kos diaries are buzzing about rumours that the admin will roll out casus belli against Iran
the current rumour is that we're in the pre-amble (cf recent Bush speeches and press stories), that they'll go into "not August any more" ramp up next week (after Labour Day of course), and gear for confrontation/incident/strike on-or-after Sep 11th.
Interesting.
Paranoid.
Possibly some truth to it.
Sep 11-13 are a good time for doing silly things, new moon, start of Ramadan, and start of major political turmoil in DC as reports, hearings and subpoenas all come together and Congress settles in for the autumn session.
But, it is also a bad time, the USN carriers are out of place - the USS Stennis is back in harbour, the Nimitz is toodling around up by Japan with the Kitty Hawk (which is about to be decommissioned) and the Enterprise is all alone in the Persian Gulf, with the USS Truman not due to join her for another 3 months or so.
One carrier can't support sustained air strikes very well, they need 3+ and they can't really do that until spring, unless they really mess up the rotation, as I read it (hm, one sign to worry about would be if Adm Fallon resigns, he allegedly vetoed a strike on Iran under his command, in so far as a flag officer can veto such a thing).
The army and marines would be seriously inconvenienced by a war against Iran at this point...
On the other hand, there are an unusually large number of attack subs out right now, the number varies, and is at the high end right now. A lot of missile subs close enough to salvo is a criterion for a surprise strike.
It is also noteworthy that several USAF wings have done intense "overseas deployment exercises" over the last few months.
Good to do exercises, interesting when they vary in pace and intent.
There was also a comment over at No Quarters that a USAF logistics group had left earlier in Aug for the mid-east.
That would be a prerequisite for any silliness. Haven't found that move myself.
Have not seen any move of ANG or air reserve units - tanker units in particular would need to activate and assemble, don't know of any exercise in next few weeks that would provide cover to do so either.
I don't know; I remain convinced that the admin in general, and Bush and Cheney in particular, would like to "take out" Iran. But they may have run out of time.
They could have a very thin legal cover to do so before the new budget year, under the signing statements in the current DoD budget, and various dumb resolutions Congress let through, but as of Nov there are likely to be explicit Congressional statements against any unprovoked strike on Iran.
They also run into the political cycle: an attack in spring really messes up the primaries and nominations, one in the autumn messes up the election (worth it to them as a "hail Mary" play to scramble a clearly lost election?), or as a farewell present around christmas '08, after the election! That'd be ugly.
Algorithmically, attacking Iran without cause would be just about the worst thing to do right now... so, they wouldn't, would they?
PS: there was an interesting note that someone took a multi-billion dollar "short" position recently, betting that the US market (S&P500 index) would crash (down by more than 10% from current position) by the third week of Sept.
Pessimists, or well informed? PPS: or doing funky hedging by simultaneously going high and low, or so it is claimed - could be a safe bet, where they are covered if nothing happens and make a lot if the market goes down sharply enough.
And, whatever came of the investigation of the strange trading in airline (and financial?) stocks pre-9/11 anyway? They ever trace who did that and howif they knew?
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Man! Are we in the real-live version of the movie "Jack-ass"?
I mean, this Bush administration has gotten us in one stupidly, incompetantly run war. Now, they are trying to gear us up for another. When are these people going to realize its time to quit?
Thing being... Iran is not to be trusted, but they're not really rattling sabers either. An attack on Iran would not only be naked aggression, but logistically insane given how stretched out the military is right now to begin with. Given that Bush isn't exactly known for prudence or well-thought-out policy, I doubt any of this would matter to him, but it damn sure would matter to the officers ordered to do this. It would be interesting to see how the military reacted to these rumblings -- a military coup would not be a very good outcome, that's for damn sure.
And, whatever came of the investigation of the strange trading in airline (and financial?) stocks pre-9/11 anyway? They ever trace who did that and if they knew?
Bloody good question, and one I've frequently wondered about myself. It seems to have just been brushed under the rug, much like the anthrax letter attacks...
It's scary fun to speculate, but I don't think even Bush is stupid/crazy enough to do it. I recently read that the US military will have to begin reducing troop levels in Iraq next spring no matter what anyone says simply because they have run out of IED fodder. We don't have enough troops to do the job in Iran, much less anywhere else. How could even the yes-men that fill the upper ranks agree to it? How could even Bush ignore it?
Of course, as good old Euripides said, "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
I hope no one here really thinks it would be a full-on invasion of Iran. I suspect several million dollars in cruise missiles will be utilized to decapitate the snake.
It would have to be the Air Force's turn.
Some in the USAF seem to think they can "win a war" by intense enough a bombing campaign - ~ 10,000 targets hit in the first 24 hours.
This would require at least half of the USAF heavy bombers sortied in a single day, and a large fraction of the US Navy missile subs and cruisers to salve to clear the way, hitting fixed installations, especially radar and air defence, and command and communications.
Ideally they'd need 3 carriers on station to provide fighter bombers and electronic warfare, and help with air cover. Even better would be to have six carriers at sea - three up front, maybe one in the Gulf or just outside it and two in the Arabian sea; one in reserve in the Indian Ocean; one in South China Sea to screen North Korea and one on station in the Mediterranean. Given the published location and state of the carrier force, that can not be done right now, maybe doable in the spring.
They would also need 2-3 large air bases in theater for fighter bombers, and refueling and reloading. They have one in Iraq, at least, there is one that might do in Afghanistan, but planes would have to overfly Pakistan to get there. Turkey is rather unlikely to permit use of a base, and the Gulf Emirates won't either - with the possible exception of Kuwait. There are bases leased in the 'stans north of Iran, one of those may be up to turning around 100+ aircraft per day.
It would be hard to hide the logistics preparations - just the moving of aircraft and munitions is a big deal, there is a "red flag" exercise in Nevada right now, but you'd need something like an Alaska based ANG exercise to really do it.
There is a "Vigilant Shield" exercise in mid October, but my understanding is that it is a "paper exercise" in command response, not in moving units around.
There should be concomitant "Terminal Fury" exercise this autumn, haven't heard what date it is set for, maybe early Nov.
If they do attack Iran - the army could always "attack to the rear"... I can see a paper scenario where they abandon the west of Iraq and leave the north to the Kurds and a thin support screen to call in air support and artillery.
But, the biggest air base is NORH of Baghdad, which means holding the city and the areas north of it, not just the river valleys and road to Kuwait.
And Basra is probably lost as a harbour.
So even if the US army moves armoured units east to confront Iran, they'd be horribly stretched out through Shia territory, be frighteningly easy to cut off fuel and ammo supply.
Normally serious interdiction is precluded because of US air superiority, but if a large fraction of the USAF is bombing Iran, then air cover in country in Iraq is necessarily spottier - more so if the tempo of convoy attack increases sharply.
Basically the only hope for an attack on Iran is that they would surrender promptly and all would be well - and who could believe that...?
This kos diary did more to set off my alarm bells than everything else combined--and everything else combined was already enough to get me fired up again...
A couple of quote paragraphs:
[A]n 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.
"We are shipping in and assigning every damn Tomahawk we have in inventory. I think this is going to be massive and sudden, like thousands of targets."
yeah, I just linked that
there are some ANG movements, but nothing obvious
lots of subs at sea but I can't put my finger on anything direct
in particular I don't see what carriers they can get into position, unless the navy is lying about the current location and status of some of the ships