Quoted: Quoted: Since IRAN's  missles are in range of of BONN, PARIS, and ROME and NOT in range of NORTH AMERICA, Let's let the  FRENCH, GERMANS and ITAILIANs deal with this shit entil we know IRAN has the bomb for sure.   Ummmmmm. I'm not sure about that. Just what missiles are you talking about?

Iranian Shahab-3 IRBMs

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Won't happen. Well not anytime soon, probably someday though and we probably should have tangled with them back during the time of the bombing of the Marine's barracks. We should have tangled with them in 1979 when they took our people hostage.  If Carter had any balls, we would have. Carter tried.....Delta Force crashed and burned in the Iranian desert......read your history......as far as the Marine barracks......you can thank Reagan for that, after Hezbollah killed 242 Marines, Reagan invaded Grenada 2 weeks later...within 6 weeks, the US presence in Lebanon was gone.....so Reagan showed the terrorists that when you blow up our Marines, we'll invade Club Med....

Carter?
LMAO, that wasn't a try, that was a f'ing joke.  Just like Carter.  

The Marine Barracks attack in '83 came at a time when our military was very weak, our economy was hammered to shit, the Ruskies were still militarily strong and our country had even less will for a fight than it does now.  No, a war in the ME at that point was simply untenable.  We needed a few sure victories under our belt against the forces allied with the Soviet Union.  At that time, most of the terrorist organziations around the world were aided by the Soviets and they would have loved for us to move forces intot he ME at that point.  It would have been a major blunder and the Cold War may have ended far differently as a result.  It was no too palatable but it was realistic.

I discharged out of the Marines in '80.  Being in during the entire Carter presidency was enough for me. I know what was going on then, better than I do now with regards to the .mil and our readiness. We weren't ready for much of anything at that point, other than a purely defensive war.

Quoted: I say let Israel handle Iran. They can duke it out.

That is a joke.

Isreal doesnt even have enough weapons to stop Iran if even they went nuclear...

There is only one way to stop Iran, and only one country that can do it.

I really hope & pray that this event never happens.  Some here have said in the past two years, it would most likely turn into WWIII . . .
What if China and or Russia gets it into their heads, that they are sick of us playing world police, & while we are busy fighting islamic terrorism, one of them, or both, decides to nuke all at once, our strategic military bases & important economic points? Then where is the world economy & money going to go?  Into a one world nation re-building?  Starting with the United States of America.  I hope the hell not.

Also, please remind me which U.S. President created the E.O. that the U.S. will not use nukes unless we are hit by one first?

M4-CQBR

The only reason I can see that Iran is our problem is that they're next door to a country we're occupying, Iraq.  In a year or two Iraq should be able to handle their own defenses and the US forces can leave.  Iran will then be a EU and Israel problem and they should handle it.

If Russia and China are getting tired of us being a world police force I don't blame them, I'm getting pretty damn sick if it myself.  Afghanistan was our business as was Iraq as they were breaking the cease fire agreements, but Iran is simply not our business, not yet anyway.

And neither China or Russia will fire missles at us, no matter how extended they think our military is, not as long as there are subs with nuclear warheads under the waters.  Hard to hit a moving platform that you can't see or detect.

Quoted: Quoted: I say let Israel handle Iran. They can duke it out. That is a joke. Isreal doesnt even have enough weapons to stop Iran if even they went nuclear... There is only one way to stop Iran, and only one country that can do it.

I agree, Israel has it's hands full defending itself. They have enough weapons to to win local supremacy on the battle field, but they would run out of steam quickly if they had to venture further than Damascus, Cairo or Amman. Even then, they might be able to take those cities, but they could never hope to hold them for more than a few weeks, once local resistance was organized.

There is a reason that cities were historically sacked and burned. It was a bitch to hang on to them. Look how many times Jerusalem has changed hands.

One scenario to think about:

US targets selected sites in Iran with cruise missiles and perhaps the MOAB

Iran retaliates by launching SCUDS into our "Green Zones" in Iraq and hits US troops.

Then what....

Quoted: One scenario to think about: US targets selected sites in Iran with cruise missiles and perhaps the MOAB Iran retaliates by launching SCUDS into our "Green Zones" in Iraq and hits US troops. Then what....

Yet another reason that any military effort that does not remove the existing goverment and military leadership in Iran is just stupid.

Anything but a invasion INCREASES rather than decreases the danger of nuclear war.

Iran - nuclear sunburn missiles? The first time that's used is the impetus we need to go nuclear. That would probably be the end of their largest population centers.

I think this is really a job more for the CIA/DIA in the beginning. Destabilize the hell out of their economy. Get their leaders and assinine Mullahs overthrown. Turn everyone in the region against them via propaganda.

Then take military action with everyone's blessing after they're already weakened. That's more of a permanent solution then just vaporizing a few of their R&D and refinery sites. We gotta be smart about this or they'll just come back in ten years ala Iraq. We need LONG TERM solutions.

Agreed ArmdLbrl.

Either way we spin this, I cannot see this Administration, NOT assisting the Israelis in its defense.

However, if we take out the leadership from the air in Iran, you're gonna definitely see a shitstorm of trouble in the Middle East.  Syria's just itching for a fight with Israel and IIRC back in 1998 signed an agreement with the Iranians to help in their defense.  Syria doesnt want a fight with the US, however, their political stance is one of "we will if we have to."

We nail'em from the air - Muslim nations are gonna start gettin' itchy, thinking their next
We invade'em - The US population wont have the stomach for it.  

I really dont think Iran is gonna back down - the President of Iran is a firm believer in the Apocolypse.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Won't happen. Well not anytime soon, probably someday though and we probably should have tangled with them back during the time of the bombing of the Marine's barracks. We should have tangled with them in 1979 when they took our people hostage.  If Carter had any balls, we would have. Carter tried.....Delta Force crashed and burned in the Iranian desert......read your history......as far as the Marine barracks......you can thank Reagan for that, after Hezbollah killed 242 Marines, Reagan invaded Grenada 2 weeks later...within 6 weeks, the US presence in Lebanon was gone.....so Reagan showed the terrorists that when you blow up our Marines, we'll invade Club Med.... Carter? LMAO, that wasn't a try, that was a f'ing joke.  Just like Carter.   The Marine Barracks attack in '83 came at a time when our military was very weak, our economy was hammered to shit, the Ruskies were still militarily strong and our country had even less will for a fight than it does now.  No, a war in the ME at that point was simply untenable.  We needed a few sure victories under our belt against the forces allied with the Soviet Union.  At that time, most of the terrorist organziations around the world were aided by the Soviets and they would have loved for us to move forces intot he ME at that point.  It would have been a major blunder and the Cold War may have ended far differently as a result.  It was no too palatable but it was realistic. I discharged out of the Marines in '80.  Being in during the entire Carter presidency was enough for me. I know what was going on then, better than I do now with regards to the .mil and our readiness. We weren't ready for much of anything at that point, other than a purely defensive war.

