Forget Syria — Neutralize Iran
UPDATE: The Emergency Committee for Israel is sponsoring a new advertisement demanding that Obama take action against Iran.
There is a strong analogy between today’s civil war in Syria and the 1936-1939 civil war in Spain, as my PJ Media colleague Barry Rubin argued recently. The analogy may be even stronger than he suggests. Spain became a proxy war between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and the West had no interest in the victory of either side. Syria is a proxy war between Sunnis and Shi’ites, and (to quote then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir’s delicious line) we want them both to win. The difference between Spain in 1936 and Syria in 2012, to be sure, is that the West had no means to discourage the Russians and the Germans, the strongest military powers on the European continent. All the contenders in the Syrian cock-pit are tenth-rate powers next to the United States. The correct response to Syria is to neutralize Iran. By “neutralize,” I mean a campaign of air attacks and ground sabotage to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program and some other offensive capabilities.
It is unseemly and stupid for Washington to remonstrate with the Russians for playing the spoiler in Syria, for example by providing the Assad regime with attack helicopters. The way to deal with this dog is to beat up the dog’s owner, namely Tehran. Washington’s pathetic display of solicitude towards a terrorist regime that uses negotiations to buy time for nuclear weapons development aggravates every other problem in the region, Syria above all.
The greatest strategic risk to the West in the Syrian conflict is the possibility that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards might intervene with the blessing of the beleaguered Assad regime and get control of the country’s chemical weapons stockpile, reportedly the world’s largest. That would change the strategic equation in the Middle East: Iran would have a WMD second-strike capability against Israel. That, as I wrote in this space March 30, is a central Israeli concern and a supporting motivation for an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program.
Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes cogently argues that America should “stay out of the Syrian morass” in a commentary today in the Washington Times, concluding that
…protracted conflict in Syria offers some geopolitical advantages:
It lessens the chances of Damascus from starting a war with Israel or re-occupying Lebanon.
It increases the chances that Iranians, living under the thumb of the mullahs who are Assad’s key ally, will draw inspiration from the Syrian uprising and likewise rebel against their rulers.
It inspires greater Sunni Arab anger at Tehran, especially as the Islamic Republic of Iran has been providing arms, finance, and technology to help repress Syrians.
It relieves the pressure on non-Muslims: indicative of the new thinking, Jordanian Salafi leader Abou Mohamad Tahawi recently stated that “The Alawi and Shi’i coalition is currently the biggest threat to Sunnis, even more than the Israelis.”
It foments Middle Eastern rage at Moscow and Beijing for supporting the Assad regime.
Pipes says better what I proposed (in the form of an interview with the ghost of Cardinal Richelieu) last February: America should place its own security interests before supposed humanitarian concerns. We can no more prevent sectarian and ethnic war in the Middle East than we can prevent lunar eclipses. We can do a great deal, however, to make sure that the such conflicts do not spill over into our garden, and to steer the ultimate outcome to our strategic advantage.
In the case of Syria, whatever happens in that miserable ethnic patchwork of a country, the changeling brat of colonial cartographers, makes little difference to us–unless, of course, Iran is able to use Syria’s WMD for its own purposes. Iran is the threat, not Syria. The scandal is that the administration has done nothing to neutralize the Iranian threat.
Perfectly stated.
In the meantime, why not make Syria Iran’s Vietnam?
Every dead Syrian child laid at Iran’s feet, for the world to see.
Russia, China, and Iran come out stinking to the heavens.
concur
It would be nice to “cut off the head of the snake” in Tehran, but until then punishing their allies in Syria is also a good way to run down their wasta.
Be careful what you wish for. “We want them both to win” . . .against each other, yes. However, it would be foolish to forget the mutual goal within all factions of Islam, as with ‘both’ in this particular equation, is to bring ALL non-believers under submission. Precision is tantamount with such a statement.
I’ll try to be be brief, this is commentary after all not analysis.
You are precisely on target, if there is no agreement limiting Iranian enrichment activities at the upcoming Moscow conference, that is.
There is only one problem in all of this though, The Russians will never go along with it. Unless the “West” (whatever that is nowadays), secures the agreement or acquiescence of Russia, there will be no offensive action against Iran other than a VERIFIABLE surgical strike on nuclear WEAPONS development facilities in violation of the NPT.
