A US military strike against Iran is barely discussed in the parochial Australian media, but it’s a strong possibility, according to former CIA field officer, Bob Baer:
Strengthening the Administration’s case for a strike on Iran, there’s a belief among neo-cons that the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] is the one obstacle to democratic and a friendly Iran. They believe that if we were to get rid of the IRGC, the clerics would fall, and our thirty-years war with Iran over. It’s another neo-con delusion, but still it informs White House thinking.
And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it’s not even a consideration. “IRGC IED’s are a casus belli for this administration. There will be an attack on Iran.”
Seven serving US soldiers have written about the current “liberation” efforts of the Bush administration in Iraq:
Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are – an army of occupation – and force our withdrawal.
I have my doubts about Bob Baer’s attitude, he reports the following without pointing out the flaws.
The US Army has already found a factory that was producing EFPs in Iraq. Also, the suggestion that Iraq is not capable of producing weapons that originated during WW2 is preposterous, especially when you consider the reason for the war in the first place, Saddam Hussein’s attempt to develop atomic weapons. Producing a gas centrifuge for enriching Uranium is far harder that producing a shaped copper disc for an EFP.
The Shia were always well represented in the Iraqi Army, Saddam Hussein needed the cannon fodder for his war against Iran and the invasion of Kuwait. As a result, any suggestion that the Shia wouldn’t have people skilled in using mortars is preposterous.