To question whether Iran should be under question

It should come as no shock that the United States keep itself in a state of readiness, but it appeared to be news today on Yahoo!, which reported the U.S. is developing a contingency plan to bomb Iran. Of course the military has contingencies prepared for worst-case scenarios, or lightning strikes against serious regimes that pose a serious threat.

Few regimes so aptly deserve such status. I doubt the U.S. military has seriously pondered the best possible way to launch an assault on Singapore. Indeed, only today U.S. officers discovered a factory for assembling sophisticated roadside bombs from Iranian-made components. Perhaps more damning, an Iranian General, the third highest ranking Iranian General in the Iranian Quds force, is in custody in Iraq. He was caught planning attacks against Americans and supplying weapons. This latest raid only further supports U.S. claims on Iran.

Meanwhile, Palestinians have pledged their support for Iran in the event of a joint U.S./Israeli strike. Yet, the wind may be taken out of their sails, if indeed the U.S. is conducting "very aggressive" special operations in Iran, as Seymour Hersh alleges in his latest expose, bolstered by numerous unnamed sources.

If indeed Americans are engaging in stealth operations within Iran, the world should not be surprised, for as Amir Taheri has said, Iran has been playing "Russian Roulette." Taheri was born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. Between 1980 and 1984 he was Middle East editor for the London Sunday Times. Taheri has been a contributor to the International Herald Tribune since 1980. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taheri has published nine books some of which have been translated into 20 languages, and In 1988 Publishers'' Weekly in New York chose his study of Islamist terrorism, "Holy Terror", as one of The Best Books of The Year.

Taheri writes:

The gunboat was a medium of communication, a semiological prop, used by powerful nations to persuade weaker ones not to transcend red lines. In a sense, it was an instrument of peace insofar as it persuaded putative adversaries to moderate their defiance.

Watching a second American battle group sail into the Gulf of Oman the other day, one could not help recall the days of gunboat diplomacy. Accompanied by its flotilla of warships, the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, was sailing towards the Strait of Homuz to join its sister aircraft carrier, the USS Stennis.

What is the message that the aircraft carriers are supposed to convey? And, to whom is it addressed?

The answer to the second question, relayed by the media ad nauseum, is clear: the American "gunboat" message is destined for the Khomeinist leadership in Tehran.

The Khomeinist leadership is convinced that the United States' domestic political feuds would not allow Bush to cry: fire!

The Khomeinist analysis is based on two assumptions.

First, the US is in the midst of a political civil war in which the new Democrat majority would do all it can to frustrate Bush's attempt at reshaping the Middle East. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praises Democrat leaders as "wise men", and counts on them to force a premature withdrawal of American troops from the region. It is assumed that those ready do all to ensure that the US is defeated in Iraq, would not help Bush restrain the mullahs.

Ahmadinejad's second assumption is that Bush is an atypical American leader who, if slapped, would not turn the other cheek. However, Bush is already a lame duck, forced to spend more energy countering domestic foes than promoting pax Americana. All that Tehran has to do is wait another year or so, in the hope that whoever succeeds Bush will be another Jimmy Carter, Bush the father, or Bill Clinton.

In the old times, gunboat diplomacy worked because the man who sent the flotilla could use it without being second-guessed at every step. The gunboat was a symbol of power that was real because those who possessed it had the will and the courage to use it. In most cases, it was not actually used because those targeted knew that it could be used.

Today, however, the US has all the power in the world but lacks the will and courage to use it. Over the past quarter of a century, the Khomeinist regime has had the prudence not to behave like suicidal adolescents. When faced with the risk of hitting something hard, it has always retreated. In 1988, Khomeini accepted a humiliating ceasefire with Iraq when he realized that the Americans would punish him if he refused. Ten years later, Khamenehi, decided to eat humble pie when the Taliban killed dozens of Iranians, including eight diplomats. He had no stomach for a fight against elements even madder than the mullahs.

The key question now is whether the Khomeinist regime, which has always played chess, has decided to play Russian roulette.

The perceived political weakness of the United States, and the expectation that the Democrats would seek a strategic retreat, may have persuaded the Khomeinist leadership that Ahmadinejad may be right after all: the Islamic Republic can pursue a hegemonic strategy with no fear of hitting something hard.

Ahmadinejad, reported to watch a lot of CNN, has seen the gunboats sail in. But he has also seen Nancy Pelosi, Jack Murtha, Barrack Obama, and other American luminaries such as Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and Jane Fonda who would rather see Bush destroyed than the mullahs restrained. The American gunboat ballet does not impress the radicals in the ascendancy in Tehran. And that is bad news for all concerned, above all the people of the region.

But Iran may be destroying itself, as TCS Reports, courtesy JunkYardBlog:

Iran receives 80-90% of its export earnings from oil exports. Due to problems with Iran's oil refining sector, Iran must import 40% of the gasoline it consumes. Iran's existing oil fields suffer natural output declines of 8-10% per year. Iran requires foreign capital investment and foreign technical expertise to maintain its oil industry and the income it produces. (See this country report from the U.S. Energy Information Agency for background on Iran's energy sector. And see this recent academic study predicting the collapse of Iran's oil industry.)

Iran's undiversified economy is highly vulnerable to attack. Murder and intimidation, performed by a ruthless non-state group, may be all that is required to slowly but surely grind down the Iranian economy.

As previously mentioned, the Iranian oil industry requires the expertise of foreign engineers to maintain its output. An anti-Iranian terror group could target for assassination the engineers and executives (and their families) of any French, Russian, Japanese, or Chinese oil companies that may be considering work in Iran. The goals of such a terror group would be to create social and political chaos inside Iran, to weaken the government and its ability to function, and to dry up funding for Iran's nuclear industry.

The moral of the story is, there is a preponderance of evidence that Iran is up to no good; from U.S. arm seizures in Iraq, to captured Iranian generals, to Iranian dissidents who know the mentality of their homeland's leaders, to its pernicious and desperate attempts to obtain nuclear capabilities.

The wrong decision is for us to back down.