Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Iran counts on depleted U.S. forces

Wednesday, June 23, 2004


By PHILIP GOLD
GUEST COLUMNIST

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just ...."

And that our enemies can count.

Thomas Jefferson's nervousness remains as apt today as when he first expressed it in 1774. Of more immediate concern is the fact that our enemies -- Iran, especially -- can count.

The relevant arithmetic:

Today, nine of 10 active Army divisions are in Iraq or Afghanistan or back and recovering for the next deployment. The Army reserve and National Guard grow ever more exhausted. The Marines, always overstretched, have taken on additional Iraq duties. In short, the United States has no combat-ready strategic ground reserve.

And while it is true that in an emergency, you go with what you've got, air and sealift shortfalls make it virtually impossible to move those forces in less than several months while still maintaining the current ventures.

This situation was eminently predictable, and for more reasons than the fact that occupation/counter-insurgency missions can be horrendously people-intensive. Ten years ago, the Clinton administration drew bitter mirth from the defense community when it announced that the United States could fight two simultaneous major regional conflicts, presumably in Korea and the Middle East, and win. After several seasons of the two-MRC sitcom, the administration decided to try a sequel: changing MRC to MTW (major theater war) and "simultaneous" to "overlapping time frames."

It mattered not. Any competent sergeant, and most generals, could tell you that our limited capabilities would permit us to fight one war while deterring the other with air and sea power or, failing that, applying the bombs and cruise missiles lavishly. That's still our de facto strategy, especially regarding North Korea, where we're moving troops off the border and withdrawing at least one brigade for Iraq duty.

Unfortunately, our fleet now numbers less than 300 ships, smallest since the 1930s. This month, the Navy undertakes "Summer Pulse 04," an exercise keeping seven aircraft carrier strike groups out of 12 at sea simultaneously, a feat considered impossible only a few years ago. It's a magnificent effort -- and a magnificent symbol of a Navy now far too small. As for the Air Force, it no longer maintains the frenetic operating tempo of the '90s. But those planes that got so overworked patrolling Iraqi no-fly zones and bombing the Balkans, haven't grown any younger. Adequate numbers of replacement aircraft are still years away.

In sum, with our ground forces occupied and strategically immobile, the Air Force and the Navy have a lot of deterring to do. Sad to say, not even the most technologically advanced aircraft or ship can be in more than one or two places at once.

Enter Iran.

In mid-June, Arab media reported that Iran had moved four divisions to the Iraqi border, along with the usual missiles. Iran, be it noted, also possesses a nasty array of anti-ship missiles and mines.

Now posit an Iraq in violent disarray this summer, or an Iraq getting ready to explode into a set of anti-American insurrections and civil vendettas and wars. An Iranian cross-border "incursion-in-force" could well intensify the in-country strife -- or trigger it. Perhaps the Iranians take a couple northeastern towns, settle in and dare us to respond. Do we send the already overengaged Army in? Or do we summon the Navy and the Air Force? And if so, how much and from where and for how long? And if we find ourselves having to tie down additional forces after it's over, how do we keep the world, and especially the North Koreans, from noticing?

Would Iran do this? Perhaps. In the Islamic world, the borders that matter aren't always the borders on U.S. maps. In the Islamic world, challenging and hurting America constitute victory. And war can always be used by the ayatollahs to justify more domestic repression in that restive land. Iran has much to gain from a limited cross-border incursion.

And so do the neoconservatives. Some, such as Michael Ledeen, have long argued that "regime change" must include Tehran, Damascus and Riyadh. For them, "Cauldronize the Middle East" is a slogan and a goal, not a fear. Nearly all the neo-cons favor dramatically increased defense spending. Perhaps they're also salivating over possible resumption of the draft. (The Selective Service System must notify the president by March 31, 2005, that it's ready for activation.)

Whether neo-con fantasies represent administration policy is hard to tell; so is the degree of their actual influence. What is clear is that both Iran and the neo-cons have their reasons for welcoming a limited expansion of the war.

After all, as a venerable Beltway proverb has it: Sometimes nothing succeeds like the right kind of failure. And what's true, or at least expedient in Washington, D.C., can also be true in Tehran.

Philip Gold is author of "Take Back the Right," to be published by Carroll & Graf this summer.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/179014_iraqiran23.html