“Let’s Have It So! Let’s Make a Revolution for Fun!
The historian Gabriel Kolko writes to Antiwar.com to explain why the Bush Administration will not attack Iran in an alternate reality, very much like our own, but where America’s political class thinks things through. Unfortunately, few of Kolko’s 9 bullet points hold in our own dimension:
1. THE U.S. AND EUROPEAN ECONOMIES are now in a crisis, and it may be protracted. The dollar is falling in value, Gulf States and others may abandon it, etc. A war with Iran would produce economic chaos, because oil would be scarce. There are states, like Russia and Venezuela, who can sell it. In a word, the balance of world economic power is involved, and that is a great issue.
Maybe so. Heritage has worked overtime, with Bush Administration help, to spin the economic consequences the other way. Meanwhile, if the upper reaches of the Beltway Consensus are thinking like Leon Hadar is thinking about the economy, they may feel they have little to lose by taking a flyer on Iran. Nevertheless, this is Kolko’s single strongest argument.
2. THE GULF STATES do not like Shia Iran, but they export oil, becoming rich thereby. They are dependent on peace, not war.
This is a great argument for why the Gulf States will try to discourage a war with Iran. This is very important in those shadows where George W. Bush cares what other countries think. All the Bush Administration really needs from the Gulf countries is for Kuwait not to shut off the supply route into Iraq, and for countries like Qatar where the US has command and control facilities to not storm them. The US can fly missions from bases in Iraq that were built for the purpose of supporting war with Iran, from carriers, and from Diego Garcia. It can probably fly missions from the ‘Stans, even from the continental United States, as happened during the Kosovo war. I figure the Kuwaiti Royal Family will still spot the Bush family a couple of favors, however reluctantly.
3. THE U.S. PUBLIC AND CONGRESS are variable factors. As the last election proved, anyone who thinks the Democrats will stop wars is fooling himself or herself. But war with Iran would require new authorizations. Then the Congress would, potentially, be very important. I may be wrong, but I may be right.
Here Kolko is simply naive, on several levels. Kyl-Lieberman will already do for an authorization. As far as the Bush Administration is concerned, the 2001 and 2002 use of farce (sic) resolutions already authorize it to attack anyone on the globe at any time. Even in the absence of those resolutions, American presidents have maintained since Truman that they are authorized to attack anyone on the globe at any moment on their own say-so.
4. CHENEY AND THE NEOCONS huff and puff ideologies and are very articulate ideologues. Will they volunteer to fight Iran, and what will they do on the battlefield? How many effective fighters do they have at the Weekly Standard or AEI?
Dear Professor Kolko: They have people for that.
5. THE AMERICAN MILITARY is at the present moment stretched to the limit. They are losing both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Everything is being sacrificed for these wars: money, equipment in Asia, American military power globally, etc. Where and how can they fight yet another?
The Army is stretched to the limit. The Marines are stretched to the limit. The reserve and Guard systems are overtaxed. The American military has plenty of spare offensive capacity. The Air Force is, from a hawk’s perspective, underutilized. The Navy is comfortably below the limit of what it could pump out. That’s why every time you hear someone advocating that the US “deal with” Iran, they speak in terms of air war. They even disclaim any interest in a ground invasion.
And because America’s ground forces are tied down in multiple losing campaigns right now, America’s political class is highly motivated to send the message, “We can still mess you up!” A bombing campaign against a hostile power would make that point nicely.
6. BUNKER BUSTERS can knock out so many bunkers – not all. If they are nuclear they are very useful, but they are also radioactive. In addition to killing enemies, they may kill friends and nearby U.S. soldiers also. It depends where you must drop them.
Even I think they probably won’t use nukes, though I believe a faction within the Beltway Consensus would like to “normalize” tactical nukes. Why? Because the United States has a lot of them. It would be convenient to the United States to establish the principle that it can get away with using nuclear weapons. Kolko of all people ought to realize that the point is power and control.
