PrintSeptember 2, 2007
The Left's Bullwinkle Gambit
It's all over the news this morning; we are going to hit Iran. The Times of London gives us the details:
THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said. Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus”.
President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust”. He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran “before it is too late”.
Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war..." Except that President Bush has been talking that way about Iran for the past 5 years. And yes, we have received similar warnings from a variety of sources in that time that we were on the brink of war with Iran - at least according to the left.
But like Bullwinkle in the old Rocky and Bullwinkle skit where the talking moose tries to pull a rabbit out of his hat time and time again ("Nothin' up my sleeve...PRESTO! Ooops...wrong hat") the left laughably keeps coming up empty in their dire predictions about going to war with Iran. I have lost track of the number of times that I've read at Daily Kos that we are on the eve of Armageddon:
The military no doubt has several different plans for going to war with the Iranians. All of them are on the table.
But like Bullwinkle in the old Rocky and Bullwinkle skit where the talking moose tries to pull a rabbit out of his hat time and time again ("Nothin' up my sleeve...PRESTO! Ooops...wrong hat") the left laughably keeps coming up empty in their dire predictions about going to war with Iran. I have lost track of the number of times that I've read at Daily Kos that we are on the eve of Armageddon:
The military no doubt has several different plans for going to war with the Iranians. All of them are on the table.
I have a friend who is an LSO on a carrier attack group that is planning and staging a strike group deployment into the Gulf of Hormuz. (LSO: Landing Signal Officer- she directs carrier aircraft while landing) She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That means that all the targets have been chosen, prioritized, and tasked to specific aircraft, bases, carriers, missile cruisers and so forth.I also have friends in the military and in much better positions to know what is going on than an LSO in a carrier attack group. And they are saying the same thing now that they were saying 4 years ago; plans exist and are constantly being updated for a strike on Iran. It is the military's job to come up with options to deal with any situation and planners in the Pentagon and elsewhere have been thinking about Iran as a target for many years. To ascribe any particular significance to any changes in planning or readiness is silly.
A few months ago we had 3 aircraft carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf and the left went ballistic, believing war with Iran was hours away. It wasn't, of course, and it probably isn't now. But the fact that every rational leader in Europe and the developed world have said to one degree or another that the idea of Iran having a nuclear capability is unacceptable (including most recently, the President of France) should give our clueless friends on the left the idea that not taking an attack on Iran off the table - despite the enormous potential downside - is part of the language of diplomacy that we are carrying on with the mullahs in Tehran. We may eventually feel forced to attack the Iranians. We may not. But planning for the eventuality is only prudent and is also part of the diplomatic language we are exchanging with the Iranians.
My suggestion to liberals is to stop the hysterics and engage in a rational, reasoned debate over the issue of war with Iran. There are certainly plenty of arguments to be made against it without resorting to mindless speculation and frenzied predictions of catastrophe which only highlight the Bullwinkle scenarios that the left continues to indulge themselves.
