Arthur Herman discusses the military option.

Sitting back and sealing off Iranian exports sounds like the cheap and safe option, but given how much of the world wants to bring us down and/or put us under their yoke, there is a time limit on how long such an action can be sustained, and once it is over, the Iranians could simply play the Saddam gambit--declare victory, as proven by mere survival.

If we throw down with Iran, we have to go all the way. The regime must fall. That means that we have to at least plan for a ground component. Said component doesn't have to be huge--a division *might* pull off a drive to Tehran if done well enough, but a short corps would be better.

The catch is that diplomatic groundwork needs to be laid. We have to get permission, not just from Iraq (heck, we could even just feint from there and stay put), but more importantly, from Qatar, Oman, and UAE. If those three nations sign off on a war, that will be sufficient. But they'd have to be certain that we would take down the regime, and not leave it standing for them to deal with.

Is it me or haven't we been here before? Iran with it's threat of controlling the Straits, OH YEAH we have! I spent 4 months in the IO, in 1979 steaming around off the coast of Iran, just before the Shah made a hasty retreat. All the while the U.N. and stood by and allowed the Ayatollah back even though they knew it might cause a blood bath. France, by the way, paid his air fare.

So why would we think that after almost 30 years of U.N. and France pandering to these jerks, that they'd get tough. We in fact DO have a good jumping off point for Iran, it's Iraq. I doubt the Iranian army is any tougher than the Iraqi army was. I say let's find out.

If nothing else that would cut off arms, supplies and people getting into Iraq, and Afghanistan, from the mullahs. Taking control of Iran would put us in control, nominally at any rate, of that area. It would certainly be easier to control Iranian involvement in the area from INSIDE Tehran than from outside Iran on either side.

Query, did GWB go after Iraq and Afghanistan to set this up? Yeah I know, "George Bush isn't that smart!" Well you don't have to be a doctor to run a hospital either. You just have to hire people who are good at doing the surgery. It would make it much easier to attack Iran, with access to both sides of the country.

If GWB can even partially pacify those 3 countries before 2008, it knocks off any possibility of them getting nukes, increases oil flow, and decreases a huge Islamic terrorism hot bed. Well then the Democrats can just go away quietly until 2012 or even 2016.

I hate to see anymore of our guys involved, but better there than here. Because it's a given that if they get nukes, we better be wearing lead over coats.

The plan he describes requires the oil facilities captured to remain intact. They won't. The Soviets had no difficulty in denying the Germans their oil in WW2 by spiking
the wells and it's a good bet the Iranians, who are even less rational, would do anything else.

This won't happen as long as Bush is in office. The left's collective brains would explode. Of course, with Hillary in the White House . . .

K,
the difference in WWII and now is speed and accuracy. We have the ability to rain down both men and munitions in big numbers before they can set fire to anything. I know we let the Iraqis do it before, but I don't see us letting it happen again.

What does Ken Adelman, Richard Perle and Ralph Peters
think of this idea?

Anonymous,

I suspect they're all for it. :)

On that note, Big D., how many divisions do you reckon it will take to hold Iran?

A land invasion of Iran is not needed. The raids on the offshore platforms, combined with bombing Iran's domestic energy infrastructure, will be sufficient to accelerate the centrifugal forces in the Persian empire, leading to its destruction.

Why would we want to *hold* Iran?

Iran has a couple of major plusses--a functioning democracy that only has dictatorial veto power over everything wired into it, and a generation of Iranians who are more tired of their self-appointed leaders than they are of us.

The order of the day is to obliterate the power of the mullahs (including the IRG but not necessarily the army), secure the nuclear sites, and tell the Iranians that they can now vote for whoever they want to, not just the people the mullahs allow them to vote for. Not nearly as much nation-building to be done.

There is a problem with attacking Iran right now. Nouri al-Maliki might be against it. Lately the Pentagon has asked for Maliki's permission for every little thing.

Quite frankly, we need Iraqi land and airspace less than we need Qatar, Oman, and UAE for this.

So the primary focus for Iraq should be keeping them from unraveling everything in an attempt to stop us. Depends on how much control Iran *really* has over the government. I suspect it's significant, but less than enough to stop us. Plus, if the mullahs look like they're going down, everybody wants to be on the winning side...

The general rule in life is don't whack a hornet's nest with
sticks, unless you want to get stung.

All this arm-chair general talk sounds a lot like
whacking the nest, not winning.

A very reasonable rule-of-thumb for some universe where we weren't already being stung.

As for Iranian nuclear material, what if North Korea just sells them some?

Who needs centrifuges when that nut-job in North Korea needs cash so badly?

"But they'd have to be certain that we would take down the regime, and not leave it standing for them to deal with."

I'm sure the Iranians would be cheering in wild jubilation in the streets and throwing roses at the feet of our soldiers as they invade Tehran as naive Americans expected would happen in Iraq. Jesus Christ, when are Americans going to f-ing learn that occupying other countries and setting up puppet governments causes more trouble than its worth.