Iran Prepares for Asymetrical Warfare

[XT]

@Der Trihs

Nonsense. We’ve been their enemy since before the present government existed.

As you say, nonsense. At most we were the enemies (or, more accurately, the one’s helping their enemies) of certain factions in Iran. There were plenty of Iranian’s who saw the US as friends, or at worse in a neutral/negative light.

Of course not; we are the enemies of much of the planet; we aren’t just focused on them. That didn’t keep us from, for example, funding Saddam in a proxy war against them or funding terrorist groups inside their border.

Again, as you say, nonsense. At worse we are looked on by much of the world in either a neutral or negative light…that’s far from being an ‘enemy’. And, contrary to your world view, a lot of folks out there in The World actually look on the US in a positive light, or even regard us (warily) as ‘friends’.

I will concede that the US hasn’t exactly been friendly towards Iran (to put it mildly), but we didn’t start the conflict between Iraq and Iran…we merely saw an opportunity to poke them in the eye. And Iran hasn’t exactly been walking with the angels either, wrt covert funding for terrorist groups outside their borders. Regardless, if that was the best we could do then I think my point still stands…from Iran’s perspective we haven’t exactly been an implacable enemy bent on their destruction. More like an enemy who occasionally remembers they are there and half heatedly takes a swing, then gets distracted somewhere else.

Nonsense. The fate of Saddam and Iraq demonstrates that it doesn’t matter if you don’t have nukes, doesn’t matter if you try to negotiate, doesn’t matte if you try to cooperate. And we’ve been their enemy for decades longer than they’ve been trying for nukes.

Well, that’s one of those fundamental disagreement points between us, ehe? I think it shows just the opposite. To me, what Saddam and Iraq demonstrates is that you can dance on the razor for only so long before something causes the balance to shift…and then you are in for the long drop. As Saddam found out the hard way.

As for Iran, the very attempt to gain those nukes may be the factor that brings about the same kind of destruction that Iraq got (or, maybe not, since we might not be able to do much about it these days). Regardless of what happened in the past, if they stopped trying to get nukes now they would not be under any kind of threat from the US…especially if they also decided it might be wise to stop supporting external terrorist groups operating against Israel. Essentially, they could become another Libya, and eventually work their way back into the good graces of the international community of nations, instead of being an international pariah. So, they are at a sort of crossroads atm…they could go the North Korea route, or the Libya route. Which do you think would be most profitable for them? More importantly, leaving aside those in charge, which route do you suppose the majority of Iranians would rather go? Continually and perpetually cut off from the international community, perpetually under one embargo after another, perpetually looked on with suspicion and distrust not just by big, bad, mean ole USA, but by nearly everyone else as well? Or open trade, one welcome to the international community?

I know which one I THINK the majority of Iranians would prefer, and also which one I THINK would actually be more optimal to Iran both in terms of security from the attack of the mad Americans AND from a prosperity perspective. Of course, those in power would disagree because it would be a direct threat…not to the country, but to their power.

-XT

[E-Sabbath]

@Squink

This could have humorous consequences for the ruling clerics.

More than you think. The Guard are very close to ruling the country. Splitting them up like this could be taken, by the Guard, as an attempt to break up their political power. Which it very possibly is.

Please, Iran, fragment the Guard. Pretty, pretty please.

Marg bar dictator.

[Hold_Fast]

@BrainGlutton

What are they thinking?! The U.S. isn’t about to invade Iran, not with Obama in charge and not with our resources stretched as they are and not with everybody sick of the Iraq fiasco. And what other country would?!

I’m paraphrasing both Hillary and Obama on this (and thats saying somthing) “Military force is **still **an option to prevent Iran from building an atomic bomb.” We’ll be out of Iraq any minute now with Obama running things, so resources shouldn’t be as strained in a year or two. As for your question of, “what other country would?”, well, basically every country in the UN security council has been on the US side with keeping nukes out of the hands of Iranians.

[Chronos]

Pretty meaningless, since they haven’t shown much interest in attacking us anyway. We are the ones prone to wars of aggression far more than them, not to mention being so much stronger that they’d never try anyway.

That’s why I added “or our allies”. They don’t have much interest in attacking us, but they do have an interest in attacking Israel.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Chronos

That’s why I added “or our allies”. They don’t have much interest in attacking us, but they do have an interest in attacking Israel.

