This man should not be allowed near nuclear weapons!

[Thecla]

Saddam was regaining power and funneling it into building asymmetric and non-traditional forces.

Well, I do agree that a fleet of Palaces is a highly asymmetric and non-traditional force. Whether that made necessary an invasion of Iraq to remove the immediate threat they posed to the US is less clear.

[kandrathe]

Well, I do agree that a fleet of Palaces is a highly asymmetric and non-traditional force. Whether that made necessary an invasion of Iraq to remove the immediate threat they posed to the US is less clear.

:D Well sure, there was the whole playboy lifestyle too. In many ways he reminded me more of Scarface. In GW I he stood toe to toe with the US and played the conventional warfare game, the one we had been working on for 50 years. After dismantling their air defenses, we crushed them on the ground in about 100 hours. In GW II, Saddam feinted with a conventional force, but he had built and banked on his unconventional, low tech force. It proved enough to make Iraq a very nasty place to occupy and the insurgency apparatus was in place before the invasion. Add into the Bathe party loyalists, a flood of Sunni jihadists from points west, and south, and Shiites from the east and you have three serious well trained and financed insurgencies.

All of our enemies watched GWI and GWII and either went high tech, or low tech. None of our enemies will choose to fight to our strengths again. Some, like Iran, North Korea, and others are investing heavily in longer ranged and more accurate missiles hoping to be able to target operating bases. Others without the means are choosing the asymmetric low tech option. Re-read T.E. Lawrence's Principles of Insurgency.

Now, consider FOB camp bombaconda, or more affectionately called mortaritaville.

[eppie]

Wait... Wasn't that Reagan's idea?

No that was from Star Wars.....that is where he based his presidency on......movies. :)

[eppie]

Because they these "many people" were morons. Bush and Cheney were NEVER a threat to use nuclear weapons. All that talk/crap about tactical nukes was just that, talk.

Iran on the other hand is a real threat......
I think you got stuck in the cold war era. <_<


But Bush and Cheney were a threat to use almost everything else.....and that threat turned out to be real....and true.

Withou trying to defende the moronic regime of Iran......Bush and Cheney did do a whole lot more damage than Ahmedinijad......luckily for you they did it abroad. And of course the strongest army does not need to use nukes.....so in that sense this is a complete non-discussion.

[Zenda]

Yes, since they had a record of aiding and abetting and harboring them when they attacked our embassies and ships.

You really don't know the meaning of the word 'diplomacy'? It means that you should try talking before fighting even when you know, or think, you are right. War should be the last thing to consider, but looking at your signature I realize you propably don't agree with that.

Osama bin Laden offered to help get Saddam out. Zenda, I offer to help Mahmoud of Iran get the 12th Imam back. Equally useful offers.

Would that be with the aid of 'special forces' and 'secret operations'? Isn't that what's been going on for a long time, and what causing all this mess? You've been trying to destabilize your 'enemies' for decades. Now, with so many nations being the 'enemy', we have quite a lot of instability going on. And still you offer to make it worse.

[Occhidiangela]

You really don't know the meaning of the word 'diplomacy'?

You really don't understand reality, do you? You suit your courses of action to the environment and the players in the game. There is no one size fits all solution, and your typically gutless appeal to "diplomacy" with nothing behind it is why Europe were such UTTER FAILURES in the Yugoslavian civil war. You fools let it run for four years, thanks to "we'll talk them out of this" approach, which did little to stop what the Serbs were doing.

Would that be with the aid of 'special forces' and 'secret operations'? Isn't that what's been going on for a long time, and what causing all this mess? You've been trying to destabilize your 'enemies' for decades. Now, with so many nations being the 'enemy', we have quite a lot of instability going on. And still you offer to make it worse.

Try staying on topic. You are the one who brought up the idiocy of Bin Laden being able to get Saddam out of Kuwait. So I offered you an equally silly scenario: help Mr Achmadinejad get his 12th Imam back.

Head out of rectum, boy, or you'll remain in the dark.

