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Arkin: War Plans for Iran

by BooMan
Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 09:56:09 AM EST

William Arkin of the Washington Post has the best sources within the Pentagon. While everyone else is talking about the revolt of the Generals, Arkin is talking about the war plan for Iran.

In early 2003, even as U.S. forces were on the brink of war with Iraq, the Army had already begun conducting an analysis for a full-scale war with Iran. The analysis, called TIRANNT, for "theater Iran near term," was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasion and a simulation of the Iranian missile force. U.S. and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for "major combat operations" against Iran that military sources confirm now exists in draft form.

TIRRANT is a clever name, don't you think? Below the fold, Arkin describes the planning and editorializes a bit.

TIRRANT Iran Pentagon

Arkin is letting us know that war with Iran is likely. And far from trying to dissuade the military from taking such risky action, Arkin seems intent on reassuring us that such a war can be managed.

Iran needs to know -- and even more important, the American public needs to know -- that no matter how many experts talk about difficult-to-find targets or the catastrophe that could unfold if war comes, military planners are already working hard to minimize the risks of any military operation. This is the very essence of contingency planning.

Even though we might think an attack on Iran is insane, Arkin thinks it can be done effectively.

Contingency planning for a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack, let alone full-fledged war, against Iran may seem incredible right now. But in the secretive world of military commands and war planners, it is an everyday and unfortunate reality. Iran needs to understand that the United States isn't hamstrung by a lack of options. It needs to realize that it can't just stonewall and evade its international obligations, that it can't burrow further underground in hopes that it will "win" merely because war is messy.

As Arkin reflects back on his career reporting on the Pentagon, his biggest regret is that he didn't report more of the Iraq war plan. Now he hopes to start an open debate about the planning for war in Iran.

I've been tracking U.S. war planning, maintaining friends and contacts in that closed world, for more than 20 years. My one regret in writing about this secret subject, especially because the government always claims that revealing anything could harm U.S. forces, is not delving deeply enough into the details of the war plan for Iraq. Now, with Iran, it's once again difficult but essential to piece together the facts.

And, how would we justify an attack on Iran? Arkin has an answer for that too.

It is specifically a response to that country's illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons, its meddling in Iraq and its support for international terrorism.
Iran needs to know that the administration is dead serious.

And then there is the kicker.

...we all need to know that even absent an Iranian nuke or an Iranian attack of any kind, there is still another catastrophic scenario that could lead to war.
In a world of ready war plans and post-9/11 jitters, there is an ever greater demand for intelligence on the enemy. That means ever greater risks taken in collecting that intelligence. Meanwhile, war plans demand that forces be ready in certain places and on alert, while the potential for WMD necessitates shorter and shorter lead times for strikes against an enemy. So the greater danger now is of an inadvertent conflict, caused by something like the shooting down of a U.S. spy plane, by the capturing of a Special Operations or CIA team, or by nervous U.S. and Iranian forces coming into contact and starting to shoot at one another.
The war planning process is hardly neutral. It has subtle effects. As militaries stage mock attacks, potential adversaries become presumed enemies. Over time, contingency planning transforms yesterday's question marks into today's seeming certainty.

So, there we have it. Virtually anything can trigger war with Iran. The war will be justified by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, their meddling in Iraq, and their connections to international terrorism. And the administration is 'dead serious'.

Despite Arkin's heavy lifting here, it appears that the Generals are not enamored with the idea of attacking Iran. I'm not enamored with the idea either.

Arkin: War Plans for Iran | 12 comments (12 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Few favor the path of lunacy (4.00 / 2)

The stark raving legacy of our neoconserative-impaled nation is one that I hope is limited to the damage already done, instead of encompassing the promise of exponentially worse notoriety -- not to mention chaos, death, and destruction -- that following such an Iran Plan is sure to bring.

Never, never brave me, nor my fury tempt:
Downey wings, but wroth they beat
Tempest even in reason's seat.

by GreyHawk on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 10:09:30 AM EST

Re: Arkin: War Plans for Iran (4.00 / 2)

If that precipitating event doesn't happen, it can always be, umm, < whispering > staged.

