Beware the Ides of March

Or as we called it down at The Citadel - f'ed up Febuary (long story there).

I decided to run this Iran strike theory as far into the rabbit hole as I can.

It seems the CVN-74 John C. Stennis ("Johnny Reb" - how ironic) will be on station in the Persian Arabian Gulf by 01 February. The Dwight D. Eisenhower is already there and has been there since October. My Navy buddies tell me the Ike could stay on station comfortably until April or May. With two carrier strike groups on station the Navy would be able to conduct continuous 24 hour ops and provide fleet security.

Redeploying additional Air Force assets is a logistical challenge but manageable and could be done within days - the Navy is always the first to move in these matters.

February is significant for Iran, 1-11 Feb is known as the 10-Day Dawn and marks the beginning of the Revolution. On 01 Feb 1979 Imam Khomeini returned to Iran and the revolution essentially began.

Nov 14 2006 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "that two major technological achievements of the government will be made public during the Ten-Day Dawn (February 1-11) ceremonies." He also said in the same speech, “We are determined to master the nuclear fuel cycle and commission some 60,000 centrifuges to meet our demands.“ Nothing new there but certainly a clue as to what the major technological achievements relate to.

Sep 28 2006 "Russia and Iran signed Tuesday a supplementary agreement on the delivery of 80 metric tons of nuclear fuel to a nuclear power plant in southern Iran in March 2007, the head of Russia's nuclear exporter said." Add this to whatever fissionable material they have already acquired and they have the 'stuff' required to go to work.

A strike in the February-March time frame makes sense. The US could shuttle additional ground troops into Iraq by that time to ensure that the country could be secured - at least from Iranian invasion, we already know we cannot secure that place from the Iraqis no matter how many troops we send.

And just today:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scorned the UN Security Council’s imposing sanctions on Iran, telling a crowd today that Iran had humiliated the United States in the past and would do so again.

These are the sort of words that Bush and company love as "justification" for war.

And then this "mother-of-all-battlesesqe" remark

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has kept up his defiance over Iran's nuclear programme, saying Tehran would deal an "historic slap" to Western nations if they launched military action.

Finally, Iran is pulling another Saddam trick from the bag - dumping dollars:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has asked state companies to cut dollar-based transactions to a minimum. Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, currently sells 57 percent of its oil in euros.

The plain truth is that Iran may have already reached peak production - particularly with her antiquated production facilities. She may actually need nuclear energy - they certainly cannot rely on say hydroelectric power. None of that matters. They have said all the bad words, done the bad deeds and made our little "friend" Israel upset.

If this is going to occur it must occur before the new Congress digs their heels in and settles in comfortably, while we have adequate troops on the ground across the border (aka "the surge") and far enough away from the 2008 election cycle to allow for things to blow over. February to March is my guess if I were a betting man.

From Sam Gardiner, COL USAF (RET)

When does it all come together? When could the United States pull the trigger on the military option? The most important point in understanding the window for an attack is that the military preparations will not be the determining factor. This operation will not resemble the six months of preparations for Operation Desert Shield in 1990. The preparations will be much less visible than the movements to the region in early 2003. We will not read about discussions with Turkey for basing permission. It will not be a major CNN event.

Instead, preparations will involve the quiet deployment of Air Force tankers to staging bases. We will see additional Navy assets moved to the region.

Iran