  Dr. you discharged out of the Corps 8 years before I went into it......so you are probably a little wiser than I on the subject....I served under Bush #1, and Cheney was my Sec of defense, we were certainly on a "restoration", if you will, of American military power when I joined.....but Reagan did "cut and run" from Lebanon....regardless of the consequences......maybe because Oct.'83 was less than 10 years from the fall of Saigon, and Americans still had no stomach for military casualties on foreign soil....who knows.....I do know that the barracks bombing was just one of the instances that galvanized my decision to join the Corps.
  As for war with Iran....that's a tough one....so many variables...how can we fight another war when the one in Iraq isn't even finished yet.....troop deployments are on a ridiculous third tour, unheard of in Vietnam.....if we attack the Shia dominated Iran, I think that would anger the Shiite majority in Iraq, and that would definitely be a problem for our troops.....not to mention the outnumbered British in the South...I would expect NO HELP from the UN or most European countries...if Iran shuts off oil production, and siezes the Straits of Hormuz, then almost NO OIL will get out of the Gulf......then what?.....$10 a gallon gas?....I'd hate to think where this will all lead......I wonder how many Islamic nations we think we can invade before other Arab states turn against us in force......There are 5 million muslims in this country....what if half of them picked up a weapon?.....I already know of muslim men who have CCW permits....they publish permit holder's names in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, once a month.....
    I do know that the U.S. sold Israel 500 "smart" bombs a couple of years ago....Smart bombs are an offensive weapon, last time I checked, and I haven't heard of any laser guided bombs being used in the West Bank or Gaza......remember in 1980 when Israel destroyed Saddam's Ocirek nuclear "power" facility....they will do the same to Iran's....with or without explicit U.S. approval.....the only problem is this action would make Hezbollah and Hamas go nuts against Israel, not to mention who knows who else.....I am no fan of Israel, but our government apparently is, so any major military action against the Jewish state would certainly warrant some kind of American response....if Iran keeps up the rhetoric, I would look for a Carrier battle group to be heading towards the region and soon...I also think that  re-instating the draft WILL be inevitable, if we are to have the number of troops needed to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and who knows where else we will need to go....possibly Israel(?)....the homeland will be left to us Americans who believe in the Second Amendment, and I think if the SHTF here in the homeland, we will have a whole lot more Americans embracing their Second Amendment rights.....I am no political guru, but that's my 2 cents......thanks for reading it, and SemperFi!
 

Friday, September 19, 2003
The Three Conjectures

A Pew poll finds 40% of Americans worry that an US city will be destroyed by a terrorist nuclear attack . James Lileks thinks the annihilation of a city is a dead certainty and will only mark the start of a long, wearying struggle against Islamists armed with nuclear car bombs.

The imminence of the threat is open to debate. Despite the perception that technological diffusion has put weapons of mass destruction within easy reach of Islamic terrorists -- the cliché of a mullah brewing anthrax in a cave -- terrorist weapons remain at the 1970s level. The Al-Qaeda attack on the September 11 was the most sophisticated terrorist assault in history. Yet it did not employ any new technological elements, just the creative use of old techniques like the airline hijacking. High explosives,  small arms, and poison gas still comprise the terrorist arsenal.

The limiting factor is the lack of terrorist engineering resources to make sophisticated weaponry. The principles of ballistics, explosive chemistry and aeronautics needed to make combat aircraft are well known; but groups like Al Qaeda don't have the personnel, facilities and secure environment to turn the concepts into a working object and so have no combat aircraft. Making a uranium A-bomb of the simplest kind is comparable in complexity to manufacturing a Douglas DC-3, even given the fissile materials. But the SAFF (Safing, Arming, Fuzing, and Firing) issues alone pretty much ensure that it cannot be developed from a mullah's cave. US weapons are one point safe -- with less than a one in a million chance of detonating accidentally if their explosive primers were improperly activated. Unless the Islamists engineer similar precautions, their weapons would be unusable. The safety record of terrorist bomb factories and the history of prematurely detonating car bombs would see Islamabad vaporized before Manhattan. Analogous problems exist for biological weaponry. There are no Biosafety Level 4 facilities in tribal areas or tents in North Africa and an accidental plague that wiped out the population of the Middle East would hardly help the Islamist cause. Only a state  in the near term -- Pakistan, Iran or North Korea -- will have the manufacturing resources and secure territory to make the weapon that Lileks and the Pew respondents fear.

Conjecture 1: Terrorism has lowered the nuclear threshold

These obstacles to terrorist capability are the sole reason that the War on Terror has not yet crossed the nuclear theshold, the point at which enemies fight each other with weapons of mass destruction. The terrorist intent to destroy the United States, at whatever cost to themselves, has been a given since September 11. Only their capability is in doubt. This is an inversion of the Cold War situation when the capability of the Soviet Union to destroy America was given but their intent to do so, in the face of certain retaliation, was doubtful. Early warning systems, from the DEW Line of the 1950s to the [http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/Defense_Support_Program_Satel.html]Defense Support Satellites were merely elaborate mechanisms to ascertain Soviet intent. That put the Cold War nuclear threshold rather high. Even the launch of a few multimegaton warheads at US targets or a nuclear exchange between forces at sea would not necessarily precipitate www.af.mil/news/factsheets/Defense_Support_Program_Satel.html]Central Nuclear War if American national command authority was convinced that the Soviet strike was accidental or could be met with a proportional response; in other words, without the intent to initiate an all out nuclear exchange, there would be none.

In stark contrast, the nuclear threshold against a terrorism may be crossed once they get the capability to attack with weapons of mass destruction. Unlike the old early warning systems, designed to gauge Soviet intent, the intelligence systems of the War on Terror are meant to measure capability. The relevant Cold War question was 'do they intend to use the Bomb?'.  In the War on Terror, the relevant question is simply 'do they have the Bomb?' This puts the nuclear threshold very low. Just how low was empirically demonstrated in the days immediately following the September 11, when it was reported that the United States had considered -- and rejected -- a nuclear response to the World Trade Center attacks. The threshold had almost been crossed. However that may be, we now know from National Security Presidential Directive 17  that a terrorist WMD attack, including biologicals and chemicals, will go over the line:

"terrorist groups are seeking to acquire WMD with the stated purpose of killing large numbers of our people and those of friends and allies -- without compunction and without warning. ... The United States ... reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force -- including through resort to all of our options -- to the use of WMD against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies."

Some reports have suggested that the US would preemptively use tactical nuclear weapons -- bunker busters -- to destroy terrorist WMDs. We're no longer in Kansas.  In the halcyon days of the Cold War Soviet boomers would cruise the American coast with hundreds of nuclear weapons unmolested by the US Navy.  Now a single Al Qaeda tramp freighter bound for New York carrying a uranium fission weapon would be ruthlessly attacked. The taboo which held back generations from mass murder has been mentally crossed by radical Islam and their hand gropes uncertainly for the dagger.

Conjecture 2: Attaining WMDs will destroy Islam

This fixity of malice was recognized in President Bush's West Point [http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/0702/ijpe/ijpe0702.htm]address in the summer of 2002, when he concluded that "deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations -- means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend." The enemy was equally indifferent to inducement or threat. Neither making nice -- Jimmy Carter's withdrawal from Iran, Reagan's abandonment of Lebanon, Bush's defense of Saudi Arabia, Clinton's rescue of Albanian Muslims from Serbian genocide, the payment of billions in aid to Egypt and Pakistan -- nor the gravest of threats would alter the enemy's intent to utterly destroy and enslave America. Allah had condemned America. The Faithful only had to find the means to carry out the execution.

