[Peace-discuss] Liberals for attacking Iran, conservatives against

[John W.]

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 9:33 PM, Brussel Morton K. <mkbrussel at comcast.net>wrote:



> A useful article, horrifying in its predictions.
>
> However, the thought occurs that a principal reason why the U.S. holds back
> against a  massive attack on Iran is not because of our military
> vulnerabilities, or even the economic consequences on the U.S., but a
> realization that such an attack would further the revulsion of most of the
> world that it would create, perhaps even in (western) Europe (which would
> suffer more economically than the U.S.),  and what all that would imply for
> the increased advantages, —influence and economic power —for imagined future
> adversaries, China, Russia, India, even Brazil and others. I think the war
> would be relatively easy for the superpower to conduct, to destroy much of
> the infrastructure of Iran with minimal U.S. military losses. Whether it
> would destroy also the will and ability of the Iranians to resist in
> whatever way it could, in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere by what remains in
> Iran is uncertain. Therein is some additional risk. Wars are always risky.
>
> i have little doubt that the Congress and a media-bludgeoned American
> populace would go along with whatever we did. Even the Repubs would cheer
> such an Obama initiative.
>
> It is interesting that Buchanon makes no explicit mention of the other
> elephant in the mideast, Israel, in all this warmongering. He has after all
> been attacked as anti-semitic
>
> --mkb.
>

Buchanan DOES explicitly mention Israel:  "Also, it would be crucial on day
one to hit Iran’s launch sites and missile plants for, like Saddam in 1991,
Iran would probably attack Israel, to make it an American and Israeli war on
an Islamic republic."




> On Apr 2, 2010, at 12:10 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
> > [The Obama administration and its allies, like the NYT, scream about the
> Iranian threat to distract from their wretched performance (for most, not
> all, Americans) on economic matters. They may be vicious enough to do it.
> It's good that there's some opposition to them in US politics. --CGE]
> >
> >       What War with Iran Means
> >       by Patrick J. Buchanan, April 02, 2010
> >
> > "Diplomacy has failed," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told AIPAC, "Iran is
> on the verge of becoming nuclear and we cannot afford that."
> >
> > "We have to contemplate the final option," said Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.,
> "the use of force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon."
> >
> > War is a "terrible thing," said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., but
> "sometimes it is better to go to war than to allow the Holocaust to develop
> a second time."
> >
> > Graham then describes the war we Americans should fight:
> >
> > "If military force is ever employed, it should be done in a decisive
> fashion. The Iran government’s ability to wage conventional war against its
> neighbors and our troops in the region should not exist. They should not
> have one plane that can fly or one ship that can float."
> >
> > Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, Neocon Central,
> writes, "The only questions remaining, one Washington politico tells me, are
> who starts it, and how it ends."
> >
> > As to who starts it, we know the answer. Tehran has not started a war in
> memory and is not going to launch a suicide attack on a superpower with
> thousands of nuclear weapons. As with Iraq in 2003, the war will be launched
> by the United States against a nation that did not attack us — to strip it
> of weapons it does not have.
> >
> > But to Graham’s point, if we are going to start this war, prudence
> dictates that we destroy Iran’s ability to fight back. At a minimum, we
> would have to use air strikes and cruise missiles to hit a range of targets.
> >
> > First, Iran’s nuclear facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant at
> Natanz, the U.S.-built reactor that makes medical isotopes, the power plant
> at Bushehr, the centrifuge facility near Qom and the heavy-water plant at
> Arak.
> >
> > Our problem here is that the last three are not even operational and all
> are subject to U.N. inspections. There are Russians at Bushehr. And there is
> no evidence that diversion to a weapons program has taken place.
> >
> > If Iran has secret plants working on nuclear weapons, why have we not
> been told where, and demanded that U.N. inspectors be let in? Why did 16
> U.S. intelligence agencies, three years ago, tell us they did not exist and
> Iran gave up its drive for a nuclear weapon in 2003?
> >
> > If Iran is on the "verge" of a bomb, as Schumer claims, the entire U.S.
> intelligence community should be decapitated for incompetence.
> >
> > This week, in a hyped headline, "CIA: Iran capable of producing nukes,"
> the Washington Times said that a new CIA report claims, "Iran continues to
> develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear
> weapons, if a decision is made to do so."
> >
> > Excuse me, but this is mush. We could say the same of a dozen countries
> that use nuclear power and study nuclear technology.
> >
> > But let us continue with Graham’s blitzkrieg war.
> >
> > To prevent a counterattack, the United States would have to take out
> Iran’s 14 airfields and all its warplanes on the ground. We would also have
> to sink every warship and submarine in Iran’s navy and destroy some 200
> missile, patrol, and speedboats operated by the Revolutionary Guard, else
> they would be dropping mines and mauling our warships.
> >
> > Also, it would be crucial on day one to hit Iran’s launch sites and
> missile plants for, like Saddam in 1991, Iran would probably attack Israel,
> to make it an American and Israeli war on an Islamic republic.
> >
> > Among other critical targets would be the Silkworm anti-ship missile
> sites on Iran’s coastline that would menace U.S. warships and oil tankers
> transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Any Iranian attack on ships or seeding of
> mines would likely close the gulf and send world oil prices soaring.
> >
> > Revolutionary Guard barracks, especially the Quds Force near Iraq, would
> have to be hit to slow troop movement to and across the border into Iraq to
> kill U.S. soldiers and civilians. The same might be necessary against
> Iranian troops near Afghanistan.
> >
> > With Iran’s ally Hezbollah in south Beirut, all U.S. civilians should
> probably be pulled out of Lebanon before an attack lest they wind up dead or
> hostages. And how safe would Americans be in the Gulf region, especially
> Bahrain, home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, a predominantly Shi’ite island?
> >
> > And whose side would Shi’ite Iraq take?
> >
> > Would we have to intern all Iranian nationals in the United States, as we
> did Germans and Italians in 1941? How many terror attacks on soft targets in
> the USA could we expect from Iranian and Hezbollah agents in reprisal for
> our killing thousands of civilians in hundreds of strikes on Iran?
> >
> > Before the War Party stampedes us into yet another war, the Senate should
> find out if Tehran is really on the "verge" of getting a bomb, and why
> deterrence, which never failed us, cannot succeed with Iran.
> >
> >
> http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2010/04/01/what-war-with-iran-means/
>

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