This post is a bit different, I'm including some responses that were very insightful, I blocked out the e-mail addresses involved, but there's good insight in the discussion.
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I read today that the White House "Christmas Tree", if it can eve be considered that anymore, has ornaments that feature likenesses of Mao Zedong and other unsavory characters. At this point, we seem to be able to trust in our military field commanders and let's hope the cancer of indecision does not strike from the top down.
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Back when we were in college and took Naval tactics, do you remember that they taught the fundamental principles of warfare as mass, maneuver, objective, offensive, surprise, simplicity, unity of command, etc...? One item that I believed at the time that should have been there was "will". If you lack the will to fight on terms that favor you, you will fight on terms that favor your opponent. If you lack the will to use surprise, you will not have the element of surprise on your side. In an ongoing fight, Major Artelli, (USAF) showed in his dissertation that in democracies the public support for a war follows a very mathematically well defined pattern over time in conjunction with a few other variables (less than 5).
Today, ADM Mullen stated that the military option vs... Iran must be a last resort, and that it would only set them back temporarily. This is an out and out statement of our lack of will to use military force, and even more importantly, to consider "outside the box" military options. ADM Mullen is absolutely correct. Going after the Iranian facilities we know about with a conventional air strike using the munitions we have today will only set them back temporarily. But, there are so many other ways to cripple Iran that we are not considering because we lack the will to commit ourselves to an actual war where we ruthlessly exploit our own advantages until the Iranian government collapses. For example:
1. Knock out the Kharg Island oil terminal with air strikes.
2. Take out Iranian dams, leaving the country with greatly reduced access to fresh water, and well as causing massive infrastructure damage.
3. Nuclear EMP. Drastic, but it would send a very final message. When we say stop, we mean stop.
4. Blockade the Strait of Hormuz and stop any Iranian oil from leaving the Arabian Gulf.
5. Put a dozen JDAMS delivered via B-2 right in the middle of the next meeting of the Guardian Council. Instant decapitation of the Iranian government. Sit back, make some popcorn, and watch the revolution on CNN.
All of these options would have serious economic consequences, and would probably cost the President a second term. It would also destroy any warm fuzzy feelings the world feels towards President Obama.
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/12/ap_mullen_iran_122109/
Where we stand now is with a policy of hope: we hope the Iranian government isn't really trying to build a nuclear weapon, we hope they aren't crazy enough to use it, we hope we can keep the Israelis in check, we hope the Israelis don't damage the Iranian oil infrastructure if they do go after the Iranians, we hope that in the aftermath of an Israeli strike the Iranians don't choose to launch a mass suicide attack on US naval forces in the Gulf (which would probably result in the US 5th Fleet taking extremely heavy casualties, on the order of Pearl Harbor), we hope that the Iranians won't retaliate by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, and we hope that Iran won't go after lightly armed US forces in western Afghanistan. The Obama administration has placed all its chips on one scenario: we get some sanctions through the UN or the sake of appearances after January 1st 2010, and that those appearances of doing something, plus a lot of leaning on Netanyahu, is enough to keep Israel in check.
That's a lot of hoping in my book. For the electrical engineers out there, it's a series circuit, for the statisticians, it's a series of Boolean AND statements. Either way, a single point of failure in their logic results in collapse of the hoped for chain of events. My money is most certainly not on the events developing the way the administration hopes they will. It's just too improbable that they can get Israel to accept a nuclear armed Iran as status quo, particularly the hawkish Netanyahu government.
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You could flesh this out academically better than I could, but the fundamental issue here is our deteriorating credibility on the issue of deterrence. We've kept a lot of bad guys in balance because no one wanted to go first in getting their country turned into a smoking black hole. Now that we've spent a ton of time showing the world that political infighting in our Congress is of greater national importance than turning bad guys who get out of line into smoking black holes, the cracks developing badly. We've committed 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. If we can find Bin Laden, it would be a huge victory. I read yesterday that ADM Mullen has commented on our assistance with military efforts in Yemen. Action everywhere with meaningful results nowhere is not the way to gain momentum.
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Most everything that has been happening are issues with Iran. There’s a lot happening there.
Nuclear Triggers
First, it looks like Iran didn’t really give up on building a nuclear weapon in 2003 like the National Intelligence Estimate said in 2008.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6955351.ece
http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf
More likely than not, Iran halted its nuclear program in 2003 (briefly) after it saw what happened to Iraq in the name of countering WMD proliferation in order to avoid providing a causus belli. After Iran realized that we had our hands full in Iraq and were too distracted and overwhelmed to have the 1st Armored Division make a left at Baghdad, they probably resumed their work. Israel, and a couple of European spy agencies have been trying to tell us this for years, but the NIE was published anyway. It seemed odd at the time, and one has to wonder what political underpinnings caused so many agencies to sign off on a document that got it so wrong.
