S-2

"by kinetic regime-change, i mean just that: the invasion of iran by ground troops aimed at removing the current regime in tehran. if it must be war, then go all the way."

So total war is what you mean. Punative to coerce change with minimal regard for "collateral damage"? Or "kinder, gentler, softly-softly" as our mechanized corps race to Tehran and all the other key cities of this very large, very populated nation? Is "kinetic regime-change" the vogue diplo-speak for war? Another occupation? How long this time? Can we merge Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan into one "Occupied Muslim Republic of America"?

If this is the only alternative, are you attempting to raise the cost such that removing Iranian nukes becomes prohibitive in western eyes? That's my guess.

BTW, is that our responsibility? I just don't want Iran armed with nukes. I don't care how they govern themselves. "Policy change" is my only way-station on the road to bombs over Bushir.

Regime change of a WMD-armed state. Sounds familiar. In truth, you must possess a lovely neo-connish streak down your backbone heretofore not really evident.

__________________
"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

astralis

S-2,

you misunderstand. war is an option which should only be used if the mullahs demonstrate irrationality and are on the verge of getting nuclear weapons. that's not currently the case for either postulate.

if they do, then iran with nukes becomes a fearsome threat that cannot be tolerated.

i imagine any replay of OIF would be run far better this time around.

damn, and up till now bluesman and others have called me a friggin' softy too.

as for neo-con, no- their impetus for a war in iraq/iran was to militarily put in democracy, as part of their larger vision of the middle east. my vision of a war is in dire need- with the fulfillment of those two postulates mentioned earlier, the war would no longer be a war of choice. realist thinking and deterrence assumes rationality. when that goes out the window (which happens but very rarely- not even kim jong-il has gone completely off the deep-end), then you are left with a menace which is wholly unpredictable.

__________________
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

S-2

"...damn, and up till now bluesman and others have called me a friggin' softy too."

Can't fool me. It's an interesting and disguised persona. I still think that you're trying to ratchet the cost to an unacceptable level by advocating the invasion of Iran as the only recourse to acquiescence.

"i imagine any replay of OIF would be run far better this time around."

Oh?! What have you seen that makes you think that we've learned how to integrate all elements of our nat'l power? The military has clearly improved it's occupation manners though Iran would allow for a more severe test. Nothing that I've yet seen from any other element of our gov't gives me the slightest iota of confidence yet you "imagine"...?

JAD_333 is right. Full circle. It seems that a "rational" Iran on the verge of acquiring nukes will provoke no such neo-connish verve to your step. Did I misunderstand or is this an acceptable end-state?

astralis

S-2,

as i've said before, we have a short-term goal and a long-term goal. the short-term goal is to remove nuclear capability from iran, the long-term goal is regime change/evolution. unfortunately, air strikes to remove nuclear capability from iran directly conflicts with our long-term goal.

and between the two choices, barring irrational conduct which makes iranian nukes a direct and serious threat, i think the long-term goal is more beneficial to US interests.

two of the main unforced errors which we made was politicization of US military action (rumsfeld reducing troop levels) and the neo-conservatives completely throwing out state in favor of the DoD. a mere change in administration- hell, even the current one has largely changed this- will remove these two unforced errors.

sounds about right. it would mean that the US would merely need to step up the deterrence level against iran, and would need to concentrate more than ever on regime evolution/change.

zraver

Nuclear weapons means they are free from any risk of direct confrontation with the US, while thier oil makes sure sanctions won't last. Thats the real lesson they gained from Iraq, that sanctions cannot las tin the long run and that the UN as a policing force is powerless. Nuclear weapons also forces the US from the region becuase nuclear powers dare not go to war with each other. This means from the first weaponized Iranian bomb they become hegemon in the gulf. They will then be free to marginalize Saudi Arabia and the other GCC and make them dance to their tune in OPEC or risk Iranian meddling and subversion of thier regimes while Iran sits safely behind a nuclear shield. And the US won't be able to stop them, what are we gonna do lob nukes at Tehran for the eventual successful assassination of every leader or regime friendly to us in the gulf? They will also be free to act even more aggressively to thwart Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts with the ever present threat of a Hezzbollah bomb or dirty bomb.

