THE COMING CONFLAGRATION

JR NOTE: Here's some edgy analysis to brighten up your day. I hope I am wrong about this, but this is what I believe is more likely than not. Feel free to disagree or discard it, if that makes you feel better. I thought it would be better to write this up than to sit on it. PS>> Some editorial support would be very welcome. I am thinking about posting it to the GG blog once I get some feedback from you.

As most readers of this blog already know, its focus is on putting the jigsaw pieces of a mega-trend together: the rise and evolutionary improvement of non-state foes. In this blog, we've tracked and analyzed everything from 9/11's terrorism to Iraq's open source warfare to Afghanistan's black globalization to Nigeria's system disruption to Hezbollah's fourth generation warfare. It's been a wild ride. Unfortunately, this process of evolution has caused a big problem. With each improvement in the capabilities of non-state groups, states have become more confused. Worse yet, they are blaming each other for the problems they are encountering with these groups.

This tension and confusion has now reached a tipping point, akin to the situation that preceded WW1. Nation-states, confused and locked into antiquated mindsets, are likely to stumble into a global war. To wit: Israel's loss to Hezbollah and the US loss of Iraq to civil war puts both countries into an untenable strategic situation. Instead of blaming themselves for an inability to reach victory, they are priming themselves for a confrontation with the perceived 'source' of the problem: Iran. As it stands right now, war with Iran is likely inevitable. It really doesn't matter whether it is caused by a US (or Israeli) air campaign against Iran, an Iranian pre-emptive special operation, or a simple error: it's on the way.

For better or worse, this impending war will not follow a familiar pattern of conflict we are used to. It will quickly evolve into something much more chaotic, an epochal conflict between non-states and states over control of vast sections of the globe. Here's how. Any attack on Iran will be constructed in a way to force regime change (my belief is that it will be an airpower EBO as we saw twice in Iraq and in a pale replica: Lebanon). When this doesn't occur quickly, and as regional chaos spreads due to Iranian counter-attacks the conflict will escalate to a ground invasion. At that point, the Iranian state will cease to exist in any recognizable form. A plethora of energized non-state foes will populate the landscape in its stead. These groups won't yield, and will bog the invasion down into a never ending counter-insurgency.

Stretched to its limit, the US and its remaining allies will not be able to stop the process of self-replication that will occur. Non-state global guerrillas, armed with the evolved capabilities analyzed on this blog, will begin a process of regional destabilization that will sweep many of the nearby autocracies into the dustbin of history. This process will in turn create more armed non-state groups and thereby more foes. Further, this war will quickly expand beyond the Middle East as these forces make attacks on global targets and other non-state groups take advantage of the resulting economic and social chaos.

Western nation-states, to bolster defenses against this chaos, will throw up barriers and enact measures in many ways akin to those of police states and totalitarian governments. This round of globalization will end, which will cause economic contraction, resource shortages, and chaos.

Comments

[Brett Bourne]

ruined my day - what, in your estimation, would stem this tide of events?

is regime change here any help? Israel? new global player/broker?

[billmon]

"At that point, the Iranian state will cease to exist in any recognizable form."

I disagree on this point. Iran is a real country, and commands both legitimacy and the loyalty of the vast majority of its population, Farsi and Azeri. Get ready for the students and the reformers to line up and pledge their lives to defend the Islamic Republic they detest.

Indeed, this is one of the things that will give Iran a leg up in the coming war. It can surround itself -- will seek to surround itself -- with stateless chaos, while remaining relatively unaffected by it.

Can the fat oil sheikhs on the other side of the Persian Gulf say the same?

Other than that, though, I think John Robb's forecast is probably correct, although I personally still have hopes the "self-replicating" process can be contained within the Middle East (although Londonstan and Clichy-sous-Boisstan are going to be very, very big problems.)

[b]

I agree with Billmon but for Baluchistan which is covering the southeastern part of Iran, south Afghanistan and significant parts of Pakistan.

Serious tribal folks who want a country of their own. The US will support them abandoning the Afghnaistan project and Pakistan and this may seriously endanger Iran. That is a weak flank. Another are the Kurds, but Turkey will take care of them.

The "western" Gulf states are toast when Iarn take them on.

For western nation states - if they stay out of the conflict, I do not see them endangered. Even GB, without Blair, could come of without trouble if they stop taking sides.

[dan]

I think you're getting a tad hysterical with this - I would still rate the likelihood of a US military attack on Iran as being very, very low, and becoming more unattractive to everyone bar the hard-core delusional by the day. The Iranians have simply engineered too strong a position for themselves in the region to complement their natural geostrategic advantages in this game for anyone to be able to seriously claim that attacking Iran won't spark a regional Gulf War which will, among other things, cut the global supply of oil by at least 14 million barrels per day for a sustained period. The effects on the investor classes/Asian central banks stock portfolios won't be pretty, and I'm sure that they've already exercised their veto on this. The only way that an attack on Iran works is if agreement is secured before hostilities that the Iranians won't fight back - that ain't gonna happen.

