Persian Plans
John Batchelor is a radio talk show host based at WABC in New York. He is similar to Eric Lichtblau and James Risen except for one small detail: Batchelor's intelligence sources work for OUR side (and I mean America).
JB contributes to AmSpecBlog, and he's posted some things about the impending war with Iran that make it difficult to keep blood in one's face.
Here's a synopsis:
The foundational Iranian beliefs
#1 is up in the air; #2 ain't happening, especially as big things have turned our way in the past few weeks; #3 is largely irrelevant, since even the Israelis won't fight for Israeli sovereignty in the [Palestinian] territories anymore; #4 is also largely irrelevant because if there were going to be an American pre-emptive "blitz," it would have been launched a long time ago; and I would recharacterize #5 to read, "The Bush Administration has lost the will to rally the US's traditional allies." To the contrary, the U.S. is following dociley two steps back and two to the side behind the EUnuchs on Iran as though serving penance for "defying the international community" on Iraq.
Overall, even though we won't be bugging out of Iraq, and their plot to manufacture a civil war there has fizzled, and all the more so with the blessed incineration of "Emir" Zarqawi, for Iran's purposes we might as well be.
The Iranian strategic objective
Which means Russia and Red China share that objective, since they are protecting the mullahs just like they did Saddam Hussein.
Wanna bet? The Bush Administration cannot prevent Iran from bullying the Security Council into surrender because it will never win Security Council approval to do what would be necessary to avert it. It didn't win said approval to stop Saddam Hussein's corrupt bullying despite eighteen SCRs over the preceeding twelve years and a six month lobbying full-court press; no such effort is taking place now, or is likely to any time soon. And it is a fait accompli that this White House has no stomach whatsoever for another "unilateral" military campaign. As the mullahs damn well know, and are counting on.
No, time is on Iran's side. Why? Because the longer the U.S. takes to take pre-emptive military action against the mullahs, the more likely that the latter's nuclear weapons production line will switch into maximum overdrive - if it hasn't already. Which the Russians and ChiComms both damn well know, and is very much in their respective interests.
April war games
Lots of details. Key graf:
Iran rallies its allies, bullies its neighbors, and musters its economic and "other" weapons
Is there any doubt? The NoKo connection also brings their threatened ICBM "test" into a more comprehensive light as well; nothing would help the mullahs more than for us to get distracted in Northeast Asia just as they are poised to make their move at the other end of that continent.
And so, it all comes down to this….
Tehran War Plan R
My apologies for what probably appears like promiscuous quoting, but trust me, these are the excerpts. But it's all critical to understanding just how dire a situation we are in. All the diplomatic dithering in the world isn't going to change a blessed thing, nor is it going to prevent all-out war with Iran. The only things it is accomplishing are to provide the mullahs the time they need to manufacture nuclear warheads to augment (and replace, after they're used) the warheads they already possess, and to guarantee that the war begins and unfolds at Tehran's initiative and on their battle plan.
Years ago the choice would have been optimal: encourage the internal overthrow of the mullahs. A year or two ago the choice would have been between a bad and a worse: invade and conquer Iran before the mullahs could get nukes, invade later when they did have them with all the additional risks therein, or submit to nuclear blackmail. Now that choice is absent that first option, and the third option isn't an option. Which leaves us with no choice: attack first, overwhelmingly, and comprehensively. The alternative is Plan R and....well, for all intents and purposes, kneeling before the Global Caliphate.
In light of the Plan R timetable disclosed above, I personally find this story to be ominously telling (via It Shines For All via CQ):
Late August would be right on the edge of the unleashing of Plan R.
It reminds me of one of the classic scenes from Star Trek II. Khan has sneak-attacked the Enterprise and has demanded the Admiral Kirk turn over the data on Project Genesis. Kirk pretends to comply but actually comes up with a way of lowering Khan's ship's deflector shields. As the time for Kirk's reply runs out, the Admiral turns to Khan and deadpans, "Here it comes…" after which Khan's shields go down and Kirk opens fire with all phasers, sending the suddenly frantic, raging superman and his ship tumbling out of control and into disarray.
Adolph Ahmadinejad is, as of this writing, eight weeks and two days from uttering "Here it comes…" to the Great Satan. The only remaining question is, will we not give him the chance? Or will the Prince of Pre-emption end up going down in history as Neville Chamberlain II?
JB contributes to AmSpecBlog, and he's posted some things about the impending war with Iran that make it difficult to keep blood in one's face.
Here's a synopsis:
The foundational Iranian beliefs
1. The US national security apparatus cannot deal with a foreign crisis in an election year.
2. The US will exit Iraq with its tail tucked.
3. The US will not fight for Israeli sovereignty in the territories.
4. The Ahmadinejad regime can ride out the blitz in its bunkers and emerge the winner when the UN or the Vatican or Russia brokers a cease-fire.
