Article

2006-04-10 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Spengler: Bush's October surprise - it's coming

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Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-04-10 13:30|| || Front Page|| [12 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The $64 question is will we wait for an Iranian attack? The political reality is that it is a mid-term election season, one day beyond which election Bush is seen as a lame duck.

This means that republican loyalties will wane, and the democrats will work overtime to undermine Bush, the economy, and the government as a whole--first running against Bush, until other republicans come forward to declare for President.

In turn, even with damning evidence, it will be hard to persuade Congress to once again go to war. Too many of them would want the war to be "the next President's war".

For this domestic reason, and for many international reasons, it would then be to all our advantage if Iran attacked first. An ineffectual, ill-prepared, and ultimately unsuccesful attack, done when we are fully prepared to attack ourselves.

An ideal, from our perspective, would be something like "The Ems Dispatch", which caused France, and its buffoonish leader, Napoleon III, to attack Germany in the Franco-Prussian War. Having been insulted, he ordered a small French unit to advance into Germany, with no other French Army preparations. On crossing the border, they met the fully prepared, loaded, and ready, entire German Army. The war lasted two weeks.

In our case, if we could not stimulate the Iranians to attack at a time and place of our choosing, it might well be worth our while to make it appear that they had attacked.

For example, if a Shahab-3 missile on a mobile launcher in the middle of nowhere, Iran were to launch a missile on a trajectory to a US airbase in Iraq, even though the missile detonated prematurely, it would be more than adequate causus belli.

Many nations satellites would detect the missile launch and trajectory, and Iranian denials about a "rogue" missile crew would be ignored.

Most likely something more complex could be done, but that is the basic concept.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-04-10 14:39|| 2006-04-10 14:39|| Front Page Top

#2 The Sears Roebuck chainlink and concertina wire fence contract?

Posted by Besoeker 2006-04-10 14:55|| 2006-04-10 14:55|| Front Page Top

#3 Anon, you're shalob-3 scenerio reminds me of Spies Like Us. Not that it is good or bad mind you, but would the Iranians be up on mediocre American comedies and have defenses prepared for such a thing?

Posted by rjschwarz 2006-04-10 15:24|| 2006-04-10 15:24|| Front Page Top

#4 There's a fraction of a paragraph in there that just begs for a fisking:

Americans are a misunderstood people. Only one in five owns a passport,
Mr. Spengler: get out your world atlas. Got it? Good. Now turn to the page with the U.S. national map. See that big thing the U.S. is sitting on. It's called North America. It's a continent. Continents are big, really big, vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big things. Starting in most places in the U.S., you can go as much as a couple thousand miles before you bump into another country. When you do, it'll be Canada or Mexico. Americans can enter either one for short stays without a passport.
Why do so few Americans have passports? It's not ignorance or isolationism; it's because we don't need them for daily living.
and a tiny fraction of non-immigrant Americans learns a foreign language.
Remember that big continent thingy I was telling you about? Well, nearly everyone on it speaks English. Within the U.S. itself, there are linguistic subcultures (Mexican immigrants, Chinatown, Little Italy, and so on), but you need not be bilingual to interact with them, as most people within them are at least conversationally functional in English. French-speaking Canada -- same story. Mexico -- plenty of English speakers in at least the tourist-y parts. As for the rest of the world, English is the de facto language of international commerce, so most business dealings overseas are conducted in English. While a lot of us nevertheless learn a second language in school, we tend not to need it in actual daily life; and if you don't use it, it atrophies.
US apathy regarding what might plague the rest of the world is matched only by US bloodlust when attacked. . . .
We come by our indifference honestly. Recall that the U.S. was settled largely by people who moved here to get away from the rest of the world. We also have a default live-and-let-live social philosophy which carries over into foreign policy. Oh, and we also believe in self-defense.

Posted by Mike 2006-04-10 16:20|| 2006-04-10 16:20|| Front Page Top

#5 rjschwarz: mediocre is an understatement.

However, I was remembering from Gulf War I, when one of our teams laid hands on a mobile SCUD launcher after dispatching its crew, and how similar the Iranian's use of mobile SHAHAB-3 launchers has become.

