What I’d really like to know is why the civilized world hasn’t stopped us. If this misbehavior of ours goes on much longer, they’re going to have to stop us for their own sake, not just out of abstract justice. Why not get started now? And while they’re at it, they can send in some election monitors.

The US hasn't attacked the civilized world. This makes it hard to build up motivation.

The practical difficulties of forcibly stopping us, or even just imposing sanctions, are huge.

They're hoping that we'll have a better government in not so many months.

Posted August 3, 2008 10:25 PM by Nancy Lebovitz

Sadly, they keep defending him because they have bought into the "pre-emptive" argument.

My Dad said that at the end of WWII either Patton or Eisenhower (I forget which) was near the China border and asked permission, essentially, to go in there and beat the crap out of them, and when ordered not to he grumbled something to the effect of, "If we don't do it now, we're just going to end up having to do it later."

This is essentially the same idea. The conservative lot, by definition, not only don't like things that are "different," they feel threatened by it. Therefore, the Middle East, as a whole or as independent nations, is a threat, because it's too different. And for the rapture/jihadists among them, the fact that they are also non-Christian is another threat/insult. So for many, I suspect, it's not so much that they believe the hype, it's that they believe if they're not a threat now, they will be "someday," and therefore #1) attacking is defending, and #2) they deserve it for being different, and if we don't have facts, that's not proof they don't exist, it just means we haven't "caught" them yet.

The factthat this sort of behavior is what makes them belligerent and encourages them to hate us is, to them, irrelevant.

And then, too, there's the oil ...

... how dare they have all of it and not give us whatever we want at whatever price we offer.

Posted August 3, 2008 10:27 PM by pedantic peasant

As somebody or other in the blogosphere observed, when you've got American troops in the country to the right, and American troops in the country to the left, and American staging bases in the country to the north, you don't really have to postulate an insane ideology of Restore-The-Caliphate to account for a certain level of nationalistic, militaristic paranoid defensiveness on Iran's part.

How would we feel if the all-powerful People's Republic of Mars had truckloads of Martian storm troopers in Mexico and Canada, ready to go? Yeah, you get the point. But it doesn't matter that you get it, because the argument is lost on the people in power and those who support them. Your nuanced and thoughtful understanding isn't worth dogshit.

People you know and love will die because we failed to figure out how to deal with (by which I mean "defeat"--also "intimidate", "punish," and "forestall future instances of") this fact. Enjoy your 21st century!

Posted August 3, 2008 10:29 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Nancy Lebovitz, #1: "The US hasn't attacked the civilized world"

I'm going to trust that you meant that ironically.

Posted August 3, 2008 10:39 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Pedantic Peasant, that's a good point.

It remains a good point even though your father got all his details wrong: not Eisenhower, not Patton, not WWII, and neither one of them went anywhere near the Chinese border. It was Douglas MacArthur, during the Korean War, and Truman was President. Also, MacArthur was a weird, complicated, and interesting guy. But your point stands.

Posted August 3, 2008 10:44 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Teresa @5 - I don't have a cite right now, but my memory has Patton having essentially the same conversation with Eisenhower about the Soviets.

Posted August 3, 2008 10:51 PM by Juli Thompson

Also, MacArthur got fired for it (among, I suspect, other reasons for firing him).

I think, though, that it's begging to dawn on a lot of previously Bush-supporting Republicans that we aren't winning anything. And that Bush and Cheney are really certifiably insane.

(I was reading Scholars of Night again. There's a passage, fairly early in it, where one of the characters is talking about how no one has really won a war since 1870 and no one has ever won a theater war.)

Posted August 3, 2008 10:52 PM by P J Evans

Patrick Nielsen Hayden, #4

Nancy Lebovitz, #1: "The US hasn't attacked the civilized world"

I'm going to trust that you meant that ironically.

Patrick:
I suspect if you substitute "western" or "technolog-ized" for "civilized" you'll come closer to the meaning of the comment. While it can't be denied we're spread thin, and Afghanistan, Iraq, and their amazing friends are holding their own with what we've got in their country, they are not able to stand up to us over here, and if someone is expecting the "civilized world" to stop us, odds on they're talking about the UN at large, or NATO, or some conglomeration of nations a) we might listen to, and b) that have a big enough stick to get our attention.

It sounded to me that what Nancy Lebovitz was saying is that right now we're attacking what are generally viewed as a bunch of second class nations. We have the world at large frustrated and annoyed, but it's not the same reaction as if we suddenly decided that Britain, or France, or Germany, or Japan was a threat, and attacked them. In general, those countries see themselves as our equals, as we do them, while this whole playgroup kind of looks at the middle east as that group of "school lunch losers" who have to play by themselves in the corner of the yard.

Posted August 3, 2008 10:54 PM by pedantic peasant

#4 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden :

I'm going to trust that you meant that ironically.

I may well have missed something obvious, but I wasn't being ironic. The nearest thing I can think of as an attack on the civilized world is the mortgage scam.

Posted August 3, 2008 10:54 PM by Nancy Lebovitz

Teresa @ 5:

I don't know whether my Dad got it wrong or I misremembered, but either way, thank you for the correction.

I first heard the Iran story on Countdown with Olberman, and all I could think of was Polk and the Mexican American war.

Then with your post, the Bay of Pigs.

There seems to be a large part of the administrative machinery of our country that doesn't seem to realize that "wishing doesn't make it so."

The other problem (going back to my post at 2 and the eons earlier discussions on torture) is that that the portion of the country that supports these cockamamie ideas always buys into the "demonize your enemy" argument, accepts the hype, and fails to consider that just because they're different, and a little behind us technology wise, doesn't mean they're cowardly, stupid, or incapable.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:02 PM by pedantic peasant

I'd heard "If we don't do it now, we're just going to end up having to do it later" attributed to Patton, and his supposed desire to fight the Russians +right then+

I sincerely doubt it. One reason being that Patton wasn't stupid. As to why it was attributed to him: he was safely dead.

In point of fact we +didn't+ have to fight the Soviets, then or later.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:03 PM by James D. Macdonald

What I’d really like to know is why the civilized world hasn’t stopped us. If this misbehavior of ours goes on much longer, they’re going to have to stop us for their own sake, not just out of abstract justice. Why not get started now?

I think, to a large extent, it's a question of which mouse is going to bell the cat. The US is too big, too rich, too belligerent, and far, far too well armed, for other countries to feel sanguine about "stopping" it.

That doesn't mean we wouldn't like to. It just means that no-one seems to be able to think of any practical way of doing it.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:07 PM by Sylvia Li

Patrick @ 3... if the all-powerful People's Republic of Mars had truckloads of Martian storm troopers in Mexico and Canada, ready to go?

Where did I put my disintegrator pistol?

Posted August 3, 2008 11:13 PM by Serge

What I’d really like to know is why the civilized world hasn’t stopped us.

First, what sort of remedy are you thinking of? Even completely hamstrung by the Iraq occupation, the US is still incredibly powerful. The only thing that would stop us if we're irrationally hell-bent on attacking somebody is to shoot nukes at us, or threaten to, and since we've got the biggest nuclear deterrent in the world, it's hard to make a threat like that stick. They'd be threatening global suicide--not very likely or credible against a menace at least several degrees better than global suicide.

Second, everyone outside the US is hoping some sort of sanity gets restored next January. Maybe this is a foolish hope, maybe it's just kicking the problem down the road regardless, but it's something.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:14 PM by Matt McIrvin

Patrick tells me he was raising his eyebrow at the idea that Iraq and Iran are not part of the civilized world.

I'm sorry, I've given everyone the wrong idea.

Of course they're part of the civilized world. What I meant by the phrase was "countries that aren't, like, Paraguay or Somalia or something."

