"BOYS GO TO BAGHDAD…"
By Gwynne Dyer

AZG Armenian Daily #149
21/08/2007

Middle East

It’s impossible to say whether the United States will attack Iran
before President George W. Bush leaves office in seventeen months’
time, because nobody in the White House knows yet either. It is easy to
predict what would happen if the US did attack Iran, however, and the
signs are that the hawks in the White House are winning that argument.

The most alarming sign is the news that the Bush administration is
about to brand the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a
"terrorist organisation." This is a highly provocative step, for the
IRGC is not a bunch of fanatical freelances. It is a 125,000-strong
official arm of the Iranian state, parallel to the regular armed
forces but more ideologically motivated and presumably more loyal to
the ruling clerics.

Declaring the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organisation is not just
a way for the US government to vilify Iran as a terrorist state. It is
one of the key policy disputes between those in the administration,
notably Secretary of State Condoleezza Rica and Defence Secretary
Robert Gates, who think an attack on Iran would be unwise, and those
around the vice-president, who think it is essential.

Almost everybody in the Bush administration believes that Iran is
seeking nuclear weapons in order to dominate the region and to attack
Israel. (Others are less certain.) The war party, led by Dick Cheney,
also believes that the clerical regime in Iran would collapse at the
first hard push, since ordinary Iranians thirst for US-style democracy
— and that the attack must be made while President Bush is still
in office, since no successor will have the guts to do it. Even
after all this time, the administration’s old machismo survives:
"The boys go to Baghdad; the real men go to Tehran."

So what will happen if Cheney & Co. get their way? The Iranian regime
would not collapse: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now unpopular
due to his mishandling of the economy, but patriotic Iranians would
rally even around him if they were attacked by foreigners. What would
collapse, instead, is the world’s oil supply and the global economy.

Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi, commander-in-chief of the
Revolutionary Guards, explained how that would be accomplished
in a speech on 15 August (though he made no direct reference to
the US threat). "Our coast-to-sea missile systems can now reach
the length and breadth of the Gulf and the Sea of Oman," he said,
"and no warships can pass in the Gulf without being in range of our
coast-to-sea missiles." In other words, Iran can close the whole of
the Gulf and its approaches to oil tanker traffic, and if the US Navy
dares to fight in these waters it will lose.

Despite the huge disparity in military power between the United States
and Iran, this is probably true.

Over-committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States cannot
come up with the huge number of extra troops that would be needed to
invade and occupy a mountainous country of 75 million people. The
US can bomb Iran to its heart’s content, hitting all those real
and alleged nuclear facilities, but then it runs out of options —
whereas Iran’s options are very broad.

It could just stop exporting oil itself. Pulling only Iran’s three
and a half million barrels per day off the market, in its present
state, would send oil prices shooting up into the stratosphere. Or
it could get tough and close down all oil-tanker traffic that comes
within range of those missiles — which would mean little or no oil
from Iraq, Saudi Arabia or the smaller Gulf states either. That would
mean global oil rationing, industrial shut-downs, and the end of the
present economic era.

Can those missiles do all that? Yes, they can. The latest generation
of sea-skimming missiles have mobile, easily concealed launchers, and
they would come in very fast and low from anywhere along almost 2,000
kilometres (well over 1,000 miles) of Iran’s Gulf coast. Sink the first
half-dozen tankers, and insurance rates for voyages to the Gulf become
prohibitive, even if you can find owners willing to risk their tankers.

It’s very doubtful that US air strikes could find and destroy all the
missile launchers — consider how badly the Israeli air force did in
south Lebanon last summer — so Iran wins. After a few months, the
other great powers would find some way for the United States to back
away from the confrontation and let the oil start flowing again, but
the US would suffer a far greater humiliation than it did in Vietnam,
while Iran would emerge as the undisputed arbiter of the region.

Many, perhaps most senior American generals and admirals know this, and
are privately opposed to a foredoomed attack on Iran, but in the end
they will do as ordered. Vice-President Dick Cheney and his coterie
don’t know it, preferring to believe that Iranians would welcome
their American attackers with glad cries and open arms. You know,
like the Iraqis did. And Cheney seems to be winning the argument in
the White House.