The first week of the war is very crucial and as I see it the loss of life on the both side will be great. Causalities of the US force would be equal to all their causalities since they have been in Iraq, if not more
Recently, I visited one of my relatives who had returned from Iraq to Iran for good. They had been living in Iraq for generations and even during Saddam’s rule when many Iranians were expelled from Iraq, they stayed in there. I had seen him at least in two instances in Maleki’s entourage on television. It seemed to me that he might have had a high position in the Iraqi government. I had a long talk with him. We talked about everything: daily life in Iraq, “fat ladies” (referring to the American soldiers under heavy military gears and the way they walk), Black Water mercenaries, the future war with Iran, Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, etc. It seemed to me that he was totally disillusioned with the future of Iraq and decided to return to Iran. I can not reveal his position, his name or where he worked in Iraq, but I can call him Abdullah.
I asked Abdullah about himself and life in Iraq. He depicted a very grim picture of the daily life in Iraq. He said, “What you see in the American media like CNN or read in major US publication is not the whole picture of what is going on in Iraq, but part of it and even that is a bit sanitized”. He talked about rapes and annihilation of Sunni villages by US troops and mercenaries and how they are not reflected much in US media.
When I asked him to explain more, he said, “What you see or read is only reports from “embedded journalist” paid by American news corporations who serve their corporations and their country in the time of war. Rarely the news comes from Iraqi sources or independent news media. The Anglo-American troops went to Iraq to tier it apart in to three small countries. In that way they can cause a lot of problems for Iran in decades to come. That would also take the world attention from Palestinian problem away and let Israel continue the slow motion holocaust of Palestinians. It is now a fact that the first explosion of shrine of Imam Musa kazem was not carried out by Iraqis or any Arab or Moslem individual, but either by Black Water mercenaries, MOSAD, or CIA. That was the first step toward start of Shiite and Sunnis division in Iraq.”
I asked him how true is the Iranian help to insurgence and killing of US troops? He said, “This is nonsense. If Iran was seriously involved, hundreds of Americans were killed each month not few dozens. This is an unpopular war and has lost American public support. The Bush administration wants to get public support. Many US soldiers are demoralized and do not want another war. The Shiites and Kurds are benefited from overthrow of Saddam, why should they kill American soldiers. This is propaganda to obtain American public opinion against Iran for further actions. The American public is very important in this war. Dick Cheney and George Bush know that they can not attack Iran just on the bases of accusations on nuclear weapon without evidence. These accusations were first started by CIA operatives in Iraq. If you notice first a low rank American officer claimed that Iran provides explosive for the insurgent. It was promptly denied by the top commanders in the field and pentagon officials, including General Casey. Then gradually it seems they gave in under great pressure from crazy Dick (Dick Cheney). If you remember amongst the weapons claimed to be captured from insurgents provided by the Iranians were weapons which Iran does not manufacture, and even some had Christian date on them, while the Iranians use different calendar. They amassed those weapons is such a hurry that they forgot about these subtle differences. Actually even general Petraeus was reluctant at the beginning to accuse Iranians of helping the insurgent, but eventually even he gave in under pressure from the White House. He is a soldier and he has to follow the chain of commands.
I asked him how he sees the prospect of George Bush attacking Iran. He said, “I do not believe US is in a position to attack Iran.” His general argument was like this: “in any case of American invasion millions of Iranians will go to fight them, and this time even harder than the time of Iran-Iraq war. In that war mostly religious zealots took part. War with America will mobilize the secular part of the Iranian society, even many who oppose the government, and will turn it into a nationalistic anti-imperialist war. That will give the government even greater efficiency. Besides that, the army, Revolutionary Guard and Basij have been totally changed in recent years to a real fighting force with sophisticated weaponry and training. They have arsenals of many new weapons that US does not know about them. In recent month they showed some of them so that US think twice before making any mistakes. Many American generals wet their pants of the idea of going to war with Iran. Not because they do not have fire power or can not wipe out Iran from the world map, but because they think they are serving their country and spreading democracy and the war with Iran will not be finished in 1, 2, or 5 years but at least a decade and it will be a bloody war, worse than Vietnam war. Above all, inefficiency of American military machine to fight a “war of people” like in Vietnam is well known. Although politician like Dick Cheney and George Bush directly and indirectly have threatened Iran, generals know what the war with Iran means. Iran is not like Germany to go into it just with a few thousand tanks. Iran is like Japan, you need to drop atomic bombs, and not two or three, but a dozen to make them surrender and we are not at a time this kind of things can be repeated. The war with Iran will not be army to army. US have to fight with each individual Iranians and that takes years. Besides that, the Iranian army is organized to fight an asymmetrical war with a powerful enemy. It does not have one command and control center which the Americans know about it and could destroy is in matter of hours, like Saddam’s army. It is like hydra, with many head. And any head which is cut out, it grows again. So that will be an unending war.”
