February 28, 2006

The Firm Kill

So, how should Iran be taken out? Should it be by a "hard kill" invasion? Or should we "soft kill" the regime by connectivity? Or is there a door #3? Evidence for a middle-road, let's call it "firm kill" is emerging:


In the southwest, where most of Iran's oil, and Arabs, are found, two bombs went off in government offices. There were four injuries. These bombings have been going on since last Summer. The government blames foreign instigators. That may be true, but not the British foreigners the government names, but Iraqi Shia Arabs who feel the connection with their fellow Shia Arabs across the border in Iran.

We worry about how the Iraqi government would stand up against the continuing pressure of a bombing campaign but nobody seems to have asked the question of Iran's resiliance and ability to tolerate the same stresses. That's a major propaganda coup for the other side and there's no reason in the world that it should go on. Raising questions about Iranian regime stability is neither difficult, nor especially dangerous (except for oil markets, perhaps). So why aren't we talking about this?

Is the bombing campaign being done to destabilize the regime directly or to invite such severe repression that a Sistani/Najaf fatwa against the heretical Iranian government becomes inevitable? Such a situation would put Moqtada Sadr in a heck of a bind. The puppet would have to decide to either cut his strings or become useless to his Iranian masters by becoming too obviously their agent.

It's a nice play and it's occurring in plain sight.

Posted by TMLutas at February 28, 2006 03:25 PM