Transterrestrial Musings

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Iran would not survive a Israeli counterstrike and if they did, they damn sure wouldn't survive us removing any remaining nuclear weapons and missile sites they might still have intact.

After such an attack on Israel, Iran would pretty much be treated as a mad dog state and swiftly put down.

Posted by Mike Puckett at January 22, 2007 08:17 AM

Ahmadenijad is already in disfavor both among the Iranian public and also at least among some of the more moderate clerics. Iran has a democracy that functions and he will probably be out relatively soon, barring an Israeli attack or something of the sort soon. This piece is really paranoid; sure we can work ourselves up to paranoia in lots of ways but we can also choose what is relatively worth worrying about and what isn't. This isn't. Not that I'm claiming Mike agrees with me, but I agree with Mike, Iran would be Toast if it tried. Stop worrying, even if this is the most depressing day of the year ;-).

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at January 22, 2007 11:01 AM

Also, one should note that this is exactly the same rhetoric that emanated from the Jerusalem Post prior to the Iraq war - Mushroom clouds and Saddam etc. ad infinitum.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at January 22, 2007 11:25 AM

Whatever its shortcomings as a description of Israel's available options, Morris's piece is subject to critique on strictly quantifiable grounds. "Taking out the known Iranian facilities with conventional weapons would take an American-size air force working round-the-clock for more than a month" is a boldly ridiculous claim, as is the statement that any nuclear strike means "preemptively killing millions of Iranians." To be sure, it would take more than a single Osirak-type raid to significantly disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, and the use of nuclear warheads would kill thousands. But a few nights of sorties by a small air force are not a month of massive raids by the largest deployable military on the planet, and thousands of people (as for example the death toll in Iraq since the invasion) are not millions of people (as for example the death toll of Saddam's regime). The main problem, as I have blogged over on Arcturus, is that a visible crater and mushroom cloud would look very, very bad, irrespective of the likelihood that a thousand lives would be saved for every life lost.

The remaining and more disturbing question is whether the Iranian leadership will take the approach that since eventual recovery of even the most devastated targets is inevitable, it is therefore justified in plastering the entire country, including Jerusalem, even if a counterstrike would kill most of the Iranian populace. If such a belief can be not only held but acted on, then classical deterrence has truly failed, and preemptive strikes, or at least assassinations, become the best if not the only option.

In terms of falsifiable predictions, what to watch for is, indeed, the wisdom of crowds: emigration from Israel, drawdowns of investment, and the like. If a measurable economic downturn, driven by flight of capital (including social capital) from Israel picks up over the next few years, we may safely predict that a war is imminent -- a real one, not low-intensity conflicts like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We may hope, however, that continued low oil prices bring an early end to Ahmadinejad's deranged presidency, if not the entire loathsome dictatorship of the mullahs.

Posted by Jay Manifold at January 22, 2007 11:42 AM

One thing that has not failed to be true is how the pundits have always gotten it wrong. This piece brings to mind our homegrown pundits and others in the following piece by Glenn Greenwald:
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Our country's tough guys and their moms and dads

Prompted by my post from yesterday about Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan, I want to raise an issue which I think receives far less attention than its significance warrants. Among the country's most influential neoconservatives, one finds extremely pervasive nepotism. Beyond that, a conspicuously high percentage of them have had their careers created, shaped and fueled by their parents. They have been dependent upon the accomplishments of their parents, especially their fathers, whose political views they end up reciting almost without deviation. Just look at the intertwined axis that spawned the two leading "surge" advocates, Kristol and Kagan:

Bill Kristol's parents are Irving Kristol, the so-called "godfather of neoconservatism," and Gertrude Himmelfarb, whose defining political act was a homage paid at the AEI to the virtues of Victorian morality. Bill followed in his parents' footsteps almost completely - the same career, the same political circles, the same exact political beliefs as his mother and father, and had his career shaped by them from the start.