Because capability is the sole variable of interest in the war against terrorism, the greater the Islamic strike capability becomes, the stronger the response will be. An unrepeatable attack with a stolen WMD weapon would elicit a different response from one arising from a capability to strike on a sustained and repetitive basis. The riposte to an unrepeatable attack would be limited. However, suppose Pakistan or North Korea engineered a reliable plutonium weapon that could be built to one-point safety in any machine shop with a minimum of skill, giving Islamic terrorists the means to repeatedly attack America indefinitely. Under these circumstances, there would no incentive to retaliate proportionately. The WMD exchange would escalate uncontrollably until Islam was destroyed.

Consider a case where Islamic terrorists obliterate a city, causing five times the deaths at Hiroshima and an American limited response.

Iteration Non-Islamic Losses Islamic Losses
1           - 5 x 10^5                -2 x 10^6
Total      - 5 x 10^5                -2 x 10^6

In a war between nations, the conflict might stop at this point. But since there is no one with whom to negotiate a peace and no inclination to stop anyhow, the Islamic terrorists will continue while they have the capability and the cycle of destruction continues.

Iteration Non-Islamic Losses Islamic Losses
1           - 5 x 10^5               -2 x 10^6
2           - 1 x 10^6               -5 x 10^6
3           - 5 x 10^6            -1.5 x 10^7
4           - 8 x 10^6            -3.0 x 10^7
5         - 1.5 x 10^7           -5.0 x 10^7
Total    - 2.95 x 10^7       - 10.2 x 10^7

At this point, a United States choked with corpses could still not negotiate an end to hostilities or deter further attacks. There would be no one to call on the Red Telephone, even to surrender to. In fact, there exists no competent Islamic authority, no supreme imam who could stop a jihad on behalf of the whole Muslim world. Even if the terror chiefs could somehow be contacted in this apocalyptic scenario and persuaded to bury the hatchet, the lack of command and control imposed by the cell structure would prevent them from reining in their minions. Due to the fixity of intent, attacks would continue for as long as capability remained. Under these circumstances, any American government would eventually be compelled by public desperation to finish the exchange by entering -1 x 10^9 in the final right hand column: total retaliatory extermination.

Iteration Non-Islamic Losses Islamic Losses
1             - 5 x 10^5           -2 x 10^6
2             - 1 x 10^6           -5 x 10^6
3             - 5 x 10^6        -1.5 x 10^7
4             - 8 x 10^6        -3.0 x 10^7
5             - 1.5 x 10^7     -5.0 x 10^7
6                  0               -8.93 x 10^8
Total       - 2.95 x 10^7       -1 x 10^9

The so-called strengths of Islamic terrorism: fanatical intent; lack of a centralized leadership; absence of a final authority and cellular structure guarantee uncontrollable escalation once the nuclear threshold is crossed. Therefore the 'rational' American response to the initiation of terrorist WMD attack would be all out retaliation from the outset.

Iteration Non-Islamic Losses Islamic Losses
1            - 5 x 10^5               -1 x 10^9
Total       - 5 x 10^5               -1 x 10^9

James Lileks and the Pew respondents would not lose America; but like the boogeyman in www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se7en]Seven, Islam would take it's soul. The most startling result of this analysis is that a catastrophic outcome for Islam is guaranteed whether America retaliates or not. Even if the President decided to let all Americans die to expiate their historical guilt, why would Islamic terrorists stop after that? They would move on to Europe and Asia until finally China, Russia, Japan, India or Israel, none of them squeamish, wrote -1 x 10^9 in the final right hand column. They too would be prisoners of the same dynamic, and they too have weapons of mass destruction.

Even if Islam killed every non-Muslim on earth they would almost certainly continue to kill each other with their new-found weaponry. Revenge www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1033311,00.html]bombings between rival groups and wars between different Islamic factions are the recurring theme of history. Long before 3,000 New Yorkers died on September 11, www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/iran-iraq.htm]Iraq and Iran killed 500,000 Muslims between them. The greatest threat to Muslims is radical Islam; and the greatest threat of all is a radical Islam armed with weapons of mass destruction.

Conjecture 3: The War on Terror is the 'Golden Hour' -- the final chance

It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror, the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us. That effort really consists of two separate aspects: a campaign to destroy the locus of militant Islam and prevent their acquisition of WMDs; and an attempt to awaken the world to the urgency of the threat. While American arms have proven irresistible, much of Europe, as well as moderates in the Islamic world, remain blind to the danger and indeed increase it. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en38913&F_catID=&f_type=source]recently "told an international conference of young Muslim leaders ... (that) ... Muslims must acquire skills and technology so they can create modern weapons and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies". Fecklessness and www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A851-2003Sep12.html]gunpowder are a lethal combination. The terrible ifs www.eleccott.com/quotable.htm]accumulate.

belmontclub.blogspot.com/2003/09/three-conjectures-pew-poll-finds-40-of.html]posted by wretchard at 10:31 PM

Quoted: The Sunburn is a joke.  Since we have discovered the even Phalanx- which the US Navy publicly considered "aged" and "inadaquate" and which we absolutely had to replace with RAM and ESSM at great expense- is now proven capable of shooting down targets as small as a mortar bomb against a back clutter of city buildings with the installation of two Block 1B mounts in the Green Zone in Bagdad.  How does a missile, even a mach 2 one, trying to cross flat open ocean with NO cover going to escape?

Low-flying and supersonic. Once it comes across the radar horizion you don't have much time to deal with it. And even if Phalanx does hit it, you'll probably still get a superstructure full of supersonic debris from the missile.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Won't happen. Well not anytime soon, probably someday though and we probably should have tangled with them back during the time of the bombing of the Marine's barracks. We should have tangled with them in 1979 when they took our people hostage.  If Carter had any balls, we would have. Carter tried.....Delta Force crashed and burned in the Iranian desert......read your history......as far as the Marine barracks......you can thank Reagan for that, after Hezbollah killed 242 Marines, Reagan invaded Grenada 2 weeks later...within 6 weeks, the US presence in Lebanon was gone.....so Reagan showed the terrorists that when you blow up our Marines, we'll invade Club Med.... Carter? LMAO, that wasn't a try, that was a f'ing joke.  Just like Carter.   The Marine Barracks attack in '83 came at a time when our military was very weak, our economy was hammered to shit, the Ruskies were still militarily strong and our country had even less will for a fight than it does now.  No, a war in the ME at that point was simply untenable.  We needed a few sure victories under our belt against the forces allied with the Soviet Union.  At that time, most of the terrorist organziations around the world were aided by the Soviets and they would have loved for us to move forces intot he ME at that point.  It would have been a major blunder and the Cold War may have ended far differently as a result.  It was no too palatable but it was realistic. I discharged out of the Marines in '80.  Being in during the entire Carter presidency was enough for me. I know what was going on then, better than I do now with regards to the .mil and our readiness. We weren't ready for much of anything at that point, other than a purely defensive war.   Dr. you discharged out of the Corps 8 years before I went into it......so you are probably a little wiser than I on the subject....I served under Bush #1, and Cheney was my Sec of defense, we were certainly on a "restoration", if you will, of American military power when I joined.....but Reagan did "cut and run" from Lebanon....regardless of the consequences......

