Forum Post: The Drums Of War Have Begun Again And There Isn't A Damn Thing We Can Do About It.

The retrieval of the RX-170 drone by the Iranians has confirmed my worst fears. It is reminiscent of the shooting down of Francis Gary Powers U-2 spyplane over the Soviet Union in 1960. Back then, we knew the Russians had the bomb and we knew they had missiles to deliver them. But, we didn't know how many and where they were hidden. So, off we went spying.

The Iranians have been working with missiles since the 1980's, when the world refused to sell them their latest warplanes and other armaments. So, they went native all the while branching out into international terrorism.

Now, it makes no sense to have a system of cruise missiles and IRBM's if all you are going to do is pack them with conventional weapons. The German V-1's and V-2's taught us that these things were, poorly guided, little more than nuisances

For 30 years the West has watched as the Iranians gradually accumulated the knowledge and technologies necessary to throw a payload a thousand miles.....and we did nothing. America had Bin Laden to deal with. We got sidetracked with Saddam. There was that little insurgency. And, then the election of 2008.

I think, of all the Presidents I have studied, Mr. Obama will go down with Lincoln as having been dealt the worst hand upon entry into office. Two wars, an economic depression, reactionary Republicans, Fox news, and talk radio all placed on the shoulders of a brilliant speaker, but political novice.

Yet, he has persevered and his successes have been largely underplayed in our national conscience, while his failures have been bellowed about by the Right wing machine.

So, that brings us back to Iran. The crazies in our Republican Presidential lineup have this year made it a habit of out-crazying each other. They have ramped up rhetoric and provided cannon fodder to every enemy you could imagine. All the while, these same candidates have offered up only simplistic, red-meat, strategies for our foreign policy.

George Bush said as early as 2004 that Iran simply could not be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. This means, of course, that the administration knew the Iranians were moving rapidly towards obtaining one. The phrase would reappear periodically in Bush's speeches, yet no action was undertaken. The Iranians, ever monitoring our President's attempts at the English language, reacted by hardening their production sites and dispersing enrichment locations.

The Result? Our country, and the Israelis, watched as our limited Iranian intelligence sources dried up and we were blinded....at about the same time our country had failed to find WMD's in another nation. Thank's again, Mr. Bush....you were already in your second term, an incredibly unpopular President, and you had nothing to lose by doing what was truly necessary.

But, was that purposeful....was it a political calculation? The prior administration realized that the issue of Iranian nukes would brand the next president as a warmonger....and therefore just as bad as Bush....or as a pacifist.....and weak on terrorism. The trap was set and the outcome will benefit Republican candidates for a generation.

Mr. Obama understands the twisted hand he was dealt. His options are mutually bad and his solution will be, in his typical fashion, one that "splits the difference."

Obama will attempt to emulate the Clinton successes in Serbia and Bosnia where a great deal of American muscle was flexed with no forces ever being placed on the ground. Bombing....that will be the answer. Targets will focus upon suspected nuclear sites.

However, we have no cruise missiles that are capable of "bunker busting." So, aircraft will be used and this means destroying all Iranian ground-to-air missile installations and the obliteration of the Iranian air force. Not a minor feat, but certainly one we can achieve.

The competing strategy would have been to use F-22 and B-2 Stealth Bombers that can pass through Iranian air defenses. But, with the loss of a "stealth" drone, and it's retrieval intact, the United States will not risk further embarrassment, or the trove of technology that could be gleaned, from a downed fighter plane or bomber.

And, that is where I am leading with all of this. We had the option, for 10 years, of utilizing our intelligence and stealth capabilities in order to surgically strike the central locations of the Iranian nuclear program.....but we failed to act. After 9-11, no power on earth would have raised a finger if we had taken the "clean house" approach and neutered the Iranians. But that is not what occurred. This goodwill was wasted, instead, upon the invasion of Iraq.

So, we must accept the world's first nuclear armed terrorist state or act soon with overwhelming firepower in order to draw a line in the nuclear sand. There is no longer an intermediate option available.

No President, Democrat or Republican, wishes for Iran to go nuclear on his watch. It's a gigantic hot potato in the room. Obama, mindful of Republican leaders use of the word "appeasement," has been pushed into a corner with only one way out.....and he will choose it. This trap will mean war. It will mean future reprisals and distrust of the United States. And, it means that other roguish nuclear powers will act more erratically.

The world is about to become a more dangerous place and it appears there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. History has already been written and the downing of the RX-170 was the final line of the introduction.

So, when does this war begin? After the election, of course.