BoboCracker
01-09-2007, 09:37 PM
War with Iran is imminent - Jerome R. Corsi - www.worldnetdaily.com<http://www.worldnetdaily.com/>
In addition to moving additional military forces into the region,
President Bush is putting into place a new political and military
command team, all in preparation for an expanded war in the Middle
East. We have already noted that the USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74)
aircraft carrier battle group is heading to the Persian Gulf to join
the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) aircraft carrier battle group
currently on station there.
Additionally, the USS Boxer (LHD 4) amphibious assault ship, the
flagship of the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group, is on station in
the Persian Gulf. On January 4, 2007, the USS Bataan (LHD 5), the
command ship of the Bataan Expeditionary Strike Group, departed from
Norfolk, Va., headed for forward deployment. Typically, we would
expect the USS Bataan to replace the USS Boxer in normal rotation.
Even if that is the destination of the USS Bataan, we would have two
amphibious strike forces in the Gulf as the rotation is completed.
Along with each carrier attack group comes a fleet of 12 ships,
including two guided missile-cruisers, generally Ticonderoga-class,
two guided missile destroyers, generally Arleigh Burke-class, and an
attack submarine that is usually Los Angeles-class.
U.S. Admiral William J. Fallon, head of U.S. Pacific Command is
taking over as the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East,
following the retirement of Gen. John Abizaid. The transition of
command from the Army to the Navy should be noted, especially with
this much naval power concentrating in the Gulf. We should also note
that Admiral Fallon has command experience in the 1991 Gulf War,
where he commanded the Carrier Air Wing Eight on the USS Theodore
Roosevelt during Operation Desert Storm. In 1995, he was the
Commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet battle force supporting NATO's
Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia. He is considered one of the
Navy's top commanders in combined forces operations and an expert in
amphibious landings.
Quietly, the Bush administration is changing the entire command
structure in the Middle East. The U.S. top commander in Iraq, Gen.
George Casey is being replaced by Gen. David Petraeus. During
Operation Iraqi Freedom, Gen.Petraeus commanded the famed 101st
Airborne Division (Air Assault), leading the ''Screaming Eagles'' in
combat. Following that, he commanded the Multi-National Security
Transition Command in Iraq, assuming responsibility for training
Iraqi forces. Petraeus is on record supporting a five-brigade
expansion of U.S. forces in Iraq, in direct contrast to Gen. Casey,
who expressed skepticism that increasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq
would help stabilize the country. The political deck shuffling also
reflects a Bush administration decision to expand the war in the
Middle East.
Immediately following the Republican Party electoral defeat in Nov.
2006, Bush announced that Robert Gates would be nominated to replace
Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. In 1987, Gates withdrew his
nomination to become Director of the CIA because of a controversy
that had developed concerning his role in the Iran-Contra affair.
Credentials in the Iran-Contra affair seem right now to be a plus in
the White House. John Negroponte is being moved from Director of
National Intelligence to being the top deputy at the State
Department to Condoleezza Rice. During Iran-Contra, Negroponte was
U.S. ambassador to Honduras, where he encouraged the expansion of
U.S. military and intelligence presence in Central America.
Replacing Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence is Admiral
Mike McConnell, who served as the intelligence officer of the Joint
Chiefs during Operation Desert Storm.
Maybe the best way to understand the Iraq Study Group (ISG) is that
it was only Round One, George H. W. Bush's attempt to get his old
team together to convince his son to abandon Iraq. The ISG included
both James Baker III, Reagan's chief of staff who advised that
Iran-Contra could well be illegal and might lead to impeachment, as
well as Edwin Meese, who as Reagan's attorney general lead what
amounted to a whitewash internal investigation of Iran-Contra. Baker
typically represents the Council on Foreign Relations line on the
Middle East - protect the oil, use military sparingly, and abandon
Israel to Arab oil interests whenever possible. With this approach
having been rejected by George W. Bush, the next alternative, Round
Two, was for George H. W. Bush to bring in key hawks from the
Iran-Contra days, to implement his son's expansion of the war.
Much of the plan for an Iraq surge in force seems to originate from
Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, whose report,
''A Plan for Success in Iraq,'' has been joined by retired Gen. Jack
Keane. Kagan is a military historian who has taught at West Point.
Gen. Keane was a career Army paratrooper (featured in Tom Clancy's
book, ''Airborne''), who rose to being vice chief of staff of the
Army.
Notably, one AEI expert on Iran who is not being consulted by the
Bush administration is Michael Ledeen, whose Iran-Contra credentials
are also quite strong. Ledeen has continuously argued that we could
produce peaceful change in Iran, if only the Bush administration
would define regime-change as our policy in Iran and the State
Department would release the millions Congress has allocated to
support non-governmental organizations around the world who would
work toward the regime-change objective.