Serious Russian geopolitical, (one might say touching the existential), interests are at stake. The “West” lied to them on NATO expansion and they are not about to be geopolitically flanked in the south through a regime changed Iran as well. We are not dealing with Yeltisn. The only way they will go along with any of this is with serious concessions to their perceived security, starting with missile defense. Any unauthorized “Western” meddling in Iran will be met with a Russian advance into the south Caucasus (possibly trouble in Korea and Kosovo as well), the most likely result of which will be the cutting off of Azerbaijani and by future extension, central Asian hydrocarbons.
Russia sees it this way: Lose Syria, lose Iran, means lose the Russian North Caucasus.
Your point on Syrian WMD’s is well taken and disturbing, a solution to this is imperative.
This business has the capacity to go way beyond what is at first apparent. I’d be very careful. The Mullahs in Teheran are playing the West and Russia off brilliantly. It’s no accident that “bazaar” is a Persian word.
BTW, great post DPG.
You make a good analysis. There is one more obvious pressure point through which Russia constrains any action we might take viz. Iran or Syria. They could shut off the northern supply route to Afghanistan, the Pakistanis having already closed the Southern route. That would leave a lot of our troops vulnerable because they would have no supplies as they carry out Obama’s war of necessity.
If a pretext is given to the Russians to cut off the South Caucasus corridor in addition to the two you mentioned, our troops will not just be vulnerable, they’ll be surrounded without adequate logistics, in the heart of Asia.
A factor that should be seriously considered by all those advocating yet another intervention in the region. At the very least, secure supply routes to Afghanistan or redeploy the troops BEFORE you strike elsewhere.
let them bleed each other dry. The tragedy of the Iran/Iraq war was that it ended after only 8 years.
Spengler’s (and others) case that Syria is a side show and that we should stay out is compelling. The main action, the center of gravity, remains the Iranian theocracy.
However, why the Russians would want to maintain an aggressive Muslim power on their southern border is beyond me, other than as an irritant to the West and the US.
In any case, I’m confident the US will take no constructive actions in Syria or Iran until the next administration. The Obama administration will, at best, do no harm. I shutter to think of the worst they can do to our interests. We’re probably best DISCOURAGING any administration actions.
John Bolton piece yesterday seems to concur with Spengler’s view.
The one problem from a domestic viewpoint there is a large contingent of Christians in the US who support Syria’s Christian community who are aligned with Assad.
What WMD does Syria possess that Iran could not manufacture on its own?
Until they actually start using it on each other Syria’s WMD stockpile is a non factor. Until there is actionable intelligence it’s only a fact that it exists, not that it would be used.
WTF are you talking about?
These are not steak knives, that may or may not be used as murder weapons.
And the fact that they are in the hands of people, and may fall into the hands of yet other people, who think nothing of slitting the throats of children, raping as a tool of policy, and burying people alive, IS actionable.
Those are also not considered actionable. We aren’t the nice police
Sorta like Sadam would never use chemical weapons against his own people…. hmmmmm
Thanks for mentioning that, Afghan Vet. I salute you.
I’d like to add that the WMD in Syria right now are most probably those same WMD that were trucked across into Syria from Iraq before they could be found and cataloged by our forces. Hence the great bruhaha over not finding “any WMD” in Iraq, and blaming the whole thing on George Bush. He didn’t “lie”; ask the Kurds.
Correct me, but I think the Kurds remain loyal to us Americans. Would that others among those rigidly closed ethnics were loyal to us Americans after all of our young lives lost or ruined, and the obscene billions of American dollars rained down.
….which is just one of many complications emerging here and there out of those hand drawn Colonial era borders straddling ethnic areas going back centuries, which Mr Goldman mentioned.
[I've got a little more on that below....see the Sykes-Picot Agreement.]
Frankly, we should never have gotten into that “nation building” thing. We Americans simply don’t have the mind-sets required to link thinking Iraqis or thinking Afghans with ourselves. There simply cannot be any meeting of minds which are quite obviously wired differently. Those Asian tribal/familial/gender-culture gaps are simply to great for us relatively uncomplicated Americans to gap. Mind, that’s not at all to belittle us Americans. Differences will remain differences.
We can look back, sadly, to too many American lives lost in two World Wars, plus the Marshall Plan rebuilding Europe, plus our efforts during that lengthy Cold War with the Soviets and Red Chinese.
