“Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station. ”
– Grand Moff Tarkin (from Star Wars…and I HOPE I didin’t really have to tell you that)
Since the Iraq War turned quickly into the Iraq Quagmire, experts (and anyone paying attention) have wondered aloud about the sustainability of the effort. Such a large force deployed for such a long time has, as James Fallows and others have put it, stretched the US Military to the “breaking point.” In response, of course, the DoD has raised the enlistment age, extended and added tours of duty, lowered recruitment standards and instituted the so-called “back-door draft” by calling up Individual Ready Reserves.
All of this, coupled with the deaths and injuries make the effort clearly unsustainable. And yet, what is the first thing we hear emanating from the neocon faithful after the start of the recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict? Why, that it’s time to finally get Syria and Iran of course. And these were hardly just the voices of the fringe. Neocon mover-and-shaker Bill Kristol said at the time:
The war against radical Islamism is likely to be a long one. Radical Islamism isn’t going away anytime soon. But it will make a big difference how strong the state sponsors, harborers, and financiers of radical Islamism are. Thus, our focus should be less on Hamas and Hezbollah, and more on their paymasters and real commanders–Syria and Iran.
And now, we are not only still hearing the same rhetoric about Iran we heard in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, there are active military movements that have led many to question whether or not we are positioning for military action.
From The Nation:
As reports circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over possible US military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment facilities, The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major “strike group” of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran’s western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1.
This possibility raises an obvious question: basically, are these folks nuts? Can they not do math? Can’t they see that we simply don’t have the military capacity to pull this stunt again, especially while still bogged down in the last adventure?
These are simplistic, dogmatic thinkers to be sure – but I don’t believe they could be that stupid. So what card do they think they can play to pull it off? A draft? It seems unlikely, as it would be politically impossible to implement, and would be inconsistent with the “shop like there’s nothing wrong” mantra of the Bushites.
So what happens when the neocons commit us to a war that can’t even be prosecuted, let alone won, even to their way of seeing?
All that’s left to fill the gap are the nukes.
It’s a topic they’ve certainly floated. Consider this report from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:
Earlier, in 2001, the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) addressed the nuclear aspect of the issue. The review recognized the new cooperative relationship with Russia and the rising threat from the potential proliferation of WMD. The latter point was seen as particularly important, since future conflict with a number of regional powers was thought possible–North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya all were thought to sponsor or harbor terrorists and to have active WMD and missile programs.
The NPR presented a new U.S. strategic military doctrine intended to transform the defense establishment with the creation of a new triad, consisting of offensive strike systems (both nuclear and conventional), defenses (both active and passive), and a revitalized defense infrastructure that will provide new capabilities to meet emerging threats.
It’s likely they learned from the backlash at the time this was floated in the press that the nuclear taboo will be a tough thing to matter-of-factly toss aside, but there’s no doubt that such a nuclear arsenal has been a part of the plan since before the 9/11 attacks, and equally no doubt that it’s the clearest, simplest answer to their desire to enforce global discipline witout a conventional force to back it up. And simple is big with this crowd.
In the Cold War, nukes were a true deterrent because of the nothing-left-to-lose factor. You blow me up, I’ll take you with me – why not? To make nukes into a deterrent in the post-cold war era is a completely different ball game. You have to be able to demonstrate that you can and will use them even without a direct and immediate threat. And if you’re truly trying to enforce global discipline, you wrap it in the context of a doctrine of pre-emptive attack.
It seems possible, even likely given the last several years, that there are those in the Bush administration who actively want to put us into a situation whereby, from their way of thinking, victory can only be acheived through a nuclear strike – if not with a bombing campaign, at least with nuclear tipped artillery. To force a nuclear attack. As the Project for a New American Century has become a sort of dogma, there is little that will cause its true believers to waver in their faith. Crossing the nuclear taboo becomes necessary then, as the global discipline they mean to enforce can not be done by conventional means.
Fear is the only tool left to keep the eastern nations in line. Only with the nuclear “death star” option can their roadmap to complete, overt American hegemony be salvaged, and I don’t think that equation is lost on the likes of Kristol, Perle, Feith, Rumsfeld or Bush.