I asked him about a limited war like “surgical strike” by Israeli or American air force. He said, “That will not happen. Israelis know not to engage directly with Iran, since they know they will instigate the wrath of Iran. If Israeli’s attack Iran, the Iranians have quite good map of all the Israeli nuclear installation and they know where to hit it with great accuracy and minimum charge and cause great pain to them. They always can say you attacked our civilian nuclear program, we attacked your military nuclear program. Besides that, Israelis have the Americans in their hand and they can force the American to do what they want to do. This is also improbable. In any case of US attack, Iran can retaliate severely. They can hit American bases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Persian Gulf, and many Arab countries from inside and outside. In the first few hours of the war tens of thousands of missile will fly toward US bases, many of them are smart bombs, many of them using stealth technology. The Iranian defense system is based on the 5:95 rules. That is, if 95% of the defense system were destroyed in the initial attack by an enemy, the remaining 5% must be so accurate and enough in numbers to destroy 95% of any enemy’s assets so that to cause the total defeat of the enemy or at least leave both sides in the same position as they had started.
I asked him, “You think Iran can overcome such a powerful military force?” He said, “There are two theories on the response of Iranians, one is severe reaction and massive retaliation against US and Israel adapted from Israeli’s tactic during Arab-Israeli war of 1963 when Israeli’s fought an enemy who seemed very powerful and outnumbered them. They have already mapped out the most sensitive American targets and they can hit them with accuracy of 95%. They know that American public is very sensitive to causalities, so their tactic is to go after their soft spots and software rather than hardware. They try to cause the maximum causalities in the shortest time and use American public against the generals in battlefield. They are aware of the immense American capability to replace tanks and air planes very quickly, but replacing human is not so easy for an army who has been in fight for almost 5 years.
The other theory is that the Iranians might not react quickly, but gradually in all the theaters of operation and cause gradual and steady casualty for US forces, like few hundred per month from within and from without the theater of operations. Iran can give tens of thousands of its supporters in Iraq and Afghanistan Iranian-made antiaircraft Stinger missiles or sophisticated antitank missiles and make those places like a hell for American troops. Iran can also bring other countries into the conflict and turn the war into a regional war and turn it into a low intensity and protracted long war. This is a kind of war that US can not afford at this time.”
I asked him, “Why the Iranians are so confident of themselves and so defiant?” He said, “They have the best intelligence network in the Middle-East, by far better than Israelis and Americans. I know a few cases in which they thwarted a few CIA and MOSAD operations successfully. The reason is that most of Arabs politicians in high positions provide them information, since they are fed up with their US-backed corrupt governments. A diplomat from an Arab country wherein US has a base there told me that once an Iranian intelligent officer asked him about the US command center in there. The diplomat told him why do you ask this kind of questions when you are going to missile it down. The agent got embarrassed and never talked to him. Even some Israelis cooperate with the Iranians and provide them with intelligence. The Iranians are very generous with money when it comes to this. I guess they also get some of their intelligence from Americans. There are many dissident in the Pentagon and US army and I guess sometimes they provide the kind of information that nobody can have that except American themselves. I think these dissidents want to prevent the war with Iran at any cost. They are patriotic and realistic and know that war with Iran will not be a quick one and will not end in a few months. They know that they will be in it for years to come and that will hurt the image of Americans.”
I asked him, “If US is not going to attack Iran directly, then when is this conflict going to end?” He said, “The war with Iran is not modeled after Iraq war, but it is like the clandestine war with Soviet Union. US will spend lots of money on propaganda and training of minorities to start descent over the next few decades, and then separation of Iran into three to four countries. Look how US right now provides money and training for Baluchis in Baluchistan, for Kurds in Kurdistan, for Arabs in Khuzestan, for Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan. Since US troops invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been lots of demonstrations and terrorist activity in the provinces neighboring these two countries. Right now US troops are training Mojahedin Khalgh for sabotage and clandestine operation inside Iran. Separation of Iraq to three states that will claim part of Iran’s territory has been on the agenda of pro-Israeli lobby and many think thank organization in US. Those Iranians who want to play the role of Ahmad Chalabi should think twice before inviting American troops to their cities, villages, and homes.”
At the end I asked him, “Then how would the nuclear issue be resolved?” He said, “I think the Americans already have accepted Iran as a nuclear power, but they try to turn it into harassment and get more political concession from Iranians. All the US presidents since the birth of Islamic republic got hurt burn from the Iranians, I think the present one will get a heart attack.”
