Well, what will Iran do?
By Thoreau
Jim makes a good point about the repercussions of Iran fighting back against a US attack:
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.
I happen to think that the Iranian leadership is savvier than the American leadership. OK, that isn’t saying much, but still. I’m inclined to believe that Iran will come to the same conclusion as Jim and make a point of not sinking oil tankers. By making a great show of their restraint and rationality, they could rally a lot of support from key quarters.
Global public opinion will already be on their side, and we will be a pariah in the eyes of the so-called “Arab Street” (quite a feat, considering we’ll be attacking Persians), European Street, African Street, Asian Street, Latin American Street, Canadian Street, Australian Street, Antarctic Street, North Pole Street, Caribbean Street, Pacific Island Street, and Lost Island Street (finally, we unite the Losties and Others!). But if the Iranians show that they are rational and unwilling to retaliate with an attack that harms global economic interests (and, really, why would they want to harm the rest of the world, when the rest of the world will hate us?), they might rally elite opinion as well as the streets. Leaders in big countries might decide that Something Needs To Be Done about the “American Problem.” In that case, we will be the rogue nation, the Problem In Need of Solution. And that scares the hell out of me.
I hope there’s no war with Iran. I hope this for all sorts of reasons. And one of those reasons is that we might become the problem that the world decides to solve. God help us.
Comment by Doug M. —
September 30, 2007 @ 11:56 pm
Land’s sakes.
Do you want a bigger piece of that bet? Right now it’s Jim for $100, Neel K. for $100, and you for $50. I’m covering you all at $250, but I’d go to $300.
Doug M.
Comment by sglover —
October 1, 2007 @ 12:19 am
There wasn’t much forbearance about firing on tankers during the Iran-Iraq war. In addition, I think another plausible Iranian tactic might be lobbing missiles (and maybe commandoes?) against the Saudi oil terminals. If they carried it off, I believe this could take many months to prepare.
I’d like to believe your not-quite-worst case scenario, but in a conflict like the one we’re talking about I think the Iranians would be fools to do anything but do balls-to-the-wall total war. For one thing, by its very nature it seems likely to be a war with no quarter. What’s more, outside of the Shia world, Tehran doesn’t have a lot of cultural cachet; it can count on no groundswell of sympathy. At best it can hope hope that Moscow or Beijing calculate that an American “victory” (whatever that might be) is unacceptable — though there’s not much that they can really do. It seems very possible that the rest of the world might adopt the same attitude that it had during the Iraq-Iran war: Let them both bleed themselves to death. But of course, given the enormous economic damage such a war is sure to bring, who can say?
Since we obviously can’t count on the fools, cowards and whores who infest our own government, my own hope is that the Russians sells Iran every surface-to-air and surface-to-ship missile and radar system it has available. Perhaps then even the aviators will begin to have some saving doubts. We made deterrence the pillar of our own military policy for most of my life…..
Of course, if we had a speck of imagination in the Beltway, and if Bush weren’t a man-child still wrestling with his daddy issues, we would recognize that this is the perfect hour for a Nixon-goes-to-China rapproachment with Tehran. It is the only option open to the worthless shitstain if he wants to avoid being the absolute worst president in the nation’s history.
Comment by bryan —
October 1, 2007 @ 2:59 am
“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.”
okay I don’t get this part here about if Iran sinks Tankers we (the rest of the world) will be on the U.S side. Maybe it’s because I am naturally conservative and belligerent but I suppose if the U.S starts a war by attacking a country and that much smaller country defends itself by fouling up world supply lines my natural reaction and the reaction hopefully of every national leader would be, fuck the U.S is a bunch of fuckups. stop fucking with Iran they will really hurt all of us. And I suppose that would be more likely to lead everyone saying, hey we got to deal with the U.S problem now.