5. The Bush Administration has lost its ability to rally the US's traditional allies.
#1 is up in the air; #2 ain't happening, especially as big things have turned our way in the past few weeks; #3 is largely irrelevant, since even the Israelis won't fight for Israeli sovereignty in the [Palestinian] territories anymore; #4 is also largely irrelevant because if there were going to be an American pre-emptive "blitz," it would have been launched a long time ago; and I would recharacterize #5 to read, "The Bush Administration has lost the will to rally the US's traditional allies." To the contrary, the U.S. is following dociley two steps back and two to the side behind the EUnuchs on Iran as though serving penance for "defying the international community" on Iraq.
Overall, even though we won't be bugging out of Iraq, and their plot to manufacture a civil war there has fizzled, and all the more so with the blessed incineration of "Emir" Zarqawi, for Iran's purposes we might as well be.
The Iranian strategic objective
The UN Charter is a large roadblock to the US doing anything with regard Iran. The UN Charter Chapter 7, article 42, provides for air, land, sea intervention in the event the UNSC votes to sanction a member state as a war-maker. Violation of the NPT by a signatory (Iran) decribes amply what is the UN's idea of war-making. It will take months and perhaps years to get the UNSC to such a series of votes and resolutions….Iran is an aggressor state committed to battering the US and its allies into confrontation. The nuke fuel cycle is a ploy by Iran, not by the US or the UN. Iran aims to use the impotence of the UNSC as a demonstration that it is a regional hegemon that has ambitions to be a global hegemon.
Which means Russia and Red China share that objective, since they are protecting the mullahs just like they did Saddam Hussein.
The US is a Middle East regional hegemon because of Iraq. To stand by and permit Iran to bully the UNSC into surrender would be to toss the Iraq expedition into the ashheap. And Israel into the ashheap. And Jordan, Kuwait, the Persian Gulf states. There may be an American president who is willing to take the risk of turning over the Arabian oilfields to a Tehran gangland, but not this President, not ever.
Wanna bet? The Bush Administration cannot prevent Iran from bullying the Security Council into surrender because it will never win Security Council approval to do what would be necessary to avert it. It didn't win said approval to stop Saddam Hussein's corrupt bullying despite eighteen SCRs over the preceeding twelve years and a six month lobbying full-court press; no such effort is taking place now, or is likely to any time soon. And it is a fait accompli that this White House has no stomach whatsoever for another "unilateral" military campaign. As the mullahs damn well know, and are counting on.
Iran knows that time is on the US side. The longer Iran takes to force a confrontation, the more likely something will happen that weakens its hold on Russia, China, Syria and so forth kindred of bullying. Now is the time for Iran to find maximum support. Any US move will be regarded as an attack by the Crusader State and its Zionist stepson, and this will rally the Ummah and swing Russia and China to Iran's side.
No, time is on Iran's side. Why? Because the longer the U.S. takes to take pre-emptive military action against the mullahs, the more likely that the latter's nuclear weapons production line will switch into maximum overdrive - if it hasn't already. Which the Russians and ChiComms both damn well know, and is very much in their respective interests.
April war games
Lots of details. Key graf:
Area of war games operation extended from the Iraqi coast to Straits of Hormuz. Practicing for a crisis, both blocking the Straits, assault on Gulf oil and transportation facilities. [emphasis added]
Iran rallies its allies, bullies its neighbors, and musters its economic and "other" weapons
Best signals source says that Tehran chief brain and strategist Rafsanjani is now in Damascus for a round of meetings with the terror camps, from the al-Assads to Nasrallah of the Hizb to the usual suspects of PFLPGC, Hamas, IJ, Al Aqsa: the topic is agreed: the struggle to liberate the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the whole of Palestine, is the same struggle as to liberate Iraq. Iran means to crush Israel and retake Palestine just as if this was the end of the second crusade….
Rafsanjani next heads to Kuwait to warn the Sunni princes of oil that they either turn the Americans out of their back acres or they will burn with the Americans. This same message will be delivered to Bahrain and the UAE. Burn later or surrender now….
Iran possesses several nuclear warheads purchased from Central Asia and the Black Sea Fleet in the 20th century. It also has up to three hand made plutonium bombs acquired from the North Koreans. The Chinese and Russians both know that Iran has these weapons and will use them at the point the escalation rounds become unbearable in Tehran. The Chinese especially understand, because Bejing is proliferator in chief. Those cascades in Iran are built with Pakistani, Iraqi, North Korean, Chinese technicians. The Iranians are working with the North Koreans because the warheads they aim to produce must fit on the North Korean missiles and use the North Korean warheads….
Best signals source indicates that Iran will treat any UNSC sanction as an act of war and will escalate the attacks on Israel and the US interests in the Gulf. Iran will use the oil weapon like turns of the screw. An open source suggests a possibility that the Sauds believe China will pay $90/barrel as a floor. The oil weapon will threaten the US economy first and foremost and will stagger the Bush GOP chance to retain command of Congress.
