SPEAKING FREELY Iran and the jaws of a
trap By Paul Levian
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