This then is the stakes, Iran has declared itself "all in" be it for national power, bringing back the 12th Iman, or what ever sub groups rational is, they all want nukes. Since Iran has demonstrated a willful disregard for civilization should we let them to comb through the deck until the think they have a winning hand? Iran needs to be made to understand that thier current course cannot and will not be tolerated. We need to stop the baby steps and isolate Iran completely.

Russia can be bought off, Putin doesn't want Iran with nukes thats why he is calling for the expansion of the INF and withholding nuclear fuel. He would give us the vote in the UN in trade for the missile shield. China likewise can only push so hard, they need access to our markets and a coercive tariff or the threat of such would let china know that the days of the PRC shielding Iran are over.

astralis,

I think your timing is off by several years, Iran is acting as if it is at war limited though t may be. They have uniformed personnel killing US, Iraqi and UK servicemen and civilians. They finance groups that actively block peace efforts and keep millions of Palestinians and Israelis locked in tension. It is high time that we accept that war has already been declared and begin to act accordingly. A total economic blockade is only the first step, it places Iran in the uncomfortable and untenable possition of having to choose a total war they cannot win, or nuclear catipulation.

We must make sure that Iran knows the world has decided to eat the costs of oil in the short term to stop Iran in the long term and that no amount of missile strikes on the GCC or blockade efforts will achieve anything but an apocalyptic reckoning that will reduce Iran's critical infrastructure and industries to cinders and foster the rise of tribal groups in now isolated parts of the country. They need to be told that we will not do Iraq right, but that we will actively seek the emulation of the sectarian and ethnic division they helped foster in Iraq.

Only when the costs have gotten to high to bear can moderate factions that are willing to give up nukes in order to keep thier wealth and power have a reasonable chance or taking thier long knives to the throats of the radicals.

astralis

i think the entire crux of my argument here lies upon rationality. if the mullahs are rational, then we can use traditional instruments of state power to either intimidate, encourage, or shape their transformation- nukes or not.

if they are not, then all this is worthless. it's war, and a necessary one to boot.

astralis

zraver,

i find that hard to believe: did the USSR become hegemon because it had the bomb? did we do nothing when the USSR played its spy games? if they raise the stakes non-conventionally, we can do the same.

this is where i disagree the most. every single piece of evidence we have regarding the worth of sanctions demonstrates that they are most useful in the three-six month range. any more and countries adapt to the lack of trade. still worse, as fareed zakaria notes, what remaining vestiges of the economy remains will be centralized around the state- which means the population is impoverished, but ever more dependent on their rulers. they will not capitulate, any more than north korea or myanmar has, to economic sanctions.

what then? sanctions are of limited value and air strikes simply solidify regime rule and will almost ensure that there's going to be a racheting up of iranian terrorist incidents. that leaves two main options: acquiescence in favor of continued regime change/evolution via trade, or war leading to regime change. the former is cheaper, but the latter should be held as an option if the mullahs are irrational.

this is a strategy that works: china threatened us with nuclear war in the 1960s, only to become a strategic ally by the 1980s. and in the end, china has acceded to the international system which we constructed.

S-2

That was an excellent analysis of Iran's leverage should they acquire nukes. Equally, a powerful description of the CURRENT state of affairs. I've said elsewhere that Iranian miscreance in Iraq are already "acts of war". We seem reluctant to use that justification for pulling the trigger though I'm not entirely certain why.

Zraver, you're correct to assume Iranian nukes immediately confers hegemon status of the most interesting region on earth. I'm sure that Astralis would agree that the leverage assumed by Iranian nukes would be "rationally" employed. Clearly, there's only one way to view that application. Leverage to pursue de-stabilizing courses of action with complete operational freedom. It's the only "rational" explanation for the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran given the associated risks that they're, to date, running successfully.

Iran will attempt to justify the acquisition of nukes, after the fact, as self-defense. Until that moment, such a rationale wouldn't justify Turkey, S.A. or Egypt doing the same. After that moment, EVERYBODY within that region will truly be justified in openly pursuing nuclear weapons.

Astralis, I've called your perspective, "risk-laden" before. Not with Zraver's eloquence. Those are the consequences- rather nicely put by him. That, in addition to his excellent essay on the IRGC/al Quds/Sepah-e-Pasdaran fabric underlying Iran's executive, ministries, and economy.

Zraver, when you told that story about helping the sectarian division of Iraq...Dude, I want to PARTY with you.

"They need to be told that we will not do Iraq right, but that we will actively seek the emulation of the sectarian and ethnic division they helped foster in Iraq."

