Wesley Clark Warns Against War with Iran

Au contraire, Toddarino, not by any stretch did Wesley Clark warn against war with Iran.

By the way, General Clark somehow forgot to mention his brutal 78-day bombing of Belgrade in 1999, including the destruction of bridges railways, roads, electric power, and fuel and fresh water supplies. President Carter said: "the decision to attack the entire nation [which] has been counterproductive, and our destruction of civilian life has now become senseless and excessively brutal. [And that there] is little indication of success after more than 25,000 sorties and 14,000 missiles and bombs, 4000 of which were not precision guided."

As for Iran, Clark says: "The Next War. . .It's always looming. . .Today, the most likely next conflict will be with Iran, a radical state. . .that now threatens to further destabilize the Middle East . . .and far-reaching support for radical Shiite militias in Iraq. . .seems to draw closer to acquiring nuclear weapons . . .Think another war can't happen? Think again. . . The next war would begin with an intense air and naval campaign. . . .Iran is not the only country where the next war with the United States might erupt. . . China . . .Don't ever, ever go to war unless you can describe and create a more desirable end state. And doing so takes a whole lot more than just the use of force. . .we need to safeguard our troops. . .United States' top generals must understand that their duty is to win . . .So, steady as we go. . . War is the last, last, last resort." Clark then goes on about how officers should get PhD's like Petareus but political leaders shouldn't hide behind generals. Wow.

The war-hawks are circling. War is inevitable--"always looming". Clark has just endorsed Clinton, who said long ago that, in regard to Iran, all options are on the table. Bush has apparently promised Rice that he will consult with congressional leaders before he does it, but that seems a formality. The Dems are more AIPAC-ized than even the Repubs. Gates will go along. Admiral Fallon might be a bit of a problem, but I suppose he'll do what he's told. Hold on tight--here we go.

You mean the bombing that stopped the Serbian act of genocide? Or is the the American far left now in favor of genocide.

Presidents have all options on the table is not the same as invading Iran. It is a mature reality that one not give away choices in advance.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

No,I mean the bombing that started the Serbian act of genocide. The point is that Clark, who is backing Clinton, is an experienced bomber.

Regarding Iran and Senator Clinton, she made that remark some time ago, and the clear context was that an attack on Iran was okay with her. Given her strong support of Israel, and the fact that Israel wants to whack Iran, this is entirely plausible. She will have to make her position clear anew. I believe that she will favor an attack on Iran, and that Clark will back her up based on the words in this op-ed.

Can you do more than try to find fault? What do you think Clark was saying and what do you think Clinton will do?

AJM,
That's an easy one--fast, waist-high, a bit outside--and it's out of the park! Clark's op-ed is not a warning at all, it's a prescription for war. The "more desirable end state", as Clark has conveniently told us, is an Iran that doesn't support Iraq Shiite militias and can't acquire nuclear weapons. That's it. Bombs away on army camps, weapons factories and nuclear sites and the more desirable end state will thereby be created. By golly, it worked in Yugoslavia, didn't it, and Wes ran the show.

AJM,
There has been no talk of a senate vote. Many believe that the AUMFs of Sep 18, 2001 and Oct 2, 2002 are sufficient. If there is a senate vote I fully expect to be as disappointed in our senators as I was in October 2002. We can always continue to hope that senators will do the right thing but they've shown little propensity for acting rationally.

Howard. OT? Maybe, but I have finally come across some details on the Israeli raid over Syria and posted an excerpt on1983merman's Blog plus some other stuff.
http://tinyurl.com/33octn

Oh hell, here's the excerpt:

"Amid the confusion there were troubling details that chimed uncomfortably with the known facts. Two detachable tanks from an Israeli fighter were found just over the Turkish border. According to Turkish military sources,they belonged to a Raam F15I - the newest generation of Israeli long-range bomber, which has a combat range of over 2,000km when equipped with the drop tanks. This would enable them to reach targets in Iran, leading to speculation that it was an 'operation rehearsal' for a raid on Tehran's nuclear facilities.

