From Winds of Change
We will invade Iran to protect the American people from nuclear attack. That is worth the risk posed by Iranian nuclear weapons to American soldiers, and the burden of deploying 200,000 troops there for several years. Our reserves knew when they enlisted that they’d be called up for the duration of a major war. Invasion of Iran to protect America from nuclear attack, and preserve our freedom, counts as a major war.
This would, however, make absolute hash of the Bush administration’s quite fictitious future budget estimates, which are the reason why it refused to significantly expand our ground forces after 9/11 though such was obviously necessary. Those phony budget estimates are arguably the biggest obstacle to our invasion of Iran this year. Iran’s mullahs might even have counted on this in timing their breakout to public nuclear weapons possession.
Basic problem: the reserve forces / families/ employers have been told, repeatedly, that their involuntary obligation under this particular mobilization authority is 730 days. Total.
The fundamental problem we face is that we have a potentially decades-long war which has NOT been sold as a major war. It looks much more like the Savage Wars of Peace that a very small full-time force fought to secure the continent and then to secure our economic future abroad. But history is a spiral, not a circle, and the past is not quite the present. Now we need equipment that drives costs up in aquisition, in maintenance, and in training costs, all of which cause us to reduce manpower costs with a part-time/limited benefits force backing up the small full-time paid force. And the reserve forces were first told that they would be MOBILIZED for a year. After optimistic estimates in Iraq failed, the first year reserve forces were extended, their orders amended to reflect the need for “365 (days) Boots On Ground” PLUS mobization training/equipping PLUS demobilization/earned leave time.
Almost any conceivable military operation with a real chance of success (destroy nuc production capability and weaken the regime so that the religious leadership becomes only a moral leadership and the parlementary democratic institutions become the real political leadership of Iran) would require declaring Iran a seperate mobilization (which doesn’t make sense in terms of the long standing rhetoric about the GWoT) or making the case to the American people and especially to the reserve forces/ families/ employers/ communities that this very focussed sacrifice is essential to our national security. Not going to be easy and the case-making should have started long ago.
Given any contemplation of military action in Iran, I would suggest that immediately:
The President and Vice President and Secretary of Defense start barnstorming the homecoming ceremonies of demobilizing Guard and Reserve units across the nation. Thank them, listen and act on their concerns.
The President start demanding sharply increased benefits to the Guard and Reserve to reflect their sharply increased likelyhood of deployment and their (assuming a breach of the 730 day barrier) decreased reliability/ viability in their civilian careers. The President should also move to provide bigger carrots and sticks to employers.
It would help if the President’s family in this (IF we tackle Iran) increasingly major war acted like the two Roosevelts’ families. President Bush will have to call for greater sacrifice and total commitment by the American people, as FDR did, and his daughters could help him make the case by following in the tradition of TR’s and FDR’s children. How about enlisting with OCS contracts and pushing for helicopter pilot training? Keep the family aviation tradition.