August 17, 2004 - One of the 911 commissioners, and I forget which one, said that a major problem with out intelligence operations was a lack of imagination, a failure to imagine the threats to America and her interests in the world at large posed by stateless terrorists and the states that support them and provide them sanctuary. Let’s pause a minute and think about what that commissioner meant.

Imagine with me a Middle Eastern country, its government controlled by a Shi`ite fundamentalist regime. Imagine that the country possesses vast oil reserves and is strategically located on the Persian Gulf. Imagine that for three decades it has pursued an Anti-American posture in the world. For those thirty years it has openly supported and financed one or more terrorist organizations that have repeatedly struck at western interests in the region. Imagine that in a conflict with its neighbor it deployed and used medium range missiles and that there is some intelligence that indicates that it employed chemical weapons in that war. Imagine that it has a large, well equipped and trained army; a potent air force and a functioning navy. Imagine that has followed a concentrated program to develop a nuclear capability and last week successfully tested an intermediate range missile capable of reaching any US facility in the region as well as any point in Israel. Imagine that this country is refusing to permit IAEA inspectors acting under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty access to its nuclear facilities. It does not take a lot of imagination. The country is Iran.

Now, imagine with me the US forces that we have available to meet a threat from Iran. 150,000 troops, 25% of whom are reservists or National Guardsmen, pinned down in Iraq unable to quell an increasingly effective Shi`ite popular uprising are not available. Another 72,000 are deployed either on the Korean peninsula or in support waiting in Japan. They are there to face down the million man North Korean army that claims to have nuclear arms. 71, 000 are stationed in Germany and 10,000 more are ranging the Afghani Mountains searching for Bin Laden. With the US engaged in the 11 day long battle with Al Sadr’s Mehdi militia a strike by Iraq is far from unimaginable. Iran has provided support to Al Sadr and his movement since long before we toppled the statues in Baghdad.

The lesson of the months since the Mission was declared accomplished is that a determined guerilla movement can paralyze a modern army. It was a lesson that the Soviet Red Army learned the hard way in Afghanistan but that the Bush Administration could not imagine. Iraq is no more secure than it was on May 1, 2002. Americans are being killed not by weapons of mass destruction that the enemy did not have but at short range by bullets and grenades. Imagine an Iranian Army marching on Basra, cutting the supply lines from Kuwait. Imagine a new Iraqi revolutionary regime taking its cues from Teheran.

The Bush Administration hasn’t prepared either the military or the public to meet that threat. They don’t have the imagination.