Finally, however, at the week's end, the first few tangible details were
beginning to emerge about Operation Orchard from a source involved in the Israeli operation. They were sketchy, but one thing was absolutely clear. Far from being a minor incursion, the Israeli overflight of Syrian airspace through its ally,Turkey, was a far more major affair involving as many as eight aircraft,including Israel's most ultra-modern F-15s and F-16s equipped with Maverick missiles and 500lb bombs. Flying among the Israeli fighters at great height,The Observer can reveal, was an ELINT - an electronic intelligence gathering
aircraft."
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=36053

The author of the Observer/Gaurdian article is of the opinion that "Operation Orchard" was a "dry run".

Actually, it's more like "Stee-rike Three!" Does the following passage (from the same Op-Ed) sound to you like someone describing an achievable end-state--or more like someone warning about its extreme uncertainty and unlikelihood?

But if it's clear how a war with Iran would start, it's far less clear how it would end. How might Iran strike back? Would it unleash Hezbollah cells across Europe and the Middle East, or perhaps even inside the United States? Would Tehran goad Iraq's Shiites to rise up against their U.S. occupiers? And what would we do with Iran after the bombs stopped falling? We certainly could not occupy the nation with the limited ground forces we have left. So what would it be: Iran as a chastened, more tractable government? As a chaotic failed state? Or as a hardened and embittered foe?

And while you're at it maybe you have an explanation for why someone who is supposedly so eager for war with Iran would help start a Web site called StopIranWar.org?

Back to the dugout, slugger.

They apparently thought cruise missiles were an awful lot smarter than Bush reading "My Pet Goat."

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

I don't care WHO says it, Cheney and Bush are bound and determined to STAY in the Middle East, even if that means taking on Iran. What do they care, it will only be in their HISTORY they will experience any pain from it.

It's usually those that have never fought a war that tend to BOAST the war is NEEDED.

Coonsey's View

HTTP://WWW.FREEWEBS.COM/COONSEY/

was there any sign of [Bush's] brain during the recent colonoscopy?

Just remnants. He squashed it long ago when he sat down. LOL!

Best, Terry

Fascinating entry on Brugioni, whom I had never heard of. Loved the three quotes at the bottom...very eery.

If the genociders know you're bombing them BECAUSE of what they are doing, doesn't that act as a deterrence, if not an outright incentive to stop?

If the genociders are getting bombed, doesn't that give them something more important to focus on than killing civilians whose deaths won't help them survive? In other words, don't they turn to saving their own hides rather than taking the hides of non-combatants?

If so, does it matter that you're not bombing genocide-specific sites, such as concentration camps, as long as you're bombing--or otherwise hurting--the genociders, e.g., their military and associated resources?

If the genociders are getting bombed, doesn't that give them something more important to focus on than killing civilians

Genociders may decide to stop genociding because bombs hurt. But bombs hurt genocidees too. Genocidees have no choice in the the matter except to get beaten, raped, mutilated and/or murdered. Doesn't seem right somehow to bomb them too.

Best, Terry

Clark's op-ed is hardly a "warning against with Iran." Rather it's point is to argue that if we do go to war with Iran, we should apply various "lessons" from Iraq so that the Iran war will not go as badly as the Iraq war.

First, Clark is singing entirely in tune with the current White House talking points on Iran. His interpretation of the the current state of Iranian affairs is no different that that of any other Iran hawk:

Today, the most likely next conflict will be with Iran, a radical state that America has tried to isolate for almost 30 years and that now threatens to further destabilize the Middle East through its expansionist aims, backing of terrorist proxies such as the Lebanese group Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, and far-reaching support for radical Shiite militias in Iraq. As Iran seems to draw closer to acquiring nuclear weapons, almost every U.S. leader -- and would-be president -- has said that it simply won't be permitted to reach that goal.

He then says that Iran is one country where war with the United States might "erupt". (I love this kind of language from our leaders. Rather than let on that war with Iran might actually be planned, decided on and then deliberately executed, Clark would have us think of it as a volcanic act of God that is out of our hands.)

Clark then proceeds to draw various "lessons" from the Iraq fiasco. Lesson One is don't go to war with Iran unless we are ready to see it through all the way to the construction of a new Iranian order:

Here, the lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan couldn't be more clear: Don't ever, ever go to war unless you can describe and create a more desirable end state. And doing so takes a whole lot more than just the use of force.
.
.
.
Nation-building, however ideologically repulsive some may find it, is a capability that a superpower sometimes needs.

