What is The Plank?
01.12.07
ESCALATION?: There's been plenty of speculation lately that the White House is gearing up for some sort of military confrontation with Iran. First there was his speech two nights ago, in which Bush talked about "addressing Iran and Syria" with a rather menacing undertone. Then the U.S. military raided an Iranian liaison office in the Kurdish city of Irbil and took a couple of Iranians captive--a move roundly denounced by the Kurdish regional government. Steve Clemons then passed along this bit of scuttlebutt: Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran. Rumors are what they are, but it's a bit alarming for this sort of "speculation" to crop up all of the sudden. Flynt Leverett, a former member of the Bush administration's National Security Council, added his two cents: The deployment of a second carrier strike group to the theater--confirmed in the speech--is clearly directed against Iran. Since, in contrast to previous U.S. air campaigns in the Gulf, military planners developing contingencies for striking target sets in Iran must assume that the United States would not be able to use land-based air assets in theater (because of political opposition in the region), they are surely positing a force posture of at least two, and possible three carrier strike groups to provide the necessary numbers and variety of tactical aircraft. Similarly, the President's announcement that additional Patriot batteries would go to the Gulf is clearly directed against Iran. We have previously deployed Patriot batteries to the region to deal with the Iraqi SCUD threat. Today, the only missile threat in the region for the Patriot to address is posed, at least theoretically, by Iran's Shihab-3. Then yesterday, Joe Biden warned Condoleezza Rice that an attack on Iran would "generate a constitutional confrontation in the Senate." Presumably Biden didn't just pull this comment out of thin air--he seems to be under the impression that the administration really might be crazy enough to launch an attack on Iran. When reporters pressed this point earlier today, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, basically dodged: "We can take care of the security for our troops by doing the business we need to do inside Iraq." That's not exactly a rousing denial. The other day Jason suggested that advocates of withdrawal (or "redeploying") might be underestimating the consequences of leaving Iraq. I don't think that's really true, although I'm sure you can find such people if you dig around long enough. But it does seem true that pundits who "aren't sure" what to do about Iraq and so are implicitly endorsing the status quo are very badly underestimating the ability of this administration to make things much, much worse in the near future with this "surge" business. Right now all signs are pointing in exactly that direction. --Bradford Plumer posted 3:18 p.m.
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TNR Talkback is for subscribers only. If you are not a subscriber and would like to join the discussion, subscribe today.
Already registered? Log in here: Username: Password: If you have forgotten your password click here. Print subscribers click here to register for free access. 1- JosephC, I'm very sorry to hear of your accident.
posted by ChanRobt on 2007-01-17 00:36:52 [ posted byon 2007-01-17 00:36:52 [ respond Whiplash is a cruel sort of injury. I hope you have attended to it and are pulling out all the stops to take good care of yourself. I wish you a very quick and complete recovery. -chan icarusr, I read "The March of Folly" many years ago.
posted by ChanRobt on 2007-01-17 00:50:37 [ posted byon 2007-01-17 00:50:37 [ respond Although I agree that a war in the Middle East could blow up into a very wide conflagration, I don't see much of an analog between this situation and the runup to WW I. In 1913, many great nations were heavily armed and in a labyrinth of alliances meant to counter and stalemate the blocs so as to make war impossible. The war was ultimately triggered by one act of terrorism by a Serb that killed the Austrian Archduke and Duchess. This act somehow triggered in very short order the mobilization of all the great contending powers of Europe, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The current Middle East wars were triggered by an act of terrorism. But, one of very, very great magnitude. It triggered our invasion of Afghanistan to take out the Taliban. Which almost everyone agrees was a correct action. And it triggered our invasion of Iraq, a nation with whom we had essentially been at war with for a decade. Among many reasons, we went in to remove a festering problem once and for all. Now, these events may eventually bring us also into war with Iran and perhaps with Syria. And it may force various Muslim nations in half the world to choose sides. This sounds to me like more of a classic long buildup to a large war-- which frankly has been festering since the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and all the many subsequent attacks on the U.S. and the West by various Muslim extremists. If a large war is the eventual result, I would say there will have been a 35 year or more buildup to it. World War I more resembled a San Andreas fault earthquake. Many, many decades of slowly rising pressure that finally crack cataclysmically. grammo correcto
posted by ChanRobt on 2007-01-17 00:53:33 [ posted byon 2007-01-17 00:53:33 [ respond The war was ultimately triggered by one act of terrorism by a Serb who killed the Austrian Archduke and Duchess. and I apologize, stylistaclly, for ussing "triggered" so often. A childhood obsession with Roy Rogers' horse must be the source. See all comments
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Map of Iraq showing the borders with Iran and Syria.

Rumors are circulating in the United States capital of Washington that President Bush has declared a "secret, informal war" on Iran and Syria, according to a pair of blogs written by apparent Washington insiders.

"Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran," blogger and think-tank fellow Steven Clemons wrote on Thursday on his site, ''The Washington Note''. ''The Plank'', hosted by the New Republic Magazine, posted an entry on Friday about similar speculation around the capital U.S. city.

Both blogs cited questions asked by Senator Joseph Biden to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a congressional hearing on Thursday. The hearing was a planned follow-up by the administration to answer concerns raised by President Bush's address to the nation on Wednesday where he announced the commitment to send more troops to Iraq. Biden asked several questions about whether the president had plans to send troops across the borders of Iran and Syria.

"Does that mean the president has plans to cross the Syrian and/or Iranian border to pursue those persons or individuals or governments providing that help?" Biden asked.

In an extensive answer, the secretary did not seem to explicitly deny it: "...What we're really trying to do here which is to protect our forces and that we are doing that by seeking out these networks that we know are operating in Iraq. We are doing it through intelligence. We are then able, as we did on the 21st of December, to go after these groups where we find them. In that case, we then asked the Iraqi government to declare them ''persona non grata'' and expel them from the country because they were holding diplomatic passports."

She soon added: "...We do need to work with our allies to make certain that they have the defense capacity that they need against growing Iranian military build-up, that they feel that we are going to be a presence in the Persian Gulf region as we have been, and that we establish confidence with the states with which we have long alliances, that we will help defend their interests. And that's what the president had in mind."

''The Plank'' was quick to note that the "secret war" was, at this point, just a rumor. Later that day, ''The New York Times'' published a report on an interview conducted in Condoleezza Rice's office Friday afternoon, before she left for a trip to the Middle East. "There has been a decision to go after these networks," she said, referring to President Bush. The U.S. military was authorized by the president to take action against Iranian operatives in Iraq months ago.

In the same report, the ''New York Times'' quoted the new secretary of defense Robert M. Gates as saying, "We believe that we can interrupt these networks that are providing support, through actions inside the territory of Iraq, that there is no need to attack targets in Iran itself."

Though he is Commander in Chief of the U.S. armed forces, the president does not have the constitutional authority to declare war (only the Congress does). The president, however, can order military strikes without declaring war.

The U.S. has long explored possible attacks on Iran, according to Seymour Hersh, who has written three articles on deteriorating US-Iran relations for the New Yorker magazine.

The US, acting through Turkey, has supported Israeli intelligence collection and propaganda broadcasts supporting the ethnic Azeri nationalist movement in the north of Iran, according to Scott Ritter, former UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq, since at least 1996.

Anticipation of possible US military action against Iran has only intensified since Bush's midweek speech in which he announced 21,500 more soldiers would be sent to Iraq. In the same speech, he warned Iran and Syria against involvement in the Iraq conflict.

Hours after the speech, U.S. forces raided the Iranian Consulate in the town of Arbil, in the Kurdish area of Iraq, detaining several Iranian officials.