Russian TV - War Footing

But I suppose Donald Trump is a bigger issue than war with Russia or deterioriating relations between the US and Russia.  Between Iran and US.  Between the US and ... practically everyone.

War Talk Returns to Russian TV as U.S. Ties Hit DeepFreeze 

Henry Meyer meyerhenry4 

October 10, 2016 — 7:19 AM PDT Updated on October 11, 2016 — 8:15 AM PDT 

Russian state television is back on a war footing.

This time, the ramped-up rhetoric follows the collapse of cease-fire efforts in Syria. As the U.S. and Russia accused each other of sinking diplomacy, Moscow increased its military presence in the Mediterranean and Baltic regions, and suspended a nuclear non-proliferation treaty. A prime-time news program warned that the U.S. wants to provoke a conflict.

The sudden escalation puts the relationship back into the deep freeze it was in at the peak of the crisis over Ukraine in 2014, which also sparked a wave of hostility in state media. That anti-U.S. campaign ended as the Kremlin sought to ease Western punitive measures imposed over the Ukrainian crisis -- hopes that now seem to be in tatters.

“Offensive behavior toward Russia has a nuclear dimension,” Russian state TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov said in his “Vesti Nedelyi” program on Sunday. “Moscow would react with nerves of iron to a Plan B,” he said, referring to any possible U.S. military strike in Syria.

The Kremlin’s control over Russian media has in part helped keep President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating above 80 percent during the country’s longest recession in two decades and portrayed military deployments in Crimea and Syria as victories against western encroachment.

Sanction Threat

The rise in tensions could lead to new sanctions against the Kremlin, which some members of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party have sought to penalize over Syria. It risks blowing off course efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, which provoked the worst standoff since the Cold War after Putin annexed Crimea and backed pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Following the collapse of months of diplomacy, Russia is pursuing an air campaign in Syria to bolster its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, against U.S.-backed rebels and establishing permanent bases there. The Obama administration suggested that Russian actions in Syria could amount to war crimes and blamed Russia for cyber attacks aimed at disrupting the U.S. election.

The result will be the “ossification of U.S.-Russian relations at an abysmally low level,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk consultancy. “Deep mistrust of Putin will now be structural and unanimous among U.S. policy makers.”

Hollande, Merkel

In a signal of the renewed rupture, Putin canceled a planned trip to France next week after his French counterpart Francois Hollande refused to appear alongside him at a ceremony to inaugurate a Russian religious center in Paris. Hollande said he was only willing to meet Putin to discuss Syria amid French calls for a halt to the bombing of the city of Aleppo, where a quarter of a million civilians are trapped. “It will be to Russia’s shame if there isn’t a stop to the killings in Aleppo,” Hollande said.

There is a possibility that Putin will meet the leaders of Germany, France and Ukraine in Berlin the same day as the planned French trip for “Normandy format” talks, Kremlin foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov suggested Monday in Istanbul. These talks are aimed at solving the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Russia supports separatists fighting the government.

Bombs, Missiles

Over the past week, Russia stepped up its confrontation with the U.S. over its bombing in Aleppo, where it says it is fighting terrorists. Russia on Oct. 8 vetoed a French-proposed United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an end to air attacks on the northern city.

Russia deployed the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Syria and reinforced its presence by sending three missile ships to the Mediterranean. It confirmed Western media reports it’s stationed Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad exclave sandwiched between NATO members Poland and Lithuania. Poland’s defense minister said the action caused the “highest concern.”

“The world has got to a dangerous phase,” former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said in an interview with state news service RIA Novosti on Monday.

‘Dangerous Games’

Both the Iskander and the Kaliber missiles carried by these ships can be fitted with nuclear warheads, Kiselyov said in his program. The presenter is known for making provocative statements critical of the U.S. He bragged in 2014 that Russia is the only country capable of turning the U.S. to radioactive dust.

After a strike by the U.S.-led coalition on a Syrian army base last month that the Pentagon said was a mistake killed dozens of soldiers, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it won’t allow a repetition. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an interview with state-run Channel One broadcast Sunday said Russian defenses can protect the Syrian army from any U.S. attack and warned the American military to desist from “dangerous games.”