Your welcome, World.
Correct that last line to read:
You’re welcome, World.
The Kurds live in a rough neighborhood and are understandably loyal to their own survival. Also there is a lot of corruption and factionalism/tribalism w/in their own establishments.
Michael Rubin at Commentary recently revisited the role of the KRG as marketplace for Iran, for example, supplying them w/refined petroleum products.
If you were an Iraqi Kurd would you be “loyal” to or trust the USG?
I used to do liaison with a mid-level Kurdish security official in Kirkuk. He had a big picture of a very prominent top Kurdish leader hanging in his office but would always gripe about what a corrupt SOB he was. I asked him about this and he replied “if I had to live in Germany under Hitler I would have his picture hanging in my office”.
Here is a good “inside” source of information on the KRG and Kurds (http://kurdistantribune.com/, Rubin also writes for them).
Not really. Saddam did actually use chemical weapons against the Kurds in northern Iraq. That made his stockpile actionable due to it’s prior use in a military engagement.
Have you met these charmers?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/syrias-ghost-killers-steroid-mad-thugs-872075
Wannabe Russian-gangsta types who have played too much GTA … a squad of U.S. Army light infantry would make short work of the pack as hors d’oeuvres.
If you are not going to cut off the serpent’s head with your first blow, far better not to fool with it at all. Why strike at Iran and leave their criminal regime in place? 1000 or so ayatollahs, basijis, and other criminal lunatics could be directly targeted. No ultimata, no appeals, no negotiations, no deadlines, no last-minute peace missions by Jimmy Carter. Hit them relentlessly and repeat as needed. And if we don’t have the spine for that, then destroy their economy by embargo, boycott, secondary boycott etc., till they collapse and the free Persian/Azeri/Kurdish/Baluchi people finally have thier day.
I doubt that even most Republican administrations would have the intestinal fortitude to do what you are proposing. The odds of the Democratic regime of Barack Hussein Obama doing so are Slim and None – and Slim just left town.
“However, why the Russians would want to maintain an aggressive Muslim power on their southern border is beyond me, other than as an irritant to the West and the US.”
The point is that Iran is Shi’a, whereas as the Islamo-militants of the southern Caucuses are Sunni. Assad is also Shi’a, and a minority within the minority of the Shi’a at that.
The Chechen/Dagestani terrorists patrons have long been Turkey, and behind the scenes, Saudi Arabia. Watch Plan Kavkaz, the First Channel program about a repentant ex-’Turkish militant’ who admits to the Turks even going so far during the early 1990s as to print an independent Chechnya’s currency for them to create a full fledged Caucasian client state (and for who in the West backed the Turks, look up ‘Prometheanism’ or an excellent YouTube summary of Zigniew Brzezinski — there has been a post-Soviet agenda to promote the break up of the Russian Federation long after Moscow had been humiliated and ceased to be any threat to anyone outside of its own neighborhood). RFE/RL denounced it as propaganda, but the fact is there have been some wealthy, powerful actors who wanted Russia to continue falling apart. Just because Putin is paranoid does not mean Russia hasn’t had post-Soviet enemies who’ve behaved as if their prophecy that Russians would become demographically and geopolitcally irrelevant (Zaire with permafrost — or the Economist’s Ed Lucas’ predictions of a collapse into four mutually antagonistic states) would happen if they just kept repeating it often enough.
I suspect some of David’s willingness to at least ignore those inside the Beltway shreiking for vengeance against Russia for backing Assad is motivated by the quiet understanding Israel and Russia have reached (does Israel really want the Muslim Brotherhood on the Golan Heights?) and the fact that an aggressive, Islamizing Turkey is going to be inevitably be a menace to both Israel and Russia.
If the missile defense system was all about Iran, Bush would’ve taken up Putin’s offer of the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan which can track any launch from hundreds of miles into Iranian air space. That was on the agenda in 2007 when they met at Kennebunkport. Darth Cheney and the anti-Russia lobby in D.C. killed it. That on top of Putin feeling betrayed over the Orange Revolutions as David documented in two essays (Putin for President and Americans Play Monopoly, Russians Play Chess) led to the 08/08/08 proxy war.