And let's not forget the bonus benefit here:

Raw Story Link

Cheney's Halliburton stock options rose 3,281% last year, senator finds
An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in the last year, RAW STORY can reveal.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.

Oh, there you are, Perry. -Phineas -SLB-

by boran2 (blogistan@yahoo.com) on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 10:11:47 AM EST

Re: Arkin: War Plans for Iran (4.00 / 2)

This analysis here is pretty detailed as to the likely repercussions on the ground if BushCo attacks Iran. From Pat Lang's website,

This animation about a nuke attack on Iran also poijnts quite clearly to theinsanity of such a move. (I forget where I found this link but it was on one of our most friendly blogs and I'm sorry I can't acknowledge them by name due to bad memory.)

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.

by sbj on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 10:23:00 AM EST

Re: Arkin: War Plans for Iran (none / 1)

Found the animation here at C&L.

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.

by sbj on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 10:27:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Arkin: War Plans for Iran (4.00 / 2)

Not milarky at all. The administration is dead serious and will inflict more death.

Guardian, UK reveals even as Straw claims that talk of an Iran attack is "nuts" "Britain took part in mock Iran invasion." 'Pentagon planned for Tehran conflict with war game involving UK troops'

British officers took part in a US war game aimed at preparing for a possible invasion of Iran, despite repeated claims by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, that a military strike against Iran is inconceivable.
The war game, codenamed Hotspur 2004, took place at the US base of Fort Belvoir in Virginia in July 2004.[..]
[emphasis mine]

So today's Scotsman piece: "Blair refuses to back Iran strike" should be viewed with a pair of Iraq contact lenses.

Super double liars. So tread carefully. Ignore the denials. Deja vu

The Sunday Times, UK has it,

'Iran has 40,000 trained suicide bombers ready to hit Britain'

Reminder: The London Times is a Murdock property, could be part of the shilling. The heightened sabre rattling on both sides, may lead to events irretrievable out of control.

From Sunday Times, UK
According to Iranian officials, 40,000 trained suicide bombers are ready for action.
The main force, named the Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the Revolutionary Guards, was first seen last month when members marched in a military parade, dressed in olive-green uniforms with explosive packs around their waists and detonators held high. [..]
In a tape recording heard by The Sunday Times, Abbasi warned the would-be martyrs to "pay close attention to wily England" and vowed that "Britain's demise is on our agenda". At a recruiting station in Tehran recently, volunteers for the force had to show their birth certificates, give proof of their address and tick a box stating whether they would prefer to attack American targets in Iraq or Israeli targets.
According to western intelligence documents leaked to The Sunday Times, the Revolutionary Guards are in charge of a secret nuclear weapons programme designed to evade the scrutiny of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
One of the leaked reports, dating from February this year, confirms that President George W Bush is preparing to strike Iran. "If the problem is not resolved in some way, he intends to act before leaving office because it would be `unfair' to leave the task of destroying Iran's nuclear facilities to a new president," the document says. [..]

Well Powell told us Saddam had WMDs, solid evidence, the intel was supported by a decade of solid proof. With Iran, thanks to the Plame affair, we're intelligence-blind.

Now Iraq is a failure, close to large-scale civil war. Let's move on to Iran.
I hope for a 'first time in American history' that the Generals will indeed revolt in the true military sense. Imho, these are the only people who may be able to stop this Insanity

Well, "You can't vote for war and disown the results"

by idredit on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 11:24:19 AM EST

Re: Arkin: War Plans for Iran (none / 1)

I have been keeping up with Arkins info over on war and piece. Interesting to say the least. Can I pimp Hawk's and my diaries on this one please. We have had an honest and hardy discussion already over coffee...hugs and keep up the good works by all. Please chek out the side bar, if y ou will.

by BrendaStewart (stormyweather1@hotmail.com) on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 10:45:10 AM EST

