The Coming War

I was going to use Well, Well, Well as my opening song but I thought Pride of Man was an even better fit. So you are probably wondering what an old hippie is doing here? Let me explain. Donald and I are old internet friends from the days when I used to comment regularly on Winds of Change. That would be when Joe Katzman was doing regular posts there. He has since moved on to Defense Industry Daily. Let me add that I'm a former Naval Nuke. As geeky as you can get and still be on the front line. So much for history. What about today?

I was reading a bit on American Digest by Gerard Van der Leun who used to write regularly for Penthouse that linked to two pieces by Donald (I'll get to them in a minute). Donald and I started an e-mail exchange about them and Donald then asked me to write it up. I got delayed a bit by breaking news on amateur fusion which I am heavily involved in. That covers current events. So how about some real meat? I'm with you. So here it is.

Donald discussed (as many of you regular readers know) the opening moves of what we both believe will be a coming war in the Middle East involving at minimum Israel and Iran. The first moves involve information warfare (propaganda used to be the old term).

The war against Israel has never ceased by its enemies, but the intensity and tactics they use varies. It's no original thought of mine to classify the current phases as information war (more accurately propaganda war). David Kilcullen, in "Countering the Terrorist Mentality, New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflict," cited at the US Naval Institute's blog, explained the Islamists' concept this way:

We typically design physical operations first, then craft supporting information operations to explain our actions. This is the reverse of al-Qaida’s approach. For all our professionalism, compared to the enemy’s, our public information is an afterthought. In military terms, for al-Qaida the ‘main effort’ is information; for us, information is a ‘supporting effort.

And it seems that for Israel, not even an afterthought. Then, the media are unrelentingly hostile to Israel anyway, so what's the point?

“We know one thing for sure, in the media we are going to lose the war anyhow,” says Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for Israel’s Defense Ministry. “It doesn’t matter what we do, if we let them into Gaza, they will speak against Israel. If we stop them it will also be a bad picture.”

The Israelis are stepping up to the plate. No, not the government. The people. The effort is described in this Pajamas TV video.

Donald then goes on to give some military analysis of the strategic situation Israel faces. Let me excerpt a bit:

Hamas and Hezbollah will be invaded quickly by the Israeli army while the IAF attacks Iran. But then IAF planes will join the fight and the two H's will draw the full weight of Israel's military. Israel will not hold back this time. They will strike hard and quick with the aim of destroying both entities once for all. Casualties among Gazans and Lebanese will be very high but this will not deter Israel this time for they know that their actual survival as a nation is at stake.

As for Israel's civilians, they will suffer in great numbers, too. Hezbollah's and Hamas's rockets are much larger, more accurate and more sophisticated now that two or four years ago. Almost every populated part of Israel is already in range of terrorist rockets.

This battle is brewing, the only question is when. Will it be this summer? Israel will take the first hit this year, but next year probably will hit first. And as Daniel pointed out, the US will not be able to sit it out. Our troops and naval vessels are targets for Iran if the balloon goes up at all.

Well is the balloon going up? I think so.

What do the Israelis think? Daniel Jackson has a post published on this site on that gives a view of Israeli preparations from first hand experience.

The coming war is on everyone's mind.

One group I met was made up of a core of young women who started walking the trail a month and a half ago, about a month after they got out of service. They are joined by friends, their guys who are still serving, and others, like me, they meet and enlist in their Progress. One woman commanded a missile battery in the Negev, two others were education officers, a few of the guys walking with them were submariners, and one of the beaus is a Navy XO who took his spring leave of two weeks to walk the trail with his belle. He says with a smile he's not sure when he'll get another chance.

None of the ones serving gave straight answers but we all played a game of twenty questions.

Here's my take.

It's a two by two table. Either Israel takes the first round or strikes first. Either Tel Aviv gets the first BIG hit or Jerusalem. While the obvious scenerio is with Tel Aviv, the market center getting hit, there is far more potency for Iran to strike Jerusalem hard. I'll come back to this later. No one here has any doubt that Iran has a big weapon and that they will use it. To play the American Game (like in 1991) will mean that Israel will have to wait for Iran to fire first. The longer that time plays out, the greater the risk that the first strike will be atomic. A Hiroshima sized weapon will hurt.

So who are the major players in this game assuming America sits out the opening round? They would be Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. So where do the Saudis fit in? Evidently they are covert allies of Israel. Well covert as far as most of their population is concerned. Not so covert if you read The Sunday Times.

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.

“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” said a US defence source in the area. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department.”

Well isn't that interesting? It seems everyone knows the bubble is going up except the US people. Well at least our so called Main Stream Media has not breathed a word of all this excitement to the American people. I wonder why?

An attack on Israel or one of our Carrier Battle Groups (CBGs) in the opening rounds would definitely bring in the US at the beginning of the war. The American people will not stand for a major attack by Iran on Israel. What might they stand for?

Suppose Iran attacks Saudi Arabia? The Saudi oil fields would be a good place to start. And the closing of offshore exploration in America is a good opening move.

What would the Israeli riposte be? Take out Iran's refinery capacity. Why? Iran imports considerable refined oil. About 40% of Iran's oil consumption is imported. Kill the refineries and they need to import 100%. That would place them under severe economic strain. Very severe. And yet the actual military/civilian casualties from such a move would be small. Refinery workers mostly.

Now let me go back a bit and look at why attacking Saudi Arabian oil fields first might be a good idea. Americans have no great identification with the Saudis. Given the 9/11 attackers were mostly Saudis there is definitely a reservoir of ill will towards that country. So an attack on Saudi Arabia might not provoke an American response other than opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and opening the country for oil drilling.

There is a lesson from history here. Had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor American entry into World War Two might have been much delayed. Sentiment at that time was that America wanted to get rid of the responsibility for the Philippines. So just attacking that country might not have provoked an American response. Admiral Yamamoto is supposed to have said after the Pearl Harbor attack something to the effect of "We have awakened a sleeping giant and have instilled in him a terrible resolve". The question is are the Iranians motivated more by hate of the Great Satan or cold calculation?

I guess we will have to wait to find out won't we?

Two books I really like about the Pearl Harbor attack are:

At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

and

Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History

If you liked the above you can read more of my (mostly libertarian oriented) writing at Power and Control and Classical Values. I hope you enjoyed the above and I really hope Donald, Daniel, and I are wrong. I fear we are not.

Let me also note that much of the above is rank speculation and real events will probably not match the above speculations. Either in part or in whole. I provide this as food for thought. War Games if you will. May I also add that you ought to read the two Sense of Events pieces linked above to get the full flavor of the possibilities of coming events.

It has been an honor to be allowed to post here. Thank you Donald.