Robert Gates finally decided to drop his Jon Lovitz impression and admit that maybe, just maybe, the Iranians might reasonably feel it's significant that the US has parked yet more firepower right off their coastline:
Gates played down the addition of a second carrier to the Gulf, saying that the number of ships there rises and falls continuously. He said he doesn't expect there to [be] two carriers there for a long time.
Asked if the carrier move went hand in hand with the rising U.S. rhetoric against Iran, Gates said, "I don't see it as an escalation. I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder."
Fans of The Godfather will recognize just what kind of "reminder" this is:
It would be easy to get the impression from this that the US has the upper hand, but only until we remember how boldly Iran flaunts its numerous strategic advantages:
U.S. officials are also concerned by Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf as well as Iran's still growing nuclear program. New pictures of Iran's uranium enrichment plant show the country's defense minister in the background, as if deliberately mocking a recent finding by U.S. intelligence that Iran had ceased work on a nuclear weapon.
To help us comprehend the scope of this threat, let's take a look at one of the Iranian vessels that's menacing US warships in the Gulf:
I think it goes without saying that that bow-mounted machine gun could scrape a significant quantity of paint off of the hull of an American destroyer, causing major short-term damage to its appearance. And don't forget that the Iranians have the audacity to mount these intimidating naval operations against the US in their own coastal waters. Is there no limit to their perfidious ambitions?
Now, between this daunting show of force and the deliberate mockery heaped on them by the heartless Iranians, you might think the US leadership would be deterred. But you'd be wrong:
No attacks are imminent and the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen has warned Iran not to assume the U.S. military can't strike.
"I have reserve capability, in particular our Navy and our Air Force so it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," Mullen said.
Of course the Iranians may already have been tipped off to this by the fact that the US military budget is roughly 100 times greater than their own, but it never hurts to just put it right out there. As CBS was careful to inform us, the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but the Iranians are now on notice that if they continue their incessant attacks on us we will defend ourselves by launching massive air strikes against their country—no matter how long the odds might be. That's just the kind of fearless, can-do nation we are.
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