Thinking through war with Iran

As hard as it is to think about it, we've been here before. And we're seeing another build-up to a "war of choice", i.e., a preventive war, an illegal war, an unnecessary war.

Sam Gardiner of the Century Foundation ran a war game scenario for an Iran War in 2004. His bottom line in The End of the "Summer of Diplomacy": Assessing U.S. Military Options on Iran Summer 2006:

When I finished the 2004 Iran war game exercise, I summarized what I had learned in the process. After all the effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers: "You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. You have to make diplomacy work." I have not changed my mind. That conclusion made sense then. It still makes sense today.

He suggests things for which we can look in a build-up to war:

The preparations will be much less visible than the movements to the region in early 2003. We will not read about discussions with Turkey for basing permission. It will not be a major CNN event.

Instead, preparations will involve the quiet deployment of Air Force tankers to staging bases. We will see additional Navy assets moved to the region. The more significant indications will come from strategic influence efforts to establish domestic political support. The round of presidential speeches on terrorism is a beginning, but I expect more. An emerging theme for the final marketing push seems to be that Iran threatens Israel's existence. We can expect the number of administration references to Iran to significantly increase, and will see three themes—the nuclear program, terrorism, and the threat to Israel's existence.

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