"Another serious development is the growing role of the U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom), which oversees nuclear weapons, missile defense, and protection against weapons of mass destruction. Bush has directed StratCom to draw up plans for a massive strike against Iran, at a time when CentCom has had its hands full overseeing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Shifting to StratCom indicates that they are talking about a really punishing air-force and naval air attack [on Iran]," says Lang.
Moreover, he continues, Bush can count on the military to carry out such a mission even without congressional authorization. "If they write a plan like that and the president issues an execute order, the forces will execute it. He’s got the power to do that as commander-in-chief. We set that up during the Cold War. It may, after the fact, be considered illegal, or an impeachable offense, but if he orders them to do it, they will do it."
Lang also notes that the recent appointment of a naval officer, Admiral William Fallon, to the top post at CentCom may be another indication that Bush intends to bomb Iran. "It makes very little sense that a person with this background should be appointed to be theater commander in a theater in which two essentially ‘ground’ wars are being fought, unless it is intended to conduct yet another war which will be different in character," he wrote in his blog. "The employment of Admiral Fallon suggests that they are thinking about something that is not a ground campaign."
Lang predicts that tensions will escalate once the administration grasps the truth about Prime Minister Maliki. "They want him to be George Washington, to bind together the new country of Iraq," says Lang. "And he’s not that. He is a Shia, a factional political leader, whose goal is to solidify the position of Shia Arabs in Iraq. That’s his goal. So he won’t let them do anything effective against [Muqtada al-Sadr’s] Mahdi army." Recently, a complicated cat-and-mouse game has begun, with Maliki’s forces arresting hundreds of Mahdi militiamen, including a key aide to Muqtada al-Sadr. But there are many unanswered questions about the operations, which could amount to little more than a short-term effort to appease the U.S." Craig Unger
—————————————————————————-
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/whitehouse200703
And the inspiration for Bush and Cheney’s intransigence and willingness to thumb their nose at Congress and the American people?
Three guesses and the first two don’t count.
The Great Communicator. Ronald Reagan.
This is all about Cheney, in particular, wanting to wear the mantle of Ronald Reagan.
Reagan is their hero. He stood tall. Ignored the critics. A leader. Knocked off the Soviet Union.
“International Terrorism” is the new Soviet Union. The new Red Menace. The new Empire of Evil. Check that, Axis of Evil.
Ronald Reagan, 1982:
We’re approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention — totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression. Yet optimism is in order because day by day democracy is proving itself to be a not at all fragile flower. From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s the inspiration of Cheney and Bush. Their guiding light.
Will they bomb Iran? What a question! Of course they’ll bomb Iran. Almost undoubtedly with nuclear weapons.
Makes the Southern Hemisphere look better and better, doesn’t it?
The domestic information operations are in full swing preparing the public for such an attack on Iran with the Decider, his “rasputin” and now Gates and other “political appointees” manning battle stations in the propaganda effort against Iran. Maybe the “surge” was a diversionary tactic to keep Congress occupied debating “binding” and “non-binding” resolutions while the Decider has tasked the military to come up with air attack plans.
It seems even if the Congress passes legislation explicitly prohibiting an attack on Iran the Decider would order an attack and the military would carry it out.
So all we can do is fasten seat belts for the bumpy ride into a state of anarchy not only in the Middle East but in the US.
Worst mistake that can possibly be made.
God I hate that Bumper Sticker Salesman
Thanks for the links. I do wonder, though, whether you don’t confuse 2006/7 with 2002/3. It took a little doing to get all the ducks lined up for the Decider when he determined we were taking Saddam out, and that was with absolutely everything politically going his way. I grant, perhaps I am too hopeful, but I was a determined fatalist then about the inevitability of our little Iraqi adventure. This one simply feels different, though I am both admittedly inexpert and hardly ‘wired’. What am I missing?
As for, “[o]f course they’ll bomb Iran. Almost undoubtedly with nuclear weapons.” You don’t actually believe that, do you? Aside from being almost unimaginably bad for everyone in the world, that would also spell the ignominious demise of the GOP. Even the Decider might not want that.
bon retour, monsieur deveraux.
arbogast, your thoughts on the inspirational source are on target. Those in the Cheney/Bush camp confuse what Reagan said with what he did. Reagan did not win the Cold War. He ended it. As did Eisenhower regarding Korea. The ideologues in power and commercial interests they represent cannot get past that, so here we go . . .
Just for everyone’s information, Argentina is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, if not the most beautiful. Half the population of France and five times the land area.
The effect of radioactive fallout in the Northern Hemisphere will be considerably lessened by the time it reaches Argentina.
And I am under the impression that Argentine real estate is fairly reasonable.
One must learn Spanish. Not insurmontable.
wcw
“[o]f course they’ll bomb Iran. Almost undoubtedly with nuclear weapons.”
