I am curious:
What weapon systems do you have in mind that can provide a “fierce counter-attack” capability, yet do NOT provide any pre-emptive capability?
Again, as I pointed out above. Pre-emption, implies PREVENTING an attack on you, by taking out your opponents ability to attack. This is no mean feat, in all likelyhood Israel does not even possess this abillity, even with US help, and Iran almost certainly does not.
Detterence does to rely on anything like that, in fact, even if you lack that ability attack any strategic or military targets, you can still deter an attack by having the ability to attack civilian and economic targets. Iran CERTAINLY does have this ability, even with the latest in anti-missile technology there are ALOT of Israeli and US targets out there, and it only takes a guy in a motorboat to sink an oil tanker.
Ok.
I was thinking of Iran’s ballistic missiles. If they are precise enough to hit a city, they are precise enough to hit an airfield. If you can crater the runways (or spread around some minelets), you can prevent the use of that runway. (At least, until the runway gets repaired. 
)
I doubt that Iran could permanently stop the Isreali Air Force for all time. But if they thought that an attack force was being assembled on the runways of an airfield or two, they can attack that.
I would definitely say thats not the case. There is an order of magnitude difference in difficulty in hitting a city to a runway, especially if you actually want to put a runway out of service for any length of time.
Again, hitting planes on a runway is a seriously more technically challenging problem than hitting a city.
And using Iraq as our proxy doesn’t count, of course. :rolleyes:
No, I don’t. Obviously.
What ARE you babbling about ? Iraq attack Iran; they defended themselves. And if you oppose religious fundamentalists killing civilians and toppling governments, then you should oppose America, because that’s what we just DID.
No, you are just projecting your own flaws onto me. That’s your attitude towards America, that slaughter is all right if WE are the ones behind it.
I never said any such thing. You are simply putting words in my mouth.
No, that’s what you are doing. I’m sure you’d be quite happy for America to invade them and kill a few hundred thousand of them and lay waste for the country. And then rule it worse than the theocrats do, judging from Iraq.
We’ve been in the ME a LOT longer than 5 years. You may want to conveniently ignore the Shah or our backing of Saddam or of terrorists against them; I doubt they feel the need to cooperate with your fantasy.
And the US is simply much more powerful and much more of a danger that Israel to them. Israel is simply unlikely to invade them; if Iraq had gone better we probably already would have.
Even if the missile is “only” accurate to 1000 feet (ten times worse then the estimates above), that’s still accurate enough to warrant lobbing them at runways.
They also have cluster munition tech, which I didn’t realise they had. That can spread out your bomblets “shotgun” style, helping to compensate for lack of accuracy.
Further down that wiki page, Iran threatened to use these missiles to attack shipping in the Straits of Hormuz (if Iran was attacked). Hitting a moving ship is harder than hitting an airfield. Are they bluffing?
I think they could launch (and hit) airfields and cities in Isreal. I don’t think they would get 100% accuracy, and I don’t think they could keep it up for long. But it appears to me that the threat is a (somewhat) credible one.
Even that seems pretty low to me. But even if its true that is nowhere near the accuracy needed to take prevent Israeli airforce from responding, ok so a lucky shot might take out one or two airbases, but that is still not going to “preempt” anything (remember the Israeli airforce is built from the ground up to survive such an assault, and still have the ability to respond). Also it does nothing to the Israeli submarine fleet.
Additionally even if I wrong (and every single military comentator is wrong), and they did actually manage to successfully take out the Israeli military response, they would still acheive nothing except forcing the America’s hand (which I’m sure certain hawks in the pentgon would be very grateful to them for).
Been a while since kremlin 101 has been in vogue. Hope the guy gets better lol.
Declan
I am guessing that Ahmadinejad has decided to do a home grown version of operation sealion. Its been my contention in various sealion threads that it was a political exercise in aggressive diplomacy ,and was never intended to be a practical operation.
To attack Israel, Ahmadinejad has to have the Iranian military on side ,where as he only has the revolutionary guard. The only way the military gets involved is if Iran is attacked, otherwise its little mullahs should be seen and not heard.
