[Marxism] Current state of planing for war against Iran

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following article is a reminder that plans for war against Iran are
still being developed, and readied for action.  Of course, the US government
makes plans to attack every country, but I suspect the plans to attack Iran
are updated and (especially) war-gamed less often than the plans to attack,
say, Mexico or China, not to mention Iran.

In the introduction to this piece for the very valuable United for Peace of
Pierce County (Washington State) list, Prof. Mark Jensen comments:

On the one hand, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said that "we are not
planning for a war with Iran," , Adm. William Fallon has said that opening a
new military front in the Middle East "strikes me as not where we want to
go, and not what we want to be engaged in," and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said there is "zero

And all this was before the confrontation over Iran's capture of he British
sailors as they crossed (accidentally, deliberately? Who the hell knows or
can know. Why should Iranians accept a lenient explanation?
Fred Feldman



http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/6068/


1.

Eyes on Iran

U.S. NAVY WOULD BEAR BRUNT OF IRAN CONFLICT, EXPERTS SAY 
By William H. McMichael

Defense News
March 5, 2007

http://defensenews.com/story.php?F=2581983&C=navwar

The attack would probably come by air.  Waves of U.S. cruise missiles and
warplanes loaded with smart weapons would swoop into Iran from the sea and
land bases to destroy key nuclear facilities.

Out in the Arabian Gulf, the U.S. Navy would wipe out Iran's Navy in a
matter of days.  Iran's air defenses could possibly take out a few
higher-flying U.S. Air Force and Navy tactical jets before being located and
destroyed.

In short, the first round would go decisively to the United States.

But it wouldn't be without serious repercussions.  And the U.S. Navy would
likely take the brunt of those.  It's the unconventional threat that would
vex U.S. sailors.

An American public that has turned solidly against the war in neighboring
Iraq -- 63 percent of those polled oppose sending more troops to Iraq and
56 percent feel the war in Iraq is "hopeless," according to an Associated
Press-Ipsos poll conducted Feb. 12-15 -- may find it hard to believe that
the possibility of attacking much larger, more formidable Iran is even being
broached.

But the Bush administration claims Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons
and has vowed to prevent that from happening.  More recently, senior
military and intelligence officials say elements within Iran's government
are smuggling to Iraqi dissidents components for ever-more-powerful roadside
bombs and are using them to kill U.S. troops.

The administration backed up its tough talk by deploying the John C.
Stennis Carrier Strike Group a week earlier than planned in January and, in
a surprise move, also "surging" the Ronald Reagan to the west Pacific and
dispatching the Stennis to the Middle East.  Stennis joined the
already-deployed Dwight D. Eisenhower group in the 5th Fleet area Feb. 19,
doubling the Navy's combat power in the region.

Five squadrons of Air Force fighters are already in the area, engaged in
missions over Afghanistan and Iraq; that's in addition to B-1B Lancer
bombers and a host of tankers and airlifters.  However, the Air Force has
not forward deployed to the region its stealth F-117 and F-22A fighters or
the B-2 bomber.

Before striking Iran, the United States would need permission from Arab and
Central Asian nations to stage attacks from their bases and use their
airspace.  That could present a problem.  During the early phase of
Operation Iraqi Freedom, one Arab country allowed U.S. aerial tankers to use
its airfields but prohibited bomb-laden jets.

Iran has reacted with angry words -- mostly by hard-line President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad -- and recent missile tests near the strategically vital Strait
of Hormuz, the gateway to the Arabian Gulf.  Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei said Feb. 8 that Iran would strike U.S. interests worldwide if
attacked, and a leading Iranian cleric said the following day that the
United States was within Iran's "firing range."

The Bush administration and military leaders deny that a war plan is in the
works.  The Stennis deployment was simply, in the words of Defense Secretary
Robert Gates, "to underscore to our friends, as well as to our potential
adversaries in the region, that the United States has considered the Persian
Gulf and that whole area -- the stability in that area -- to be a vital
national interest."

As with many other contingencies, the Defense Department has plans for an
attack on Iran -- the Navy reportedly updated its plans in September at the
direction of Adm. Mike Mullen, chief of naval operations.

But there appears to be little enthusiasm for such a move within the Navy.
 And none of the analysts and experts interviewed thinks an attack will take
place.

"People go to the most dramatic case," said Anthony Cordesman, a military
analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington, who has written about Iran's conventional military capabilities
as well as its weapons of mass destruction.  "But seapower, and military
power in general, is often about containment, intimidation, dealing with
limited cases.  So I would look at the spectrum, not what is the most
dramatic thing we could do."

