From a report in Stratfor discussing how the Bush administration might take on Iran:

“This leaves a direct assault against the Iranian economic infrastructure. Although this is the most promising path, it must be remembered that counterinfrastructure and counterpopulation strategic air operations have been tried extensively. The assumption has been that the economic cost of resistance would drive a wedge between the population and the regime, but there is no precedent in the history of air campaigns for this assumption. Such operations have succeeded in only two instances: Japan and Kosovo. In Japan, counterpopulation operations of massive proportions involving conventional weapons were followed by two atomic strikes. Even in that case, there was no split between regime and population, but a decision by the regime to capitulate. The occupation in Kosovo was not so much because of military success as diplomatic isolation. That isolation is not likely to happen in Iran.

In all other cases — Britain, Germany, Vietnam, Iraq — air campaigns by themselves did not split the population from the regime or force the regime to change course. In Britain and Vietnam, the campaigns failed completely. In Germany and Iraq (and Kuwait), they succeeded because of follow-on attacks by overwhelming ground forces.

The United States could indeed inflict heavy economic hardship, but history suggests that this is more likely to tighten the people’s identification with the government — not the other way around. In most circumstances, air campaigns have solidified the regime’s control over the population, allowing it to justify extreme security measures and generating a condition of intense psychological resistance. In no case has a campaign led to an uprising against the regime. Moreover, a meaningful campaign against economic infrastructure would take some 4 million barrels per day off of the global oil market at a time when oil prices already are closing in on $100 a barrel. Such a campaign is more likely to drive a wedge between the American people and the American government than between the Iranians and their government.

For an air campaign to work, the attacking power must be prepared to bring in an army on the ground to defeat the army that has been weakened by the air campaign — a tactic Israel failed to apply last summer in Lebanon. Combined arms operations do work, repeatedly. But the condition of the U.S. Army and Marines does not permit the opening of a new theater of operations in Iran. Most important, even if conditions did permit the use of U.S. ground forces to engage and defeat the Iranian army — a massive operation simply by the size of the country — the United States does not have the ability to occupy Iran against a hostile population. The Japanese and German nations were crushed completely over many years before an overwhelming force occupied them. What was present there, but not in Iraq, was overwhelming force. That is not an option for Iran.

Finally, consider the Iranian response. Iran does not expect to defeat the U.S. Air Force or Navy, although the use of mine warfare and anti-ship cruise missiles against tankers in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz should not be dismissed. The Iranian solution would be classically asymmetrical. First, they would respond in Iraq, using their assets in the country to further complicate the occupation, as well as to impose as many casualties as possible on the United States. And they would use their forces to increase the difficulty of moving supplies from Kuwait to U.S. forces in central Iraq. They also would try to respond globally using their own forces (the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), as well as Hezbollah and other trained Shiite militant assets, to carry out counterpopulation attacks against U.S. assets around the world, including in the United States….”

Comment:

Stratfor is a widely cited firm that sends out geo-political intelligence reports to businesses. The excerpt above was from one of their free reports.

They have their biases. Perhaps not intentional so much as occupational, but I take their forecasts with some caution.

From Sourcewatch:

Stratfor – which is also known as Strategic Forecasting, Inc. – is a private company that provides strategic and issues management intelligence anlaysis to corporations and governments.

The company, founded in 1996, is based in Austin, Texas and boasts that it has “an intelligence network located throughout the world.”

“Stratfor is the world’s leading private intelligence firm providing corporations, governments and individuals with geopolitical analysis and forecasts that enable them to manage risk and to anticipate political, economic and security issues vital to their interests,” it states on its website. [1]

Al Giordano, a progressive journalist and founder of NarcoNews , who has lived and worked in Latin America for years, details what he calls “20 Stratfor Lies about Latin America”:

“Stratfor’s track record in Latin America is abhorrent (how many years in a row did it predict that Hugo Chavez would not survive that year as Venezuela’s president?). It’s “spin” is ideological: pro-corporate, which is no surprise, given that it’s undisclosed clientele purchases something called “Business Intelligence Services.”

In my opinion, Stratfor engages in circulating disinformation into the datasphere through its free and paid email memos in ways that seem aimed to help the agendas of that very same corporate world that contracts its services.
In March 2004, Bart Mongoven from Stratfor’s Washington D.C. office appeared on a panel – Strategies for Dealing with Environmental Litigation – at the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. (Also appearing on the panel were Marc Sisk, Dorsey & Whitney, Washington, DC and Stephen Brown from The Dutko Group LLC).
Mongoven warned industry leaders about the increasing collaboration between environmental groups and patients groups on the issue of exposure to chemicals. Washington D.C. trade magazine, Inside EPA, reported Mongoven told the NPRA that “in five years, the environmental community would like to see all debates [be about] the environment and health.” Mongoven nominated Collaborative on Health and the Environment as an example of the new approach.

According to Inside EPA, Mongoven said that the collaboration was broadening the debate beyond exposure to pesticides to the health impacts of industrial emissions. According to Inside EPA, he suggested that one option for industry to counter this development was to dismiss advocates stated public health goal and instead portray them as being “anti-chemical”.
Comment:

Of course, this does not mean that everything Stratfor writes is compromised. But I think in the age of “astroturf lobbying,” (i.e. faked grass-roots advocacy meant to coopt real populist voices), better watch out would be a good motto.