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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (105179)	7/14/2003 4:02:26 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 281500

Thanks for David Warren's piece LB....Iran and the implications coming from there may be why the media is in such a frenzy about 16 words....Don't want the Americans to really know what is going on.... It is now clearer that the ayatollahs are, with the help of Russian, Pakistani, and North Korean technologists, very close to having nuclear weapons. This is the trump card they have been seeking, to prevent external intervention in Iran, and provide a plausible, mortal threat to regional U.S. and Israeli forces. If the regime collapsed, the threat could be removed peacefully. If it won't collapse, the Bush administration will have no choice but to go in and destroy the nuclear facilities directly. When, is a question for the intelligence agencies, more than for public opinion; for the decision will not really be a choice. davidwarrenonline.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (105179)	7/14/2003 9:58:25 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Sounds like Warren is back-tracking a bit from his view that the Iranian regime was in severe difficulties. He used this view to underpin some predictions that I think were excessively optimistic. Here is what he wrote a few weeks ago: davidwarrenonline.com There will be regime change in Iran. However, it will take T--I--M--E. It will not happen overnight. The best we can do now is to spread our influence via the media. Any serious consideration of military action is bound to unite the Iranians against us, thereby squelching the dissident movement. On the other hand, they simply cannot be allowed to have nukes. Our Iranian policy is going to have to be a very delicate one.

To: LindyBill who wrote (105179)	7/14/2003 9:53:25 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

July 9 in Iran was a huge disappointment to anybody who would like to see the ayatollahs fall. I include myself in that category, but in my case the disappointment was somewhat mitigated by the fact that I expected to be disappointed. All the evidence I've seen suggests that resistance to the regime is a long way from the kind of critical mass that will be required for an overthrow, and the July 9 actions reflected that: widespread, but involving fairly small numbers. We talked about this some weeks ago: this event had been planned for months, and it needed to show a 6-figure turnout to mean much. Instead, it fizzled. This would have been cause for nausea, if it hadn't inspired hilarity first: The Shah put up a less impressive fight in 1979; in the end he wasn't willing to massacre his own people in order to stay in power. Whereas, the recent ministrations of the ayatollahs' goons is communicating to the country that, this time, they can expect no decency whatever. Thois image of the Shah as a sort of warm and cuddly dictator, driven from power only because he wasn't willing to use force, is totally at odds with reality. SAVAK kidnapped, tortured, and murdered thousands of dissidents. Troops repeatedly fired into rallies; the funeral processions turned into bigger rallies. The ayatollahs are not holding on because they are more brutal, they are holding on because the critical mass of resistance has not been reached. It may not be for some time. One of the things deterring that critical mass is the American presence in Iraq, aided by the American pattern of aggressive rhetoric. I said a long time ago that this would be the case, and was roundly castigated on the thread, but now we have Ken Pollack, in the current FA, saying the same thing: an aggressive military posture on Iran's borders, even threats to use force -- could easily backfire in the maelstrom of Iranian domestic politics in ways that undermine or forestall the prospects for a "velvet revolution" in Tehran. Iran's hard-liners maintain power in part by stoking popular fears that the United States seeks to rule the country and control its policies, and so aggressive containment or active counterproliferation measures could play right into their hands. Another Pollack comment that should be remembered by Warren, and by a few people on this thread as well: In the case of Iraq, preemptive intervention was a thinkable (and ultimately doable) option because the United States could invade and occupy the country without a massive mobilization. But that is simply not true in the case of Iran. Its population is three times the size of Iraq's, its landmass is four times the size, its terrain is difficult and would make operations a logistical nightmare, and its population has generally rallied around the regime in the face of foreign threats. Invading Iran would be such a major undertaking that the option is essentially unthinkable in all but the most extraordinary circumstances.