Is Iran Next?
Posted on February 12, 2006
Via Britain’s Sunday Telegraph
Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran’s nuclear sites as a “last resort” to block Teheran’s efforts to develop an atomic bomb.Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic’s nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.
“This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment,” said a senior Pentagon adviser. “This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months.”
The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran’s nuclear programme. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran’s secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.
The Bush administration has recently announced plans to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armoury of its nuclear Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they would also form part of the plan of attack.
Here is a little roundup of blog reactions.
Israel will not sit still for another Holocaust, and neither will we. The Iranian mullahs do not understand that in attempting to obtain nuclear weapons, they are committing national suicide. An Iranian nuclear device means, in the by and by, the utter destruction not just of Iran’s mulla-cracy, but of the nation of Iran as an entity. Our probable military action to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions is actually in the service of the Iranian people, as well as in our own and our allies service. Hopefully, cooler heads in Iran will come to understand this, and we won’t be put to the test.
Next cup, is for the dangerous game of chicken we have been forced into, to head off the psychotic nuclear maniac in charge of Iran. One prescient piece of advice for the West…don’t play chicken with someone who’s not afraid to die.
Look if the information has indeed been ‘leaked’ about the Special Forces missions, it is by choice of the Administration. Not a bad thing in view of the fact that we need to show that we are serious, and that The President will not allow Iran to go nuclear.
I said it a while ago that we would not allow Iran to have access to nuclear WMD and the ability to distribute it to terrorists. Their bluff will be called by this summer. And Republicans will probably pay a price at the polls for it. But you do what you have to do.
Berman also reminds us that in his manifesto, “Islamic Government,” Khomeini outlined what would be come the guiding philosophy of the Iranian mullahs’ regime:
To create a victorious and triumphant Islamic political revolution . . . to unite the Moslem nation, [and] to liberate [all] its lands.
That goal is very similar to bin Laden’s goal of causing a conflagration, a war between the Islamic world and the infidels. This is one more reason why a way must be found to prevent the Iranian mullocracy from obtaining nuclear arms.
My thoughts: The President of Iran is insane, and thinks he is ushering in the Apocolypse. He will never listen to reason. Pamela @ Atlass Shrugs says it in the simpliest terms, and sums up my feelings.
Hey guys, just do it already!
I’m not sure why the Pentagon would choose the Telegraph to get the word out, but it sounds as though the administration wants the Mullahs to think it’s serious about launching an attack. The Telegraph portrays President Bush as reluctant to leave Iran to his successor:
Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, has made the same case [against allowing Iran to become a nucleare power] and Mr Bush is expected to be faced by the decision within two years.
By then, Iran will be close to acquiring the knowledge to make an atomic bomb, although the construction will take longer. The President will not want to be seen as leaving the White House having allowed Iran’s ayatollahs to go atomic.My guess is that the last thing Bush has any appetite for is another military conflict in the Middle East. Just don’t tell the Iranians that.
While PA Pundits are somewhat reluctant, saying: While our Millitary is doing a great job; I have reservation about starting another front. I agree that Iran is the biggest threat at the moment, but Venezuela, being on our hemispehere, deserves some serious looking at as well. Just remember that Venezuela owns Citgo when you fill up your gas tank…
I will definitely remember not to fill up at Citgo, and I agree that Venezuela needs to be looked at. As the madman in Iran prepares to bring about the holocaust, don’t forget that he will be gathering all the American hating allies he can. Caution is always wise, and perhaps, as Barcepundit thinks, this is a calculated leak to serve as a warning, I am more in agreement with LomaAlta who leaves this in my comments.
Yes, I believe war with Iran is inevitable. We tried it Jimmy Carter’s way in 1979 and Khomeini showed the nature of radical Islam and the future of Iran by invading our embassy and holding our citizens hostage.
Now, one of the “students” from that incident is president of Iran, and like Hitler is announcing his plans. History has taught us two things: First, madmen usually try to follow up on their threats. And, it is easier to stop them earlier rather than later.
With history as our guide, the civilized West can stop Iran now with a few hundred to a few thousand deaths or face a nuclear showdown later with hundreds of thousands to millions of deaths.
