US military officials involved in planning wars in the Middle East say that despite all the talk of buildups against Iran, there exist no actual, executable plans for a large scale troop deployment into the Middle East, let alone for confronting Iran.
John Bolton is known to have been pushing for the Pentagon to create such a plan, and Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented a “preliminary outline” of a 120,000 US troops plan on May 9.
But a plan to show some politicians and an executable plan are wildly different things. The inner workings of a real plan require a time-phased force and deployment list, and making one of these down to the last detail would take several months.
Even then, the list wouldn’t be in progress as it is, because officials say they don’t have any of the detailed data on what sort of war this is supposed to be, whether they’re fighting Iran or just random Shi’ite militias, whether the fighting is in Iraq, or someplace else, etc.
The public of course hasn’t been privy to any solid intelligence on any of that, but the reality that the Pentagon is as much in the dark as the rest of us really damages the credibility of hawks claiming secret intelligence of Iranian threats.
The 120,000 troops plan, therefore, doesn’t really exist beyond a vague outline, and has already been disavowed by President Trump, who said he’d send a “hell of a lot more” troops if he was attacking Iran for real. Fortunately, it looks like attacking Iran for real remains, at least for now, a pipe dream.
I’ll say this straight up: They’re lying about this – just as Trump is lying about not sending 10,000 troops to the Middle East.
As I’ve said, that number of troops is perfect for helping Israel attack Hezbollah in Lebanon.
As for the “Iran war plan”, the Pentagon has had plans to attack Iran for over the last decade at least and I’m pretty sure they continually update those plans. So if Trump can be convinced to start something – or if something he starts in Lebanon ends up causing a war with Iran – the Pentagon will have no problem updating those plans for the current situation.
What it will mean, however, is that the Pentagon probably won’t have their troops pre-positioned in case the war in Lebanon extends to Iran, as opposed to the invasion of Iraq where troops were pre-positioned for months ahead of time.
As for an Iran war being a “pipe dream”, as I’ve said, Israel can NOT afford a war with Iran while Hezbollah is a reality. The target of any war by Trump now is Hezbollah in Lebanon, NOT Iran. Once Hezbollah is degraded, THEN the US can start a war with Iran.
Israel controls US policy with regard to Iran. Period. End of story.
Expect a summer war with Hezbollah this summer of next summer, with the US joining Israel in attacking Hezbollah. Then and only then will there be a war with Iran (there is also the slight possibility that the US or Israel will start a war with Iran and Hezbollah simultaneously, but that would be somewhat risky from a planning point of view for both countries.)
I digress on this whole thing, dude. The QFS (Quadrennial Freak Show) begins in earnest in 2020 .. And, if DJT starts a war in the region, his chances of winning re-election simply fly out the window. As of now, he hasn’t done that (the other wars were started by his 2 predecessors). He won the 2016 QFS on the pledges of ending the unending wars of aggression started and expanded by his 2 predecessors and bringing the troops home. If he fails to heed those pledges, he’s toast, and he knows it.
No, he didn’t win on his pledge to end wars and bring troops home. That’s the message anti-war people heard. People fearful of immigrants would say he won on the basis of pledging to close the border. Partisans who hated Obama because he’s a D and not an R would say he won because he was going to roll back every policy and treaty put into effect but the previous administration. He said so many conflicting things that followers could cherry pick the statements they liked.
This is the same man who stood on stage during the Republican debates and declared himself to be the most militaristic person on the stage. The man who threatened NK with ‘fire and fury the likes of which they had never seen.’ He ordered missiles to be fired at Syrian government property in Syria, and much to the neocons’ chagrin they’re still a sovereign nation, last time i checked. He hired John freaking Bolton to be his national security advisor.
Yup, I remember when he started to show, i decided, well, cant ignore this clown..who is he ? First Google search gave me his endorsement for single payer health care and i said whoa ! 20 minutes later, a couple searches revealed him to be a lying dirtbag. Yup, he’s got a line for anyone. Hubert Humphrey was famous for that too.
You don’t get it. Once Israel starts a war with Hezbollah, Trump has *zero* choice in the matter. Both he and Congress will be *happy* to rush to Israel’s defense. What he “wants” doesn’t matter in the least. But even then, his advisers will tell him he will be get a “war President poll bump” and his whole campaign will be how the Republicans “saved Israel from terrorists”. And he’ll win on that platform even though most of the US electorate couldn’t care less because they don’t understand foreign policy.
Oh, and from the other article referenced in this section today, here is this quote:
Quote:
The Pentagon has prepared plans for an air attack on Iran, veteran Middle East war correspondent Eric Margolis reported in July 2018. He wrote:
The Pentagon has planned a high-intensity air war against Iran that
Israel and the Saudis might very well join. The plan calls for over
2,300 air strikes against Iranian strategic targets: airfields and naval
bases, arms and petroleum, oil and lubricant depots, telecommunication
nodes, radar, factories, military headquarters, ports, water works,
airports, missile bases and units of the Revolutionary Guards.
End Quote
Does that sound like there is “no plan to attack Iran”? Get serious.
I guess one advantage of having a government run this incompetently is that they can’t even get a land war in Asia kicked off. Vizzini would be so proud.
Of course, when “we” went into Afghanistan and Iraq, there was only an attack plan, there were no conditions for victory set out, no exit strategy. Remember, draft dodging chicken-sh*t-hawks like Bolton are real men of action, they don’t do “aftermath” or “consequences.”
Well, for one, the ‘Pentagon officials’ are lying: we have war contingency plans for every nation and region on earth. A war brews up overnight in Venezuela? We have a plan for that. Britain suddenly decides she wants her colonies back and starts with the US? We have a plan for that. Someone finds oil or gold in Lichtenstein? No problem, implement Plan R.