I don’t see that in the article and you would have to point out the location for me. pl
Ron Paul was speculating that a Gulf of Tonkin type incident might be in the offing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d8MIENVtKw&eurl=
Apparently nothing in history suggests Iranians might invade another country which suggests he’s as unburdened by a fact based mind set as most of Congress.
Still if Bush puts three carrier groups in the Persian Gulf that will look like strategic commitment. We’ve also got six minesweepers in the Gulf suggesting some nervousness about the Strait of Hormuz; the narrow exit of an already crowded pond.
This may make even the Machiavellian Mullahs jittery. The martyrdom opportunities for swarming Basiji speed boats may just be too tempting.
The Nimitz ain’t headed to join the 5th fleet… just yet.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/gonavy/atsugi/gonavy604.html
I doubt that’s the plan. Bush does not do plans. The Decider casts the dice boldly. Then gets Rove to cover up the resulting bloody mess.
I’m still not sure if the “Surge” isn’t one huge blame shifting operation. An effort to convince folk in the Red States that it’s wrong headed rag heads that have screwed the pooch rather than the GOP.
Meanwhile back in the real world the Pakistanis are blatantly shoving their Taliban pawns towards Kabul. Secure basing, more shiny new matériel than you can shake a stick at and heaps of Saudi cash; what more could an Islamo-Fascist insurgent want? A deranged nuke happy sugar daddy would be nice. Makes the Qods Force efforts in Iraq look like the Peace Corps.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101faessay86105/barnett-r-rubin/saving-afghanistan.html
Is this being fueled by Cheney or Bush? If Cheney were to resign or be impeached, would the course of this change at all or is this Bush’s intention? no matter what?
I still don’t understand what’s to stop the Iranians from sinking the US Navy outright. Aircraft carriers are as fragile as they are powerful. If their planes are within rage of Iranian targets, the carriers themselves are within rage of Iranian missiles. Ships in the Persian Gulf are virtually line-of-sight targets.
Or is the sinking of the American Navy to be the excuse for an ICBM attack? That makes even less sense.
John and arbogast,
Of course, Reagan (and his underlings) were more than happy to “deal” with Iran despite Beruit ’83. And in a covert, illegal way! All the luminaries (and felons) from that mis-begotten adventure find themselves directing actions today or whipping up the masses through their punditry. Goes to show that pardons do not prevent recidivism.
All cowboys, no hats.
Frightening.
As for carrying out a nuclear attack on Iran, I’m not as confident as the Colonel that the military will simply follow that order. Even if there are plenty of “true believers” and politicos in uniform (and high rank), the order still has to be carried out by those mid-grade officers who are dismayed, disgusted, and distrustful of their seniors.
It would be an order that I could not follow.
SP
All
“a nuclear attack on Iran.” Where did I say that? Perhaps memory has failed me. pl
Col. Lang
That is a quote from arbogast — see the second to last sentence of his post.
Using a nuclear bunker buster has been mentioned in other media. The nuclear bunker buster is called B61-11 I believe? For obvious reasons any such first use would also carry a heavy political price. It was included as a reserve option in the old CONPLAN 8022 developed by Stratcom in 04?
All,
I wouldn’t necessarily focus on just the Nimitz for the 3rd carrier. A spokesman for the Reagan was very coyly alluding to how carriers go where they’re needed and are very mobile, as the Reagan deployed with its full entourage, ostensibly for Japan to cover the Kitty Hawk as she has yearly maintenance. Something smells fishy to me about this. Reagan did a full JTF drill with Stennis just last November with attendant PR suggesting that they might have something permanent in mind for the 2 carriers. But if PL is right about Stratcom maybe it’s going to be about heavy bombers anyhow. Anyhow, the war drums have sped up tempo in the last 2 weeks alarmingly. Something’s up.
Colonel: If Congress were to pass a resolution forbidding an attack on Iran without express approval of Congress, would the military still go forward, or would that be enough for such an order to be considered illegal?
Tragic, isn’t it, that our only apparent chance to avoid this mother of all fiascos would be for the military to refuse to follow orders.
COL,
I was not attributing the “nuke attack on Iran” to you – and apologize if it was taken that way.
I agree with your broader premise that the military WILL follow orders handed down by the Decider/VP thru Secdef – even those orders that violate the collective “best advice” given by the uniformed grey-beards during their formulation. Heck, they’ve acquiesed to a “surge” that none of them belive can possibly work.
Yet, a STRATCOM directed nuclear attack on Iran is a bridge too far for the uniformed military. The existing authorities & processes given to the President & Secdef that go back to our hair-trigger, “launch on warning” era simply do not apply in this case. When it comes to a nation like Iran (who lacks any direct attack capability upon the American homeland much less an annihilation capability like the Russians have), I cannot see how the sole order by the CinC to use of these weapons would be legal. Not even the most expansive reading of either Congressional authorization to use military force (2001 & 2002) could make use of nuclear weapons against Iran legal. I think Sy Hersch’s reporting from last spring was the national security profesionals (uniformed & civilian) attempt to pre-emption and restrain the politicians from using nukes. Even replaying the 2002-03 hysteria campaign and ongoing psy-ops against the American people to whip up anti-Iran outrage and war fever will not be enough to get the guys with the keys to turn them.