Yeah, but the mistake was putting anyone in there in the first place.  It was politics pure and simple and there was no way to support them.  Our men were operating under totally bullshit ROEs at that time also.  IIRC, the guards at the gate weren't even issued ammo. I'd have to check on that though.  
However, a far larger mistake would have been to move more troops in at that time.  Different world than what we have now.

maybe because Oct.'83 was less than 10 years from the fall of Saigon, and Americans still had no stomach for military casualties on foreign soil....who knows.....

We didn't.

I do know that the barracks bombing was just one of the instances that galvanized my decision to join the Corps.

I was about to say that I wish I were young enough now but I guess I am really not. Mil is way too f'ing PC for me now.

As for war with Iran....that's a tough one....so many variables...how can we fight another war when the one in Iraq isn't even finished yet.....troop deployments are on a ridiculous third tour, unheard of in Vietnam.....if we attack the Shia dominated Iran, I think that would anger the Shiite majority in Iraq, and that would definitly be a problem for our troops.....not to mention the outnumbered British in the South...I would expect NO HELP from the UN or most European countries...

Agree with all of that.

if Iran shuts off oil production, and siezes the Straits of Hormuz, then almost NO OIL will get out of the Gulf......then what?.....$10 a gallon gas?....I'd hate to think where this will all lead......

They can't hold the Straits of Hormuz or the Gulf.  Our Navy is vastly superior to anyones by far. No one else even comes close and that is the one thing, beyond our economy, that makes us the pre-eminent world power.

And they have to sell oil.  They need to sell it as much as we need to buy it.

I wonder how many Islamic nations we think we can invade before other Arab states turn against us in force......There are 5 million muslims in this country....what if half of them picked up a weapon?.....I already know of muslim men who have CCW permits....they publish permit holder's names in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, once a month.....

Yeah, there are some who are this country's enemy, no doubt.

I do know that the U.S. sold Israel 500 "smart" bombs a couple of years ago....Smart bombs are an offensive weapon, last time I checked, and I haven't heard of any laser guided bombs being used in the West Bank or Gaza......remember in 1980 when Israel destroyed Saddam's Ocirek nuclear "power" facility....they will do the same to Iran's....with or without explicit U.S. approval.....the only problem is this action would make Hezbollah and Hamas go nuts against Israel, not to mention who knows who else.....I am no fan of Israel, but our government apparently is, so any major military action against the Jewish state would certainly warrant some kind of American response....

Iran's facility would be far harder to get at or hit.

if Iran keeps up the rhetoric, I would look for a Carrier battle group to be heading towards the region and soon...I also think that  re-instating the draft WILL be inevitable, if we are to have the number of troops needed to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and who knows where else we will need to go....possibly Israel(?)....the homeland will be left to us Americans who believe in the Second Amendment, and I think if the SHTF here in the homeland, we will have a whole lot more Americans embracing their Second Amendment rights.....I am no political guru, but that's my 2 cents......thanks for reading it, and SemperFi!

I think we already have a few carrier groups close enough.  Problem is really enough boots on the ground IMO.

Still plenty of socialist Sheeple.  Do not underestimate their desire for appeasement and the idea that weakness will make us less of a threat to others.  Seriously.  Their naivete, stupidity and historical ignorance is sometimes astounding.

I also grew up during 'Nam.  I don't think most younger people of today would believe what ocurred could have ever happened in this country.  I know you probably think you do but until Reagan the country was doing the slow spiral right into the toilet.  

Semper Fi back at you.

Lot's of points to address here, lets see Iran's IRBM's   Assuming they've got more than a couple launch ready AND a WMD that will fit the throw weight limits of the bird (which I highly doubt) 1300km range my map shows that wouldn't even clear the Black sea countries let alone make it into central Europe.

 Israel and the bomb..most reports in the open press say they've got 100 or so WMD,most air delivered perhaps a few for their own missle program on the Jericho 2 and Popeye systems. The Jericho is almost certainly targeted on Iran. The Popeye cruise missle which is sub launched is bit more uncertain. More than enough megatonage to fry most major Iranian targets.

Iranian internal uprising..get real.  The "election" cemented the Ayatolla's  iron grip on the country. I'm afraid any uprising would be quickly and ruthlessly surpressed. In fact after the bombings of several months ago I'm sure that the pressure on any resistance has been turned up even higher.

US ground forces..not on any conventional scale,even if we had available forces ( which we don't)  Any "invasion" would be a bloodbath for both sides. In the 80/81 war Iran used human wave tactics to spearhead attacks. In many cases this was young children and women. I can't think of a more unifying cause for the fantical Muslum leaders in Iran than a US invasion.

On the good side, The major powers in the West KNOW just how dangerious the Iranian Nuclear program is.  Also Western inteligence agencies know who the real backers of terrorism out of the Middle East are. And guess what it wasn't Uncle Saddam or his Syrian buddies.

Even the French have stated that they reserve the right to use "special weapons" So building a platform for a strike on the Iranian sites should be a easy process..

So what's the likely plan..Frankly when it happens it will be PGM's and a lot of them Lot's of those GBU-28's  BLU 118's and current reports indicate that some Minuteman III's may be retrofitted with conventional warheads. Even a kinetic energy warhead would be devistating to any target it struck as it arrived at hypersonic speeds. The only question is is the CEP of a ICBM small enough to be used as PGM.

Follow up these strikes with a classic ranger/seal/SF raid..and the Iranian nuclear program is gone.

So that's my 3 peso's

MR Bear

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Won't happen. Well not anytime soon, probably someday though and we probably should have tangled with them back during the time of the bombing of the Marine's barracks. We should have tangled with them in 1979 when they took our people hostage.  If Carter had any balls, we would have. Carter tried.....Delta Force crashed and burned in the Iranian desert......read your history......

I don't have to read it, I was a teenager at the time:  I watched Nightline every single night of the hostage crisis.
That "rescue attempt" was a joke.  Even had it succeeded, it wouldn't have been the required action.  We should have launched an all out attack on Iran, period.  If other nations don't believe that you consider hostages to be as good as dead, they will keep taking them.

Quoted: Quoted: The Sunburn is a joke.  Since we have discovered the even Phalanx- which the US Navy publicly considered "aged" and "inadaquate" and which we absolutely had to replace with RAM and ESSM at great expense- is now proven capable of shooting down targets as small as a mortar bomb against a back clutter of city buildings with the installation of two Block 1B mounts in the Green Zone in Bagdad.  How does a missile, even a mach 2 one, trying to cross flat open ocean with NO cover going to escape? Low-flying and supersonic. Once it comes across the radar horizion you don't have much time to deal with it. And even if Phalanx does hit it, you'll probably still get a superstructure full of supersonic debris from the missile.

Radar horizon is what? 30 miles?

Phalanx has been pegging 82mm mortar rounds fired from 1km away, with a reaction time of what? Maybe a second and a half even alowing for the loaping trajectory...

But Phalanx is only the backup.  And on some new ships the backups backup.  Standard missiles would get most of them

The POINT was that Phalanx was our OLDEST and SMALLEST anti-missile system, and it has demonstrated ability to cap projectiles as fast and a LOT smaller over heavy clutter.

