Target Iran

I've been saying for awhile, it isn't a matter of if, but when. Seems Cheney's staff would agree. But it's the Germans who might be setting the stage in a diplomatic sort of way.

via Fox - Germany won't support additional sanctions and behind the scenes actually prefers we just bomb the hell out of them. Guess that's German for realpolitik. ; ) The best guess seems to be right after the primaries, well before the general election.

U.S. Officials Begin Crafting Iran Bombing Plan

Comments

[mensablonde]

The sooner the better, in my view. It's a shame that something of this importance must be scheduled around the election schedule.

[seekeronos]

It would be nice to see something a little more assertive coming from the land that once produced great men and leaders of men like Erwin Rommel, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder and Otto von Bismarck.

Indeed, why does Germany not try to sound out a diplomatic with Iran, but upon failing - as the Burns initiative has already failed so miserably ... send in the Bundeswehr to stand alongside American GIs? Would that all the European nations grow a set, and vie to be the first of the NATO nations to mass forces along the Iraqi and Aghan salients into MadmanIn AdinnerJacket's terror state?

Instead, we have the scions of the once noble Fatherland hiding behind the skirts of the USA, and privately hoping we'll finish the job and sacrifice our blood and treasure... whilst publicly decrying our policy with much wailing and huffing.

A disgusting spectacle indeed, for those who would be our counted among our elder brothers of the civilized nations of the West.

I guess it is time once again to show the Euros how to deal with terrorists and rogue states.

[CK MacLeod]

I don't buy it. I tend to think there's either a whole lot more behind whatever was actually said to Fox - or there's very little there at all.

[bloodrage bob]

OTOH, am not sure how much confidence we can have in the germans. the only people who planned not 1 but *2* world wars - planned them down to the last detail for **years** - and then got their clocks cleaned both times. as far as their intel prowess goes, didn't i read the stasi had *every single west german spy* arrested/turned the minute they crossed into eastland?

0-for-2 in world wars *they* started; and evidently their intelligence agencies were modeled after the british (LOL) example. hmmmm. ah well. perhaps they can ask the french for assistance.

[Cindi]

Rock On lol.

[hobo]

Somethings cooking over there; a small US base is on the books for 200+ combat soldiers to sit just at the Iran/Iraq border "to better monitor the movement of persons and equipment between the two countries."

[brent]

I would rather see someone like France bomb Iran because as soon as we do the librals and democratic party will say Bush is just starting trouble against an innocent country. If I was Bush I would warn Iran if Iran decides to use one of its missiles on us then they would be wiped off the map without any talks. Of course we may be hit with one missle which would be bad but if we attack them first the whiney librals would call Bush a war monger again. I assume even if Iran launched a missle at us and we struck back the Librals would still be on Irans side just like they have been on Iraqs side since the beginning of the war.

[rwilymz]

"I would rather see someone like France bomb Iran..."

A year ago France was wagging its sword at Iran. Over Lebanon. Hezbollah [the Lebanese version, as opposed to the other half-dozen different versions of "party of god"] is supplied by both Syria and Iran, and France feels somewhat paternal towards Lebanon and doesn't like people monkeying around with it.

[seekeronos]

"--- OTOH, am not sure how much confidence we can have in the germans. the only people who planned not 1 but *2* world wars - planned them down to the last detail for **years** - and then got their clocks cleaned both times. ---"

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt: Germany's problems in both WW's was a tendency to bite off more than they could chew, and then that admirable quality of stubbornness, which if not heeled by foresight, can loose a war. And so it did ... imagine if Germany - in either war - did not have to fight a two-front war. As it was, with the Germans loosing, they did not by any means make it as easy as the movies might lead us to believe.

In WW1, the Kaiser actually wanted to avoid going to war initially, rather offering material assistance to Austria-Hungary, or preferring to deal with France rather than Russia (and had the Kaiser been so kind as to sign an update of a particular "secret" treaty with the Tsar, he might have been able to curtail or forestall his direct involvement in the Eastern front... but that's another story in itself).

But owing to the nature of the alliances with Triple Entente/Triple Alliance, Austria-Hungary's little tiff with Serbia kind of unraveled things a bit faster than the central planners in the Oberkommando des Reichswehr had expected. That, and the Schlieffen Plan turned out to be not such a hot idea, where rolling through Belgium to get to France brought the UK into the war - a circumstance which Kaiser Bill was not too keen on, despite the "scrap of paper" speech by the Reichskanzler von Bethmann-Hollweg.

