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Attacking America...or the appearance of it
by Dale Brown, 2007

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, Monday February 5, 2007

I laughed when I read a news article this morning that said a group of 35 British human rights groups, think tanks, and religious groups warned that an attack on Iran would be "disastrous."

All I could say was..."DUH!!!" Who doesn't realize that Iran's strategic and geopolitical position is so vital to the West that prompting Tehran to respond aggressively would probably create a global crisis? If Iran shut down the Straits of Hormuz, almost half of the world's crude oil would cease to flow. THAT'S a crisis.

But does this mean that the United States shouldn't pursue an aggressive process to convince Iran to stop enrichment? The EU-3--France, Great Britain, and Germany--have been trying for years now to get Iran to stop its nuclear program; Russia had even offered to enrich uranium for Iran's Russian-built nuclear reactor. Iran has refused to cooperate and continues on with their plans to step up enrichment to bomb-making proportions. Obviously negotiations aren't working.

Naturally, the statement urged the United States and Israel to back off, stop its threatening actions and words, and give negotiations a chance. It didn't urge Iran to stop plans for enriching massive amounts of plutonium. Even though Iran has directly threatened Israel and has repeatedly defied the United Nations Security Council's resolutions and the International Atomic Energy Agency's monitoring program, groups like the one in Britain point the finger of blame at the United States.

At least North Korea's and Iran's nuclear weapons programs were mentioned as the reason why the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (www.thebulletin.org) decided to move the hands of the "Doomsday Clock" from seven to five minutes to midnight, although they also mentioned America's research on nuclear "bunker buster" bombs (currently suspended) and our remaining arsenal of over ten thousand nuclear warheads (reduced by 10% this past year and most of them in storage) for the heightened chance of nuclear war. I disagree most of the time with the BAS, but I still read their magazine, and I urge others to do so as well for a fresh (if mostly strident and exaggerated) perspective.

I believe a lot of back-channel negotiations are taking place between the U.S. and Iran, but we won't hear much about them. What we will hear is the rhetoric, from both sides, about how the other side is unreasonable and provoking the other. That's to be expected.

This is a battle of perception. Iran can never hope to match the military, political, or economic might of the United States, but it can--and many argue they indeed are--win the battle of appearances. Because of the state of the conflict in Iraq, America looks weak, indecisive, incompetent, and ineffectual. At the same time, because of its support of asymmetrical terror and insurgent forces throughout the Middle East, Iran looks stronger, in control, and able to influence events, dictate terms, or even ignore the rest of the world at its leisure. These appearances translate over to everyone's perception of their military capability and their ability to project power throughout the region.

I'm not buying that argument, and I don't think Iran buys it either. Ahmadinejad may be a loud-mouthed rabble-rousing pretender, but I don't think he's stupid. Iran knows that the United States and perhaps even Israel can ruin Iran's future. True, Iran can create a short-term crisis by closing oil shipments out of the Persian Gulf, but for a short time only. Eventually the mines will be cleared, the anti-ship missiles will be destroyed, the shipments will resume...but the Iranian government will cease to exist.

Iran wants to come to terms with the United States, not fight, and that's why I think the back-channel negotiations will eventually work. Iran will agree to pull its irregular forces and "advisers" out of Iraq and suspend uranium enrichment, and the U.S. will allow other countries to supply nuclear material and expertise to Iran, unfreeze some Iranian assets, and promise not to attack. Of course, Iran will continue secret low-level research and development, and the U.S. will continue intelligence-gathering, supporting anti-government groups, conducting joint military exercises in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, and preparing to attack. But things will quiet down considerably, and both sides will be able to claim a diplomatic victory.

Are we too weak to take on Iran right now? Everyone believes we are, and I think that's an advantage for the United States. But Iran is not a strong military force in the Middle East. Their entire military, along with heavy industries such as petroleum refining, has suffered from a lack of spare parts as a result of the embargo following the 1979 U.S. embassy seige--despite Iran's oil wealth, the fourth largest in the world, they must import vast amounts of gasoline and other refined petroleum products and chemicals because their own plants are in such poor condition.

Could we destroy their nuclear facilities if we wanted? Probably not, but why even try? I believe the U.S. and Israel could destroy most of Iran's air defenses, ballistic missile sites, military airfields, command-and-control centers, anti-ship missile sites, communications, and power plants with sustained and concentrated air attacks, and that would be enough to force Iran to beg for a cease-fire. We would then force them to open up their nuclear sites for inspection or face more attacks.

Iran has taken on the apprearance of some invincible boogey-monster, and at the same time America looks like a post-Vietnam paper tiger again. I'm hoping this has been created by design by clever propagandists in our government in order to goad our adversaries into reacting. Truth is the first casualty of war, and it is often the first casualty in the lead-up to war. The effective use of disinformation can be the most effective weapon in our multi-trillion dollar arsenal.

The problem is, the American people believe it too, and that weakens us much more than the actual fighting ever could.

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