No sane person wants war, but if war must come, we should try to win it this time as we did in WWII–destruction of the enemy’s capacity to resist and unconditional surrender. As distressing as it is, I believe lesser measures will ultimately result in more deaths and destruction.
Diplomacy is always the first, and preferred method to resolving International conflicts, but only to the point of common sense. I’m not saying that it is time to stop diplomacy right this very second, but I will predict that it will eventually be shown to fail in this situation. You can not reason with madmen.
Woman Honor Thyself has A Quickie Nuke Lesson
The Emperor Misha weighs in..
Junkyard Blog
This leak isn’t like the NSA leak, which has done a great deal of damage to the war effort. It’s a planned leak to serve a purpose. Think about it. It has all the elements of a move designed to make Iran think twice about the course it’s on—unstoppable missiles from hidden submarines (we can hit you easly but you’ll have to work harder to hit us), the superiority of the US intel satellite constellation versus the ones Iran doesn’t have, and all being headed by the Great Satan’s Head Henchman, Donald Rumsfeld himself. That guy scares everybody.
Iran has been crowding the plate a lot lately, apparently playing a background role in the Comic Jihad, trotting out that hardline president of theirs to declare that Israel “will be removed” from the Middle East, and popping the seals on its nuclear processing plants. Iran is trying to get into our heads, and if the media’s and many governments’ reactions are any guide, Iran is in the Western head in the worst way. Iran is acting like a bully and, so far, that’s been an effective strategy. It is operating under the premise that it’s better to be feared than loved, which in geopolitics is entirely right in most circumstances. What is the US to do?
Brush them back off the plate with a wicked inside fastball. The threat of a Tomahawk missile pounding is that brushback pitch. Perhaps being reminded that even with its forces tied down in nearby Iraq, the US has an entire dimension of warfare available to it that Iran just can’t counter will be enough to make the mullahs think a little harder, sweat a little more. I doubt it, but it’s worth a try.
All of that aside, will that bring us closer to our goal of democracy throughout Southwest Asia? It’s doubtful. Iran has a large population that wants closer ties to America and more openness and freedom in Iran. They do not want America to invade Iran to bring it to them, but they want the support and assistance needed to overthrow the mullahcracy. Bombing their nation will do more to inflame anti-American sentiment than to bolster the democrats. I’m afraid, and we may lose a golden opportunity to inspire yet another velvet revolution.
The bombing plans may serve to push the Iranian democrats into action; if so, then they will have served their best purpose. The US may be signalling the activists that the time has come to rise up and topple the regime — and if they can’t, we will take the steps necessary to ensure that the mullahs’ evil remains within Iranian borders from now on.
As our good friend Michael Ledeen often pleads …. faster, please.
Also see: Regime Change Iran
In The Bullpen
Publius Rendevous linked with Fate
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27 Responses to “Is Iran Next?”
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Yes, I believe war with Iran is inevitable. We tried it Jimmy Carter’s way in 1979 and Khomeini showed the nature of radical Islam and the future of Iran by invading our embassy and holding our citizens hostage.
Now, one of the “students” from that incident is president of Iran, and like Hitler is announcing his plans. History has taught us two things: First, madmen usually try to follow up on their threats. And, it is easier to stop them earlier rather than later.
With history as our guide, the civilized West can stop Iran now with a few hundred to a few thousand deaths or face a nuclear showdown later with hundreds of thousands to millions of deaths.
No sane person wants war, but if war must come, we should try to win it this time as we did in WWII–destruction of the enemy’s capacity to resist and unconditional surrender. As distressing as it is, I believe lesser measures will ultimately result in more deaths and destruction.
It is imperative that we do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. Not only would they use it to black mail us or outright attack us, they would most certainly use them against Israel, and they could quite conceivably place such weapons in the hands of al Qaeda terrorists. And we all know what ramifications that would cause. 9/11 would look tame by comparison.
Some might say we need to cool down and try more negotiations, but I believe this is fool’s speech.
If we were to do that, they would stall us with dialouge until they were armed, and then inform us that dialouge was over and irrelevant since they now armed via a horrendous demonstration of some kind.
As I see it the time for talk is over. We can’t afford to waste any more time.
