Bill Lind on war with Iran

I have to admit, I was thinking exactly same thing as Bill Lind:

Rumors have circulated in Washington for months naming April as the likely time for a U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Such rumors are common in wartime and usually prove wrong. But starting about two weeks ago, the Russians have pulled out the hundreds of people they had working on Iran's first nuclear power plant, now nearing completion. The official Russian explanation was a "contract dispute," but if you believe that I have a great bridge up in Brooklyn I'd love to sell you. If in fact Washington plans to hit Iran in April, it almost has to have tipped the Russians off so they could get their people out. Not doing so would have meant lots of dead Russians, killed by American bombs, with serious consequences in Europe and the U.N. as well as to American-Russian relations. The Russian pull-out, if not a direct leak from Moscow to Tehran, would have tipped off the Iranians. The question for them then would be, how to pre-empt?

I still stand by my initial view that the US and Israel will not allow Iran to continue on its present track without taking military action. However, the timing of the war is difficult to anticipate since so few people are actually fingering the trigger. This also means that this war isn't inevitable (as opposed to the trends I track in 4GW/open source warfare) but only highly likely given the dynamics/personalities we see in place today.

Comments

[djysrv]

I think there are other interpretations that can be made concerned the Russian withdrawal from Bushehr. The first is Iran tried to pay Russia with Euros and the payment was rejected with a demand for dollars. The demand was politically convenient for Russia since it gave them "cover" to slow down progress on the plant. Also, Iran's access to hard currency has been impacted by UN sanctions and actions by the US Treasury to cut off access for Iran's banks to international financial networks. Second, Iran wants the fuel and the Russian engineers for the plant as "hostages" or "shields" against military actions. No one, either Israel or the US, is going to bomb a nuclear plant that has fuel rods in place. The Russians, who crave global market share for their reactors, don't want to give their fuel a bad name by facilitating Iran's idea of how to use it. Third, the Russians aren't nuts. They do not want a nuclear power with missiles capable of delivering payloads up to 1,000 + miles away on their southern border hence their support for the UN sanctions.

See also
http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2007/03/russian-nuclear-deal-with-iran-coming.html

and

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2007/03/un-rolls-second-set-of-sanctions-on.html

[Kotare]

The idea of a tip-off about a strike is pretty fanciful. If the US is planning a strike would it let word get out to a third party who might, for their own interests, pass the information onto the Iranians? Djysrv's comment sounds on the money.

[Claymore]

An direct attack would do more damage than good. Irans achilles heel is their energy situation; this justifies their need for nuclear power. I would continue to choke them out diplomatically, economically, and support resistance inside their borders.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID05Ak05.html