But leave American nukes aside. America’s Iran hawks aren’t pushing war for the sake of Iran’s nukes. They’re pushing Iran’s nukes for the sake of war. The more perception of Iran’s nuclear imminence diminishes, the more America’s Iran hawks talk about Iranian interference in Iraq. The Mission is not to keep Iran from getting nukes. The Mission is to either replace Iran’s government with a compliant one, or to drastically weaken the regime. Washington is full of people who really believe that the Iranian people will undertake a pro-American revolution as soon as American bombs have degraded the security apparatus of the Islamic Republic.
7. WHAT WILL IRAN DO, and what sorts of technology do they possess? They fought against Iraq about a decade, and suffered about half a million casualties. Perhaps they will roll over, but it’s not likely. There are a number of tiny islands in the Gulf they have had years to fortify. Can 90 percent of their weapons be knocked out? The remainder will be sufficient to sink many boats and tankers. The oil exported through the Gulf will thereby be reduced, and perhaps cease altogether.
This kind of thing scares me, but I’m not mad with hubris. I am sure the Kyl-Lieberman Tendency believes that once we drive the Iranians from the field at Bull Run, the war will be over. Bombs fall. The Iranian vox pop turns its grateful faces skyward as toward a much-needed rain, then the survivors advance on Buckingham Palace in Guy Fawkes’ masks. Just like in 1938: The Only Year in History.
To the extent that Iran has any success sinking tankers, they encourage the rest of the world to, functionally, take America’s side in the conflict. Nobody wants tankers sunk - not producers, not consumers.
8. ISRAEL may be a factor. They must cross Syrian and Jordanian airspace, and the Iranians will be prepared if they are not shot down over Syria. Their countermeasures may be effective, but perhaps not. Hence a number of Israeli pilots will realize they are embarking on suicide missions. Will they? Some will, others will not.
I guess I have a lot more faith in the sense of duty in the Israeli Air Force, and a lot less faith in Syria’s military prowess, than Kolko does. Syria’s military is a joke. And Israeli pilots are not going to chicken out of a mission just because it’s dangerous. This point of Kolko’s just seems confused.
9. IRAN IS LIKELY TO GET NUCLEAR BOMBS, sooner or later. So will other nations. Israel has hundreds already. Israeli strategists believe deterrence will then exist. Why risk war?
It’s not about the bombs. It’s about avenging the humilation of 1979, reversing the strategic gains we handed Iran when America conquered Iraq, shutting off the pipeline to Hezbollah on Israel’s northern flank and preventing the emergence of a regional power anywhere, but especially in the Middle East. It’s about toppling the Mullahs. It doesn’t matter that the Mullahs are sane and cautious. It doesn’t matter that the Mullahs are autocratic bastards. What matters, from the perspective of the Iran hawks, is that the Mullahs are hostile.
I wish Kolko’s arguments made more sense. But they seem not to reflect any lived experience of the Bush Years. The President is arrogant and grandiose; the neoconservatives and Halliburtoncons are persistent; the GOP’s base remains nationalist and militarist; the nominal opposition Party is in segments hapless, spineless or in on the con; the institutional checks and balances broken.
Maybe it won’t happen. I hope that Dana Priest is right that, “Frankly, I think the military would revolt and there would be no pilots to fly those missions. This is a little bit of hyperbole, but not much.” Unfortunately, she goes on to cite an Army general. Glenn Greenwald has further links showing evidence of resistance to an Iran attack within the uniformed military. I hope that’s accurate, and that it holds. But I suspect that, if push comes to shove, the Bush Administration can find commanders and pilots to attack Iran. George Bush remains commander-in-chief of the military; the role of the military remains to follow civilian orders; and the military continues to be more “Republican” than the public at large, and Republicans continue to be more pro-war than the public at large.
The optimistic reading of events is that the commander of CENTCOM and the Secretary of Defense oppose attacking Iran. But I think the “optimistic” outcome is a series of sanctions and confrontations that make war likelier down the road. It took the same people now pushing for war with Iran twelve years to finally get the United States to topple Saddam Hussein by force. They’d have done it sooner if they could have, but the did it sooner or later regardless. But I’m not an optimist.
Comment by Nell —
September 30, 2007 @ 10:09 pm
But I suspect that, if push comes to shove, the Bush Administration can find commanders and pilots to attack Iran.