OK, let’s at least think this process through this time, unlike what we did in Iraq, where we charged in without adequate planning for what would happen afterwards.
Let’s say we really pound Iran. We let go with cruise missiles, airstrikes, the entire firepower of our forces. We blow up all their military resources, their nuclear facilities, bridges, everything of any value.
What next? Do we invade? If we don’t invade, then all we have accomplished is to make them REALLY made and absolutely determined to hit back in any way they can. They’ll end up being a gigantic version of Afghanistan under the Taliban, except that Afghanistan under the Taliban had about 30 million people and a GDP of $20 billion, whereas Iran has 70 million people and a GDP of $137 billion. In other words, Iran has more than twice as many people as Afghanistan and 7 times the wealth — which means they could make a lot more trouble for us.
OK, so we can’t afford to just bomb them — we’d have to invade. How are we to do that? Our Army is stretched to the breaking point in Afghanistan and Iraq. We just don’t have any troops to spare. Generals are complaining that they need more troops on the ground in Iraq. And yet Iraq’s population is only 26 million. If we’re having a difficult time keeping 26 million people under control, how are we going to keep 70 million additional people under control?
No matter how you look at this, at attack on Iran is militarily not feasible.
In the first place, I agree with you that an all out attack on Iran may not feasible, but I doubt very seriously that would be the strategy that the Pentagon would employ.
I think the targets of opportunity would be any nuclear facilities. I don’t think we would attack all of their military targets.
This would leave them defensless to the countries around them. And that would be a dangerous mess.
I don’t believe that it is in our country’s policy to do such a thing. I’m willing to bet that taking out their ability to manufacture nuclear weapons is.
Mini nukes seem to be the popular method. They are nukes that explode underground, and minimize civilian casualities. We will not go to war with Iran unless we have plenty of allies to back us up. You can bet that Israel will be one of them.
OK, if we take the surgical strike method, there remain two questions:
1. Are we certain that we can take out their nuclear capabilities with a continuing program of airstrikes? In effect, we are declaring war on Iran and simply choosing not to invade. So, can we sustain a war for an indefinite period of time and guarantee that we eliminate their ability to strike back? This includes not just nuclear weapons but any kind of WMD. Are we confident that they would not be able to develop and deploy biological or chemical weapons against our civilian population?
2. Are we willing to accept the American civilian casualties that will ensue from such an attack? It will surely motivate even more young Islamic hotheads to volunteer for suicide missions. They really don’t need much to pull it off, even without any WMD. If they could bleed a dozen people over the Mexican border every month, equip them with automatic weapons readily available at any gun show (possibly through a local contact), and then start shooting up shopping malls or church congregations, they could certainly take out a few hundred civilians every month, indefinitely. Is this an acceptable casualty rate?
I think the alternative, to appease them is more dangerous. I am not ruling out diplomatic solutions, I just don’t think they will work. I think we have to face the fact that it is gonna be ugly, otherwise we will wake up in a much more dangerous war later on, with many more casualities and much uglier consequences. I do think it needs careful planning, and that it is a delicate situation. I don’t have the answers, but I know appeasing them will only make things worse.
We may not know the intentions of the other countries..But Iran has made their position clear as ice. Iran’s current nuclear ambitions are far from having ahem…peaceful purposes. They pose a greater threat to the United States and Israel than we are willing to abide.
Clear and present danger.
And we can be assured of one thing:
Israel will not hesitate for a moment in destroying Iran’s oil reserves if it perceives such military actions to be tactically advantageous….because despite the propaganda machine’s accusations of other countries, -
Israel does not fight wars for oil. It fights wars for it’s mere existence and survival.
It appears that Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans even as we speak.
An ounce of prevention, my friends…….
Jay and Angel, I agree entirely that we must not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. I further agree that diplomatic methods have, so far, been futile. My point here is that it appears that military methods are likely to be just as futile. We have dug ourselves into a very deep hole here. If we were not burdened with Iraq, it might barely be feasible to invade Iran. But our current military situation simply does not give us the option to invade Iran, and airstrikes will delay, not prevent, an Iranian A-Bomb.