Comment by Badtux —
October 1, 2007 @ 3:23 am
So being “diplomatic” gets the Iranians the good will of much of the rest of the world. Big deal. “Good will” and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. What they need is military support that stops the U.S. from bombing them back to the Stone Age, and it’s not clear that they can get such military support by being nice guys because no other nation has the military capability to stop the U.S. from bombing Iran right now. If they can’t get any real help by being nice guys, why be nice? If you’re going to be bombed back to the stone age, you might as well do your darndest to take the other guy with you. It won’t make you any more alive at the end, but when the U.S. economy collapses because oil is at $500 a barrel, at least it might stop someone else from being the next victim, maybe save someone else’s life. Call it the United Flight 93 Dilemma. If you’re going to die anyway, might as well die fighting.
In short, I fully expect the Iranians to shut the Strait of Hormuz as soon as the first bomb falls on Iran. They have nothing to lose, and every incentive to make it as expensive as possible for the United States. Given that the U.S. uses 1/5th of the world’s oil, strangling a significant percentage of the world’s oil production is pretty much the only weapon they have left to hurt the US, and I fully expect them to use it.
Oh, Glover — the Russians are selling the Iranians everything they can make. The problem is that the decrepit Russian infrastructure and declining Russian workforce isn’t capable of making things in large quantity anymore. It’ll take years before they can deliver enough stuff to Iran to make it too expensive to bomb Iran, and Iran doesn’t have years.
Comment by Ken MacLeod —
October 1, 2007 @ 5:33 am
Leaders in big countries might decide that Something Needs To Be Done about the “American Problem.” In that case, we will be the rogue nation, the Problem In Need of Solution. And that scares the hell out of me.
I hope there’s no war with Iran. I hope this for all sorts of reasons. And one of those reasons is that we might become the problem that the world decides to solve. God help us.
God help the world. What coalition of the willing could take on the US? None of the other powers has a first-strike capability, and I can’t see a way to win a world war without that. And I can’t see a way of dealing with the American problem (and the linked but lesser British problem) from outside without a world war.
Serious question: what could the rest of the world do?
Comment by William Burns —
October 1, 2007 @ 7:45 am
The most obvious thing is that it could stop financing the US budget deficit.
Comment by Doug T —
October 1, 2007 @ 7:57 am
Yep–to second William Burns’ point, the rest of the world can’t really do anything on the military side of things, but the US is very, very vulnerable on the economic side.
While deep sixing the US economy would presumably have some really nasty secondary effects around the world, that would be the obvious course of action for any coalition that wanted to put pressure on the US.
Comment by Ultima Ratio —
October 1, 2007 @ 8:13 am
By making a great show of their restraint and rationality, they could rally a lot of support from key quarters.
How much support has restraint and rationality garnered ANY country in the world’s eyes in the last 5 years? The last 10?
Comment by Tim —
October 1, 2007 @ 8:41 am
“King of Wishful Thinking” is your new theme song.
Comment by Barry —
October 1, 2007 @ 8:58 am
” It won’t make you any more alive at the end, …”
The first step of a US war with Iran will be shutting off its oil exports, and imports of refined products. That puts a serious squeeze on them, and the US has the ability to keep that pressure on for years. The rest of the world could only squeeze the US by triggering a global depression, but that’s a pretty severe step with automatic blowback (note: the war itself might do that, of course).
This puts Iran in the position of being bombed and blockaded, with the B&B power capable of long-term actions. The *only* leverages that Iran has are (a) actions in Iraq, and (b) actions in the Gulf (I’m assuming that they can do other stuff, but not signficant stuff).
Comment by William Burns —
October 1, 2007 @ 9:07 am
The trouble with shutting off Iran’s oil exports is that it leads to a substantial increase in the price of oil and gasoline, making it a very difficult policy to sustain in American domestic politics.
Comment by Thoreau —
October 1, 2007 @ 9:24 am
I agree that if the US decides to bomb Iran back to the stone age then they have nothing left to lose. But if our warlord decides on a more “limited” bombing campaign for whatever reason, then the Iranian leadership can expect to come out of this still in power. And so they have decisions to make.
