One of the odd things about the war with Iraq was the bombing campaign; most of it was focused on conventional targets that had nothing to do with the supposed WMDs. Finding them was left to the ground troops and to the whims of marauding looters who swarmed into Baghdad and the surrounding chaos that consumed (and still consumes) Iraq after the invasion. One would think that if the military planners knew where the weapons were located, those would have been some of the first targets hit in the campaign. Inded, if we really had known where they were there could have been "precision" air strikes to destroy them.
Thankfully, the military planners calling the bluff on Iran. The lack of identifiable targets has, according to Seymour Hersh, given pause to military planners who are working to pick targets in Iran. Hopefully this portends an end to big explosions aimed at targets of little real value.
Quoting from the article:
'A crucial issue in the military's dissent, the officers said, is the fact that American and European intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine activities or hidden facilities; the war planners are not sure what to hit. "The target array in Iran is huge, but it's amorphous," a high-ranking general told me. "The question we face is, When does innocent infrastructure evolve into something nefarious?" The high-ranking general added that the military's experience in Iraq, where intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed, has affected its approach to Iran. "We built this big monster with Iraq, and there was nothing there. This is son of Iraq," he said.'
'"There is a war about the war going on inside the building," a Pentagon consultant said. "If we go, we have to find something."' [emphasis original]
You cannot fight a war on faulty intelligence; even cartoon warriors know that "knowing is half the battle". And what we know about Iran isn't very promising. They intend to build a bomb, but there isn't enough intelligence to prove that they're doing so now. No one knows where they're storing enriched uranium, if they even have it. There's too This time around we don't have a flood of reports coming from Pentagon insiders about Iran's supposed weapons capability. I think that we can thank the Iraq war for this; for all of the bad things that have come about because of the Iraq war, one of the good things is a general and deeply-held distaste for attacking Iran.
Another thing missing this time around is the dismissive attitude towards the international community inside the Pentagon:
'A senior military official told me, "Even if we knew where the Iranian enriched uranium was--and we don't--we don't know where world opinion would stand. The issue is whether it's a clear and present danger. If you're a military planner, you try to weigh options. What is the capability of the Iranian response, and the likelihood of a punitive response--like cutting off oil shipments? What would that cost us?" Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his senior aides "really think they can do this on the cheap, and they underestimate the capability of the adversary," he said.'
The kool-aid is being passed out but no one outside of Rumsfeld's circle is drinking it. I am glad to see that at least some inside the military appreciate the value of international opinion and the very real effect it can have on fighting a war. We all remember the tirades against the U.N. and the predictions of its demise around the time that the Iraq invasion started. Those have proven false; the UN continues to be relevant, its inspector's reputations upheld by the results of the U.S. search for WMDs in Iraq. Some may not believe it individually, but when it comes to fighting wars in the real world international support counts and the UN is a valuable ally.
Big explosions hitting the wrong targets is an apt metaphor for the political circus that's ensued since September 11th. The real shame is that when we shoot at the wrong things, the real threats keep on growing and evolving. Perhaps those at the Pentagon with cooler heads will prevail, and we can move on to addressing real threats.