Occhi

[Mavfin]

I suspect Iran actually does want the nukes for their deterrent value, not for the apocalyptic fantasies people are bellowing about in the press. If you look at their strategic situation, a nuclear deterrent posture makes sense. They don't have a lot of friends, and a lot of their neighbors have nukes. India, Pakistan, Russia, Israel ...

Occhi

Yes, it does make sense. I'm just not completely sure that the man running Iran is smart enough to know what the rule is about using nukes. Launch some nukes at 9 AM, and you'll have some sent back to you by 9:30...

Nukes are deterrents. Using them has a horrible price. We just hope that he's not so stupid that he thinks that he won't have to pay that price if he uses his new toys.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I'm just not completely sure that the man running Iran is smart enough to know what the rule is about using nukes.

I share your concern. Against a society where sacrificing your life to blow up a few of the people you hate is an acceptable mental state, is mutually assured destruction a viable strategy? Perhaps this generation of leaders, perhaps the next, are safe (I wouldn't completely count on it), but when will the true zealots, the true fanatics gain that power -- or even just access? Rational deterrents only work on rational people, and a lot of the Arab leaders don't seem to fit that category.

--Pete

[Zenda]

You suit your courses of action to the environment and the players in the game.

Shouldn't your militairy games wait until war has actually started? Or are you really stuck in the Cold War 'game'? Spying in peacetime is a crime, and sabotage for political reasons is terrorism, not?

in the Yugoslavian civil war

Try staying on topic. Isn't it worth trying to save so many lives, even if diplomacy didn't always work in the past? I won't mention the number of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, but what about the fallen US soldiers?

So I offered you an equally silly scenario

By just doing nothing in 1990 you could have had Bin Laden and all his terrorists sacrificing themselves to defend the 'Holy land', and have a much more Western oriented Iraq as ally, instead of a few small barbaric and fanatic Islamic Arabian kingdoms. But wait, Kuwait never refused to sell oil to the USA, is it?

So how is this equal to interfering in Iran, and creating even more instability in the region?

Head out of rectum

Do you have a reason for these anatomical references, or is it just an(other) obsession?

[Jester]

I share your concern. Against a society where sacrificing your life to blow up a few of the people you hate is an acceptable mental state, is mutually assured destruction a viable strategy? Perhaps this generation of leaders, perhaps the next, are safe (I wouldn't completely count on it), but when will the true zealots, the true fanatics gain that power -- or even just access? Rational deterrents only work on rational people, and a lot of the Arab leaders don't seem to fit that category.

First, Persians aren't Arabs, just to clear up the potential confusion there. ;)

Rational deterrents works on irrational people, so long as they are self-interested. (I guess, to some economists, that's the same thing, although I'd disagree.) The leaders of these countries are not, by my estimation, in the class of crazy who would destroy their own selves to spite their enemies, during peacetime. (At the end of a losing war, things might look different.) The Iranian leadership has many terrible qualities, but I don't think they're close to the line where deterrence would fail because they do not fear death. One only needs to look at the leaders of the various Palestinian terror groups to see the pattern - they're perfectly happy to send idealistic young men, subjugated women, and helpless children to their horrible fiery deaths, but they never strap on the vests themselves. They're barbaric, but they're not crazy, at least not in that sense. Threatening their power and comfort is effective, even if threatening their people is not.

Will a group crazy enough to really end it all ever come to power? I wouldn't say never, but I people that fanatical usually have a hard time getting political power, which at least takes some degree of pragmatism. Never say never, though.

-Jester

[Lissa]

Is that what they literally said? Sounds like the situation needed some negiotation or diplomacy, then. Too bad your former president lacked such skills. Things could have gone quite different, for both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Because there are too many leaders out there (read despots) that believe the only diplomacy that is worth using is from the end of a gun. When you are dealing with those kinds of people, military force is the only way you will get through to them.

As was said some time ago by someone that really understood the situation (and not sure who the author was):

Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice Doggie!" till you can find a stick.