If they decide not to shut down shipping, and instead say to other countries “Look, we’re being good to you, now you be good to us and stop buying American debt” they might just get their wish. And they can always remind other countries that they still have the option of shutting down the Straights of Hormuz if people keep buying American debt. They might also suggest that various countries expel US military bases, imposes embargoes and sanctions on the US, etc.
In short, if they face a non-existential threat then they might decide to recruit some allies against the world’s biggest rogue state.
Comment by jlw —
October 1, 2007 @ 11:33 am
You know, the war will have three sequential actions on our part: bomb infrastructure, await the Iranian response, and then seize their oil fields. Given this, the best Iranian response might well be to destroy the world oil economy.
They should be wiring their own oil fields with explosives right now and determining other ways to monkey-wrench the petroleum export infrastructure if it appears that the U.S. is seizing it. They ought to also be preparing to attack–through either missiles or sabotage–the Kuwaiti and Saudi oil infrastructure, as well as those of the Gulf kingdoms that are materially supporting the U.S. With any luck on their part, they could eliminate exports from the Gulf for a couple of years, even if the war goes disastrously against them.
You do that, and the U.S. is crippled–not because the States import so much oil from the middle east, but because the oil it does import suddenly goes for about ten times what it was fetching in 2001, since every other importing nation is chasing after the few remaining exports. And the U.S. just can’t sustain that level of imports without selling off assets at fire-sale discounts. In terms of per capita economic decline, destroying the Gulf oil industry would do more harm to the U.S. than a lost war would do to Iran.
In the eyes of people interested in the long term prospects of oil, sending the price of oil into the stratosphere is awful–it’s just the thing to get people off the oil standard and investing like mad in alternatives. But if you want to spread an Islamic revolution, the region’s oil wealth is a stumbling block since the big Western importing nations are always going to want to meddle in your affairs. In a world run on nuclear or solar or coal, a revolutionary Islamic ideology would have a chance to to spread.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 1, 2007 @ 11:42 am
FWIW, as I read the meta-structure of Ken’s *The Execution Channel*, a central theme is that there’s no way of dealing with “The American Problem” without recourse to science fictional means.
Comment by ran —
October 1, 2007 @ 11:53 am
The Samson option you describe makes good sense jlw. Take us out and we bring the world economy down on your heads. If Iran was dealing with rational actors that would be as good a deterrent as nukes.
You lost me on the last paragraph though. Does anything strengthen Islamic extremism more than Western meddling particularly criminal Western wars of aggression like this Iraq fiasco?
Comment by Thomas Nephew —
October 1, 2007 @ 12:00 pm
I think what they’ll do is *actually* use/assist their Shia allies in Iraq to seriously bleed US forces there, maybe up to the level of destroying or decimating large US units. They may or may not allow volunteer (or ‘volunteer’) brigades of Iranians to form and infiltrate/cross the border, once the negative world response is good and ripe — maybe once full-fledged battles with Shia militia are on in the south.
I think they can do a lot to disrupt land supply lines in Iraq (and possibly naval supply lines in the Gulf) if they have a mind to; they’ll have a mind to if they get bombed. I think this wouldn’t “just” be a diplomatic disaster, it could be a military one.
Comment by jlw —
October 1, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
Ran:
My last point was just that the U.S. is a hellova lot more permissive of political/religious extremism in places where they are taking over unprofitable sand and rocks. We’ll work hard to keep resources from falling into the hands of the opposition, even if that proves counterproductive at times. If the whole region was as economically important as, say, Afghanistan, few people would care if the place were run as a caliphate, a Shiite republic, or the second coming of the Central African Empire. Since the only legitimacy most Arab governments have is their ability to secure military aid from the West, the Islamist forces will have a much easier path to power if we lose interest.