RAM/Mk 23 TAS and of course AEGIS/Standard are far more powerful and effective systems... Sunburn would have to defeat all three.  While it would have a better chance than say Exocet- or even our own Harpoon- of getting through, and WAYY better than the old Styx/Silkworm/Seersucker family, if you cannot fire them en mass they are not much good.

US ground forces..not on any conventional scale,even if we had available forces ( which we don't) Any "invasion" would be a bloodbath for both sides. In the 80/81 war Iran used human wave tactics to spearhead attacks. In many cases this was young children and women. I can't think of a more unifying cause for the fantical Muslum leaders in Iran than a US invasion

Why would the Iranian half of the old war be any more difficult than the Iraqi half for us to deal with?

Human wave attacks failed against Iraq, they would not hinder us.  It would be a lot easier to clean out the truely comitted.  

I doubt they would even try, they would know from watching the fighting in Iraq the keeping their comitted people ALIVE to prolong the struggle as long as possible was their best chance...

and not a very good one as we have seen from the wasting away of the terror movement in Iraq...

Postscript to the Three Conjectures

The emergence of a genuine terrorist WMD capability would represent a decoupling of the nuclear monopoly from states. This should be distinguished from the circumstance of a stolen weapon, which once used, can never be replenished in the terrorist arsenal. It refers specifically to the ability of private, clandestine, extremist groups to sustainably manufacture nuclear, biological or chemical weapons for their own use. The Three Conjectures argued that such a capability would be very difficult for a terrorist organization to achieve without the help of a state due to the engineering difficulties attendant to the development process. That was the good news.

The bad news was that terrorists if left alone would eventually succeed in obtaining it. And once the WMD manufacturing process were commoditized and grasped by terrorists, all control over WMD manufacture and use would be lost to governments, even the one that gave it to the terrorist organization in the first place. The Three Conjectures further argued that this kind of power, once set loose, would consume Islam itself. Either the terrorist weapons would provoke a catastrophic response against the Muslim world or they would be used in the internecine struggles of the Islam, making the huge bomb detonated outside the Najaf mosque seem like a firecracker by comparison. The appearance of an Islamic WMD capability would hang like a comet of doom over the whole Muslim world.

It would not be the first time that the inner contradictions of a civilization, taken to their limit, have killed it. Something in the expansionist and militant hubris of 19th century Europe led the continent to the mindless mud and trenches of the Great War. The Lost Generation died by Europe's own hand. Now it is Islam coming face to face with a challenge of how to handle the true divine fire. And the real dilemma is that the power behind the light of the stars is incompatible with the framework bequeathed by Mohammed. It may be the turn of the Faithful to die by Islam's own hand unless it can listen to the word that speaks from the very heart of the flame.

And that message, surprisingly, is that we must love one another or die. J. Robert Oppenheimer thought, as he beheld the fireball of the first atomic test at Alamogordo, that he heard the Hindu god Shiva whisper "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds". He understood at that moment that mankind's moral capacity would have to expand to match its technical prowess or it would perish. If Islam desires the secret of the stars it must embrace the kuffar as its brother -- or die.

nuclear armed iran nullifies convetional forces. imagine carrier task groups in the gulf of hormoz doing sortees and suddenly a very bright flash.....

nuclear armed iran threatens the majority of the worlds known oil reserves and certainly the cheapest to obtain... imagine economic times a lot worse than the great depression....

why do you think europe is so onboard with the current 'stop irans nuclear effort' program (see second paragraph)?

forget israel.. stakes are much greater to the world as a whole..

winter is  coming...

Bob Baer ultimately blames suprise,suprise the Iranian Pasdaran for the Marine barracks bombings.

Quoted: Low-flying and supersonic. Once it comes across the radar horizion you don't have much time to deal with it. And even if Phalanx does hit it, you'll probably still get a superstructure full of supersonic debris from the missile.

We're talking about incompetent muslim military forces. Those Sunburns are probably rusting by the seashore and they probably lost the manuals. Besides, we're going to hit their telecom centers in the first waves of strikes so the Iranians won't be able to call the Russians for tech support. The Iranians will be shooting blind across thousands of kilometers of open seas that touch their coastline because their best targeting data will come from CNN or Geraldo Rivera doodling on a map.

Quoted: nuclear armed iran nullifies convetional forces. imagine carrier task groups in the gulf of hormoz doing sortees and suddenly a very bright flash..... nuclear armed iran threatens the majority of the worlds known oil reserves and certainly the cheapest to obtain... imagine economic times a lot worse than the great depression.... why do you think europe is so onboard with the current 'stop irans nuclear effort' program (see second paragraph)? forget israel.. stakes are much greater to the world as a whole.. winter is  coming...

The paralysis is largely cultural.

We have spend 60 years demonising genocide and the use of nuclear weapons.

Now we are faced with a situation where we may have to do both.

One or two nuclear bombs detonated by Iran- most likely on its own soil- would not REALLY hurt the US or the west or disrupt the oil flow.

Its just the psychological shock of losing such a large group of casualties, and killing millions of people-especally women and children- after 60 years of relative peace we cannot accept that.

Just like the generation of the 1930s couldn't face going back to war... as late as 1939 France, England, and Poland even if only by sheer numbers could have defeated Nazi Germany, they blew their last, best chance simply because the men in charge could not face again the spector of sending telegraphs to widows and mothers- yet by not taking the responsibility- those people and this time many millions of civilians as well died anyways...

Quoted: Quoted: If we must go to war, we have the advantage of Iran being located on a coast, making the entire land mass vulnerable to naval aircraft. Russian satellites( and therefore mercenary states) border to the north and to the northwest is Turkey, a US ally. The US can mount land offensives from both east and west. The problem is the HUGE numbers of young men in Iran. The mean age of an Iranian is around 18. That means there are tens of millions of 14+ year old men who will fight, although whether they would fight for the Islamic Republic or against it is a more difficult question. I don't have any doubt that they would rally to fight against us.  They may not like their gov't but they hate us more. The media talks about the Iranians eagerness to embrace western ideas but I think they will resent having it pushed upon them.  They still have decades of brainwashing from the religious fanatics to get over.

+1

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The Sunburn is a joke.  Since we have discovered the even Phalanx- which the US Navy publicly considered "aged" and "inadaquate" and which we absolutely had to replace with RAM and ESSM at great expense- is now proven capable of shooting down targets as small as a mortar bomb against a back clutter of city buildings with the installation of two Block 1B mounts in the Green Zone in Bagdad.  How does a missile, even a mach 2 one, trying to cross flat open ocean with NO cover going to escape? Low-flying and supersonic. Once it comes across the radar horizion you don't have much time to deal with it. And even if Phalanx does hit it, you'll probably still get a superstructure full of supersonic debris from the missile. Radar horizon is what? 30 miles? Phalanx has been pegging 82mm mortar rounds fired from 1km away, with a reaction time of what? Maybe a second and a half even alowing for the loaping trajectory... But Phalanx is only the backup.  And on some new ships the backups backup.  Standard missiles would get most of them The POINT was that Phalanx was our OLDEST and SMALLEST anti-missile system, and it has demonstrated ability to cap projectiles as fast and a LOT smaller over heavy clutter. RAM/Mk 23 TAS and of course AEGIS/Standard are far more powerful and effective systems... Sunburn would have to defeat all three.  While it would have a better chance than say Exocet- or even our own Harpoon- of getting through, and WAYY better than the old Styx/Silkworm/Seersucker family, if you cannot fire them en mass they are not much good.