In the event of an Israeli strike on Iran involving Azeri airspace, keep an eye on Gabala. There is no way in hell the Russians who operate that station wouldn’t detect a bunch of IAF F-16s and F-15s stopping to refuel in Azerbaijan. But don’t worry, Israel will tell the neocons in D.C. that they jammed a massive x-band radar designed to peer into outer space with a jamming pod from an F-16. Anything to save the neocons the embarassment of having to admit that Russia and Israel are in cahoots on some selective issues. They certainly screwed Iran good in return for pulling all their advisors out of Georgia.
Reminds me why the expression “paranoid Russian” is a pleonasm. The idea that I am shading comments to conform to some imaginary Israeli-Russian agreement is delusional. You’re a loonie. The Russian role in Syria is disgusting. The reason I don’t make a fuss about it is that it’s pointless to tell the Putin regime not to be disgusting. I don’t want to dicker with the Russians over Syria. I want to neutralize the dog’s owner.
I had to look up the word ‘pleonasm’. Good one.
Interesting how you are being accused of ‘shading’ your opinion to the advantage of Israel.
More than a strong whiff of something, there, though I can’t quite name it . . . .
Good Strategy Goldman. Right out of Sun Tsu. Let them beat the hell out of each other and the russians (Chechnya anyone?)We need to euthanise the Iranian regime
and put those mullahs to bed , once and for all. Then we can help make Syria russia’s Afghanistan redux.
“The Russian role in Syria is disgusting.”
I’d say, no more than Turkey’s role in Syria is going to be, if we let it. America’s counter to Russia is to let the Turks in. But is mixing it to such a degree good for the Jews?
The Alawites are not “exactly” Shiites.
They were declared “Muslims” by Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, aka “Hitler’s Imam”, in order to let them take part in the Arab nationalist movement, and declared Shiites by Musa al-Sadr to add their power to the Shia community.
There beliefs are far from orthodox, and some authorities consider them outright heretics like the Ahmadi and Bahai.
Someone might consider a campaign to disparage their Muslim identity and so undermine their legitimacy to rule an Arab Muslim states to be a viable option, but that would certainly open the door to massive ethno-religious cleansing of the Alawite community as with the various Assyrian Christian communities.
You best be watching Washington!
Fact Sheet – Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)
http://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=6287
Latest SciTech Boeing testing new spy drones in CaliforniaJun 5, 2012- 2:31 – ‘Phantom Eye’ prototype runs on hydrogen power
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1675300764001/mystery-space-plane-heads-back-to-earth/?playlist_id=86861
Here’s the essence of the whole Central/West Asian cauldron…pasted and edited below from Mr Goldman…..
“……. whatever happens in that miserable ethnic patchwork of a country,[-ies] the changeling brat [-s] of colonial cartographers,…”
The brackets are mine, meant to include that whole nasty, seething area of hand drawn borders in the Colonial Era’s waning days and years inside Central/West Asia.
I’ve often mentioned that Sykes-Picot Agreement as the incubator for our current mess. It bears reviewing, if only as background for all of this endless tragedy.
Alas, the perpetrators, England and France, are in no position at all this hour to offer anything at all in the way of solving this monster they’d so smugly carved up among themselves during the early years of the Twentieth Century. Don’t point any fingers at Wilsonian America, anyone.
So, I’m angry that we Americans find ourselves right smack in the middle in this year 2012….yet again….only….good grief!….now it’s Hillary and Obama playing at World Events. Orwellian, no other word covers it.
They’ll both be even more dangerous as Lame Ducks after November. I hope the back-rooms somewhere have sensible, responsible people drawing up contingency plans…..lots of ‘em.
Mr. Goldman, I would be curious to hear how you would respond to this article in the Christian Science Monitor concerning Iran:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2012/0608/Iran-s-nuclear-program-4-things-you-probably-didn-t-know/President-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-never-said-that-Israel-should-be-wiped-off-the-map.
The points it makes are:
1. Ahmadinejad was misquoted when it was reported he said Israel must be wiped off the map,
2. Ayatollah Khamenei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons,
3. Iran has a legitimate need for more energy, which is driving its nuclear efforts,
4. The US and Israel both say Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.
I, myself, see Iran as the greatest threat to this country and its allies. But I am surprised that these points have never been brought up, even if to refute, on conservative blogs I have read concerning Iran’s nuclear program. And to leave them unanswered would be just a little too, well . . . liberal.