As I've argued on your sites before, Iran will maintain state cohesion, EBO or not; and as Billmon points out above, it is the Gulf peripheries ( and US allies ) that are the states in peril here, along with whichever US officials are stupid enough to set the ball rolling. I can see little chance of the US military surviving in Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain if the conflict lasts for more than 90 days - the US simply hasn't fought against a smart and determined enemy armed with the type of serious weaponry that can hurt it for decades. There are no US forces available in the region to draw on for an invasion, and I don't see legions of Saudi princes signing up for active duty on this one.

The US military is in a catastrophically weak position in Iraq, and there is no-one left to come to its rescue ( allies are departing, not signing up for duty ). The Iranians are as far ahead of the curve today as they were on the first day of the invasion.

[drewblue]

IS THERE A SPLIT BETWEEN CHENEY AND BUSH ON THIS SITUATION? IS IT TRUE THAT RICE PULLED ISRAELS' OLMERT BACK FROM THE CONTINUED GROUND WAR IN FAVOR OF THE UN DEAL WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF CHENEY AND THE NEOCONS? IS RUMMY STARTING TO SEE THAT PERHAPS THE IRAQ CIVIL WAR AND THE SHIITE HYDRA IS FAR TOO STRONG TO GO OFF AND ATTACK IRAN NOW....PERHAPS LIKE ISRAEL WE ARE ALSO HESITATING....UNSURE.....DIVIDED.
BETTER GET THIS RIGHT.....I DON'T THINK WE HAVE DO OVERS IN THIS GAME
DREW
SATX

[Colman]

I'm with b+billmon. Iran will probably shed some of the provinces, at least for a while, but will hold together otherwise. Every time the US/UK has pushed against Iran it has consolidated the power of the authorities. I don't see any reason that would change. I assume that the Iranian military are configured to deal with the disruption from an EBO.

Further, the main body of European Muslims could be relatively easily dealt with if we simply acted honourably and in accordance with public opinion: condemn the US action, dump Blair and anyone else who supports the war and try to broker a ceasefire. Declare we will no longer help prop up un-democratic and anti-Islamic autocrats. We might lose a few US embassies and a McDonalds or two but we would survive. If Tony tried to take the UK into another war the story might be different.

dan's right that the whole idea is insane, but so was invading Iraq.

Other than that the system dynamics seem about right.

[billmon]

"I agree with Billmon but for Baluchistan which is covering the southeastern part of Iran, south Afghanistan and significant parts of Pakistan."

Sure. And Khuzestan (Iran's Arab-majority province) could also be problematic, as well as the Kurds (as always, caught between two millstones.)

But these are peripheral regions - and their destabilization could threaten our purported allies in Pakistan, Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan as much or more than they threaten Tehran.

I actually don't think Iran WANTS chaos on its borders, and particularly not in Iraq. War is not really in their interests, since they are doing quite nicely at extending their influence without it. (If the Iranians really wanted to give the U.S. Army trouble, they wouldn't be giving the insurgents better IEDs, they'd be slipping them some of those anti-tank missiles Hizbullah has been using to make chopped liver out of Merkavas.)

But if it comes to a full-scale hot war, I think chaos works for Tehran. At this point you'd have to be a true-blue Jonestown Kool-Aid drinker (or a Weekly Standard editorial writer, which is pretty much the same thing) to believe otherwise.

"I would still rate the likelihood of a US military attack on Iran as being very, very low, and becoming more unattractive to everyone bar the hard-core delusional by the day."

The problem, of course, is that the hard-core delusional are currently running the U.S. government.

[Dimitar Vesselinov]

The New Middle East
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

[dan]

Colman:

Iraq may well have been insane - but a lot of people failed to recognise this as they bought in to the essentially cost-free nature of the enterprise.

Iran is demonstrably not cost-free, and I suspect that those who would have to give their assent for the endeavour to proceed have baulked at the bill. There has already been notable push-back for the idea from the US foreign policy and realist establishment, the US military brass and key allies. Absolutely no one bar the hard-core neocons want to do this - although I don't see legions of Heritage/AEI interns or Eustonauts signing up to be airdropped into Teheran with backpacks stuffed with cash to get the ball rolling.

