Is a US invasion of Iran feasible?

Great Debates
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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by adaher *
And now Israel can mount them on subs. I don’t think China can do that. [/ quote]

They can. Though not many. I think they have a single nuclear-powered ballistic missile sub at present and are working on a new, updated one with much longer-ranged missiles.

Not very likely. Israel’s few submarines are diesel-electric models with a 30-day endurance. They don’t really have the range to be a global threat, though they certainly do broaden Israel’s capabilities a fair bit.

I cannot imagine why anyone would believe this. Iran has no more reason to hurl nukes at anybody than Israel.

Nonsense. Muslims aren’t all in alliance with each other. Iran is not a country with a martyr-complex in such a final sense. That is really overestimating both their piety and their sense of allegiance to rest of the Muslim world, pious mouthings aside.

Way, way too much if you’re Iranian. Again, never happen.

  • Tamerlane
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I’ll agree with all but the last statement. Iranians currently have no say in their nation’s affairs and the clerics could very well decide to martyr their country to destroy Israel.

I’ll have to go look for cites, I do recall Khamanei saying that they would waste no time nuking Israel if they acquired them a few years ago. And when Iraq was developing nukes they said it was for use against the “Zionist enemy”. No mention of deterrence to be found in either nation’s statements.

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I sincerely doubt it. For that to be the case, you’d have to believe that elimination of Israel is priority #1 for Iran’s government and that said government would be willing to court destruction to achieve that single goal. I simply do not believe that is the case in either respect. I don’t even think the destruction of Israel is priority #1 for Syria, let alone more distant Iran. Iran has a whole laundry-list of goals ( some of them not even clearly ideological at all, but rather completely nationalistic ) and I think that realistically the destruction of Israel falls much more into “gee, wouldn’t that be nice” category. It’s one thing to divert a few slush funds to prop up Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian semi-affiliates like Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It’s quite another to court devastation for the sake of a bunch of Arab countries they regard with mild to extreme hostility.

Wouldn’t be shocked. But IMHO such comments fall into the category of the aforementioned “pious mouthings”. Empty sabre-rattling in other words. It is standard boiler-plate rhetoric for various political activists in the Middle East to declare their hatred/contempt/wish for annhilation of Israel. It is politically advantageous to take such a stance, as Israel is the ideal scapegoat.

The reality is that it is my belief that none of these countries truly wishes to martyr themselves. Rather it makes for wonderful rhetorical flourishes and great headlines, especially in Shi’ite Iran where the imagery of martyrdom plays well to the bazaaris and other pious social classes that support the regime.

MHO, for what it’s worth.

  • Tamerlane
64

Tamerlane,

Excellent analysis thus far.

Many people tend to ignore the fact that Iranians are not militarily aggressive (even in post revolutionary Iran).
But, every Iranian (minus the MEK) will fight tooth and nail if any nation chooses to aggress against Iran.

Iranians fight for their culture their country and their identity, not for Islam or any temporary government. Any attack by any foreign nation will only further strengthen Iranian Patriotic sentiment. That is why The United States has no options (military or otherwise) when it comes to Iran.

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I have seen countless cites to this incident and it makes me giggle like a little school-girl every time.

What most people do not realize is that Iraq was at war with Iran at the time. It does not take much intelligence to realize that Iraq could not retaliate or even defend itself from Israel.

Israel’s strike is the equivalent of a sucker punch (of Iraq) when two people (Iraq-Iran) are engaged in a vicious fight.

That fact negates any triumphant success on the part of Israel and explains why Israel has been rattling her sabre about Iranian nuclear plants since 1996 without any feasible options for action.

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What religious minorities are you speaking of?

Even the CIA Factbook state these are the religons of Iran:
Shi’a Muslim 89%, Sunni Muslim 10%, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha’i 1%

You should really read up on a subject before posting.

67

One point that hasn’t been mentioned in this thread yet: Iran has a lot of regional minorities in its border provinces whose “Iranian” identity is tenuous at best. (See the Encarta article: http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761567300&pn=2#s10)
In the west there are the Kurds and the Lurs; in the southwest, the Arab Shi’ites; in the north, the Azeris; in the east, the Baluchis and Pashtuns. Any of these groups would jump at the chance to secede from Iran, and they would support a U.S. invasion if that result were promised.

Of course, if we did that, it would involve us directly in the minority problems of all the countries bordering Iran. If we support the Iranian Kurds, that provokes the Turks (again). If the provinces of East and West Azerbaijain secede, that raises the question of whether they will remain independent or unite with the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. The Pashtuns have ethnic cousins in Afghanistan, and the Baluchis have ethnic cousins in Pakistan; the latter, at least, might see an opportunity to expand its borders. The Arabs of “Arabistan” or “Khuzestan” might decide now it’s time to unite with their neighbors, the Arab Shi’ites of southern Iraq. And so on. We’d be stirring up a lot of hornets nests, not even counting the resistance the ethnic Iranians would put up.

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:dubious:

What “Earth” do you live on?

You seem to forget a couple nations called Russia, China, France and Britain.

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Good point, but the truth of the matter is that the only groups that would be worth mentioning would be the Azeri and the Arabs that live in Iran.

In pre-revolutionary Iran the secessionist sentiment in the Azerbaijan region of Iran was growing but it has mellowed over the past 20 years. The Azeri are not going to help the invaders. Incidentally, Azeri Iranians are saying that former Russian Azerbaijan should be absorbed into Iran (as it was at the beginning of the 20th century).

In fact, it is well published that ethnic and religious minorities (including Iranian Jews) sent a disproportionably large number of their communities to fight on the side of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.