Comment by sglover —
October 1, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
I think what they’ll do is *actually* use/assist their Shia allies in Iraq to seriously bleed US forces there, maybe up to the level of destroying or decimating large US units. They may or may not allow volunteer (or ‘volunteer’) brigades of Iranians to form and infiltrate/cross the border, once the negative world response is good and ripe — maybe once full-fledged battles with Shia militia are on in the south.
I think Tehran would be crazy not to do exactly that, but really, even a Stalingrad on the Tigris would only directly affect the sliver of Americans who are in the military, or related to them. Hobbling the oil shipments is the surest way of bringing the war directly to American doorsteps.
Comment by sglover —
October 1, 2007 @ 1:21 pm
Ah hell. My original comment,
should read “could take many months to repair“.
Comment by Barry —
October 1, 2007 @ 2:26 pm
Thoreau: “If they decide not to shut down shipping, and instead say to other countries “Look, we’re being good to you, now you be good to us and stop buying American debt” they might just get their wish.”
The way that I see it is that this would trigger a really, really severe USA recession, maybe a depression, combined with the havoc that the war would cause. Just think of the short-term spike in oil prices - $100/barrel.
Therefore, this would be asking other countries to kick themselves in the b*lls, economically speaking. They’d be bringing on a very severe recession, at the least. Possibly a depression. Not good if you’re in power, and not good for much of the world’s economic elites. And that’s not counting the possibility that the Bush/Cheney regime screws with people ‘waging economic terrorism’.
Comment by dave —
October 1, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
One of the side-benefits of the massive deficits the Bush admin has run is that its tied China and Japan to the success of the dollar. If the major oil producers dropped the dollar standard for the euro it’d immediately devalue all the debt held in east Asia, meaning they couldn’t afford the oil anyway. While unwinding the dollar standard would hurt the US significantly, especially in parallel with sanctions, it’d take so much coordination you’d need a concerted effort on everyone’s part. The dollar is worthless, but the US manufacturing sector gets no boost because no one is allowed to buy their stuff.
That might only take a few months if they worked smart, but its still not happening in 2008, before the economic/political bill comes due for the GOP.
Comment by ran —
October 1, 2007 @ 3:01 pm
jlw: Can’t see us losing interest in meddling there before the last drop of oil is pumped from the ME. Sufficient alternatives to oil aren’t going to materialize before then, if ever.
Even then the Pentagon will continue to sell arms and training to the various goons we prop up there, for the benefit of war profiteers (sorry, defense contractors) if noone else.
Comment by weichi —
October 1, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
But if the “rational” response by Iran is to throw the world economy into a depression, and if the proper way to analyze US foreign policy decisions is to “follow the money” (see links in Jim’s earlier post), the US doesn’t start the war, right? A depression would be bad for business.
In fact, why would business interests want to change the status quo? Current level of conflict in middle east == massive profits. Could a war with Iran really increase those profits sufficiently to warrant the risk of a global meltdown?
Comment by jlw —
October 1, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
Weichi:
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I believe there are psychological experiments that show that, when given a choice, people tend to choose an outcome where both sides lose but the other side loses more over one where both sides gain but the other side gains more. In contemporary America, then, if the core Bush supporters impoverish the nation but wind up with a greater proportion of wealth and power, that’s considered a good outcome.
[sticks fingers in ears–LA LA LA!!!–to block out predicted libertarian comments about liberals]
Comment by weichi —
October 1, 2007 @ 3:29 pm
But the relevant actors play on a world-wide stage; it is their wealth and power relative to the *entire world* that matters.
In the “follow the money” reading of foreign policy, american military power is the tool used for increased wealth and power. So the primary objective must be to maintain american military power. To do so requires a strong US economy (among other things). The money interests will do everything they can to increase their wealth and power *as long as it does not threaten their ability to shape events*. You lose that power, and you are out of the game.
