I think Chegitz's post should remind us of what could be the gravest of unintended consequences. A US attack on Iran may trigger an uprising in the Arab "street," and Musharraf could be one of, if not the first to fall from his shaky perch. Then we would have country with real nukes and a real delivery system in the hands of radical Islamists. As an earlier post mentioned, the Armageddon fundamentalists running the country could see their dreams come true (except for the Jesus coming back part - why would he want any part of this world).

Just one question: where would we get the troops to attack Iran? We are attempting to occupy two hostile nations, which has stretched our military to the point that reservists and national guard units are being asked to serve in a war zone for much longer than they are optimally suited to do. Because this administration won't honestly confront the cost of anything it does, we have no way of increasing the size of our military (thank goodness) through a draft -- stop-loss will only get us so far. That leaves enough specialized combat teams and air elements, probably, to make a quick strike against Iran, but no troops for the necessary follow-up. (Not that this will give Bush & Co. even a moment's pause. "We walk by faith and not by sight." Or clue.)

Anyone who has ever played the board game Risk knows that all a weak opponent needs to do to keep a strong player from winning is to dilute the latter's strength to a sufficient point. That seems to have happened, needlessly and with tragic consequence. And this is not a game.

Lest we forget that every day there's a new breathless Cassandra exclaiming that we're going to bomb Iran 'tommorrow' and we've been hearing this for 2.5 months. First it was early March, then mid March, then positively the end of March then absolutely the first half of April and so on. Ok we get it, you're alarmed. I realize this is an uncomfortable point of view for the card carrying koolaiders to hear but there it is.

As a Democrat, I get concerned when the "Bush is a Christian fundamentalist" arguments come out while discussing Middle East. It's a short-sighted argument that has little relevance to decisions made in the Oval office. Understand this, Bush, Cheney and the crew are first and foremost politicians. After that they are businessmen. At the very bottom of the list they are public servants. In between they are fathers, brothers, Evangelical Christians, Protestants, Lutherans, sports enthusiasts, hunters and so on. I know plenty of people who have said that their faith in god guided them to make certain decisions. That does not mean they welcome the Apocalypse. Bush's references to God are nothing more than rhetoric meant to mobilize a group of voters. This is not about what he believes; it's about staying on top.

To start, I am an American, born here, and lived here my entire life. My father, however, is Iranian, and was a political organizer under Mossadegh. It gives me a unique perspective to understand this article-- in the context of the character of the Iranian people, as well as from an opposing local political viewpoint.

As the news spins up around the current government, I'm starting to hear from Joe Conason, whom I think is usually right on target, and the Left that the Iranian army is well-disciplined and trained and attacking them could lead to a rout in Iraq-- especially in the south. Equally, from the Right, we hear that the A-man is a madman, with everyone behind him, and hell-bent on nuking Israel and everyone else.

Both are B.S. Iranians have 3000 years of culture behind them showing that a.) they're lousy soldiers, and b.) while on the surface, they might be prone to florid displays of religious fervor, most have only a passing interest in martyrdom-- mostly as a spectator sport.

No one in the Iranian diaspora would argue that Ahmadenijad isn't a real kook. The prospect of him getting nuclear weapons is indeed scary.

But anyone that has any contact with Iranian culture simply can't buy into the prospect that Iranians as a whole are capable of the type of military lockstep that the author proposes, or Ahmadenijad might like. The culture doesn't work that way. Any spin to that effect IS identical to the historical steps ended us up in Iraq.

What is more likely to happen if we attack Iran is to end up in another quagmire of urban street-fighting similar to the situation in Iraq. Because U.S. battleplans inevitably call for taking out a country's civilian infrastructure (electrical, water, etc.) we'll reduce Tehran to anarchy, split between Revolutionary Guards, more secular parts of society, and our own troops. We'll drag another culture that, in time (probably a short time) would throw Ahmadenijad out, down into an abyss that will take 100 years to recover, and sow instability across the Middle East.

The problem with U.S. policy toward Iran is that if you look at our goals and our actions, we typically largely succeed. First and foremost among those goals 50 years ago was destroying the Left in Iran, and with that, we've largely succeeded. The problem is this: the only organized ones left over are the kooks. We might think about the unexpected consequences of our actions BEFORE we pursue our goals so vigorously-- we might find that when the gods want to punish us, they grant us our wishes.

Our air power would do considerable damage, but the Iranian troops would not be there to seriously fight, they would be there to cut our supply lines. The Air Force can destroy things on the ground, but it can’t hold ground. In fact, with Iranians deployed along the roads, B-52 strikes would actually do their work for them. Our air force would actually be knocking out our army’s supply lines. If they occupy the port of Umm Qasr, bombing would destroy the facilities we have rebuilt (a quick seizure of the city would probably also hand Iranians warehouses full of provisions intended for our troops). Our air force would augment the work of their sappers.

The Iranians would be using their army the way we used our Air Force in World War II in France in the pre-Normandy Transportation Plan campaign. Bombers from England worked over the French railroad system to make it almost virtually impossible for the Germans to move troops or supplies into the Normandy area.

To cut our supply lines, they don’t have to be in huge, easily attacked formations. Lawrence of Arabia never had a big army, but he cut the Turkish communications throughout the area. In fact, since their objective is to destroy our communications, they’d want to deploy over dozens of miles of highways. You find all the bull dozers you can and start tearing up the roads, blowing up the overpasses, tearing up railroad tracks. The Iranians would quickly turn the British out of Basra, forcing them to hightail it into Kuwait. They would then march in, fortify the city and make it the cork in the bottleneck of their blockade. Once in the city, our air forces would find them hard to find and/or attack without killing thousands of Iraqis. The Iranians would only have form up in battle order to meet a counterattack, but with main our forces 300 miles away, they have many days to tear up the roads before they’d have to worry about a counter-attack.

Also, the Iranians would not wait to be beaten. They would react immediately upon the initiation of air strikes in Iran, not after being battered for over a decade by our air force (like the Iraqis in 2003) and not hunkered down for a six week bombing campaign to soften them up (1991). So they would start with their army almost completely intact and most of their air force and Navy as well.

The United States has far fewer planes than were used to reduce the Iraqis in the first Gulf War – there were about 1,600 combat planes from multiple nations. The in-theater total today, I believe, is about one third of that. Our ability to use bases in Arab countries for this campaign may be limited. B-2s may be able to attack from bases in the United States, but they can’t make many sorties. Put it this way, in less than the time it takes to make a single B-2 sortie to hit a reactor in Iran, Iranians troops can arrive in force between Basra and Umm Qasr and cut our supply lines.

Also, standard air force doctrine is counter-air first. Against a country with a sizable air force, most of the sorties in the initial stages of conflict would be directed at Iranian airfields, and patrols would be established to intercept Iranian planes that do get into in the air. Depending on how effective the Iranian air defenses are, this could take days or even weeks. Again, cutting the road from Kuwait could be done in hours.

With a Shia rebellion in full cry, our army would have a difficult time coming south from the Baghdad area to counterattack. And the Air Force can’t protect them from IEDs. With fresh equipment, we moved right across the desert in 2003; with the worn-out equipment we have now, we’ll be lucky to make it in force along 300 miles of roads. Worn our equipment will make our army even more road-bound than before. Our enemies will know we’re coming, and which way. It’s a long march through hostile country – especially on short rations.