Monday, December 7, 2009
Laura Rosen at Politico and Rick Moran at American Thinker both have reports on a recent Harvard exercise gaming out a number of Iran scenarios. It doesn't sound good.
Laura Rosen: How unilateral Iran sanctions may backfire. Quoting Gary Sick's account:
1. The US team went to work with a vengeance to get a consensus on sanctions. This didn't bother the Iran team in the least. We didn't think they could put together a package that would hurt us in any serious way, and that proved to be true. But more important, in the process they managed to offend all of their ostensible allies and wasted so much time and effort that Iran was better off at the end than they had been at the beginning. Since this represents a version of actual US strategy (and its results) over now three administrations, I think there is a lesson there that is ignored at our peril.
Much more at the link. Here's Rick Moran's post: Gaming Iran scenarios; a Kobayashi Maru test?
Some very interesting stuff in those accounts.
Meanwhile, Iran keeps reminding us that they are, definitively, and enemy: Khameini: "Americans are at the head of the list of enemies and the British are the most awful of them"
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out Sunday at the US and Britain, labelling them Tehran's main "enemies" and warning they will fail to isolate Iran over its nuclear issue, a report said.
"Americans are at the head of the list of enemies and the British are the most awful of them," state television reported Khamenei as saying in an address to thousands of people to mark a major Shiite ceremony.
"Americans, Zionists and other oppressive powers tried to isolate Iran for the past 30 years, but they failed and with God's help they will also fail in the future," Khamenei said in reaction to sustained Western threats to isolate Iran over its controversial atomic programme.
Khamenei, Iran's all-powerful leader who has the final say in all national issues, said Western powers led by Washington are lying when they claim Tehran's nuclear programme is aimed at producing nuclear weapons...
