Defending the Truth

HOW TO FIGHT IRAN

By ARTHUR HERMAN

January 26, 2007 -- The American carrier the USS John Stennis and its strike group are headed to the Persian Gulf to join another carrier group in a show of force meant to make Iran rethink its nuclear program. It may be a prelude to war.

The conventional wisdom is that there are "no good options" in dealing with Iran. Most commentators see one of two scenarios, both nightmares: a large, bloody and expensive ground invasion and occupation that would cause oil to spike through the roof or a monthslong aerial bombardment of Iran's estimated 1,500 nuclear-related targets that would trigger a worldwide terrorist backlash. (Alternately, the Israelis could do it for us and set the Middle East ablaze.)

Yet there is a third option, of which our show of force with two carrier groups could be the opening move: a naval and air campaign to topple the ayatollahs without a single U.S. soldier's setting foot on Iranian soil.

This is not unprecedented. Although the public never noticed, the U.S. Navy accomplished much the same thing during the Iran-Iraq war, when Iran tried to fire on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf in 1987-8. The Navy managed both to destroy the Iranian navy and to protect shipping in the Gulf to keep the world economy stable. This time, we can finish the job we started during the so-called Tanker War.

The first step would be a U.S. naval blockade of the Straits of Hormuz backed by anti-missile Aegis class destroyers, together with a guarantee of free passage for all non-Iranian oil shipping. This would reassure the world that energy supplies would continue to flow. At the same time, airstrikes would take out Iran's air defense and anti-ship missile sites scattered around the Gulf.

The second step would be what military analysts call an "Effects-Based Operation," as Air Force and Navy planes target Iran's extremely vulnerable military and economic infrastructure, including electrical grid, transportation links, gasoline refineries, port facilities and suspected nuclear sites.

Next would come Special Ops and airborne attacks to seize Iran's main oil-pumping station at Kargh Island and capture or neutralize its offshore oil facilities. This would be an enhanced version of what Navy Seal teams pulled off in the 1988 Tanker War with no more than an airborne and a Marine brigade - fewer troops than in the surge planned for Iraq.

In a matter of days or weeks, the key components of the Iranian oil industry could be in American hands as Iran ground to a halt.

This would not only keep Iranian crude oil flowing to the world's economy. It would also safeguard Russia's and China's investments in Iran's energy industry, which would help line them up in our corner.

Is such a plan farfetched? Would it cause a Middle East meltdown?

No, Iran is uniquely vulnerable to this kind of campaign, as Iraq was during the first Gulf War:

* Ninety percent of Iran's oil production and facilities sit in or near the Gulf.

* Apart from its three Russian-built Kilo-class subs, which we would need to take out, the Iranian navy is small and decrepit.

* Iran imports nearly 40 percent of its gasoline, so destroying its refineries and gas supplies, which could be accomplished in weeks or days, would leave it starved for fuel.

It is this kind of attack, not sanctions or bombs dropped on its nuclear sites, that the Iranian mullahs really fear. Their regime is often compared to Hitler's Germany, but a more accurate comparison is to Mussolini's Italy. Beneath the bluster and bravado, the goose-stepping Revolutionary Guards, the threats of apocalypse and the coming of the Twelfth Imam, Iran is a weak and deeply divided regime.

Its army is large on paper (more than 450,000 men), but in fact it is weaker than Saddam's was before the last U.S. invasion. It still hasn't recovered from the war with Iraq in the 1980s. Its air force and navy suffer from outdated equipment and low morale.

And Iran's economy is caught in a downward spiral, while its urban population, the future of the country, is deeply alienated from the mullahs' theocratic regime.

The mullahs know their collapse means opportunity for their Iranian democratic opponents - who, unlike Iraqis, are not divided along ethnic or religious lines. When the Allies invaded Italy in 1943, instead of rallying around Mussolini, Italians took the first opportunity to topple him. Iranians may well do the same.

Ahmadinejad and the mullahs also know that their threat of unleashing a worldwide terrorist backlash is mostly, if not entirely, bluster. The Iranians are despised all across the Arab Middle East; no Sunni wants to see a foreign Shia, or Persian, gain hegemony in the region.

Groups like Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon accept Iran's leadership only because Iran has been successful in intimidating the West - so far. If the mullahs stumble, their terrorist clients will head for the nearest exit. A swift naval and air war that smashes Iran's pretensions and protects oil shipping in the Gulf can expect to be greeted with acquiescence and relief, not outrage, in Arab capitals and in the Arab street.

In short, it is the Iranians, not the West, who have the most to lose. Americans are understandably gun-shy over another shooting war in the Middle East, but events may give us few choices.

Is war coming? Hard to say, but the fact that the next head of Central Command, which oversees all U.S. military operations in the Middle East, including Iran and Iraq, will be an admiral, suggests that someone is taking this possibility very, very seriously.


Arthur Herman's most recent book is "To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World."

HOW TO FIGHT IRAN By ARTHUR HERMAN - Opinions | Scott Stringer | Adam Brodsky

How to Fight Iran?