Fred Kagan did exactly the same thing as Bill Kristol -- copied the career and mindset of his father. Just like Kristol's father, The Washington Post labelled Kagan's dad, Donald, "a beloved father figure of the ascendant neoconservative movement." Fred Kagan even went so far as to co-author a 2000 book with his dad entitled While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness and the Threat to Peace Today, a book which -- pre 9/11 -- advocated many of the very same militaristic policies which today are "justified" by the 9/11 attacks. Fred Kagan's brother, Robert, is exactly the same as Fred and Bill Kristol. Along with Kristol, Robert co-founded the Project for the New American Century which, of course, spent the years prior to the 9/11 attacks urging regime change in Iraq, among other things.

This sprawling nepotism web goes on and on even as one descends to the lower levels of the neoconservative ranks of importance and influence. Jonah Goldberg's career was created and shaped by his mother, Lucianne, whose political beliefs he copies. He came to be known by attaching himself to his mom as she milked her role in the Lewinsky scandal (at the time, Jonah, 29, was "vice president" of his mom's company). John Podhoertz is a poor man's version of his dad, Norman, and his mom, Midge Decter, two of the most revered neoconservative figures around. White House neoconservative (and Iran-Contra convict) Elliot Abrams married one of Decter's daughters (from her first marriage), and one of his first key jobs in the neoconservative movement was when he was chosen by Norm Podhoretz, Decter's husband, to write for Commentary (Abrams was also a major contributor to (Bill) Kristol and (Robert) Kagan's PNAC).

In one sense, this is all just a strain of a general and I think rather damaging aristocratizing of our political process. Last month, Digby wrote extensively about this in the context of the Bush family, the catalyst for which was Digby's observation that a Bush family photo includes our current President, his brother the Governor of one of our largest states, their father the former President who, in turn, is the son of a former Senator. And that clan continuously uses its political power to propagate itself, exploiting its vast power network to strengthen the careers and wealth of its family members and continuously breeding new heirs to the throne.

It is true that neoconservatives and Republicans do not have a monopoly on the political exploitation of family connections. The Kennedys still pervade the political system at all elected levels, and the political careers of Jesse Jackson Jr., Andrew Cuomo, Bob Casey, Al Gore, and Harold Ford, Jr. -- to name just a few -- clearly benefited from the political accomplishments of their fathers. And Hillary Clinton's status as a leading presidential candidate is derivative, first and foremost, of the fact that she is married to a former President.

But the neoconservative attachment to and dependence upon their parents goes beyond mere exploitation of one's parents or other relatives for political career gain. So many leading neoconservatives end up following in their parents' footsteps -- remaining attached to them and becoming carbon copies of them -- to an extent that is quite unusual and clearly significant. To have the top level of an entire highly influential political movement be so dependent upon their parents for their careers and worldview seems, at the very least, to be worth some commentary.

Separation from one's parents is just a basic rite of passage of becoming an adult. In that regard, rebellion against one's parents is -- to invoke an emerging cliche -- a feature, not a bug, of adolescence. Repudiating control by one's parents and finding one's own way in life is a critical part of becoming a fully-formed adult, and so is an effort to have one's accomplishments exist independently of ones' mommy and daddy. Someone who decides to choose the exact same careers as their parents, fueled by their parents' friends and accomplishments, and who ends up reciting virtually the exact views of their parents, is someone who seems to be reliant on their parents in the extreme.

Rebellion for its own sake -- against one's parents or anything else -- is adolescent in nature and, if it doesn't balance out, is just as mindless as those who remain slavishly attached to their parents. And all of these dynamics exist as generalities with all sorts of exceptions. But in general, choosing to live in the shadows of one's parents -- where everything copies their path and is shaped and molded by them -- would seem to create very stunted and coddled personalities.

Many, perhaps most, of the leading neoconservatives don't seem to have arrived at their political worldview through much or any intellectual struggle or independence, nor do they seem to have had to make their own way in building their careers. Quite the opposite -- they seem to have been bred into their lives, and they just marched, like good little boys, along with their parents' views and plans for them. And they not only willingly accepted, but seem to have eagerly sought, all sorts of help from their parents in building their careers, all in exchange for fully embracing their parents' views almost without deviation.

