[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Not unless we use nukes. I’m not talking about them shooting down our planes; I’m talking about them hiding things or people, or putting them in bunkers we can’t breach without nukes. Bombing the civilian infrastructure to bits will simply make the government stronger; I expect that they want us to.
[/QUOTE]
This is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how large countries work. Do you seriously think Saddam’s position as leader of Iraq was strengthened by the complete devastation of his country’s infrastructure following the air campaign of the Persian Gulf War? That isn’t remotely the case.
Even if the complete destruction of Iran’s civilian infrastructure did not harm Iran’s nuclear program or kill any of its major leaders (I would certainly not expect the latter, like all semi-civilized states Iran’s leaders will have protected, secret bunkers to hide in–just like the leaders of the United States for example) it would economically destroy Iran. It would certainly destroy the Iranian air force’s ability to act (you can be assured runways and other areas of important to a modern air force would be one of the first things destroyed), it would destroy Iran’s electrical and water systems, which would devastate the country. Might it possibly strengthen the current Iranian regime’s standing in the eyes of the public? Maybe. That wasn’t at all what happened with Saddam’s regime following the destruction of his country in the Persian Gulf war, but Iran/Iraq are not analogous situations politically or culturally, either.
Ultimately the point is moot, widescale economic devastation along the lines seen in Iraq following the Persian Gulf war will have long term, and devastating effects on the military prowess of any country. Countries with devastated economies don’t field strong militaries.
Can Iran (or almost any country) hide certain assets from aerial destruction? Certainly. But Iran can’t exactly fold all of its military assets into hardened bunkers, nor can it do so with its civilian population or its essential infrastructure. You can’t exactly fold a power plant into a bunker, or a major dam, or a major military base. These things would be destroyed, and to devastating effect. Iran has indeed had more time to prepare, but our ability to destroy a country aerially has increased since the Persian Gulf war. You shouldn’t confuse the fact that the United States Army is somewhat stretched thin with the U.S. Armed Forces as a whole. The Air Force as well as the U.S. Navy isn’t really busy day-to-day keeping order in Iraq to the same degree as the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, and while all the branches of the armed forces are active in the current Iraq situation, the Air Force and Navy have tons of assets which are not involved which could easily strike at Iran, as well as possessing the ability to easily disentangle what assets are involved in Iraq if the need arose (the Army and Marine Corps do not enjoy a similar situation.) Not to mention or even go into detail about how much of the RAF and RN are currently available for something like this.
I’m not sure where the impression came about that a large, relatively advanced country like Iran can just “shrug off” having no electricity, no water, no transportation, no Air Force, and no major military installations with sheer fanaticism, that just doesn’t happen.
If the U.S. and the U.K. decided to bomb Iran, I don’t really think the goal would be to kill Iran’s political leaders, if you are interested in making a serious bid to kill a political leader you’d have a much better chance of success via covert means versus a bombing campaign which follows months of diplomatic threats.
Let’s be serious though, the chances of any of these scenarios playing out is very low. The U.S. and the U.K. have no desire for any of this to go down, so more than likely it will not. If Iran does something really rash, like put the captured sailors on trial and sentence them to lengthy incarceration or death, something could happen, but even then I doubt it would be a massive bombing campaign.
On an unrelated note, I’m honestly questioning the procedures shown by the HMS Cornwall here. Why exactly was its boarding party so out of range of the ship that the Cornwall was unable to factor in to the situation? A self-respecting captain in a modern navy who was in the vicinity of something like this would issue warnings to the 6 Iranian ships that it would desist from attempting to capture its sailors under threat of being fired upon. That sounds somewhat rash, but a ship of war I think, has a responsibility to not peacefully allow a boarding party to be captured by the enemy. Since none of this happens I suspect the boarding party was some distance away from the Cornwall, which makes me wonder why exactly a boarding party would be so far away from its ship in the first place.