America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History Read Online Free

U.S. efforts to defend its territory, Iran was unlikely to view with favor the presence of troops from a country it routinely denounced as the Great Satan. A contingent dispatched into the CENTCOM AOR, Kingston remarked, “would start from almost zero in terms of combat power and support structure in the region.” 9
    Above all, there was the matter of already existing large-scale hostilities. In September 1980, Iraqi forces had invaded the Islamic Republic. Envisioned by Saddam Hussein as a quick land grab, the ensuing Iran-Iraq War turned out to be an inconclusive slugfest, destined to last for eight bloody years. In short, as Kingston considered how to thwart a Soviet offensive into Iran, that country was already under assault by an altogether different adversary coming from the opposite direction. It was the equivalent of U.S. forces trying to defend the Fulda Gap while the Federal Republic of Germany was simultaneously fending off a French attack from the west.

    Even so, Kingston persisted in attempting to adapt the standard Cold War template for organizing a defense of this just-discovered frontier of freedom. Doing so entailed simply ignoring inconvenient cultural, religious, and sectarian complexities. So in a presentation on his command’s “new challenges” delivered to his British counterparts in London, for example, Kingston pointedly cited five occasions over the previous three hundred years when Russia had invaded Persia and proceeded to rattle off the army divisions, tactical fighter wings, and carrier battle groups for which he’d received planning authority in the event of incursion number six.
    Notably, Islam did not qualify for mention anywhere in Kingston’s presentation, suggesting that the CENTCOM commander’s checklist of factors affecting developments in his AOR did not include matters of faith. 10 The prevailing CENTCOM worldview allowed no room for God, even in a region where God was still very much alive. Nor did Kingston even acknowledge the fault lines—Arab vs. Israel, Arab vs. Persian, Arab vs. Arab—that posed more enduring threats to regional stability than anything the Soviets were likely to introduce.
    It was like giving a talk about American politics and ignoring the influence of lobbies or special-interest groups or Mammon. Do it if you like, but you will come across as naïve or simply disingenuous.
    This see-what-you-want-to-see-and-ignore-the-rest perspective found expression in a document known as OPLAN 1002, formally known as “Defense of the Arabian Peninsula.” This was CENTCOM’s blueprint for war, shaped by a Cold War mindset and therefore fixated with the prospect of Soviet leaders, their forces struggling unsuccessfully to pacify Afghanistan, nonetheless launching a major offensive to conquer Iran.

    OPLAN 1002 spelled out the intended U.S. response. From bases in the United States, five army and two Marine Corps divisions would deploy to Iran. Upon arrival, they would move overland to take up positions along the Zagros. To provide supporting firepower, American naval and air assets would also converge on the region. Given sufficient advanced warning, CENTCOM planners counted on these forces to deter any prospective attack or, if need be, to inflict on the Soviets the sort of crushing defeat they themselves had inflicted on the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad back in 1943. 11
    Of course, during the few years remaining in the USSR’s existence, no such attack materialized. As to whether the Soviet offensive postulated by Central Command was ever remotely in the cards (or even operationally feasible), opinions may differ. Even at the time, Kingston himself expressed doubts. With their ongoing troubles in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan, he thought the Soviets had “a pretty full plate.” He believed the Kremlin unlikely to invite a direct military confrontation with the United States. 12
    Yet for our purposes, what did not occur matters less than what did . A panoply of