[kandrathe]

Will a group crazy enough to really end it all ever come to power? I wouldn't say never, but I people that fanatical usually have a hard time getting political power, which at least takes some degree of pragmatism. Never say never, though.

A charismatic leader with a twisted message can bring a nation of conditioned zealots to the mass suicide of total war, and justify the most terrible of atrocities. Looking at the aggressions of the recent past centuries that was true of China, the Soviet Union, Japan, Italy, Turkey, Great Britain, France or Germany. I believe certain conditions need to exist in order for that to happen. What is missing in Iran is an overwhelming majority of the people willing to follow their leadership in that direction. I get the sense that there is a conservative group of about 30% who is anti-western, a more liberal group of about 30% (the protesters we see) who desire Iran to more westernized (in the good sense), with a middle group who is unmotivated by either direction but would probably desire they emerge from the pariah status as long as it didn't erode their "way of life". They are definitely impacted by their perceived need to be the stewards of Shia Islam, just as the Saudi's are hampered by their role with Mecca and Medina, and the Israeli's are with Jerusalem.

Come to think about it... We all seem to have that conservative / liberal / middle of the road issue in our societies, as well as varying levels of support for individual liberty. It must be a normal national angst. There is a normal push and pull between those who desire continuity of traditions and see that as stable, versus those who want to "make changes for the better". I would guess that most problems occur in nations when the middle 40% decide to move too far toward either pole.

[Jester]

A charismatic leader with a twisted message can bring a nation of conditioned zealots to the mass suicide of total war, and justify the most terrible of atrocities.

Sure, but the USSR was one of those countries - and yet, nuclear deterrence worked just fine against them. Now, they don't believe in an afterlife per se, so maybe that makes some difference.

I'm still betting that, however ruthless the leadership may get, they are unlikely to become genuinely suicidal, especially when faced with the prospect of their entire civilization being purged with nuclear fire.

-Jester

[Delc]

A charismatic leader with a twisted message can bring a nation of conditioned zealots to the mass suicide of total war, and justify the most terrible of atrocities. Looking at the aggressions of the recent past centuries that was true of China, the Soviet Union, Japan, Italy, Turkey, Great Britain, France or Germany.

But the leaders won't put *themselves* in harm's way. Crazy people with lots of power aren't stupid, they understand that they lose their power when they die, thus they send the young/poor/stupid to the dying for them.

[Kevin]

Sure, but the USSR was one of those countries - and yet, nuclear deterrence worked just fine against them. Now, they don't believe in an afterlife per se, so maybe that makes some difference.

I'm still betting that, however ruthless the leadership may get, they are unlikely to become genuinely suicidal, especially when faced with the prospect of their entire civilization being purged with nuclear fire.

-Jester

I will say that I'm actually glad that Gordon Brown seems to be leading the international charge against them. At least I see his name pop up in the press more in reference to Iran than any other leader. Of course he is on his way out too if I followed stuff correctly. But it's nice to see some of the deterrence coming loudly from somewhere outside the US.

I'm also not sure if they aren't suicidal or not. The folks that hold the deterrence would be under scrutiny for using it as well, you can't just leave that factor out. So it depends on how aggressive they got. One nuke does amazing amounts of immediate as well as delayed damage and might only be met with conventional retaliation. Which can be just as, if not more, devastating in the long run, but tends to not come off as horrific, it's also not as rapid.

Iran getting nuclear capabilities does worry me. The situation in Pakistan worries me even more right now.

The real worry is that one insane person in the wrong spot, or one influential enough person, could cause real damage. I know that there are very good safeguards put in place to help prevent just this, but some of the leadership, that can inspire young men to happily blow themselves up, have shown the ability to come up with and execute some more intricate plans. The current leadership in Iran seems to have quite a few less than stable people in positions of great power who might just help coordinate just a single shot. But as single shot can be more than enough.

It's unlikely, I agree, but I worry more about that happening in Iran than anywhere else. I worry about Pakistan losing control of key facilities as well. I'm very glad that Obama was clear that the danger was Pakistan but that we can't leave Afghanistan in the state it is in, even if it's not the real worry. I'm glad the mission focus in Afghanistan has changed too.

