Monday, September 18, 2006
Is Iran preparing another proxy war?
In a longer piece discussing Iran's "charm offensive" (see, e.g., Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's warm and fuzzy interview in Newsweek), Stratfor dropped($) this little bomb:
All of Tehran's reasons for seeking engagement with Washington -- Iraq, the nuclear program and the outcome of the Hezbollah conflict -- are, conversely, reasons the United States would not seek direct dialogue. Nevertheless, the administration recognizes Iraq as one of the most, if not the most, serious political issue as the mid-term congressional elections approach, and any solution to this problem means working with the Iranians. But as badly as the administration may need accommodation on the Iraq front, it cannot be seen as cutting a deal with a hostile state. Something has to give.
Something very well might. If the Iranians are unable to get what they want from the United States politically, we can expect more problems involving Iran's proxies in Iraq.
Stratfor has received intelligence that Tehran has been arming militants in Iraq, with the possibility of a major strike against U.S. forces. If this card is played, we would expect it sometime in October, timed shortly before the U.S. elections. Iran's goal in playing this card would be to create conditions in Iraq that would leave the United States no choice but to accept a negotiated settlement with Iran.
The interesting question is whether such an attack would have different fundamental attributes than the current fighting, or whether it would be more of the same. Is Iran's influence such that it can motivate Iraqi insurgents to attack U.S. forces in a different way than by IEDs or potshots? If we had proof that Iran was behind such an attack, it would be a clear act of war against the United States, and military retaliation would be lawful and justified. Would it be wise?
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Sep 18, 04:36:00 PM:
Iran committed an act of war when they invaded our embassy during the reign of Jimmy the Drooling Idiot all those years ago. The fact that he did nothing was one of the main events that made the Iranian lunatics believe that they can get away with virtually anything now. We cannot afford to repeat that kind of mistake.
And as for retaliation? Issue a formal declaration of war, and then destroy their infrastructure. Bomb every power plant, communication facility, major bridge, and render their ports unuseable. And then just
sit back and do nothing except to knock back down anything they repair, and allow no one to leave or enter the country. Let them know that this will continue until they give us an unconditional surrender.
By 
Papa Ray, at
Mon Sep 18, 04:57:00 PM:
"Is Iran's influence such that it can motivate Iraqi insurgents to attack U.S. forces in a different way than by IEDs or potshots?"
Well, what does that leave, sucide attacks on our bases in Iraq?
Massed attacks on patrols?
Being as most of our troops reside inside harded bases, any attack on them would accomplish little more than reducing the number of insurgents.
While attacking patrols would result in loss of American lives, it would also unleash hell from both the ground and the air, again resulting in reducing the number of insurgents.
In fact, if they did manage to promote an all out attack all at once, all over Iraq, they would be fullfilling the number two desire (number one being back home) of our Soldiers and Marines, which is:
"An ememy combatant force that falls under the ROE where agressive destruction of the enemy could be accomplished."
I know the feeling. Chasing shadows is very flustrating. When they finally come out to fight, the feeling changes to one of bloodlust.
Papa Ray
By Georg Felis, at
Mon Sep 18, 06:42:00 PM:
If true, Iran would only get one bite at the apple, and would have to plan something big and flamboyant to get the maximum effect, even if they pretended the attack was not their fault. I would expect an attack on the Baghdad green zone in the largest, bloodiest most suicidal fashion possible, designed to maximize civilian casualties. I’m just glad these loons don’t have nukes yet.
By Unknown, at
Mon Sep 18, 10:17:00 PM:
The problem I have with this report is that it presumes excess capacity. For there to be some ability to engage in some major escalation they would have to be foregoing attacks now that they otherwise would be making. Why?
My take is that it's possible that the Iranians would like to think that there's this excess capacity and they'd like to think that they have greater operational control than they do (fly, winged monkeys! fly!). What's the evidence for either of these things?
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Sep 19, 09:08:00 PM:
I'm disappointed folks. No thinking outside the box. Iran has effective, though probably not total, control over the largest private armies in Iraq. More than a few members of the government are affiliated with these private armies; some publically, some secretly. Given the right names and words, they may be able to neutralize certain units in the Iraqi Army and certainly in the INP.
They don't have to maintain the status quo if they don't want to.
Coup? Who knows? They might at least be able to trigger that civil war that the Democrats have been discussung and hoping for for the last year.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Purposefully trigger a civil war in Iraq just before the American elections in order to bring the peacenik opposition party into power, who has no interest in disarming your nuclear weapons forcibly.
I wonder if Pelosi is in on this? Aren't conspiracy theories fun?
But seriously, that makes sense...
"For Iran to back any guerilla group in Iraq against their own allies would make no sense. This doesn't pass the stink test."
1) They backed guerilla groups against us. We've lost troops to Iranian explosives and Iranian bullets. This is fact.
2) You assume that they care about the lives of their puppets. Recall, this is the same government that sent human waves of children into minefields to clear them in the 1980s. If there's a better way to mobilize militant sectarian (Shi'i) nationalism than by orchestrating sectarian attacks against it, I'd like to know what it is.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Sep 20, 09:46:00 PM:
Don't know names, unfortunately. I wasn't there when shipments were discovered, and groups don't exactly leave calling cards when they plant them you know.
Here's a reference.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=1692347&page=1
and a quotation from the President.
"Locked in a test of wills with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, Bush said during his speech that "some of the most powerful IEDs (improvised explosive devices) we are seeing in Iraq today include components that came from Iran."
Custom made military grade explosives set into realistic camouflage casings including faux cinder blocks, stones, and the like. Before this was public knowledge I was party to a classified briefing specifically warning about these things. They're powerful enough (and shaped) to penetrate even armored vehicles. It's possible for a convoy to hit three or four regular crappy Arab IEDs per trip and not take much damage, but we started losing whole teams at a time after these things showed up.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has also been active against us in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a hint of which can be found here.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124835,00.html
Shots have been fired and deaths have been caused.
