Shrouds of War: The US and Iran and the Direction Toward War
The political pressure on Iran by the United States seems to imperceptibly increase every day. Since this past spring, the claims and statements about Iran’s influence in the Iraqi civil war have gone up several notches, again very subtly. From the Vice President and the Secretary of State to Multi-National Force spokes people, Iran seems to receive more condemnation, be the cause of “startling” new evidence of their complicity with Shi’a militias in Iraq, supporting Shi’a guerilla/terrorist in Lebanon, and in the diplomatic language of our time, to be developing a “weapons of mass destruction.” It is not something easily quantified, but the disturbed feel, and the leak of military plans in case of war, go toward some climax in the US policy in the Persian Gulf region. Is this replay of Fall 2002/Winter 2003? It is hard to tell. It could be a game of diplomatic chicken between Washington and Tehran, antagonists the past 28 years for dominant influence in the Gulf area, and by default, the real ownership through force of its oil reserves.
Recently, a “leak” in the US government revealed that if ordered to do so, the Combatant Commander for most of the Middle East, Admiral Fallon of Central Command, will be ordered to execute a massive bombing of Iran–around 1200 separate military or military-associated targets, including all nuclear research facilities. The time frame for completing this task is estimated to be around 4 days. If each aircraft flew an estimated sortie of 2 to 2.4 missions each (or much less, as I am only making an amateur guess), accounting for battle damage, maintenance, or outright loss to Iran’s Russian supplied air defense network, it would require on order of 500 combat aircraft and about half that number of support aircraft (Combat Search and Rescue, transports, reconnaissance, and air-to-air refueling aircraft).
The aircraft, some of them land- and sea-based on Carrier Strike Groups Naval or Marine Air Forces, and cruise missile-capable submarines and surface action forces, Army helicopters, and tactical aircraft and strategic bombers of the US Air Force, would need some time to build-up numbers and training for the mission, and create stockpiles, brought in large measure by ocean going ships. These would be hard to conceal if done in any way other than gradually.
It would only take some skill at on-line research to figure out the number of air-related units, including ground and sea personnel, and the air units or personnel themselves, that have been called into active duty. These would come from the Air National Guard and the regular armed forces reserve pools, and active duty deployments rotated overseas.
Intelligence culled from ‘open-sources” would determine from public records how many of these air-related units and equipment have been mobilized, trained in the US or deployed overseas, or reassigned from present duties into the combat chains from the US to the Persian Gulf and points in between on the direct lines of communication. If more are going than coming back, but not necessarily to or from Iraq, then that vital bit of clue might open doors into predicting a rough time schedule. It would take some research on google, references to such excellent military analyst sites like www.globalsecurity.org , records in the medical established (getting shots before deployment), hometown newspaper articles and television reports. The open-source intelligence is there. However it would take quite a superhuman effort to do by ones’ self.
Deploying a possible air expeditionary strike force of all the services could have been ongoing for months. Under the cover of a mashkirovka, or grand strategic deception, the Jan. 2007 to the present “surge” of US forces into Iraq would provide almost perfect operational surprise to get the men and women, material, and machines into a rough proximity for bombing Iran on order. An article I read earlier the summer on Truthout.org, (which is kind of inappropriate to mention as I can cite it in a bibliography), had discussed the US Air Forces increasing role in the Iraq campaign. Over the course the winter, the US Navy upped deployment of one Carrier Strike Groups between the end of invasion of Iraq, to three on station as a consistent policy. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US Navy, by design of its operational capabilities, “surged” a total 7 Carrier Strike Groups. Each CSG contains one carrier with Carrier Air Wing, and a mixed assortment of surface craft guided missile cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and a submarine.
Last week, during the first week of September 2007, the US Navy and the Indian Navy (which is quite a formidable force in the Indian Ocean Area) conducted their annual combat simulation exercises. This regular performance of sea power diplomacy provides more timely grand strategic deception of slowly and quietly building the capability in the Middle East for a massive and destructive air and naval campaign to destroy Iran’s ability to resist American political will. But all of this conjecture, while fitting a model, may only prove to be diplomatic pressure applied by armed “assurance” (instead of deterrence) that the US, and any country willing to participate, possess the ability to disconnect Iran’s military from a useful tool of policy into a useless ability to resist. By obliterating critical points (I’ve always believed that hitting Iran’s oil store and limited production facilities for gasoline and other by products is the easiest way to achieve a military policy of crippling Iran politically and economically. It is doubtful that the US would dare to damage any of Iran’s energy facilities. The West, if it came to invasion, would rather take them intact.
