[lit-ideas] War with Iran
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:58:07 -0800
Eric,
I just read Bevin Alexander's The Future of Warfare. He published his book
in 1995, but his comments seem valid. He argues that a powerful nation
cannot defeat a weaker nation if the people of that nation oppose the
invasion and are willing to engage in a guerilla war. He uses the Boer War
and some others as an example of this. The guerilla activity will bog the
more powerful nation down and eventually the cost and disaffection back home
will force the stronger nation to withdraw. This happened to France and the
U.S. in Vietnam and to the USSR in Afghanistan. Our Iraqi efforts do not
fit Alexander's paradigm because we have support from the Iraqi people. As
long as the Iraqi majority wants to pursue a democracy and is willing to
develop an army and police force to support it, and as long as we are
satisfied with that result - a result that may fall far short of the
American Liberal-Democratic ideal -- then we will have succeeded in our
objective and will not fall victim to the pitfalls Alexander warns against.
In regard to Iran, Alexander would probably favor the German/French/British
negotiations there. He favors diplomacy and argues we should never go to
war unless our strategic interests are at stake. But if we did have to deal
with Iran militarily, the approach that seems to fit is the following:
". . . And when we do invade, we should bear in mind that our primary aim is
to force the enemy to end his objectionable actions.
"The United States may attempt to accomplish this objective by using the
following two-stage strategy, a strategy that should apply, in general, to
powerful countries invading weaker ones. In the first stage, we would
overwhelm the enemy defenses and quickly eliminate organized resistance by
regular enemy forces, topple the government (as in Panama in 1989), or
disrupt the existing power balance (as in Somalia in 1993). We would
immediately bring about the cessation of the country's obnoxious
international (not necessarily internal) behavior, and we would seize the
principal enemy leaders or drive them under cover. This would be an
extremely traumatic and costly experience to the people of the invaded
country - one they would not want repeated. At this stage, there would be
no organized opposition because the nation's leadership system would have
been temporarily paralyzed.
"If at this point we were to withdraw our forces, the leaders who would
emerge or reemerge would cease international confrontations if only to avoid
another invasion. They would be unlikely to improve poor internal
conditions, but these conditions would not affect other countries."
If you have listened to Bush's speeches the last few days, you would hear
that he is still very committed to advancing democracy which would mean he
wouldn't be utterly happy with Alexander's advice. He would want to cause
the cessation of Iran's internal as well as its external "obnoxious
behavior." We could do the Alexander in-and-out strategy at minimum cost,
but we couldn't (in my opinion) afford (financially or politically) to hang
around to make Iran a democracy in accordance with Bush's principle of
spreading freedom.
It is possible that the government that would arise out of the ashes of an
Alexander in-and-out strategy in Iran would be democratic. There is a
sizeable segment of the Iranian population that would seem to be amenable to
democracy. On the other hand, the current negotiations with Iran over Iraq
are promising. Perhaps if the talks are successful (which would necessitate
a curtailment of Iran's exportation of its revolution), Iran might be
willing to back off its nuclear ambitions; which would allow us to take the
"military option" off the table.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Eric
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 1:52 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Iran/al-Qaeda Ties Suggested
>>You want a war.
You need reading glasses. I don't want a war.
Nobody wants a war with Iran. We'd need a
national draft. Many millions of Iranians would
die. It would be a tragedy far worse than the
situation in Iraq. (I posted Hitchens' notion of a
new truce with Iran, by the way.)
If you recall the genesis of this tiff, Omar
posted a Web site deploring alleged US torture of
al-Qaeda. The pull quote on the page contained a
remark that KSM, the mastermind of the al-Qaeda
9/11 attacks, was being tortured by waterboarding.
My take was, "So what?" Waterboard him all they
want. Big deal. I could care less what they do to
such scum. Better yet, subject him to more abuse
and give him an abusive burial. That would be fine
with me. It would never ever happen, but I
wouldn't object to the proposition.
If the Brits had captured Hitler during the Blitz
and slapped him around a bit, I suppose you'd get
all catty about their anger. That's your right,
safely away from Ground Zero as you are.
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