[Michael Tanji]

Iran could avoid going Humpty-Dumpty if we’d spent the last few years lubricating the substantial pro-US dissident population. Unlike Iraq, Iran’s regime-haters - if not exactly tolerated - are not aggressively oppressed wholesale a’la the Saddam approach. Having our “puppet regime” ready to go ahead of time could mean a smoother and faster transition, but then we’re not exactly known for our skill at operating in police states.

The Iranian version of the “dead enders” will of course follow the course you describe, though it remains to be seen how well GGs will fare in a land where much of the population is aware of and has a favorable view of the US. Of course, bomb the s*** out of enough neighborhoods and that can change . . .

A question I have not seen anyone else ask: all things being equal, if we did Iran “right” – call it the Shinseki approach – would the outcome be different than Iraq?

. . . and I was just about to post a comment about going old-school in the Middle East, but I see Dimitar has posted Ralph’s probably superior treatment of the subject. !$**!#&%

[Colman]

The problem Michael is that "we"'ve spent the last few years doing almost anything we could think of to shore up the popularity of Iran's hardliners.

[Michael Tanji]

I did say "if" right? ;-)

[Colman]

dan, the rational, sensible part of me agrees with you. The intuitive, pattern matching part is scared shitless - everything that is happening matches the pattern for the Iraq War and indicates that the batshit crazy division have neither learned anything or expect enough pushback to stop them.

[billmon]

"no one bar the hard-core neocons want to do this"

At this risk of repeating myself, these are the people calling the shots.

[Vince]

Hope you're wrong, but...
- Seymour Hersh is very well informed and his forecasts have been proven true most of the time,
- The US, British and Israeli leaders are cut off from reality and are far beyond rationality (they can't even admit that Lebanon and Iraq are complete failures). Every logical and rational arguments like the ones I can read above are irrelevant (no matter how true they can be in the real world). Psychology is the only relevant factor now, and the disturbed minds of our rulers leads us all to global warfare.

In a previous post you advised the Israelis to hire GG experts as consultants. This won't happen. But the iranians have for sure hired Hezbollah consultants and the Lebanese and Iraki wars are going to be the Spanish war of our time.

The only way out your black scenario is, in my view, a quick, Hezbollah like, Iranian victory, and the fall of the Pentagon before all hell break lose (not very likely).

It may be that the western states won't have time to turn into dictatorships : no more oil, huge economic depression, a deep lack of legitimacy and a total lack of beliefs and values may lead them to a quick collapse because of a shift to primary loyalties (chicanos and gangs in the US, african immigrants and regionalism in Europe ?)

In the end, in this troubled times, we have always been, and will always be, surprised (nobody anticipated Lebanon war and its outcome).

PS: I don't see Russia and China in your picture, what about them ?

[Migeru]

Michael Tanji:

"A question I have not seen anyone else ask: all things being equal, if we did Iran “right” – call it the Shinseki approach – would the outcome be different than Iraq?"

If I am not mistaken, the Shinseki approach required several hundred thousand troops to take over Iraq, a country of 25M people with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions. Iran is a country of 68M people made mostly of Shia Persian, and unlike Iraq it is the religious/ethnic/linguistic group that rules. Where in the world is the US going to get the 1 to 2 million soldiers it would need, and at what human cost would a national resistance/insurgent movement be fought?

[Migeru]

I mean in Iran it is the majority group that rules.

[Colman]

The real problem is that the true believers are probably capable of falling into an Iranian war in the way that JR suggests. Start with an air war, which the US *can* do.

That doesn't work, so maybe now some special ops, support some local discontents, provide arms, advisors ... we all know the pattern. At some stage all hell breaks loose. Without ever really intending to be in a ground war, there they are. Whoops.

[Steve Kimbrough]

Am sympathetic with the thrust of the original post, but it's a bit vague (at least for me). Details matter. Someone has to finance and suppy the guerrillas, even if it's much cheaper than the Western militaries. Or will the war be short? Probably not. I'm prepared to believe that the US and any friends it has are in big trouble, but let's be more specific. How would we advise Iran & Co., and in some detail?

Also, the China card. If general war breaks out, the US will likely stop petroleum production in Iran, which may then block export or even production in the Gulf. Not good. Foreseeing this and estimating that costly conflict is inevitable, perhaps China will play the financial card. Stop buying US Treasuries or threaten to. With $800 billion on hand, if China calculates that losing it is preferable to extended economic disruption, China could wreak havoc with the US economy.

[Josh Koenig]

I think you over-estimate the power of GGs to extend their reach beyond the region once the chaos really sweeps in.

There may be a short period in which we seem more cellular activity in the West, but I think that if this type of scenario plays out, once the existing order begins to collapse, GG energy will become much more regionally focused. I don't see any reason to expect that a new wave of home-grown GGs is on the way. It seems much more likely that as western powers are forced by reality to disengage from the middle east, western-based GGs will focus on the expanded opportunities to serve their primary loyalties in the region.