Would the radar horizon really even matter that much?  I would assume that any ships in the gulf are going to be centered around a carrier or two.  And those carriers are going to have E-2C's up around the clock extending radar coverage out to what? a couple of hundred miles?  Surely, they'll be able to detect Sunburn or the launching units at that range?  Can E-2C datalink with Aegis to provide targets beyond the radar horizon?

a coupla well placed nukes....problem solved  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If we must go to war, we have the advantage of Iran being located on a coast, making the entire land mass vulnerable to naval aircraft. Russian satellites( and therefore mercenary states) border to the north and to the northwest is Turkey, a US ally. The US can mount land offensives from both east and west. The problem is the HUGE numbers of young men in Iran. The mean age of an Iranian is around 18. That means there are tens of millions of 14+ year old men who will fight, although whether they would fight for the Islamic Republic or against it is a more difficult question. I don't have any doubt that they would rally to fight against us.  They may not like their gov't but they hate us more. The media talks about the Iranians eagerness to embrace western ideas but I think they will resent having it pushed upon them.  They still have decades of brainwashing from the religious fanatics to get over. +1

-1000

They may not fight with us but just like in Iraq they will overwhelmingly NOT fight against us.

Quoted: Hell yes let the UN do it this time.

We are the U.N. 60% of its funding and manpower at the least.  The U.N. will wait to long.  We should have bombed them back to the stone age months ago before they updated thier air defenses with the latest Russian SAMs.

It certainly looks like we are on the brink of war with Iran, but I hope to God that we don't invade them. Iran's nuclear capabilities can be completely eliminated through an intense, violent, fast and relatively short bombing campaign. Assassinate a few scientists, military leaders and politicians and their nuclear program is kaput...back to square one.

Invading Iran would be a terrible mistake. We don't have the force, the equiptment or the money to invade yet another country. Iran would be much more difficult to defeat than Iraq or Afghanistan. The new Iraq still needs us desperately, and the American people are going to have a hard time accecpting the "weapons of mass destruction" mantra again. Besides, it isn't necessary.

Quoted: One scenario to think about: US targets selected sites in Iran with cruise missiles and perhaps the MOAB Iran retaliates by launching SCUDS into our "Green Zones" in Iraq and hits US troops. Then what....

Direct force on force attacks are the least of our worries.  SCUDS - come on - you're joking right?

The real threat if any confrontation with Iran is that Iran shuts down the Straits of Hormuz.  Any closure, even a couple of days, and you will see gasoline prices that will make you beg for the cheap prices you were  paying in the aftermath of Katrina.  

Face it, any serious confrontation will require occupation of a country three times as large as Iraq with terrain far less favorable to our way of making war.  Iran couldn't stand toe to toe with us in a conventional fight, but shutting down the Straits would get very painful in a hurry.

Quoted: Quoted: One scenario to think about: US targets selected sites in Iran with cruise missiles and perhaps the MOAB Iran retaliates by launching SCUDS into our "Green Zones" in Iraq and hits US troops. Then what.... Direct force on force attacks are the least of our worries.  SCUDS - come on - you're joking right? The real threat if any confrontation with Iran is that Iran shuts down the Straits of Hormuz.  Any closure, even a couple of days, and you will see gasoline prices that will make you beg for the cheap prices you were  paying in the aftermath of Katrina.   Face it, any serious confrontation will require occupation of a country three times as large as Iraq with terrain far less favorable to our way of making war.  Iran couldn't stand toe to toe with us in a conventional fight, but shutting down the Straits would get very painful in a hurry.

How would they shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they cant beat us in a conventional fight?

We would simply bomb then land Marines so they could not move back in...

Can the Iranian army fight a invasion from THREE directions at once?

Quoted: US ground forces..not on any conventional scale,even if we had available forces ( which we don't) Any "invasion" would be a bloodbath for both sides. In the 80/81 war Iran used human wave tactics to spearhead attacks. In many cases this was young children and women. I can't think of a more unifying cause for the fantical Muslum leaders in Iran than a US invasion Why would the Iranian half of the old war be any more difficult than the Iraqi half for us to deal with? Human wave attacks failed against Iraq, they would not hinder us.  It would be a lot easier to clean out the truely comitted.   I doubt they would even try, they would know from watching the fighting in Iraq the keeping their comitted people ALIVE to prolong the struggle as long as possible was their best chance... and not a very good one as we have seen from the wasting away of the terror movement in Iraq...

You must remember one thing something all here can appreciate.  Average Iranian citiczens are disarmed to a degree that Fineswine would be proud of.  Unless the Iranian government is handing out weapons(not likely since they would be arming thier resistence) dealing with civis in Iran might be far easier.  Versus Iraq where AKs, PKMs, and RPGs are more common then sand.

Quoted: How would they shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they cant beat us in a conventional fight? We would simply bomb then land Marines so they could not move back in... Can the Iranian army fight a invasion from THREE directions at once?

The Iranians don't have to do it conventionally.  I will explain it:

Rugged coast with plenty of hiding places for anti-ship cruise missiles.  Not much maneuvering room because it is, after all, a strait.

Scuttle a few large ships in the strait creating a hazard to navigation.  Salvage ships sitting ducks for above.

Small speedboats make hit and run attacks on large tankers with RPGs/small cannons.

Mines

Suicide attacks with small boats

Hint - the Iranians don't have to take on warships.  Just tag a couple of tankers.  Slow down or stop the flow of oil, even for a few days, and the economic consequences to the developed world will be huge.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If we must go to war, we have the advantage of Iran being located on a coast, making the entire land mass vulnerable to naval aircraft. Yeah but that cuts BOTH ways. Iran has the Sunburn Anti-ship Missile. The Sunburn - Iran's Awesome nuclear Anti-Ship Missile Sunburns are not invulnerable. Even then, F-18 strikes against them will be one of the very first things to come from our carriers. The Sunburn is a joke.  Since we have discovered the even Phalanx- which the US Navy publicly considered "aged" and "inadaquate" and which we absolutely had to replace with RAM and ESSM at great expense- is now proven capable of shooting down targets as small as a mortar bomb against a back clutter of city buildings with the installation of two Block 1B mounts in the Green Zone in Bagdad.  How does a missile, even a mach 2 one, trying to cross flat open ocean with NO cover going to escape? Much less get past the Standard missiles to get within Phalanx range?  And many of our ships do now have RAM instead of Phalanx and a lucky few have BOTH.  Iran would need HUNDREDS of missiles to pose a threat- numbers only Russia and maybe China possess.

"The Sunburn can deliver a 200-kiloton nuclear payload, or: a 750-pound conventional warhead, within a range of 100 miles, more than twice the range of the Exocet. The Sunburn combines a Mach 2.1 speed (two times the speed of sound) with a flight pattern that hugs the deck and includes "violent end maneuvers" to elude enemy defenses. The missile was specifically designed to defeat the US Aegis radar defense system. Should a US Navy Phalanx point defense somehow manage to detect an incoming Sunburn missile, the system has only seconds to calculate a fire solution not enough time to take out the intruding missile. The US Phalanx defense employs a six-barreled gun that fires 3,000 depleted-uranium rounds a minute, but the gun must have precise coordinates to destroy an intruder "just in time."