Well, they have an interest in saying they’ll attack Israel, though not saying it so forcefully that they can’t hide behind the “it’s only rhetoric!” excuse.

[Sri_Theo]

@xtisme

My guess is that if Iran stopped trying to pursue nuclear weapons of their own they would likely fall completely off most American’s radars (including most American politicians radars), and they would stay there.
-XT

While I take your point that its to the benefit of certain sections of the Iranian government to keep the US as a folkdevil surely the same thing applies to the US?

And I think its unfair to characterise the Iranians as irrational;

**The 1953 Iranian coup d’état **- led directly to a 25 year dictatorship that most of the current government grew up under.

1979 Religious revolution - the US supported the Shah and provided encouragement against those now in power. And they refused to turn the Shah in afterwards.

1980 Iran- Iraq war - - The US bombed Iranian oil platforms, and gave Iraq + billions in dollars of aid, military intelligence and training. The secret funding of Iran makes it even worse, the US literally fanned the flames in order to get each country to destroy each other. This was only 30 years ago and up to 1.5 million people died.

Think about the impact Vietnam had on the American mindset and times it by about 10.

1988 - US shoots down a civilian Iranian aeroplane in murky circumstances. How do you think the US would react if another state did that to them? For reference the Lockerbie bombings still impact UK - Libyan relations.

You should look up drug addiction rates in Iran, I believe they have the second highest opium addiction rates in the world thanks to a flood of cheap heroin from Afghanistan after the invasion. In some border areas there are reports of the youth of entire villages becoming addicted. If Iran was to dump thousands of tonnes of cheap drugs into US cities would that provoke the US government?

Then lets not get into the continuous Israel + Palestine stuff as well as the lumping of them into the ‘axis of evil’ - what were they doing at that point anyway? Then there’s the invasion of two neighbouring countries, you don’t think that has had any impact?

The list of reasons go on, but it’s an intensely complicated geopolitical situation and I don’t believe that your explanations are helpful when you ignore the active part the US has played in shaping current relations with Iran.

[Lust4Life]

Iran has at present a lot of internal dissenion with the ruling clique.

The Revolutionary Guard do not speak for all or even the majority of Iranians.

Given enough time hopefully the R.G. and its extreme clerics will be ousted by the Iranian people themselves one way or another.

What the R.G. would totally love would be the West to attack Iran, uniting the people against the Great and Little Satans and forgetting for the time being; their serious antipathy to the present regime.

I might be wrong but I suspect that the sabre rattling being practiced at the moment is an attempt to win over the ordinary Iranian in the street as well as provocation for the Western Allies.

[Sage_Rat]

Encouraging independent leadership can only be a good, so far as the rest of the world is concerned. In a country with less-than-benevolent government, training your operatives in digging in, hiding, and fighting a guerrilla war is essentially the same as saying, “Hey! All you unhappy people, here’s how to hold a successful revolution! Go to it lads!”

[emacknight]

I still think it shows an interesting shift in modern warfare: The US spent billions developing a plane that can leave Arizona, fly halfway around the world, completely slip past enemy air defense and radar, drop 50 precision guided bombs/missiles, then fly back.

There is simply no question the US and its allies will obtain complete air superiority within a matter of days. Traditionally, a competing country would work their asses off to counter it, building their own super stealthy planes, while also ramping up their air defense system.

But this article suggests a shift: Iran is so far behind they can’t possibly catch up in any meaningful way. But it appears they have at least enough intelligence to look at the failures of an air campaign (Kosovo), and the success of a dispersed insurgency. And now they’re responding.

Instead of saying, “hey look, our new radar is wicked awesome, your planes are no match.” They’re saying, if you fracture our command structure, things will just keep getting worse for you. We’ve reduced the value of the “high value targets.” Each sub-unit will continue to operate. We are prepared to fight a new-modern ground war.

It would certainly be cool if this all backfires on them, but I doubt it. This government was born under a revolution, and has spent a couple decades preventing them. It’s kind of what they do.

[Sage_Rat]

@emacknight

It would certainly be cool if this all backfires on them, but I doubt it. This government was born under a revolution, and has spent a couple decades preventing them. It’s kind of what they do.

Over the course of a few decades, the old generation is all retired and the new kids think they know just as much as the old hats.