The less dramatic spectrum of possible operations, he said, includes beefing
up airstrike support for NATO troops in Afghanistan, keeping an eye on
Somalia, and demonstrating U.S. strength to gulf allies.

THE ATTACK

No one knows precisely what it would take to light the fuse, or where in
Iran the United States would choose to strike if the standoff came to blows.
Would it be a factory where deadly roadside bombs are made? 
Iran's publicly known, dozen-odd -- and perhaps dozens more -- key nuclear
facilities?  Ballistic missile launching sites, to preclude retaliatory
strikes against U.S. or Israeli interests in the region?

The U.S. Army wouldn't be a factor in an attack that would come from the air
and sea.  Army troops, tanks and heavy artillery, preoccupied in Iraq, would
stay put.

While Air Force officials have not publicly said how an attack on Iran could
begin, there have been Air Force presentations on how an attack would play
out on fictional nations that match Iran's landscape and military
capabilities.

The initial strike could come from stealth Air Force fighters and bombers
and cruise missiles launched from B-52Hs, Navy submarines, and surface
warships.  The attacks could center on command-and-control centers,
anti-aircraft sites, and other targets that pose a threat to follow-on
strikes by nonstealth bombers and fighters.

The Air Force bombers could fly nonstop from their home bases in the United
States, while Air Force fighters would have to be launched from bases within
the region.  The Air Force already has fighters based in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and along the western Arabian Gulf.

The Air Force and Navy bombs, like the cruise missiles, would all be
precision-guided in an effort to minimize unnecessary deaths and collateral
damage at dual-use facilities or those located amid civilian populations.

F-22As, once they drop their bombs, would focus on shooting down any Iranian
fighters that tried to challenge U.S. aircraft.

Navy cruisers and destroyers from the Eisenhower and Stennis strike groups
would be prepositioned in the Arabian Gulf, their flanks protected by
anti-submarine helicopters and attack submarines.  The latter would be
submerged, simultaneously preparing to fire cruise missiles.

The two carriers would not be anywhere near them.  With much uncertainty
about the locations of Iranian anti-ship missile ships, high-speed boats, or
mobile shore batteries -- and the range U.S. Navy jets can produce with the
aid of Air Force fuel tankers operating on the periphery of the battlespace
-- the carriers probably would be situated outside the Arabian Gulf, likely
in the Gulf of Oman.

"I would get the carriers out, and I would put lots of missile ships in
there to defend tankers," said naval analyst Norman Polmar, noting the
disruptive economic impact Iran would create by sinking oil-carrying ships
-- even though it could slow its own economy.  "I think that's one of the
ways they go after the United States, to sink tankers."

SIMILAR MISSION TO 2003

Aircrews could find themselves flying missions similar to those flown during
the March 2003 attack on Iraqi forces, when many jets flew precision bomb
runs and then peeled off to perform close-air support for ground troops.

Without any ground troops, save for possible special operations teams to
laser-designate certain targets, the U.S. objectives could be achieved with
air and naval power alone, analysts say.  So fliers could find themselves
coming down low to take out coastal anti-ship batteries threatening the
surface warships.

The Aegis cruisers and destroyers, likely well off Iran's long coastline,
would defend themselves from those missiles with a combination of Rolling
Airframe Missiles and Phalanx rapid-fire 20mm barrages in addition to
launching chaff to throw off Iran's radar-guided anti-ship missiles.

The great unknown would be the missiles' source and number.  Would
hard-to-spot Iranian fast small boats, some with anti-ship missiles and
others with crew members hefting shoulder-fired rockets, employ a swarming
technique in an effort to overwhelm a warship's defenses?  That's a scenario
Navy planners have spent years figuring out how to defend.

Iran's submarines are modern Russian diesel electrics, famously difficult to
track.  Each carries wake-homing and wire-guided torpedoes, Cordesman said.
The submarines are highly capable and could sit undetected on the ocean
bottom, lying in wait for an approaching ship.  The question is the
proficiency of the crews.  Iran also has built and operates an unknown
number of midget submarines.

The Pentagon recently announced that Iran may have developed a hyperspeed,
underwater "missile-torpedo," similar to the Russian rocket-propelled
Shkval.  While the subs might not last long against an intensive U.S.
anti-submarine hunt, they could initially cause serious problems.

Equally uncertain is the extent and capability of Iran's air defenses. 
Iran has an estimated 300 combat aircraft, but many "are either not
operational or cannot be sustained in air combat," Cordesman wrote in his
2005 book, *Iran's Developing Military Capabilities*.

It could have upward of 40 MiG-29 fighters, and several dozen other jets of
lesser quality.  It also still owns a mixed bag of as many as 115 Iraqi
aircraft flown there during the 1991 Gulf War, and close to 50 F-14 Tomcats
bought from the United States before 1979.

