No war with Iran

Here's a link to the piece I did last week for the Register on the prospects for war with Iran, or even a bombing campaign. I noted that in thinking about a military invasion, one needs to consider that Iran has about four times the area and about three times the population of Iraq, and a larger and better-trained military. As for bombing, the nuclear sites have been buried, many of them, so deep even a "bunker-buster" small nuke might not reach them, and ourintelligence on Iran is even less reliable than our prewar intelligence on Iraq was. So we're bound to miss some sites and merely bombing would only be a setback to Iran's nuclear program, not a guarantee that they would never get there. In addition, Iran has ample resources to make things a lot toughr for U.S. troops in Iraq than it has already, and could also pump up Hezbollah and Hamas to make life really difficult for the Israelis.

We're seeing an increase in U.S. officials blaming Iran for how difficult things have been in Iraq. I hope this is a prelude to reducing our commitment or explaining our failures rather than the beginning of a drumbeat for war with Iran. Plenty of people suspect the latter, but I still hope the military can talk the Bushies who have never been in a war out of it.

Could Americans be manipulated into tolerating or even demanding a war with Iran? Based on the phone calls I got in response to this article, I'm afraid it's possible. I talked to one guy who is utterly eager to get this war with Iran on.

Americans are funny. We have the biggest, baddest military the world has even seen and the healthiest economy in the world, yet they see existential threats in any pipsqueak country with a noisy dictator -- and think it can be handled with enough bombs and rockets. Not all Americans, of course, but more than makes me comfortable.