Cynical question: do the Dem wannabes who are hawking the Iran-not-nuke-for-ten-years yarn count on the Bush team losing to Tehran in a catastrophe, and does this mean that the Dems will inherit a hobbled giant for a generation? [emphases added]
Is there any doubt? The NoKo connection also brings their threatened ICBM "test" into a more comprehensive light as well; nothing would help the mullahs more than for us to get distracted in Northeast Asia just as they are poised to make their move at the other end of that continent.
And so, it all comes down to this….
Tehran War Plan R
The window for R remains September-October of 06, coterminous with Yom Kippur. Tehran will tempt the US with provocations from now through the summer. The major R provocation will resemble a surge of terror strikes from the witch's brew of terror gangs. The surge will be directed against sacred sites as well as strategic and civilian sites; the surge will include Israel, Iraq, the Persian Gulf and possibly Europe. Note that the Al Aqsa and Islamic Jihad gangs on the West Bank are working to show that they deserve to be part of the surge. Hamas is a junior partner….al Qaeda is a full partner, though junior to HizbAllah.
R has two victory points. If the US does not respond to the surge, Tehran wins. If the US does respond, Tehran wins. The Tehran regime is supremely confident. Ayatollah Khamenei fuels the confidence, but the regime is not dependent upon one man. The regime is a counter-counter-revolution. The regime believes that it must strike now because the most young population is feral and disloyal….
Operatation R includes conventional and nuclear components. In the event of a US strike, Iran will respond with conventional and nuclear weapons. (The regime has nuclear warheads that it purchased from the Soviet stockpiles in the early 90s.) R will strike at the Arabian oilfields and Israel: a version of the war plan has been published in the Saudi Arabian press, with the caveat that it calls for suicide strikes on all Gulf states that support the US: the shahid detail is theological language and not strategic: the IRGC has sufficient Shahab missiles and other hardware to launch a decapitating strike on the critical oilfield nodes: also Plan R calls for a nuclear tipped strike in the event that the US strikes and assaults become untenable.) R calls for the destruction of at least one US carrier battle group. The Tehran regime believes it will survive the US strikes in deep and hard sites. The Tehran regime believes that the very disequilibrium of the contest - the overwhelming US force compare to the IRGC force - is demonstration of its imminent success. The Tehran regime believes that Allah will provide the fate that is required to defeat the US strikes. R holds that the UN or other non-combatant agents (EU, NATO) will intervene after the first round of strikes, and that the cease-fire will prevent the US from consolidating its advantages with combat ground units. Tehran believes the cease-fire through the winter months will turn into a truce that will leave Iran the regional hegemon and the US in retreat.
The Tehran regime believes that the humilation and disintegration of the US democracy is imminent.
My apologies for what probably appears like promiscuous quoting, but trust me, these are the excerpts. But it's all critical to understanding just how dire a situation we are in. All the diplomatic dithering in the world isn't going to change a blessed thing, nor is it going to prevent all-out war with Iran. The only things it is accomplishing are to provide the mullahs the time they need to manufacture nuclear warheads to augment (and replace, after they're used) the warheads they already possess, and to guarantee that the war begins and unfolds at Tehran's initiative and on their battle plan.
Years ago the choice would have been optimal: encourage the internal overthrow of the mullahs. A year or two ago the choice would have been between a bad and a worse: invade and conquer Iran before the mullahs could get nukes, invade later when they did have them with all the additional risks therein, or submit to nuclear blackmail. Now that choice is absent that first option, and the third option isn't an option. Which leaves us with no choice: attack first, overwhelmingly, and comprehensively. The alternative is Plan R and....well, for all intents and purposes, kneeling before the Global Caliphate.
In light of the Plan R timetable disclosed above, I personally find this story to be ominously telling (via It Shines For All via CQ):
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that Iran will respond in mid-August to the package of incentives on its nuclear program offered by the West, but President Bush accused Tehran of dragging its feet.
"We are studying the proposals. Hopefully, we will present our views about the package by mid-August," Ahmadinejad told a crowd in western Iran in a speech broadcast live on state television.
Speaking at an annual U.S.-European Union summit in Vienna, Austria, Bush said that the mid-August timetable "seems like an awfully long time" to wait for an answer. [emphasis added]
Late August would be right on the edge of the unleashing of Plan R.
It reminds me of one of the classic scenes from Star Trek II. Khan has sneak-attacked the Enterprise and has demanded the Admiral Kirk turn over the data on Project Genesis. Kirk pretends to comply but actually comes up with a way of lowering Khan's ship's deflector shields. As the time for Kirk's reply runs out, the Admiral turns to Khan and deadpans, "Here it comes…" after which Khan's shields go down and Kirk opens fire with all phasers, sending the suddenly frantic, raging superman and his ship tumbling out of control and into disarray.
Adolph Ahmadinejad is, as of this writing, eight weeks and two days from uttering "Here it comes…" to the Great Satan. The only remaining question is, will we not give him the chance? Or will the Prince of Pre-emption end up going down in history as Neville Chamberlain II?
posted by JASmius at 10:11 PM
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