Swift Sword

Anybody being groomed for greatness is not politically expendable enough to open such initiative.

The thing to do is get on the phone to Halliburton and get the name of the guy from KBR who handled their dealings with Iran. Have him give us the name of the parties inside of Iran who were self-interested enough do do business with the Great Satan.

Then, we canvass our lists for some Assistant Undersecretary to Somebody Not Particularly Important Who Nobody Ever Heard Of and send him as special envoy to talk to these particular Iranians.

Maybe, maybe not.

A few years ago before the Iraq thing was under way, all of the so called "Rogue States" spent probably $90 billon on defense and security--say $100 billion for sake of argument. The United States proceeded to pass a half a trillion dollar defense budget.

Something tells me that this does not add up when one employs "frontier arithmetic".

If Iran is as much of a threat as people say she is, has most of the offsetting capabilities people say she does and is not being constrained by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, than why am I not dead or at least walking?

We chose not to sanction the right people and our dialogue is just like any other talk: cheap, so we use a lot of it. What realisitic, concrete initiatives have we put forward and made good on for all the talk?

Whether we bomb the Iranians or engineer an accomadation with them, one thing is for certain: actions will speak louder than words.

Objectively, it would appear that the Reagan Administration engaged in arms sales to the Iranians and used the proceeds to fund terrorist groups elsewhere in the World.

If we could sell them weapons, we should certainly be able to at least talk to them, don't you think?

Butter may have a more lasting and meaningful effect then guns (but I would keep the gun on the table until the deal was done, naturally).

Political civil war or no, the next government is going to be faced with many, if not all, of the same policy imperatives as the current government.

Be that as it may, it might be time for a paradigm shift; the stakes are awful high.

We have to "run what we brung" at this point.

As to good will, I have heard if said that "if you wish to gain the trust of the untrustworthy, you have to trust them".

Flip 'em a bone, not a cut of meat, and see if they do something concrete. If not, no cut of meat.

In lieu of good will, a good gesture might do.

Those airbases might not be too useful.

Maliki and Karzai would arguably be enaging in an act of war against Iran if they allowed the U.S. to use those bases to strike Iran.

Something tells me the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan know the U.S. is not going to stay forever and would rather not have bad relations with the Iranians when we leave.

Forward deployment actually constrains the U.S. in a manner that the previous managements of Iraq and Afghanistan were not.

The tankers are not the only targets and many of the best and softest targets are on the coast opposite.

Tankers can be made to not sail without getting anywhere near them.

Mechanically, that is not a particularly stable orbit and I suspect it might be readily perturbed by an appropriate gravitational influence.

Fact of the matter is that, if the situation is as it seems, in the medium to long term, Russian and Iranian interests are opposing rather than complimentary.

Like ODS, the campaign agains Serbia was for limited, realistic, acheivable objectives with a low risk of blowback and the action was taken in a diplomatic climate that was particularly favorable.

Agreed, in general, but IIRC, it was a desire for war and a misconception of what the costs were to be that lead to the outbreak of hostilities, no pressing need.

Same/same if you are a grass eating North Korean: the U.S. will not help make you free.

I am not so sure the Punic Wars were all that great for Rome.

But parts of the Middle East and Central Asia were strategically important enough to encourage both the Russians and the English to meddle for many years from the 1790s as well as engage in outright confrontation.

I would not bank on that.

Agreed, but the ascendancy of gas is part of the fall of oil.

Half of the gas in the World is in Russia, Qatar and Iran. A resurgent Russia combined with a hostile or at leas non engaged Iran is going to exasperate this situation as far as U.S. and allied interests are concerned.

Are we sure?

Our interests with regards to Iran go much further than nuclear proliferation.

We should not throw away the whole game by fixating on nukes alone; they might, arguably be the minor, not the major component of our agenda.

Decisive action need not be military action and we do not neccessarily have to make a particular course of action unprofitable when we can make another course of action more profitable.

In the grand scheme of things, I suspect the Russians get more out of Iran than they do out of Syria.

Too, a Lebanese solution would really cramp Syria.

Agreed, I just do not see force moving them where we want them to be.

Positive, well informed actions might, more rhetoric will not, I agree.

Bombing our way to security in the Middle East might, based on historical experience, is probably a pipe dream in its own right. How much ordnance has been expended there over the last fifty years by all parties and we still have security issues?

A. Sand shifts;

B. Even if Iran dtermines the outcome, we can have a suitable contingency plan.

As to your contention that fear should be the basis of a relationship with Iran, it is fear that is driving this crisis in the first place: our fear of them and whatever fear is driving them pell mell to acquire the capability.

Rational thought and behavior, not fear, is going to bring a satisfactory conclusion, IMO.

Regards,

William

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