war with Iran?

What are your thoughts about the possibility of the fighting in Iraq spreading?  May 4, 2008 United States is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp

Michael Smith

The US military is drawing up plans for a “surgical strike” against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards’ special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi’ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country.

Despite a belligerent stance by Vice-President Dick Cheney, the administration has put plans for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities on the back burner since Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as defence secretary in 2006, the sources said.

However, US commanders are increasingly concerned by Iranian interference in Iraq and are determined that recent successes by joint Iraqi and US forces in the southern port city of Basra should not be reversed by the Quds Force.

“If the situation in Basra goes back to what it was like before, America is likely to blame Iran and carry out a surgical strike on a militant training camp across the border in Khuzestan,” said one source, referring to a frontier province.

They acknowledged Iran was unlikely to cease involvement in Iraq and that, however limited a US attack might be, the fighting could escalate.

Although American defence chiefs are firmly opposed to any attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, they believe a raid on one of the camps training Shi’ite militiamen would deliver a powerful message to Tehran.

British officials believe the US military tends to overestimate the effect of the Iranian involvement in Iraq.

But they say there is little doubt that the Revolutionary Guard exercises significant influence over splinter groups of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, who were the main targets of recent operations in Basra.

The CBS television network reported last week that plans were being drawn up for an attack on Iran, citing an officer who blamed the “increasingly hostile role” Iran was playing in Iraq.

The American news reports were unclear about the precise target of such an action and referred to Iran’s nuclear facilities as the likely objective.

According to the intelligence sources there will not be an attack on Iran’s nuclear capacity. “The Pentagon is not keen on that at all. If an attack happens it will be on a training camp to send a clear message to Iran not to interfere.”

President George W Bush is known to be determined that he should not hand over what he sees as “the Iran problem” to his successor. A limited attack on a training camp may give an impression of tough action, while at the same time being something that both Gates and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, could accept.

Dignified,

I have to disagree with your assessment that the US has failed in Iraq. Things do seem to be getting better, with Shia militias calling for cease-fires, militia groups disarming and disbanding, and Iraqi forces taking control of more and more areas, as well as the people themselves turning against the foreign fighters from groups like Al-Qaeda every day.

I can understand why anyone might be concerned that Iran is developing nuclear weapons when it's President says that Israel must be destroyed.

My own opinion is that the US and Iran are already in conflict. Iranian forces are training and supplying Iraqi militia and terrorist groups, and are probably even more directly involved. US Special forces have most certainly operated inside Iran already. If the conflict becomes more open it will be because of the Iranian involvement in Iraq and not because of their nuclear program. 

I hope not, War in Iraq has caused a lot of economic problems world wide, i.e. Oil price rise, Which is the primary reason for global inflation right now.

War with Iran could worsen the situation

The people of the United States neither want, nor are willing to engage in a war with Iran, despite whatever fantasies professional soldiers in the Pentagon might have.

I think that professional soldiers are even less likely to WANT a war with Iran than the general public or more importantly, the civilian leadership. They tend to be much more conservative about that sort of thing.

One thing that the public and many journalists seem to have a misconception about is the many many plans that any competent military has. The US has plans for a very wide variety of possible situations (including plans to invade Canada, for example). Sometimes journalists use the "discovery" of these plans as sensationalist fodder for a story and assume that a plan will be used. 

The fact that a plan exists, like a plan to bomb insurgent training camps in Iran, doesn't mean it will be implemented or that it has support within the military establishment.  It's really just the sign of military planners doing their job. 

Bush and his government love wars .

  war is their favorite game .  but since Bush is about to leave the white house  , fortunately , no enough time to  play this new game in Iran  .


I hope the next president is not like him . 

War is easy for politicians.

The United States is as likely to enter a war during a bad economy as a good one, since large-scale war tends to provide a lot of economic stimulus.

Generally, stimulus from war is short term. It CAN have beneficial effects and can boost technological development, but in the long term, wars are not a good thing for economic development. Money and resources are used for war that could be used for much more productive endeavors, and wars are obviously very destructive. Inflation generally ensues, taxes are raised or money is borrowed to pay for the war and there can be massive losses of human and non-human capital. 

However, I do agree with you, Aljensen, that war can be as likely (or more so in my opinion) in bad economic times, not because it can provide some boost to the economy, but rather that saber-rattling and the created threat of an outside enemy can be used to divert a people's attention from internal problems.

I offer Venezuela as an example. The more their economy suffers under Chavez's Marxist "reforms" the more he acts belligerent towards the US and his neighbors and the more likely that some accident (real, contrived, or imaginary) could spark real conflict.  

I do not think that war with Iran is likely. My uncle, who is in the RCMP, he knows a lot about things. He told me that the Iranian president is a disturbed and effeminate man.

After war with the US, I suppose you can look to Japan, Germany and Vietnam as examples.