As a consideration of strategy, a significant part of Iran’s reserves, including an oil shipping connection at Khark Island, lies extremely close to Iraq by land in the Adaban Region and it is vulnerable from the sea. The main obstacles in seizing by ground assault the territory are marshes and swamps (home of the trench lines of misery and death for around one million Iranian soldiers during the Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s). Seizing the territory would be relatively easy for the US Central Command, though not without unexpected difficulty in the invasion. It would inspire a backlash in the Iraqi Shi’a population against the US. The territory would provide a bargaining chip, easily defended against counter-attacks by Iran. To get back its revenue producing region, negotiations would begin over Iran’s nuclear program and support for terrorism. Seizing this territory would not require invasion and occupation of the entire country, just a portion with enough dollar/euro value to attempt to compel Iran to submit. It might lead to new terms for Iran’s participation in regional cooperation, end its nuclear research, and stop its support for guerilla/terrorist around the world. (Seizing territory in a limited war was The Cepia Club’s conclusion in an essay in Oct. 2002 for the Iraq war).
Unfortunately, US aims may be bigger than a limited objective of territory in a quid pro quo exchange. Like Iraq, the current foreign policy makers in the US might have another “big idea” vision of occupying Iran, and then establishing democracy in a country that has functioning, free elections at many levels (although the clerics still hold supreme power). Ominously, the US military confirmed earlier this week that the Israeli Air Force bombed a supposed supply transit dump in eastern Syria through which Iran is supplying Hezbol’ah in Lebanon. War clouds are looming. So what is the strategy?
If the Bush Administration does what authoritarian-minded rulers usually do–when losing one war, escalate and expand it; i.e. start a larger war–then the policy on Iran might already be set and in motion to proceed and succeed while President Bush is still in office. (One must wonder if the military will let him do it, or will they “pocket-veto” the order, which in essence would amount to a political coup. Such a thing happened, allegedly, during the final week of the Nixon Presidency). If the US gets into a larger war with Iran, the only possible winners are also the biggest winners in the world-wide balance of interests: Russia and China. The US can only lose out in the grand scheme in another such a war in Iran as it has already in Iraq. The Cepia Club will comment more later.
Recently, a “leak” in the US government revealed that if ordered to do so, the Combatant Commander for most of the Middle East, Admiral Fallon of Central Command, will be ordered to execute a massive bombing of Iran–around 1200 separate military or military-associated targets, including all nuclear research facilities. The time frame for completing this task is estimated to be around 4 days. If each aircraft flew an estimated sortie of 2 to 2.4 missions each (or much less, as I am only making an amateur guess), accounting for battle damage, maintenance, or outright loss to Iran’s Russian supplied air defense network, it would require on order of 500 combat aircraft and about half that number of support aircraft (Combat Search and Rescue, transports, reconnaissance, and air-to-air refueling aircraft).
The aircraft, some of them land- and sea-based on Carrier Strike Groups Naval or Marine Air Forces, and cruise missile-capable submarines and surface action forces, Army helicopters, and tactical aircraft and strategic bombers of the US Air Force, would need some time to build-up numbers and training for the mission, and create stockpiles, brought in large measure by ocean going ships. These would be hard to conceal if done in any way other than gradually.
It would only take some skill at on-line research to figure out the number of air-related units, including ground and sea personnel, and the air units or personnel themselves, that have been called into active duty. These would come from the Air National Guard and the regular armed forces reserve pools, and active duty deployments rotated overseas.
Intelligence culled from ‘open-sources” would determine from public records how many of these air-related units and equipment have been mobilized, trained in the US or deployed overseas, or reassigned from present duties into the combat chains from the US to the Persian Gulf and points in between on the direct lines of communication. If more are going than coming back, but not necessarily to or from Iraq, then that vital bit of clue might open doors into predicting a rough time schedule. It would take some research on google, references to such excellent military analyst sites like www.globalsecurity.org , records in the medical established (getting shots before deployment), hometown newspaper articles and television reports. The open-source intelligence is there. However it would take quite a superhuman effort to do by ones’ self.