So what are we to do? Sit around and wait for them to acquire the bomb? That’s not acceptable either. My hunch is that, of all the lousy options available to us, a strong set of economic sanctions are the least futile policy. IF we could actually get the world to go along (a very large IF) and IF we could enforce it (another very large IF), then we could likely bring Iran to its knees. Their national income is based heavily on oil exports. We can easily bottle up the Strait of Hormuz. However, if we were to do so, they would likely attempt to do the same, which would bring us into open hostilities with them. Also, we’d have to close off the pipelines through Russia and Pakistan — very tricky business. But I think that, if we play our cards well, we might be able to get Russia and Pakistan to join us in an economic blockade of Iran. And that might do the trick.
I agree that this is not an ideal strategy. But considering the lousy military outlook and the lousy diplomatic outlook, I think it’s our best shot.
There is a lot of IFs here. I also think you underestimate our military.
Jay, are you confident that our military can eliminate all Iranian WMD programs from the air? I am guessing that you agree that an invasion is not feasible; the most aggressive step below that is airstrikes plus tightly focussed Special Forces missions. I agree that such attacks can accomplish a great deal, but their success hinges on our knowledge of the locations of their facilities. On this point, history has not been on our side.
With the exception of Britain and France, every single case in which another country came up with a bomb came as a surprise to us. The Soviet bomb came years before we expected it, and their H-Bomb (due to espionage) much much earlier. The Chinese bomb was a surprise; we had no idea where they were doing the work. The same thing goes for the Israeli bomb, the Indian bomb, the Pakistani bomb, and the North Korean bomb. The sad truth is, it’s very easy to conceal weapons facilities. The only reason that we know so much about the Iranian facilities is that they declared them to the UN. If the Iranians go all-out to conceal their weapons development (and I think they’re already partly down this road), then we’ll never be able to find them and they’ll get the bomb.
And of course this says nothing about bioweapons or chemical weapons, which can be manufactured in much smaller facilities.
The ugly truth here is, if the Iranians decide to build WMD (and they probably made that decision long ago), then there’s no military way to stop them save invasion and occupation.
We have very few options here…it is either sit by and appease, try what you have already stated would probably be futile: diplomacy, or take action. I can see your points, but they seem to be on the premise of us acting alone. If we don’t do something, Israel will…they will have to. It is inevitable that something military will take place. If that is all out war, then that is what it will be. I have great confidence in our military to be able to eliminate the threat.
Yes, it is possible we may be on the brink of WWIII. How we react is important. I think America will do the right thing, and I have confidence that our military will be victorious. I also don’t think we will be alone in this one. We may have lost a lot of support in the war with Iraq, but I don’t see the same thing happening in Iran if we play the cards right. It is a scary prospect indeed, especially when pondering over where Russia and China will fall into the puzzle.
I’m not worried about a World War III — I don’t think any nuclear powers will come to Iran’s aid. The scenarios that frighten me are:
1. An Israeli nuclear attack. Such an attack would have no hope of eliminating the Iranian nuclear program. They could kill a bunch of scientists and destroy a lot of equipment, but the Iranian response would be to disperse their facilities more widely, place them in populated areas, and resume work. It would only be a matter of time before the Iranians nuke Tel Aviv.
2. An American conventional attack on Iranian facilities leading to much the same result. The question we have to ask ourselves is, what is “victory”? An American flag waving over Teheran? We did the same thing to Iraq three years ago, and the soldiers still haven’t come home. Our objective is not the conquest of Iran, but rather the elimination of an Iranian WMD threat to us. I just don’t think that any operation that doesn’t put boots on the ground can accomplish this objective. And we don’t have enough boots to accomplish it anyway.
But none of this suggests that my proposal will work, either. I don’t claim my proposal to be a panacea. It’s just my gut-hunch as to the option that seems least likely to fail miserably.
“Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran’s nuclear sites as a “last resort” to block Teheran’s efforts to develop an atomic bomb.”
The UK telegraph? I admit I am in a crabby mood
today but come on…give me a break…
The Strategists finished those plans 20 years ago.
I know we have to do something about Iran but you can bet it is going to be a bloody long battle if fought on the ground. The only way we could win is to NUKE…and how the heck can we do that? We can’t without an Amagodeon. We need to take him out, perhaps when he visits Castro. What a meeting that will be.