It's rather ironic (and almost certainly not coincidental) that neoconservatives love, more than anything else, to strut around spewing tough-guy Chruchill warrior rhetoric and to sermonize on the virtues of self-reliance -- and are characterized in their political views by a total lack of empathy for the plight of others -- even though they have chosen extremely coddled, privileged lives feeding off the accomplishments and directives of their mothers and fathers. And quite significantly, the political Leader they found to represent their belief system, to personify their contrived warrior pose, and to implement their radical agenda -- George W. Bush -- is the most extreme version of that coddled and father-dependent personality one can find.

The embrace by the President of the "surge" plan of Kagan and Kristol -- father-controlled figures all -- is really nothing more noble or elevated than a petulant refusal to accept the consequences of their failure and responsibility for their actions. It's a foot-stomping exercise, whereby they feel entitled to satisfaction and personal vindication, and that personal desire trumps everything -- hence, their eagerness to ignore the damage they have wrought by inventing new war theories and fantasies to continue their wars that don't affect them in any way, for which only other people pay a price. It's the behavior of people who have developed an extreme sense of personal entitlement by virtue of allowing, even urging, their fathers and mothers to shape their lives far beyond what is normal or healthy.

I realize that there are some people who have an aversion to raising issues of this sort on the ground that it constitutes some sort of unknowable pop psychology and that one ought to confine oneself only to the substance of the "issues." I don't agree with that view at all.

It is glaringly apparent that the twisted and bloodthirsty tenets of neoconservatism which are dominating our country -- this insatiable craving for slaughter that is as endless as it is pointless, and an equally insatiable desire to expand the government power of their Leaders -- are not rooted in some rotted, coherent geopolitical doctrine as much as they are rooted in rotted personality disorders. All of that is sociopathic and authoritarian and those are phenomena far more psychological than political.

For that reason, the Bush Movement at its core -- the true, hard-core, reality-denying, warmongering, dead-ender True Believers -- is much more of a psychological movement than it is a political movement, and to ignore the former makes it impossible to understand or meaningfully discuss the latter. There is no reason to ignore the impulses and personality types of the people who for the last six years have governed, and continued to govern, our country, nor is there any reason to pretend that this all stems from sterile and elevated good faith political disputes when it doesn't.

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Posted by at January 22, 2007 01:23 PM

Ah, yes, that voice of reason and sanity (not to mention sock puppetry), Glenn Greenwald.

[rolling eyes]

Among the country's most influential neoconservatives, one finds extremely pervasive nepotism. Beyond that, a conspicuously high percentage of them have had their careers created, shaped and fueled by their parents. They have been dependent upon the accomplishments of their parents, especially their fathers, whose political views they end up reciting almost without deviation.

Not that I'm a neoconservative, but all three of my parents (mother, father and stepmother) were liberal Democrats. I was, too, when I was young and stupid.

Glenn Greenwald, Moron First Class.

Is that you, Glenn?

Also, I don't appreciate this particular anonymous coward hijacking my bandwidth and disk space to post nonsense. Thus, new policy. Any comments consisting mostly of long quotes from other bloggers (of whatever stripe) will be deleted with extreme prejudice. That's what links are for.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 22, 2007 01:34 PM

[Zoidberg]Horray for Simberg![/Zoidberg]

Posted by Mike Puckett at January 22, 2007 02:05 PM

So, one arrives at liberalism through thought, but conservatism by emulating one's parents?? Heh, so much for the respect of the Left for the "greatest generation," eh? Nothin' but the sneers.

That anonymous comment reminds me of the following from "Billy Madison"

what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Posted by Lurking Observer at January 22, 2007 02:09 PM

Yes, similarly, when one reads one of Greenwald's posts, one can almost viscerally sense the IQ leaking from one's brain. Which is why I try to avoid it--I don't have that much to spare. Fortunately, that bit of stupidity was encountered early on.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 22, 2007 02:14 PM

Greenwald only has a New York Times Best Selling Book on the Bush Administration and its abuses of power. And he has one of the most-read blogs on the Interent, after 9 months of blogging. And Senators read from his blog at Senate hearings and his posts lead to front-page news stories in major newspapers.

And I am Glen Ellison Ellensberg Ellers Greenwald.

Posted by Anonymous Moron at January 22, 2007 03:11 PM

Time, and well past time, to grow mushrooms in Tehran. And Mecca. And Medina. And Qom. And Islamabad, Khartoum, Dacca, Kuala Lumpur, Qatar, Riyadh, Baghdad, Aden, Kabul... and unfortunately, now Bangkok.

