The director of the Missile Defense Agency, Lt. Gen. Patrick OReilly, said during an otherwise pretty dull hearing before the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee that the threat to the United States has increased substantially with the recent launch by Iran of a small satellite and the launch last week of a mid-range ballistic missile.
That caught the ears of the professional congressional staffers at the Thursday hearing, who wondered what the implications might be, since they were not explored at the hearing.
Some possible answers came from the venerable RAND Corporation. It came out with a report about Iran and its relations with the US over the next decade. One of the key recommendations of the May 19 report, Dangerous But Not Omnipotent: Exploring the Reach and Limitations of Iranian Power in the Middle East, is that the US should back off de-escalate in the reports language on a bilateral basis and combine that with muscular multilateral efforts targeted at Iranian behaviors that are not acceptable to the international community, such as terrorism and its development of nuclear weapons. Key to this multilateral approach would be support from Russia and China, which the report concedes is questionable.
One of the most interesting policy recommendations concerns how the US should communicate its policy goals. We must issue unambiguous statements about US interests and intentions in the region, particularly regarding Iraq, the authors say, The messages must be simple and easily understood, and the United States must stick to them long enough for them to be taken seriously. Among those statements should be a pledge that the US will say it has no long term interest in occupying Iraq or establishing a permanent military presence in Iraq.
The 230-page report, was commissioned by the U.S. Air Force in order to accurately gauge the strategic challenges from Iran over the next decade. If the threat from Iran really has increased substantially, as the MDA director told the subcommittee, quickly finding answers and implementing alternatives to the policies that have failed to deter Iran from developing ICBMs and pursuing nuclear weapons for much of the last decade is imperative.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Let me understand what this recomendation is: tone down the rhetoric and de-escalate what? Our ability to strike first or just as bad our ability to even strike back.
These people are arming themselves to attack us anyway & everyway they can & we should de-escalate!!
This smacks of appeasement alla Chamberlin recipe for disaster.
Do none of the current leaders of the world read history books?
I think not.!!
Joe Cottone sr
Does anyone else get the feeling we are tuning soft?
over and over its back down, back away WHY?
US has the power and are the only people with the nerver and muscle to do anything.
Dosent seem like we would even back up our own words these days.
No disrepect to the armed forces your great nothing about you at all more power to you great job I’m on about the management only not the Ladies and gentlemen who make up the armed forces so I am clear!
All this leftist rhetoric comes under the heading of:
THE PUSSIFICATION OF AMERICA.
We’re becoming a bunch of panseys.
Even though the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the one that wields the real power in the country, Iran’s presidential election is coming up soon and the opposition looks like they have a good chance to unseat Ahmadinejad, based on his poor economic policy and what they see as Mr. Ahmadinejad’s “unduly provocative” foreign policy.
Hey, Colin?
What’s with using that photoshopped Iranian propaganda for the pic?
Being fixated on the humiliation of the hostage crisis, US policy towards Iran has been irrational and a failure. The combination of incompetent military adventures with vapid bluster has been roundly exploited by not only the Iranians but the Israelis and several Arab allies. RAND is just pointing out that when you are losing, doing more of the same isn
I get the feeling we are getting a government that is strong for WE THE PEOPLE , and not one that scares or puts our troops in harms way for profit.
islam is the enemy,kill e’m all!
So much for blessing the peacemaker.
I believe in si vas pacem, parabellum as much as the next one; but that statement puts peace above war.
Since we practice gunboat diplomacy so much it has no effect on ANYONe in the world anymore. Kind of annoying. Time to devise a new strategy.
The Israeli’s will do thier own dirty work. Unless Iran changes its tune, its inevitable. Well deserved too.
The Picture is a Hoax. Its Iran Propaganda Material. There was a Big News Report about that in the German “Spiegel”. They Photoshoped it to make it look more Powerfull.
And just by the way. The Regular People living in Iran Love the US. 99% Procent of the Iranian Youth live western, as far as its poissible with the Mullahs watching.
Teheran is like an Iranian L.A. with some limitations.