War With Iran?

via ... The Nation. I can hear the netroots now ... I question the timing. Yes, if only Bush hadn't allowed the diplomacy to go on for so long. Drat!

According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21.

Comments

[old trooper]

As in the style of Theodore Roosevelt...just showing the bastards the big stick. After the end of TR`s Presidency we became the nation that always had to be attacked first. The result was the loss of close to a million of American lives as well as tens of millions of lives until the Dictators, Despots and Tyrants that attacked us were defeated. THose folks need to see the big stick to know that we only have limited tolerance for their ambitions.

[CDR Salamander]

Don't get too excited about this. A Carrier Strike Group does pack a punch, but that is it. A punch. If you want to know what a CSG can do, think Operation DESERT FOX's first 48 hours. That was an all USS Enterprise Battlegroup show. Did a lot of damage...but that is just it. Iran is a much larger target than Iraq ever was. If you are watching carriers - look for 5 or more at one time and B-1/2/52 heading over the horizon. Then start going hmmmmm and buy oil futures.

Every deployment is not a prelude to war. Nice stick to wave around though.

[mojo]

Reporting rumors of troop movements is probably not a good idea. Just sayin'...

[Clint]

mojo- If it's coming openly from Second Fleet's official spokesman... it's the farthest thing from classified data. The Iranians are supposed to know what's coming. Ramadan is from September 24 to October 23, this year. So, we announce the deployment this week, and announce that our forces will arrive around the end of Ramadan. They are supposed to spend Ramadan thinking about our carrier group on its way to their coast, and what's going on in Iraq. (Remember that however bad our position in Iraq may be, it pales in comparison to how bad Saddam Hussein's position is.)

CDR Salamander is certainly right that one carrier group is hardly going to accomplish an invasion of Iran without ground support... but it certainly should create the impression of a ticking clock (and we do seem to have a number of ground troops in the neighborhood). This ought to help clarify the Iranian position rather soon.