If President Bush were truly to follow Ronald Reagan's example with
the ex-Soviet Union, he would support Michael Ledeen's objectives,
while stepping up military pressure in the region. I continue to
press for implementing Michael Ledeen's strategy of creating
Ukraine-like peaceful change from within Iran, although truthfully I
fear the window for that happening may have passed.
President Bush may feel he has no alternative but to push military
options in the Middle East. Following the Iraq Study Group's advice
and staging a military withdrawal from Iraq could well support a
Democratic effort in Congress to investigate the Iraq War as a
prelude to impeachment. We should also note that Harriet Miers has
resigned as White House counsel, setting the stage for Bush to bring
in a lawyer with heavy duty Washington credentials in fending off
hostile investigations.
Also somewhat cornered right now is Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime
minister. Olmert, like Bush, is experiencing a level of low public
opinion that typically precedes removal from office. Olmert has
consistently lost public favor by following the White House
''roadmap to peace,'' which has involved an old James Baker plan
calling for Israel to cede territory to the Palestinians in exchange
for peace. Condi Rice, a James Baker protg, has gotten nowhere
following this plan for two years, only to see Hamas control the
Palestinian Authority and launch rockets back on Israel from the
newly-returned Gaza Strip. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
a strong opponent of the Ahmadinejad regime in Iran, and the Likud
Party would welcome a vote of no-confidence in the Knesset and a
call for new elections.
Ahmadinejad himself is the third leader in this drama who may well
be on a short leash. Having just lost a round of local elections
throughout Iran, Ahmadinejad finds himself facing once again student
protests in the street. Ahmadinejad has pursued nuclear weapons and
funding terrorist groups including Hezbollah and now also Hamas,
rather than keeping his campaign promise to return oil wealth to the
people of Iran. The Iranian parliament has moved up the date for the
presidential election by one year. Now, with Supreme Leader Khamanei
dying of cancer, there may soon be a fight in the Assembly of
Experts to see if former president Rafsanjani can wrest control away
from Ahmadinejad and his spiritual leader Ayatollah Hasbah-Yazdi, a
chief adherent of the belief that the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi, will
soon come out of the well from centuries-long occlusion to lead
Shi'ite Islam in worldwide triumph.
The one wild card that would change the equation would be an
aggressive move by Iran. Should Iran launch a cruise missile at a
U.S. Navy ship in the Gulf, we will have war right now. Should an
Iranian missile sink a U.S. carrier, the U.S. population would
experience another 9/11 moment. At that point, a massive U.S.-led
military strike on Iran would become inevitable. Would President
Bush provoke Iran to make just such a move? A pre-emptive strike on
Iran would never be approved by a Democratic Congress, but U.S.
massive retaliation for a serious act of war by Iran would be a
totally different matter.
Truthfully, we are already at war with Iran. My concern stems from
the realization that the internal politics in Iran may be such that
Ahmadinejad cannot allow a massive U.S. military build-up in the
region without making some kind of a response. With Iraq's borders
as open as is our southern border with Mexico, Iran has now sent
into Iraq a sufficient number of terrorists and arms to create a
real civil war. Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia, which featured so
prominent in the Shi'ite rejoicing that reduced Saddam's hanging to
a partisan event, is an Iran-funded creation. Ahmadinejad cannot
afford to see a strengthened U.S. military destroy Muqtada al-Sadr's
Mahdi army.
If a broader war breaks out in Iraq, Olmert will certainly face
pressure to send the Israel military into the Gaza after Hamas and
into Lebanon after Hezbollah. If that happens, it will only be a
matter of time before Israel and the U.S. have no choice but to
invade Syria. The Iraq war could quickly spin into a regional war,
with Israel waiting on the sidelines ready to launch an air and
missile strike on Iran that could include tactical nuclear weapons.
With Russia ready to deliver the $1 billion TOR M-1 surface-to-air
missile defense system to Iran, military leaders are unwilling to
wait too long to attack Iran. Now that Russia and China have invited
Iran to join their Shanghai Cooperation Pact, will Russia and China
sit by idly should the U.S. look like we are winning a wider
regional war in the Middle East? If we get more deeply involved in
Iraq, China may have their moment to go after Taiwan once and for
all. A broader regional war could easily lead into a third world
war, much as World Wars I and II began.
Odds are that we will not enter 2008 with all three of these leaders
- Bush, Olmert, and Ahmadinejad - as heads of state. If President
Bush does go the military route in the Middle East, he will bet his
presidency on that decision.
