"Dead in the water" : Obama’s military, no chance of a strike against Iran.

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From Will at THE OTHER NEWS:

CAN'T HELP FEELING THIS WAS HIS GOAL ALL ALONG

"Dead in the water" : Obama’s military, no chance of a strike against Iran.

"Dead in the water" : Obama’s military, no chance of a strike against Iran.(LibertyUnyielding).Great piece By J.E. Dyer.
Two to three years ago, the United States Department of Defense had enough military forces on station in, or readily deployable to, the Persian Gulf region (the “CENTCOM AOR” – area of responsibility – or Southwest Asia, as it is called in the military) to execute a limited strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities without asking Congress for special funding. The military could have performed such an operation “out of hide,” as quickly and seamlessly as the president wanted it to.

Four to five years ago, moreover, the U.S. had the regional political capital to use our bases in the local nations (e.g., Qatar and Bahrain) to launch and direct such a strike campaign.

Both of these conditions have now changed.

But as of 2013, with the funding issues inherent in the long-term budget stand-off, that option can no longer be performed out of hide. The Navy has already had to cancel a carrier strike group deployment that it couldn’t project being able to pay for, and we can no longer assume that the Air Force will have the ready aircraft and aircrew – not to mention the fuel – to perform a bomber campaign against Iran.

These are the questions raised by a Times of Israel report from today (which, of course, may or may not be valid). Quoting a TV segment from Monday, it says that the Obama administration will tell Israel next month that it is gearing up for a “window of opportunity” to strike Iran in June.

Gearing up with what? The carrier that isn’t deployed? The Air Force aircraft that will run out of flying hours in May?

We don’t have the forces deployed to conduct this strike campaign, nor can they be deployed – assuming the sequester kicks in, and/or that there is no comprehensive continuing resolution agreed to in the next couple of months – without Obama making a big political noise, by running the whole plan through Congress and asking specifically for money to fund it. What are the chances Obama is going to do that?

I’m betting Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t think he will. If the quoted claim really did come from the Obama administration, it is an egregious instance of promising to do something we obviously are making no preparations to do. (I am reminded – painfully – of a press interview Obama did almost exactly a year ago, when he said, on the topic of the Iran nuclear threat: “As president of the United States, I don’t bluff.”)

Even if the claim about the U.S. administration’s intentions in Israel is invalid, the TOI report is as good a pretext as any for making it clear to the American people that our defense situation has already changed. We cannot do today what we could have done three years ago. As long as Obama makes no provision for conducting a crippling strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the threat of doing so carries no weight. That is today’s reality – and it is Obama’s legacy. 

But it is unconscionable of Obama to handle the sequestration threat the way he has. The sequester was, we should remember, Obama’s idea. Republicans have offered him flexibility in tailoring the cutsto minimize the worst impacts on defense, and Obama has rejected the proposal. The president alsodeclined in September 2012 to meet the sequestration plan’s deadline for reporting out on how the cuts would be taken in the federal departments. According to official testimony in July 2012, DOD had beengiven no directive to plan for the cuts imposed by the sequester. This was months after Leon Panetta described the sequestration cuts, in November 2011, as “devastating” to the military – suggesting a minimal competence question, at the very least, regarding the Obama administration.

The president has had the authority all along to guard the defense capabilities he considers most important, and Congress has offered to bolster – even expand – that authority. If the ability to credibly threaten Iran is not one of those priorities, I don’t know what is. No one wants to attack Iran, but a key component of the strategy to avoid doing it is to ensure that the threat is credible. Today, it’s not. Obama is playing too many games of “chicken” – and he hasn’t been guarding defense capabilities. What that means is that at the moment, vis-à-vis Iran, he’s not carrying a big stick.Hmmm.......If he really wanted to destroy America as a 'superpower' would he do anything different?Read the full story here.