Deploying a possible air expeditionary strike force of all the services could have been ongoing for months. Under the cover of a mashkirovka, or grand strategic deception, the Jan. 2007 to the present “surge” of US forces into Iraq would provide almost perfect operational surprise to get the men and women, material, and machines into a rough proximity for bombing Iran on order. An article I read earlier the summer on Truthout.org, (which is kind of inappropriate to mention as I can cite it in a bibliography), had discussed the US Air Forces increasing role in the Iraq campaign. Over the course the winter, the US Navy upped deployment of one Carrier Strike Groups between the end of invasion of Iraq, to three on station as a consistent policy. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US Navy, by design of its operational capabilities, “surged” a total 7 Carrier Strike Groups. Each CSG contains one carrier with Carrier Air Wing, and a mixed assortment of surface craft guided missile cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and a submarine.
Last week, during the first week of September 2007, the US Navy and the Indian Navy (which is quite a formidable force in the Indian Ocean Area) conducted their annual combat simulation exercises. This regular performance of sea power diplomacy provides more timely grand strategic deception of slowly and quietly building the capability in the Middle East for a massive and destructive air and naval campaign to destroy Iran’s ability to resist American political will. But all of this conjecture, while fitting a model, may only prove to be diplomatic pressure applied by armed “assurance” (instead of deterrence) that the US, and any country willing to participate, possess the ability to disconnect Iran’s military from a useful tool of policy into a useless ability to resist. By obliterating critical points (I’ve always believed that hitting Iran’s oil store and limited production facilities for gasoline and other by products is the easiest way to achieve a military policy of crippling Iran politically and economically. It is doubtful that the US would dare to damage any of Iran’s energy facilities. The West, if it came to invasion, would rather take them intact.
As a consideration of strategy, a significant part of Iran’s reserves, including an oil shipping connection at Khark Island, lies extremely close to Iraq by land in the Adaban Region and it is vulnerable from the sea. The main obstacles in seizing by ground assault the territory are marshes and swamps (home of the trench lines of misery and death for around one million Iranian soldiers during the Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s). Seizing the territory would be relatively easy for the US Central Command, though not without unexpected difficulty in the invasion. It would inspire a backlash in the Iraqi Shi’a population against the US. The territory would provide a bargaining chip, easily defended against counter-attacks by Iran. To get back its revenue producing region, negotiations would begin over Iran’s nuclear program and support for terrorism. Seizing this territory would not require invasion and occupation of the entire country, just a portion with enough dollar/euro value to attempt to compel Iran to submit. It might lead to new terms for Iran’s participation in regional cooperation, end its nuclear research, and stop its support for guerilla/terrorist around the world. (Seizing territory in a limited war was The Cepia Club’s conclusion in an essay in Oct. 2002 for the Iraq war).
Unfortunately, US aims may be bigger than a limited objective of territory in a quid pro quo exchange. Like Iraq, the current foreign policy makers in the US might have another “big idea” vision of occupying Iran, and then establishing democracy in a country that has functioning, free elections at many levels (although the clerics still hold supreme power). Ominously, the US military confirmed earlier this week that the Israeli Air Force bombed a supposed supply transit dump in eastern Syria through which Iran is supplying Hezbol’ah in Lebanon. War clouds are looming. So what is the strategy?
If the Bush Administration does what authoritarian-minded rulers usually do–when losing one war, escalate and expand it; i.e. start a larger war–then the policy on Iran might already be set and in motion to proceed and succeed while President Bush is still in office. (One must wonder if the military will let him do it, or will they “pocket-veto” the order, which in essence would amount to a political coup. Such a thing happened, allegedly, during the final week of the Nixon Presidency). If the US gets into a larger war with Iran, the only possible winners are also the biggest winners in the world-wide balance of interests: Russia and China. The US can only lose out in the grand scheme in another such a war in Iran as it has already in Iraq. The Cepia Club will comment more later.
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posted by Scipio Cepicanus @ 1:18 AM
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