Posted August 3, 2008 11:17 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I keep picturing John McCain as President. It's very scary.

Maybe the reason Cheney and friends have been having conversations about attacking Iran is that they think McCain might lose. If they think McCain might lose they may decide to attack Iran before the election, because it might help McCain. If Obama wins they might wait until after the election and attack Iran before he takes office, because they really want to and they are pretty sure Obama won't do it. If McCain wins, they might do it anyway, as a f*ck you to all the people in the country who didn't vote for him.

Of course, if McCain wins, he'll probably attack Iran just to show that he can.

I'm going to go hide under the bed now....

Posted August 3, 2008 11:24 PM by Lizzy L

I may well have missed something obvious, but I wasn't being ironic. The nearest thing I can think of as an attack on the civilized world is the mortgage scam.

erm. Iraq (formerly known as Mesopotamia, Sumeria, and Babylonia) is the every essence of civilization. It's where "civilization" began, meaning where people began living in cities. Attacking Iraq is attacking civilization.

Iran (formerly known as Medea and Persia) is also part of the earliest known civilized world. Even a cursory study of history will tell you what a stupid idea it is to launch an attack on Persia, especially when you have a large number of sitting duck hostages in Baghdad.

I remain unconvinced that an order to launch an attack on Iran will be obeyed. I cannot believe that the people in command of the US military are that uneducated.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:28 PM by beth meacham

Beth Meacham @ 17

Ummm. Meaning no offense, but what in the history and prosecution of the Iraq war to date (not to the reports of "position stuffing" by this administration) gives you this confidence in the education and forbearance of the current military?

Posted August 3, 2008 11:32 PM by pedantic peasant

Beth, a refusal to obey an order from the C-in-C...hmmmm...well, arguably it might be legal. It would be a horrific precedent, however, even if it stopped a war.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:36 PM by Randolph

Okay, here's a really scary thought:

Rather than firing on Americans, someone who is in the administration "unofficially" talks to those in charge of Blackwater, who aren't "official" US forces, and they "accidentally" pursue someone into Iran (or just outright attack it "without authorization," and we get pulled in to defend/rescue their "innocent" forces.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:36 PM by pedantic peasant

What I’d really like to know is why the civilized world hasn’t stopped us.

Because there is none.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:39 PM by Josh Jasper

The Patton/Eisenhower/Soviets/end of WW2 story floats around - I've heard it called "Patton's gambit" by wargamers and those into alternate military history.

MacArthur VS the Red Chinese in Korea came a lot closer to happening than Patton VS the Commie Russians in the ruins of Europe - it did lead to MacArthur getting sacked, after all.

Here's hoping Shrub VS Hordes of Iranians remains in the realm of alternate history too...

Posted August 3, 2008 11:41 PM by Wirelizard

Randolph, they have the right to disobey an illegal order. Just ask Jim.

Lizzy, I couldn't think why they'd stick their necks out for John McCain. Then the light dawned: he'll pardon, not prosecute.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:48 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Teresa, of course they'll help JM. They really don't want Obama as President.

You ask why the civilized world hasn't stopped us.

Because they can't.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:59 PM by Lizzy L

I read Nancy more sympathetically as meaning "the whole civilized world," rather than implying that the places we attack aren't civilized. That is, we haven't done anything to indicate that we're likely to attempt to bomb or invade dozens of countries World War II-style. If we did attack Iran it would go very badly for us. Most of the world doesn't care sufficiently about Iran to take the enormous risk of intervening against us; they'll just wait for the karmic balance to kick in.

It may be that, eventually, somebody decides that there has to be a Free World Against the United States treaty alliance, but the post-Warsaw Pact world hasn't been around long enough. I think we'd have to sustain our current level of obnoxiousness for a couple of decades, and our current level of obnoxiousness probably isn't that sustainable anyway.

Posted August 4, 2008 12:02 AM by Matt McIrvin

I wish I had something to add. The entire notion of attacking Iran, and going forward from there to complete other NeoCon dreams is so insane and pathetic that it's hard to write again on the subject of "Why these losers are insane and pathetic."

They just are. And they might pathetic our nation into total collapse.

Alex

Posted August 4, 2008 12:11 AM by Alex

All of this thread reminds me of the following sad and cynical passage (that I love!) form the movie The American President:

Lewis Rothschild: You have a deeper love of this country than any man I've ever known. And I want to know what it says to you that in the past seven weeks, 59% of Americans have begun to question your patriotism.

President Andrew Shepherd: Look, if the people want to listen to-...

Lewis Rothschild: They don't have a choice! Bob Rumson is the only one doing the talking! People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

President Andrew Shepherd: Lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

So much of this seems relevant, from the stupidity of the label "patriotism," (Does everyone have their plague fin?) to the desperation of some Americans for genuine integrity governing political action, to the cynical disparagement of the greater portions of the populus who seem unable to recognize what is going on ...

Posted August 4, 2008 12:24 AM by pedantic peasant

There's a very simple reason why I suspect that BushCheneyCo will not attack Iran:

Oil is currently close to $150 a barrel.

What happens if they attack Iran? Is the price of oil going to fall? Or not?

They're evil and mendacious, and I agree that they'd like to attack Iran, but right now an attack on Iran would be political suicide; it'd hand Obama the $10 gallon of gas as a stick to beat them. And a pony.

Posted August 4, 2008 12:56 AM by Charlie Stross

... The time to worry about an attack on Iran is if the price of oil begins to fall back below $100/barrel.

Posted August 4, 2008 12:57 AM by Charlie Stross

What I’d really like to know is why the civilized world hasn’t stopped us.

Does 'As much expenditure on defense as the rest of the world combined' ring a bell?

They'd have to all gang up to stand up to the US...and they'd probably still lose. They can't stop us with sanctions because their economies are driven by the ravenous american consumer. We're a crazed tasmanian devil, and nobody has a leash durable enough to put around our neck, even if they had the guts to try it.

Posted August 4, 2008 1:12 AM by Remus Shepherd

1) In one sense we are already attacking Iran. We are funding terrorist attacks inside Iran (pardon me - liberation fighter who plant bombs as part of their struggle for the rights of oppressed ethnic groups).

2) In terms of actual invasion - most of Iran's oil is along a narrow strip on the border with Iraq, occupied by ethic Arabs. Grab that, make a deal with the ethnic Arabs, and grab the seacoast, and you have a geographically tiny flat occupied area, with a coastal route for your supply lines. I'm not saying there are not major flaws in this (and I'll leave pointing them out as an exercise for other commentators), but I'm betting you can find people inside our military who will say this is doable.

3) As to raising the price of oil, well that is money in the pocket of the current administrations friends. As to hurting Republican chances, that is why a lot of people are worried about the window between the election and inauguration of a new President.

Please tell me I'm wrong, that this administration is not that crazy or that stupid, or that even if they are no one high in the military would agree with this.

Posted August 4, 2008 1:23 AM by Gar Lipow

Teresa, #23: "Randolph, they have the right to disobey an illegal order. Just ask Jim."

Sure. But even without Congressional authorization, there would be questions--the President has a lot of war-making authority. We don't need to see civilian authority over the military weakened, internal conflict in the military, or the Roberts court ruling on such issues. And I wouldn't put it past Congress to authorize an attack, even though it would be insane.

Damnit, I really don't like looking into the Abyss.

Posted August 4, 2008 1:32 AM by Randolph

P.J. Evans:

"I didn't fire MacArthur because he was a stupid son of a bitch, I fired him because he disobeyed the orders of his Commander in Chief." Mind you the quote is from Merle Miller, who later admitted to fabricating some of the remarks in his book about Truman, but it's credible: Truman ordered MacArthur to quit making public statements that would harm the peace negotiations with the Chinese (which had happened at least once) and MacArthur sent his "There is no substitute for Victory" letter to a senator (and damn it, I can't remember his name) a couple of months later who read it into the Congressional Record.

