Sure We Can Blow Up Iran--Then What?

A couple of days ago a pair of British deep thinkers with much academic knowledge of war as a theoretical consideration but no practical experience with the realities of breaking things and killing people issued a think tank report considering how the US could destroy not only Iran's nuclear facilities but the country's infrastructure and government as well. The paper can be read at http://www.rawstory.com/images/other/IranStudy082807a.pdf.

Like all too many "defense intellectuals." the authors have a skewed view of the nature of war. The combination of tunnel vision and inexperience with either the real or historical character of war--the feel of fear, the taste of blood, the stench of death, and the dust of destruction--turns the dropping of bombs and the firing of missiles into a dry exercise of limited imagination.

The Geek rather believes that the tone of this article must resemble the briefing papers given to Rumsfield, Cheney, and Bush prior to the decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Why does the Geek think that?

Because the paper which was released to the mainstream and alternative media on 28 August 07 focuses on what the US military services can do with the ordnance and delivery systems now in the region. It considers weapons' effects, numbers of sorties required, and similar technical data. To the Geek, that approach resembles what the main focus of the briefings to the Commander Guy and his Commanderettes must have been.

What we can do to blow things up. There is absolutely no doubt about the American capacity to deliver highly effective, non-nuclear munitions in great amounts. There is equally little doubt that the American systems have a high order of accuracy along with their high order lethality and destructiveness.

So what? The Geek asks.

Delivering ordnance is the easy part. It was the easy part of the Iraq invasion. The hard part always comes later. The real tough part of war comes just after the last echoes of the last smart-bomb blast or cruise missile impact fades.

The authors of the study resemble the architects of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in another important way as well. As the record of the past five years years in Afghanistan and four plus years in Iraq show, Rumsfield, Cheney, and Bush never considered the day after. They and those who advised and supported them never considered what would happen after we defeated the conventional opposing forces in the field. Never thought about the day after we declared victory.

The authors of the study apparently share the view of the current administration that as the dust clouds settle and flies cover the corpses, the shocked and awed survivors of the smashing attack will rise up as one and overthrow the mullahocracy so as to embrace freedom, democracy, religious pluralism, and free enterprise.

That's sure the way it went in Iraq, wasn't it? And Afghanistan, right?

The study substantially ignores not only the day after the dust clears. It casually waves off the spectrum of retaliatory options available to the Iranian government and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps foreign duty component, the al-Quds Force. Considering the sizable number of Islamists in Europe (see http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/08/2eb4b9a1-4e04-420e-bfb3-2aad70344baa.html for a current appraisal) the possibility--no--the probability of Iranian controlled or affiliated sleeper terrorist cells is high, very high.

Nor is it all that much lower in the United States. Despite the best efforts of American intelligence and law enforcement efforts, only a person not well rooted in reality could pretend that there are no undetected black hats among us.

A further wrinkle not considered by the deep thinking dudes in England is the probable effect upon opinion throughout Islamic countries of an American attack upon Iran. Even the most carefully planned and executed attack would kill large numbers of Iranians, most of them civilians. Far lesser body counts inflicted upon Muslims by US or other Western forces have inflamed zeal, fear, and hatred among Islamic peoples. When the impact of satellite, almost-real-time imagery is considered on top of the current wide-spread anxiety and animus felt toward the US as the chief "crusader" country, the likelihood of terrorist attacks becomes a bang on certainty.

Another failure of the report which was probably shared by the optimistic folks in the Pentagon and White House is its assumption that the US attack would be one hundred percent successful. The assumption apparently is that we would know where every target was to the millimeter, and we would hit everything we aimed at.

Get a grip!

As the experience in the invasion of Iraq demonstrates (as does that of Afghanistan), we did not know where every important target was located. Also, we didn't hit what we aimed at all the time. Regardless of technology, it is still possible to miss what you're aiming at. Similarly, it is possible not to know where ever single important target might be.

What's the upshot?

The study's authors are out to lunch. Anyone who follows the same line of thinking is equally out to lunch.

Here's what we can do. We can break much, even most, of Iran's economic infrastructure, military installations, nuclear facilities, and government centers.

Here's what we cannot do. We cannot invade and occupy Iran on the ground. We don't have the forces to do that. (The JCS is of the view that maintaining our current level of 160,000 in Iraq is too much of a strain.) We cannot adequately predict, not effectively counter the range of potential responses by Iranian sponsored and other terrorists. We cannot predict nor control the global diplomatic damage that might result from the US attack even if some major actors such as the UK and France support our action. We cannot be sure that our attack will neutralize all the targets, even the most urgent ones.

Then, there is one more little matter of what we cannot do. We cannot surround the attack with a warm, fuzzy blanket of public opinion molding, so that the Iranians who live in the country wide impact area will love us as the debris falls around their heads.

The laddybucks behind the study (again, the Geek supposes, not unlike the Rumsfield-Cheney-Bush boys) are ignorant of history. As World War II shows beyond any shadow of a doubt, when people are bombed, they support their own government more, not less. Morale does not collapse. Political will does not evaporate. In England, in Germany, in Japan, the will to resist along with hatred of the bomber grew as the bombs fell.

The strategic masterminds of the current administration (including those who were in office back in 2002) and the academic warriors of the study are evidently ignorant of the greatest single principle of war. Pressure consolidates political will long before it shatters it.

Get a grip on the history of war even if you don't experience the real deal up close and personal. If you do that you are less likely, far less likely, to make the sort of blunders illustrated in this Iran study or the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.