This is the chief Iraq-related gripe of the liberal interventionists. They believed Iraq should have been a far more comprehensive war cum nation building extravaganza, a far-reaching Americanist social and cultural overhaul of the foreign nation of Iraq. Iraq wasn't an inherently bad idea, in their view, but failed because the Bush administration went in with limited military aims and no "post-conflict" nation building plan.

Lesson Two is that in the years prior to Iraq, we focussed too much on high tech modernization, geared at the "big fight" rather than "low-intensity conflicts" and let our ground forces grow too small. We need more of them, according to General Hillary Clark, and it won't be cheap:

Bulking up these forces, perhaps by as many as 100,000 more active troops, and refitting and recovering from Iraq could cost $70 billion to $100 billion.

Lesson Three is a bit harder to interpret. But the idea seems to be that our soldiers need to be trained differently, since each one is not just a killing machine, but a low-level local diplomat and sales rep for US Inc. as well. While they are dispatching one Hottentot with the left hand, they should be shaking the right hand of the next one, and selling Americanism to the surviving natives:

Somehow, in the past decade or two, we began to think of ourselves as "warriors." There was an elemental purity to this mindset, a kill-or-be-killed simplicity that drove U.S. commanders to create a leaner force based on more basic skills -- the kind that some generals thought were lacking in Vietnam and in the early years of the all-volunteer military. Now, in an age when losing hearts and minds can mean losing a war, we find ourselves struggling in Iraq and Afghanistan to impart the sort of cultural sensitivities that were second nature to an earlier generation of troops trained to eat nuoc mam with everything and sit on the floor during their tours in Vietnam.

Lesson Four is that we need to extend our "staying power" by shoring up public support for our wars. And the way to do that is to do a better job protecting our troops:

One of the most important lessons from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and Vietnam, for that matter -- is that we need to safeguard our troops. The U.S. public is more likely to sour on a conflict when it sees the military losing blood, not treasure. So to keep up our staying power, our skill in hunting and killing our foes has to be matched by our care in concealing and protecting our troops. Three particularly obvious requirements are body armor, mine-resistant vehicles, and telescopic and night sights for every weapon. But these things are expensive for a military that has historically been enamored of big-ticket items such as fighter planes, ships and missiles. Many of us career officers understood these requirements after Vietnam, but we couldn't shift the Pentagon's priorities enough to save the lives of forces sent to Iraq years later.

Once again, Clark lets us know, this won't be cheap. This point connects up with discussions that were prominent in the run-up to Iraq. It was argued that while Americans have shown themselves ready to sacrifice great stores of wealth and millions of lives in WWII-style conflicts that the public judged as vital to the national defense, they have shown themselves unwilling to sustain even modest casualties in discretionary conflicts that they judge somewhat less than vital. Rather than draw the conclusion that we should probably refrain from fighting non-vital, discretionary wars, our ruling military-political class prefers to draw the lesson that we must reduce US casualties even further so that we can sustain public backing for these discretionary conflicts.

Lesson Five is that our generals need to be more accountable for winning, and more aggressive about demanding the tools they need in order to prevail:

At the same time, the United States' top generals must understand that their duty is to win, not just to get along. They must have the insight and character to demand the resources necessary to succeed -- and have the guts to either obtain what they need or to resign. If they get their way and still don't emerge victorious, they must be replaced. That is the lot they accepted when they pinned on those four shiny silver stars.

So when war "erupts" in the skies over Iran, let our generals not be shy in demanding sufficient shares of the national loot, and all the men and hardware they need to complete the job of turning Iran into the Persian States of America.

Lesson Six is a Clauswitzian reminder that the military is but one "tool" of statecraft. It's one of the devices we use to get our way, but not the only device:

Above all else, we Americans must understand that the goal of war is to achieve a specific purpose for the nation. In this respect, the military is simply a tool of statecraft, one that must work in tandem with diplomacy, economic suasion, intelligence and other instruments of U.S. power. How tragic it is to see old men who are unwilling to talk to potential adversaries but seem so ready to dispatch young people to fight and die.

Indeed. And yet how tragic it is also to see old generals enabling those old civilian men by contributing to the climate of hysteria and exaggeration surrounding the discussion of said adversaries.