Posted August 4, 2008 1:32 AM by Bruce E. Durocher II

Charlie, #28, #29: <snark>there you go again, assuming this Administration is rational.</snark>

Posted August 4, 2008 1:45 AM by Randolph

Why not stop the US?

The answer may be summed up in one word: how? Think and analyze, folks.

Nobody in Europe has been willing to pay for deployable military force for decades. Now they don't have it, and it's not something you can build quickly. China and India have been working on the capacity, but don't have it yet. (The US had 10-15 years of research into operational problems before WW II, and still took five years, mostly under the urgency of wartime conditions, before we could build the force that got to Europe. Most of the allied units in Iraq -- and there are quite a few more than you might think -- are dependent on the US either for their logistics, or for the protection of their logistics; armies march on their stomach, and we're the only ones in the world with a deployable stomach above the battalion or maybe brigade level. This is not a cheap capacity, and is expensive both to acquire and to keep.)

Nobody in the world has the power to interdict sea lines of communication against the US Navy, which means that nobody can stop the US from shipping troops wherever a port exists. (Or wherever a beach exists, but supporting large numbers of troops across the beach is iffier. For practical purposes -- i.e., we don't have enough cargo planes -- supporting more than a brigade or so entirely by air is difficult long-term).
Russia hasn't had the power since the Soviet Union went bankrupt due to excessive military spending; Britain is our ally; China and India are both regional naval powers, not global ones. Nobody else has a navy worth considering along these lines.
This sort of power is EXTREMELY expensive to acquire and to keep; the last two major attempts to acquire passage control of the World Ocean from someone who already had it (Russia 1955-1985 and German 1895-1918) were both very expensive failures. China might, possibly, be able to make a bid for it sometime in the 2030-2050 range; India possibly around the same time, and that's assuming that nothing goes wrong with either country's economy.

As far as invading Iran goes, I don't see it happening any time in the next couple of years, because our ground forces are tied up either deploying to Iraq, being in Iraq, or recovering from being in Iraq. As Iraq stabilizes and we withdraw troops, this calculation will change. (Ironically, if you want the US to be forced to not do anything, bringing our troops home is a bad way to do it.) We can deploy at most about 3-4 divisions overseas sustainably. We could deploy more than that in an emergency situation, but at some point there would have to be either a rest period or a greatly enlarged recruitment effort.

Note that 3 US divisions and about a division worth of allied troops smashed the entire military structure of the Iraqi army in about three weeks, after a six-month buildup. Twice. The difference between information-age armies and industrial-age armies is almost as vast as the difference between industrial-age armies and guys with muskets. Iran could be smashed in about as much time as Iraq was, maybe a bit more, if we had a staging zone to work out of. Providing the staging zone would probably be more complicated than it was in the two Gulf Wars.
Putting the pieces back together again would be a very large and very expensive job, granted.

Nobody else in the world has so much as a division to deploy overseas (or at long distance overland) without considerable, very considerable, preparation time. (One reason that the US ended up doing peacekeeping in the Former Yugoslavia is that we were the only power with enough deployable troops to do the job.)

The reason that nobody is stopping the US by force is that nobody can. (We might also consider that a number of people, whatever they may say in public, are probably quite happy in private that someone else is doing the hard work.)

Granted, this applies to the present situation. The exercise of sufficient will and wealth by a small number of bodies (the EU, China, India, Russia) could change this, but it would be noticeable and it would take a while.

(We are also leaving the Truce of the Mushroom Cloud out of consideration, as well as the exercise of soft power -- finance, opinion, and the like. Soft power methods do not work quickly on the scale we're considering, and we're unlikely to nuke someone without very hard evidence of a very imminent existential threat that cannot be met any other way.)

Posted August 4, 2008 1:55 AM by Tony Zbaraschuk

1. Reveal that OBL has been captured.

2. Reveal that OBL confirms under interrogation that Iran financed the 9/11 operation.

3. Outrage and jingoism overcomes common sense, and war is declared, with only a very few holdout votes in Congress.

4. React to wide-spread retaliatory acts of terrorism allegedly attributed to Iran by declaring martial law and suspending the Constitution before Inauguration Day.

5. Profit!

Note: step 4 is actually optional in this plan, but steps 1 to 3 work best if timed as an October Surprise.

Tin foil hat futures sound like a decent investment these days.

Posted August 4, 2008 2:23 AM by Earl Cooley III

Teresa @ 23

they have the right to disobey an illegal order. Just ask Jim.

Certainly they have the right, both in national and international law, and under the UCMJ. But do they have the motivation and the guts? Note that the current Chief of Staff is on public record as being in favor of an air attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

As usual, the dimbulbs in office are going for immediate gratification without regard for long-term (more than a week) consequences. Assume for a moment that they can't manage to put together a reasonable ground invasion of Iran, but want their jollies any way they can get them. A major airstrike of every plane that can carry guided munitions, preceded by a wave of Tomahawks, all ostensibly targeted at nuclear facilities, but with some secret other targets that would weaken Iran militarily and economically would be just to their taste.

So what happens then? Well, Al-Qaeda has a recruiting field day, and operations against US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in particular, and Pakistan, Malaysia, Philippines, all the countries of the East African coast, and any US citizens who stick their heads up in the Arabian Peninsula will increase by several factors of 2. The US is suddenly faced with a military situation that requires committment of still more troops to all theaters at a time when we must reduce troop levels in theater or be fighting with units which are fatigued, stressed, running low on materiel, and losing whatever support of the native populations they had. And in addition, the support the US has been getting from NATO will start to evaporate, and any chance of getting help from the UN will be forever destroyed. The only way I can think of to deal with that problem in military terms is to rachet up the level of involvement of US troops, and relax the rules of engagement. In other words, to escalate the fighting in places where doing so makes it easier for the enemy to recruit.

It's a downward spiral, and even a new US administration may not be able to resist the wardrums of hawks reacting to increased US casualties. I'm with Randolph here, especially as I'm very afraid the Abyss is looking back.

Posted August 4, 2008 3:31 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

And I was reading a subtlety into Nancy's comment that implied the US wasn't actually part of the civilized world, resonating with ... Gandhi's comment, was it?

--Dave

Posted August 4, 2008 4:07 AM by David DeLaney

Thanks for the kindness of assuming I agree with you, but I meant what I seemed to have said. Iraq doesn't strike me as part of the civilized world. Not in the practical sense Teresa was implying, and not in a moral sense-- Iraqis are way too willing to arbitrarily kill other Iraquis.

And as for the civilized world not stopping the US.... the civilized world hasn't been able to pull it together to stop Sudan.

Posted August 4, 2008 4:36 AM by Nancy Lebovitz

> Nobody in the world has the power to interdict sea lines of communication against the US Navy ... Britain is our ally;

Even if Britain decided that the US was too much of a global threat to remain an ally, the Royal Navy still wouldn't have the power needed to interdict the US Navy.

Compare https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html#military with https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html#Military
(which doesn't give numbers specific to the navies, but does show the overall problem).

Posted August 4, 2008 5:35 AM by Alan Braggins

I think the tradition of our military staying out of politics is too strong for them to disobey a military order outright. If Iraq is any indication, military leaders will politely resign, or be forced out, until the Administration finds someone who will prosecute their war for them.

As for why they might do this, well, this Administration has already shown itself to be vindictive, and to have no realistic notion of consequences. They might do it to tie the hands of a (unfortunately, still hypothetical) future Obama Administration.
Most Administrations in their waning years merely issue lots of regulations which need to be rescinded. This one might start a war. (Of course, it's not like Bush hasn't already tied the hands of future administrations. He's set our foreign policy agenda for decades. Those political hacks appointed to the civil service positions in the Justice Department will take years, if not decades, to route out. Then there is this Administration's attack on science...)