Alexei Pushkov, a senator who headed the lower house of parliament’s foreign affairs committee until recently, in a Twitter post raised the specter of a confrontation like the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which brought the U.S. and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.

Russia won’t back down, said Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament. The risk of military clashes between the U.S.-led coalition and Russian military in Syria “is rising every day,” he said.

For Putin, the only strategy is to raise the bet, said Eurasia’s Kupchan. “He’s masterfully playing a weak hand to the detriment of U.S. security and economic interests,” he said.

(A previous version of this story was corrected to fix the Eurasia Group chairman’s first name.)

Nuclear War is Imminent (say the Russians)

Nuclear war 'IMMINENT' as Russia tells citizens to find out where the closest bunkers are

NUCLEAR war could be imminent as Russia told its citizens to urgently prepare for a devastating radioactive conflict as relations with the West stoop to their lowest since the Cold War.

 

A terrifying Russian television broadcast explicitly told civilians to find out where their nearest bomb shelter is and repeatedly asked viewers if they were ready for nuclear war.

One apocalyptic broadcast told viewers on Moscow's state-owned TV channel NTV: "If it should one day happen, every one of you should know where the nearest bomb shelter is. It’s best to find out now."

 

American Values

This, I believe is the norm - this, I believe is what the majority of Americans serving the United States and the cause of freedom, for people who may well not want it, engage in.  Dennis Weichel is a hero.

I am very nearly certain no Afghan soldier would have done the same.




U.S. soldier dies saving Afghan girl

By Larry Shaughnessy, CNN
March 28, 2012

After the news of a U.S. soldier charged with murdering Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, the story of Spc. Dennis Weichel of the Rhode Island National Guard bears telling.

The official Pentagon news release says he died "from injuries suffered in a noncombat related incident." But there is much more to the story. Weichel, 29, of Providence, died saving the life of a little girl.

According to the Rhode Island National Guard and the U.S. Army, Weichel was in a convoy a week ago with his unit in Laghman Province, in northeast Afghanistan. Some children were in the road in front of the convoy, and Weichel and other troops got out to move them out of the way.

Most of the children moved, but one little girl went back to pick up some brass shell casings in the road. Afghan civilians often recycle the casings, and the girl appeared to aim to do that. But a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle was moving toward her, according to Lt. Col. Denis Riel of the Rhode Island National Guard.

MRAPs, as they are known, usually weigh more than 16 tons.

Weichel saw the massive truck bearing down on the girl and grabbed her out of the way. But in the process, the armored truck ran him over, Riel said.

The little girl is fine. Weichel died a short time later of his injuries.












afghanistan

The Differences and the Truth

When an American acts contrary to standards that more than 100,000 other military personnel have followed, we apologize, and bring the person to trial.  In many cases, we pay the victims or their families.  We follow Arab custom with blood money or diyat.  It is not because we have to, we don't.  We do it because it saves us trouble - Koranic and later sharia law requires the payment in cases of mistake or accident for a death, and should the amount be paid, the family are koranically prevented from causing any further harm or damage to the offenders.  It is case closed.

We don't see that though.

We see the US forces burning the Koran - riots and protests with deaths occuring result.
We see a US soldier kill 17 - followed by riots and protests and the deaths of scores around the world.

What we see now are Afghan soldiers turn on NATO (and US) forces, claiming they are upholding some honor for the burned Korans and or the murdered families.  As the article points out, the number killed by Afghan killers is almost nearly as high as those killed by the one American soldier, yet no one seeks to repay Americans or NATO for the loss.  It is dismissed as the work of a lone killer, disenchanted with the Americans.

Beguiling as that may be, the truth is preferable.  Those soldiers were either a) put their by al qaida or Taliban, or b) taliban or al qaida approached their families and gave them a choice they could not refuse.

Unlike the mentally unstable American or lone NATO killer, not sanctioned or supported by a society or culture - the Afgahn killer is championed and treated in a heroic manner, albeit dead.  His family, I am quite sure if we could check, received some large payment prior to his death.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17510491

26 March 2012

Gunman shoots dead two UK troops in Afghanistan

A British soldier and Royal Marine have been shot dead by an Afghan army soldier, the Ministry of Defence says.

The gunman also injured a third UK serviceman when he opened fire at the British military HQ in Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan.