See “The Iranian Leadership’s Continuing Declarations of Intent to Destroy Israel, http://jcpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IransIntent2012b.pdf) for a clear, extensive and convincing analysis of that matter.
Regarding Iranian energy needs, western countries have offered many “deals” which would allow Iran to receive nuclear fuel enriched outside the country instead of enriching domestically. Iranian acceptance of such a deal would also have lifted sanctions and allowed investment to pour in to modernize the Iranian petroleum extraction and refining industries. D.P. Goldman wrote some excellent pieces as early as 2006 arguing that impending exhaustion of Iranian oil reserves combined with poor demographics and economic prospects drives Iranian aggression intended to control oil reserves in Iraq, the Persian Gulf, etc. (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA24Ak01.html, http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/02/29/irans-rational-suicide/). Iranian conventional forces are antiquated and not up to committing such aggressions so a nuclear weapons umbrella and threat is essential to such a project (see, “A Military Attack on Iran? Considerations for Israeli Decision Making” by IAF Lt.Col . Ron Tira, http://www.inss.org.il/upload/(FILE)1279454147.pdf).
The famous “anti-nuke” fatwa by Khameni has not been produced. In any case, the Khomenist government of Iran is not unacquainted with the practices of lying and deception. You may have heard that they introduced the practice of half-hour “marriages” so that Iranian “Johns” could indulge themselves with prostitutes w/o committing adultery.
It’s a historical fact: The following nations developed atomic weapons in secret:
America
USSR
UK
France
Red China
India
Pakistan
South Africa
Israel
…
and, in process,
North Korea and Iran ( a combo program, for sure )
( Libya sorta started an attempt, as did Iraq )
So why in the world would ANYONE expect the mullah’s to be the first power in history to admit they want the ‘equalizer’?
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As for intentions: Not ONE player ever developed long range ( IRBM ) ballistic missiles WITHOUT simultaneously developing atomic warheads for them. They’re too expensive otherwise. As Speer said: If I knew earlier what results the V2/A4 would be; I’d have cancelled it immediately.
Pondering the above tells us that the Nationalist Chinese government is also an atomic power. They’ve built two IRBMs of the highest quality — but very limited numbers. Plainly, they are a counter-population deterrent. Without atomics they have no military utility at all.
Pondering the Iranian missile program… it’s as relentless as the build-up of enriched uranium 235.
Speaking technically, it’s impossible to construct a viable atomic weapon with enriched uranium, per se. In modern weapons, such explosive is used as a booster in super-bombs/ aka H bombs.
The ONLY explosive known to produce MISSILE ready warheads centers around plutonium 239. Unlike uranium, it’s practical to produce it at a nearly pure concentration.
When added to the ‘Vienna laptop’ ( a smuggled laptop with a workmanlike plutonium atom bomb design ) one must assume that the mullahs have some secret facility that is cranking out plutonium.
( The nature of the beast means that uranium 235 can never be driven to the purity required to beat the plutonium solution. That’s why plutonium is such a big deal. )
Elsewhere in the saga, the West has discovered that the Iranians have built the custom, special purpose facility required to test implosions and implosion triggers upon their designs. Such an effort speaks volumes about national intent.
As for Iranian need for electric power: she sits on the worlds largest methane gas fields — per capita — only now being exceeded by fracking methods. In round numbers, she has five to ten centuries worth of natural gas — depending on just how much she grows demand.
Natural gas fired generation provides the lowest cost power known – - with the exception of this or that old hydropower project. ( Not so, for new ones, though. )
I had always supposed that the Iranians invested all those resources in enriching Uranium because it is easy to make a bomb once you have a critical mass of Uranium 235. You just divide the stuff into two parts and slam them together with explosive and there is a chain reaction and the stuff blows up.
I had also understood that it is much trickier making a plutonium bomb of the implosion type because of timing issues getting all the plutonium to compress into one piece from all directions at the same time. If you can do this, you can make something light enough for a missle warhead, if you have to rely on the uranium gun type bombs, then you can’t make it compact enough for a missle, but it works good for an aircraft bomb or something delivered on a truck or a tramp steamer. I suspect working with plutonium isn’t as simple as one might expect. It is very poisonous, I believe it ignites spontaneously in air, and there may be difficulties separating it from other similar isotopes if you make it in a breeder reactor. Don’t know, I am not an expert.
