1. contempt for the most basic international conventions;

uhuh use of nuclear weapons; torture: geneva conventions

2. long-reach extraterritoriality;

uhuh, destroying other peoples countries on three continents

3. effective promotion of radical Pan-Islamism;

Afghanistan in the 80s; Kosovo in the 90s…

4. a willingness to go the extra mile for Jew-killing (unlike, say, Osama);

5. an all-but-total synchronization between rhetoric and action.

Well blow me if (forgetting item 4, a bit of rhetorical overkill) that doesnt sound like the United States

BTW, Chavez can’t stop selling crude to America: we’re the only market for his staggeringly heavy, sour oil. It travels in special tankers and special pipelines to special refineries. He can’t even refine it himself! That’s monopsony folks.

5) They simply aren’t rational and aren’t thinkign about this in game theory-type terms.

How about they ALREADY have the bomb in token amounts, bombs that they have been able to acquire through various means but not mass production.

Now under this shield, Iran is able to ramp up the rest of the nuclear cycle.

As we blog, Iran is mating her first warheads to missiles. She recently tested an atomic nosecone. Such a test is meaningless unless the atomic payload is already established to a working design.

Like every other nuclear power, mating atomic warheads only begins AFTER the warhead is in hand and finalized.

At every step of this campaign the Iranians have moved dramatically faster than ‘expert’ prediction.

The mullahs have moved right through every one of Bush’s ‘redlines’ without pause.

They are well considered the host to al Qaeda and OBL. Hell, his crew is giving interviews in Tehran to German publishers!

Tehran’s provocations are well recounted by Steyn.

The mullahs are NOT for turning!

Their strategy is incredibly simple:

Get the bomb and build and build until they sit at the big table and have complete freedom of action.

Co-opt or absorb OPEC; extract monopoly rents.

Infiltrate the West and either over turn their governments or blow them to hell in one swift stroke — impossible to recover from.

They can just sneak it into Baghdad and blow it up, easier than transporting it to the US or Israel.

Iraq is the cornerstone of our offensive push in the ME. Break that push, and we’re back to square 1. Bush will be remembered for Iraq, regardless of anything else he did or did not do. The mullahs would be incompetent not to have recognized our center of gravity, psychologically and militaristically.

The other CoG is America, but Al Qaeda is not getting a lot of state sponsored support for attacks on America. Bad mojo I guess, after 9/11. Detering terroists is pretty stupid. Detering the state sponsors, is quite effective however.

Iran has figured out that you can push the US, and not get invaded, if you follow certain guidelines like going to the UN, etc.

Any old guerrila insurgency student can understand that insurgencies can go on forever so long as out of state sponsorship holds. We cannot win Iraq by contest of arms, unless the support to the Sunni AND Shia insurgencies are cut, at the throat. And we can’t do that, if they have a nuke, without regime change and total invasion. Which is non-feasible because, they’ve had 6 years to come up with a guerrila strategy.

This would be like Omaha Beach except the Germans had 6 years to fortify it. Bad news. The invasion can overthrow Iran’s regime, as Neo wishes, but the logistics problem are huge. Huge logistics area for guerrila fighters to sabotage.

I just thought of a plan they should implement with invasion. They should just take the capital, and demarcate a new line down the middle of Tehran. Sort of like a Cold War Berlin Wall scenario. This way, you cut off funding for a time, but you don’t over-extend your logistics. You just take a chunk of Iran. Then a year later, take another chunk. Eventually, you’ll have killed all the hard liners and organized folks.

Problem with the Iraq War was that it was too FAST. Beating some nation is not enough in the 21st century, your strategy must be to ANNIHILATE them. And that’s something entirely different.

Good post! Have to agree with you re MAD.

Also about Steve, and the outlook of those like him; they really do seem to believe (or kid themselves into believing) that the US is so big and bad and powerful that nothing can ever hurt it, and therefore it’s just silly to worry about its safety, when we ought, instead, to be castigating it for its sins, or trying to rein in our (supposedly) too great power.

You lost me in the first para witgh your sarcasm.

That’s cause logic is sarcasm.

My point is simply that Iran has made no such announcement.