Lesson Seven is that even as we go about fighting our discretionary neo-imperialist wars and low-intensity conflicts - well, low intensity for our side at least - we must never forget to continue to mouth banal and insincere "war is the last resort" pieties along the way:

So, steady as we go. We need to tweak our force structure, hone our leadership and learn everything we can about how to do everything better. But the big lesson is simply this: War is the last, last, last resort. It always brings tragedy and rarely brings glory. Take it from a general who won: The best war is the one that doesn't have to be fought, and the best military is the one capable and versatile enough to deter the next war in the first place.

From what I gather, the current bunch heading up the Turkish military is far more independent of the AKP government than the ones formerly in charge. The Turkish population wouldn't favor a strike on Iran at all and I don't think the politicals would either, but they may have no choice in the matter. There were rumors that Turkish intelligence aided the Israelis. Turkey is one of the best customers for Israel's defense industry but also relies on Iranian supplies of natural gas.

"I'm not sure how this would play against Kurdish insurgency."

Which one? The one in northern Iraq or the one in Turkey?

Cynically, I speculate that if there is some REAL action to address the PKK in Kurdistan, it could signal a tit-for-tat agreement between DC and the Turkish military.

French Foreign Minister Kouchner is warning that the world and French citizens must be prepared for war against Iran if they don't do the usual blah blah blah. He's hinting that the French military could get involved. Could be a diplomatic psyops move on the run-up to the next meeting of the UN Security Council.

Before WWII, airpower theorists like Giulio Douhet assumed that bombing a city would cause a collapse of morale. The US Strategic Bombing Surveys of both Japan and Germany, as well as the British experience, showed otherwise, at least given the capabilities of WWII bombers. There is misery, but morale doesn't collapse.

When you talk about the genociders being bombed, you need to give me an idea what kind of targets are being hit, and how important they are to the genociders -- and how likely it is that the genociders themselves are to be hurt.

In Rwanda, you essentially had gangs with machetes mingling with civilians. In Darfur, you have raiders on camels, horses, and an occasional pickup truck swooping down on villages. Yes, there are occasional airstrikes in Darfur, but they don't define the combat.

If you picture the genociders as light cavalry like Apaches (mind you, I have an Apache friend and I thought they were the good guys in "Fort Apache"), what is there to bomb?

If there are large military installations, critical industry, and the like, which are supporting the genocide, bombing might make a difference. If Serbian irregulars in trucks, armed with rifles and machine guns, round up civilians and shoot them down, what is there to bomb that's going to affect them? You can't just randomly blow away every truck, because you have no way of knowing who is in them.

Precision air attack did take out the Iraqi regular military, first destroying their air defense, then their command & control, then tanks and artillery. That left us with people going around setting IEDs. Sure, those insurgents can't stand against regular forces, but they aren't trying to do so.

So if the genociders don't have things that are critical to them, and are dispersed enough that you aren't going to have bodies of troops that can be attacked, air attacks won't deter them. The argument about bombing the industrialized Nazi death camps was that the gas chambers and crematoria would take a long time to rebuild. There were requests to attack the railroads taking people to the camp, but rail lines (as opposed to bridges and tunnels) can be repaired with amazing speed.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

This is not the first time that I've started to think that Clark is militarily deranged, certainly by retirement. Not too long ago, he was throwing around numbers of troops to throw into Darfur, which could not possibly be supported there without defensible roads or rail lines, and probably fuel pipelines, being built -- not an overnight project, and what should be obvious to anyone who looks at a terrain and transportation map of Darfur.

Now, taking a quote

hree particularly obvious requirements are body armor, mine-resistant vehicles, and telescopic and night sights for every weapon.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Do you have any evidence that Clark's is being "insincere" in offering that final lesson? Here, as elsewhere, he certainly seems to lay a great deal of stress on it. What makes you suppose that this stress is merely rhetorical, whereas everything else he says is functional and pragmatic?

And as you answer that question, please be aware that whatever support you summon for your view will have to be weighed in the balance, by any fair-minded reader, against Clark's established record of very publicly sounding the alarm that we are headed for war with Iran, and of calling for that war to be averted--a record that culminated in his co-founding of StopIranWar.org.

As to the supposed banality of the lesson that "war is the last, last, last resort": Well, I suppose it depends on what you have in mind in calling it that.