At least I hope so, because Congress’ work to restrain the President is too slow, too little, and probably too late.
SP
Given the inherent ability of the neo-cons to not recognise the negative outcomes stemming from their own actions, an attack on Iran is clearly within their grasp. When things go wrong, and it is almost certain that they will, it’s always someones else’s fault – never theirs.
IMHO the Bushies will keep Israel out of the attacks to place the “fig leaf” that this action is not driven by pro-Israel motives. The Iranians will not believe this fiction, and their retaliation will include Israel, both directly and via Hizbullah Lebanon. The resulting retaliations from all sides will almost certainly draw surrounding nations in.
Given the results of the Israel/Hizbullah action of last summer, the Iranians are likely well aware of US capabilities and how the attack would be conducted. Certainly there is plenty of information on the internet to draw from. Iranian retaliation could be much more creative than American/Israeli war planners give them credit for, leading to a vastly increased level of violence in the Middle East lasting for years or decades. Pro-American regimes will be weakened, if not swept away entirely.
For the Bushies, this is simply another opportunity to score an “own goal” on a vastly larger scale. Given their past performance, you can pretty much assume the final outcomes will be much worse than anything the “Master Planners” can conceive of beforehand. Cleaning up the damage will take generations, but of course Bush/Cheney won’t care, at that point being long out of office. The only upside is this would mean the end of the neo-cons who will have zero credibility left, down from the 1% they have now.
Zbigniew Brzezinski has it right, “that would be “an act of political folly” so severe that “the era of American preponderance could come to a premature end.” If not civilization itself.
” Iraq in the strategic context
Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
By Zbigniew Brzezinski, United States Senate, February 1, 2007
It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:
1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.
2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying regional tensions.
If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”
Read the whole of his testimony at:
http://warincontext.org/2007_01_28_archive.html#117043092446417412
He has summed up the situation succintly – but the Bushistas have both hands over their ears.
wpl, my apologies for being unclear. As rc100 notes, my second paragraph responds not to your post, but to arbogast’s comment.
Colonel Lang:
I will read the VF article with interest this afternoon.
Could you re-post the name of the Italian and the link to same, who so inspired Bomber Harris and Curtis Lemay. I was reading it several months back; now I can’t find it.
Thanks.
Colonel,
Do you think the US can hold on in Iraq (and Afghanistan) with the current force structure, if the Iranians take off the gloves and wage full-scale unconventional warfare with their proxies, direct action missions with IRGC special operations, and fire their intermediate range missiles into US compounds in Iraq?
This is a matter of personal concern to me.
DL
Giulio Douhet. THere is a WIKI article on him. pl
Bush and Cheney want to define themselves against a backdrop of hesitancy and reluctance in the, predominantly, Democratic camp.
In fact, that is how they define themselves. They are true reactionaries.
The more Congress, the polls, etc. oppose them, the more convinced they become they are “right”.
They will attack Iran. Does anyone sincerely and seriously believe that all this chatter in the press about Iranians providing shaped charges to…well, it doesn’t really matter does it…is not the lead up to an air strike against Iran?
And look at what Israel (and do not forget that we are a client of the Israeli’s) look at what Israel did to Lebanon with a miniscule fraction of the “provocation” Bush and Cheney can cook up for an attack on Iran.
Bush and Cheney will attack Iran with the same élan with which Reagan fired the air traffic controllers.
Will they use nuclear weapons?
Of course, they will. Excuse? The targets are buried so deeply that the only weapons that will “work” are nuclear.
A nuclear first strike against a sovereign nation not at war with the United States that does not threaten the United States in any way at all. That will be the ultimate legacy of the Bush/Cheney administration.
Colonel Lang clearly does not believe that the U.S. will use nuclear weapons. I would yield to his far superior understanding of this horrific situation, if I did not feel that it is painfully evident how Bush and Cheney think.
For a general overview regarding the use of special weapons to attack deep bunkers, see “Nuclear Bunker Buster Bombs”; Scientific American Magazine;August, 2004, by Michael Levin. Also, a shorter, animated version of the same information is provided by the Union of Concerned Scientist.
nuclhttp://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/nuclear-bunker-buster-rnep-animation.html
There is nothing precise nor effective concerning the use of special weapons. I’d caution against any unsubstantiated speculation regarding their use. This is just too serious a topic to get wild about. Let’s hope sanity rules and this activity near Iran is just a feint and not a precursor to the double down recklessness Unger has suggested.
