One can almost hear the President saying, "Gee Whiz, if you think I
should..." And of course, having taken the patient, diplomatic
route,
the President who appears to take no nonsense from terrorists or
diabolical monsters like Saddam Hussein is setting up for a crystal
clear moment. He is going to pick up the phone
and call Rafsanjani and say, "Well, Sir. It's your turn.
How do you
want to do this? We understand France and Jordan are offering a
villa
or a wadi? Or would you like us to come over and pry the button
to the
nuclear weapons out of your cold, dead hand? Of course, I suppose
you could expel the religious nutballs and show us how fast you can
disassemble your weapons program and shut down those reactors..."
Having learned from the Iraq experience in how to deal with both the
international community and his political opponents in the U.S.,
President Bush now has both the reluctant feet draggers right where
he wants them. With demands for more decisive action from the
left, and the U.N. doing its normal job of flapping gums and doing
nothing, it will soon be clear that Iran is, as the left has
complained, "A bigger threat than Iraq".
And of course, having shot their bolt on the anti-war clamor over Iraq,
giving us all the reasons that we shouldn't have gone into that
country, the left has also given us all the reasons that Iran is a more
suitable target.
The problem with the entire strategy, of course, is that even with
withdrawal of U.S. troops en masse from Europe, building a threatening
force to compose the stick required for the stick and carrot technique
is going to be difficult. A couple of tanks on the border is not
going to frighten Iran in the least. And now it also becomes
clear why Iran is so involved in exporting its terrorists into Iraq. It
keeps the U.S. and the coalition quite busy, and might just turn Iraq
into an Islamic extremist state more complimentary to that of their own.
The drawdown of U.S. military personnel strength, and indeed the
equipment necessary to fight two major engagements in the world at any
given time is woefully inadequate at this time. Although, come to
think of it, isn't there at least one Division left in Europe?
And isn't EUCOM still sporting a rather large Air Force contingent of
F-15s and F-16s? Hmm? Our military analysts look at the DoD
refusal to consider more troops in Iraq as a rather prudent
strategy. Are there hidden in the numbers the forces necessary to
compose a viable threat to be used as the counterpoint to difficult
diplomacy?
The only problem with walking down that particularly interesting path
is that we need a better staging ground in the Middle East than QATAR,
the Met, or the Gulf. Oh, but wait. Didn't the U.S. seize a
couple of airfields in Iraq? Hey, now there's an idea.
Putting all cuteness aside, the facts of the situation must give Iran
some pause. After all hey have ample evidence as to how the Bush Administration works.
- Go to the U.N. and ask for sanctions
- Apply the sanctions and watch for a short while to see if they are working
- When they don't work, go back to the U.N. and demand action
- The U.N., whose record is dismal, will take no action other than "be seized with the situation"
- The U.S. will then start moving troops and equipment to positions around Iran and set a deadline
- France, Germany, and Russia will beg the leaders of Iran to make some conciliatory gesture
- Iran will make some inane gesture and push the deadline back further
- The new deadline will pass
- G.W. will go on T.V. and say, "I tried, I really did." and Iran
will become another exercise ground for the 4th ID with the remaining
European Division in as their cleanup crew.
Now when this becomes a little clearer to the anti-war crowd, they will start
their chanting. With three months to go in the election, don't be
surprised to hear this scenario described ad infinitum. Along with
the "Make war on drugs not Iraq/Iran/anyone" message that has already
been seen outside the GOP convention.
And the left? Well they do have a problem. Parsing out the
in then out, then in again statements, there are lots of excellent
sound bites that can easily be built into support for any course of
action G.W. wishes to take in this circumstance. Plus, the Iraq
experience has built a case of precedence that can be pointed
at.
"Hey, we aren't going to wait for a decade for the U.N. to try their
same old B.S. We'll give Iran a few months, and if they don't
clean up their act, we'll go in and take care of business. And
this time, shock and awe will be nothing compared to our new 'nothing but
dust' regimen for removing WMD in Iran."