It is certainly not a new idea, I'll give you that. Indeed, it's part of a very old family of ideas that are in some sense as commonplace as those associated with, say, "limited government" or "checks and balances" or "human rights". The idea's value and power are another matter. I can only say that it seems to have retained enough of both, that the administration felt compelled to make a pretence of believing in it themselves, in late 2002 and early 2003, before utterly violating it in the event.

Yep -- and the use of nukes in that T-like incident.

"...Policy on the Possible First Use of Nuclear Weapons

"...The United States has never ruled out the possible first use of nuclear weapons. Although it has pledged that it would not attack non-nuclear weapons states with nuclear weapons under most circumstances, it has maintained a policy of “studied ambiguity” about the circumstances under which it would consider nuclear retaliation and the type of response it might use if a nation attacked the United States with WMD.

In its nuclear posture review (NPR), the Bush Administration did not alter the U.S. policy on the first use of nuclear weapons. However, with its emphasis on the emerging threats posed by nations armed with weapons of mass destruction, the administration did appear to shift towards a somewhat more explicit approach when acknowledging that the United States might use nuclear weapons in response to attacks by nations armed with chemical, biological, and conventional weapons. The Bush Administration has stated that the United States would develop and deploy those nuclear capabilities that it would need to defeat the capabilities of any potential adversary whether or not it possessed nuclear weapons.

Specifically, in its briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review, the Administration stated that the capabilities needed in the U.S. nuclear force structure “are not country-specific” and that the United States “must maintain capabilities for unexpected and potential risks.” The focus will be “on how we will fight, not who we will fight.”32 This does not, by itself, indicate that the United States would plan to use nuclear weapons first in conflicts with non-nuclear nations. However, General Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated in an interview that the scope of the destruction, not the weapon used in an attack, would affect a U.S. decision on whether to respond with nuclear weapons. He included high explosives, i.e. conventional weapons, in the list of “weapons of mass destruction” that might bring a nuclear response..."
CRS Report for Congress: U.S. Nuclear Weapons: Changes in Policy and Force Structure (Updated August 10, 2006)

And the Democrats response on this Congressional Report?

Yes, a number of prominent neocons are Jewish. Do you realize how close to antisemitism that brings you, when you use this fact as an opportunity to attack Israel?

By the way, where is your similar anger at Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two countries whose governments are without question contributing to the chaos in the middle east?

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

If Clark is still opposed to war against Iran, then why did he not bother to say, in the 20 paragraphs given to him by the Wall Street Journal, something as direct and as straightforward as "I oppose a war with Iran." If Clark still thinks we must avert a war with Iran, then why did he not say, "We must avert a war with Iran"?

Could it be that he takes one position when addressing us yahoos in the loony left over the internets, or reaching out for political support to antiwar activists, and takes another position when writing for the Very Serious People who read the Wall Street Journal?

The dictum that "war is the last resort" is, as used by politicians, absurdly vague and close to content free. Perhaps you could suggest a precise rendering of that dictum.

Watch out for a so-called "false flag" incident.

Criticizing the foreign policy of the Israeli government in not anti-Semitic

We have not had any president seeking out Texans in the government for firing as enemies of the state though perhaps we should have.

Anti-semitism has an ugly history in this country that has not been fully erased. Such a history creates extremism on both sides.

Surely one need not support atrocities of the Israeli government to understand the precarious position of Israel in a sea of hostility.

Should that be of any concern to the U.S.?

Dunno frankly.

I worry more about when we finally do the right thing and return Texas to Mexico. Then every patriotic American can support building a wall along the border to keep such destructive foreigners out.

Best, Terry

Amileoj,
New inning. I'm up again.

First, I never said Clark was "eager for war", although I inferred that he's a hawk and of course he's endorsed HRC who is not shy about military matters. He eagerly described what ought to be done in this new war.

My main points are that Clark is an experienced bomber, he didn't warn against war and he has endorsed HRC.

Clark does express thoughts on what Iran might do with terror cells, Iraqi Shiites and what Iran would be like after an attack, but this is hardly warning against war, is it? Does Clark ever write: Don't do it because these counter-actions would outweigh the "benefits" of bombing? No, he merely notes some factors which should be taken into consideration.

If Clark was seriously warning against war he would mention potential blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, which would severely impact oil supplies, and also the potential that the Iranians have to sink not only tankers but also US warships with cruise missiles, mines and torpedoes. He didn't.