[Declan]

@emacknight

Instead of saying, “hey look, our new radar is wicked awesome, your planes are no match.” They’re saying, if you fracture our command structure, things will just keep getting worse for you. We’ve reduced the value of the “high value targets.” Each sub-unit will continue to operate. We are prepared to fight a new-modern ground war.

Whats telling about that article is that only the revolutionary guard is being transformed, nothing was noted about the conventional military beyond not expected to remain a cohesive force in being.

It sounds to me like they are under no ilusions that the Irani peoples are not going to bat an eye once formal hostilities are concluded, so they need some revolutionary fervor to put some starch in their shorts.

Only time and an invasion will tell if they picked the right horse.

Declan

[Der_Trihs]

@Declan

It sounds to me like they are under no ilusions that the Irani peoples are not going to bat an eye once formal hostilities are concluded, so they need some revolutionary fervor to put some starch in their shorts.

Nonsense. They know quite well that if we invade, we’ll provide the general population all the motivation necessary to hate us without any effort on their part. The idea that the Iranian people will hail us as liberators or even be neutral is just as foolish as the claims that the Iraqis would do so. Cluster bombs, incendiaries, the deaths of friends and family, and being cold, hungry and thirsty in the dark because the infrastructure is destroyed are great motivators for hatred.

[BrainGlutton]

@E-Sabbath

Oh, I do hope they don’t realize the social results of turning the Revolutionary Guard to small and independent commands. Please let them do it.

It occurs to me that some of these commands, if they are essentially local militias, might rethink their loyalty – not just to the Islamist regime, but to Iran as a country – and support their local Kurdish or Arab or Balochi separatists.

[gonzomax]

Iran is waiting to be attacked. That can not be a good feeling. They also have to face that they are weaker than the countries that threaten them. Iran has not attacked another country in a century or so. I wonder how we can convince ourselves that they are a threat to us? Don’t worry we can find a way. Like Saddam ,we will claim they have the bomb and the mushroom cloud is on our horizon.

[appleciders]

@gonzomax

Iran has not attacked another country in a century or so.

This is a little disingenuous. Iraq initiated the Iran-Iraq war, but Iran was on the offensive for most of the duration of the war.

As to the suggestion upthread that Russia might attack Iran: well, that would be a remarkably stupid move on their part. America has much greater resources and can’t handle the smaller war in Iraq. There is no way that would end well for Russia.

[Declan]

@Der_Trihs

Nonsense. They know quite well that if we invade, we’ll provide the general population all the motivation necessary to hate us without any effort on their part. The idea that the Iranian people will hail us as liberators or even be neutral is just as foolish as the claims that the Iraqis would do so. Cluster bombs, incendiaries, the deaths of friends and family, and being cold, hungry and thirsty in the dark because the infrastructure is destroyed are great motivators for hatred.

Well here is a heads up, the USA is not going to invade Iran, either now or in the near future. The possibility exists that a pre emptive strike by the US and or Israel may take place, but that option has always existed since the revolution. While current potus
and sec state say a military option is available, I personally doubt that it will be used.

It’s far easier to stockpile satphones, infiltrate ISP’s and deploy special forces A-teams into major Irani cities in anticipation of the next election. Had the Iranian students had better and more reliable access to Twitter and other social media, the end result may have gone some what differntly.

The Iranian govt actually had to pull insurgents out of training and bring in their hezbollah allies to crack down, the army was not politically reliable enough and the services stayed out of the fray.

So keep believing that the US have not learned from the Iraqi insurgency, if it let’s you sleep better at night.

Declan

[Der_Trihs]

@Declan

It’s far easier to stockpile satphones, infiltrate ISP’s and deploy special forces A-teams into major Irani cities in anticipation of the next election. Had the Iranian students had better and more reliable access to Twitter and other social media, the end result may have gone some what differntly.

Yes, using your scenario they’d have sided with the government, with such obvious American interference. Which of course why Obama did nothing of the sort; he’s obviously aware that anything we do will just make matters worse.

@Declan

So keep believing that the US have not learned from the Iraqi insurgency, if it let’s you sleep better at night.

America is greedy and evil and its behavior is determined by that greed and evil; I doubt it learned anything or could do so. If we did invade Iran, we’d indiscriminately kill and destroy, we’d torture and terrorize and exploit, we’d treat the local people as less than human, we’d work hard to make ourselves hated by all, because that’s what Americans do.