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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| The Iranian Strategy |
| 2005-08-13 |
| It is reasonable to assume that Iran is at some stage in the development of nuclear weapons. Once they are built, however, the Iranians are believed to have several types of missiles already built that can carry them to their intended targets. (See range maps on bottom of page.) This gives rise to several questions. The first of these being, will Iran immediately use its nuclear weapons as soon as they are built? Unfortunately, the harsh rhetoric and unpredictable if scheming behavior of their government gives no clear answer. It is even unclear who would have the authority among them to make such decisions, to use such weapons. Not being able to answer this fundamental question requires the rest of the world potentially affected by such use to prepare strong countermeasures, even to considering proactive efforts to prevent development in the first place. A proactive approach, namely what amounts to aggressive war carried out by the US and possibly Israel, would be an extraordinarily difficult achievement, and would have to be done in an exceedingly hostile international environment. Both nations would much prefer some alternative means. I will add that first use of nuclear weapons to prevent the development of nuclear weapons would not be considered a viable option. An alternative would be the creation of a multi-layered defense, designed to detect pre-launch and launch efforts, which would then be met with an "overkill" anti-missile effort to insure that such a weapon could never find its target. The last layer of such a defense being an airburst nuclear munition, raising kill probability to over 99%. Such a first use, and subsequent defense would be presented to the nuclear powers, stripping Iran of any international support through any number of war treaties. A war to supress Iranian nuclear ambitions would be far easier in such circumstances. And to postulate such an eventuality, and to receive assurances before the fact, would be wise foreign policy. That is, the US presenting the other nuclear powers with the scenario, "If Iran launches an aggressive nuclear war by firing a missile, and the US documents its shoot-down, presenting such evidence to you, will you pledge full support to the de-nuclearization of Iran?" Given the strong anti-first use policies of the nuclear powers, I would suspect they would readily agree to such a sanction. The next question would then be, what if the Iranians build such weapons, then either just announce that they have them, or perform a nuclear test to prove it? To admit the fact would be to invite economic sanctions against Iran, and could be the deciding factor to attack them militarily sooner rather than later. This then begs the next question, if the Iranians build such weapons, but do not intent to use them immediately, then what do they hope to achieve with them? Much like pre-WWII Japan, Iran wants "its place in the sun", dominating its region militarily, economically and religiously. Its stated ambitions are seemingly not territorial, that is, they do not wish to carve out sections of other countries to annex to their own. However, they would like to have military hegemony in the region, which right now is only challenged by the US and Israel; and economic hegemony, controlling or dominating the oil of the Middle East. This economic hegemony is intertwined with their desires for Shia religious dominance. That is, a Shia caliphate including all of the Shia peoples, from Afghanistan to Palestine. This would also include the Shia of Arabia and Iraq, thus cementing their control of Middle East oil. Lastly, through this military, economic and religious hegemony, their "place in the sun" would be assured as a world, not just as a regional power. The final question would strictly be tactical, how would the US and possibly Israel, reduce the Iranian military and Iran's nuclear weapons and missile capability? Ironically, it would seem that the variation from Gulf War I would be less tactically, then technologically. First of all, unlike GWI, the US would be intensely devoted to stopping *any* missile launches from Iran, for the obvious reason. Not just of the nuclear capable missiles, but even of the ubiquitous SCUDs that dot the landscape, but are able to carry other types of WMDs. Achieving air superiority and supression of both ADA and CCC would be similar to GWI, excepting that it would be considerably more advanced and dangerous, much of it state of the art technology provided by Russia specifically to protect their nuclear targets. Unconventional war would also work both ways, the US attempting to incite civil unrest in at least three ethnic minority provinces (Kurd, Arab and Baluch). This could well lead to the partitioning of Iran, re-drawing the map of the Middle East. Experts have concluded that air power alone would not be sufficient to guarantee de-nuclearization, leaving the options of the use of significant ground assets, or the use of space based weapons that could annihilate hardened targets. Both of these have their advantages and disadvantages. Ground forces would be under great restriction from concentrating, less they make a good target for a ground nuclear weapon. Even remaining in Iraq, they would have to be spread out for their own protection, the shorter distance making a missile shoot-down more problematic. They would also need considerable reinforcement of heavy weapons, such as tanks and artillery. Last, production of replacement weaponry back in the US still lags, and shortages of critical equipment could impact ground forces. Space based weapons are still mostly on the drawing board, though how quickly they could be built and deployed is indeterminate. Their other drawback is that they are very powerful weapons, perhaps weapons that should be reserved for the future instead of used against Iran. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #1 "Layered defense": Now why else is FOXNEWS focusing on "Missing Blonde" stories ala ARUBA - ARUBA is on the other side of CHAVEZ and Venezuela, with the "Chavez Line" weirdly and mysteriously going thru CUBA-HAITI, espec Cuba - A-A-T-T-T-A-A-A-C-C-K-K-K NOWWWWWW. INVADE NOW, SAVE THE BEACH BABES - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHA..............! |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2005-08-13 22:26 |