By the way..email a copy to Iran, will yah Jay?
“It would only be a matter of time before the Iranians nuke Tel Aviv”
He has already stated over and over that is the first thing he will do is nuke Israel. Now, I don’t know who Col Hunter’s sources are on Fox news..but he said..”Iran has the bomb NOW”. Asked why Bush wouldn’t tell us that and he stated, “if he did, that would mean, we have to wage war today”.
I don’t know how crediable Hunter is but I thought his statement was interesting.
Israel will get hit right away.
What a mess.
The Boston Globe reports that Iran is prepared to retaliate for any attack on its nuclear facilities.
There is no doubt that military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities would be messy. But as Senator John McCain put it:
There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran.
Agreed. A nuclear-armed Iran is under no circumstances acceptable and if we have to choose between full-scale war and acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran, I would choose war. If we did go to war, I would want Americans to recognize that war is costly. I’d want to see dramatic cutbacks in all sorts of government spending, and a steep hike in taxes to pay for the war. We shouldn’t be fooling ourselves about the true cost of war.
Second, we’d have to reinstate the draft and start drafting young people — men as well as women. To successfully pacify Iran, I think we’d need about a million troops on the ground. We’d need to acknowledge to ourselves that we’d probably suffer about as many casualties over the long run as we suffered in VietNam — 50,000 dead and hundreds of thousands of incapacitated. (Very few of these would be lost in the initial conquest of Iran; most casualties would be suffered in the low-intensity insurrection that would follow it.)
It is these high costs that induce me support the embargo idea as a last-ditch effort to avoid war. War is very, very costly.
I have to take exception to at least two of Erasmussimo’s remarks. The most important is the notion that we need to re-instate the draft and that we will need millions of ground troops.
Re-instating the draft would be a mistake. The military of today is not the same as the military back in Viet Nam. We are much more high tech. Today’s military requires soldiers to be more technically trained.
Forcefully adding personnel into the military who don’t want to be there and who may not be as technologically saavy might not be such a good idea. It is far better to have an all volunteer military where the military can choose the quality of its soldiers.
Besides, I don’t buy in on this whole scale ground invasion idea. Where is your confidence in our ability to take out only the threat without the need to conquer the entire country. I don’t think conquering Iran is what the Pentagon has in mind, nor should it be.
Taking away their nuclear threat is the mission.
The second disagreement I have is in Erasmussimo’s concern that any military action on our part would generate even more terrorist recruits to the terrorist cause.
I don’t disagree with his consideration of these very possible outcome but rather in its importance.
We have already been attacked by the terrorists. War has been declared against us. There is no mistake about their intentions toward us. That it took 9/11 to get our full undivided attention is sad, but we are at war with muslim terrorists nonetheless.
We can’t afford to be blackmailed into inaction for fear of the enemy recruiting more hot headed murderers to their cause. The answer is to keep taking the fight to them.
It very well may be that there will be no end to the terrorist threat until every last one is dead. At the least, it will surely take a vast death toll against them to convince those who haven’t joined their ranks yet to give up the murderous notion, that is, if any one of these people are at all redeemable.
Comment by Erasmussimo: “I’m not worried about a World War III”
Erasmussimo, I ask you to consider that we are now fighting WW III. Many see a contest between Western Civilization and Ismalic terror. Not a few terrorists, but all of Islam that doesn’t speak out against the terrorists.
I too think that the Iran situation is a mess. But, it didnt happen in a day, the roots of it go back to the USA supported fall of the Shaw, or before. Had anyone but Jimmy Carter been President during these times, we would be in better shape with more options. It’s enough to make you thank God for President Bush (irrational and self defeating open border/mass amnesty policies and all).
Good discussion all, thanks.
clay, you offer two arguments: first, that airstrikes alone would be sufficient to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities. On this point, we disagree. As I pointed out earlier, the problem is gaining the intelligence to know WHERE their facilities are. Given our total failure to obtain any satisfactory information about Iraq’s WMD program, it seems overly optimistic to assume that they’ll never be able to hide their nuclear facilities from us. Everybody else who tried (China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea) were all successful in hiding their facilities; why should the Iranians be any worse?