Nato said he was then shot dead when its soldiers returned fire.

The British soldier was from the Adjutant General's Corps (Staff & Personnel Support). Next of kin of both British servicemen have been told.

'Tragic event'

A total of 407 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan since military operations began in 2001.

Announcing the deaths in a statement to the Commons, Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond said: "Our thoughts, as ever, are with their families, for whom this will be a deeply personal tragedy.

"Details of the incident are still emerging but it appears that a member of the Afghan National Army opened fire at the entrance gate to the British headquarters in Lashkar Gar city, killing the two British service personnel.

"The assailant was killed by return fire."

No doubt that Britain and Nato's leadership will want to reaffirm that after this latest incident there will not be a change in policy.

But a recent classified coalition report, obtained by the New York Times, found that between May 2007 and May 2011 at least 58 western service personnel were killed by Afghan soldiers and police in 26 separate attacks.

The report stated that "lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing homicide threat".

Could this impact the timetable for withdrawal? When four French soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier in January, President Sarkozy temporarily suspended his nation's military training mission.

He has also now brought forward the date when French combat soldiers will leave the country - from 2014 to 2013.

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said the victims were in the "thoughts of all of us".

Spokesman for the UK's Task Force Helmand, Maj Ian Lawrence, said: "The thoughts and condolences of everyone serving in the Task Force are with their families and friends."

Brig Gen Sherin Shah of the Afghan National Army said the attack, carried out by a member of the Fourth Kandak of 3-215 Brigade, was "a tragic event".

"The incident is still under investigation and it is unclear if the action was planned or influenced by the enemy or if he acted alone, either way it is with the deepest regret that two Isaf soldiers who came to our country to provide security are now dead," he said.

"I would like to convey my deepest condolences to the soldiers' families and the British Army and Royal Marines, especially Task Force Helmand, for their loss."

Earlier a spokesman for the governor of Helmand said the shooting followed a "verbal clash" between Afghan and Nato soldiers, and the Afghan involved was from Kunar province.

The Taliban have claimed that the gunman was "their man".

The attack appears to be the latest in a number of "green on blue" incidents - where members of the Afghan security forces turn their weapons on their international colleagues or trainers.

Fifteen Nato military personnel, including eight Americans, have now been killed in this way so far this year.

The number of these incidents has risen since the burning of Korans by US troops at base in February, which President Obama said was a "genuine mistake".

Tensions were inflamed further by the killing of 17 Afghan civilians earlier this month.

US Staff Sgt Robert Bales, 38, has been charged with killing nine Afghan children and eight adults in their homes in Kandahar province on 11 March.

afghan

Iran: September / October ?

October Surprise?

US officials believe Iran sanctions will fail, making military action likely

guardian.co.uk

 Friday 17 February 2012 12.27 EST

Officials in key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme, and believe that the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so.

The president has made clear in public, and in private to Israel, that he is determined to give sufficient time for recent measures, such as the financial blockade and the looming European oil embargo, to bite deeper into Iran's already battered economy before retreating from its principal strategy to pressure Tehran.

But there is a strong current of opinion within the administration – including in the Pentagon and the state department – that believes sanctions are doomed to fail, and that their principal use now is in delaying Israeli military action, as well as reassuring Europe that an attack will only come after other means have been tested.

"The White House wants to see sanctions work. This is not the Bush White House. It does not need another conflict," said an official knowledgeable on Middle East policy. "Its problem is that the guys in Tehran are behaving like sanctions don't matter, like their economy isn't collapsing, like Israel isn't going to do anything.

"Sanctions are all we've got to throw at the problem. If they fail then it's hard to see how we don't move to the 'in extremis' option."

The White House has said repeatedly that all options are on the table, including the use of force to stop Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, but that for now the emphasis is firmly on diplomacy and sanctions.

But long-held doubts among US officials about whether the Iranians can be enticed or cajoled into serious negotiations have been reinforced by recent events.

"We don't see a way forward," said one official. "The record shows that there is nothing to work with."

Scepticism about Iranian intent is rooted in Iran's repeated spurning of overtures from successive US presidents from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, who appealed within weeks of coming to office for "constructive ties" and "mutual respect" .

