Iranians Want War

Or so Amir Taheri would have us believe.

It must be rattle the rubes time over at the NY Post. Not that Taheri isn't given to flights of fancy, but at least a small part of being a middle east expert should mean having some expertise in the American side of things. You know, how we'd respond should the cult-killers in Iran decide they're ready to rumble.

Of course Iran thinks it could win in a confrontation with the US. Hussein thought he could too, and poor SoDam is writing his memoirs as he awaits the hangman's noose. The Iranian leadership is made up of cultists, the same mindset that follows a Charles Manson, an Ayatollah this or Ayatollah that, believers that an invisible presence will intercede should things go sour and lead the worshippers to victory. Old testament and Koranic writings are chockerblock with deities stepping in when the going got rough, and it's worse than Hussein's hope that America didn't have the military or the guts for a knockdown drag-out, these cretins think that too, but they also know that their god will help them.

Meanwhile, out military planners and strategists haven't been soaking up the latte's and letting this fall very far from their radar...RodHam hasn't been elected YET... and certainly aware all of the things that Mr. Taheri mentions have put together several strategies for smacking these cultists back to the stone age. Iran isn't a country we'd need to occupy, just neutralize, but yeah, "just" is mambly-pambly because it doesn't take into account the harm the Iranians COULD do to the flow of oil. Doesn't change the fact that there's no such thing as a secure bunker, or a place the leadership can hide if we know where they are.

But before I go through a step by step counter attack against Mr. Taheri's logistics, you should read his essay. I don't disagree that they are preparing for war. I vigorously disagree that they have any idea how to fight one. All those years slugging it out against SoDam proved that they still follow the Russian doctrine of mass enough armor, train enough zealots, and the world is yours.

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion

WHY TEHRAN HOPES FOR WAR By AMIR TAHERI

September 19, 2005 -- "INCREDIBLE though it may sound, there are signs that Tehran may be preparing for a military confrontation with the United States — and has convinced itself that it can win.

The first sign came last June, with the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the Islamic Republic, an event that completed the conquest of all levers of power by the most radical elements of the establishment.

Since then, the revolutionary factions have conducted a little-publicized purge of the military, the security apparatus, the civil service and state-owned corporations and media.

Among those replaced: the defense minister, the commander-in-chief of the regular army and his four deputies, 11 senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and five commanders of the paramilitary Mobilization of the Dispossessed — plus the intelligence and security minister and the interior minister (who controls the police and the gendarmerie). Also noteworthy is the appointment of military officers to posts normally held by civilians, such as governors, mayors and directors of major public corporations..."