Comment by Barry —
October 1, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
weichi, this group doesn’t mind destroying things, so long as they get a cut.
Comment by Barry —
October 1, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
One use of the war would be to try to get a GOP president in 2008. A war timed for late summer would be the only chance for the GOP in ‘08 (disclaimer - only chance aside from the ability of the Dem leadership to blow victory).
Comment by Badtux —
October 1, 2007 @ 5:33 pm
The proportion of the U.S. economy devoted to the military is almost vanishingly small. Total U.S. military spending last year was around 6% of U.S. GDP. In other words, you could destroy 90% of the U.S. economy and still have the most powerful military on the planet. There would be widespread misery on the streets, but those are the “little people”, irrelevant insofar as the Busheviks are concerned.
Insofar as the Iranians’ ability to close the Straits of Hormuz is concerned, this is a “use it or lose it” option to them. With sustained bombing, the U.S. can destroy enough of Iran’s missile infrastructure to render it incapable of closing the Straits, and you better believe that those missile installations around the Straits are going to be a prime target for a U.S. bombing campaign. Given that, the likely response on the part of the Iranians is to use those missiles before the U.S. manages to destroy them all.
Oh, will the Chinese cutting off credit stop the current Federal militarism? Well, it didn’t during WWII. All that happened was that the U.S. instituted rationing and started cranking up the printing presses and issuing bonds purchased by the Federal Reserve in order to inflate the currency to pay their obligations, in turn exchanging the currency for “war bonds” to deflate it by moving the inflation into the future. The U.S. standard of living actually *declined* during WWII as compared to the Great Depression, everybody had money but there was nothing to spend it on, but that was irrelevant insofar as maintaining and increasing U.S. military might was concerned.
In short, there is little that the world can do to the United States that will stop it from continuing to behave as a rogue power, other than target the U.S.’s oil supply, without which the U.S. cannot maintain its military. Forcing the U.S. to inflate its money supply to the point where nobody will accept dollars in trade for oil is one way to do that, and the only sure way the Iranians have for triggering that action is to create a massive spike in oil prices. I stand by my prediction that if bombs fall on Iran, the Straits will be closed the next day. Probably the Iranians won’t even have to fire a missile to do it. All they have to do is send a fax to every insurance company covering oil tankers that oil tankers going through the Straits will be sunk, and every insurance company on the planet will immediately call their customers to tell them that if they send their ship through the Straits and it’s sunk, it’s not the insurance company’s problem. No ship will leave port after that, and any ships currently underway will turn around and go back to port. Because no ship owner is going to risk a billion-dollar oil tanker unless they have some sort of insurance against it getting sunk, and even if someone was foolish enough to do so, the chances of finding a captain willing to risk his own life on such nonsense is even slimmer. Merchant captains aren’t warship captains, and getting missiles fired at them is not part of the job description.
Comment by Barry —
October 1, 2007 @ 5:49 pm
And for a third:
When discussing a war with Iran, remember that it will be a total war - for Iran.
The first hour of violence will be at least 9/11; each hour of the first night will be another 9/11. By the morning of the first day, many thousands will be dead; getting food, water and medical care will already be difficult.
This will continue, day by day, week by week, month by month. Possibly for years, as has in Iraq.
Also, given the attitude of the Bush/Cheney regime, a large number of attacks will be directed quite personally at government/party officials. ‘Quite personally’, as in a bomb or cruise missile coming in through the bedroom window. The USAF term is, of course, ‘collateral damage’; I don’t know what the Mob calls it when they, ‘visit’ a guy at home, and do the wife and kids as a package deal.
And the terms of cessation will be surrender, pure and simple. Not a modification of behavior, but submission. With any perceived breaches punished by more bombing.
Now, in a purely strategic sense, cold-bloodedly, it might make sense for the government of Iran to refrain from actions which might piss off part of the rest of the world. Except for the fact that the Iraq war has shown that the current US regime doesn’t *care* what the rest of the world thinks; it’s wreaked awsome h*ll on Iraq, and has told the rest of the world to go f*ck itself.