The Iranians also have U.S.-supplied Phoenix air-to-air missiles.  Polmar
questions whether any of the aging missiles are still usable or effective
but "they still would make it 'noisy' for manned aircraft," he said.

Cordesman said the Iranian Air Force operates an array of ground-based
anti-aircraft missiles.  But because Iran lacks a coordinated radar network,
command-and-control assets, and resistance to sophisticated jamming and
electronic countermeasures, the Iranian missiles would be most effective
against medium- to high- altitude aircraft "with limited penetrating and
jamming capability."  Navy jets would try to take out air defense systems
with HARM anti-radiation missiles.

Iran controls 1,700 anti-aircraft guns but has only one system, the
radar-guided Soviet-era ZSU-23/4, that might be effective against modern
aircraft, according to Cordesman's analysis.  Iran also has "large numbers"
of man-portable surface-to-air missiles, according to his book.

Iran has hundreds of ballistic missiles, some reportedly stored in hardened
sites, all of which would allow it to strike U.S. forces based in Baghdad,
Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain.  Cordesman also says Iran now has the
Shahab-3 missile, which has the range to reach Israel and which some believe
could carry a chemical, biological or nuclear warhead.  U.S.
officials do not believe Iran now possesses any nuclear weapons.

Iran has but a few surface warships, dated destroyers and frigates that
wouldn't stand a chance against the Navy, experts agree.  But it has nearly
200 patrol boats, hovercraft, and fast small craft that could cause problems
for U.S. warships in the gulf.  The smaller, more lightly armed vessels can
also lay mines and could be used to carry out suicide missions.

But military analyst John Pike noted that the Navy now has a canister round
for its 5-inch guns, a weapon that could prove deadly should a speedboat get
close to a ship.

THE AFTERMATH

"You have to think about the options for retaliation," said Peter Brookes, a
military analyst with the Heritage Foundation and a former Navy EP-3 pilot
who flew in the Arabian Gulf in the 1980s.

Foremost among these for the naval forces, he and others said, are mines.

"Mines are silent killers," Brookes said.  "You can plunk those things down
pretty easily.  And they can hurt you."

Iran can lay mines using its several minesweepers and a wide variety of
other platforms, including its Kilo submarines and dozens of small,
innocuous merchant ships.  Cordesman reported that U.S. experts estimate
Iran has at least 2,000 mines, which Iran could use to cut off the flow of
shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

A newspaper editor close to Khamenei wrote in late January that any U.S.
military action would invite a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz -- something
a mine-laying tactic could achieve -- as well as missile attacks on U.S.
troops and Israel.

Then there's the lowest-tech retaliatory option: increased support for
insurgents fighting U.S. troops in Iraq and terrorist attacks by suicide
bombers abroad.

"They have a pretty strong terrorist network through Hezbollah -- around the
world, not just in Lebanon," Brookes said.  "There have even been arrests of
Hezbollah operatives and supporters in the United States."

How to preclude this unwanted scenario?  The United States has said it wants
to engage Iran in some manner.  And Ahmadinejad's table-pounding aside, Iran
could be open to negotiations on the nuclear issue.  Khamenei is the true
power in Iran.  And Iranian opposition leaders have openly criticized their
president over his hard-line rhetoric, a stance bolstered by the U.S.
military rumblings.

"If you look at what's happening in Iran, it's obvious that the U.S. sort of
hard line has made people think, made them concerned about Ahmadinejad's
rhetoric, his tendency to be reckless," Cordesman said. 
"There is an internal debate in Iran that was not around before the U.S.
became potentially more threatening."

Will the U.S. launch a strike?  In addition to the experts' doubts, other
senior officials have chimed in.

"The president has made clear, the secretary of state has made clear, I've
made clear . . . we are not planning for a war with Iran," Gates said at a
Feb. 2 news conference.

More recently, Adm. William Fallon, newly confirmed as the head of U.S.
Central Command, said that opening a new military front in the Middle East
"strikes me as not where we want to go, and not what we want to be engaged
in."  And Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said
during a February trip to the Pacific region that there is "zero" chance of
the United States going to war with Iran.

But Iran appears to remain in the U.S. crosshairs.  As Cordesman points out
in a 2006 book co-written with Khalid R. Al-Rodhan, *Iran's Weapons of Mass
Destruction*, national security adviser Stephen Hadley said during a March
2006 presentation on U.S. national security strategy, "We face no greater
challenge from a single country than from Iran . . . The doctrine of
pre-emption remains sound. . . . We do not rule out the use of force before
an attack occurs."

--Christopher P. Cavas and Bruce Rolfsen contributed to this report.




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