Your thesis about an Iranian plutonium bomb is very interesting; however, if that is right, it makes me wonder why have they spent so much effort enriching uranium?
Enriched uranium DRASTICALLY improves the economics of any uranium to plutonium converter reactor.
Without enrichment you need a really terrific moderator, like heavy water — and the CANDU reactor design, or ‘trick’ graphite blocks per the Hanford design.
WITH enrichment, the device can be scaled down in size tremendously. After enrichment, a simple converter scheme could fit underneath any major building — even in downtown Tehran.
[ The original Hanford scheme used ultra-pure graphite ( soft carbon ) that was NOT contaminated by C14. It was soon found that throughput increased dramatically if enriched uranium was used. ]
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With the above in mind, one would assume that Iran has sprinkled uranium converter reactors all over. These can perform double duty: cranking out yet other isotopes suitable for enhancing the yield of an implosion design.
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For some crazy, crazy reason, the press buys into the idea that Iran is going to have to follow in the footsteps of America, circa 1943 through 1963….
The reality is that Red China and North Korea and the ex-USSR have given Tehran the blue prints for late 50′s designs.
There will be no Little Boy or Fat Man in the Iranian program.
No nation has built a Little Boy design since the Manhattan Project! It’s TOO EXPENSIVE, too heavy and too wasteful.
So, it’s the design that is always trotted out for the public.
It’s an insult to the national intelligence.
“More than a strong whiff of something, there, though I can’t quite name it . . . .” I am neither an anti-Semite nor a looney, though lots of those types do post comments here from time to time and curiously, their comments are not deleted. Not me. And I certainly didn’t accuse David of taking some sort of mind ray commands from Zionist central, contrary to your insinuations. But ever since the flotilla incident Turkey hasn’t exactly been high on his list of governments the U.S. or anyone else should play nice with. The Israeli-Russian UAV deals are hardly imaginary or one-off, no matter how much cognitive dissonance they create between the pro-Israel and wildly anti-Russian elements in D.C.
And I personally find Saakashvili’s regime disgusting, along with the D.C. lobbying and support for people who call Latvian SS veterans heroes. I find Ed Lucas obnoxious Russophobia to the point of calling Kaliningrad ‘occupied Eurpean territory’ while he wails about alleged Russian revanchism disgusting. And I find those Twitterati who accuse fellow Americans who don’t want to jump on the bandwagon of arming the Muslim Brotherhood Kremlin dupes disgusting.
A thoughtful piece. Indeed, who cares if innocents are being murdered in Syria, they are just Iran’s proxies. In the meantime, what’s that sound (boom, boom, boom)? Those are the drums of war, beating for the ayatollahs in Iran…
“…(to quote then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir’s delicious line)…”
Sometimes you come across as a person who enjoys food too much. Repeating what your wife probably told you many times: lose some weight! Let’s wait and see if if fat people come to your defense.
Respectfully,
Krakow
“In the case of Syria, whatever happens in that miserable ethnic patchwork of a country, the changeling brat of colonial cartographers, makes little difference to us–unless, of course, Iran is able to use Syria’s WMD for its own purposes.”
Personally, I would like nothing better than to see both factions slaughter each other in Syria. It would be payback for what the Syrians made the American Army go through in Iraq. The only problem is Syria’s chemical weapons. But before anybody gets bent out of shape about Syria’s chemical weapons, can we this time make sure that they actually DO have a lot of chemical weapons? Remember when everybody (including the Europeans) thought Saddam Hussein had WMDs and that finding them in Iraq would be a “slam-dunk?” Our intelligence on these matters are usually lousy, so before anybody bombs anybody, somebody would have to show some good, hard, evidence that the Syrians have a lot of this stuff and that it is weaponized, meaning it can be delivered by either rockets or bombs or artillery shells.
If they do have it, make the information public and put the pressure on the Syrians to give up the munitions up. They obviously won’t do it, but it will at least put you in a better political position if you have to bomb them over it. As for Iran, support the rebels inside of Iran with everything they need, from weapons to money and military training. Let the Iranian people do what we can’t seem to do, and that is obtain regime change in Iran at very little cost to us. It’s their country, so let the Iranians overthrow the mullahs. With the right help, they could do it.
There are hard drives’ worth of information on Syria’s chemical and biological arsenal in Tel Aviv, and, no doubt, copied to the Pentagon as well.