Posted August 4, 2008 5:39 AM by John Chu

One idea that was considered at the meeting was to build some fake Iranian PT boats, have Navy SEALs dress up as Iranians, send them out into the Gulf of Hormuz, and stage a shoot-out with them.

Godwin Warning!

Hasn't this sort of thing been tried before? I'm slightly disappointed; depending on which wikipedia article you read, there were either 21 or 35 staged incidents before the Invasion of Poland. Just one staged incident as justification for starting a war*?

"I will provide a propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn't matter. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth."

* ObSF: I note that in Star Trek, the Universal Translator seems to have a bug which translates "You seem to have strayed over the border accidently, in violation of your treaty obligations. Can we escort you back to your own territory?" as "You have committed an Act of War. Surrender immediately!"

Posted August 4, 2008 6:14 AM by Neil Willcox

Presumably there are more than a few nations that could try to stop the US, although I expect that it would be more a coordinated effort to dunk the economy than with conventional warfare. After all, how much have Bush, Cheney, & Co. cost the country? Even making things less pleasant for the average consumer might help a little.

Posted August 4, 2008 6:19 AM by ADM

Iraq doesn't strike me as part of the civilized world. Not in the practical sense Teresa was implying, and not in a moral sense-- Iraqis are way too willing to arbitrarily kill other Iraquis.

I guess Europe has only been part of the civilized world for 60 years, according to you - and America still isn't.

Or is it only if Iraqis are way too willing to kill other Iraqis that it's bad?

Posted August 4, 2008 6:54 AM by bellatrys

ADM @43:
more a coordinated effort to dunk the economy than with conventional warfare.

On the one hand, I don't think any external force is really necessary for that. What could they do that would be worse than a mortgage crisis and high fuel costs?

And on the other hand, the world economies are so interlinked that trashing the US economy will trash the attacker's as well. It would be like the Netherlands attacking Germany by poisoning the Rhine.

Posted August 4, 2008 6:59 AM by abi

I do know why Iran would want a nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein got rid of his WMDs, and we invaded his country, trashed the place, killed quantities of its civilians, and executed him. North Korea still has its whatever-it-has, and we’re being very polite to its Beloved Leader.

Actually, there are more reasons than just "worrying about the US" for Iran to think about a nuclear weapons program, and I suspect they're at least as important, if not more so, in the thinking of Iranian leaders. (And preliminary work on such a program probably started before the US invasion of Iraq.)

First of all, Iran's biggest threat of the past thirty or forty years was Iraq, and they were no doubt very deeply alarmed to discover (post-Gulf War) how close Iraq had come to having nuclear weapons. Although Iraq currently has something approximating a friendly, not-quite-puppet government (from Iran's point of view, that is), there's no guarantee this will last.

In addition, over on the other side of Iran is Pakistan, which already has nuclear weapons. I'm not very clear on Iran's current relations with Pakistan, but they were supporting opposite sides in Afghanistan during the Taliban's rise to power in the late 1990s. (Sure, Pakistan's reason for having nuclear weapons is India, not Iran; but does the Iranian government really want to rely on Pakistan's forebearance if there is some future dispute with Iran?)

Finally, there's also Israel's well-known (if officially unadmitted) arsenal, which is bound to at least vaguely worrying even if Iran were nominally neutral towards Israel.

Posted August 4, 2008 6:59 AM by Peter Erwin

Aside: "civilized" meaning either "society economically based around cities" or "behaves in a manner I/we feel appropriate for humans to behave" makes it rather a useless term of description without some further qualification, like "inhuman" as a pejorative or "culture" to mean only "high" culture specifically. No civilizations (def 1) have ever really been civilized (def 2) no matter how anyone is defining "appropriate" behavior - alas, Babylon!

Posted August 4, 2008 7:01 AM by bellatrys

ADM @ 43 -
Presumably there are more than a few nations that could try to stop the US, although I expect that it would be more a coordinated effort to dunk the economy than with conventional warfare. After all, how much have Bush, Cheney, & Co. cost the country? Even making things less pleasant for the average consumer might help a little.

Whom?

Economic warfare is, if anything, even more random and unpredictable than military conflict. Yes, the Chinese could call due all/some of the paper they own right now - but what effect would that have on their economy? Sure, the EU could stop buying American goods (computers, software, etc.), or slap restrictive tariffs on them - but they probably don't have enough organic in-house IT production to keep up with demand.

Additionally, the blowback effects, long-term, are likely to be at least as bad as a short-mid term military conflict. The after-effects of the Chinese calling due all debts will be nobody ever trusting them to hold paper again - and to look askance at any foreign holding of substantial debt. Same thing with overseas production - shut down your lines and not only do your in-country companies scream (since they're usually sub-contractors), but the US firms either scramble for other suppliers, or bring it in-house short-term (and possibly long-term). And heaven help anyone who tries to use food as a weapon - beyond any question of it actually working on the US - it won't, though it won't be pleasant - there's massive PR problems (even if you try aiming at so-called "luxury" goods, there's going to be PR problems.

Pretty much any attempts to deliberately use the global market and economy as a weapon is going to have a chilling effect on its interconnectedness, as everyone else goes "If they're willing to go after the Americans that way, what the hell will they try to do to us if we cross them?" and starts quietly shutting down those interconnections and bringing as much as they can back in house, or at worst, dealing with only a few trusted allies, and those countries they absolutely have to do business with (because, you know, everyone needs Wakandan Vibranium, so everyone does business with Wakanda).

Military force against the US is pretty much impossible - most powerful navy, most powerful air force, most powerful (even after discounting the forces that are not CONUS-based at the moment) army, and an armed populace (substantial portions of which have prior military experience, though not as substantial as nations which have conscription service requirements) and para-military police force.

Economic force is similarly problematic, if less immediately and obviously stupid - and much, much harder to predict, as we're seeing with the mortgage crisis (which keeps popping up new "oh, yeah, remember this stupid shit? Here's another bank failure. Merry Xmas!" moments just when people think we might be behind it).

Posted August 4, 2008 7:06 AM by Scott Taylor

The reason why we treated NK politely while we invaded Iraq is more complicated than "NK might have a nuclear device, Iraq did not".

NK has the ability to obliterate Seoul without resorting to nuclear weapons; they've got thousands of artillery and rocket launchers within range of Seoul already, and South Koreans are notably sensitive about having their capital destroyed. Of course, NK possibly having nukes reinforces that attitude, but it's not the only reason why we talked instead of invaded them.

RE: Iran. While we did invade Iraq with just over 3 divisions' worth of troops, the terrain there is ideal for the USArmy's doctrine of maneuver warfare. Iran, not so much. Not only is Iran much larger, it's also more rugged and the critical areas aren't easily reached through the more logical invasion routes we'd use. We don't have nearly enough ground forces to invade Iran, and bombing is not certain enough to accomplish the goal, even using tactical nuclear weapons.

Hopefully Bush & Co. realize this, but I'm beginning to doubt it.

Posted August 4, 2008 7:14 AM by John L

Strait of Hormuz
Located between Oman and Iran, the Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Hormuz is the world's most important oil chokepoint due to its daily oil flow of 16.5-17 million barrels (first half 2008E), which is roughly 40 percent of all seaborne traded oil (or 20 percent of oil traded worldwide). Oil flows averaged over 16.5 million barrels per day in 2006, dropped in 2007 to a little over 16 million barrels per day after OPEC cut production, but rose again in 2008 with rising Persian Gulf supplies.

