Some unknown calculus
[ by Charles Cameron — thinking inside and outside the pack, Robert Wright, John Robb, Iran, outliers ]
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1.
Robert Wright just closed his Atlantic piece on Why Bombing Iran Would Mean Invading Iran with an exchange from a couple of years back between Gen. James Cartwright, then Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Sen. Jack Reed:
Senator Reed: I presume that [a bombing campaign] would not be 100 percent effective in terms of knocking them out. It would probably delay them, but that if they’re persistent enough they could at some point succeed. Is that a fair judgment from your position?
General Cartwright: That’s a fair judgment.
Senator Reed: So that the only absolutely dispositive way to end any potential would be to physically occupy their country and to disestablish their nuclear facilities. Is that a fair, logical conclusion?
General Cartwright: Absent some other unknown calculus that would go on, it’s a fair conclusion.
2.
Look, I’m way outside my zone of focus here, but that phrase “some unknown calculus” intrigues me.
Maybe Robert Wright should read John Robb. Maybe that “unknown calculus” is in Robb’s post, Israel, Iran and the Poor Man’s Cruise Missile:
One of the Stratfor research “findings” (culled from the Wikileaks stockpile) is that Israel claimed its upcoming strike on Iran would be “catastrophic enough” to cause a regime change. This claim was made both to dissuade Iran from going forward with its program, physically eliminating their ability to move forward with the program, and persuade the US to act instead of Israel.
Running through all of the potential scenarios, only one emerges that makes sense.
A strike on Iranian oil facilities. A strike so devastating that it disrupts all of its oil production, currently at 4 million barrels a day.
How to do that? Drones.
Look, Robb’s piece came out yesterday, Wright’s piece came out today — and who knows how long the editorial process might have taken. So I don’t blame Wright.
3.
The point is, Robb doesn’t think with the pack. And that means he comes up with ideas the pack is blind to.
March 2nd, 2012 at 5:14 am
Hi Charles,
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The strike would be dual – Iran’s domestic refinery production of gasoline ( at a shockingly few two sites) and power plants/grid as well as export side of oil industry. The first causes short-term hardship of a high degree, the second locks it in for the medium term
March 2nd, 2012 at 11:31 pm
But the unknown calculus would be the same, if you followed Robb’s strategy or the pack’s.
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The biggest unknown is Iran’s ability to shut-down the oil supply in the rest of the Middle East and secure allies that are able to bring oil to Asia.
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These allies would be Africa and South America. If Iran and China together are able to secure oil, because Iran and Israel have locked the oil up in the Middle East, for Asia, and Asia is able to defend itself from outside competitors from the west, then the calculus changes.
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It is a big if, but how much influence will the US have in Africa and South America fighting a war with Iran to secure the oil in all of the Middle East?
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I am far from being an expert, but I think we will need two more armies, such as we had, to defend Africa and South America, and I am not sure there is the political will or resources left to raise these two armies.
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Also remember, a natural resource, such as oil, only drops in value when it is taken out of the ground. No matter how bad it gets and the quantity of people dying, oil increases in value as it is left in the ground. The oil in Iran will only increase in value, until it is taken out of the ground. Perhaps Iran will share some of this increase in wealth with Syria and the rest of the world.
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That said, unknown calculus is what it is, unknown.