This was another frightening post on Iraq, I only with Col Lang had phrased one thing differently:
“It may, after the fact, [VERY LEGITIMATELY] be considered illegal, or an impeachable offense, but if he orders them to do it, they will do it.”
Perhaps he disagrees with that sentiment, but that is how I feel.
I think the most important thing now is a Congressional resolution forbidding any action whaterver inside Iran without deliberations with Congress and explicit Congression authorization. I’ve written my reps asking them to do that.
And I can only say that after this possible catastrophe, with the world united against us, the economy in collapse, three overseas wars…I am not so willing to predict that the American people will in revulsion throw the Republicans and the neo-cons out the door. I don’t know.
I would guess that as after WWI in Europe, both extreme wings of politics will be emboldened and empowered.
The most worrying thing about nukes in this context is that I seem to remember Cheney pushing hard for first-strike rights. If nothing else, this is a man who has proven that he is not given to idle chatter.
“Aircraft carriers are as fragile as they are powerful.”
Modern aircraft carriers like the Nimitz class are a lot of things, but fragile is not one of them. A great deal of effort, both in terms of design and damage control
training has been spent to ensure they can absorb significant amounts of damage. Unsuprisingly the latest soviet antiship missile developed for anticarrier duty, the Granit, was a pretty large beast so I do not think I am the only who would say that.
“If their planes are within rage of Iranian targets, the carriers themselves are within range of Iranian missiles.”
It depends. Some antiship missiles are fairly short ranged. For example the
C-701s they have on some of their missile boats have a range of 15Km.
The problem is
1) Finding the position of the carrier.
2) Engaging it with a quantity and quality of missiles capable of overcoming the multilayered defense that protect it, from the fighters to the Aegis to the point defense systems.
As the soviets found out these proved significantly difficult tasks requiring a large scale committment of assets.
“Ships in the Persian Gulf are virtually line-of-sight targets.”
Things are a bit more complicated. It is not the Pacific of course but for the most part it is significant wider than any realistic visual range you can get from the iranian coast.
Colonel
Saying you were just following orders did not save anyone from hanging at Nuremberg.
Surely, the officer corp of the US military knows this.
I really think the US public (to quote the Decider himself) “Won’t be fooled again.” I think the US military will then have two wars on its hands — one in the Middle East and another right here in the good old USA.
Even though the hype machine has been beating the drum over Iran, the popularity over this war and the idiot prince himself has continued to decline. The US populations is becoming more and more distrusting of anything said by the government or the military.
Feeling that noose tighten around your neck as you drop through that trapdoor and thinking you were a good soldier for the Decider is not how I would care to depart this earth.
I have been posting on here for a while using John but I saw a new John today so I have changed to John B.
All
You folks are wrong to think that American officers will not carry out an “execute” order from the CinC. You are simply wrong.
As to the judgment as to whether or not such an order would be legal. Line officers are not lawyers.
American officers do not, I say again do not associat their situation in any way with that of the Germans and Japanese who were hanged after WW2. American officers do not expect to be tried by the victors. pl
“Of course, they will. Excuse? The targets are buried so deeply that the only weapons that will “work” are nuclear.”
Natanz is the only target hardened enough to justify nuclear weapons. In any case remember that hundreds of nukes were detonated above ground during the Cold War without causing catastrophic contamination to the northern hemisphere or some such. It will be extremely unpleasant for those locals close enough to be affected by the fallout. But on World scale it will be pretty insignificant. A few additional cancer cases and stuff like that.
Reviewing my post, there was nothing precise nor effective in posting an address with nuclhttp:// in the root. Instead, try:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/nuclear-bunker-buster-rnep-animation.html
William Arkin had piece on the a global strike plan and it’s nuclear option in 05.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400071_pf.html
A likely target for any strike, nuclear or not, would be Isfahan. The city is 2500 years old.
http://www.iranchamber.com/cities/esfahan/esfahan.php
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/facility/esfahan.htm
All:
I think that the continued confrontation of US and Iran has over the years forced Iran to learn from US and others Western powers in many ways; both in the military and non-military arenas.
People in US, in my opinion, have an exaggerated opinion of US strengths and the Iranian weaknesses.
I do not know if people in Iran, have an exaggerated view of US weaknesses and Iranian strengths. But since there are a lot more Iranians living & working in US who travel back and forth to that country, it might be that the Iranians have a more accurate picture of what US is and is not capable of doing.
I think having embassies is a useful tool – people will not be making decisions based on ignorance.
All, Russia the EU and China/India want the US to fail in Iraq/n. The Persians are so fucking well prepared for this pre-emptive attack, you better get your red hot ass out of the green-zone asap.
The following link posted above is no longer valid.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/nuclear-bunker-buster-rne
I am curious to get the opinions of folks here about how the American political system i.e. Congress, corporate media and the public would respond to the execution of an air attack on Iran.