At its narrowest point the Strait is 21 miles wide, and the shipping lanes consist of two-mile wide channels for inbound and outbound tanker traffic, as well as a two-mile wide buffer zone. The majority of oil exported through the Strait of Hormuz travels to Asia, the United States and Western Europe. Currently, three-quarters of all Japan’s oil needs pass through this Strait. On average, 15 crude oil tankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz daily in 2007, along with tankers carrying other petroleum products and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/World_Oil_Transit_Chokepoints/Hormuz.html

Can anyone doubt that if the United States attacked Iran, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would be halted?
With all the hullabaloo searching for scapegoats for the recent spike in oil prices, somehow the rational fear that the Cheney-Rove-Bush administration might be about to cut world oil production by 20% didn't get much play.

Posted August 4, 2008 7:26 AM by Neil in Chicago

I think that the question of "Why doesn't the civilized world stop us?" has a very simple answer: they aren't run by Bush & company.

If you look at what the US has actually done, doing anything to stop us (that would actually stop us) would be similar to our invading Iraq. No civilized nation would attack another for what the US has done, nor even levy sanctions or some-such. Remember, Iraq wasn't an ally of anyone. It's not as if we assaulted their friends, we just attacked a nation they considered vile based on faulty evidence and lies.

Don't get me wrong, that's a fairly terrible thing to do, but it just isn't enough to validate serious action.

Consider this example, for comparison: Russia starts another flare-up with one of their ex-compatriot nations. They present tons of evidence, which is later shown to be flawed, that shows how said nation started things and the UN gives them a slight mandate to deal with it. Matters escalate and they end up in a war with the nation that does not spread and will not result in them occupying said nation. Bush says that this is too much so we should invade Russia, or at least levy huge economic sanctions. Do you (a) Support invading Russia, (b) Support levying sanctions, (c) Think this is far too little reason to risk touching off a war that could expand into WW3.

The remaining action that civilized nations can take is some sort of "harsh comment", possibly signed by legislatures and the UN. I feel that foreign sentiment on this matter is largely clear, in that most of the rest of the world thinks we overstepped, so I'd say this is not far from what has actually happened.

However, let me add that, IF we decide to remain in Iraq after the UN mandate expires despite the Iraqis telling us to leave OR we invade Iran soon and without UN approval (or with approval on evidence later shown to be false), the civilized world will have a clear pattern of behavior and might be able to justify acting. Short of that, they shouldn't do much of anything.

Posted August 4, 2008 7:31 AM by Micah

If this misbehavior of ours goes on much longer, they’re going to have to stop us for their own sake

Or die in the attempt. That's what's giving us pause.

I'm praying it doesn't go on long enough. I'd volunteer - with deep sorrow, but I'd do it - and I live close to a US military base. My family and I would be among the first to die.

Posted August 4, 2008 8:35 AM by mpe

With all due respect to Mike Godwin, what Hersch describes Bush and Cheney cooking up is in essence, an updated version of the Gleiwitz incident. Now, I certainly don't want to compare the Shrub and his master to You Know Who, but the parallel is a bit horrifying.

Posted August 4, 2008 8:43 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Abi @ 45... First, Patrick suggests that Martians will invade the USA by way of Canada, now you're suggesting that the Netherlands might attack Germany?

Extra! Lichtenstein invades France!

Posted August 4, 2008 8:46 AM by Serge

Serge #54: That's Liechtenstein.

Posted August 4, 2008 8:53 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Fragano @ 55... Monaco invades Belgium!

Posted August 4, 2008 9:04 AM by Serge

I don't think we can trust the US military to refuse orders to invade Iran. After all, no one took an effective stand against invading Iraq.

Having the "right" to refuse illegal orders is meaningless, without the habit of questioning the legality of orders when given, to determine their legality and morality. To avoid having a military that will carry out illegal orders, we'd need to cultivate a miliatry culture that rewards the questioning of orders and refusal of illegal orders, rather than supressing the thought process needed to ensure only legal and moral orders are carried out.

The best we can hope for, I think, is delay and deliberate leaks of plans - spoiling the needed element of surprise, and requiring planning to start over. Things that people can do without taking a public stand, or risking official punishment and unofficial retaliation.

And also hope that an Obama administration would seek out and reward anyone found to have acted to delay and prevent another war.

Posted August 4, 2008 9:07 AM by Ursula L

Ursula L: we need Aral Vorkosigan's required class on How To Recognize An Illegal Order?

IIRC, that was the one that made the cadets turn green for days after.

Posted August 4, 2008 9:10 AM by Rikibeth

We're not going to invade Iran, certainly not at anywhere near the level of forces we did Iraq. Why? Because nearly the entire combat capability of the Army is tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can't just turn them around and send them into Iran. To repurpose from a occupying/counterinsurgency force to a conventional invasion force would require pulling them out of Iraq/Afghanistan, re-equipping and retraining, and then staging back into theater. There's simply not time before the Bush administration ends.

Now, an air assault is definitely possible.

Posted August 4, 2008 9:11 AM by Total

Serge #56: There's already been a Battle of Albert.

Posted August 4, 2008 9:12 AM by Fragano Ledgister

TNH: "What I’d really like to know is why the civilized world hasn’t stopped us. If this misbehavior of ours goes on much longer, they’re going to have to stop us for their own sake, not just out of abstract justice. Why not get started now? And while they’re at it, they can send in some election monitors."

As Sylvia Li said, which mouse is going to stand up to the cat?

Plus, of course, the fact that a lot of countries in the civilized (or western, or industrialized) world is either allied to the B & C administration (alas, my own country might have profited from UN election monitors, last year...) or, if not overly friendly, hopes to profit from their policy. So why go looking for problems?
So these governments are content with a few verbal condemnations of the "torture flights" and preemptive wars, but still go on cooperating with the USA, sending "warnings" to Iran and trying to get a bigger piece of the contracts in Iraq.

Posted August 4, 2008 9:20 AM by Irene Delse

Fragano @ 60... Well, Albert Finney did play Belgian Hercules Poirot in 1975's Murder on the Orient Express.

Posted August 4, 2008 9:36 AM by Serge

Theresa @ #23, et al: While an order to attack or invade Iran would be unwise and imprudent (not to mention impudent), it would not be clearly illegal. The UN Charter has been interpreted (by the World Court) to allow preemptive self-defense, so that's no basis to refuse such an order. And there is nothing in the UCMJ or US Code that makes it illegal either. So on what basis are they to refuse?

The right to refuse an illegal order is intended to allow soldiers to legitimately refuse orders to execute prisoners, deliberately target civilians, etc. It is not intended as a way for military personnel to refuse unwise orders, operations to which they personally object, or even wars that are unpopular with the civilian population.

Opening military discretion to that extent would undermine the entire concept of civil control of the military. Allowing the military to opt out of a conflict it doesn't want leads to a disconcerting slipppery slope in which the military leadership gets to pick and choose the wars it supports and thus control the nation's foeign policy to an unprecedented degree. I think we can all agree that we don't want that, right?

Posted August 4, 2008 10:02 AM by Tom S.

I don't think we can trust the US military to refuse orders to invade Iran. After all, no one took an effective stand against invading Iraq.>/i>

I think some high-level members of the military have already refused such orders, and have resigned.

No one took an effective stand against invading Iraq because Iraq was a)completely disarmed and b)unallied with any other nation. We know that the US military knew that Iraq was disarmed, because they did not supply chemical warfare gear to the invading troops.

The one government that could have mounted an effective resistance -- Iran -- had been trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein for decades. Also, Iran had agents in the heart of the US plans for Iraq (Chalabi, and the current president of Iraq, al-Maliki), and has had every reason to believe that the ultimate result of the US occupation of Iraq will be an ally on their western border.

