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Thursday, September 6

Iran: the war at hand vs two in the bush

"TEHRAN, Sept. 2 -- Iran's president said Sunday that his country is now running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its nuclear program, reaching a goal that could spur efforts to impose new U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic."

"They're running 3,000 piles of junk."
-- John Loftus on John Batchelor show, Sept 2

"Hi Pundita!
It was great to hear John Batchelor and friends again. Let's hope he can work out a regular deal soon. (Note to WABC: Bob Grant is not the answer.)

In case you haven't heard, JB regular John Loftus has a radio show on another station(s) Monday-Wednesday 11 PM -12 Midnight. In New York the station is 620 AM.

So far, I've heard conflicting views about Iran: Nuke capability is progressing/not progressing. We're getting ready to hit Iran/just making noise. Any insights?

Mike Miller in New York"

Dear Mike:
For readers who did not catch Batchelor's show for Drudge on Sept 2, John Loftus said that the depth that the new US "super bunker buster" bomb can reach is classified, but it's a 30,000 pound bomb. And he quoted Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney (USAF Ret.) as saying that "there is no place deep enough" in Iran for Ahmadinejad to hide -- meaning that the super bomb can reach the depth of the tunnels Iran has dug for their nuke weapons development program.

As for the 3,000 centrifuges that Maddy claims are running, clearly Loftus thinks they're not up to task. But Maddy's announcement certainly stabbed the IAEA in the back.

So Ahmadinejad has switched tactics; he's taken a very aggressive posture ahead of the September UNSC meeting to determine whether more sanctions should be piled on. Maddy has in effect said 'Sticks and stones can hurt my bones but sanctions will never hurt me.'

Under any other circumstances, one could interpret Maddy's bluster as inviting a naval blockade of Iran. However, the circumstances we're involved in right now are Iran's actions in Iraq and US urgency to tamp down the violence in Iraq.

Under guise of shelling Iranian Kurdish insurgents, Iran is doing a land clearing operation in a part of northern Iraq. One insurgent leader observed that they're not shelling where the insurgents are located, in the mountains. So to what end is Iran acting? It seems the goal is to replace the villagers with Iranian military and al Qaeda fighters working with the military.

In the south, Iranian guerilla warfare has forced the British to a retreat to a more secure location, thereby putting more pressure on the US to defend Basra's critical supply route for US troops.

Pardon Pundita's limited knowledge of war strategy, but I think even a chipmunk could read the combined actions in the north and south as a pincer movement.

In any case, we already have a war going with Iran, and that's the one we need to be focused on at this time. The observation holds true, no matter how much or little progress Iran is making toward a nuclear weapon. I think US policy, including the decision to open talks with Iran about Iraq, is starting to acknowledge that stark reality.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the people inside Washington who were most focused on Iran's nuclear threat have been unwilling to view Iraq as the center of things. I remember not long after the US toppled Saddam's regime, John Batchelor said, "Iraq is in the rear view mirror." I think the statement characterized the view of the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld. Yet that view completely discounted Iran's strategic interest in Iraq.

There was really not much that could be done to overturn the view until Rumsfeld left and General Petraeus launched a counterinsurgency. His strategy has made a lot of trouble for Iran's military because it's created a situation in southern Iraq that is chaotic. Iran simply can't control all the armed groups that have spun off from the Mahdi army. When that became evident, Pundita called for an about-face in US policy toward Iran. I advised that the US open talks with Iran; this on the theory that the US finally has something to bargain with.

So while I don't have a clear idea of where Iran's nuclear program stands today, I have done with trying to play clairvoyant. In Iraq, we have a clear and present situation with regard to Iran, and that's what should condition US war policy at this time. Diplomacy should follow suit. To attempt to build US policy toward Iran on their nuclear threat is akin to reading tea leaves about when the world is coming to an end while a tornado is bearing down on you.

As for piling more sanctions against Iran -- does anybody really believe that people who send their youngest children to run across mine fields to clear the way for tanks, as the Iranians did during the war with Iraq, will be deterred by economic hardships? No, we'd have to bomb them into submission. But that's not today, and not tomorrow. We need to stay with the present.

The US has placed too much emphasis on air power and neglected old-fashioned ground war -- which happens to be where Iran excels. We should have learned the lesson by watching Hezbollah's defense last year against Israel.

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