Being Played

Some folks, including the group Stratfor, are beating the war drum with respect to Iran. They are pushing harder and harder for an attack on Iran.

I think they are being played by the Iranian regime. I suspect that, at this point in time, the Iranian regime would like nothing better than to be attacked.

The Iranian regime has an internal threat from dissidents dissatisfied with the state of affairs in Iran. Despite severe crackdowns by the Iranian security apparatus, protesting continues in various forms. An attack upon Iran will give the regime all of the excuse it needs to smash the opposition. We cannot do more than just drop bombs, we do not have the troops or the resources to occupy a nation of 75 million people (three times the population of Iraq) and 636,000 square miles (the size of Afghanistan, which we cannot control).

Don't forget about Iraq. Almost every current Shi'ite politician in Iraq hid out for a time in Iran when Saddam was in power. The Iraqi army is cimposed largely of Shi'ites, as are Iraq's largest militias. They may not take kindly to Americans attacking their fellow Shi'ites in Iran (even if they are Persians, not Arabs).

Attacks and wars are never as nicely clean-cut and "surgical" as the members of the 101st Fighting Chickenhawks would have you believe. Those who think that attacking Iran's nuclear sites would be a short endeavor are smoking crack and let us not forget that the very same people who are trumpeting about "confirmed intelligence" are those who lied us into a war in Iraq.

They are, at best, being played. At worst, they are fools who only know how to use one tool.