I think that Belgian neutrality was a bit of a straw man, in that France was also looking for the first "legitimate" opportunity to jump on Germany with both feet on account of "redeeming" Elsaß-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine) which the Reich had taken from France during the Franco-Prussian war some 25 years previous. France's war plan called for a quick strike up through the Saarland to cripple if not disable the industrial centers of the Ruhr valley; at the beginning of the war, Germany had not constructed the Hindenburg Line (of which the first Siegfried Line was a part), and would be hard put to stop a French thrust.

On the other hand, France was relatively more well-defended along its border with Germany, and as according to the Schlieffen Plan, presented a much longer salient for Germany to fight across than attacking through Belgium. So, now facing a two-front war... Germany had to squash one enemy and then sit on top of it, whilst banging away at the other. In theory, the Schlieffen Plan proposed to do just that... with the stickier issue of doing so thru Belgium, and risking bringing the UK into the war.

By Germany's commitments to fight on the Austro-Hungarian side against Russia, France knew that it had a thin sliver of a chance to run through Germany's relatively weaker defenses along the Seigfried line - and so welcomed Germany's entry into the war.

The UK for her part, would have been just as happy to see Germany and France slug it out and weaken each other, but the German march thru Belgium brought them into the war per treaty agreement with Belgium.

The politics behind those alliances were something awful, but I think the Kaiser might have been better off *gently* reminding HRH Franz Josef that the idea of the treaty was mutual defense, not "I'll back you if you pick a fight with someone ewlse and his big brother". And then sticking to it.

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As for WW2... again, biting off more than could be chewed: Hitler should have finshed up dealing with France, cut a workable peace with Churchill, or just kept at shutting down the RAF bases (and not blitzing London) and attacking British shipping (viz the "Happy time") without messing with the USSR.

I think eventually, Germany might have pounded the UK into a conditional surrender (Churchill supposedly had lost quite a bit of confidence in Parliament, until the London Blitz had stiffened the backs of Britons to resist to the bitter end), leaving her the master of Western Europe, and then have the resources at hand to deal with Iron Joe, without British, Canadian, or (later) American interference.

[bloodrage bob]

it's a peculiarity of the net that there are always folks - who should know better - who're willing to defend the myth of german military might. seek, i'm surprised you're one of them. if the germans were all that - born soldiers, ultra-efficient, yadda yadda yadda ....then how come

1) as per barbara tuchman, they managed to screw up the 15-years-in-the-making schlieffen plan a mere 6 weeks after they began it, in 1914? thus *causing* the stalemate that eventually doomed them? they had train time tables down to the *minute* - but they couldn't manage to follow the plan they'd been working on for 15 years. why not? was it the pesky belgian civilians that stopped them? "they are shooting back at us! ve didn't plan for this!"
2) the russians - mindless commie drones, not gifted with the proper german warrior spirit - managed to clean their clocks at kursk? beating the germans *decisively* at their own panzer game? (and no fair whining, "they had better tanks!". guderian's reputation rests on his supposed wonderfulness, NOT the fact that the french had no tanks to stop him. can't have it both ways.)(odd that guderian couldn't duplicate that magic at kursk, no? it's a little harder when the enemy is prepared, i guess.)
3) in both world war instances, the germans cravenly surrendered to the green, innocent, sentimental, naive, untrained americans within *1 year* of those same americans landing upon european soil. given that, in both world wars, the germans had been training, planning, and preparing for those wars while the americans played baseball, what does that tell us about german military inferiority? or german quitting spirit? or german inability to adapt to changing conditions? "no fair! they're not using horse-mounted cavalry like the poles did!"

still, that WAS some mighty fine rationalizing on your part. the comment about germany violating belgian neutrality being justified because "the french might have done it too" was classic. sadly, though, all that can't disguise the fact that germany started 2 world wars to satisfy the egos of 2 different supreme leaders. and they still got their asses beat. they didn't "bite off more than they could chew" ... they *screwed the pooch* through a combination of bungling and stupidity.

[rwilymz]

"the germans had been training, planning, and preparing for those wars while the americans played baseball, what does that tell us about german military inferiority?"

That they don't know how to handle a routine squeeze play?

They can't hit-n-run?

They didn't have a dominant clean-up hitter? or a lefty bench-bat?