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim this week that Iran loaded its first domestically-made fuel rod into a nuclear reactor, and Iran's threat to cut oil supplies to six European countries, were read as further evidence that Tehran remains defiantly committed to its nuclear programme. That view was strengthened by the latest Iranian offer to negotiate with the UN security council in a letter that appeared to contain no significant new concessions.

If Obama were to conclude that there is no choice but to attack Iran, he is unlikely to order it before the presidential election in November unless there is an urgent reason to do so. The question is whether the Israelis will hold back that long.

Earlier this month, the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, told the Washington Post that he thought the window for an Israeli attack on Iran is between April and June. But other official analysts working on Iran have identified what one described as a "sweet spot", where the mix of diplomacy, political timetables and practical issues come together to suggest that if Israel launches a unilateral assault it is more likely in September or October, although they describe that as a "best guess".

However, the Americans are uncertain as to whether Israel is serious about using force if sanctions fail or has ratcheted up threats primarily in order to pressure the US and Europeans in to stronger action. For its part, the US is keen to ensure that Tehran does not misinterpret a commitment to giving sanctions a chance to work as a lack of willingness to use force as a last resort.

American officials are resigned to the fact that the US will be seen in much of the world as a partner in any Israeli assault on Iran – whether or not Washington approved of it. The administration will then have to decide whether to, in the parlance of the US military, "pile on", by using its much greater firepower to finish what Israel starts.

"The sanctions are there to pressure Iran and reassure Israel that we are taking this issue seriously," said one official. "The focus is on demonstrating to Israel that this has a chance of working. Israel is sceptical but appreciates the effort. It is willing to give it a go, but how long will it wait?"

Colin Kahl, who was US deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East until December, said: "With the European oil embargo and US sanctions on the central bank, the Israelis probably have to give some time now to let those crippling sanctions play out.

"If you look at the calendar, it doesn't make much sense that the Israelis would jump the gun. They probably need to provide a decent interval for those sanctions to be perceived as failing, because they care about whether an Israeli strike would be seen as philosophically legitimate; that is, as only having happened after other options were exhausted. So I think that will push them a little further into 2012."

The White House is working hard to keep alive the prospect that sanctions will deliver a diplomatic solution. It has pressed the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to quieten the belligerent chatter from his own cabinet about an attack on Iran. The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, general Martin Dempsey, was dispatched to Jerusalem last month to talk up the effect of sanctions and to press, unsuccessfully, for a commitment that Israel will not launch a unilateral attack against Iran.

Dennis Ross, Obama's former envoy for the Middle East and Iran, this week said that sanctions may be pushing Tehran toward negotiations.

But in other parts of the administration, the assumption is that sanctions will fail, and so calculations are being made about what follows, including how serious Israel is in its threat to launch a unilateral attack on Iran's nuclear installations, and how the US responds.

But Iran's increasingly belligerent moves – such as the botched attempts, laid at Tehran's door, to attack Israeli diplomats in Thailand, India and Georgia – are compounding the sense that Iran is far from ready to negotiate.

Feeding in to the considerations are the timing of the American election, including its bearing on Israeli thinking, as well as the pace of Iranian advances in their nuclear programme.

Obama has publicly said that there are no differences with Israel on Iran, describing his administration as in "lock step" with the Jewish state.

But the US and Israel are at odds over the significance of Iran's claim to have begun enriching uranium at the underground facility at Fordow, near the holy city of Qom, and therefore the timing of any military action.

Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, has warned that Iran cannot be allowed to establish a "zone of immunity" at Fordow where it is able to work on a nuclear weapon deep underground protected from Israel's conventional weapons. Earlier this month, Barak said Israel must consider an attack before that happens.

The Americans say there is no such urgency because the facility is just one among many Tehran needs to build a nuclear weapon, and that other sites are still vulnerable to attack and sabotage in other ways. The US also has a more powerful military arsenal, although it is not clear whether it would be able to destroy the underground Fordow facility.

Kahl said part of Washington's calculation is to judge whether Israel is seriously contemplating attacking Iran, or is using the threat to pressure the US and Europe into confronting Tehran.

"It's not that the Israelis believe the Iranians are on the brink of a bomb. It's that the Israelis may fear that the Iranian programme is on the brink of becoming out of reach of an Israeli military strike, which means it creates a 'now-or-never' moment," he said.