Now this little tidbit arises, Somali pirates are finding working conditions to be a bit hazordous.
http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Article.aspx?id=851953
Ship gets blown up, I would imagine irradiated soil becoming a nightmare for a variety of countries, and hamas doing its thing in lebannon to contribute to the merry making.
What his end game was going to be , eludes me at the moment as while Israel would be strung out over different directions combatting hamas in a renewed lebanese war, cleaning up that dirty bomb and what have you that Israel would retaliate, most vigourously.
So I can see what would have been a future meeting of the military , revolutionary guard and other notatables and ahmadinejad. The military is told of the death ship, and they can either get on board and hit israel, or watch swaths of Iran disapear into mushroom clouds.
Which brings me back to sealion. A political operation that has a low military probability of success if actually carried out, but its designed to force a political response rather than a military one and it backfired for the stupidest reasons.
And now the dude has gotten the boot and will be retired for health reasons.
Declan
Hezbollah. Hamas controls Gaza, Hezbollah is the Iranian puppet which now has control and monitoring power of Lebanon’s telecom network as well as effective ‘veto power’ over certain governmental actions.
So noted, thanks.
Declan
No prob, fighting ignorance and all that.
Sometimes it’s harder than other times, of course. Once someone like Der is brought to the point of claiming that invading a nation which has been driven out of your borders and is begging for peace is an act of “defense” and opposing their theocratic imperialism is wrong… I generally figure that I’d have more luck teaching my cats to juggle.
Kudos to you for the intellectual honesty to recognize and correct a factual mistake.
I’ll never make a dent in the willful fabrications of some, but I still help out where I can.
I am having a hard time understanding Iran. on the one hand, they keep this Ahmadedinejad busy, spewing out nonsensical threats. On the other, they proclaim their love of peace. As I have said before, making threats against Israel often has unforseen consequences (ask the late G.A. Nassar).
So, does this reflect the end of the rule of the mullahs?
It makes more sense when you understand that they are talking to different people with their different messages. On the one had, Ahmady is spewing out nonsense for local consumption…i.e. it’s propaganda for his own people and also it pays lip service to the theocracy. It’s also more or less intended for regional consumption for those sympathetic to Iran and hostile toward Israel. Folks in Palestine, for instance, but not limited to just them. It’s really NOT intended for us as an audience, nor do I think they expect it to be taken very seriously by us (this kind of shows the disconnect between Iran and the US right there btw).
The peace and love thingy IS meant for broader consumption, though of course it’s also meant as propaganda for local/regional consumption as well. Think back…do you remember all the outrageous things Saddam used to spout when he was still alive and in power in Iraq? This is really the same thing.
This isn’t to say that the threats aren’t real, or that Iran doesn’t REALLY bear ill will toward Israel (and the US)…but that the message is a matter of perspective and who exactly the intended audience is at any given time.
-XT
You should expand on what you mean by nonsensical threats. If Iran is funding Hezbollah and that group has actively attacked Israel with thousands of rockets I would say the threats are pretty real. Not only are they real but they crossed the line of a declaration of war by a country mile. How would Iran react if Israel sponsored a group that rained missiles down on them and blow up buses.
Israel is supporting pretty much every “naughty” group in Iran. As is the US. And I am surprised that the discussion has been reduced to a"baddies v goodies" rant. Nation states are not good or bad, they act in their interests. It is in Irans interests to support Hizb as much as it is Israels to support the Kurds and whosoelse they are helping in Iran. Or at least in what the two coutries percieve as their interests.
Sigh. I’ve seen this movie. Turns out the only winning move is not to play.
Wow talk about reading into things. Der Trihs’s original point wasn’t about how wonderful Iran was. It was simply a response to what someone else was saying about negotiating with them. And DT made a valid point - for whoever’s fault it is - US is on very tenuous grounds when it comes to having any negotiating pull with Iran. Whether Iran is evil or not, it’s not in it’s interests to consider us benign or trustworthy.
