Posted: 8/13/2005 2:37:48 PM EDT
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..will it be just a "precision" air attack, or will it be ground troops moving in? Are we stretched too thin for a ground invasion? Intel reports state that Iran has built up its forces on the Iran/Iraqi border, so an airstrike in those particular areas is inevitable. What are possible (realistic) attack scenarios with what we have at our disposal. |
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Bombing the crap out of the cooling tower and primary containment building of their Heavy Reactor, before it is loaded with fuel / goes 'Hot' in October. Maybe some munitions on their munitions labs. Ought to go for a decapitation strike on the Mullahs, but I doubt it will happen. |
Terrorist attacks, as annoying and headline grabbing as they are, cannot even slow down a US military invasion. The Iranian military is feeble because Iran doesn't have a fully-functional economy. Once we take their oilfields, they've got nothing and they won't have the USSR or Red China to fall back on. |
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Remember, the object here isn't to take over and hold Iran. This won't be another Iraq type of operation. All that's needed here is to deny them the capacity to create nuclear weapons. We don't even have to take out the whole system (though we would likely try). But essentially all that would be necessary to stop them is to destroy just 1 critical development facility. By just knocking out one of the critical components required to make nukes, then they can't make the bomb. IMHO, we'd go after the above ground facilities with JDAMs and/or cruise missiles and use the 30,000 lb deep penetrating MOAB's we've been testing for the past year on the deep underground targets. I think we are capable of launching a strike that in one night can either cripple the Iranian nuclear development or at the least set them back a number of years, which will buy us more time for a better answer later. |
The reactor the russians are building at Bushehr is a light water reactor. The Iranians are building their own heavy water reactor outside of Arak, but it is not due to come online until 2009. You are confusing the two projects. Secondly, the light water reactor is not our real concern. It is their uranium enrichment plant and uranium conversion plant that pose the danger of proliferation. In 2008, we can start worrying about the heavy water reactor they are constructing in Arak. |
And you would be wrong. Read my post here: www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=379320 |
Ohhh gawd that would be awesome. Imagine a squadron of them flying CAP and a bunch setup as attack aircraft doing a high speed strike, follow up with some CALCMs. Why bother sending troops, we dont need to occupy just give em a bloody nose. |
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Let the Air Force do it. I don't want to go to Iran, I'm planning a vacation...
Mail them a bunch of BLU-118/B units, the easy way. |
Apparently, no one seems to understand our window for bombing is rapily closing. If we are going to do it. Right now, this very minute, is when we should be doing it. But, since we have to do our little diplomacy dance, we are going to lose that window of opportunity. It will be too late to stop them with bombing by the time we get to it. |
I don't see where anything you said makes me "wrong". You are talking about time tables. I am talking about strike options. More recent intelligence from the Israelis has moved things back a bit. They believe it will be a few more years before they are capable of constructing a bomb. Possibly as far out as 2012. If anyone knows, it's the Israelis. Their lives and nation depend on knowing. As I said before, it takes a variety of processes to make a bomb. Knock out a critical element to that process and you've just set back their program. Knock out multiple processes and it might take them a decade or more to recover, if at all. We've still got a little time to work with here. Therefore I don't think we've "gotta go" right this minute. OTOH, if we are gonna try diplomacy first, we need to get that started. And if they start stalling, light their ass up. While we do have some time, we don't have a surplus. Therefore we can't afford to allow them to stall and buy enough time to get where they want to go. |
My point is, they will be pass the point of no return shortly (that being having enough feedstock to make enough enriched uranium for several bombs), and then, bombing them will no longer be a matter of preventing them from having nukes, but about how many nukes they will be allowed to have  I wasnt saying that they would have them right away after they got this feedstock material, I said it would take them 3 to 5 years to enrich it, which is in line with the time tables the israelis are quoting. They said by 2008 to 2010 Iran would be nuclear. If we dont bomb them now, there is no stopping them from this point on. We can only limit how many nukes they will be allowed to make. But, once they verifiably have nukes, they can then rebuild their facilities and threaten to nuke whether attempts to bomb them again. YMMV.... I hope I am wrong. But I dont think I am.
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I suspect Iran learned some lessons from Osirak. I also don't think Osirak was operational yet. Blasting Iran's MULTIPLE plants could result in several small Chernobyls. It just isn't likely to happen. I think our chance to contain Iran has slipped away. |
Israel and the U.S. would be blamed even if they really did have such an accident. We might as well not try to hide it. |
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Shhhhhhh - they're watching and listening... be vewwy vewwy quiet http://www.aeronautics.ru/img003/nra05.jpg |
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It would be very hard for the Israelis to pull off. The attack aircraft would probably have to tank twice, even the extended range F-16's. The US has to be prepared for a full spectrum fight if we decide to bomb Iran's nuke sites. It's not clear that Iran would just accept a strike of that sort without a retaliation, and that could lead to a full-fledged war. If a strike does happen it should be a part of an integrated plan to completely remove the mullahs, preferably through action by the Iranian people. A US occupation of Iran is a non-starter. |
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I really think, that bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, would start a much larger, general war in the Middle East. If we do so...we'd better have a plan in place to wage the most destructive, quick knock-out air campaign since Desert Storm.... None of that humanitarian "We won't bomb the bridges or power plants shit." If Iran, so much as twitches, after we bomb the nuclear facilities, we need to be able to, turn out the lights, pull the plug on thier internet and cellular phones, bomb the TV and Radio stations, drop the bridges, kill their navy and shut down their military command and control....and we need to be able to do it, within hours. If we'er not prepared to, or don't have the forces in theater, to wage that sort of stratigic aerial onslaught. Then attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, is a fool's errand. If we bomb Iran and it starts a much larger war, that we were not prepared to deal with, then it will be 100 times worse than the recriminations that followed the intelligence failures, in not finding Iraq's WMD's Bombing Iran, without a plan to quickly remove the Iranian regime, in case things go south, would be like playing Russian roulette, with three chambers loaded, for this administration. |