"That's what's actually driving the timeline by the middle of this year. But there's a countervailing factor that [Ehud] Barak has mentioned – that they're not very close to making a decision and that they're also trying to ramp up concerns of an Israeli strike to drive the international community towards putting more pressure on the Iranians."

Israeli pressure for tougher measures against Tehran played a leading role in the US Congresss passing sanctions legislation targeting Iran's financial system and oil sales. Some US and European officials say those same sanctions have also become a means for Washington to pressure Israel not to act precipitously in attacking Iran.

The presidential election is also a part of Israel's calculation, not least the fractious relationship between Obama and Netanyahu, who has little reason to do the US president any political favours and has good reason to prefer a Republican in the White House next year.

There is a school of thought – a suspicion, even – within the administration that Netanyahu might consider the height of the US election campaign the ideal time to attack Iran. With a hawkish Republican candidate ever ready to accuse him of weakness, Obama's room to pressure or oppose Netanyahu would be more limited than after the election.

"One theory is that Netanyahu and Barak may calculate that if Obama doesn't support an Israeli strike, he's unlikely to punish Israel for taking unilateral action in a contested election year," said Kahl. "Doing something before the US gives the Israelis a bit more freedom of manoeuvre."

Obama is also under domestic political pressure from Republican presidential contenders, who accuse him of vacillating on Iran, and from a Congress highly sympathetic to Israel's more confrontational stance.

Thirty-two senators from both parties introduced a resolution on Thursday rejecting "any policy that would rely on efforts to 'contain' a nuclear weapons-capable Iran". The measure was dressed up as intended to protect the president's back, but it smacked of yet more pressure to take a firmer stand with Iran.

One of the sponsors, senator Joe Lieberman, said that he did not want to discount diplomatic options but if the president ordered an attack on Iran he would have strong bipartisan support in Congress. Other senators said there needed to be a greater sense of urgency on the part of the administration in dealing with Iran and that sanctions are not enough.

Others are critical of sanctions for a different reason. Congressman Dennis Kucinich said this week he fears sanctions are less about changing Tehran's policy than laying the ground for military action. He warned that "the latest drum beat of additional sanctions and war against Iran sounds too much like the lead-up to the Iraq war".

"If the crippling sanctions that the US and Europe have imposed are meant to push the Iranian regime to negotiations, it hasn't worked," he said. "As the war of words between the United States and Iran escalates it's more critical than ever that we highlight alternatives to war to avoid the same mistakes made in Iraq."

iran

War with Iran ?

January 18, 2012 9:50 AM

Sliding toward a war with Iran

By Kenneth M. Pollack

CBS News

With so much alarming going on in the Middle East, it's hard to keep track of everything that seems to be going wrong. No sooner had the Libyan civil war ended than another erupted in Syria. Iraq appears determined to follow, and perhaps overtake their Syrian neighbors. Egypt remains locked in a multi-sided struggle among the military, the Islamists and the secular liberals. And disturbing reports of low-level, but growing unrest in Saudi Arabia have begun to emerge.

Amid all of this, the one place that the United States has resolutely marched forward—or perhaps been dragged by the Congress and our European allies—has been in applying ever greater pressure on Iran. But if the Obama administration’s forward progress is clear enough when it comes to its Iran policy, its ultimate destination is not. The sanctions against Iran may well succeed on their own terms while producing regrettable, if unintended, consequences.

The latest salvo against Iran came a few short weeks ago, when President Obama signed into law the new Defense Appropriations bill, in which Congressional conservatives had tucked new, draconian sanctions prohibiting transactions with Central Bank of Iran (CBI), or anyone else doing business with the CBI. The importance of these sanctions is that prohibiting transactions with Iran’s Central Bank would preclude long-term oil sales contracts. If no country were willing to deal with the CBI, Iran would be forced to sell its oil either only to countries and companies willing to buck such U.S. sanctions, or rely on spot market sales for cash—an extremely inefficient method that would cut heavily into Iranian oil revenues. Some analysts, in fact, estimate that this could lead to a reduction of Iranian oil revenues by as much as one-third—and since Iran is heavily dependent on oil revenues, this could have a major impact on the Iranian economy.