Ditto on the slaughter thing, but does anyone suggest that the loser in Syria would think twice about securing WMDs before departing for parts unknown? Isn’t that the greater danger? In this matter, Assad’s thinking would be, as befits a Francophone country, Après moi, le déluge.
Also… Syria is strongly reported to have Sarin, Tabun, VX, other assorted filth, and the means to deliver them.
One notes that significant numbers of chemical munitions were in fact captured by Coalition forces in Iraq. The fact that even here people are unaware of this illustrates the success the mainstream media had in dropping this inconvenient fact down the Memory Hole. Even a left-leaning monthly like The Atlantic admits to this:
ttp://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/10/chemical-weapons-i-were-i-found-in-iraq/180872/
And of course there is the extensive discussion of Saddam’s captured poison gas stockpile in the material released by Wikileaks.
Nonetheless, this goes against the Left’s narrative: Bushy McChimphitler lied! Babies died! Dubya eats babies! No war for oil! etc. Therefore the left-leaning mainstream newsmedia censors the information, never to be heard about or discussed again.
I’d settle for neutralizing Pakistan.
When will you learn? The United States of America is never going to stand up to iran. One glaring example would be October 23, 1983. The Marines on guard duty were not even allowed to have their weapons loaded. Thank you Ronnie and to all of you other cowardly politicians.
Semper fi
to the death, through eternity
October surprise!
(repeat every election season.)
Spengler may have just saved the world economy!
Cripes, that was too trite, even for me. Look at the time stamp. Mea culpa.
I think, though, that it’s accurate.
The Left (and many of their Right allies) do love to talk.
I wish our military could be let loose in short, punitive expeditions, doing what they know is right, rather than this endless rainmaking for political poseurs.
The real problem is that those French and British cartographers went home.
Throw in the Kaaba and half the Saudi royals, Spengler, and you’ve got a deal.
The hubbub here reminds me of an old idea: “Terminate with extreme prejudice.”
On the other hand, there is no good reason for American lives to be lost in an Arab civil war. Yes, the libs believe [remember, we are discussing a religion here] that helping the Syrians would be a “good” cause…but they don’t know which Syrians they should help and have absolutely NO idea what the outcome of that help might be. The “known knowns” are far outweighed by both the “unknown knowns” and the “unknown unknowns,” especially with respect to WMD. Israel is probably safer with an on-going civil war in Syria, and one that is generating turmoil and unrest in Lebanon.
Oh, I think we all know what the endgame in Syria is going to look like. It’s going to be another fascistic mullahocracy, even more hostile to the West than it was under Ba’athist rule, just like Egypt and Iraq. See also, Iran. See also the Turkish Spring, coming soon to a former NATO member and ally near you.
This is intentional. The Noam Chomskys and George Galloways will observe with glee as the new regimes declare eternal jihad against Israel, against the US, against the West, and support terrorism around the world. “Aren’t you in favor of democracy?” they will smirk.
Mr Goldman,
I’d like to direct your attention to the May 17 article by Lt.Colonel Ron Tira (Israel Air Force Reserve) in Infinity Journal ,a journal, which deals with strategic issues.
The name of the article is “Yes They Can: The US Can Prevent Iran from Acquiring the A-Bomb” here is the link. Free registration is required.
http://www.infinityjournal.com/article/58/Yes_They_Can_The_US_Can_Prevent_Iran_from_Acquiring_the_ABomb
The article sets out a clear campaign for reaching the results you write about.
WE MUST HELP THE SYRIAN PEOPLE. BASHAR AL ASSAD IS SADAAM II. BATH PARTY ALL.
DON’T YOU WANT TO FIND IRAQS WOMD’S. WHY LIBYA AND NOT SYRIA. IF YOU WANT TO BREAK IRAN FREE SYRIA. WE DON’T HAVE TO STAY THERE. WE CAN RUN GUNS IN FROM ISRAEL. CALL IT THE AMERICAN FREE TRADE ZONE.
http://WWW.SPIRITOFAMERICAPARTYRADIOSHOW.COM
THE CALDRONIZATION OF THE MIDDLE EAST IS AT HAND
Let Sunni and Shia kill each other by the millions in their rite of passage through hell to modernity. Horrific as it is there’s no other way for them.
My first thought on seeing the title was exactly correct.