Posted August 4, 2008 10:26 AM by beth meacham

Andrew Sullivan makes the point that war with Iran is "now the principal policy objective of the neocon right". Given that George and Co. handed foreign policy to the neocons, and that McInane looks to do the same, it looks to me as if the Republicans are going to push for war with Iran as the great distractor from the economic crisis.

Posted August 4, 2008 10:34 AM by Fragano Ledgister

If we start hearing reports that mineclearing assets have been deployed to the Persian Gulf, we'll know something's up. The --only-- way the Iranians could close the Strait of Hormuz is by covertly mining the passages, probably with bottom sitting magnetic/pressure mines. Those things are cast iron b*tch*s to find or clear, and take a lot of time and specialized platforms and assets to accomplish.

Their surface units, SSM's and the bases they operate out of would be targeted on the first day, and if any of their 2-3 subs are operational they'll be hunted to destruction as well. That leaves mining, and the Iranians have a lot of mines.

Posted August 4, 2008 10:39 AM by John L

The law that a war in Iran (and the war in Iraq) violates isn't (merely) international law, it's the US Constitution. Only Congress can declare war, and Congress has not (and probably will not) do so. To the extent that a military oath includes upholding the Constitution, that has to include not going to war without the proper Constitutional authorization.

And even if "preemptive self defense" is authorized by international law, a war based on lies isn't. The lies that led to Iraq were painfully obvious (OBL and Saddam Hussein as allies? SH was the type of secular leader OBL was fighting against.)

A moral military can't be a blind puppet in a Constitutional system. There are checks and balances built into the Constitution, and if the military ignores that, it is ignoring the fundamental oath to uphold the Constitution.

Posted August 4, 2008 10:47 AM by Ursula L

Tom S. @ 63

Wouldn't an "illegal order" be dependent on internal law as well as UN statutes?

And if so, then if the US Costitution gives the power to declare war only to Congress, isn't being ordered to invade Iran in a war Congress hasn't authorized unconstitutional and therefore illegal?

Yes, I know this is a technicality, given the history of police actions, military observers, and so forth...

Posted August 4, 2008 10:49 AM by pedantic peasant

I'm currently reading Modesty Blaise novel Sabre-tooth, from 1966. Her mission: to infiltrate a proposed coup to seize Kuweit for its rather sizeable oil reserves.

Posted August 4, 2008 10:50 AM by Serge

There are checks and balances built into the Constitution, and if the military ignores that, it is ignoring the fundamental oath to uphold the Constitution.

The president and vice president broke their oaths almost as soon as they got off the podium. Congress has been ignoring theirs for several years. The courts have been going along with such behavior (even in the recent decisions). Why should the military be different?

(Sorry, I am so tired of people who think oaths are jsut words, and there are way too many of them in our government right now.)

Posted August 4, 2008 11:03 AM by P J Evans

*coming out from under the bed*

There are, I believe, two pretty clear deterrents to the US bombing Iran. (I agree with whoever said upthread that any attack we might mount would have to be an air attack.) The first is that Iran, if attacked by us, would immediately bomb Israel. The second -- already mentioned -- is what a US attack would do to the global oil market and, by extension, to the US economy. I think even the Bushies can see how economically disastrous an attack on Iran might be.

"But you're part of this world! Aren't you?"

Posted August 4, 2008 11:26 AM by Lizzy L

Micah (51), they may not stop us invading one country, but they have to take it a lot more seriously if we invade two.

Total (59), I can imagine an air assault. We don't have the resources to fight a war in Iran, but if we nail their hydroelectric system, they'll be in real trouble. They've already been buying power from all their neighbors except Iraq, and they have no surplus of water.

I see no reason to believe we wouldn't do it. We deliberately destroyed Iraq's civilian water and irrigation systems -- for which everyone responsible will undoubtedly rot in hell, unless they do major penance and make reparations.

Tom S. (63), where's the self-defense?

Posted August 4, 2008 11:39 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

where's the self-defense?

They've been working hard on establishing it according to the "He was going to hit me first!" doctrine.

Posted August 4, 2008 11:43 AM by TomB

The history of warfare is similarly subdivided, though here the phases are Retribution, Anticipation, and Diplomacy -- Thus Retribution: 'I am going to kill you because you killed my brother,' Anticipation: 'I am going to kill you because I killed your brother,' and Diplomacy: 'I am going to kill my brother and then kill you on the pretext that your brother did it.'

-- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhicker Guide to the Galaxy

Posted August 4, 2008 11:57 AM by Joel Polowin

Gah. "Hitch-Hiker's".

Posted August 4, 2008 12:01 PM by Joel Polowin

I don't know why his hapless lackwit supporters keep defending him.

I've always found the imprinting hypothesis persuasive - a la Konrad Lorenz, with Bush as the yellow ball and 9/11 as the trauma of hatching, or something. A sizable proportion of them do seem to be binred billhilly fumbducks, too, apologising in advance to anyone here from an Appalachian background.

Lizzie@71: The first is that Iran, if attacked by us, would immediately bomb Israel.

Well, they've got some missiles, but it probably wouldn't be anything Israel couldn't handle with a few nights in the shelters. I worry more about the Israelis trying it themselves if they can't get Bush to do it for them, that could be messy, and they're about to reelect that charming Netanyahu chap apparently, he's a bundle of fun.

Teresa@72: I can imagine an air assault. We don't have the resources to fight a war in Iran, but if we nail their hydroelectric system, they'll be in real trouble. They've already been buying power from all their neighbors except Iraq, and they have no surplus of water.

Sounds like potential for televised civilian death on a large scale there, hopefully subgenocidal but they might want to think about the PR effects seeing as they've been talking a lot about rescuing the Iranian people from the eeevil mullah regime.

Posted August 4, 2008 12:48 PM by Adrian Smith

The neocons have long been convinced the reality doesn't apply to them; they make their own reality by acting.

There's no reason to suppose that they've changed their minds on that score.

Meanwhile, I bet the guy who wrote The End of History is feeling foolish right about now.

Posted August 4, 2008 12:49 PM by Jim Macdonald

Serge @ 56: "Monaco invades Belgium!"

That's Monocle invades Belgium.

Posted August 4, 2008 12:51 PM by bryan

#76
And taking out their hydroelectric system is so likely to get them to throw out the eevil mullahs, isn't it. /snark

Not to mention that using anything other than conventional explosives will make everyone downwind extremely sick, if not dead, and that isn't exactly going to help us or any future chances of democracy in the middle east.

Posted August 4, 2008 1:04 PM by P J Evans

Jim @77: Fukuyama recanted a couple of years ago, donned sackcloth and ashes, and denounced the neocons. A day late and a dollar short, but at least he wised up in the end.

Apropos Iran, everything I've read on the subject suggests that the only reason they haven't had a democratic secular revolution in the past eight years is squatting in the White House, counting down his days. There's nothing like fear of large-scale terrorist atrocities to rally support for the reactionary nationist right-wingers, after all ...

Posted August 4, 2008 1:10 PM by Charlie Stross

The rest of the 'civilised' world isn't stopping you because, militarily, we can't, and we've just seen yet another vivid demonstration of the American liking for pre-emptive strikes. Then we have very real, vivid and painful memories of what war on our doorstep is like. America, however, appears to regard a very minor incident (by comparison with much of her own activity elsewhere in the 20th Century) as the end of the world as we know it.

Then we have the nonstop policy dancing required to cope with the consequences of your economic lunacy. The largesty private sector employer round here is in the painful process of going tits up because of your carpet baggers' super bright sub-prime idea. Well, I expect the fact that we are no longer in debt to the government of the USA will weigh heavily in Downing Street the next time the White House decides to get frisky.

As for economic warfare, as has been pointed out that is a no-win game of Russian roulette, but why should we bother? You're doing a bang up job of destroying the American economy. All your enemies need to do is stand back and watch. It might not be quick to those with MTV attention spans but the long view - to the Chinese at least - is somewhat longer than next week, or even the next election.