I highly doubt they would have much security either on their launcher or their missiles, and we might have as long as half a day to work our works on it, after having borrowed it from its previous owners.

The point is that there are any number of ways to demonstrate Iranian aggression, but that missiles are easy to independently verify, and thus tend to dispel doubts.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-04-10 16:35|| 2006-04-10 16:35|| Front Page Top

#6 Bravo, Mike!

Posted by Darrell 2006-04-10 17:59|| 2006-04-10 17:59|| Front Page Top

#7 Well said, Mike!

Hang 'im high!

The rest of the world needs to get over itself. We really don't give a shit about them, as long as they leave us alone.

And that just kills them.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut"> Barbara Skolaut 2006-04-10 18:43|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html] 2006-04-10 18:43|| Front Page Top

#8 Wrong, November, right after the mid-term election.

Posted by Captain America 2006-04-10 21:42|| 2006-04-10 21:42|| Front Page Top

#9 MadMoud's anti-Israel rants has already provided enuff casus belli within the context of the UN Charter, both for the imposition of UN-specific sanctions as well as demands for Iran NOT to dev any nuke weapons - the UNO only needs the consensus of the UNSC, espec the "Big Five" and Russia-China. Where 2008 is concerned, the agenda-less RINO/Repubs-for-Socialism-Communism-OWG Dems have nothin to run on against Dubya's super-successful record -as long as MadMoud copntinues to threaten Israel and America and rant about universal Islamism/Islamist OWG, any Dem or MSM criticisms of Dubya, includ but not limited to claas for investigation or impeachment, won't and hasn't worked. Prez wannabe Hillary may be about power, Communism-Socialism,and Socilaist OWG, but like Bill she is also about doing eight years of PC, Bill-style "nothing-accounts-for-something" national governance, geopolitics, and personal ease/convenience. Real world, real-time problems are STILL for the GOP, NOT wavy-gravy laissez faire = Regulation/Govt, Utopia = Totalitarianism Dialectic Policratic Democrats-Lefties whom as a class care about everyone = no one, and whom gets the blame for anything. THE RINO AGENDA-LESS DEMS NEED MADMOUD = KIMMIE = CHINA-TAIWAN, ETC CRISES; THEY NEED AMERICA TO ATTACK = AMERICA BEING ATTACKED - THE DEMS-LEFIES AND ANTI-AMER AMERICANS NEED TO JUSTIFY OWG AND SWO AT ANY PRICE, EVEN IY MEANS DIR OR INDIR COLLUDING FOR THE DEATHS OF 3000 CITIZENS ON 9-11, EVEN IFF IT MEANS INDUCING OR ENSURING THE PC DEFEAT OF THEIR OWN COUNTRY AND ARMED FORCES OVERSEAS. Iff one accepts that the Dems_Lefties intend that America in future give up or lose its sovereignty, freedoms, Govt. and endowments to OWG, be it voluntarily = by force, then one must accept that any anti-OWG, pro-anti-sovereinty,pro-USA GOP-Democrat MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO WIN IN POTUS ELEX YEAR 2008, by any means necessary, as 2015-2018 > both Russia-China agree that war against the USA and only the USA is not only possible but desired. This means that any "Manchurian Candidate" POTUS has from 2008-2016, or 2012-2020, to PC lead democratic, FASCIST =HALFCOMMIE America down the path to full-fledged anti-Amer Amer Socialism, anti-US OWG, and anti-US NWO/Soc-Commie World Order, where the extermination of 90% of the world's population + 5.8 Bilyuhn of world's 6.0+Bilyuhn + 200Milyuhn of Amer's 300Milyuhn + loss of minima 1/2 of CONUS-NORAM, etc. is good for everyone, includ the genocided/holocausted Americans, whom will hug each other and sing songs as they happily report to their local death camps!?ALa LIFE OF BRIAN, Clintonian Americans will be more than happy to be crucified as long as they are not placed next to Jews or the [non-kosher]"other Son-of-God".

Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-04-10 23:15|| 2006-04-10 23:15|| Front Page Top

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