Letter 137: Playing 'Chicken' with lran

"As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice...."

--LTG Flynn (Ret.), National Security Advisor, February 1, 2017

Those who follow the way
counsel against war
knowing the use of force
will simply create more
war and fill the land with thorns

--Lao-tsu, circa 550 B.C.

BLUF: The heated rhetoric about Iran is frightening. The Trump Administration does not yet know what Iran’s intentions are with these missile tests and possible nuclearization in the future as well as what Iran views as its security interests. 

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hossein-askari/uniformed-threats-against_b_14619770.html
• https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/03/statement-national-security-advisor-michael-t-flynn-iran
• http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/mattis-us-has-no-plans-to-increase-mideast-forces 

Historical backdrop for me. Forty years ago, in college, l was studying the actions of Germany, following Bismarck’s deft leadership as Chancellor, in the run-up to the 'Great War'. In a book I read, the Berlin press, apparently at the behest of the government, often sounded the war drums to coerce concessions out of other countries. This policy or practice had a name like 'hair-trigger'. 

http://topppaper.com/the-role-of-germany-in-the-development-of-world/ 

That book’s author, I think, was arguing that the climate of fear made the ease and consequence of miscalculation far more dangerous, not to mention begging the rivals eventually to call the Kaiser's bluff. Ten years ago there were similar 'bleatings' of war drums, climaxed (at least on my visual radar) by a 'Time' magazine and other periodical covers with menacing portraits of President Ahmadinejad looking like Mephistopheles.  

Those covers recalled my hearing casual remarks that people made in Baghdad in the Summer of 2004, when the United States were in the upswing of a weapons procurement boom, "Better brush up on your Persian, dude -- it's Christmas in Teheran." The whole idea of invading Iran in 2004 was, to state it mildly, dissociated from reality and arguably evil. Operation Iraqi Freedom was already mired in difficulties. 

http://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2015/09/letter-113-do-we-say-iran-or-i-ran.html

Iraq had been by far the easiest of the three members of the Axis-of-Evil (plus Syria) to invade: half-starved population from sanctions; wrecked infrastructure; minimal air-defense; flat terrain for easy avenues of approach; military without spare parts, etc. Iran had a better economy, double the population; a far better-provisioned military; and, a mountainous terrain. In short, if Iraq was not our Syracuse, Iran would be.

The Folly of the Toupée Trigger. The most tragic aspect about this ill-advised and unecessary game of chicken -- sponsored by the Lord of the Lies and his Loose Bannon -- is that my conviction that, while Iran may detest Israël, more for being a Western Democracy throwing regional dictatorships (like the theocratic tyranny in Iran) into disrepute, she truly fears Pakistan. 

https://thewire.in/41862/the-rising-threat-against-shia-muslims-in-pakistan/

Recently, I was swatted down by a military expert here in Birmingham for asking about the Pakistani threat to Iran; the dismissive answer indicated more the tunnel-vision taken by those tied to the military and the military-industrial nexus, constrained by threat assessments that lock in false consenses. Nevertheless, as an outsider with some experience on the ground, I will stick to my thesis in that case. 

The brutal treatment of Shi´ites in Pakistan plus that failed state having 155 nuclear weapons are the real reasons for Iran going nuclear. Lastly, Iran has a cosmopolitan middle-class we failed to support in 2009. If we play our cards right, they will overthrow the religious tyrants. These people have historically been neutral, perhaps pre-disposed, toward Israël (obviously, our #1 priority).