Now that would seem to be a good thing, right? Maybe, but maybe not. Certainly the Iranian regime has shown absolutely no inclination to halt (let alone give up) its nuclear program in the face of previous sanctions, which are already having a serious impact on the Iranian economy. The hope is that going after Iranian oil revenues in this fashion would apply so much pressure on Iran’s economy, causing rampant inflation and even economic collapse, that the regime will have no choice but to compromise and accept international demands related to its nuclear program.

The problem is that these sanctions are potentially so damaging that they could backfire, creating at least three sets of consequences that would leave the United States in a worse position, whatever the impact on Iran.

Backfire I: The Impact on the U.S. Economy

One of the interesting things about going after Iranian oil exports in this fashion is that it is likely to simultaneously hurt Iran’s economy and our own. The bet is that it will hit the Iranian economy much harder and faster than our own. The sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran have already caused a sudden increase in inflation and a drop in the value of the Iranian rial as Iranians race to dump their rials in favor of dollars, pounds and euros—hard currency that they expect to both hold their value over time and be more easily traded internationally.

But limiting Iranian oil exports is likely to drive up the international price of oil. There is little slack oil production capacity left in the world. The Saudis have said that they would offset any drop in Iranian oil by increasing their own, but many analysts question Riyadh’s capacity to do so completely or for a sustained period of time. In addition, given Saudi Arabia’s own domestic concerns, Riyadh might be willing to tolerate price increases that bolster their own revenues as well.

To the extent that Iranian oil is truly off the market for the U.S. and Europe, it will increase the price for what remains. Even to the extent that Iranian oil finds its way back on to the market in various ways—legal ways, like the spot market, illegal ways, like the black market—the inefficiencies and increased transportation costs will also create a price increase. Estimates of the amount of this jump in price vary, but at least one source has projected a $20 increase in the price per barrel, which is roughly a 15 to 20 percent increase.

Opinion: Why Iran sanctions are doomed to fail
Iran: Oil embargo is economic suicide for EU
Saudis dismissive of Iran's oil blockade threats

In case you missed the past 40 years of American economic history, there is no commodity on earth that affects the American economy faster or more profoundly than oil. A 20 percent increase in the price of oil would result in a very significant increase in American gasoline prices, with a concomitant impact on prices (i.e., inflation) across the board. It’s worth noting that virtually every U.S. recession since the Second World War was preceded by an increase in oil prices. Indeed, our current economic problems were preceded by a tripling of oil prices between 2005 and 2007.

Backfire II: Eroding Sanctions

Another potentially fatal flaw in these sanctions is that they turn up the heat on Iran so much that they may well be unsustainable diplomatically, and that is very problematic because sanctions rarely work quickly. Historically, sanctions work very slowly, and when they do work—against South Africa in the 1980s or Libya in the 1990s, for example—they work because of the perception that they will simply keep getting worse and worse over time. Sanctions have a poor track record of suddenly shocking the targeted government into reversing course, and if the targeted government believes that the sanctions will erode over time, it usually resists, and this often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Our experience with Iraq in the 1990s ought to be an important warning about what may well happen with Iran. In the case of Iraq, the United States—and the entire international community, acting under the auspices of the UN Security Council—imposed draconian sanctions on Iraq in 1991 at the end of the Gulf War. Sanctions so severe that it was universally expected that Saddam would be forced to accede to all of the U.N. demands in a matter of a few months because no one, not even Saddam, would allow his people to starve to death. But that is precisely what he did. He refused to comply in full (he did not give up the last of his WMD programs until some time after 1995, and of course even then he refused to come clean about this in his self-defeating determination to convince his own people and the Iranians that he retained a covert WMD capability.) In Iraq, exactly as predicted, inflation soared, the dinar collapsed, the economy came to a near standstill. No one knows how many Iraqis died as a result of the sanctions and Saddam’s manipulation of them, but 200,000 is a fair estimate.

The death of so many innocents was not only a humanitarian catastrophe—it also directly undermined the sanctions regime, precisely because it appalled people across the world. Over time, international opinion turned decidedly against the Iraq sanctions because of what was happening to the Iraqi people. It became harder and harder for the United States to enforce the sanctions, to the point where by 2000, the sanctions were hemorrhaging and Iraq was taking in over a billion dollars (and growing) in illicit payments.