Sadly, yes. Sy Hersh (quoted in the K/L tendency link) says some are warming to the revamped “limited” targeting of IRGC facilities: “with its tightened focus on counterterrorism, [the plan] is gathering support among generals and admirals in the Pentagon.“
Comment by Doug M. —
September 30, 2007 @ 11:46 pm
Well, it has to happen within the next 337 days.
Doug M.
Comment by josephdietrich —
October 1, 2007 @ 1:25 am
Regarding point 7, of all the possible responses to an American attack, an “if I can’t have it, no one can” attack on oil tankers in the Gulf seems the least likely. There Kolko falls into the “they’re c-c-Crazy!” trap that the war hawks want us to all to believe about Iran’s regime. Sure, Iran would probably respond towards US military assets in the Gulf and in Iraq, but targeting third-party countries just doesn’t seem their style at all. If there is one constant in Iranian behavior, it has been one of trying to look like it has been a good (if proud and sovereign) international citizen. Of course, that looking glass is not clear; too much fog of war and all that.
However, the whole question of “no one knows what technology they might possess” is silly; this is the Iranians we are talking about, not the aliens from Planet X. There seems to be a tendency among some, and I think Kolko falls into that group here, of underestimating just how far ahead the US military is compared to other national armies. Yes, Virginia, we really are way ahead of everyone else. Which makes it all the more imperative to argue not about possible dire effects of our actions in tactical military terms, but instead to argue in larger ethical and geo-strategic terms.
His point 8 just gave me a good belly laugh. What is the Israeli military like in the alternate universe Kolko lives in?
Overall, great post Jim. You pretty much all the points.
Regarding Doug’s next 337 days: What makes you think any future Administration, given the field of candidates we have to choose from, will handle this much better. The problem or Iran is one of belief in the right of American regional hegemony, one that is shared by the political class on both sides of the aisle. I mean, I hope you are right and the clock is ticking, but I have not seen a good reason to believe this is true.
Comment by Noumenon —
October 1, 2007 @ 3:45 am
Heck of an interesting link to that 1992 strategy column. How come when people tell everyone what they’re going to do, nobody listens to them?
Comment by Teemu —
October 1, 2007 @ 5:46 am
I have no idea why sharp oil price rise is often seen as something that would hinder the Cheney posse from provoking war.
Single biggest profiter of Iran/gulf conflict would be non-gulf-reliant oil producing industry. I wouldn’t mind shooting global economy into face, if I could then proceed to devour all the fat tissue of its carcass.
Comment by Scott —
October 1, 2007 @ 7:05 am
The USAF Academy is in the heart of evangelicalville in Colorado Springs. They’ll bomb who their Godly Leader tells them to bomb.
Comment by Chris —
October 1, 2007 @ 7:17 am
The Yorkshire Ranter adds some useful evidence to the debate. FWIW, the U.S. military doesn’t seem to be doing what you would expect it to be doing if it were planning to do soon what you think it will do. Not that this will stop me from worrying about the medium term, but still . . .
Comment by 123@gmail.com —
October 1, 2007 @ 7:52 am
Air Forces have always produced the craziest brass, whether they be Italian (Giulio Douhet) British (Bomber Harris) or American (Curtis LeMay).
Air power never has lived up to the hopes and dreams, but that hasn’t stopped the people who command air forces from trying.
Also, we’ve got two navy men, who as Jim says, have plenty of stored up offensive power: one head of the JCS and the other the head of CENTCOM.
Comment by Doug T —
October 1, 2007 @ 7:53 am
I pretty much agree with this post. I think our best hope for avoiding a war with Iran is opposition from within the military. They’re the ones who are going to have to deal with the repercussions of any strike, and even if the war hawks aren’t really concerned with the stress the US military is under, uniformed leaders are.
I wish we had a decent opposition party and we weren’t in the position of depending on Generals to prevent war, but that’s the country we’re living in.
Comment by Aunt Deb —
October 1, 2007 @ 10:56 am
Your para starting with “I wish Kolko’s arguments made more sense” is perfect. Very painful to read, even more hurtful to be living through, but perfect.
