Crossposted from My Left Wing
penned by Mike, Diane's husband in response to
Navy Admiral Goes to CENTCOM: Be Very Afraid, by Jeff Huber. Its length and depth required its own diary. We may have the Axis of Ineptitude at the helm in the US, but he opines it WILL NOT happen. Here's why:
/diane
Commander Huber, very interesting post, especially from someone who seems to know the players and the military so well.... however....the neo-cons no longer have carte-blanche in all branches of government, let alone the military. Their world view so succinctly expressed by Wolfowitz et al.. has been exposed for the farce that it ALWAYS was. Perhaps never in the history of this country has there been a more INCOMPETENT administration, both in the domestic arena, and more obviously and glaringly in the arena of foreign affairs!!! These people could not possibly find their asses with both hands and an hour-long power-point on physical anatomy !!!
While I have no doubt that there are currently black-ops in progress in Iran and further have no doubt that Cheney and his little band of human dildos would just LOVE to wade into Iran somehow, I do not believe that all of these maneuvers are precipitating an imminent invasion of said country.
To begin with, no military commander in his right mind would possibly consider opening a third front in a two theatre war he is ALREADY losing (please see WWII, Viet Nam et al.)
Second, the military, at least in terms of ground forces, is far beyond its capacity to wage foreign conflicts. It's up to its asshole in alligators in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are not enough troops to hold the line in either place, nor is there enough military equipment and supplies to continue both theatres at the current levels much longer. If you think for one minute that the Joint-Chiefs are not aware of this, you're still waiting for Santa Claus...Don't wait for NATO to back the play, it's not going to happen.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, any attack on Iran would immediately result in the closure of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Note that its name is the Persian Gulf, the name formerly used by.....Iran!
Militarily, of course, whatever operational fleet that found itself trapped in the Gulf would immediately become a floating target range for everything from aircraft to 18 ft. zodiacs loaded
with explosives (see USS Cole/ USS Stark)..... Per our current performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, I would have to surmise that we have yet to learn the lessons of insurgent warfare. I suppose 15 years of Southeast Asia was not quite enough OJT !
Oh, by the way, there will not be a floatilla of wide-eyed newly liberated Persians awaiting our fleet, throwing flowers, and scurrying to kiss the sailors. This is NOT Paris circa 1945. This is another world, no actually, a whole different galaxy, in which western civilization has been trying to dominate, dictate and generally fuck over the population for, well, a millenium or two..... Even the people we call "friends and allies" actually don't like us ! They do, however, really like our military hardware and oil money (See Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were citizens)...
Next would come the destruction of Saudi oil wells, as well as those of Kuwait, and all other oil producing countries in the Gulf. This would be followed, shortly after, or possibly in conjunction with insurgent uprisings across the expanse of the whole Arabian peninsula. In short, the oil required to run any military expedition would no longer exist. Nor would the world economy.
Now, how long do you suppose the rest of the world, and I mean the rest of the world, would tolerate such a world-wide depression? There would be no "coalition of the willing". There would be no coalition at all, unless, of course, it was in opposition..... Please let me stress to you that I am NOT, I repeat NOT, a retired military officer, intelligence analyst, fellow at a defense think tank or anyone of such high bonafides. I am merely a student of history. I am, however, quite sure that if I could arrive at these conclusions, someone with far more credentials than me has already thought of it !!! I'm sure that some poor bastard at DOD, CIA or elsewhere tosses and turns, sleepless every night at the mere possibility.....
Domestically, the repercussions would be like a nuclear (or should it be nucular?) attack. Think 1968 on crysal meth! To think that an opposition congress, elected heavily on its opposition to the fiasco in Iraq, would sit helplessly by wringing its hands like a eunich at a party at the Playboy mansion, is to believe that Nancy Pelosi is just a grandmother sitting as the FIRST female speaker of the House knitting booties for her next grandchild !!!! (see Richard Nixon, Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton et al...). That doesn't even trip into the fate that befell LBJ !
If you really believe that the legislative branch of government is a powerless pitty-party, you might want to review the McCarthy Era, or even the Church Committee of the 1970's...... While it might be somewhat stressed at the outset, I can assure you that there are people like Byrd, Conyers, Wrangel etc., that have had this particular administration on the bullseye of their dart-boards for 6 years and have all kinds of ugly, creative and positively vidictive schemes to wreak havoc on these ratchet-heads !
No, sadly, I think this latest "shuffle" probably is the product of one simple problem that the Neo-cons have encountered, that they NEVER dreamed they would: their pool of supporters has dwindled to an ever-increasingly smaller band of weasels. The rats are leaving the ship in droves! True believers are suddenly not answering their phones as the gravy-train continues to derail, and the thoughts of congressional subpenas starts to dance across the bedroom ceilings at night.... And who the hell wants to be the first-mate on the Titanic anyway, when everyone knows that K street is paved with gold!
Hey, everyone knows that the captain HAS to go down with the ship, but why the hell should the rest of the crew? Especially when there are still life-boats on board! Women and children be damned!!! If there is anyone growing ever impotent, it is this White House. It's painted itself into a corner, and there IS NO DOOR! And like Dick Nixon, they're about to find out that the people you fuck over on the way up, may just be standing on the side of the road waving on your way back down or they might even be pissing on you as you slide past... Tough lesson. Welcome to the wonderful world of American politics. Never shit where you eat. It has a tendency to leave a fairly bad taste to your own food eventually....
Iran? Probably not. Even these dimwits are not that masochistic.....Peace?.. No, not in my lifetime. It's a game of survival now. And the rule-book was burned on inauguration day 2001.....
Believe me someone in the DOD has already discerned that only complete failure would be a result of bombing Iran. They won't be party to being part of their own demise.