Western freedom and democracy cannot coexisit with Islamic totalitarianism on the same planet. I know which one I would rather have leave. Let's arrange it. Now.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at January 22, 2007 03:48 PM

Whatever one may think of the likelyhood of this kind of scenario, and no matter how indifferent Europe and North America may become to the fate of Israel, would it not (finally) occur to everyone (including those in the region fortunate enough to not be downwind of the results): "If Iran will do this...which of us is next?"

Most of them* would find the response; "Hey, but we're not Israel. Why should they attack us?" to be of little comfort.

Even the Russians could conclude that this is too much insanity, too close to home, and split/fuse a few atoms to shut down the nuisance.

* Espically those within range of the missiles, but everyone else in the world would also have to ratchet up their concerns about 'unconventional' nuclear attacks from a country with a demonstrated ability and wilingness to engage in first-use, and an adequate supply of two-legged suicide delivery systems.

Posted by Frank Glover at January 22, 2007 04:29 PM

Israel has plenty of H-bombs of their own.

Iran is 90% Shia and they believe the Sunnis are apostates.

Put those two facts together and this is what Israel does. It tells the Shia mullahs in Iran:

"You A-bomb us and we pretty much exterminate the Shia. If that happens, Sunni Islam becomes the ONLY Islam on Earth. And Ali, the founder of the Shia branch will not be happy with you in heaven. Your martyrdom will merely assure the primacy of your arch enemies, the apostate Sunni."

Wikipedia has a nice map of where the Shia live versus the Sunni. No need to deter all Islam to deter Iran, merely the Shia.

= = =

We also should provide Israel with those 747s with lasers and the Aegis SM-3 system.

= = =

And if Israel made a deal with the Sunni Arab League (Egypt, Saudis, Gulf States) and allowed those Sunni governments to be heroes to the Palestinian people, then Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan etc. . . might very well give their blessing to a military smashing of Iranian weapons programs.

Just like the quiet "go sic 'em" those governments said concerning Hezbollah last summer. The IDF should have gone into Lebanon with infantry (heh) and dug out Hezbollah with satchel charges and flamethrowers.

Posted by Bill White at January 22, 2007 04:43 PM

Anon Moron,

Millions of people watched the "Gong Show". What's your point?

Posted by Bill Maron at January 22, 2007 04:53 PM

I think everyone should just calm down. As far as I can tell, Iran hasn't initiated a war with anyone in the last 200 years. Ahmedenijad is an idiot whose time will pass.

On the other hand Bush may believe that this is his final calling (from the voice upstairs).

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at January 22, 2007 04:58 PM

And of course, Ahmedenijad does not have any authority over the armed forces.

The same decentralized approach to the Iranian nuclear program that limits the effectivness of an attack also should greatly slow the rate of progress, unlike North Korea where there was the leverage over Seoul.

My fear is that whatever the twiching mass of neoconsevatism has devolved into will spasm and trigger actual genocide trying to prempt this masochistic fantasy of one. I just wish people would stop trying to relive vicariously the Second World War, or refighting Vietnam (this time no hippies!!!).

Posted by Duncan Young at January 22, 2007 11:42 PM

And I am Glen Ellison Ellensberg Ellers Greenwald.

It's getting harder and harder to tell parody from the real thing.

Posted by McGehee at January 23, 2007 05:55 AM

On the other hand Bush may believe that this is his final calling (from the voice upstairs).

T&T, just how much do you know about Methodism?

Posted by McGehee at January 23, 2007 05:55 AM

I posted this article, MAD with a vengeance before I saw the Jerusalem Post editorial. In it I recommend that when Israel adopts MAD, as it must if Iran goes nuclear, that it not limit its reprisal to Iran - Israel should articulate a MAD doctrine that includes all hostile Muslim states.