In that situation, the government of Iran might figure that the opinion of the rest of the world is of secondary importance.
Comment by Thoreau —
October 1, 2007 @ 5:58 pm
OK, Badtux, that’s a good point about “use it or lose it.”
Maybe they will close the Straits of Hormuz.
You know, if we lived in a multipolar world, where there were powers capable of stopping other powers, the nightmare scenario for the global economy would be less likely to come to pass, because (1) a nation under attack could merely threaten a nightmare scenario and thereby get other powers to intercede and (2) the mere possibility of that would probably cause other powers to intercede before the crisis point could be reached.
Comment by Doug M. —
October 2, 2007 @ 12:39 am
Wow, there’s some serious silliness going on here.
Putting aside that I don’t think we’re going to bomb Iran…
No plausible bombing campaign is going to dislodge the Iranian leadership. They know this. So, they’re not going to push a panic button and blow up the world’s economy. Nor are they going to ask the Chinese to stop buying US debt… I mean, WTF? Why would the Chinese care?
They /are/ going to hit back, because nobody likes to be bombed. That won’t be hard for them, because we have conveniently placed a quarter of a million Americans within easy reach. So, expect major violence in Iraq.
Violence elsewhere in the Gulf is a strong possibility; there are pro-Iranian Shiite minorities all over the region, and Iran’s leaders may reasonably ask why the Saudis, Emirates et al should be allowed to sit by while bombs are falling on Teheran. Action by Hezbollah in Lebanon is also possible, although Hezbollah is still recovering from last year’s war.
The price of oil will spike upwards, which will cause the Russians and Venezuelans to go “mmmmmm… war”. Vladimir Putin will condemn US aggression and then order a big bucket of popcorn.
The rest of the world will throw up its hands in despair at our stupidity. But nobody else will do anything.
It’ll be bad, especially in Iraq, where we’ll have pissed away whatever chance remains of a sort-of victory or at least face-saving draw. But it’s not going to be The End Of The WOOOOOORRLD, people. Get a grip.
Doug M.
Comment by Doug M. —
October 2, 2007 @ 12:42 am
BTW, I should note that I live in Armenia. The border is less than 50 miles away; I pass Iranians on the street every day, and buy Iranian food in the local grocery store.
So it’s more than idle speculation here.
Doug M.
Comment by Barry —
October 2, 2007 @ 10:18 am
Doug, we’re not saying that, or at least I’m not. What I’ve been saying is that it’s in the interests of the government of Iran to keep this from being a pure, limited ‘bomb the sand-n*ggers and come home for lunch’ war on the part of the USA. Closing down as much of the Gulf oil as possible, producing a high a price spike as possible, is part of that.
Given that, the idea of a nasty recession is pretty reasonable.
One thing that I, for one have been pointing out is that it’s not in the short-term interests of most countries’ governments to push things to a fiscal meltdown (e.g., stop loaning money to the USA). It’d hit them at least as hard as it’d hit the USA.
BTW - could you please refer us to your predictions in 2003, where you had a clue that the Iraq war would be as bad as it has been?
Comment by sglover —
October 2, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
Well, I live in America. In this scenario, I’m not much worried about the end of the world — I’m worried about the end of America. I see an Iranian war as 1) a decisive renunciation of all the traditions that we at least pay lip service to, and 2) the catalyst for severe economic woes and very “interesting” domestic politics.
It’s shouldn’t be hard to see why people are so worried. The reasons you give against an American attack are all very sensible and straightforward, practically commonplaces. But the decision rests pretty much entirely in the hands of one or two people who have demonstrated precisely ZERO integrity or good judgement. It’s like we’re back in the days when the fate of the world hung on the wisdom of Kaiser Billy and Czar Nicky.