Trackback by www.buzzflash.net —
October 1, 2007 @ 11:01 am
Jim Henley: "Let’s Have It So! Let’s Make a Revolution for Fun!"…
The optimistic reading of events is that the commander of CENTCOM and the Secretary of Defense oppose attacking Iran. But I think the “optimistic” outcome is a series of sanctions and confrontations that make war likelier down the road. It took the…
Comment by Aeskylos —
October 1, 2007 @ 11:03 am
No matter what we say, it looks like this war is assured. It will be interesting to observe the unintended consequences of this new adventure, both in the United States and abroad. I am very curious as how the Iranians will fight back and the economic and social consequences the Americans will face in this new “challenge” or whatever one wants to call it.I have the feeling that if you think that 9/11 changed everything, just wait and watch Cheney’s excellent adventure with the Persians. Good luck America as you are about to engage in the most gigantic foolishness of all history.
Comment by Smally —
October 1, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
“Well, it has to happen within the next 337 days.”
Huh? Is Hillary going to die?
Comment by Harj —
October 1, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
There’s actually been an extensive refusernik movement against the occupation of Palestine inside the Israeli military so it’s not totally implausible that they’d refuse to attack Iran.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 1, 2007 @ 1:24 pm
Harj: True, but that’s not about IDF members being afraid to die.
Comment by Richard Steven Hack —
October 1, 2007 @ 4:11 pm
Jim, much of this is right on.
But even you miss the economic point. It’s not Kolko’s strongest point.
Bush and Cheney are not economists. They are war profiteers. They DO NOT CARE what happens to the rest of the economy if their war profiteer buddies in the defense industry and the oil companies profit. They don’t care that a high oil price will tank the economy, or that the Chinese will dump the US dollar when they are cut off from Iranian oil and gas.
Bush and Cheney don’t believe that and even if they did, it is irrelevant to their interests.
People like Kolko apparently are having trouble with cognitive dissonance. They can’t make themselves believe - even Kolko, who should know better - that the US government is being run by criminals, warmongers and war profiteers. So they deny the reality.
The Iraq war was a bad idea. It happened. Afghanistan was a bad idea. It happened. Lebanon was a bad idea for Israel. It happened.
Where do we see ANY evidence that the fact that Iran is a bad idea is going to change the reality that Bush and Cheney DO NOT CARE what damage they do to the US military, the US economy, or the US geopolitical position in the world?
These are NOT “honest statesmen” trying to solve the problems of the world.
“It’s about avenging the humilation of 1979, reversing the strategic gains we handed Iran when America conquered Iraq, shutting off the pipeline to Hezbollah on Israel’s northern flank and preventing the emergence of a regional power anywhere, but especially in the Middle East. It’s about toppling the Mullahs. It doesn’t matter that the Mullahs are sane and cautious. It doesn’t matter that the Mullahs are autocratic bastards. What matters, from the perspective of the Iran hawks, is that the Mullahs are hostile.”
NO IT IS NOT! It’s about money and power! All of that stuff is just the EXCUSE being used.
Cheney and Bush don’t give a damn about 1979. And as Seymour Hersh quoted someone in his article, they don’t even give a damn about the GOP’s chances in the 2008 elections. They believe the GOP will do just fine because they believe - scratch that, they KNOW - that the Democrats - being the same crooked politicians - are already on board for a war in Iran.
A lot of people mistakenly believe that the Iran issue is all just “political noise” - that it’s all about the Democrats and domestic politics.
It’s NOT. It’s about money and power! Iraq happened WITH Democratic support - and Iran will, too.
Get a clue!
Comment by Fascist Nation —
October 1, 2007 @ 8:09 pm
Someone’s threatening to attack Iran?! When did that happen?
They canceled “Crossing Jordan?!” I’ll write the network!
Comment by Dean Billing —
October 1, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
7. … “Can 90 percent of their weapons be knocked out? The remainder will be sufficient to sink many boats and tankers.”
Jim Henley completely misses the point:
“To the extent that Iran has any success sinking tankers, they encourage the rest of the world to, functionally, take America’s side in the conflict. Nobody wants tankers sunk - not producers, not consumers.”