Clark's piece is half a prescription for war, describing what must be done militarily, and secondly some irrelevant bromides on generals going to school.

Todd forgot to mention it, but Clark's op-ed was entitled: The Next War. The title was not: Stop Iran War. This piece doesn't stop a war, it accepts it and promotes it.

Speaking of cluster munitions, no wonder Israel refuses to release targeting data as the Big Satan's militia, NATO, is being hounded hard to reveal the same data re cluster bombs over Serbia:

Nato comes clean on cluster bombs
Eight years on, Serbia is finally told where munitions fell
By Brian Brady, Whitehall Editor
Published: 16 September 2007

"Nato chiefs will this week finally tell the Serbian government where they drop-ped thousands of cluster bombs during the Kosovo campaign, more than eight years after the bombardment finished.

Allied commanders have bowed to mounting pressure from foreign governments and pressure groups and will hand over full coordinates for the hundreds of bombing sorties. Belgrade hopes this could pinpoint thousands of unexploded munitions still littering parts of the country.

The pledge from Nato's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (Shape) will end a delay condemned by human rights groups and described as "shameful" by one British minister.

The US, Britain and Holland are believed to have dropped more than 2,000 cluster bombs – containing 380,000 sub-munitions – during Operation Allied Force, the three-month campaign to end Serb oppression in Kosovo in 1999. The RAF dropped 531 RBL755 cluster bombs, designed principally to destroy tanks and other armoured vehicles.

But furious condemnation erupted after at least 23 Serb civilians were killed by cluster munitions during the campaign. Since the operation, the Allied forces have admitted the bombs had a failure rate of at least 5 per cent, meaning up to 20,000 unexploded bomb-lets may be strewn across Serbia and Kosovo.

snip]

But British ministers confessed this summer that, despite Serb requests, the co-ordinates of RAF bombing raids had not been given to Belgrade. Baroness Royall of Blaisdon said Britain had given the information to Nato, but it had not been passed on. She added: "I do think it is rather shameful."

Tory peer Lord Elton, a leading campaigner against the bombs, said ministers had confirmed in mid-May that the co-ordinates had been supplied to Nato and Nato "would in due course hand them to Serbia". He added: "That's eight years for children to blow their feet off. Why can't we send our co-ordinates direct and get others to do the same?".

Now critics claim it may be too late recover thousands of ageing, unstable munitions. The UK has contributed £86,000 to the Serbian Mine Action Centre for equipment; in Lebanon, Britain gave £2.7m to help the clean-up after the Israeli attack last summer.

A Foreign Office spokes-man said: "Nato now have everything they need and intend to share it with the Serbs in the next week."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2966970.ece

Intend? weasel word alert...

Do we just have more Clark bashers here? You know, you don't need to do that any more --- he's not running. Or is it that prejudice some people insist upon sporting against anyone ever in uniform?

No one has tried harder than Clark to stop a war with Iran. As noted, that's why he started up a web site, StopIranWar.com . He has been working behind the scenes for years now trying to convince people not to go to war. There is ample evidence of this. He has written other op-eds in the past that were quite explicit. Presumably, the Washington Post said they didn't want another piece just like that. So he tried something different. He's not giving away anything by telling people how such a war would proceed. And he's very clearly not advocating that war.

He is up against it here. Didn't you read the sentence where he says that all of the presidential candidates are indicating that they won't allow Iran to do certain things? When Clark has written on this matter before, he has made it clear that we should consider accepting a world where Iran has nuclear capability --- that this is one of our options. I remember when all of the Democratic frontrunners made their speeches before groups that lobby on behalf of Israel's hardline government. How they all threatened Iran.

Clark is trying to be a sane voice here. To caution that there is no reason to think that we can gain anything by going to war with Iran, but that there is reason to think that we can lose much, just as we have in Iraq.

So can the Clark harassers give it a break? Don't you have other candidates to attack?

Don, Let's revisit my opening sentence, with the operative clause emboldened:

You don't have to plunge too far beneath the lines to see that Wesley Clark, in his WP op-ed, thinks disastrous war with Iran might well be on its way.

Clark is a general, so you would't expect from him a piece on the wrongness of all war.  But let's think about it.  This is how Washington conducts its signaling.