__________________________________________________ ________
Only a blind person couldn't see this coming.
In addition to moving additional military forces into the region,
President Bush is putting into place a new political and military
command team, all in preparation for an expanded war in the Middle
East. We have already noted that the USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74)
aircraft carrier battle group is heading to the Persian Gulf to join
the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) aircraft carrier battle group
currently on station there.
Additionally, the USS Boxer (LHD 4) amphibious assault ship, the
flagship of the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group, is on station in
the Persian Gulf. On January 4, 2007, the USS Bataan (LHD 5), the
command ship of the Bataan Expeditionary Strike Group, departed from
Norfolk, Va., headed for forward deployment. Typically, we would
expect the USS Bataan to replace the USS Boxer in normal rotation.
Even if that is the destination of the USS Bataan, we would have two
amphibious strike forces in the Gulf as the rotation is completed.
Along with each carrier attack group comes a fleet of 12 ships,
including two guided missile-cruisers, generally Ticonderoga-class,
two guided missile destroyers, generally Arleigh Burke-class, and an
attack submarine that is usually Los Angeles-class.
U.S. Admiral William J. Fallon, head of U.S. Pacific Command is
taking over as the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East,
following the retirement of Gen. John Abizaid. The transition of
command from the Army to the Navy should be noted, especially with
this much naval power concentrating in the Gulf. We should also note
that Admiral Fallon has command experience in the 1991 Gulf War,
where he commanded the Carrier Air Wing Eight on the USS Theodore
Roosevelt during Operation Desert Storm. In 1995, he was the
Commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet battle force supporting NATO's
Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia. He is considered one of the
Navy's top commanders in combined forces operations and an expert in
amphibious landings.
Quietly, the Bush administration is changing the entire command
structure in the Middle East. The U.S. top commander in Iraq, Gen.
George Casey is being replaced by Gen. David Petraeus. During
Operation Iraqi Freedom, Gen.Petraeus commanded the famed 101st
Airborne Division (Air Assault), leading the ''Screaming Eagles'' in
combat. Following that, he commanded the Multi-National Security
Transition Command in Iraq, assuming responsibility for training
Iraqi forces. Petraeus is on record supporting a five-brigade
expansion of U.S. forces in Iraq, in direct contrast to Gen. Casey,
who expressed skepticism that increasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq
would help stabilize the country. The political deck shuffling also
reflects a Bush administration decision to expand the war in the
Middle East.
Immediately following the Republican Party electoral defeat in Nov.
2006, Bush announced that Robert Gates would be nominated to replace
Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. In 1987, Gates withdrew his
nomination to become Director of the CIA because of a controversy
that had developed concerning his role in the Iran-Contra affair.
Credentials in the Iran-Contra affair seem right now to be a plus in
the White House. John Negroponte is being moved from Director of
National Intelligence to being the top deputy at the State
Department to Condoleezza Rice. During Iran-Contra, Negroponte was
U.S. ambassador to Honduras, where he encouraged the expansion of
U.S. military and intelligence presence in Central America.
Replacing Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence is Admiral
Mike McConnell, who served as the intelligence officer of the Joint
Chiefs during Operation Desert Storm.
Maybe the best way to understand the Iraq Study Group (ISG) is that
it was only Round One, George H. W. Bush's attempt to get his old
team together to convince his son to abandon Iraq. The ISG included
both James Baker III, Reagan's chief of staff who advised that
Iran-Contra could well be illegal and might lead to impeachment, as
well as Edwin Meese, who as Reagan's attorney general lead what
amounted to a whitewash internal investigation of Iran-Contra. Baker
typically represents the Council on Foreign Relations line on the
Middle East - protect the oil, use military sparingly, and abandon
Israel to Arab oil interests whenever possible. With this approach
having been rejected by George W. Bush, the next alternative, Round
Two, was for George H. W. Bush to bring in key hawks from the
Iran-Contra days, to implement his son's expansion of the war.
Much of the plan for an Iraq surge in force seems to originate from
Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, whose report,
''A Plan for Success in Iraq,'' has been joined by retired Gen. Jack
Keane. Kagan is a military historian who has taught at West Point.
Gen. Keane was a career Army paratrooper (featured in Tom Clancy's
book, ''Airborne''), who rose to being vice chief of staff of the
Army.
Notably, one AEI expert on Iran who is not being consulted by the
Bush administration is Michael Ledeen, whose Iran-Contra credentials
are also quite strong. Ledeen has continuously argued that we could
produce peaceful change in Iran, if only the Bush administration
would define regime-change as our policy in Iran and the State
Department would release the millions Congress has allocated to
support non-governmental organizations around the world who would
work toward the regime-change objective.
