Destroying a 4th rate military is easier than nation building. The hard part is what to do after you destroy the military/topple the government.
But we aren’t trying to wipe them out [insert joke on account of the irony here]
If that was the objective we would have left years ago.
And in Iran’s case, it’s far from certain we can destroy the military/topple the government in the first place. Iran is four times the size of Iraq and much better prepared for war.
Let’s not be silly. While the US Army is proving itself inadequate to the task of seducing the Iraqi populace into Uncle Sam’s loving embrace, it is still unparalleled in its ability to project ridiculous amounts of force. A significant advance into Iran could prove difficult, but any Iranian ground attack in retaliation for air strikes would be utterly annihilated.
Not while the Iraqi populace (“Saddam’s Boys”) is attacking the U.S. forces from the rear.
Or do you think all those Iraqi Shi’ites are just going to lie quiet while a U.S.-Iran war is going on?
I wonder how North Vietnam’s Army was ranked when we sent troops in.
Them and what army? You are wildly overestimating what guerrilla warfare can accomplish in conventional military terms. One of the central principles of guerrilla warfare is to run away whenever the enemy shows up in force. You just pick at small isolated patrols and such, and if a raftload of tanks show up you strategically find somewhere else to be, pronto. If the US military moves in force against this hypothetical Iranian attack, there’s bugger all a few guys (or even a lot of guys) with AKs and rpgs can do to exploit this (aside from having a field day in the areas where the Americans aren’t, but while that might hurt American strategic goals in Iraq it’s not going to pose a threat to the military).
Zoe, the North Vietnamese lost virtually every engagement in the war. A Vietnam-style victory is indeed the best either Iraq or Iran or the both of them together could hope to win. Military loss after loss after loss, but in the long term, a political victory.
Gawd, predicting the future seems to be working out the most stupid possible strategy, and implementing it incompetently.
Messing around with the MEK sounds like a replay of arming and training the Taliban.
Any form of ground attack on Iran would be suicide, it would just result in extended supply lines, no perceivable enemy and weakened bases in Iraq.
Iran could not fight a conventional war against the USA, but I reckon that their troops are on standing orders to disperse into civilian areas at a moments notice - and they have probably set up micro arms dumps all over the place.
That’s the point I’m making.
The scenario to fear is not Iran’s army sweeping in and capturing 10s of thousands of US troops. That’s not going to happen. The scenario to fear is the US invading Iran and getting bogged down in another quagmire. Creating yet another vacuum of power and yet another set of enemies in the Muslim world.
The scenario to fear is Iran or its sympathizers bringing terrorism to US shores. Asymmetrical warfare.
We’ve already pissed off much of the Sunni/Arab world. Do we really need to double our troubles by starting a fight with the Shiite/Persian world?
While I appreciate the interesting references and thoughts about the US attacking Iran, can I point out the key points that Bush is considering:
- Iran is harbouring Osama Bin Laden
- Iran is responsible for almost all of the World’s heroin production
- Iran is infested with the Taliban
- the US allies have agreed to help invade Iran
- US and allied troops are under daily attack from Iran
What?
This is looking more and more like the “Philippine Insurgency” of 1899-1945. Recall, the USA decided to liberate the Philippines from Spain. Instead, we would up staying 46 years! Will the US population stand for this?
That was because we had a strategic use for the Philippines as a “coaling station,” a base from which to project American military power into East Asia and the Western Pacific.
Which is exactly the role the neocons envision for Iraq vis-a-vis the MENA.
The current level of effect from that averages out to roughly twenty deaths a week, and that’s taking place in major urban centres, whereas a war with Iran’s army wouldn’t be fought there. Are you suggesting Iraqi insurgents - who these days seem more interested in killing Iraqis anyway - would trek miles out into the desert and the eastern marshlands, leaving their cover for the open country, to plant IEDs? And even if they managed to do that, you’re talking about violence at a miniscule level as compared to a full scale conventional war.
The Iranian army would be badly mauled if it tried to invade Iraq; U.S. airpower alone would inflict devastating losses and disrupt their supply lines to the point that advance and maneuver would be nearly impossible.
You’re a smart guy but I don’t think you fully understand the strategic or operational nature of this scenario. Iran can’t, practically speaking, prepare to stage an invasion of Iraq in anything less than a couple of months, and it’s not something they could hide doing; we’re talking about troop movement on a grand scale, something the U.S. couldn’t help but be aware of. Their army is big but not big enough to simply engulf the world’s best conventional army supported by air power of overwhelming ability.
Iran isn’t that stupid, anyway. They’ve no reason to do such a thing and a million reasons not to.
Forget run-arounds and guerilla tactics, anybody thinks either Russia and/or China are going to sit idly by if the US launches an encore unjustified and unprovoked attack against another of the world’s largest oil-reserves nation? And one that not only has deep ties with both of those nations but is one of the main providers of China’s ever-increasing need for black gold.
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, an American-Israeli strike against Iran might well be the spark “needed” for WW-III.
Best start working on your own private bunkers…if you can afford to that is. Otherwise get friendly with someone that can.
And if you apply that principle to Iran, you conclude … ?
The Philippine insurgency would be an apt comparison if we were trying to colonize Iraq rather than liberate it. Are we?
It isn’t a ground attack we’d have to worry about, is it?
I’m afraid I don’t follow you. Someone mentioned that the “surge” could serve to deter an Iranian invasion into Iraq. Brainglutton responded by saying that it wouldn’t deter such an attack, as Iran can put far more troops into the region than the US can even with the “surge”. He then speculated about having to negotiate the release of 10k POWs. That sounds a lot like a conventional ground attack to me, and that’s the idea my initial post in this thread was addressing.
If you want to talk about the feasibility or lack thereof of the US invading and occupying Iran, go right ahead. That’s a whole different question than who’d win in a stand up fight between the US and Iranian militaries.
On the Thursday before the USA attacked Iraq I was having lunch in London with two old American friends of mine who are elderly and well connected - one is still on the West Point circuit, yet he served in Korea.
They said ‘we need to establish a permanent base in the area from which we can reach out and get those terrorists’
I pointed out that establishing a base in Iraq would not exactly help the Saudis locating and killing their own dissidents, but I must confess that I was so gob smacked that my protestations probably sounded incoherent.
An Iranian army is easy to wipe out, but the remnants would be very had to discern.
There are many ways to strike back that don’t involve a large ground force.
Describe one which has some possibility of resulting in ten thousand American POWs.
By way of Talking Points Memo, without which no citizen can hope to be informed…
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-08-saudis-sunnis_x.htm
Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunni insurgents
Now, lets be clear, this is only a “report”. But could anyone be surprised that the Saudi, amongst others, would be concerned with their fate of the co-religionists? Even more so, since the Sunni would almost certainly lose in any confrontation with the Shia majority?
Further note that, while this remains only a report, so does the stuff “implicating” Iran, they have equal credibility, which is marginal. But consider this: Iran need do nothing. They have already, for all practical purposes, won. We struck hard against the Taliban in Afghanistan (implacable enemies of Shia, just as Al Queda). We toppled Saddam and installed a governance vastly more sympathetic to their ends. What’s not to like?
With enemies like us, who needs friends?