Re: Arkin: War Plans for Iran (none / 0)

Pimp away.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward. Franklin D. Roosevelt

by Steven D on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 10:50:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Wonder if they wargamed the mining (none / 0)

of the straits of hormuz through which a significant quantity of the worlds oil move. Hmmm just thinking of the damage 2 ill placed Iraqi mines causd to US surface vessels in gulf war one. Now how about a strait riddled with mines?

by observer393 on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 01:31:26 PM EST

Re: Arkin: War Plans for Iran (none / 1)

Dianne Feinstein has written a surprisingly strong op ed piece in the LA Times:

No one concerned about U.S. national security wants Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons capability. It would be a destabilizing force in the Middle East and throughout the world. That's exactly why we need strong American leadership, working toward a verifiable diplomatic solution.
Instead, the administration reportedly is intent upon relying on the failed doctrine of preemption and new Pentagon planning that stokes the prospect of military conflict. If this is true, Americans ought to be deeply concerned....
...Just a few weeks ago, the doctrine was reiterated in the latest National Security Strategy. According to this document, the U.S. may use force before it is attacked because the nation cannot afford to "stand idly by as grave dangers materialize." Yet it is the doctrine itself that is dangerous.
First, it demands that our intelligence be right - every time. This is difficult, if not impossible, in the shadowy world of terrorism and WMD. As we've seen in Iraq, intelligence not only can be wrong, it can be manipulated. Our nation's credibility and stature have taken a huge hit as a result, and the U.S. is in no position to garner support in the international community for military confrontation based on preemption.
Second, the doctrine of preemption may lead to a less stable world in general - especially if our adversaries believe they are safe from preemptive action only if they possess nuclear weapons. Iran has no doubt noted the difference in our dealings with North Korea, which possesses nuclear weapons, and Iraq, which the administration believed was still developing them. So the administration may have encouraged the very proliferation it is seeking to prevent.
Third, an overreliance on preemption can lead to the downplaying of diplomacy. By the administration's own account, Iran is years away from possessing nuclear weapons; there is time to engage in forceful diplomatic action.

I was especially glad that she brought up the use of nukes and strongly condemned it:

There are some in this administration who have been pushing to make nuclear weapons more "usable." They see nuclear weapons as an extension of conventional weapons. This is pure folly.
As a matter of physics, there is no missile casing sufficiently strong to thrust deep enough into concrete or granite to prevent the spewing of radiation. Nuclear "bunker busters" would kill tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people across the Middle East.
This would be a disastrous tragedy. First use of nuclear weapons by the United States should be unthinkable. A preemptive nuclear attack violates a central tenet of the "just war" and U.S. military traditions.

It gives me some hope that a fairly conservative Democrat is speaking out on this and in such forceful terms.

"History is ruthless, and will never flatter anybody." Zhou Enlai

by Other Lisa (redandexpert at that mega-ISP called yahoo.) on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 03:57:16 PM EST

& Kucinich & Clarke! + exile groups (none / 0)

I was pleasantly suprised by that as well. There were a few phrases in it that still pissed me off, but given the seriousness of the situation, they're not worth mentioning.

It's pretty clear from various reports that we're already engaged in covert hostilities, and as Booman points out, most anything -- real or staged -- can be seized as causus belli.

Kucinich spoke out Friday with a strongly worded letter to Bush:

Dear President Bush:
Recently, it has been reported that U.S. troops are conducting military operations in Iran. If true, it appears that you have already made the decision to commit U.S. military forces to a unilateral conflict with Iran, even before direct or indirect negotiations with the government of Iran had been attempted, without UN support and without authorization from the U.S. Congress.
The presence of U.S. troops in Iran constitutes a hostile act against that country. At a time when diplomacy is urgently needed, it escalates an international crisis. It undermines any attempt to negotiate with the government of Iran. And it will undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts at the U.N.
Furthermore, it places U.S. troops occupying neighboring Iraq in greater danger. The achievement of stability and a transition to Iraqi security control will be compromised, reversing any progress that has been cited by the Administration.
It would be hard to believe that such an imprudent decision had been taken, but for the number and variety of sources confirming it. In the last week, the national media have reported that you have in fact commenced a military operation in Iran. Today, retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner related on CNN that the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA, Aliasghar Soltaniyeh, reported to him that the Iranians have captured dissident forces who have confessed to working with U.S. troops in Iran. Earlier in the week, Seymour Hersh reported that a U.S. source had told him that U.S. marines were operating in the Baluchi, Azeri and Kurdish regions of Iran.
Any military deployment to Iran would constitute an urgent matter of national significance. I urge you to report immediately to Congress on all activities involving American forces in Iran. I look forward to a prompt response.

There's also an editorial in today's NYT by Richard Clarke and Steven Simon that strongly argues against military action, closing with:

These contingencies seem familiar to us because we faced a similar situation as National Security Council staff members in the mid-1990's. American frustrations with Iran were growing, and in early 1996 the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, publicly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government. He and the C.I.A. put together an $18 million package to undertake it.
The Iranian legislature responded with a $20 million initiative for its intelligence organizations to counter American influence in the region. Iranian agents began casing American embassies and other targets around the world. In June 1996, the Qods Force, the covert-action arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, arranged the bombing of an apartment building used by our Air Force in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans.
At that point, the Clinton administration and the Pentagon considered a bombing campaign. But after long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favorably for the United States.
While the full scope of what America did do remains classified, published reports suggest that the United States responded with a chilling threat to the Tehran government and conducted a global operation that immobilized Iran's intelligence service. Iranian terrorism against the United States ceased.
In essence, both sides looked down the road of conflict and chose to avoid further hostilities. And then the election of the reformist Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran in 1997 gave Washington and Tehran the cover they needed to walk back from the precipice. [snip]
So how would bombing Iran serve American interests? In over a decade of looking at the question, no one has ever been able to provide a persuasive answer. The president assures us he will seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis. And there is a role for threats of force to back up diplomacy and help concentrate the minds of our allies. But the current level of activity in the Pentagon suggests more than just standard contingency planning or tactical saber-rattling.
The parallels to the run-up to to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.

Lastly, there was an article in the New Yorker (Mar 6, 2006), "Exiles: How Iran's Expatriates are Gaming the Nuclear Threat" by Connie Bruck that deserves greater attention. She gives an account with great background material on the current activities of the Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, the people & politics of the MEK terrorist group that we're currently running from Iraq into Iran, and a glimpse into the administration's inner deliberations on Iran policy for the past 6 years in pursuit on regime change (which again is the #1 priority, not nukes). A diary could easily be constructed out this article alone.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 06:43:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Arkin: War Plans for Iran (none / 0)

Thanks for this. I'm happy to say that I wrote to Senator Feinstein on this issue a week ago. She has been one of the few voices in the Senate warning about the Bushite nuclear weapons program and its blatant violations of the nuclear proliferations treaties and related international agreements.

"The end of all intelligent analysis is to clear the way for synthesis." H.G. Wells "It's not dark yet, but it's getting there." Bob Dylan

by Captain Future (captainfuture is at sbcglobal.net) on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 06:47:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Arkin: War Plans for Iran (none / 0)

A comment on the main post: while the 6 retired generals now calling for Rumsfeld's resignation are winning admiration from progressives, let's not forget that generals are in the business of making war, not in deciding whether war should be waged.The activity of planning death and destruction as in this planning to hit Iran is also what they do, and often, they become advocates for it.

Some of what those generals are saying is valuable, but they are looking at it from a military point of view. The military still needs strong civilian control. Just different civilians.

"The end of all intelligent analysis is to clear the way for synthesis." H.G. Wells "It's not dark yet, but it's getting there." Bob Dylan

by Captain Future (captainfuture is at sbcglobal.net) on Sun Apr 16th, 2006 at 06:58:21 PM EST

Arkin: War Plans for Iran | 12 comments (12 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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