The Sunburn's combined supersonic speed and payload size produce tremendous kinetic energy on impact, with devastating consequences for ship and crew. A single one of these missiles can sink a large warship, yet costs considerably less than a fighter jet. Although the Navy has been phasing out the older Phalanx defense system, its replacement, known as the Rolling Action Missile (RAM) has never been tested against the weapon it seems destined to one day face in combat."

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If we must go to war, we have the advantage of Iran being located on a coast, making the entire land mass vulnerable to naval aircraft. Yeah but that cuts BOTH ways. Iran has the Sunburn Anti-ship Missile. The Sunburn - Iran's Awesome nuclear Anti-Ship Missile Sunburns are not invulnerable. Even then, F-18 strikes against them will be one of the very first things to come from our carriers. The Sunburn is a joke.  Since we have discovered the even Phalanx- which the US Navy publicly considered "aged" and "inadaquate" and which we absolutely had to replace with RAM and ESSM at great expense- is now proven capable of shooting down targets as small as a mortar bomb against a back clutter of city buildings with the installation of two Block 1B mounts in the Green Zone in Bagdad.  How does a missile, even a mach 2 one, trying to cross flat open ocean with NO cover going to escape? Much less get past the Standard missiles to get within Phalanx range?  And many of our ships do now have RAM instead of Phalanx and a lucky few have BOTH.  Iran would need HUNDREDS of missiles to pose a threat- numbers only Russia and maybe China possess. "The Sunburn can deliver a 200-kiloton nuclear payload, or: a 750-pound conventional warhead, within a range of 100 miles, more than twice the range of the Exocet. The Sunburn combines a Mach 2.1 speed (two times the speed of sound) with a flight pattern that hugs the deck and includes "violent end maneuvers" to elude enemy defenses. The missile was specifically designed to defeat the US Aegis radar defense system. Should a US Navy Phalanx point defense somehow manage to detect an incoming Sunburn missile, the system has only seconds to calculate a fire solution not enough time to take out the intruding missile. The US Phalanx defense employs a six-barreled gun that fires 3,000 depleted-uranium rounds a minute, but the gun must have precise coordinates to destroy an intruder "just in time." The Sunburn's combined supersonic speed and payload size produce tremendous kinetic energy on impact, with devastating consequences for ship and crew. A single one of these missiles can sink a large warship, yet costs considerably less than a fighter jet. Although the Navy has been phasing out the older Phalanx defense system, its replacement, known as the Rolling Action Missile (RAM) has never been tested against the weapon it seems destined to one day face in combat."

Obsolete info that everyone beleved untill they moved the Phalanx's into Bagdad and people got to see what they were really capable of.  

The statement "designed to defeat AEGIS" doesnt mean it succeeds.  The Russians try frequently to build weapons to defeat our tanks, ships, and planes.  They have yet to succeed.  At anything.

Why should I beleve this to be any more credable than alleged performance of any other Russian made weapons system?

Quoted: Have you been to the Straits of Hormuz?  A rhetorical question because if you had you would know, but I will explain it: Rugged coast with plenty of hiding places for anti-ship cruise missiles.  Not much maneuvering room because it is, after all, a strait. Scuttle a few large ships in the strait creating a hazard to navigation.  Salvage ships sitting ducks for above. Small speedboats make hit and run attacks on large tankers with RPGs/small cannons. Mines Suicide attacks with small boats Hint - the Iranians don't have to take on warships.  Just tag a couple of tankers.  Slow down or stop the flow of oil, even for a few days, and the economic consequences to the developed world will be huge.

I think the Navy will park aircraft carriers behind the islands for cover. The Iranian missiles can blast the rocks all day long. Heck, we'll probably land radar emitters on random islands so that the Iranians will launch their missiles at piles of rubble.

The Straits cut both ways. Since the Iranians have to control it, then we know where they have to launch/base from to get to it. But we have better sensors and more mobility so the advantage tilts towards the good 'ole USA, as always.

Quoted: Quoted: Have you been to the Straits of Hormuz?  A rhetorical question because if you had you would know, but I will explain it: Rugged coast with plenty of hiding places for anti-ship cruise missiles.  Not much maneuvering room because it is, after all, a strait. Scuttle a few large ships in the strait creating a hazard to navigation.  Salvage ships sitting ducks for above. Small speedboats make hit and run attacks on large tankers with RPGs/small cannons. Mines Suicide attacks with small boats Hint - the Iranians don't have to take on warships.  Just tag a couple of tankers.  Slow down or stop the flow of oil, even for a few days, and the economic consequences to the developed world will be huge. I think the Navy will park aircraft carriers behind the islands for cover. The Iranian missiles can blast the rocks all day long. Heck, we'll probably land radar emitters on random islands so that the Iranians will launch their missiles at piles of rubble. The Straits cut both ways. Since the Iranians have to control it, then we know where they have to launch/base from to get to it. But we have better sensors and more mobility so the advantage tilts towards the good 'ole USA, as always.

I very much doubt we would operate carriers anywhere near the Straits in such a conflict.  The Iranians don't have to defeat a single warship to achieve their goal.  Sink a tanker or two and the price of oil will be $200+ in hours.

We can protect tankers, but to be effective at it will require occupying a big chunk or turf along the SoH.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Have you been to the Straits of Hormuz?  A rhetorical question because if you had you would know, but I will explain it: Rugged coast with plenty of hiding places for anti-ship cruise missiles.  Not much maneuvering room because it is, after all, a strait. Scuttle a few large ships in the strait creating a hazard to navigation.  Salvage ships sitting ducks for above. Small speedboats make hit and run attacks on large tankers with RPGs/small cannons. Mines Suicide attacks with small boats Hint - the Iranians don't have to take on warships.  Just tag a couple of tankers.  Slow down or stop the flow of oil, even for a few days, and the economic consequences to the developed world will be huge. I think the Navy will park aircraft carriers behind the islands for cover. The Iranian missiles can blast the rocks all day long. Heck, we'll probably land radar emitters on random islands so that the Iranians will launch their missiles at piles of rubble. The Straits cut both ways. Since the Iranians have to control it, then we know where they have to launch/base from to get to it. But we have better sensors and more mobility so the advantage tilts towards the good 'ole USA, as always. I very much doubt we would operate carriers anywhere near the Straits in such a conflict.  The Iranians don't have to defeat a single warship to achieve their goal.  Sink a tanker or two and the price of oil will be $200+ in hours. We can protect tankers, but to be effective at it will require occupying a big chunk or turf along the SoH.

Why would this be a problem?  We would eventually take the whole country anyways, whats wrong with making the straits one of the starting points?

Why not just pull a Kosovo and bomb the piss out out of the nuke facilities with B-2's.  We can fly out of Whiteman and be back before dinner.

Quoted: Quoted: How would they shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they cant beat us in a conventional fight? We would simply bomb then land Marines so they could not move back in... Can the Iranian army fight a invasion from THREE directions at once? The Iranians don't have to do it conventionally.  I will explain it: Rugged coast with plenty of hiding places for anti-ship cruise missiles.  Not much maneuvering room because it is, after all, a strait. Scuttle a few large ships in the strait creating a hazard to navigation.  Salvage ships sitting ducks for above. Small speedboats make hit and run attacks on large tankers with RPGs/small cannons. Mines Suicide attacks with small boats Hint - the Iranians don't have to take on warships.  Just tag a couple of tankers.  Slow down or stop the flow of oil, even for a few days, and the economic consequences to the developed world will be huge.