Right now I see Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Edwards take every hawkish stands against Iran. Edwards during his recent speech in Israel and Clinton during her speech in the last few days at some AIPAC conference. There is no coalescing of opinion in the Senate or House for legislation requiring Congressional authorization for an attack on Iran. Any legislation that the Decider pushes hard on can pretty much be filibustered in the Senate as we have seen with the Iraq escalation and minimum wage.
The corporate media is happily spinning stories about Iranian involvement in everything from supplying IEDs to the Karbala attack to nuclear weapons imminent.
Iran does not seem to have registered with the public yet. They are still digesting Iraq and seem to have clearly turned heavily against it.
Since the Decider and his “rasputin” don’t care about public opinion or Congress there are no constraints on them to order an air attack.
What happens inside the USA when the military carries out the attack order and we see the Decider on TV saying that he is defending the safety of the American people by taking out a rogue nation of islamofascists with imminent nuclear weapons? Do people line up dutifully behind the Decider? Or will the public pressure be red hot for impeachment? Will Republican senators stand by their President? Or something else?
All:
Did anyone else catch the segment on Countdown where Keith Olbermann played tape from 2002 prior to OIF and earlier this year? It was frightening to hear that the rhetoric and the verbage were nearly identical, right down to the mispronunciation of “newcular”. And they say he went to Yale! This is very disconcerting and it would be really super if some smart person out there could figure out how to wrest the power away from the “Decider” before he decides us into something we can’t finish properly.
Colonel Lang,
Please check out this story from Jan. 31st. If true would it mean that the US is very concern about China or Russia shooting at US forces or our satellites if we attack Iran? We wouldn’t do this to stop Iran missiles, right?
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/186/52/
Responding to Marcello’s earlier post, he comments:
“Natanz is the only target hardened enough to justify nuclear weapons. In any case remember that hundreds of nukes were detonated above ground during the Cold War without causing catastrophic contamination to the northern hemisphere or some such. It will be extremely unpleasant for those locals close enough to be affected by the fallout. But on World scale it will be pretty insignificant. A few additional cancer cases and stuff like that.”
Two Points
Point One:
Marcello is correct. Hundreds of atmospheric tests were conducted by the US, Russia, China and France between 1945 and 1980. The US alone conducted 215 known detonations from 1945 until 1963, the year the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty took affect. (see, Trinity Atomic Web site, “The Years of Atomic Testing, 1945-1963”,
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/atmosphr/index.html ).
And, we all did survive without fleeing to South America. But that doesn’t mean the bombs weren’t dirty or their effects trivial. I grew up in the Midwest during the duck and cover days and we were occasionally warned at school to not eat new snow and avoid drinking milk for a time due to the Strontium 90 and other radioactive fallout that would sprinkle down after an atmospheric test. The heavy elements loved growing bones and the thyroid, and once there, stayed. Not a good deal for kids. Nevada was 1700 miles upwind and the Pacific thousands further. Hardly “local.” Long term effects: unknown or unknowable, either way the US government wouldn’t say. Why repeat the experiment?
Two:
The shallow detonation characteristic of a nuclear bunker buster throws up a good deal more radioactive debris then an atmospheric blast. A bunker buster would be the ultimate “dirty bomb”. An excerpt from a post titled (“Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator”) found at John Pike’s Global Security website (http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/rnep.htm) describes just how dirty an earth penetrator could be:
“Destroying a target buried 1,000 feet into rock would require a nuclear weapon with the yield of 100 kilotons. That is 10 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Even the effects of a small bomb would be dramatic. A 1-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero in New York and eject 1 million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air. Detonating a similar weapon on the surface of a city would kill a quarter of a million people and injure hundreds of thousands more.”
So, would a quarter million people die? Who knows, the US government won’t say. We do know from the Chernobyl accident that fine, radioactive debris can travel a long distance, even all the way to the United States (see article in Wikipedia and other sources). Large areas of Belarus are still glowing. So, the after strike effects could affect more than a few unfortunate “locals”. Think Indians, Chinese, Japanese and maybe even us. And for what?
Distance will not inoculate us, politically or physically, from the after affects of using a weapon like this.
Don’t expect the Democrats to do anything, they are owned lock stock and barrel by AIPAC. Thats the source of their timidity.
They cannot afford to upset Israel or their individual re-election chances go out the window.
Look at who is Hilary’s campaign finance director and go figure. Look at how Carter is being hauled through the mud by the Israeli lobby and go figure.
We are a cleint of Israel and they have us by the short and curlies – we will bomb Iran.
Hello Marcello,
An interesting post. Let me make some comments.
Modern aircraft carriers like the Nimitz class are a lot of things, but fragile is not one of them.
In the picture Col. Lang posted with this article, I can count about 16 aircraft parked just in the front end of the deck, with many more behind them. Each one has fuel, each one has ordinance. Just one of them blowing up would put that end of the deck out of commission.
Below that is the hangar deck, where all the remaining aircraft are stored. This area is presumably armored, but there are some four enormous holes to the outside world: the elevators.