And always remember:  Writers don't choose their own headlines.  Ever.

Todd Gitlin

Clark is trying to be a sane voice here. To caution that there is no reason to think that we can gain anything by going to war with Iran, but that there is reason to think that we can lose much, just as we have in Iraq.

Could you please point to the place where Clark says there is no reason to think we can gain anything by going to war with Iran? The closest I can find is one paragraph where he lists several questions that must be answered if we do go to war with Iran. It looks to me like he has perhaps given up. The "warnings" in the op-ed are muted at best, with the bulk of the piece is devoted to outlining the military lessons that should be drawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, and applied to a war with Iran.

Starting with Todd's post, several of the comments on the op-ed piece seem to be reading things into it, based on their knowledge of Clark's earlier "Stop the War" bit, that simply are not present in the actual piece.

To say that Israel isn't behind the pressure on the US to attack Iran, just as Israel pushed the US into attacking Iraq, is simply laughably false:

Israel To U.S.: Don't Delay Iraq Attack
Sharon Government Urges Prompt Action Against Saddam
JERUSALEM — Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Friday.

Israeli intelligence officials have gathered evidence that Iraq is speeding up efforts to produce biological and chemical weapons, said Sharon aide Ranaan Gissin.

"Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose," Gissin said. "It will only give him (Saddam) more of an opportunity to accelerate his program of weapons of mass destruction."

And...

Israel Says War on Iraq Would Benefit the Region by James Bennet New York Times February 27, 2003 "Israelis have also suggested that that an Iraq war may salvage their economy and even prompt the opposition Labor Party to join Mr. Sharon's coalition in a new government of national unity.

Expressed in its broadest, vaguest terms, that theory has come in for the sort of mockery that the idealistic vision of Oslo's effects suffered from the right. The accusation is the same: fuzzy, wishful thinking..."

AND...

Attack Iran the Day Iraq War Ends, Demands Israel
by Stephen Farrell, Robert Thomson and Danielle Haas The Times Tuesday, November 5, 2002
ISRAEL’S Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on the international community to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete...

There is no question that maps covering drops of cluster submunitions that may have active and dangerous devices left must be made available after the end of fighting. Technical assistance to disarm them, or, more often, to destroy them in place, is also quite appropriate.

My one slight flag is that not all cluster submunitions are dangerous; there are types other than antipersonnel, "dual purpose" antipersonnel/antivehicular, and antitank. The true antitank, rather than dual-purpose, are fairly unlikely to be a hazard even to civilian vehicles.

I'm not sure what was meant by "too late", unless it refers to some munitions that have buried themselves. Antipersonnel cluster submunitions are not designed to create minefields, but the existing ones tend to do that; their fuzing is such that they expect to hit a hard surface at 60 degrees or so to detonate. That's fine when you are attacking an airfield, but, in other terrain, up to 20-30% may not go off. A dud antipersonnel munition, however, is so delicately fuzed that technicians would rarely try to disarm it. They will usually put a small explosive charge next to it, surround it with sandbags if it's in an area that can't be cleared, and then detonate it.

I do believe that it is technically possible to design antipersonnel bomblets that do not create minefields, but that hasn't been done. Still, while I support the ban on antipersonnel mines, I am less prone to ban cluster munitions that have been designed to fail safe. The older ones do need to be banned.

Some used in the Balkans, for example, spooled out carbon filament strands that temporarily shorted out the electrical system. Others have limited-time electronic jammers. Yet others spread propaganda leaflets. My point here is these are less-than-lethal that should not necessarily be discouraged; they are a hazard only if they hit people on the head. I would have been much happier, for example, if the Israelis had used carbon filament weapons in Lebanon, rather than blowing up electrical power stations and substations -- it's far easier to restore civilian power after temporary shorts than when the transformers and generators are in little pieces.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

As of a short while ago, Wesley Clark, at StopIranWar.com, was still asking visitors to sign a petition, to be sent to President Bush, opposing military force against Iran in the near term. (I don't know whether the text of the petition is available somewhere without first giving one's personal information; I have not seen the text.) Hillary Clinton should expect to be asked, if she hasn't been, whether she has signed the petition. If she has signed or does sign the petition, the petition's statement will be compared to her other statements concerning Iran.