Iran 2 The earlier post Iran described some of the threats the Mullahs may pose to the United States. In general most of the direct threats ...
Iran 2
The earlier post Iran
described some of the threats the Mullahs may pose to the United States. In
general most of the direct threats are not very serious. The threat to 'set the
Middle East ablaze' should the US pre-emptively strike Iranian WMD development
facilities is pretty pathetic. Supposed instructions to "Revolutionary
Guards sectors to respond swiftly - within no more than an hour and without
waiting for orders - against pre-selected targets" will almost certainly
rely on prepositioned terrorist cells in the absence of any real delivery
systems and while this may kill a few hundred people it will hardly put a dent
in the fighting power of the American armed forces. The threat of an
electromagnetic pulse attack on the US by an Iranian nuclear weapon delivered by
missile at high altitude is unlikely to materialize in the short term; and if it
did, would originate from an identifiable source. As the Commission
to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)
Attack noted on page 2 those threats are most dangerous when their origin
cannot be traced.
EMP effects from nuclear bursts are not new threats .... The Soviet Union
in the past ... are potentially capable of creating these effects ... mixed
with ... nuclear devices that were the primary source of destruction, and thus
EMP as a weapons effect was not the primary focus. Throughout the Cold War,
the United States did not try to protect its civilian infrastructure against
either the physical or EMP impact of nuclear weapons, and instead depended on
deterrence for its safety.
An Iranian EMP device detonated at high altitude over the US lacks the chief
advantage of a terrorist nuclear weapon: deniability. Its point of origin would
be computed before it completed its flight and would easily be considered a
nuclear attack on US soil to be met with massive retaliation. Whether through
Revolutionary Guards or missiles, the Mullahs on the whole don't have many good
ways of directly attacking the United States and they know this. Their efforts
have therefore been focused on acquiring nuclear weapons as a deterrent so that
they can safely pursue a program of indirect, terrorist warfare on the US. Their
intent is being dictated by their capability.
The more capable US Armed Forces could directly attack the regime in Teheran
but its deployments suggest otherwise. A map of the population densities of Iran
is shown below (hat tip: Microsoft Encarta), with the more densely populated
areas in darker red. The population centers of Iran are in an arc embracing the
Caspian Sea behind the rampart of the Zagros mountains to the south and the
Elberuz mountains to the north. The 3+ US divisions in Iraq are arguably in the
worst place from which to open a land campaign against Iran because they are on
the wrong side of Zagros mountain barrier relative to the centers of Iranian
power. It might be possible to campaign across the Zagros, around Lake Urumia in
the north, for example, and descend on the Tabriz-Teheran road, but it doesn't
look easy. During the Iraq-Iran War, Saddam Hussein's forces never
made a serious attempt to cross the Zagros into the Iranian interior but
concentrated instead on attempting to secure Iran's access to the the Persian
Gulf. But unlike Saddam, the US already controls Iran's access to the Gulf by
naval force and has no real need to seize its port cities.
It is reasonable to speculate that while the US will improve its
capability to attack directly, it is really deployed to confront the Iranian
regime indirectly. US organizing efforts in Kurdistan, Afghanistan and in
Central Asia have opened clandestine highways into Iran. The game of
infiltration and counter-infiltration is apparent in Iraq. An earlier post
described the activities of the Iranian-sponsored Badr Corps in Iraq through
which the Mullahs may hope to wage an intelligence/terrorist campaign against
the US. But just as the enemy has tried to subvert Iraq by infiltrating its
security forces the Badr Corps also provides a pathway back into the Mullahcracy
for US agents. Agent networks are doors which swing both ways.
As the fall of the Soviet Union and the Syrian retreat from
Lebanon illustrated, indirect warfare can go on for a long time until a 'key'
issue or event presents itself which precipitates the actual fall of a regime.
It would be fair to say that no one could predict the precise place where the
totalitarian system will break -- Berlin in the case of the USSR or the Hariri
assassination in the case of Syria -- but that it was important to maintain
continuous pressure and to be opportunistically ready to turn the 'key' when it
presented itself. Perhaps the principal difference between Carter and Reagan;
Clinton and Bush was that the latter of each pair was waiting for the lock to
turn while the former were uninterested.
When Richard Perle testified
before House Armed Services Committe in April 2005 he summed up what he had
learned from the Iraq campaign. None of his regrets had to do with military
shortcomings. The deficiencies in the American campaign were in the political
sphere. He spoke of the need to create indigenous groups sympathetic to
democratic aims before taking on a tyranny and of involving them immediately in
the governance of the country.
First, it is essential that we are clear about, and carefully
align, our political and military objectives. ... American forces, working
with the indigenous opposition to the Taliban regime, went into Afghanistan on
October 7, 2001, less than a month after the attack of 9-11. ... We went in
with a small force--never more than 10,000--and despite the criticism that the
force was too small and that we were facing a quagmire as a result, some of
which appeared in as little as three weeks, we quickly achieved our objective.
... In Iraq we succeeded in driving Saddam Hussein from office in three weeks.
And while we were received in Iraq as liberators in the days following the
collapse of Saddam's army and regime, we did not enjoy the benefit of a close
collaboration with the indigenous opposition to his brutal, sadistic
dictatorship.
This brings me to my second lesson: In aligning our political
and military strategy, we should make sure we have the support of a
significant segment of the local population. Even more, we should work with
those whose interests parallel our own, taking them into our confidence and
planning to operate in close collaboration with them.
The third lesson is, by now, generally accepted: our intelligence is sometimes, dangerously inadequate.
Although Perle was ostensibly discussing the Iraqi campaign, his
reflections were not made in the context of a disinterested academic inquiry
into past events but as lessons meant to be applied to future campaigns;
i.e. Iran. This suggests that long before the US attempts a direct assault on
the Iranian regime it will probably attempt to achieve each of the three things
Perle mentioned: a relationship with a partner Iranian group; the development of
a popular desire to overthrow the Mullahs; and a commanding intelligence
picture.
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