Ballsy, in the extreme and I LOVE it. I often fantasized about retreating to Kurdistan while the southern two-thirds of Iraq are turned in Iran's tar-baby. With partition, a favorite of Astralis, we just may be able to engineer (with some help from our GCC and S.A. buddies) such a condition. You'd lose the Basra fields for some time, but it might be possible to contain the ruckus to Sunnistan and shiastan with any residual bleedover as likely to fall in Iran as anywhere.

Sweet. An "A" for audacious thinking.

S-2

"...sanctions are of limited value and air strikes simply solidify regime rule and will almost ensure that there's going to be a racheting up of iranian terrorist incidents."

You dismiss the effectiveness of such strikes in eliminating their primary objective- Iran's means to produce nukes. I guess that you think we've a low chance of eliminating or dramatically degrading their program? Were air-strikes successful, the continuation of a regime which we've tolerated otherwise for 28 years coupled with Iran's demonstrated behavior for terrorism is a very welcome exchange.

Further, you assume a greater ability on their part to punish us with terror should we be successful, or even attempt to eliminate their weapons. As an alternative to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons? I'll accept that exchange as well.

Nothing to date indicates that we'd lose anything by those exchanges. Has Iran already tried to close the straits? Are they already complicit in Iraq? The GCC? Hezbollah? Hamas? And now Afghanistan? What would change besides method?

zraver

Shall we ask some of our members who grew up in eastern Europe or the Baltic about Soviet hegemony and current Russian efforts to re-establish the same?


I am not talking sanctions, I am talking blockade enforced by the US Navy vs Iran and access to US markets for every one else. Iran thinks thier atuarkish policies have made them sanction resistant, they need to be shown just how vulnerable they are.

Iran is given the choice, give up the nuclear ambitions, or cease to exist as a functioning nation. I don't care about regime change per se defeat will do that by itself sooner or later.

In 1918 a starving population had enough and forced the kaiser out and an army beset by battlefield defeats refused to save him. We know blockade works and we know the IIRG has internal divisions. This is our leverage we need only the will to win.

astralis

S-2,

i'm not dismissing it- i'm saying that we're exchanging a short-term gain for a long-term loss.

what we'd lose is the ability to bring down or evolve the regime. iran would be far less riven with internal dissent, and thus give us less openings to exploit.

regarding use of nukes, i personally think they will be used as a deterrent value. i'm not sure about "complete operational freedom"- did the USSR, china, or for that matter even NK act with "complete operational freedom" once it exploded its nuke?

astralis

zraver,

that hegemony was established at the yalta conference and as the result of the red army overrunning the nazi empire, years before the USSR exploded its first nuke. after it exploded its first nuke, did it massively expand its hegemony across europe or asia?

whether that will cause them to re-think their policies is another matter.

i have my doubts.

that was after four years of war and millions of deaths. had the spring offensive of 1918 succeeded, or if the americans did not join in, france would have thrown in the towel. a blockade cannot win a war by itself.

----

removing the prospect of iranian nukes is comparatively easy. as you say, we can either air strike them until they squeal and/or blockade them. however, doing that will only represent a tactical victory in the global WoT. i'm looking for the absolutely strategic victory that will come if iran can either evolve or be regime-changed to our side.

S-2

"...after it [Soviet Union] exploded its first nuke, did it massively expand its hegemony across europe or asia?"

" ...i'm not sure about "complete operational freedom"- did the USSR, china, or for that matter even NK act with "complete operational freedom" once it exploded its nuke?"

Two comments relating to the same point. I'd suggest that the Soviet Union's explosion of it's first nuclear device in 1949 gave the Kremlin considerable confidence about the NKPA invasion of S. Korea. We haven't even fully brought to light the Yalu discussions and MacArthur's crazy notion of radiating the length of the river to create a "dead zone". Not so crazy in the absence of a Soviet nuke.

I'd further suggest that we faced an assertive Soviet Union that, rationally, tested the limits of IT'S operational freedom through the pursuit of wars of national liberation via proxy forces in Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, the ANC, Baader-Meinhof, Red Brigades, Red Army Factions, PIRA, Sandinistas, and N. Vietnam as example. Only the Soviet Union's possession of nuclear weapons allowed these "struggles" to continue at the subterranean level.