Comment by jlw —
October 2, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
Doug:
I put forth the DESTROY OIL ECONOMY scenario as a response to the attempt by the U.S. to seize the oil fields of southwestern Iran. If it’s just a replay of Operation Desert Fox from (1998, wasn’t it?) then, yes, the Iranian leadership can ride it out. But a simple bombing campaign doesn’t seem to jibe with the maximalist tendency of the Bush Administration.
If I’m playing an Iran that has an American column racing to seize my oil, I’d throw the shit at the fan and, um, let the chips fall where they may.
Comment by Barry —
October 2, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
Upon re-reading, Doug, I should explain my last paragraph:
Back in 2003, there was a phrase (I heard it on Kevin Drum’s blog): ‘Bush will do Iraq right, because he can’t afford to screw it up’ (also, ‘he’s got good people, like Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell’). We watched them screw it up something horrible, and do it over years. Not just one bad decision, but getting up every day, and working hard to screw things up a bit more by sundown.
At this point, a lot of people start looking at extreme cases, because they’re less unlikely than before. Now, as I’ve said, the idea of many governments deciding to kick themselves where it really hurts is unlikely. However, the people running the US government have shown an amazing recklessness, or belief that widespread chaos is to their advantage.
Comment by timmy ramone —
October 2, 2007 @ 1:52 pm
Badtux has some good comments. I’ll just add my observation that European elite opinion seems to be in favor of a U.S. strike against Iran. Never mind what the European “street” thinks; they’re as irrelevant to them as the U.S. “street” is to our leaders. As was the case in 2003, they have no problem with the U.S. taking on the dirty job of tackling “Islamic extremism,” since many European governments are having trouble dealing with their own restive (and increasing) Muslim communities.
Comment by William Burns —
October 2, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
A US attack on Iran sure isn’t going to make those restive European Muslim communities any easier to deal with.
Comment by Doug M. —
October 3, 2007 @ 12:10 am
“BTW - could you please refer us to your predictions in 2003, where you had a clue that the Iraq war would be as bad as it has been?”
Alas, I started blogging in May 2003, and the first few months were all about domestic stuff. So while I had my doubts about Iraq, they weren’t preserved for generations to come.
That said, I was confident enough about Iran to bet $250 on it. (N.B., this is one of those “loser contributes to charity of the winner’s choice” deals.) Jim, Neel, Thoreau and I made that bet a month ago; the deal was that the US had to attack Iran within a year. So, eleven months yet to go.
I note in passing that the latests spasm of hand-wringing was triggered by a Sy Hersh column. But Hersh has been warning about an attack on Iran since January 2005. Mark Schulman recently went back and tracked his earlier columns:
http://americanfuture.net/?p=2817
– that’s /five times/ Hersh has rung this bell in the last two and a half years.
N.B., I don’t agree with Schulman on… well, most things. But AFAICT he’s right about Hersh.
Doug M.
Comment by Barry Hornstein —
October 3, 2007 @ 12:41 am
I’m sick and tired that America has to be the garbage collectors and police of a good part of the world while do nothing nations sit on their buddocks and complain, criticize, offer stupit self-serving advice and do nothing to help America try to stabilize this chaotic, confused and dangerous irrational world. What a wonderful species we are. Evolution at its best.
Comment by Barry —
October 3, 2007 @ 7:40 am
Just to ease the confusion, I’m ‘Barry (timeline: Bush II screws-up everything)’; this will differentiate me from ‘Barry Hornstein (timeline: Bush II doing a good job at anything)’.
I do have to congratulate you on punching through at least 10 mega-splits of alternate timeline ‘distance’, because any timeline where the US is not currently causing vast amounts of chaos is at least that far from us.
If you’d like, I can provide some links to history sources from this timeline; that will ease your confusion.
Comment by ajay —
October 3, 2007 @ 10:47 am
37: what do you base that belief on?