None of that worked in 1987 when we were not prepared for it, why would it work now when we are?

Speedboats and minelayers die real fast when there are armed helicopters around.  Where would they get large ships to scuttle and somehow get past the 5th Fleet which watches the strait constantly right now, without heightened hostilities?

Quoted: Why not just pull a Kosovo and bomb the piss out out of the nuke facilities with B-2's.  We can fly out of Whiteman and be back before dinner.

Because they would build them again and we would be back to this same point in a few years.

Its the people that are the problem, the people who run Iran must be removed from power.  You cannot do that except by occupying the country.

Quoted: Why would this be a problem?  We would eventually take the whole country anyways, whats wrong with making the straits one of the starting points?

Something to do with the fact that is it stretching our military almost to the breaking point to occupy a country 1/3 the size of Iran with much more favorable terrain to our way of war and in that country, Iraq, 20% of the people are hard core allies.

Iraq was weakened by years of war with Iran, GWI, and 12 years of economic and military sanctions and it still ties down 140K troops 2.5 years after Phase IV of the campaign began.  We will be lucky to be below 100K in Iraq by the end of this year.  Where will the troops come from to conquer and occupy Iran?

It isn't undoable, but the US is already using its strategic reserve forces (Guard and Reserve) as operational reserve to maintain presence in Iraq.  Most of the reserves are coming up on 2 years of Mob time.  Not undoable to extend them, but it is a very significant step that will require Congress to act.  Committing our strategic reserve may be required, but it opens up windows of vulnerability elsewhere (Taiwan, S. Korea, et. al.).

NATO isn't ready to put much force out there either, and whatever they deployed, the US would have to support logistically.  We aren't equipped for that task - just sustaining our forces currently in theater is straining strat lift.

A much harder task than rolling up Iraq, especially Phase IV ops.

Quoted: Quoted: Why would this be a problem?  We would eventually take the whole country anyways, whats wrong with making the straits one of the starting points? Something to do with the fact that is it stretching our military almost to the breaking point to occupy a country 1/3 the size of Iran with much more favorable terrain to our way of war and in that country, Iraq, 20% of the people are hard core allies. Iraq was weakened by years of war with Iran, GWI, and 12 years of economic and military sanctions and it still ties down 140K troops 2.5 years after Phase IV of the campaign began.  We will be lucky to be below 100K in Iraq by the end of this year.  Where will the troops come from to conquer and occupy Iran? It isn't undoable, but the US is already using its strategic reserve forces (Guard and Reserve) as operational reserve to maintain presence in Iraq.  Most of the reserves are coming up on 2 years of Mob time.  Not undoable to extend them, but it is a very significant step that will require Congress to act.  Committing our strategic reserve may be required, but it opens up windows of vulnerability elsewhere (Taiwan, S. Korea, et. al.). NATO isn't ready to put much force out there either, and whatever they deployed, the US would have to support logistically.  We aren't equipped for that task - just sustaining our forces currently in theater is straining strat lift. A much harder task than rolling up Iraq, especially Phase IV ops.

This is one of those cases where it just HAS to be done regardless of vunlerabilities opened elsewhere.

The nuclear program in Iran is too dangerous.

You people have to quit acting like there are alternatives.

The 140k troops in Iran will be reduced to 0 and they will be moved to Iran.

Will Iraq need stability ops if one of the biggest backers of the resistance has US troops on its own soil?

Will Iraq ever have peace as long as Iran is run by Mullahs? I doubt it.

Quoted: Quoted: US ground forces..not on any conventional scale,even if we had available forces ( which we don't) Any "invasion" would be a bloodbath for both sides. In the 80/81 war Iran used human wave tactics to spearhead attacks. In many cases this was young children and women. I can't think of a more unifying cause for the fantical Muslum leaders in Iran than a US invasion Why would the Iranian half of the old war be any more difficult than the Iraqi half for us to deal with? Human wave attacks failed against Iraq, they would not hinder us.  It would be a lot easier to clean out the truely comitted.   I doubt they would even try, they would know from watching the fighting in Iraq the keeping their comitted people ALIVE to prolong the struggle as long as possible was their best chance... and not a very good one as we have seen from the wasting away of the terror movement in Iraq... You must remember one thing something all here can appreciate.  Average Iranian citiczens are disarmed to a degree that Fineswine would be proud of.  Unless the Iranian government is handing out weapons(not likely since they would be arming thier resistence) dealing with civis in Iran might be far easier.  Versus Iraq where AKs, PKMs, and RPGs are more common then sand.

That sounds like it would be better for us rather than worse.

We could arm people we could trust to help us rather than trying to negotiate with people who were already armed and could switch sides...

Yes, I know they could use a ship to deliver a bomb to the USA, But for now lets let European nations see if they can play the BAD GUY for a while, If that doesn't work, Well it won't take long to flatten IRAN.

Quoted: I very much doubt we would operate carriers anywhere near the Straits in such a conflict.  The Iranians don't have to defeat a single warship to achieve their goal.  Sink a tanker or two and the price of oil will be $200+ in hours. We can protect tankers, but to be effective at it will require occupying a big chunk or turf along the SoH.

That cuts both ways, too. That means that Iran can't ship their oil products out and can't ship imports in. The rest of their delivery systems are land-based and extremely vulnerable to US air attack. There's no stopping other oil producers from ramping up production to take advantage of higher prices/demand. The oil producers in Europe will ramp up production so they can pay for their Socialist programs and mother Russia needs real money.

So the advantage tips back to the good 'ole USA once again.

Quoted: Quoted: I very much doubt we would operate carriers anywhere near the Straits in such a conflict.  The Iranians don't have to defeat a single warship to achieve their goal.  Sink a tanker or two and the price of oil will be $200+ in hours. We can protect tankers, but to be effective at it will require occupying a big chunk or turf along the SoH. That cuts both ways, too. That means that Iran can't ship their oil products out and can't ship imports in. The rest of their delivery systems are land-based and extremely vulnerable to US air attack. There's no stopping other oil producers from ramping up production to take advantage of higher prices/demand. The oil producers in Europe will ramp up production so they can pay for their Socialist programs and mother Russia needs real money. So the advantage tips back to the good 'ole USA once again.

Iran has been banking away on $60 oil.  If the SoH go down, there is no way that other producers can make up the shortfalls.  

I am not saying that Iran is not doable.  What I am saying is that the consequences of doing it are orders of magnitude greater than Iraq.

I hope we go, I can get out of my silly mout town job and go back to having real fun.

Quoted: Iran has been banking away on $60 oil.  If the SoH go down, there is no way that other producers can make up the shortfalls.

Actually, the other producers won't be able to make up the shortfalls FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD. The USA will be just fine because we'll be able to produce our own oil and pay the premium prices for the shortfall. So the advantage will still tilt in our favor because our economy is the strongest in the world, and we will be at the front of the line to collect whatever oil is being shipped.

I am not saying that Iran is not doable.  What I am saying is that the consequences of doing it are orders of magnitude greater than Iraq.

That's even more reason to go in there and beat up Iran.