With Australian Prime Minister and staunch Bush supporter John Howard projected to lose power in upcoming November elections, Stephen Harper could soon be an even more crucial ally for the unpopular administration in Washington, D.C. Under Harper, Canadaâe(TM)s âeoenew governmentâe has been accused by some of complicity in the drive to war with Iran. How likely is such a war? What impact would it have in the region and beyond?

To answer these and other questions we turn to Canadian journalist Gwynne Dyer, who is now based in London. Dyer is a respected military analyst and an internationally syndicated columnist on foreign affairs. Currently on tour to speak about his latest book, The Mess They Made: The Middle East After Iraq, he recently sat down with new rabble.ca editor Derrick Oâe(TM)Keefe to discuss the implications of a potential U.S.-led attack on Iran.

Derrick Oâe(TM)Keefe: Many analysts have said that even from a U.S. point of view an attack on Iran would be insane, or improbable. Whatâe(TM)s your view on the likelihood of an attack?

Gwynne Dyer: Well, insane isnâe(TM)t the same as improbable.

They canâe(TM)t invade on the ground, obviously. Thatâe(TM)s not possible, because they donâe(TM)t have the resources. They can bomb the shit out of the place. They could run 3000 or 4000 targets a day. Theyâe(TM)ll run out of targets in three or four days, at that rate. This has been a problem all the way back to Vietnam. You donâe(TM)t have enough targets for all the air power you have. You end up bombing the rubble.

Oâe(TM)Keefe: Does Iran have the capacity to retaliate?

Dyer: Well, thatâe(TM)s the bigger problem. Thatâe(TM)s why the leaders of the U.S. armed forces are almost unanimously against it, because they canâe(TM)t win. The Pentagon has been war-gaming attacks on Iran since 1998. So thereâe(TM)s now lots of retired guys out there who are willing to talk about the war games they ran, in which they couldnâe(TM)t find a way for the U.S. to win this war. Because you can bomb the place until you are blue in the face but you have nothing to do as an encore. Because you are not going to invade on the ground, and the Iranians have several options, all of which are far more impressive than what youâe(TM)re doing.

All they have to do is stop exporting their own oil. Thatâe(TM)s 3.5 million barrels a day, and oil just hit $80. Thatâe(TM)s your starting point. You could get to $140 per barrel just by pulling that off. Iran also has its coastline on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. They have got, from the Russians, these supersonic sea-skimming missiles, ship killers. They only take three or four man crews and they mount on the back of a truck. The U.S. Air Force has no more a prospect of getting all of those than the Israelis did of getting all the Hezbollah positions. And all you have to do is sink one tanker a day. They are big targets, hard to miss, half a mile long. And in five days the shipping insurance rates for putting a ship into the Gulf is more than the shipâe(TM)s worth. No ship owner will send ships in there. The whole flow of Gulf oil stops, thatâe(TM)s 20 percent of global supply. So weâe(TM)ve got $250 per barrel oil, gas rationing, economic crisis, and thereâe(TM)s nothing you can do about it. So you donâe(TM)t really want to do this thing.

What the fantasists in the White House tell themselves, and theyâe(TM)ve been telling themselves this for years, is the same thing they told themselves about Iraq. âe~All we have to do is attack this regime. In the case of Iran we donâe(TM)t even have to invade. We just bomb them, demonstrate their impotence, and the Iranian people will, in righteous wrath, rise up, overthrow them and, you know, adopt our values.âe(TM)

I mean yes, right, pigs fly. But this is part of the doctrine they believe. They believe it because they believe they brought the Soviet Union down with the example of American virtue. They believe that it could have worked in Iraq, but that there were just some errors in application. And they believe they can do it now in Iran. Now they are a pretty isolated group of people that believe this anymore and they all talk to nobody except each other. Weâe(TM)re talking about the White House. But they are the people who can say âe~go,âe(TM) and that is why Iâe(TM)m not convinced it isnâe(TM)t going to happen. And all the material preparations for an attack have certainly been made.

Oâe(TM)Keefe: Could opposition within the military high command stop this?

Dyer: Thatâe(TM)s an interesting question. American generals arenâe(TM)t in the habit of resigning when they get stupid orders. And I donâe(TM)t believe any line general would do it. A guy who is actually in command of forces is trained to obey orders at all costs, including stupid ones that get your people killed. But the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are not in command, the orders donâe(TM)t go through them, are therefore in a more comfortable position to pull the plug on the thing. If two or three of them did resign, and youâe(TM)d have to do it before the first bombs drop, then that could make a difference.

If you hit Iran, you bring down the global economy, and you are humiliated in every possible dimension. The people in the military who understand this might resign, enough of them to actually make a difference. The odds are probably one in ten, but itâe(TM)s a possibility.

Oâe(TM)Keefe: Many analysts have said Iran has thus far been the big winner of the Iraq invasion.

Dyer: Well, the Americans took out their two major enemies, Saddam and the Taliban.

Oâe(TM)Keefe: What do you see happening in terms of the occupation of Afghanistan?

Dyer: What has to happen to bring some sort of stability back to Afghanistan is that you have to bring the Pashtuns back into the game. I mean the fact that Hamid Karzai himself is Pashtun doesnâe(TM)t count. Everybody else around him is Tajik, or Uzbeck, or the other minorities.

We have effectively frozen the dominant minority and the traditional ruling group out of power. In Afghanistan, by the way, we did it by invading the place. We made an alliance with the Northern Alliance, so who did you expect would end up running the place? The Taliban have become, by default, the major Pashtun expression. And you can defuse a lot of that by including them.

Oâe(TM)Keefe: And Karzai himself is now advocating talks with the Taliban.

Dyer: Of course he is. And heâe(TM)s doing it despite the Americans telling him, âe~shut up, shut up, shut up.âe(TM) His prospect of political and perhaps even personal survival after the Americans go depends on these deals. This is the way Afghanistanâe(TM)s always been run, with tribal groups, ethnic groups, and clans making deals.

Derrick O'Keefe

Derrick O'Keefe

Derrick O'Keefe is a writer in Vancouver, B.C. He served as rabble.ca's editor from 2012 to 2013 and from 2008 to 2009.