So Mr. GOLDMAN wants us to shed blood for Israel? Shocking. Take your dual loyalty and shove it where the sun don’t shine Goldman.
Attacking Syria or Iran is NOT in the best interests of the United States. Obviously not the primary concern of Mr. GOLDMAN.
Wrong, Professor! It is indeed in the interest of the United States to attack Iran. Your flippant assertion to the contrary does not change the matter. Russia is an adversary. China is a “frenemy.” However, Iran is an honest and straightforward enemy of the United States who would – if it could – replace America with itself and reduce freedom to a question of who has the most power.
Syria is a proxy war between Sunnis and Shi’ites, and … we want them both to win.
I look back longingly at the salad days of the Iraq-Iran war. Boy, times were good back then.
But, this time, we can’t be so optimistic.
***
I prefer to call antisemitism Anti-Jewism, cuz Arabs are Semites, too. Wouldn’t want to put the Jews in a bucket with that sort. But there is an unspoken thought among goyische that the Moslem problem is really all about the Jews. That if we only fed the Jews to the Moslems everything’d be ok.
No, if we did that, and we very well may do it in the near future, the worst possible outcome would be the sudden and explosive end of the only democracy, indeed the only civilized country, in the history of the Middle East.
Funny thing, though: The news entertainers always furrow their brows and mumble about long flight times, anti-aircraft emplacements, and deep bunkers. They never bring up the IDF submarines, which in my heart I know are feathered with a phalanx of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
Mr Goldman is spreading a lot, a ton of wishful thinking about the eventual but very remote if not completely inexistent will of the current BHO administration to stop once for all Iran nuclear arm race.BHO is definitely the Coward-in-chief and Panetta is playing fiddle to the USA’s surrender.
I have been calling for bypassing Syria for some time. The problem is not that we do not know and understand the myriad facts necessitating American action expeditiously.
Overwhelming evidence questions WHY American decision-makers ignore the urgency to act assiduously? Simply put this is a matter with life and death implications.
Yet, every effort is expended to deny the Iranian Theocracy’s commitment to obtain a nuclear capability with the potential to create a hell on earth against Israeli and American non-believers.
Perhaps the answer simply lies with the American progressive identification with the supposed Iranian nation as a victim of capitalist oppression. I wonder if moral indignation serves to condemn our own society while secretly yearning for a nuclear Iran beyond our manipulative control?
Are the potential catastrophic repercussions of massive death simply a threat to be willfully downplayed, ignored, and hidden under the guise of feverish diplomacy with no end in sight?
Is there a marriage of rationalization whetting the progressive appetite between Marx’s dictum that “everything that exists deserves to parish” and the Ayatollah’s call for wipping Israel from the face of the earth?
A world-transforming paradise at the cost of untold carnage to make a progressive dream possible?
Politicians must end waging polemical political wars against ourselves. Cease the endless diplomatic excuses. Act in a resolute manner to end the self-serving political machinations of postponement till after the presidential elections of 2012.
Which politician will dare to sweep the potential progrom of millions under the carpet if they refuse to make the right decision?
@Mr Goldman,
I quite agree with your thorough analysis but don’t you think Putin would actively oppose American strikes againt Iran ?
Wouldn’t we go dive to a nuclear armagedon (Har Megido) ?
Shabbat Shalom ,
trump
Re: recent press reports claiming rebels killing Christians and blaming Assad (Houla Massacre)..
And why would Mother Agnès-Mariam of the St. James Monastery lie.
Perhaps she believes it is the only alternative to seeing her monastery turned into a mosque and her charges violated.
Since the U.S. won’t (perhaps can’t) stand up for the weak and oppressed by guaranteeing all combatants that any harm that befalls the peaceful religious of all faiths will redound at their peril (creating red lines for the political processes and civil wars), perhaps the Church should renew their Swiss Guards as a “Foreign Legion” that will play the role of the assassins of old – and simply eliminate leadership determined (by secret court that makes public its findings). With us one day, dead in their beds the next.
Where the at-risk organizations register and swear to a statement of pacific principles that are regularly verified (perhaps include online, satellite comms-based and satellite surveillance monitoring). And the Court findings include a means to appeal the death sentences, and/or buy them down with compensation and verified changes in behavior. Granted, much of the world finds itself believing that words alone can be an offence to the peace.