Iran: Double or Nothing!

The problem with the recent UN Security Council resolution taken in December 2006 was that it, like the August resolution preceding it, is effectively toothless. My thoughts are that if Iran ignored the previous UN NSC resolutions they probably think they are so close that they can ride out whatever non-military sanctions that are in place long enough to complete their enrichment program.

Subsequently, whatever action the U.S. may want to take it cannot do it under the NSC resolution auspices which are strictly non-military sanctions. Remember, the U.N.'s primary concern is nuclear enrichment. The U.S.'s primary concern now appears to me to be regime change. So, in this regard the U.N.'s aims are too narrow for the Bush Administration. On reflection this makes sense as to why the U.S. have been reluctant to engage in "real" talks with Iran. What this means is that contrary to my previous armchair analysis; the U.S. will not be able to leverage the U.N. to achieve their regime change objective.

They need another "in". They will need to demonstrate that the Iranian Executive are deliberately orchestrating the insurgency in Iraq. What they need is a "Polish" incident to galvanize Iraqi opinion against Iran and provide an opening for a U.S. retaliation on Iraq's behalf.

Ground forces are already at their limit so, I imagine their retaliation will comprise a precision attack who's covert aim will be to decapitate the Iranian Executive Govt; facilitating a regime change to a willing moderate insider who can step in immediately and maintain order. This is a tremendous gamble but the rewards if affected correctly would be immediate and decisive.

For "Hearts and Minds" reasons then I imagine the U.S. would be consider it imperative to affect a regime change without transitioning any U.S. GI's to Iranian soil. And considering the air power brought into the gulf I imagine they will try to remove the executive and knock-out C&C systems in hours rather than days. Of course a consequential side effect of this is that Iran's nuclear enrichment will have also been sidelined probably without having to bomb a single enrichment facility--lest they be accused of breaching the U.N. NSC resolution.

I can see that Bush might see this as his "Winston Churchill" moment--his destiny. If he can pull this off he can change the regime in Iran to a more favourable one, sideline it's nuclear enrichment program and stem the supply of Iraqi insurgents in a single manoeuvre.

What could possibly go wrong?