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Iran and the jaws of a trap
By Paul Levian
02/02/06 "Asia
Times" -- -- Judging from the rather frantic
behind-the-scenes efforts of Russia and China in Iran, they seem
to appreciate that the Iranian leadership is in for a big and
probably deadly surprise. The Bush administration has not only
handled its Iran dossier much more skillfully than Iraq, but
also managed to set up Iran for a war it can neither win nor
fight to a draw.
If the Iranian leaders think they can deter an attack because
the
US is bogged down in Iraq they are already between the jaws of a
well-set trap. Though a Western war against Iran will be a big
geopolitical defeat for Russia and China, they cannot but resign
themselves to this outcome if they are unable to convince the
Iranians to accept the Russian proposal - ie uranium enrichment
in Russia.
The Russians saw the writing on the wall when France, Germany
and Britain began to march in lockstep with the United States.
In particular, the widely but wrongly discounted nuclear
belligerence of President Jacques Chirac last month implied that
France was ready to accept the US use of nuclear weapons in a
war against Iran if they saw fit to do so.
The Iranian leadership's obvious confidence in its ability to
deter the US, Britain and Israel seems to rest on mainly four
assumptions. Iran is militarily much stronger than Iraq, much
larger, its terrain more difficult, its society more cohesive -
thus more difficult to defeat, to occupy and to pacify. In
addition, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad seems to take particular
comfort from the widely anticipated wave of popular outrage and
anti-Western attacks in the wider Middle East if Iran should be
attacked.
Moreover, the economic costs of a war against Iran in terms of
the price of oil and the interruption of the Iranian supply
would propel the world economy into a tailspin. And finally,
Iranian leaders seem to accept at face value the US moans over
its overstretched military forces and the demoralization of US
forces in Iraq.
Certainly, Iranian misconceptions are helped mightily by the
defeatism of the Western debate about such a war. "No good
options" has become something like the consensus view: an
airborne and special forces "surgical strike" (as well as a
massive attack) against the Iranian nuclear industry and
military targets could at best delay its nuclear program and
will be followed by retaliation in Iraq, Lebanon etc; a ground
attack is out of the question because most of deployable US
ground forces are desperately busy in Iraq.
If such things could be planned, one might be persuaded to
consider this debate as an aspect of strategic deception. In
fact, the US and British forces in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf
as well as the forces in Afghanistan are quite able to redeploy
on short notice, for example during the days of an initial air
campaign against Iran for large-scale operations against the
remaining Iranian forces and can be reinforced during the war.
The US military infrastructure at the borders of Iran has a very
substantial capability to deal with surge requirements.
The somewhat standard scenario for this war - as indicated by
Chinese and Russian war games - has the following features:
An initial Israeli air attack against some Iranian nuclear
targets, command and control targets and Shahab missile sites.
Iran retaliates with its remaining missiles, tries to close the
Gulf, attacks US naval assets and American and British forces in
Iraq. If Iranian missiles have chemical warheads (in fact or
presumed), the US will immediately use nuclear weapons to
destroy the Iranian military and industrial infrastructure. If
not, an air campaign of up to two weeks will prepare the ground
campaign for the occupation of the Iranian oil and gas fields.
Mass mobilization in Iraq against US-British forces will be at
most a nuisance - easily suppressed by the ruthless employment
of massive firepower. And Israel will use the opportunity to
deal with Syria and South Lebanon, and possibly with its
Palestinian problem.
The character of this war will be completely different from the
Iraq war. No show-casing of democracy, no "nation-building", no
journalists, no Red Cross - but the kind of war the United
States would have fought in North Vietnam if it had not had to
reckon with the Soviet Union and China.
Paul Levian is a former German intelligence officer.
(Copyright 2006 Paul Levian.)
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