While I disagree with some of the particulars of the editorial, I've pretty much come to the depressing conclusion that Iran will be allowed to develop its nukes. I hope I'm wrong but nothing comeing out of the Bush administration these days indicates direct military action is being serious contemplated. Nor is Israel in a position to eliminate the Iranian nuclear program by a conventional attack. In Throwing out the steering wheel posted October 2005, I said:

Taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities cannot be accomplished in a single large raid. There are too many installations and many of them are hardened against air attack. It will be necessary to ascertain the effectiveness of each strike and allocate additional “strike packages” to targets that have not been eliminated. Multiple strikes on each nuclear target are likely. In order to make sure that these multiple attacks will not be interfered with, SEAD (suppression of enemy air defense) attacks will have to be part of the initial strike. SEAD attacks would target SAM sites, airbases, and aircraft. What I’m describing is actually an air campaign. If conducted by the Israelis, it would easily last several days – possibly a week – in order to vouchsafe that the most dangerous nuclear sites have been eliminated.

I go on to say that the problem is not a military one but a political one.

There is no way that an Israeli attack can take place without the U.S. condoning it. Israeli aircraft would have to pass through airspace controlled by the U.S. Thus, the universal view is going to be that the Israelis are acting as henchmen for the U.S. – doing America’s dirty work. Since this would be a political disaster of epic proportions, I have always assumed that the U.S. would never permit it to take place – that, in fact, the U.S. will attack.

In A tactical leak, posted on 7 Jan 2007, I say that it is even less likely that the U.S. would acquiesce to an Israeli air campaign against Iran today:

A lot of things have changed since that October post: the issuance of an official U.S. intelligence estimate that Iran isn’t close to having nukes and the ascendancy of Robert Gates, who is on record as saying U.S. preemption isn’t feasible, as Secretary of Defense. One thing that hasn’t changed is the practical difficulty of Israel carrying out a successful conventional attack against Iranian nuclear facilities. To be successful, I maintain that an air campaign of extended duration would be required – minimally several hundred sorties. Such a campaign, lasting several days, is not something I see the U.S. permitting.

I maintain, if the U.S. doesn't carry out the attack and if the Israeli's don't use tactical nukes, Israel can't elminate the Iranian nuclear program by conventional means.

Beyond that, a number of commenters seem to think that when Ahmadinajad falls - and his position is daily becoming more precarious - that this will somehow change Iranian policy. Iranian officials, both military and civilian, were talking about elminating Israel and the viability of nuclear martyrdom before Ahmadinajad. In any case, Ahmadinajad is a puppet of the Iranian clerisy and isn't saying anything they disagree with.

I see no evidence that Iran is directly deterrable. I don't know if my MADWAV doctrine will work as a deterrent but I argue that it is necessary in the event of a "Second Holocaust" to make the perpetrators - that is, the Islamic world as a whole - suffer an equivalent level of damage.

Posted by Paul Hager at January 23, 2007 08:38 AM

Paul, your strategy would undermine efforts to bring Sunni Muslims into a coalition to restrain Iran.

Posted by Bill White at January 23, 2007 10:39 AM

Bill White says:

Paul, your strategy would undermine efforts to bring Sunni Muslims into a coalition to restrain Iran.

I don't disagree with this statement but I assume that you would agree that such a coalition would have to be U.S.-led. It may be the case that our good friends, the Saudis, are using their oil weapon against Iran right now.

My concern - and obviously, the concern of Israel - is what to do if/when Iran actually acquires nukes. Clearly any efforts by the U.S. and Sunni allies to restrain Iran will have failed at that point. An Israeli promise to massively retaliate against an Iranian attack will become the final deterrent. I don't think even that will work for the reasons stated.

I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that the U.S. government will let Iran get nukes but it does begin to seem more and more likely. Moreover, I agree with the Israelis that time is running out to deal with the Iranian problem. Time is the crucial factor. If it takes Iran 10 years to develop and deploy nukes (as the intelligence estimate claimed), the US + Israel may have a functionally impenetrable ballistic missile shield. If Iran is putting megaton nukes on its missiles next year then the situation is quite different.

Posted by Paul Hager at January 23, 2007 01:38 PM

Addendum to Bill White.

With respect to any cooperation between Sunni Muslim states and Israel, best would be an agreement for those in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Jordan) to grant Israel unlimited overflight and basing rights in order to carry out a preemptive attack against Iran. Needless to say, that's never going to happen...

Posted by Paul Hager at January 23, 2007 03:02 PM

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