DON'T!!!

So then, when UN sanctions fail to convince the Iranian regime to give up it's efforts to develop nuclear weapons before they have some bombs in their inventory, what then?

Should the US take an isolationist position, while a nuclear arms race brews in the Middle East and while extremist groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah and possibly al-Qaeda, have access to such weapons?

So, should the US “sue for peace and security,” so to speak, and get neither peace nor security?

Why should they give up their nukes? Has the US given up theirs? If your neighbor had a cannon in his yard and it was pointed at yours what would you do?

Hello moonwings.
Welcome to DTT.
Ahh, a question of ordnance, or is it ordinance?
Perhaps we should erect a statute for pigeons to crap on, in honor of canons.

I went to the circus to ask the human cannonball this question.
It's not easy to find a man of his caliber.

Visit often. Post a lot.

Well, if by "nukes" you mean Iran's very real nuclear weapons program, Iran is obligated to NOT have a nuclear weapons program at all since Iran is a signatory nation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

And, if by "nukes" you mean Iran's energy-related nuclear program, Iran is obligated to abide by the rules of the NPT...of which Iran hasn't acted in full compliance of...as stated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

So, it is understandable why numerous countries...and not just the US...mistrust Iran regarding her nuclear program and that they demand that Iran live up to her obligations regarding the NPT...as well as be penalized for her numerous previous infractions of which Iran hasn't up till now fully and openly explained to the UN.

If the US is not living up to her obligations as stated in the NPT, then the signatory nations of the NPT aught to discuss such infractions.

However, any such infractions does not excuse Iran from having to live up to her own obligations as stated in the NPT.

And, again, it isn't just the US who has an issue with Iran's nuclear program.

So, why single out the US while asking such an unrelated question?

(France, the UK, Russia, and China-all signatory nations of the NPT-have nuclear weapons too, you know.)

Well, first of all I'd try to understand why my neighbor has a cannon pointed at me and I'd try to rationally adjust any aggressive actions I may have taken toward my neighbor.

Then I'd call the police to see if my neighbor is abiding to the law of the land.

So, regarding Iran, if Iran hadn't been implicated by numerous world-wide intelligence services as being a decades-long sponsor for terrorist organizations and she had been living up to her obligations as a signatory nation of the NPT, then we would very likely NOT be having this discussion today.

Bush is the only one trying to convince anyone Iran has nuclear weapons ambitions...and he's been right on so many levels with Iraq, don't you think?

Sides, we cannot go around telling other nations NOT to develop nuclear weapons when we ourselves have them and supply Israel with them. We are not the gods of the world..and under Bush, we look like mean evil dictators.

Until we come in peace, we have no right to sue for anything, don't you think? We're the aggressors whose foreign policy under Bush is to strike and shock and awe nations who pose no threat...and then ask questions later. Bush has done NOTHING diplomatically with any nation.

As to extremist groups, how bout protecting our own borders against the vicious drug gangs coming in from Mexico and let the Middle east handle its own groups?

Welcome, moonwings!!

Well, don't let your personal feelings about Bush hinder your ability to look objectively at Iran's nuclear program.

If you read the actual IAEA reports concerning Iran's activities it is rather easy for one to conclude that Iran has nuclear weapons ambitions.

First of all, would you mind posting any evidence at all that supports the hypothesis that the US has ever supplied Israel with nuclear weapons? Thanks, in advance.

Secondly, why single out the US regarding nuclear weapons? The UK, France, Russia, and China also have nuclear weapons...and all of these nations also have concerns regarding Iran's nuclear program to varying degrees.

Lastly, YES, the US CAN tell Iran to not develop nuclear weapons even though the US has nuclear weapons herself since Iran, like the US, is a signatory nation of the NPT. Of course, there is somewhat vague language in that same treaty that affirms the desire that all nuclear-armed states disarm. And, perhaps Iran does have a case, so to speak, if it argues that the nuclear-armed nations must disarm. But this argument doesn't give Iran any legal right to disregard her own obligations stated within the NPT.

Well, regarding Iraq, isn't it always much easier to look back in history in order to conclude whether or not a mistake has been made?

And, if or when Iran has nuclear weapons, the battlefield, so to speak, could very likely be within the US...being that the US is "The Great Satan."

Of course, the world would be better off without nuclear weapons. They mainly serve to make all noncombatants on the planet into targets of opportunity. They are truly the ONLY thing worthy of being called "weapons of mass destruction." But the sad fact is that nuclear fission/fusion is a natural process that can't be copyrighted or controlled. This was amply demonstrated when the Russians quickly became the world's second nuclear power, far ahead of anyone's projections. Anyone who thinks that any government can keep a foreign country from pursuing what it sees as its national interests is being incredibly naive.

Already, the Middle/Near East has two nuclear powers: Israel and Pakistan. Iran with a small nuclear arsenal won't present a credible threat to either nation, and practically none to the USA. But what the Iranians have no doubt noticed, is that NO nuclear armed nation has ever been invaded, unlike their immediate neighbors to both their east and west.