The main flight deck itself is some 40 or 50 feet above the water, which makes the ship as a whole an easy target.
All other naval ships are built low to the water, their ordinance kept far below deck in heavily armored magazines. They can take a pounding.
For example the
C-701s they have on some of their missile boats have a range of 15Km.
The odd “torpedo boat” is a worry, but the main threat comes from shore-based mobile launchers. The maps of Iran that I see on the news show mountains that come right down to the water’s edge, a bit like the US west coast. It is very easy to hide weapons in such terrain, and very hard to take them all out, as we learned in Afghanistan not so many years ago. These weapons should have more than enough range to fly from one side of the Persian Gulf to the other.
The problem is
1) Finding the position of the carrier.
I have stood on the hill overlooking Ventura, CA (elevation maybe 1000 feet). I do not know how many miles I could see into the Pacific, but the horizon was a long, long way away. Ships sailing up the coast were clearly visible from my shop, elevation maybe 25 feet.
2) Engaging it with a quantity and quality of missiles capable of overcoming the multilayered defense that protect it, from the fighters to the Aegis to the point defense systems.
Yes, the ships have protection. Counting the aircraft & the sailors & fancy electronic gear, an aircraft carrier can be worth maybe 10 billion dollars, maybe more. A surface to ship missile, by contrast, may only cost $50,000 or $100,000. Anyone serious about taking out one of these ships will launch salvos of missiles, perhaps as many as 30 or 40 at a time, and they will launch from perhaps 120 degrees of arc or more. Because an aircraft carrier’s ordinance is on the surface of the ship, and because the surface of the ship is itself its primary offensive weapon, a single hit may well cripple the entire vessel.
“Ships in the Persian Gulf are virtually line-of-sight targets.”
Things are a bit more complicated. It is not the Pacific of course but for the most part it is significant wider than any realistic visual range you can get from the iranian coast.
Not quite. Carriers have a fairly deep draft & the Persian Gulf is not all that deep. Large ships accelerate & decelerate slowly. They are, by their sheer size, not very maneuverable, and they are not even the biggest ships out there. The Persian Gulf is full of giant ships.
You NEVER put carriers in range of shore batteries, as they have no defense against them. But this is exactly what our president has done: Parked our finest weapon smack in front of their main batteries & dared them to shoot. A carrier’s crew is 5000+. They don’t have lifeboats.
This is before we consider that the Iranians probably have access to Russian or Chinese satellite based radars, presumably under contract.
Iranian strategy is not so hard to figure out. If they wait until the planes are launched & over Iranian territory, they then have about an hour to disable the carriers so that the planes cannot return. If, during this same time, the Iranians disable the runways at US airbases in Iraq & Afghanistan, all attacking aircraft (land & sea based) may be lost.
Does the fate of the Spanish Armada come to mind? Just as aircraft carriers doomed battleships, surface to ship missiles doom aircraft carriers, when misused as shore monitors.
Is the US Navy suicidal?
My apologies for a long post.
While these events are taking place in a Gulf from which all commercial traffic will have fled…what happens to the price of oil..and even it’s availability.?
Do we pay $150 a barrel,,$10 a gallon at the pump..and what does that do to the US economy.
What if the Chinese sell their mountain of dollars and US bonds. Does the dollar drop by %40 per cent ??
We know from Iraq,that the Bushies didn’t have any plans for “the day after”..so one imagines that this is some form of mad enterprise,which Brezinski rightly sees as the end of US world power,
As US policy is now in the control of AIPAC and Jewish Lobby,I guess that all the planning is now done on Tel Aviv…what a predicament !!!
“Each one has fuel, each one has ordinance. Just one of them blowing up would put that end of the deck out of commission.”
Frankly I can’t make out any ordnance carried aboard those planes. AFAIK, they aren’t going to be armed until before launch.
The ordnance itself is stored in protected magazines, until needed.
“All other naval ships are built low to the water, their ordinance kept far below deck in heavily armored magazines. They can take a pounding.”
For a start the aircraft carriers keep the bombs (which have some level of hardening against accidental detonation in a fire) etc. for their aircrafts in protected magazines deep down, until they are not required for arming the planes. Then it’s not like others warship types don’t have weapons in exposed positions. Antiship missiles are almost always kept in racks in the open, with the only protection offered by their containers and ASW torpedo tubes are in a similar situation. I have no idea how much protection VLS cells offer but probably isn’t that much given the design change on the next destroyer class.
“The odd “torpedo boat” is a worry, but the main threat comes from shore-based mobile launchers.”
The bulk of the iranian antiship missiles is made by C-801, maximum range around 40 km (nowehere nearly enough to cover the gulf adequately) or from chinese Styx clones, with greater range but obsolete.
These weapons are outdated.