Second, you argue that the only long-term solution to our problem with the Islamic world is the extermination of roughly one billion people. I will not discuss the ethical issues of such a policy. I will simply point out that the rest of the world might decide that any country capable of such a bloodthirsty course of action is a good candidate for extermination themselves. Let’s not get into this extermination cycle.
LomaAlta, you and I are assigning different meanings to the term “World War III”. I am thinking of it as an exchange of thermonuclear weapons leading to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, many of them American. You are using it in the sense of “a big war”. What I meant to say was that the likelihood of a thermonuclear exchange arising from disputes over Iran is so low as not to be worrisome.
Your other point seems to be that we need to exterminate all Islamists. Please see my earlier comments about the likelihood that such a policy would result in happy results.
Terrorists fight guerilla war. Anyone that knows anything about guerilla warfare will tell you that to threaten them with infantry or air strikes will only get a scoff from these terrorists. They do not fear our nukes, they did not fear Russia’s MIG 28’s and they don’t fear our F18s. What they do fear are helicopter gunships. Gunships take away their mobility. Talk to any guerilla in Africa or the Middle East about the effectiveness of a Cobra or Hind or Apache on their structure and you’ll get pale faces.
This entire situation has very grave consequences, our failure to act, no matter what the reason, will haunt us into eternity. Is immediate action absolutely necessary? NO, we must go the route of diplomacy first, but we CANNOT shy away from war. It is the last thing I or any warrior wants, but in this case I fear it is inevitable.
Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Palestine, along with their agents in Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Queda, are all intimately connected through Radical Islam. This IS a holy war to them, and in their eyes they are doing Allah’s will.
We are on the precipice of World War Three, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fancies himself the ring leader of the righteous. His saber rattling is almost inviting war, and that alone gives me pause. One of two things is apparent, either he has no means to do anything, but desperately wants the world to think he does… or he is closer than we all think and is itching for an excuse to be a martyr for the cause.
At the very least, I would never ignore or turn my back on him, but I would also keep awareness of my surroundings. Something tells me MUCH MORE is going on here than any of us realize… Much, much more…
Apostle said:”Terrorists fight guerilla war. Anyone that knows anything about guerilla warfare will tell you that to threaten them with infantry or air strikes will only get a scoff from these terrorists.”
Well Apostle, they do fear the B52’s, the B1 and B2, the cruise missles, the Predator-Hellfire, and the American military in force. Please don’t make super heroes out of murdering terrorists.
Erasmussimo,
You seem to have infered somehow that when I stated that the mission was to take out Iran’s nuclear capabilities that I also said it would be done via air strike only. That’s your inference not mine.
I’m sure that it will take a lot more than just air strikes. There’s SOF forces and there may also be non-kinetic ways to help chief military objectives. But is will hardly involve a massive full scale invasion of the country.
As for my supposed call for the extermination of a billion people, again, that is your inference. I was simply stating the obvious. When some one threatens your existance you must take the fight to them and kill them before they kill you. War is about extermination of lives. It is the saddest fact about war, but it is a fact nonetheless.
Unless you can demonstrate that we can negotiate with these terrorists and that they will listen to reason, the only thing to do is keep fighting them until they cease to pose a threat to us, Israel and Western Civilization as a whole.
That is a whole lot different than me saying that we should round every woman man and child in these countries that are Islamists and exterminate them.
While world opinion is a considering factor, it is a limited one. Just as we shouldn’t let the possiblility of the terrorists gaining more recruits keep us from acting, the same is true of world opinion.
I get the impression that world opinion is a major factor for your way of seeing this. Am I wrong?
Erasmussimo Said: “Your other point seems to be that we need to exterminate all Islamists.”
Not at all Erasmussimo. I am not calling for the extermination of anyone. The two points I tried to make, apparently unsuccesfully, were. War should be avoided, but, if we must fight a war we should fight to win because this will ulimately result in less loss of life than prolonged, partial measures. The second point was that our enemy appears to be a large portion of Muslims, not just a few radicals. Therefore, we should recognize the magnitude of the threat.
The military is constantly planning and revising current plans to attack enemies, perceived enemies, and future enemies. It is their responsibility.
It is irresponsible not to have contingincy plans.