All done so fully confident that the gains accrued in E. Europe courtesy of Yalta and the Red Army wouldn't be rolled back. Not even as a consideration. We won't know otherwise. So, yeah, I'd say that operational freedom is a serious consideration for Iran.

REGIME CHANGE- Astralis, you didn't answer my earlier question regarding this point. Now I have two questions-

1.) Were the Iranians to rise up spontaneously without our assistance (to which most will say "no"-Why Iran's Democrats Shun Aid), would you be more or less comfortable with the fact that they confront a government already possessing nuclear weapons?

2.)We've argued what "regime change" means but U.S. forces invading Iran seem to be a big part of your definition. Try not to think of simply A BOMB. Imagine, instead, many. Afterall, allowing them the means to produce and/or enrich includes all the weapons which they can make. The sooner the better from their perspective, I suppose, as you prepare your regime change.

Do you propose invading a nuclear armed nation?

Not really, I bet. So what's that leave? "...evolve the regime"?

I call that "policy-change". A philosophical shift from within. Evolution can be terribly slow. Of course you know that Iran nearly closed the Hormuz straits in 1988. That's what all of this is about, Astralis. The Soviet Union would have liked to do so. Remember that old maxim about classic Russian ambitions in Persia. It eventually evolved into the Carter Doctrine for Americans and was an integral component of our nat'l defense strategy in the late seventies. We had great fears shortly after the 1979 revolution of the Soviet Union striking south and controlling the straits. We couldn't go nuclear and we weren't at all sure that we could conventionally stop them in the Tabriz mountains. Next stop, the Persian Gulf.

What's changed besides the name of the nation? If nothing, then acknowledge the considerable leverage accrued by Iran's possession of nuclear weapons at the mouth of the most important water-way in the world.

zraver

It kept the world silent during the Prague Spring, and Hungary, it let them shoot down our recon planes many times, let them openly arm our enemie sin Korea and Vietnam, meant they could send small groups into direct conflict with us in the skies over Korea etc.


Of course it will, after all if thier current schema no longer works then they have to try something new. We may not like what they try, but we might. We do know that we don't like what they are doing now.


I don't, iran has to many exploitable internal divisions and has been targeted for client status by another major power. it is only a matter of time


I disagree

Iran is not part of GWOT, taking on Iran directly with armed might means ignoring the nukes and figuring out how to prevent an oil blockade, this is where Iran has placed her hopes and it is a so far effective form of blackmail.
But the balance of power is shifting back to the US after swinging towards iran over the last several years. If current trends continue the US will be the strongest it has been vs Iran since 2003.

1- Iraq's Shia are increasingly turning on the Mahdi Militias. If this continues and results in an effective defeat for them then Iran looses it's primary means of cutting the Basra Road without a full scale invasion of Iraq by regular forces (a death sentence under US controlled skies)

2- The USS Ohio, the most powerful non-nuclear strategic platform of all time is now operational. her 154 Tomahawks can cripple Iran country wide in the opening moments of a war.

3- If recent reports out of Syria and Lebanon are correct then new wide spectrum jamming assets can blind even the newest Russian missiles and radars and even cause a cascading failure of most electronic communications media.

4- Aegis has demonstrated the ability to hit both a sea skimming and ballistic target at the same time.

5- building internal pressures between the IIRG and the clerics and within the IIRG itself induce friction.

6- AIM120D will begin entering squadron service in 2 months giving the FA-18 Hornets and Super Hornets absolute superiority over Iranian fighters deep into Iran.
AMRAAM: Deploying & Developing America's Medium-Range Air-Air Missile (updated) (defense procurement, military acquisition, defence purchasing)

S-2

I've gotta say this- Your camoflauge remains adept.

Under no circumstances do you advocate war short of beating an irrational Iran to pulling the trigger first. That's the plain honest truth. You advocate regime change or "evolving the regime". Evolving means no war. Regime change means invasion. A very aggressive posture which you can safely assume knowing completely and utterly that the American public will, in no way, shape, or form, contemplate an invasion and occupation of Iran. That's simply not a serious considertion for a nation of 65,000,000 (Iraq 27,000,000) and 1.6 million sq. miles (Iraq 437,000 sq miles). Remember, we've learned sooo much. Like an adequate number of troops, correct? If we were short in Iraq, how many would you expect might be reasonable for Iran? Didn't Shinseki want about 300,000 for Iraq? You do the numbers extrapolated based on the data above.

Truth is, I know that you already have.