By the way, we're not your enemies and most of us would rather like to be friends, even if we'd like a promise of good behaviour in the sandbox.

Posted August 4, 2008 1:15 PM by martyn44

Part of the problem, as Jim notes, is that Bush and Cheney don't make plans with what we'd consider normal tactical concerns. They aren't interested in outcomes much. They do prefer that not a lot of Americans die visibly. They also prefer that as many "enemies" as possible die miserably or suffer horribly, and this takes priority over things like the governability of conquered territory or the desire to subdue rather than arouse the enemy. The displayed priorities in Iraq made no sense, and seldom make much now. (Insofar as they do, it's almost all the work of folks further down the food chain, who may well get yanked off the job for anything sensible.) An attack on Iran needn't make any military sense to be launched, either.

Posted August 4, 2008 1:16 PM by Bruce Baugh

Opening military discretion to that extent would undermine the entire concept of civil control of the military. Allowing the military to opt out of a conflict it doesn't want leads to a disconcerting slipppery slope in which the military leadership gets to pick and choose the wars it supports and thus control the nation's foreign policy to an unprecedented degree. I think we can all agree that we don't want that, right?

Don't see why not. I mean, the outcome here is that the military won't wage wars that the government likes and the military doesn't. We're not suggesting that the military would wage wars that the government didn't like but the military did. So: fewer wars.

Posted August 4, 2008 1:17 PM by ajay

The US military leadership only needs the facade of a reasonable excuse to follow the civilian leadership into war. They bought into the invasion of Iraq when their own military intelligence questioned the whole "mushroom cloud" as well as the "hidden WMD" story, but as long as the White House didn't say that there were 8 legged beasts from Venus in Iraq as the reason, they were ok with it.

Posted August 4, 2008 1:41 PM by John L

...sigh...sigh...I regret writing that...

The Joint Chiefs, having had the experience of Iraq, are probably going to try very hard not to invade Iran. The question, I think, is how hard?

Ursula L, #67: "Only Congress can declare war". In theory. In practice, Congress has delegated that authority fairly extensively, and historically the Courts have accepted that. So if it came down to a court case, who can say?

Posted August 4, 2008 2:41 PM by Randolph

Adrian at 76, I appreciate your response; I was under the impression that Iran had a much greater missile capacity than you suggest. You are right; Israel can probably handle it.

marytn44 at 81; The largest private sector employer round here is in the painful process of going tits up because of your carpet baggers' super bright sub-prime idea. Yeah, sucks to be you. Sucks to be us, too -- those of us who aren't wealthy and well-connected corporatists, anyway. Which is most of us. Believe me, we -- the we that is 98% of us -- are not having any fun.

Posted August 4, 2008 2:47 PM by Lizzy L

Why, yes, Adrian, you are talking about my people there, when you mention hillbillies. Please bear in mind it's not being hillbillies that's the problem, because there are people like that everywhere--see various comments that have been made over the years about William Faulkner's creation, the Snopes family.
The problem is a sort of desperate closed-mindedness, as if any new thoughts, new ideas, new items, new people are such dangerous things that they can destroy everything one loves, simply by existing in close proximity. Some people are this way naturally, some are raised to be that way, and others (almost any of us, really) can be driven to it by fear, if the fear is great enough. Remember the studies that showed how much authoritarian conservatism was linked to fear and anxiety? That's the problem, there--not where people were born and raised, or whether or not their parents or grandparents might have been cousins. If we succumb to the assumption that it's isolated in a single area or ethnic group, we lose the chance to take on the problematic behavior and deal with its effects.

(When the GOP manages to alienate potential political allies through displays of foolish and disgusting prejudice, it's stupid of them. What is it when liberals do the same thing?)

Bush/Cheney's hard core of public support consists largely, at this point, of fearful people, including people who bluster loudly in order to hide just how fearful they are, and of people who are somehow emotionally wired so that they cannot accept anything else than the equivalent of the Victory March down the Champs-Elysées in 1944, Mussolini's corpse hanging up upside down, Hitler's suicide, and Admiral Dönitz and Foreign Minister Shigemitsu creeping forward to sign surrender papers as evidence of their country's, and therefore their own, effectiveness in the world*. There's a mindset out there, and not just in the US, although we have a large supply, that cannot equate calling it a day, declaring victory, and going home as acceptable. We must win. It is essential to win. We can never look weak. When asked to explain what winning looks like, these people will have extreme difficulty doing so--either they can't come up with anything coherent, or else what they do manage is so unrealistic that one finds oneself adding "and a pony, too!" under one's breath. They do know we have to win, though, because if we don't win--Bad Things Happen. (Insert the appropraite parts of Bill Murray's speech to the Mayor of New York in Ghostbusters for the Bad Things.)**
The best way to deal with these irrationalities is to confront them, and pick their inconsistencies and follies apart. For some who were in the neoconservative camp (see Fukuyama and Sullivan), actual events have been unsettling enough; for others, self-destruction through embarassment has done the trick--where is Paul Wolfowitz these days, anyway?. If the US press did its job consistently, instead of enabling the folly, more of the fools in high places would have been shaken out by now.

But, as John Rogers' friend Tyrone has memorably observed, the Crazification Factor must be allowed for. Our problem is to separate out the people who are merely confused, so that they may perhaps be rescued from the rest.

Just remember--the people who make up the 27% mentioned as the Carzified are everywhere, and from every background.

*Someone else can speculate on whether Dick Chensy's doctors felt his heart condition was good enough for a Viagra prescription.

**For some of these people, the pictures of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the stautes of Lenin & Co. being pulled down from their pedestals, and the rest were just teasers--the end of the Cold War was a little flat. Without an American army marching past the old May Day Parade reviewing stands, it wasn't quite good enough. There's Crazification for you!

Posted August 4, 2008 2:55 PM by fidelio

I don't think the US can claim to be part of the civilized world these days. Neither can Iraq.

Iraq was indeed the birthplace of civilization. Evanston, IL, was the birthplace of me, but I'm not there now. No sane person could possibly claim that Iraq is civilized (in the sense of having civil society) as things now stand. Even Iran, much as I abhor them, has a better claim to that label.

Posted August 4, 2008 2:56 PM by Xopher

I agree, Xopher. I'm not happy when I hear, for instance, that yet another British or Australian friend has decided it's not worth the hassle or risk to travel here for business, research, or pleasure. But I agree with them. This isn't like Germany in 1931; this is like Germany in 1942 or '43, with the war underway. There isn't the calculated genocide, but there is a degree of class warfare that's ahead of almost everything this side of the Ukrainian slaughters of the '30s. (And when it comes to New Orleans, the gap between Bush's US and Stalin's USSR of the early '30s narrowed to right about zero.)

In a better world, there'd be the multinational structures to fence off the US better, and to oversee its reconstruction as a republic. We're in better shape that way than, say, Lithuania in 1989, but we are so far short of basic standards of electoral accountability, and so short of any effective opposition.

*sigh*

Posted August 4, 2008 3:22 PM by Bruce Baugh

The most plausible way I could see an attack happening is if Bush and his advisors are convinced that an attack on Iran is necessary for US security, and is also politically impossible. Then, they might decide it's better to launch the strikes now, having nothing to lose politically. This is especially true if the Republicans have already lost or are obviously getting ready to lose the election.

It would have to be air and missile strikes, not occupation, right? If we could hit only nuclear sites, with minimal damage otherwise, we might avoid a larger war, though we'd probably see our position in Iraq turn to sh-t in a hurry, and I don't see how we could be sure it wouldn't expand into a larger war by, say, Iran mining the harbor now or later, or giving us some sort of other nasty surprise. And in the worst case, I can imagine effective retaliation here at home. (Of course, if we blow up a building in Iran with a cruise missile, it's war; if they blow up a building here with a truck bomb, it's terrorism. Who could fail to see the large, important moral differences between these two acts?)