AFAIK the soviets envisioned strikes involving one hundred of large supersonic antiship missiles converging on the carrier group at the same time. This is what they estimated was necessary to overcome the battle group defense and inflict enough damage.
The missiles vs antimissile systems is a game the VMF and the USN played for decades.
“I have stood on the hill overlooking Ventura, CA (elevation maybe 1000 feet).”
305 meters will give you a 75km visual horizont to a 12 meters tall target. Eight meters will give you 22km. These are purely theoretical figures based on earth curvature. In practice it will be much less than that depending on a wide variety of factors. The Gulf is approximatively 150km wide.
“Yes, the ships have protection. Counting the aircraft & the sailors & fancy electronic gear, an aircraft carrier can be worth maybe 10 billion dollars, maybe more. A surface to ship missile, by contrast, may only cost $50,000 or $100,000. Anyone serious about taking out one of these ships will launch salvos of missiles, perhaps as many as 30 or 40 at a time, and they will launch from perhaps 120 degrees of arc or more. Because an aircraft carrier’s ordinance is on the surface of the ship, and because the surface of the ship is itself its primary offensive weapon, a single hit may well cripple the entire vessel.”
A decent antiship missile is quite a bit more expensive than that and by more here I mean an order of magnitude or close to that.
“You NEVER put carriers in range of shore batteries, as they have no defense against them.”
Well the iraqi SSM batteries did not get much done in GW1. Their missiles were either shot down or missed.
I hope you are aware that carriers are protected by a screen of cruisers and destroyers whose main task is precisely dealing with incoming missiles.
“This is before we consider that the Iranians probably have access to Russian or Chinese satellite based radars, presumably under contract.”
They russians had systems which were designed to find carriers in the open ocean, and were less than a stellar success at that task. They could and were fooled in a variety of ways.They couldn’t tell apart a carrier from a tanker.
“If, during this same time, the Iranians disable the runways at US airbases in Iraq & Afghanistan, all attacking aircraft (land & sea based) may be lost.”
How they are supposed to accomplish that is beyond me.
“Just as aircraft carriers doomed battleships, surface to ship missiles doom aircraft carriers, when misused as shore monitors.”
That was the official Party line in the VMF. In the end they realized their mistake, did a 180° and had three aicraft carriers under construction at the end of the Cold war.
Is the US Navy suicidal?
No, it is that they have a more realistic appraisal of what Iran can or cannot do. The main threat is against merchant traffic.
For Dave & Marcello,
Dave’s reasoning is quite good. And a key reason why any air power campaign must include many, many more sites than just the Iranian nuclear facilities. For example, there is no way IRGC and IRGCN facilities and SSM launch sites on Abu Musa or Sirri Islands, not to menthion the Kilo sub piers, mine storage sites and ships at Bandar Abbas could not be struck. So too the numerous IR air force bases and integrated air defense network.
All of these facilities are clearly visible in Google Earth (some with startling clarity!). Destroying the nuclear sites means also destroying pretty much the entirety of Iran’s military in the same swoop. Acting in this way raises the odds that those “sitting ducks” in the waters of the Persian/Arabian Gulf will defeat the obvious counter-attack.
Not unlike the OIF “Shock and Awe” air strikes, you’re either all in or not in at all. Its the US military way.
Its also why I don’t think the air attack on nuke sites can be outsourced to the Israeli Air Force alone.
SP
Got A watch is right in saying that the pro-Israeli thing would be a fig leaf justifying an attack on Iran. Israel has many genuine enthusiasts in DC but since the end of the cold war she has been an unreliable US vassal. Israel’s main role in the Great Game now is as a pretext for the projection of US power. No sane friend of Israel would unleash creative chaos in the ME. Taiwan plays a similar role in the PNAC dreaming.
Pressing US interests lie elsewhere.It is now nakedly evident that this careening war is a desperate struggle to maintain US hegemony in the Persian Gulf. A fine strategic mission; unfortunately pursued by vainglorious incompetents.
On a Hizbullah front though I doubt Tehran will rate them as much more than a symbolic ally in any planning. Lebanon is close to civil war and while Hizbullah fought a successful ground defense last year the war also demonstrated that their offensive capacity to tackle Israel was greatly exaggerated. Comparing the comprehensive carnage the IAF brought to Lebanon with the peppering of rocket strikes Israel endured is instructive. By the end of the war Hizbullah were still launching 200 Katyusha strikes a day but their longer range missiles were silenced. They had the firepower of a single IDF howitzer battery without the accuracy. Hizbullah revealed themselves to be a horsefly buzzing around the Israeli lion’s nethers; no more than an irritant.
While DC is dispatching Patriot batteries to ward off Iran’s Shihab-3s from the Gulf states I’d be more worried about Iran’s sprawling, deniable, unconventional capabilities and not just in Iraq itself.
