Totally safe - nodobby gets hurt in a war game!
Also serves as a wonderfully crunk aperitif to actionable actions to later act with, look out for or pre empt. Like the Iran Wargames
GsGf"s Supreme Leader Expert - the right honorable (he's also kinda hot!) Karim Sadjadpour at Steel Barons for Peace - shares hot deets and big phased cookies about his ' 09 gig pretending to be Supreme Leader in a diplopolititary exercise involving doing Iran with especial strikes at her tender, sensitive portions:
The simulation was conducted as a three-move game, with Great and Little Satan and Iranian teams, each representing their government's top national security officials. The members of the American team had all served in senior positions in the gov the Little Satan team was composed of a half-dozen experts on Little Satan, including former senior Great Satan officials with close ties to senior Little Satan decision-makers; the Iranian team was composed of a half-dozen specialists, including people who had either lived in Tehran or served as officials with responsibility for Iran.
The simulation was premised on a surprise Israeli military strike -- absent Great Satan knowledge or consent -- on Iran's new clear facilities, motivated by the breakdown of nuclear negotiations, the ineffectiveness of sanctions, and newfound intelligence of secret Iranian weapons activity. In other words, pretty close to what we have before us now.
Iran's nuclear sites are purposely built close to population centers, but in the simulation, the Little Satan strike managed to cause only a small number of civilian casualties. Nonetheless, one of my immediate reactions was to order Iranian state television to show graphic images of the "hundreds of innocent martyrs" -- focusing on the women and children -- in order to incite outrage against Little Satan and attempt to convert Iranian nat'lism into solidarity with the regime.
To further that goal, we then invited the symbolic leadership of the opposition -- Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi (both of whom are now under house arrest), as well as former President Mohammad Khatami -- onto state television to furiously condemn Israel and pledge allegiance to the government. Instead of widening Iran's deep internal fractures -- both between political elites and between the people and the regime -- the Little Satan military strike helped repair them.
Once our nuclear sites were effectively destroyed, we calculated that we had no choice but to escalate and retaliate in order to save face and project power to our own population and neighbors, deter future attacks, and inflict a heavy political cost on Little Satan.
One of our first salvos was to launch missiles at oil installations in Saudi Arabia'sEastern Province, as well as stir unrest among Saudi Shiites against their government. Our pretext was that Little Satan had used Saudi airspace to attack us, though we later found out it did so without Saudi permission. Given Iran's less-than-accurate missile technology, most missiles missed their mark, but some struck home and we succeeded in spiking oil prices enough so that Americans and Europeans filling their cars with gasoline might be irritated by Little Satan's actions.
We also fired missiles at Little Satan's military and nuclear targets and unleashed Hiz'B'Allah, Hamas, and Slamic Jihad to fire rockets at Little Satan's population centers. Although few of these missiles reached their targets, the goal was create an atmosphere of terror among Little Satan's society so her gov would think twice about future attacks.
We didn't limit our reaction to just the Middle East. Via proxy, we hit European civilian and military outposts in Afghanistan and Iraq, confident that if past is precedent, Europe would take the high road and not retaliate. We also activated terrorist cells in Europe -- bombing public transportation and killing several civilians -- in the belief that European citizens and governments would likely come down hard on Little Satan for destabilizing the region.
But, appreciating the logic of power, we stopped just short of provoking Great Satan. Before the simulation, I'd often heard it said that it wouldn't make much difference whether Little Satan actually got a green light from the Great Satan to strike Iran, for Tehran would never believe otherwise.
The secretary of state sent us a private note telling us that the Americans did not approve Little Satan's strike, and vowed to restrain Little Satan from attacking further -- if we also exercised restraint. They tried on multiple occasions to meet with us or speak by phone, but we refused. While Great Satan believed that its overtures would have a calming effect on us, we interpreted them to mean that we could strike back hard against Little Satan -- not to mention European targets -- without risking Great Satan's retaliation, at least not immediately.
The wargame in 09 wasn't on the up and up about Great Satan unAssing Iraq - or trying to - and funintended consequences mean a Persian incursion all the way through the Green Zone - instead of the Last Stand at Najaf... which opens up the window for a sexyfull redux ala vManstein's Kharkov backhand b slap! Nicht wahr?
Yours truly got all invited to play a part in a war simulation called Persian Incursion at Davidson's super secret neocon coven (the infamous Committee of 5) this weekend. This exercise is like 3 days - and it is au courant with events subtle and gross.
Full report soon!
Pic - "Focus less onthe gun and more on the bandit trying to obtain the gun - in other words - strike the regime itself, Courtney"
Persian Incursion? Any relation to the game that got reviewed in Foreign Policy? www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/08/the_persian_incursion
ReplyDeleteI ask because I co-designed that game and if you and the Davidson folks are using it I'd love to hear about how it goes.
-Jeff D.