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Website of the Ahwaz (Arabistan) Online Network (site is in Arabic, but there’s a map showing all the territory they aspire to break away with): http://www.al-ahwaz.com/

Website of the Faili (Iranian) Kurds: http://biphome.spray.se/faili.kurd/

Website of the American Kurdish Information Network: http://www.kurdistan.org/

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Iranian Kurds are arguably the best treated out of any of them.
They have little to gain when Iran encourages them to use their language and build their ethnically-oriented infrastructure.

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Even saying it twice doesn’t make it correct, 2Thick.

And Israel’s sabre-rattling is of an infinitely higher quality than Iran’s sabre-rattling. If Israel wants to destroy an Iranian facility, they will. Heck, even if Iraq had been in a total state of peace in 1982 with no military demands whatsoever (well, except the continued oppression of its own citizens), Israel could’ve clobbered that facility anyway.

It’s something of a positive statement of the Israeli character that though they could clobber the entire area, they haven’t.

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“If Israel wants to destroy an Iranian facility, they will”
Cite? Even secret, underground facilities? I will note once again that Iraq almost had a nuclear bomb at the time of the first Gulf War.

“It’s something of a positive statement of the Israeli character that though they could clobber the entire area, they haven’t.”
Nonsense. Israel is good at fighting short,defensive wars but its offensive options are severely limited. They had a hard enough time just occupying Southern Lebanon. They can’t “clobber the entire area” unless you are talking about nuclear weapons which , as I have argued , will probably lead to retaliation in kind eventually. And Israel hasn’t shown much restraint when it comes to fighting the Palestinians.

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Logic is not your strong suit, is it?

How can you deny that a nation at war is not able to properly defend itself while being attacked?

Anyhow, read what CyberPundit said and stop being so illogically jingoistic for your motherland.

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Iran should be fairly easy; not necessary to invade, just agitate and subvert, and possibly supply guns and money and some outside pressure and sanctuary.

The mullahs are tottering to their doom; a nudge ought to do it, and Reza Shah flies in from Maryland. He’s very popular in Iran these days, the Khomeni era and afterwards having pointed out the merits of King Log as opposed to King Stork.

By the way, Iran is definitely not a democracy.
Read their constitution, in which supreme state power is in the hands of the “Religious Guide”.

Try starting a “Kurdish Independence Party” or a “Pro-Zionist Friends of the US” party in Iran.

Note that even after winning an election, the hard-liners keep shutting down newspapers and throwing their opponents in jail (often for life), or just plain killing them.

Or try being a Jew or Ba’hai in Iran.
(actually IMHO, a Ba’hai government in Iran would be the best of all possible worlds).

In point of fact, the people who “hate America” are not the masses, but the leaders and priests and so forth.

They’re terrified – rightly – that the spread of Western (generally) and American (specifically) ideas and culture will empower the people and reduce their own positions of privilege.

You will note that it’s the Ayatollahs in Iran who fear American culture and try to ban satellite TV dishes – not the American government which tries to keep out Iranian culture.

There would be no need for laws against American media influence, if there was not a strong desire already there, creating a need for such laws.

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My logic is just fine. Even if Iraq had been at total peace, I have serious doubts they would have been able to defend themselves against an Israeli air mission. At worst, Israel might have had to commit more resources to the attack, and they might have lost a plane or two, but once they decided to bomb Osirak, the reactor’s days were numbered.

If the entire Iraqi air force had had the sole mission of protecting the reactor… well, that might have posed a challenge.

It’s not jingoistic of me to acknowledge that Israel’s air force was (and still is) the best trained, equipped and motivated in the entire region. It just means I can read. What’s your excuse?

And Israel isn’t my motherland; Canada is.

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Posted by Myles:

To be fair, it is only by comparison with the Islamic Republic that the old Pahlavi regime can be characterized as “King Log.” That’s why the shah fell from power. In the eyes of his people, the shah, with his Savak secret police, was King Stork. And I really wonder if the people have forgotten that. Just how popular can Prince Reza be in Iran?

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“King Log”?

“King Stork”?

¿Que? :confused: :confused:

No se habla Heathen Jibberish. :wink:

80

King Log and King Stork are from an old Aesop’s fable.

Some frogs in a swamp decide, for no particular reason, that they must have a king to rule over them, Jove saw how stupid they were, so he sent down a log that could not hurt them.
At first the frogs were terrified of the log, but soon they realized that he had no power to hurt them, so they despise him, and ask for a new king, Jove sends an eel. For many days they were frightened of the eel, but the eel did not have the power to hurt them, so they stopped fearing him, as soon as they stopped fearing him, they stopped respecting him, so they begged Jove again that they have another king, one who was worthy of respect, it was too much, Jove got pissed, and sent them such a king as they “deserved”, a stork.
The frogs came up to greet their new king and the stork eats them all, one by one, at last they had a king worthy of them!

No Islamic society has found modernization easy – in fact, most of them haven’t found it possible at all.

Ironically enough, the Shah was probably overthrown because of his _good-deeds (i.e. modernization, liberalization, improvement of women’s rights), not his authoritarianism or torture of political dissidents.

Which is obvious when you see that after the Shahs overthrow by the fundamentalist clericalists, all those things didn’t decrease, but increased.

Modernization requires a secular, law-abiding State with a rationalist, individualist ideology – in essence, a repudiation of much of the Islamic heritage. But that (as the Shah found out) endangers the popular legtimacy of any regime that espouses it.

The Shah, for all his faults, was trying to modernize Iran as Attaturk did Turkey – it would have been nice if he’d been smarter about it, of course. But the world is as it is, not as we would wish it.