Similarly draconian sanctions on Iran could follow a similar trajectory. In the near term, they would doubtless do tremendous damage to the Iranian economy, and with it, the Iranian people—as they already are. However, this regime has shown absolutely no inclination to allow economic hardship to sway their nuclear intentions. Indeed, it is important to keep in mind that those who rule in Tehran are very different from the more divided groups that ran the country in the past. Amid the 2009 Green revolution, Iran’s hardliners purged the government of its more moderate elements, such that today those running the Iranian regime are more homogeneous and more hardline than at any time since the early days of the Iranian revolution. They appear determined to resist all international pressure, they are famously indifferent to the plight of the Iranian economy, and they have shown tremendous attachment to their nuclear program. All of which suggests they will continue to stand firm, as Saddam did, amid economic ruin. And over time, there is a high likelihood that other countries will come to see the misery of the Iranian people as being the fault of the United States, not of the Iranian leadership, exactly as happened with Saddam. At that point, we may find that with Iran, as was the case with Iraq, overly harsh sanctions will become self-defeating and will crumble where more gradual and moderate sanctions might have been sustained and more likely to achieve their goal.

Backfire III: Inadvertent War

It is hard to miss the signals from the Obama Administration that it is not looking for a fight with Iran. Administration officials have kept dutifully intoning that “all options are on the table” with Iran, but then immediately enumerating why the military option is a terrible one. The President himself has made clear that he wants to reduce the number of wars that the U.S. is waging in the Middle East, not increase them. Unfortunately, its moves toward Iran may push us into the war that the Administration is seeking to avoid.

It’s important to try to see the world from Tehran’s perspective. What the Iranians see is a concerted, undeclared war being waged against them by a coalition of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and some European states. The fact that all of these countries are not necessarily always coordinating their actions is doubtless lost on the Iranian leadership. They are under cyber attack like the Stuxnet virus. Someone is killing their nuclear scientists in the streets of Tehran and blowing up their missile facilities. The United States and Europeans have ratcheted up their contacts with the Iranian opposition. The Iranians believe that foreign elements are also making contact with dissident groups like the Kurds, the Baluch, and the Arabs in Khuzestan. The United States has ratcheted up its efforts to broadcast into Iran to undermine the regime’s control over information. Washington is building up the military capabilities of states in the Gulf Cooperation Council. The Saudis are funding proxies to fight against Iran’s proxies from Bahrain to Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen. And the Americans and Europeans are waging economic warfare in the form of increasingly crippling sanctions.

From the vantage of Iran’s leadership, it would be easy to see an all-out, undeclared, covert (but multi-pronged) offensive being mounted against them. And the Iranians seem to be fighting back however they can. While I have no independent confirmation that the Iranians really did try to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States last fall, U.S. government officials at all levels appear remarkably certain that they did, and claim that it was one of only several operations the Iranians were developing. It would certainly make a lot of sense that given the campaign they see being waged against them, the Iranians would strike back in exactly that fashion—going after a symbol of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and doing it in the American capital in retaliation for the assassinations taking place in their own.

What’s more, it seems unlikely that that will be their last such effort. Their threats to close the Strait of Hormuz are not serious—they know full well that doing so would be horribly counterproductive to their own cause—but they were undoubtedly an effort to panic the oil market, driving up prices which help them and hurt us. It was a bid at economic warfare of their own. We should expect more.

The great problem is that at some point, the Iranians might succeed in one of their retaliatory gambits. Imagine how the American people would have reacted had they succeeded in blowing up a restaurant in the heart of Washington, D.C., killing dozens and injuring scores more? Of course, Americans would have seen it as an unprovoked attack and there likely would have been a public cry for blood. In short, the more we turn up the heat on Iran, the more Iran will fight back, and the way they like to fight back could easily lead to unintended escalation.

Doubtless such a war would leave Iran far, far worse off than it would leave us. But it would be painful for us too, and it might last far longer than anyone wants because that is the nature of wars, especially wars involving this Iranian regime. Thus, if we continue down this path, we had best be ready to walk it to its very end. And if we don’t have the stomach to realistically prepare for war, we should seriously reconsider our current embrace of sanctions.

bin laden