This European
cartoon, first published in Denmark, has riled the Muslim community who are demanding censorship. In response,
more and more news outlets are publishing the cartoon series in defiance of Muslim intimidation threats.
The cartoon figure is not meant to be Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but it does capture the spirit of radicalism
he embodies. The Iranian cabinet appears to be divided right now between hard-liners and those who believe that
war is not inevitable. (After all Iran fooled the West for 18 years, why not continue?)
Iran is controlled by a corrupt and ancient clergy who run the government in perpetuity and have divided up the
weakening pillars of a mismanaged economy among their families. Talk of war does nothing to help the people or
cool the suppressed desire for regime change among the young. Most of all, war talk scares away or postpones the
flow of new investment dollars.
Iran has the world's second largest oil reserves but they also have a strong need to modernize and expand their
oil infrastructure. That means a lot of equipment and expertise has to be regularly imported. A financial freeze,
travel restrictions and banned purchases from abroad reduce Iran's longer term oil prospects considerably. The
aging mullahs and their families need the current income to stave off demands for a better life from the young
and pro-western populace. Some 70 percent of Iranians are young. The prospects for their middle age are grim.
Like Saddam before them, Iranian leaders have attempted to purchase support at the U.N.
Its principal targets? Russia, China and India.
Russia. Their self-serving offer to process and supply uranium for Iran requires the world community to believe
in the word of Iran and Russia simultaneously that no uranium will slip through. Russia is the place that can't
account for its own nukes.
Russia has already built a one billion dollar reactor at Bushehr. Two or three more lucrative reactor contracts
are being negotiated. In the years ahead, Iran is promising 100 more reactor contracts. Russia has agreed to sell
Iran $1 billion in arms including advanced surface-to-air missiles. They would be used to defend against air attack
at such high-value nuclear sites as Bushehr, Natanz, Arak and Isfahan. Other weapons such as diesel submarines,
air defense systems and anti-ship missiles are under consideration.
China. The world's number 4 economy, China is the number 2 consumer of energy. Iran is China's third largest oil
supplier. China has invested about $100 billion in Iranian oil and gas development. Iran buys its conventional
weapons from China. Beijing is also very active in highway and subway construction at the billion dollar level.
While China tries to establish long-term supply agreements in Asia, Africa and South America, it is pleased to
support things that keep the United States bogged down in the Middle East.
India. In spite of its professed new friendship with the U.S., India has been heavily involved in a $7 billion
pipeline to get Iranian natural gas across Pakistan and into India. Affordable gas would relieve India's energy
crunch. Pipeline transit fees would pump cash into Pakistan and Iran would have a huge new market. Everyone wins.
While these investments will not prevent Iran being referred by the IAEA to the Security Council for the consideration
of sanctions, Iran still believes that Russia and China will prevent any serious action against them.
To many, the next few months look like a replay of the run up to the war in Iraq. The chatter will be futile and
the action non-existent because of Chinese and Russian veto power. Stalling for time is a decided advantage to
Iran, not to us.
If that is the case, is there a valid military option?
There is just one military objective that is feasible given current resources. That is, says General Robert Scales,
a campaign limited in scope to the elimination of Iranian nuclear weapons without any hope of regime change. Such
a campaign would have to come from a strong international coalition that contributed intelligence, Special Forces
and aerial transport. Iran is a large country with rough terrain and remote regions. With perhaps 100 target points,
there is no military capacity to undertake this campaign immediately. We lack the transport aircraft and light
ground maneuver vehicles, Scales says, to establish and maintain these outposts. Building up such a force would
take time and be extremely expensive. At some point, the question becomes where and when will a radiological bomb
be exploded. At that point, the expense looks cheap. The question is the politics in between.
The alternative left by the elimination of all the others is what expert Mansoor Ijaz calls the "hybrid solution."
Sanctions will be tried but prove useless as always. The elites don't suffer, the people do.
The military options are decidedly unattractive unless the Iranians are actually planning an offensive strike.
Therefore, says Ijaz, the West should consider actively encouraging an internal uprising against the theocracy
while describing to the public a new class of U.S. weapons that could destroy Iranian nukes with little collateral
risk. The insurgency force could retain the good will of the people by only attacking the vital infrastructure.
The goal would be to turn the tables on the state sponsors of terror and unnerve the aging clerics by attacking
the source of their wealth. - the routes that deliver the oil. At the same time, of course, the West would block
the road to new investment and the travel of expert consultants.
Knowing where to find the nuclear sites is not much of an issue. We have both the ordinance and the tactics we
need. With the technology used to find oil and gas, we can rather easily find hidden bunkers. Bunkers may be large
and hidden but they were visible to satellites during construction. Sub-surface geological features are incorporated
into underground maps and can be used to program guidance and flight path information. We know where the entrances
are located. Bunkers that cannot be destroyed can be sealed off. In addition, we would flatten the island of Abu
Musa to prevent Iran from blocking the Straits of Hormuz.
The possible emerging strategy seems to look like supporting an Iranian insurgency, freezing financial and transportation
contacts with the outside world and energizing a public diplomacy effort to give the Middle East a realistic view
of what they are facing. In the Middle East, it is not the might of America that is questioned. It is the will.
The mullah's counter attack is to unleash the terrorists they support with a view to creating more division and
fear and more cries for appeasement. What appeasement will bring is submission to the maniacal goof in the cartoon.
He is, after all, the face of what the Islamic radicals have done to their religion.
And that's not funny at all.