As part of DC’s new coalition of the witless Saudi is using the oil weapon to cudgel Iran.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=64683
Tehran if menaced into a corner could go “nuclear” and close the Strait but why be so clumsy. Saudi oil infrastructure is very vulnerable to terrorist attack. Knocking off Ras Tanura and blaming AQ would be child’s play for the Iranians. This would offer DC no dramatic flag draped coffin casis belli but inflict tremendous economic pain.
Elsewhere:
Mossad bumping off Iranian nuclear wonks?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/821634.html
Nasrullah on the very scary topic of Shi’a evangelism amongst the Sunni:
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2007/02/nasrallah_on_th.html
Dear Col. Lang:
re your comment:
American officers do not, I say again do not associat their situation in any way with that of the Germans and Japanese who were hanged after WW2. American officers do not expect to be tried by the victors. pl
Of course they don’t. And probably as late as 1944 did German and Japanese officers expect to be tried by the victors. Bootlickers rarely think beyond the next lick.
I assumed when Shinseki was sidelined that President Cheney would only fill the top ranks of the Pentagon with bootlickers and careerists who would go along with anything and not think of consequences.
And in response to the Iranians going after battle hardened US carriers, why would they do that when there are so many fat waddling thin skinned tankers available to sink and burn?
And really, Russian and China only have to sit and watch it all play out.
Talk about consequences. $10-$15. per gallon gasoline will finish the Cheney administration, the Republicans, and most like the world economy.
Cheers, John
Whilst I’m sure that Stratcom can generate endless “executable” plans to attack Iran, they do make assumptions that the Bush administration will be able to “execute” a number of items in their “must-have” tick-box to enable the plan to proceed – these items exist on the diplomatic plane, and, minimally, require the administration’s crack diplomatic corps securing the assent of key allies for the use of bases and airspace in third-party countries. Strategic bombers don’t magically dematerialise from the ether over Iran – they have to launch from somewhere in the region that is actually on terra firma.
Needless to say, these third-parties will have doubts about the wisdom of the endeavour – they are, after all, being asked to renounce neutrality in a conflict, for which there will be no UNSC legitimation, and which will likely have immediate negative repercussions for them, and that the damages won’t be covered by their insurance policies.
I suspect that the talk of “nukes” is a reflection of the reality that the Bush administration cannot give Stratcom the necessary ticks in the necessary boxes. I suppose that the USAF could muster a flight or two of stealth bombers equipped with low-yield nuclear weapons out of Guam – but you can be as sure as shit that Turkey, the UK ( Diego Garcia ), Qatar, Oman, the UAE and Kuwait have all passed on this already.
The Iranians have a very straightforward national security doctrine: either the Persian Gulf is for everybody or it is for nobody.
Let’s see – first attack Iran, then North Korea, and then, in a final act of self immolation, attack China. What a wonderful way to precipitate the process of global warming and go out with a bang – America the beautiful?
Iran has much information on the US military, its capabilities, and its movements.
There are several reasons for this:
1) Iran-Iraq War and the knowledge that was attained from fighting a US-backed foe.
2) The Russians. Putin mentioned the other day what I’ve been telling people for some time and that is the power of a Gas Cartel. It would require the inclusion of Iran to really have a meaningful effect. Russia is not going to kiss that, and the commercial money-making opportunities Iran presents good-bye without some sort of fight.
3) The Chinese. ME is China’s largest supply of Oil and it has recently signed numerous energy contracts worth in excess of $100B USD with Iran.
Iran is the real deal folks.
Also – Arbogast – I agree on Argentina. I’ve been looking for a few months at buying something down there. Beautiful women, Beautfiul weather, Cheap Housing, and $7 for a gorgeous filet mignon.
Count me in.
Jim Schmidt
My sister and brother-in-law farmed in North Wales.
Parts of the Snowdon mountain range still cannot have sheep grazing on them – thousands of miles from Chernobyl.
I’m actually think Peru at this point, but I’ll certainly look into Argentina as well. The tough thing is convincing my wife – if we don’t make the move soon, we may not be able to make it. Fortunately she is a surgeon, so that should make it easier for us than for many people to make the move.
I will say something about spin…
Sometime ago the Saudi said CLEARLY they will give weapons and money to the sunni insurgents.
Now, the sunni insurgents have SAMs and can shut down US copters.
Who they blame? Iran…
Okaaaayyyyyy!
And guys? Argentina? The beautifull women live at Brazil.
João Carlos:
Yes, I heard that in Brazil you have to fight women off!
Patrick Buchanan quotes Unger quoting Lang
“More ominous than the hawk-talk is Unger’s report that “Bush has directed StratCom (U.S. Strategic Command) to draw up plans for a massive strike against Iran at a time when CentCom has had its hands full overseeing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shifting to StratCom indicates that they are talking about a really punishing air force and naval air attack (on Iran).” So says retired Col. Patrick Lang, formerly of the Defense Intelligence Agency. ”
Buchanan has the Decider’s number and it is not good for us.