But for now I think deterrence is effective and will continue to be so, but I still worry. :)

[Zenda]

Because there are too many leaders out there (read despots) that believe the only diplomacy that is worth using is from the end of a gun.

And you think those are right? That everyone else should do the same and forget about diplomacy?

As was said some time ago by someone that really understood the situation (and not sure who the author was): Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice Doggie!" till you can find a stick.

Methinks that quote says a lot more about that person then it says about diplomacy.

[Thecla]

I'm just not completely sure that the man running Iran is smart enough to know what the rule is about using nukes.

When you say "the man running Iraq" do you mean Ahmadinejad or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? It isn't Ahmadinejad, and Iraq is not a monolith -- it's a very diverse and complicated place and it has some very sophisticated people, as well as some not so sophisticated people (not unlike a smaller version the US or China). The Bush administration's linking of such different countries as N. Korea, Iraq and Iran in the "axis of evil" was yet one more example of its boneheaded and ignorant policies.

Not to say that Iran's nuclear program isn't very worrying -- especially for Israel and especially given Ahmadinejad's statements -- though in their place I'd also want a deterrent; the US did after all just invade their neighbor and the only other non-nuclear-former-fellow-axis-of-evil member (though surely the results must've left Iran feeling a whole lot safer from the US, if not from Israel).

The worst thing at the moment seems to be the hard-core repression, supported by Khamenei, of protest and dissent after the rigged election of Ahmadinejad, which I think has taken away significant legitimacy away from Khamenai. Hopefully, the younger more moderate and westernized elements in Iran will win out eventually, but I guess the other course is a much more repressive Iran, which wouldn't be good.

Unfortunately, the US (and the British) have such dirty hands with respect to Iran --- overthrowing an elected democratic government in favor of the Shah (wonder what that was called "Operation Iranian Despot"?) because of, surprise surprise, Oil, and supporting Saddam Hussein while he used chemical weapons to kill 100,000 Iranians in a war that killed maybe 1,000,000 Iranians --- that even the people in Iran it would like to support are likely to treat the US like it has the plague.

[Lissa]

And you think those are right? That everyone else should do the same and forget about diplomacy?

They don't believe in diplomacy, that's why they're despots.

Methinks that quote says a lot more about that person then it says about diplomacy.

No, it has more to do about realization of how things end up.

[kandrathe]

But the leaders won't put *themselves* in harm's way. Crazy people with lots of power aren't stupid, they understand that they lose their power when they die, thus they send the young/poor/stupid to the dying for them.

How do you explain all the crazy people with power that began wars of aggression, thereby de-facto, putting themselves in harms way, and most of them ultimately dying early deaths (Castro being a rare exception)? Maybe they *think* they are safe in that spider hole, reinforced bunker, or cave in the middle of nowhere, but eventually they get found and they get dead.

[kandrathe]

Sure, but the USSR was one of those countries - and yet, nuclear deterrence worked just fine against them. Now, they don't believe in an afterlife per se, so maybe that makes some difference.

I'm still betting that, however ruthless the leadership may get, they are unlikely to become genuinely suicidal, especially when faced with the prospect of their entire civilization being purged with nuclear fire.

Yeah, I lived through some of the worst of that time (MAD), and it is a bit off-putting to know that you are defended from annihilation only by your own willingness to commit murder suicide. It's like two guys with pistols and candles in a gasoline filled room. I wonder how Europe would change their tune if Iran test fired a missile into the North Sea.

I really don't think the world of peace loving nations wants to have that type of relationship with Iran, where every day we remind them (and they us) how willing we are to totally annihilate them. It just takes one mistake, or one person just crazy enough to go a step too far. The Cold War was brutal, ugly, and expensive. Now, I'm a peace loving person, but I'd rather we just outright destroyed these 'wannabes' now rather than go through the next twenty to thirty years in another nuclear arms race.