If President Bush were truly to follow Ronald Reagan's example with
the ex-Soviet Union, he would support Michael Ledeen's objectives,
while stepping up military pressure in the region. I continue to
press for implementing Michael Ledeen's strategy of creating
Ukraine-like peaceful change from within Iran, although truthfully I
fear the window for that happening may have passed.
President Bush may feel he has no alternative but to push military
options in the Middle East. Following the Iraq Study Group's advice
and staging a military withdrawal from Iraq could well support a
Democratic effort in Congress to investigate the Iraq War as a
prelude to impeachment. We should also note that Harriet Miers has
resigned as White House counsel, setting the stage for Bush to bring
in a lawyer with heavy duty Washington credentials in fending off
hostile investigations.
Also somewhat cornered right now is Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime
minister. Olmert, like Bush, is experiencing a level of low public
opinion that typically precedes removal from office. Olmert has
consistently lost public favor by following the White House
''roadmap to peace,'' which has involved an old James Baker plan
calling for Israel to cede territory to the Palestinians in exchange
for peace. Condi Rice, a James Baker protg, has gotten nowhere
following this plan for two years, only to see Hamas control the
Palestinian Authority and launch rockets back on Israel from the
newly-returned Gaza Strip. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
a strong opponent of the Ahmadinejad regime in Iran, and the Likud
Party would welcome a vote of no-confidence in the Knesset and a
call for new elections.
Ahmadinejad himself is the third leader in this drama who may well
be on a short leash. Having just lost a round of local elections
throughout Iran, Ahmadinejad finds himself facing once again student
protests in the street. Ahmadinejad has pursued nuclear weapons and
funding terrorist groups including Hezbollah and now also Hamas,
rather than keeping his campaign promise to return oil wealth to the
people of Iran. The Iranian parliament has moved up the date for the
presidential election by one year. Now, with Supreme Leader Khamanei
dying of cancer, there may soon be a fight in the Assembly of
Experts to see if former president Rafsanjani can wrest control away
from Ahmadinejad and his spiritual leader Ayatollah Hasbah-Yazdi, a
chief adherent of the belief that the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi, will
soon come out of the well from centuries-long occlusion to lead
Shi'ite Islam in worldwide triumph.
The one wild card that would change the equation would be an
aggressive move by Iran. Should Iran launch a cruise missile at a
U.S. Navy ship in the Gulf, we will have war right now. Should an
Iranian missile sink a U.S. carrier, the U.S. population would
experience another 9/11 moment. At that point, a massive U.S.-led
military strike on Iran would become inevitable. Would President
Bush provoke Iran to make just such a move? A pre-emptive strike on
Iran would never be approved by a Democratic Congress, but U.S.
massive retaliation for a serious act of war by Iran would be a
totally different matter.
Truthfully, we are already at war with Iran. My concern stems from
the realization that the internal politics in Iran may be such that
Ahmadinejad cannot allow a massive U.S. military build-up in the
region without making some kind of a response. With Iraq's borders
as open as is our southern border with Mexico, Iran has now sent
into Iraq a sufficient number of terrorists and arms to create a
real civil war. Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia, which featured so
prominent in the Shi'ite rejoicing that reduced Saddam's hanging to
a partisan event, is an Iran-funded creation. Ahmadinejad cannot
afford to see a strengthened U.S. military destroy Muqtada al-Sadr's
Mahdi army.
If a broader war breaks out in Iraq, Olmert will certainly face
pressure to send the Israel military into the Gaza after Hamas and
into Lebanon after Hezbollah. If that happens, it will only be a
matter of time before Israel and the U.S. have no choice but to
invade Syria. The Iraq war could quickly spin into a regional war,
with Israel waiting on the sidelines ready to launch an air and
missile strike on Iran that could include tactical nuclear weapons.
With Russia ready to deliver the $1 billion TOR M-1 surface-to-air
missile defense system to Iran, military leaders are unwilling to
wait too long to attack Iran. Now that Russia and China have invited
Iran to join their Shanghai Cooperation Pact, will Russia and China
sit by idly should the U.S. look like we are winning a wider
regional war in the Middle East? If we get more deeply involved in
Iraq, China may have their moment to go after Taiwan once and for
all. A broader regional war could easily lead into a third world
war, much as World Wars I and II began.
Odds are that we will not enter 2008 with all three of these leaders
- Bush, Olmert, and Ahmadinejad - as heads of state. If President
Bush does go the military route in the Middle East, he will bet his
presidency on that decision.
__________________________________________________ ________
Only a blind person couldn't see this coming.