The only way we could maintain a real presense would be a wholesale draft. Won't work.

Unlike prior to WWI, there's no great reserve of military might waiting to be unleashed. The world's only superpower is already at the limit, and none of the other outside actors have much ability and even less interest in contributing.

[Tangurena]

We lack decent dampening systems, and our feedback in the US has become almost useless. Part of that has been the overwhelming switch to partisan "winner takes all" where one doesn't listen to the opponents out of loyalty to one's party. Where previously loyal hacks get booted to the curb like Trotsky (without the icepick so far). Take a look at how the loyalists attack everyone who has departed the administration. Perle, anyone?

The majority of Iran's oil and natural gas deposits are near the border with Iraq. In the event of a collapse of Iran, the US would support and protect the region with the oil.

We blew our chance to wean ourselves off the middle eastern oil teat when the reaganauts got CAFE effectively repealed. People driving massive fuel wasting SUVs keep doing their job of keeping the US dependent upon foreign oil. And the domestic car manufacturers keep on making huge gas guzzling cars.

Our global economy depends far too much on people doing their little pieces in order to make it work. Many people don't like where the world is going, and we don't have a lot of leverage to get them to play along. Remember the WTO riots? You cannot motivate everyone by waving money at them. Our friction points are easier to reach than the "hostiles'" friction points. We can reduce our ability to be affected by others by reducing our exposure: less offshoring, less imports. And for many people here, that cure would be worse than the disease. And so it goes.

As for the collapse of Pakistan and Afghanistan as the unrest boils out of Iran, I don't believe the administration cares one whit about the matter.

Those "fat oil shieks" think something is coming, and there have been a couple stories in the Denver Post (my local paper) about big properties (mostly out at Vail and other similar neighborhoods) going up for sale. And by "big" properties, things with 8 and 9 digit price tags.

>"I would still rate the likelihood of a US military attack on Iran as being very, very low, and becoming more unattractive to everyone bar the hard-core delusional by the day."
The administration is run by people who are looking for exactly the crisis that would appear in a LeHaye novel. And it looks like the rest of the world is going to get one.

[John Robb]

Thanks. I'll add much more detail before I post it. It will 'sing' as a scenario by the time I am done.

A couple of things I am trying to work through:

What Iran will look like post attack. The cohesiveness argument is noted.

What will be the actual trigger for the conflict. The motivations and ramp up is known. I suspect trigger will come from out of left field.

[Tangurena]

Trigger? Perhaps something like another
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4960478.stm ?
I can imagine that sort of situation getting out of hand if we want it to. I'm still not sure what really happened with the British soldiers that were captured by Iran last year. I know Iran said they were inside Iran, and England said, "not." Worked (sort of) as an excuse for Israel invading Lebanon, so perhaps we could freshen it up a little?

I always thought we'd make up some story about weapons getting intercepted on the way from Damascus or Teheran on the way to Hezbullah and made a causus belli out of that. Or that Syria and Iran would come to their aid, or at least that we'd claim they did, and use that for an excuse to attack.

[sunbin]

there is a pre-condition for the (true) guerilla to work, i.e. reasonably strong support from the people.

therefore, the 'autocracies' would only be swept into the dustbins if they are really very bad (bastita, pahvlevi). enlightened autocracies (not sure if there are many though, maybe UAE???), or mediocre autocracies (not outrageously bad, and are able to bribe its people with oil $) will most likely be able to hold on.

therefore, the recipe to counter this 'trend' is to make the people in these countries happy enough (or have too much to lose, economically) so thatand resist the idea of overthrowing the "autocracies".

[mark safranski]

"What Iran will look like post attack. The cohesiveness argument is noted."

With all respect to Billmon, states and nations are very different entities.

The Persian nation is an ancient thing and will survive a limited war with the United States very easily. The Iranian state is -if we mean state by a modern bureaucratic government having asserted de facto control over most of Iranian territory most of the time - relatively recent, unpopular and fragile.

At best, the Iranian state goes back only to Reza Shah and has already suffered four major convulsions (Reza Shah's toppling by Brits/USSR, Mossadegh overthrowing the Shah, the CIA toppling Mossadegh and the 1979 Revolution)and a major war with Iraq in which it nearly bled to death.

Confusing the ability of the Mullahs to make trouble for others with their own resiliency when under attack is an error. A U.S. attack could either strengthen or weaken the regime depending how it is carried out. NATO's bombing Serbia certainly didn't improve Milosevic's political fortunes with his countrymen.

That being said, a major attack on Iran at this time is probably not a great idea. Very risky proposition.