing Austria, jailing domestic political opponents, tactical nukes in a first strike on Iran, I could actually come up with a decent sized list. Starting a war with Iran isn't on this list because it's not out of the ballpark of stupid & bad things they've already done-- doesn't seem an extra order magnitude dumber, worse, or crazier. Under the use-of-force doctrine they used to justify the invasion of Iraq, which did NOT depend on Gulf War I or the UN resolutions and which they have NOT since abandoned, I think they can also invade Iran. And they show no signs of admitting even to themselves that the Iraq war was a horrible mistake.

Speaking of Congressmen who need primary challengers, how about this guy? (via hullabulloo)

Right now, February 8, 2007, do you believe we should go to war with Iran?

CANTOR: I‘ll leave that decision up to the commanders on the ground and those in our military ...

MATTHEWS: Commanders on the ground whether we go to war with another country?

CANTOR: I will leave the decisions in the military arena to—this is exactly the point.

MATTHEWS: This is Barry Goldwater taking. He used to say that.

Regional commanders can decide whether we want it use nuclear weapons. You‘re obviously saying soldiers should decide which country to go to war with.

CANTOR: I‘m here to say the military experts are those which might come up with the recommendation to the commander in chief that makes the decision. It is silly for us to expect.

MATTHEWS: I‘m not talking - I just asked you a very simple question.

CANTOR: We‘re going 535 commanders in chief.

MATTHEWS: I‘ve never heard of anything like this in my life. Never in my life.....

[Eric Martin]

I just want to remind everyone that this is the precise argument used for "Iran would never nuke Israel".

I'm mentioning it NOT as a support to attack Iran, but just to remind everyone that the danger is found in many places.

Sort of Sebastian, but there are a few important differences.

First, Bush has displayed a willingness to invade/attack other countries - and holds fast to the notion that he will continue to perpetuate unpopular and destructive policies regardless of the level of domestic support (down to him, Laura and Barney).

Iran, on the other hand, has never nuked any other country. In fact, other than the US in WW II, no nation has. Even then, Japan had no nukes, so the record of countries nuking countries that possess nukes themselves is: zero.

The reasons are obvious: nuking a country that has more/the same number of nukes as you guarantees your destruction (or at least destruction on a commensurate level as that inflicted on your adversary). For Iran, it would mean total annihilation from Israel and likely the US if a mop-up were needed after Israel got its licks in.

Invading Iran, while disastrous for the US in many ways, would not have the same costs. Not even close actually.

So one could rightly be a bit more suspicious of Bush's willingness to launch an attack on Iran absent sound basis than of the Iranian clerical authority deciding to end their and their country's entire existence by striking Israel with a nuke.

[radish]

sigh...

I almost hate to mention this, because the "war with Iran" conversation is starting to feel like the "Israel and Palestine" conversation, but here goes.

If Iranian special forces have been captured inside Iraq then why not simply convene a tribunal? Iranian forces have no business taking part in military actions in Iraq. Period. Both the UN charter and the Geneva conventions are clear about that, and international law, such as it is, provides perfectly reasonable and rational procedures for irregular and alien combatants. The Iranians in question were allegedly caught red-handed, and they are presently in custody. Why not throw the book at them?

Another thing: the DoD briefing describes 81mm mortar rounds found in Iraq with (highly counterintuitive) markings and manufacturing stamps in latin letters and Arabic numerals (yes, Farsi uses different numerals). Now I don't spend a lot of time around mortar shells or anything, but I didn't have any trouble finding pictures of Iranian mortar shells, both 81mm and 130mm, with exclusively Farsi labeling.

That doesn't say anything about the manufacturing origin of the (single) complete shell pictured in slide #12, which does apear to be Iranian. (For the record though, a quick glance at a Navy reference document shows Yugoslavian and Pakistani shells as being the same shape and size as what's shown, with the same "gas-check" rings, and using the same AZ111 fuze.)

What's odd is why Iranian manufacturers who were previously using Farsi tags would, in 2006 or thereabouts, start stamping things in English, using the Christian dating system. Seriously. Why would they do that? It would be particularly insane for the tail fin markings, which would require actual retooling, rather than simply a new stencil. If the customer were a latin-alphabet army it might make sense. But since when do western nations buy mortars from Iran?

Very curious... If in fact the mortar shell shown was made in Iran then it was clearly intended either for general export or for a latin-alphabet army. Definitely not for the Iranian army, or Iraqi militias.

p.s. where the hell is the "New Baghdad" referenced in slide #13?

[KCinDC]

Okay, I misinterpreted the slartic arcana as usual. I'm not clear what we're disagreeing about then.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"The reasons are obvious: nuking a country that has more/the same number of nukes as you guarantees your destruction (or at least destruction on a commensurate level as that inflicted on your adversary). For Iran, it would mean total annihilation from Israel and likely the US if a mop-up were needed after Israel got its licks in."

Except it wouldn't. It would involve lots of devestation but Iran isn't Israel. Israel could be effectively destroyed with two nukes in key locations. (By effectively destroyed in this case I mean just under 2/3 of the entire population). With five locations you could get up to 3/4 of the population. That isn't true of Iran at all.

I can easily forsee a crazy but not ridiculous situation where Israel is destroyed, 'rogue forces in Iran' are then killed by the re-emergence of order in Iran, and the world is in a very rough position, especially since quite a few Iranian cities were destroyed in the Israeli death strike.

What then? Does the US completely destroy and occupy Iran? Maybe, maybe not. Would the world community go along? It depends on how convincing the 'rogue element' game is played.

[Slartibartfast]

I'm puzzled too, KC. After all, I was one of the first to respond to Brett.

[Nell]

Brett B.: Seems to me that if you want to invade a country, having a good bit of your military sitting in a neighboring country is actually convenient.

I have to assume this line has been circulating on right-wing talk radio, because it's the third time I've seen it this week, including in the letters to the editor of the local paper.

I'd have thought that the answer almost supplied itself to anyone who's thinking clearly about the situation of U.S. troops in Iraq. Hilzoy pretty much spells it out in the main post, quoting Andrew.