Posted August 4, 2008 3:22 PM by albatross

Teresa asked:
"What I’d really like to know is why the civilized world hasn’t stopped us."

Look: when you're dealing with a (potential) lunatic armed with thousands of nuclear warheads... you don't pick a fight with him. That would be too dangerous.

Instead you dig a very deep pit with pointy stakes at the bottom, cover it with twigs and leaves... and try to (very gently) persuade him to walk across.

In practical terms, this means other nations will subtly attempt to persuade the U.S. government to overreach to its breaking point.

So what precisely would said "overreaching" be? Make an educated guess...

Posted August 4, 2008 4:01 PM by A.R.Yngve

albatross, it cannot be occupation; we haven't the troops.

A friend of mine's only son is in Baghdad; he was just Medevac'd to hospital -- roadside bomb, concussion, no other wounds. They're keeping him -- planning to send him back out there, let him get blown up again, only worse.

F*ck them. We should be in the streets. Why are we not in the streets? Because there's no draft.

Posted August 4, 2008 4:02 PM by Lizzy L

Lizzy @ 92

We are not in the streets because it doesn't work, anymore. There were huge rallies at the beginning of this war, and the Bush administration simply shrugged them off. Campaigning is probably the winning strategy. I freeze up when doorknocking, though, so I'm not much good. Envelopes. I should find myself a position where I can stuff envelopes. I stuff a mean envelope.

Posted August 4, 2008 4:15 PM by Lydy Nickerson

Lyddy #93: In the rampup to the war in Iraq, what I remember is seeing a lot of people on the streets (in Durham, NC) with my eyes, but almost no coverage of it on TV. It was kind-of striking.

Along with masterful media manipulation, Bush understood that he had the backing of enough of the nation that he could carry out the war. He and his administration also appear to have ignored a lot advice that suggested this was going to be much harder than it looked. All that would have been fine, had the war turned out better. (And now, apparently, it's not nearly as bad as it was a couple years ago, though turning this into a success requires a massive exercise in goalpost-moving.)

Posted August 4, 2008 4:26 PM by albatross

Democracy Now would probably report street riots, but not enough people would listen to matter; it would be more along the lines of preaching to the choir at that point.

Posted August 4, 2008 4:48 PM by Earl Cooley III

Look on the bright side. Before the neocons fixated on bombing Iran, they were spoiling for a Cold War with China. Some of them clearly still are.

As disastrous as a US attack on Iran would be, we should be glad that it's distracting the neocons away from things that would be even worse.

Posted August 4, 2008 5:11 PM by Matt Austern

Instead of civilized, I prefer Thomas Barnett's classification of Integrated Core vs Non-Integrating Gap countries (Core vs Gap)*. Under those definitions, I'd make the argument that Iran is a disconnected, non-itegrated Gap country.

P.S. Nice article in this month's NatGeo on Iran.

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*If you've never listened to it, check out his TED talk from 2005. I was totally riveted and have been keeping up with his work since then. If you don't want to listen to the talk, try his book pitch for Pentagon's New Map.

Posted August 4, 2008 5:28 PM by Lance Weber

We should be in the streets. Why are we not in the streets? Because there's no draft.

I talked about this with a friend of mine recently. Essentially, I'm not willing to have that bluff called. I'm not willing to bet my brother, my boyfriend, and my male friends on the idea that if there's a draft, people will rise up sufficiently to stop the war.

First of all, others in the thread are correct -- people were in the streets and it was ignored. I am unconvinced that even massive street riots would have the slightest effect on the Bush administration's plans. They would most likely say "Yay draft, now we can invade Iran!"

Second, even assuming that sufficiently massive protests would stop the warmongering -- how long did it take in Vietnam before public opinion actually pushed the U.S. out of the war? How many people died in the meantime because of the draft?

To me, it's the same logic as voting McCain to protest Obama being insufficiently progressive -- the idea is if you make the public SUPER unhappy by pushing things very far right, they'll break left. This works in electrophysiology and is known as an anode break. I do not think it works in politics.

Posted August 4, 2008 5:31 PM by Caroline

I seriously think that the problem is an alternate reality existing among the Washington political class. By that I mean a different consensus reality, not another dimension, but I do mean to imply a profound difference in perceptions about what is real, what is moral, what constitutes an appropriate action, what past actions of the US have been successes or failures, what capabilities the US possesses, what the American people want, and so on.

If it sounds a little implausible that a geographic region could have such a distinct view of reality, think about the obvious differences in consensus reality between, say, conservative areas of Texas and the San Francisco Bay Area. Things that are obviously true in one to the point of hardly being worth mentioning are obviously wrong in the other; you'll find dissenters in both places, but they'll be stating their case against what "everybody knows".

So, in Washington, Iraq was a serious threat to the US, and US security required some action against Iraq. This was their background understanding of the world, a bipartisan understanding, and in arguing against it you had to battle local consensus reality. This despite the fact that to most people in the rest of the country, prior to the media blitz selling the war - and I think this was true in red states just as much as blue - Iraq was just another country on the other side of the planet of no relevance at all to the US, no more likely to pose a threat than Sweden.

Unfortunately the ignorance about Iraq in general meant that when the government and media went into their full sales pitch for the war, a lot of trusting Republicans (and not a few Democrats who dismissed the possibility that their representatives and media could be lying to them) were able to be sold - for a while - on the Washington version of reality, or one small part of it. Thing is, I think a fair number of those Washington media & political types were not lying, they were just living on another planet.

The same, I think, is true of Iran today, and I think the exact same danger exists, and so despite the fact that attacking Iran seems like the height of insanity to the rest of us who know anything about it, not to mention impossible or extremely inadvisable given the military commitment in Iraq and the size & territory of Iran, not to mention completely immoral and disgusting, to those inside the Washington consensus reality Iran poses a vital threat to the US, and attacking them is an entirely plausible choice, just an alternative to diplomacy should that fail. That's their reality and that background is why McCain felt entirely comfortable singing a little song about bombing Iran: because All Sensible People know that that's something we probably Have To Do.

(Just like all sensible people know that Social Security needs to be fixed. Evidence to the contrary can't shift a consensus view held for 25 years.)

Posted August 4, 2008 5:44 PM by Jacob Davies

I'm wondering if the almost subliminal rumblings about invasion of Iran aren't some clever distraction from something else. With luck it's only the smokescreen for the retreat from the White House.

Posted August 4, 2008 5:49 PM by NelC

Well, if this bunch wants to try something, odds are it won't involve nukes.

One of those interesting little details of nuclear command and control is the two man rule. which covers everything up to and including presidential decisions. Unless there is sufficient urgency to require an emergency war order, President Bush needs SecDef Gates' explicit concurrence for the use of nuclear weapons or JCS will not accept the order, period. It's not a matter of refusing the order of a superior, it is strictly following the standing orders that have been in place since the early 1960's.

Currently Gates and the JCS Chairman appear to be some of the principal opponents to attacking Iran at this time. Also, Gates tends to be a real stickler on command and control issues. The last time somebody significantly violated nuclear custody rules was the B-52 flight from Minot to Barksdale last year. After that everybody from the team that handled the weapons at Minot up the chain to the AF Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Air Force either had their careers ruined or were fired outright. (It makes one wish for that kind of enforcement of the law of land warfare, but that is a different topic. Maybe.) That tends to send a very clear message in the military.

Now conventional weapons are a different question. News releases like this one help feed the rumors that a small number of prototype Big BLUs are ready to go.

Posted August 4, 2008 6:23 PM by Claude Muncey