Note that the type of detonator they are attempting to make is used in thermonuclear weapons (aka the H-Bomb, fission trigger / fusion reaction weapon), which have a much higher explosive yield than a simple fission device.
Of course, Iran denies everything
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2868077&page=1
If true (and it likely is), this information is two years old and it seems highly likely Iran has made significance along the road towards making nuclear detonators. At this point, all they lack is the super highly enriched Uranium (90%+ U235). They do have enough low enriched uranium now to produce enough upgrade their current stock to make enough fissile material.
Iranian Scientist Disappears (Defects?)
It was revealed this week that in June a senior Iranian nuclear scientist disappeared while on pilgrimage to Mecca. There are stong suspicions he defected, and has been providing secrets about the program, possibly the location of the new, secret underground processing plant revealed a few months ago in September.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/091007/world/ml_iran_nuclear_scientist
It wouldn’t be the first time a high ranking member of the Iranian hierarchy has defected. It happened with a senior member of the Revolutionary Guard in 2007.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/iranian-general-seeking-asylum-in-us/story-e6frg8yo-1111113117142
Iran Tests New Solid Fuel Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM)
Last week, Iran test fired a new generation of Medium Range Ballistic Missile.
http://www.iranfocus.com/en/iran-general-/iran-test-fires-sejil-missile-state-tv-19288.html
This is a solid fuel upgrade over earlier liquid fueled Shahab-3 missiles (a Iranian produced clone of the extremely unreliable North Korean Nodong series). Not that the Iranians are bragging in the article that the missile cannot be intercepted. There is a great deal of debate in the defense world about how well ANY current generation Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) can handle countermeasures, such as decoys released by the, or random maneuvering (jinking) by the warhead. This statement by Iran is clearly aimed at Israel and its Arrow ABM system.
The questions people need to think about this in the wake of Iran’s announcement are:
1. Does Israel’s leadership believe the Sejjil-2 really does have countermeasures of some sort
2. Do they believe those countermeasures will significantly reduce the effectiveness of their Arrow missile system
3. How much uncertainty regarding the answers to questions 1 and 2 are they willing to live with?
Illegal Arms Shipment from North Korea Intercepted
Sources now say that the munitions from North Korea intercepted in Thailand were bound for Iran. This is unsurprising, since these two nations are both cut off from selling arms internationally by UN sanctions. They have been doing a brisk business between each other with both finished products and sharing expertise.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/14/thailand-impounds-plane-arms-korea
China Puts Talks on Hold Indefinitely
China has postponed negotiations regarding Iran indefinitely.
http://www.iranfocus.com/en/nuclear/officials-world-power-meeting-on-iran-canceled-19279.html
This is most likely due to China’s unhappiness with the US intransigence at Copenhagen. The US has been insisting that if CO2 is going to be limited in some way, China will have to agree to allow internal monitoring by an international agency for compliance verification. China has consistently balked at this, and has felt sighted. Oddly enough, President Obama has been positively Reagan-esque in his adherence to the idea of “trust, but verify”. China has resorted to series of diplomatic tit-for-tats.
http://article.wn.com/view/2009/12/18/Breaking_news_India_China_walk_out_of_climate_summit_Report/
Senior Iranian Cleric Ayatollah Montazeri Dies
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580731,00.html
Montazeri was one of the only high level officials supportive of the student movement in Iran. He was the most Senior member of the Guardian Council, and one of the most respected. Without the aid of his gravitas, the students have lost any potential political top cover. It makes it much more difficult for a “velvet revolution” to take place, since there are very few important people left who are willing to support the protestors. Former President Rafsanjani is one of those, but he lacks the spiritual clout that Montazeri did. Being an Islamic Republic, only members of the Guardian Council (who are all very senior Shiite Clerics) have the pull to define something as just or conversely, un-Islamic.
This is almost a death-blow to the dreams of leaders in the West who have been secretly hoping that a Ukrainian-style revolution would take place, allowing for real negotiations with a more moderated Iran to take place. If there is change now, it is likely to look a lot more like a very messy civil war. This seems unlikely in the absence of outside influences, though. The very safe money is on the status quo remaining in place indefinitely as long as the regime is left to its own devices. Cuba and North Korea are great examples of how bad governments can stay in play perpetually.
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