Wrong that was exactly his point, namely, a thoroughly and heartfelt defense of the right of theocratic murderers to invade and conquer nations that are begging them for peace (as long as it pisses off America, natch)
Der’s original point was, among other things, that Iran had every right to attempt to conquer a nation that was continually begging for peace so that Iran could spread its murderous theocracy there. And that for opposing them, we were bastards.
So, yeah, that was exactly his point, that he’ll support any murderous theocrats as long as they annoy America. And it takes a very weird view to think that supporting Iran’s right to invade other nations in order to conquer them and spread Khomenism, while demonizing those who resist, is anything other than supporting Iran’s theocratic asshole government.
Everybody on the “The US is a threat to Iran!!!111oneone!!!” bandwaggon ignores the major glaring logical flaw there, so maybe you’ll answer it.
From, roughly, the hostage crisis to the present, the US never once used its direct military might to attack Iran, even though Iran murdered hundreds of US soldiers and wounded many, many more. Even though Iran was in bed with Al Quaeda and helped train them in explosives, among other things, even after Bin Laden’s goals and methods were crystal clear. Even though Iran attempted to subvert Lebanon to become an outpost of militant Khomenism. In fact, the comparatively minor involvement that the US had in the Iran-Iraq war really only happened once Iraq had been expelled from Iranian territory and both the UN and Sadaam were both begging for a ceasefire, while Iran decided to invade Iraq and keep fighting for years.
Given the fact, then, that Iran has relentlessly been the aggressor in the region and the US never responded with direct military force to the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers, and only got involved in Iran-Iraq once Iran made it clear that their goal was to conqueror Iraq itself… why on Earth do you claim that the constant aggressor is the victim, and the nation that had many opportunities to bomb Iran to hell, but never did, is a real and significant threat to them?
Why, in short, do you feel the need to invert actual reality to make your claims?
I mean, doesn’t it strike you as being even a little bit odd that the argument boils down to “Iran has repeatedly attacked American soldiers and civilians, maintains support for genocidal global terrorists and has been developing a covert nuclear weapons program since about a decade before W. took office. Therefore, it’s not their actions that make them vulnerable, but the fact that America is a bunch of evil mean weirdos… who haven’t directly attacked Iran no matter how many US soldiers Iran murdered.”
Damn, missed the edit window.
So, while I’m at it, instead of serving as an apologist for someone who’s already serving as an apologist for murderous theocrats, why don’t you really look at Der’s statements?
For instance, Iran’s own populace wants warm relations with the US, wants their government to quit their theocratic shit and support democracy and is even amenable to peace with Israel. And yet, Der opposes the Iranian population (which doesn’t feel the US is a threat but rather a potential friend, for instance), and enthusiastically supports the actions of the Mullahs, down to parroting their propaganda about how threatened they are. So, clearly, Der opposes Iranians and supports the Iranian regime. By his own admission.
Again, look at this honestly. In a thread about Iran’s threats to the region, did Der spend one single breath talking about Iran’s abhorent actions? How it spreads Khomenism via bloodshed? How the murder gays for being gay? How they keep their Jews in a state of perpetual terror and as prisoners in their own nation? About how they’ve repeatedly murdered American soldiers as well as Jewish civilians, both for the ‘crimes’ of being Americans or Jews? Does he talk about why Israel might have talked about a preemptive strike, as Iran supports several groups who make the genocide of the Jews and the destruction of Israel their explicit desires? Or does he, instead, blame the US for its support for Israel?
Did he not spend a single word on any of the very valid reasons why Iran’s continual aggressive, militaristic, expansionist theocracy provides valid reasons for worry for the entire region and should indeed be opposed, or did he immediately and without equivocation excuse all of Iran’s behavior by talking about how much he hates the United States?
Come on, this isn’t rocket science. Not only will Der not condemn Iran’s long history of religious brutality and murder, but he goes as far as to explicitly support their right to engage in it without the US trying to stop them. If that isn’t support, nothing is.