Who cares about tankers? If Iran is lucky enough to put a couple of Sunburn missiles into one of our nuclear carriers we could lose more than 5000 sailors in a single action, leave a collosal environmental mess and dump an unknown number of nuclear tipped armaments into the Persian Gulf or the Arabian sea. I wonder who might recover them and in so doing become a nuclear power overnight?
All of this chest thumping by the administration about attacking Iran is insane, not to mention illegal. Anybody remember George Custer? And by the way, according to the Bush Doctrine, Iran has the right to attack us first now that we are publicly threatening to attack them and we have them surrounded militarily.
Comment by Lewis Hartshorn —
October 2, 2007 @ 8:05 am
It’s highly unlikely the U.S. will attack Iran for many of the reasons Kolko enumerates, but there is another point, which Kolko has written about previously but seems to have omitted now. Israel will certainly attempt to persuade the U.S. NOT to attack Iran because Israel does not consider Iran an existential threat and is willing to accept a future containment relationship with a nuclear Iran. Israel is much more disturbed by the actions of the U.S. Their existence is indeed threatened if the U.S. widens the war in the region.
Comment by Alan Bickley —
October 2, 2007 @ 10:52 am
No one can doubt the courage of the IDF, so often demonstrated in the bombing of apartment houses, to demolition of houses, and a willingness to see death up close by crushing an American do-gooder with a bulldozer and sending sniper bullets into the brains of terrorist children.
Comment by Nell —
October 2, 2007 @ 10:57 am
If Iran is lucky enough to put a couple of Sunburn missiles into one of our nuclear carriers we could lose more than 5000 sailors in a single action, leave a collosal environmental mess and dump an unknown number of nuclear tipped armaments into the Persian Gulf or the Arabian sea. I wonder who might recover them and in so doing become a nuclear power overnight?
That recovery might be a little tougher than you make it sound. But then, it might be pretty tough for the U.S. to guarantee that we’re the ones who recover them also.
You refer to ‘nuclear carriers’. Do you mean by this that the carriers are nuclear-powered, or that they transport nuclear weapons? Or…?
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 2, 2007 @ 11:05 am
The more something looks like a main-force, combined-arms battle, the less chance that anything bad happens to Americans conducting it. I save myself some labor by assuming the costs to the American Navy will be de minimus until and unless a bad thing actually happens to it.
Comment by Hal —
October 2, 2007 @ 5:47 pm
“It’s not about the bombs. It’s about avenging the humilation of 1979…”
Evidently you have forgotten that 1979 was Iran revenge for the humiliation of 1953, and not only the humiliation but the ensuing years of brutal dictatorship. I think Iran has the better position here. And why should Iran not make strategic gains in the area? They live there, we do not. And Israel needs a counterweight to keep it from being totally Nazi in its treatment of the Arabs.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 2, 2007 @ 5:48 pm
Kinda just dropped in from elsewhere, did you, Hal?
Comment by Hal —
October 2, 2007 @ 6:11 pm
Yeah, does it upset you that I am here? I presume you find my post a bit difficult to swallow. Too bad. Come to think of it, the US “dropped in(to) Iraq from elsewhere” also. Did that upset you a lot too?
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 2, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
No, I’m mostly amused that you jumped to conclusions about what I personally believe, just because I phrased that section of the post from the POV of people whose plans I’ve spent six years of blog life opposing, that’s all. I can’t fault you for not having read the blog for six years - very few people have! But I’d think you’d pick up the context for that paragraph from, oh, everything else in this particular post.
Comment by bloviator —
October 3, 2007 @ 3:07 pm
I work closely with a number of service academy grads (former officers, of course), and had lunch last week with an old friend who is a recently retired Navy Commodore. All smart, good people who I’d highly trust in a crisis. Many are Iraq veterans.
The chance of the military saying to Bush “not today” on a new war is, imo, zero.
Also keep in mind that while the Army has been thoroughly trashed, the Navy and Air Force are sitting fat and happy, and will readily do what they’ve been hired and trained to do.
So, I’m afraid that particular argument is, unfortunately, hollow.