Well, that’s like saying I haven’t announced that I’m gay, but I’m making out with a guy in a double dating table… You can announce you’re gay, and lie about it. Or you can announce you’re gay, and be telling the truth. OR, you can do all of the above through other means.

Obtuseness doesn’t work here. People communicate things through more than one means, and it isn’t limited just because someone cannot expand upon the possibile meanings of “announce”.

That’s what people need to do more often. They need to take the things they read and read past the dot at the end, and preferably between the lines as well. People are too close minded in certain matters. It is a dangerous liability.

A diplomat that cannot read past the Period line in a diplomatic correspondence is a liability that will get people killed. A diplomat that cannot read between the lines, will get even more people killed.

The point nitty makes is rather valid. Something hath motivated Iran to declare their nuclear ambitions. And that something is called Iraq and Afghanistan and the Revolution in Lebanon, casting off the chains of occupation under their so called ally Syria.

Iran believes that time is not on their side, that if they don’t cause some kind of problem to check America, that in the future they will be at a disadvantage. Iran seems to be hurrying to build a nuke. And yet Iran must know that they are vulnerable in the here and now.

Either Iran has an ace or two stuck up their sleeves, or Iran is depending upon the multilateral traits of George W. Bush, President of the United States and America and the person who decides by himself what is the foreign policy of America.

Any half-assed competent intelligence analyst can see the multilateral and procrastination traits of Bush, and it isn’t too far to leap to think that Iran is depending upon Bush’s bluff.

Iran, I tend to think, analyzed what went on before Iraq and realized that they had X amount of time the UN would give them. So they announced their nuclear ambitions at a specific point in time. This is all connected, to diplomats and reasonable people who can read between the lines, to what is going on in Iraq. With Al Sadr and Jaffari. Iran must control Iraq, or otherwise be shattered in 50 years. If Iraq goes to the Americans the way the Kurds and Sunni want, Iraq will become a Middle East powerhouse. Far, far more powerful than Israel and much more of a threat.

Because of Iran’s show of strength with their nukes, they now have Jaffari and Sadr firmly in their pocket. Why are people fighting if Saddam is in the docket and the Sunnis are making deals against Al Qaeda? They are fighting because 60% of the population are Shia, and they believe the winner and strong horse is called iran, not the US.

This is the price of multilateralism and predictability, Bush is paying and Iraqi children are paying.

Iran’s strategy is very subtle and two pronged. A lot of Americans are kind of parochial in that they only think about American counter-responses and strategy, but nitty by bringing up the POV from Iran’s perspective, gives new insights into the situation.

Iran’s strategy will work in the end. Iraq is at the precipice. Too many arrogant people in Congress believe that only a pull out will lose Iraq, that if only Americans stay there that nothing bad will happen that we can’t handle. *shakes head* The enemy is making plans as well, and they aren’t stupid. Fanatic and blinded by ideology, but not stupid in terms of power politics.

We lose Iraq to Iran, and Iran will give nuclear technology to the Shia in return for an alliance against America. The Shia will use nukes to keep the Kurds and Sunni in line. Al Qaeda will then be free to launch attacks against America, once Iraq has been stabilized.

Iran’s grand strategy is becoming clearer. It is what I would do if I were in the mullah’s shoes, given the limitations that I would have.

Without Iraq, Iran would not have announced their nuclear ambitions so soon. It was never in their interest to do so. But now it is. It is a dual prong strategy.

Nukes will buy them not only immunity but a huge bargaining chip in Iraq. Announcing nukes this early will make a fool of the US, thereby weakening our credibility in the ME and in Iraq. Announcing nukes will also gain them the support of China and Russia, because China and Russia will never miss an opportunity to embarass the US. The scales of power are tilting in Iran’s balance, and the parochialists in America are blind to the consequences.

I had meant the word ‘announce’ as it was often used in the days of MAD. Namely to make clear to the world. Iran has made planty of announcements about it’s nuclear program lately, and these are obviously intended to demonstrate to the world that it is pursuing nuclear weapons.

In the same sense I would say that on multiple occasions Israel has announced it’s willingness to use nuclear weapons if it is attacked with WMD.

In neither case has there been a formal announcement and I’m sorry that I didn’t choose my words a little better. Particularly considering my use of the word “announce” for the formal Iranian announcement in my last post. 🙂

Hope that clears it up.