U.S., allied, and Iraqi forces aren't resting on their laurels in Iraq now that the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq is no more. As the White House Bulletin reports, they're making the most of the situation:

US Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for the multinational forces in Iraq, said this morning that the Zarqawi operation last night triggered a series of 17 additional raids. Caldwell said, “Last night, as a result of striking that target and having confirmation early in the evening that we had, in fact, killed Zarqawi, we then conducted 17 simultaneous raids within Baghdad proper and just on the outskirts, utilizing both Iraqi security forces and coalition forces. And in those 17 raids last night, a tremendous amount of information and intelligence was collected and is presently being exploited and utilized for further use. I mean, it was a treasure trove; no question.”

Could Zarqawi's death be the first indication that U.S.-led forces are getting a handle on the insurgency? It's a possibility, and Heritage's Nile Gardiner thinks it's a "major turning point."

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 01:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

After Sy Hersh reported that the Pentagon is planning to take out Iran's nuclear sites, the punditocracy went into a tizzy. But as Peter Brookes explained on Larry Kudlow's show last night, of course the military is planning--that's what they do:

We better have military plans, Larry, to deal with this. I mean, you know, people, it's really interesting, people criticize the Bush administration about not having planning for post conflict Iraq. Now we're planning for potential contingencies after we go through the diplomatic phase, and maybe an economic sanction phase and then we get into the military phase. And they're criticizing him about planning when this is what they're criticizing about him in Iraq.

Brookes, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, explained the other day that the military spends an inordinate amount of time planning for a variety of contingencies. Certain plans are updated every year, others every two years. These plans include far more than just dropping bombs on targets, even when that's the core of the mission; they cover all the logistics, from how much toilet paper our troops will need, how many cans of beans, to how and when troops will be deployed if the plan is put into action. As the Post's William Arkin explains, "The contingency planning process never really begins or ends." Rather, "military strategists and logisticians constantly toil away at the hard work of planning war."

The problem is looseness with language. When we say "is planning," colloquially, we usually mean "expects to" rather than "is drawing up many alternative plans that may or may not be used." So those blaring headlines earlier in the week were correct, literally. But no more than that, because they were deliberately deceiving.

So far as we can tell, there's no reason not to take the Administration at its word that U.S. focus is on diplomacy. Really, it would be strange if our focus were elsewhere at the moment, given that Iran is not expected to have a bomb in hand (unless it obtains fissile material from some other source) for anywhere from 2 to 8 years and that there is still a real possibility that diplomacy--with a harder edge than the impotent UN is willing to wield--may bear fruit.

But at the same time, it would irresponsible not to plan for that last resort, military action. That the U.S. will strike is no sure thing--and no likely thing, for now--but that could change. If it does, we must be prepared. Hold onto your hat, Sy, but that takes planning.

Planning, we might add, that's been ongoing for years. The Post's Arkin reports on nuclear wargaming involving Iran begun in 1991 and carried on through the Clinton Administration:

Iran war planning culminated in 1995, when a classified war game called the Technology Initiatives Game 95 (TIG-95) centered on a 2015 scenario for an even greater Iranian threat. The country now had 20-30 nuclear warheads, undertaking a bolt-out-of-the blue attack on its Gulf neighbors.

The TIG-95 scenario, according to the pre-game "Player Handbook," included Iranian military and paramilitary operations, missile attacks against military targets in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and near simultaneous terrorist attacks in Qatar and the UAE.

We suggest this to headline-writers: "U.S. Planning Iran Offensive for 10 Years." In a literal sense--which is all that matters, right?--it is undeniable.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 09:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Reuters reports some chilling news:

Iranians will hear "good news" on Tehran's nuclear programme on Tuesday night, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, and Iranian media said this would mean Iran had enriched uranium for use in fuelling atomic reactors.

This development was not entirely unexpected, what with Iran’s recent saber rattling and the toothless United Nations action on the issue:  Russia and China’s close economic ties to Iran continue to block the Security Council from taking any decisive action.

However, there are still options available to the United States. Here, we’ll quote liberally:

1. U.S. and EU-3 support for referring the Ira-nian nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council. Unlike during the Iraq crisis, the West will speak with one voice.
2. Targeted Economic Sanctions. If, as is likely, Russia and China thwart a Security Council res-olution against Iran and the process does not come to an end, the EU-3 should immediately adopt a policy—at the EU level if possible or as individual states if necessary—of targeted sanc-tions against the Islamic Republic. Given the relative economic weight of Germany, France, and Britain, and given Iran’s desperate need for further European foreign and direct investment to deal with its population explosion, the potential effect of this economic stick should not be underestimated.
3. A Common Interdiction Policy. The EU-3 and the U.S. should agree to a common inter-diction policy to ensure that no prohibited nuclear material moves into or out of Iran. If necessary, they should also agree on a common blockade to enforce this policy.
4. A Joint Declaration on “Loose Nukes.” The U.S. and the EU-3 should jointly make it clear to the Iranian leadership that Iran, not just the West, has a proliferation problem. That is, any proliferation of nuclear technology in the region that is suspected to involve Iran will trig-ger the harshest countermeasures against Iran. Common diplomacy must again make it clear that the onus of “loose nukes” falls squarely on Tehran.
5. A Military Option. Barring an agreement, the U.S. reserves the right to protect its vital national interests and protect Americans and their allies, including through the use of mil-itary force if necessary. If Tehran is caught red-handed sponsoring terrorism against the U.S., any agreement on the nuclear front should not be interpreted as giving it immu-nity from U.S. military reprisals or counter-terrorist attacks.

Given the failure of the carrot, the United States and its allies must turn to the stick to deal with Ahmadinejad. Though it should attempt to go through the Security Council, the U.S. should not be limited by the near-impotent United Nations either. The consequences are too serious for that.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 03:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)