The October Surprise? by William Lind

[Domitan]

http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=2961

However, there is a potential situation that could lead to Iranian intervention: if it were in response to an American-Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Such an attack may very well be on the agenda as the "October Surprise," the distraction George Bush desperately needs if the debacle in Iraq is not to lead to his defeat in November.

There is little doubt that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, one that is operating under forced draft to produce a nuclear deterrent as quickly as possible. Iran, along with everyone else in the world, knows that the best way to be safe from an American attack is to have nukes. Even the most howling neocons show little appetite for a war with North Korea.

A far better response lies right next door: attack the Americans in Iraq. America has about 130,000 troops in Iraq, a formidable army by local standards. But their disposition makes them vulnerable. Confronted by a guerilla war, they are spread out in penny packets all over the country. If Iran could mass quickly and use effective camouflage and deception to conceal at least the scope of its concentration, then suddenly attack into Iraq with two or three corps, we could face a perilous situation. Iranian success would depend heavily on how Iraqis reacted, but if Iran called its action "Operation Iraqi Freedom," promised immediate withdrawal once the hated Americans were beaten and waved the Koran at Iraqi Shi'ites, it might win the cooperation of Iraq's resistance movement. That would make American efforts to concentrate all the more difficult as convoys would come under constant attack. Logistics would quickly become a nightmare.

Such an action would be perilous for Iran as well. The danger with threatening a nuclear power with conventional defeat is that it may go nuclear. America might choose to do that through its Israeli surrogate or, on the theory that the bigger the crisis the stronger the "rally around the President" syndrome, directly. Either way, Iran would have no effective response.

Chilling!

[gandalf]

1. thanks for the text. but

if you print all in bold, the bold font loses its capability to highlight the important things.

[Domitan]

2. Thanks for the tip

Hope this helps.

[dand]

3. Scary scenario, and conceivable,

this gang of thugs are becoming more and more erratic. War criminals running the USA and Israel have the whole civilized world on edge.

[Vitruvius]

13. And if Israel or the US bombs a working Iranian reactor, the fallout would

be comparable to or greater than the fallout from a nuclear bomb. Thus, such an attack would in fact be nuclear strike on Iran and would morally justify any retaliation whatsoever -- including a retaliatory nuclear strike. Now or at any time in the future.

[bemildred]

4. I usually like Mr. Lind.

Here I think he trips just a bit. Why would the Ayatollahs
mass troops? Just send them in in small teams, say 500K or
so of them, with plenty of supplies and instructions to help
the resistance. He is correct that attacking Uncle Sugar at
his new convenient location next door in Iraq is far and away
the best way to attack Israel. But the whole idea of guerilla
war is to NOT provide any big fat targets for your enemy.

The whole problem with nukes is you need a big target. Nuking
a house just looks silly and violent, not to say leaving a big,
permanent mess that everybody has to walk around while thinking
what an ass you were for millenia.

[teryang]

6. Good points

I don't think Iran needs to do much to screw us up big time time in Iraq and the approach you describe is probably the most cost effective.

On the other hand, the provocation of having Israel attack Iran is really the focus of the political ploy. Such a move could begin an interregnum of permanent no fly areas in Iran and various embargoes enforced by our government designed to cripple and fragment the country politically and economically.

[bemildred]

7. I see the logic, like its "Iraq II", same scenario.

But will it work? How much time will it buy? Iran won't just sit
there like Iraq did IMHO, and Iran is a more formidable opponent
that Saddam ever was, and there are a whole bunch of other players
at this point who have observed our weaknesses.

I'm wondering how much Iran is meddling in Iraq already.

[teryang]

8. I think its a stupid move

...but that's what drives this government. Each outrageous and destructive move is followed by another even more outrageous. It's a method of keeping domestic opponents constantly off balance.

I guess the theory is now, that the supercapitalists who "allowed" them to come into power to advance their domestic agenda, will now, repelled by their excesses, reel them in to replace them with the velvet glove, in John Kerry. This remains to be seen. Will the gentile mega rich who make Cheney and his brood look like parvenu lieutenants, really be able to reign them in?

The Pentagon/intelligence milieu has created an army of domestic apparachiki who are on the march. Dim witted veteran police, "investigators," "security experts," and myopic "intelligence analysts" are now paid more than lawyers and as much as doctors to do what exactly? These people have been hired by the hundreds weekly for three years now.

[bemildred]

9. Who can say?

I expect the death spiral to continue until all these
fuckers are thrown out. Kerrey is just going to try to fix
things, no substantial reform, just patch patch patch.
Meanwhile it's a mugs game to try to guess what exact
boneheaded "strategy" will be tried next. The one sure thing
is that the fecal touch of the DC imbeciles will remain intact,
everything will keep turning to shit.

We should go sign up to do "intelligence analysis", I can make
up bullshit as good as anyone ...

TERRORISTS ARE PLANNING TO ATTACK AMERICA SOON!!!

[teryang]

10. The odd thing is

...that I know a little about analysis yet when I read these job descriptions now posted by the hundreds on federal and defense contractor web sites, I can't figure out what the F they're talking about. It's a bunch of arcane, insider lingo, gobbly gook, that virtually guarantees the person hired is buried in arcane meaningless bulls**t.

Only one out of a hundred of these jobs says "fluency in Mandarin Chinese required" or some other relevant criterion.

[bemildred]

11. Gotta up the body count.

That is how the Contractor makes money, cost plus overhead, G&A
and "profit" for every single "analyst". Saw plenty of that doing
software for the Army when times were flush. They are making hay
while they can, and they could give a shit less what you actually
get done, in fact it's better if you don't do any actual work, you
might cause a disturbance in the force if you actually did something.

[Cory]

5. Lind is great

He works for Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation and it shows that he and his group have their heads on straight when it comes to Bush.

[Vitruvius]

12. If Iran retaliated with a successful attack on US forces in Iraq, they'd

surely disperse US POWS all around Iran to block US nuclear retaliation; e.g. the Bu$h gang could not nuke Tehran without nuking US POWs.