Back in February 2003, just before the beginning of the U.S.-led preventive war on Iraq, Army Gen. Eric Shinseki told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. would need "several hundred thousand soldiers" to secure the country. Shinseki's estimate drew upon a substantial body of analysis that suggested that the weeks immediately following the fall of Iraq's government would be decisive for securing the country, and therefore a substantial troop presence was necessary to prevent chaos and deter potential insurgents.
Several days later, in what journalist James Fallows called "probably the most direct public dressing-down of a military officer, a four-star general, by a civilian superior since Harry Truman and Douglas MacArthur, 50 years ago," Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz called Shinseki's estimate "wildly off the mark," and said that "it's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself."
While it's unclear whether a larger initial troop presence could have actually prevented Iraq's insurgency, it is abundantly clear that it was Wolfowitz and other neocon supporters of the invasion, not Shinseki, who were "wildly off the mark," and that they intentionally downplayed the costs and potential consequences of the Iraq war in order to make sure that it went off.
Even though the neocons are thankfully not in power anymore (though, as I wrote in a recent Nation article, they're carefully laying the groundwork for their return), they're still running the same plays, dismissing the views of top military officers when those views conflict with the various splendid new wars that they have planned.
This time it's chief neocon cleric Bill Kristol -- who's probably been more wrong more times about more things than any other figure in American political life -- dismissing as "silly" Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen's recent suggestion that a military attack on Iran could be just as destabilizing to the region as a nuclear-capable Iran:
KRISTOL: Even assuming the degree and kind of "destabilization" would be the same in both the cases of attack and appeasement (which I don't think would be so), one scenario -- attack -- leaves Iran without nuclear weapons, at least for now; the other -- appeasement -- means Iran would have nuclear weapons going forward. Which unstable outcome is less damaging to U.S. interests? I think the answer is pretty clear: An attacked Iran that does not have nukes.
And when Mullen goes on to say, "we just don't need more of that [destabilizing of the region]," he's being silly. It's not a question of whether we "need" or would like more instability in the Middle East. Everyone would like to be able to wish the Iranian nuclear program (and the current Iranian regime) away, and to wish a happier "stability" into existence. The real question is what form of instability would be more dangerous -- that caused by this Iranian regime with nuclear weapons, or that caused by attacking this regime's nuclear weapons program. It's time to have a serious debate about the choice between these two kinds of destabilization, instead of just refusing to confront the choice.
Numerous analysts have discussed the disastrous consequences that would likely result from a military attack on Iran by either Israel or the U.S. Among those likely consequences are: attacks on U.S. troops and interests throughout the Middle East; the death of Iran's democratic opposition movement; the strengthening of hardliners within Iran's government; the withdrawal of Iran from the NPT and a redoubling of its efforts to obtain a nuclear capability, an effort that would now have the benefit of cover from international outrage at the U.S. and/or Israel for its attack.
So what you'd end up with in a few years would be... a nuclear-capable Iran.
I would also suggest that a "serious debate" over the pros and cons of containing Iran versus attacking Iran has been going on for a good while. It's just that Bill Kristol -- for whom "seriousness" almost always involves sending somebody else's kid off to war -- simply has nothing productive to contribute. Spencer Ackerman nails it: "If you see no meaningful option within the yawning chasm between 'attack' and 'appeasement' then you are too stupid or too dishonest to engage in this discussion."
Finally, it shouldn't even need to be said that President Obama's approach hardly qualifies as "appeasement" of Iran -- unless you're someone for whom any strategy that doesn't involve huge numbers of people being blown up by U.S. bombs equals "appeasement." Seriously: President Obama just hosted a very successful nuclear security summit that, in addition to front-and-centering vital nuclear non-proliferation issues that the Bush administration could barely be bothered with, has resulted in significantly more international unity around efforts to pressure Iran over its nuclear program -- the very sort of unity made impossible by the Bush administration's neocon-inspired belligerence. It's says something very troubling about the lack of accountability in American politics that these same characters should come again now, calling for another preventive war, using the same clever argumentative method of simply insisting that such a war will go splendidly and will achieve all of our aims with no unintended consequences, and be taken remotely seriously.
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Yep. That about sums up Bill Kristol in one sentence.
a) and how do you propose we do this?
They also likely know that no matter what they do, it will never be enough and that we'll just keep moving the goalpost so that they can never meet our demands. Which is pretty much what we did to Iraq.
I think all the neocon arm chair commandos should be dropped by parachute into Iran.
Let’s see how long they survive on their bluster and jingoism.
As this poster said, Iran has threatened NO country, including Israel, shown NO imperialistic desires, and behaved with great restraint when we shot down an airliner of theirs some time ago, killing over 300, and when we supported the Iraqi is attacking Iran and trying to take their land.
The imperialists and threateners and people taking what belongs to other people are all in the US and Israel (in terms of this issue). It is time for some politicians and religious leaders to show spine and push back against AIPAC and the Israeli lobby and the rich Zionists who influence our government unduly. (No one cares especially about ordinary not-rich Zionists, they are just people like most of the rest of us).
Americans are being influenced to go to war by this callous, cold hearted drumbeat and it is working. Killing tens to hundreds of thousands of people and harming many many more because of something a country may choose to do in the future (and even if they made ONE bomb that does not mean they would use it, after all, then they would have nothing and retaliation would be extreme) is immoral in the extreme.
Consider the havoc possible from an attacked Iran and it's friends in the Mid East.
Shutting down the Straits of Hormuz, raising the price of oil to $200 a barrel.
Attacks on Israel from Gaza and Lebanon, and possibly Syria.
Attacks on US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Recruitment of thousands of jihadists.
The US will become the #1 target for Iranian nukes if they get them and use them.
The chaos would cause an international depression.
If they get a nuke, let 'em brag about it. If they ever use one, their country will turn to glass an hour later.
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
Seriously, it is not the main topic here - but that is the danger of preventive detentions with no judicial proceedings. A government could decide that some class of people, say people who are big complainers against the government, are "destabilizing the country" and thus "helping the terrorists" and just disappear them.
He's a chickenhawk of the worst kind and an excellent example of why no neo-cons deserve a place in the formulation of public policy.