Wampum

Today the King is the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Seymore Hersh is worth reading. You know how to find the New Yorker.

Recently I ran across a comment by someone to the effect that he didn't know specifically why political actors in Iraq were calling for a delay of the legislative elections the Occupation Authority/Interim Government set for the end of this month. The commentor also mentioned that he didn't know what they hoped to achive by rescheduling the elections.

I have an answer. Two of them actually.

Part I: Why does form matter?

First the US domestic politics answer. As soon as there is an election, independent of process and outcome issues, the message that "Iraq is solved" becomes domestically salable. Iran becomes a legitimate target, where illegitimacy is measured by reckless over-extension of the military, not by reckless extension of the military. If cab drivers in Baghdad know that it is only a matter of time before the Americans attack Iran, how credible is it that political actors don't know that they are conducting, among other things, a holding action in the American rear area?

Second the Iraq domestic politics answer. The strategy of the Occupation Authority is to acquire the political asset of "legitimacy" without substantive recourse to International Law. As no shortage of strategists have observed, since Sun Tsu, the way to defeat the enemy is to defeat the enemy's strategy. The Americans initally chose the mechanism of ministerial appointments, which did not have the intended outcome of "legitimacy", followed by the mechanism of civic religions ritualism -- the "transfer of partial sovereignty", which also did not have the intended outcome of "legitimacy", and are now committed to their third choice, the plebecite ritual in pursuit of "legitimacy".

The someone who's comments I picked up was Ilyad Allawi, the CIA operative at the head of the Allawiite Militias. The persons observed to have called for a delay that has "Interim Prime Minister" Allawi puzzled are Sheik Chazi Al-Yaouar, who was selected by the Ministerial appointees 48 hours before the "transition" ritual, contrary to the Occupation script, and Hzim Al-Chaalane, who is the chief of the Allawiite Militias, or "Minister of Defense". Other persons in Iraq civil society too are calling for a delay in elections. Most of the media coverage goes to those who use the light-infantry and overrun-position repitorires of political tools.

Part II. Why does time matter?

I have an answer. Again, two of them actually. I'm very self-similar.

First the Iranian domestic politics answer. There will be an election during the Spring. The Iranian electorate needs to select who will be the head of government during tne next several years of war with the United States, Britian and Australia. There are candidates well-suited to run a civil government in peacetime, and candidates well-suited to run a civil government in wartime, and candidates well-suited to run campaigns supported by conservative factions within Iranian civil society, but not civil governments in times of war or peace. Iran needs time to choose the principle focus of its leadership going into a war that will bring down the military dictatorship in Pakistan and put the Pakistani and Indian nuclear arsenels into operational readiness, that will close the Straits for the duration (War of the Tankers, part 2), and will take the GCC states into the conflict as well. Mostafa Moin isn't my choice. I'm still betting on Rafsanjani.

Second the Iranian domestic military answer. The Americans are certain to conduct air operations until they have exhausted the target inventory, and then will switch to bombing civilian infrastructure such as the electrical grid. The Americans are also certain to conduct insertion operations until they have exhausted the target inventory. Neither of the operations will have the strategic effect however of causing "regime change" and the end to autonomous Iranian energy development, in oil, gas, and commercial uranium fuels, discussed in earlier parts of this series. To achive that end, Tehran must be taken, and even that may not be sufficient. To take Tehran, the Iraq-Iran war must be refought, on the ground, in the province of Khuzestan. How OPLAN 1002-05 extends beyond that point, how it wins where OPLAN 1002-82 failed, that will be the unexplored territory.

The Iraqi-American playbook in 1980 read two axis of advance, one crossing the Shatt al Arab at Basra, heading littorially east to Khorramshahr, the other moving north-east to Ahvaz. The Shah's air force stopped the Iraqis at the battle for Dezful, and one of my classmates at Berkeley returned home to disapear in the defense of Khorramshahr, and the modality of war changed from manouver to eight years of Ypre-like attrition.

The Shah's air force isn't waiting in jail for President Bani Sadr to let them out to fight the Iraqi-American agression, so the 100km/day advance should continue right up to the Zagros mountains, ending Iranian control over most of the oil resources, and some of the water and electrical generation capacity. The latter will have been bombed anyway. At some point, the modality of war changed from manouver to attrition.

Time matters because the Americans can't run a 100km/day advance during high summer. The air campaign has to begin two weeks before the movement order. They have to start in the early Spring, or wait until Fall, and every Spring actual looks better than the following Fall anticipated.

As the American strategic goal is to manage China's access to energy, for reasons I've written about earlier in this series, it is prudent to think about how India, between the Americans astride the oil in the Gulf, and China and Japan.

This continues Notes and Notes.