It’s odd that the U.S. chose to move the old-fashioned stuff like B-52s into the area rather than more modern warplanes.
The problem is that this was an attack on Saudi tankers. Remember that the US-Saudi relationship has historically been connected by way of being economic clients and military protection/cooperation. The US has the same dilemma with Saudi/Iran that it has with North Korea/ South Korea and Japan. If one of its clients gets attacked, it essentially has an obligation to show that its client that its military umbrella is worth something.
This is why we’re hearing rumors (unconfirmed but still having face value) that the US has considered a massive troop deployment. Beyond that there must be the sense that if Iran has the balls to attack US interests in the region, it would certianly not hesitate to fire up the crazies within the Iraqi border, which could lead to an entirely new set of problems.
I won’t predict a hot war just yet, but let’s be clear: if there was, in fact, an Iranian attack on Saudi vessels, that’s an escalation. Iran doesn’t want a war with the US – I believe that. But it’s definitely conceivable how they view the pressure on their regime as a clear and present danger and I could see how they might act out first.
I’m not a military expert by any means. But I imagine we’d establish air superiority pretty quickly, so lumbering B-52s dropping 70,000 pounds of bombs at a time would be pretty effective.
They’re easy to see. Which is the point if you’re rattling a saber. They’re going to be standoff platforms in all likelihood in the event of a conflict, at least until Iran’s SAMs got degraded
Moreover, more expensive platforms like the B-2, require greater site control, maintenance, and physical security than do non-special weapon capable B-52s. -52s also cost a great deal less than the 2 billion plus B-2s. While B-2s have been based other places besides Whiteman—as the wreck of one outside Anderson AFB on Guam should prove—they’re so rare and so expensive, as the strategic national assets they are, it’s probably easier to just keep them in CONUS (or Diego Garcia or Guam) until they need to fly. Why stick them within the enemy’s short range ballistic missile threat radius? The airplane might be low observable and hard to target, but its hanger sure isn’t.
I have a feeling that if it gets to B-52 time, Iran, like North Korea may decide to make this a crotch-kicking, eye-gouging death match. They would ultimately lose of course, but they could inflict a lot of pain. That is why a war with Iran would probably be very, very nasty, unless we are somehow picking up on intelligence that shows some serious divisions within the upper echelons of the regime and military - that could be, but my default position is that when a country that has the means to put up a prickly defense, it will do so if it believes it’s being invaded.
It’s a middle finger to Saudi Arabia and its security guard, the United States. I think the card that Iran has that it can potentially cause economic and political chaos in the region. The Southeastern part of Saudi Arabia has a large Shi’ite population, so they might try and stir that shit up if they can. But the bigger concern is how they might try to disrupt the flow of energy and commerce in the region, and what they could do internally in Iraq, where they have a lot of influence.
Iran has long maintained hostilities against the US to get them to drop sanctions. Trump has reinstated sanctions, so a return to status quo would be no surprise.
However, I think at this particular moment in time Iran isn’t actually doing anything and Trump/Bolton are engineering the entire crisis.
No. Trump understands an Iranian war as a boon to electoral prospects.
As evidence, in 2011 Trump tweeted:
tweeted “In order to get elected, Barack Obama will start a war with Iran”.
You can argue his tweets are just a “tee-hee let’s own the libs” piece of fluff. But he’s taken numerous actions hostile to Iran, none to de-escalate the tension, and it keeps ramping up the closer we get to the 2020 election (and/or the unredacted Mueller report or testimony starts escaping into the wild).
My predictions on Trump have been a mix of right and wrong, but I don’t think Trump will tolerate Mueller testifying in front of the house without introducing a distracting crisis.
I tend to believe that if Trump can “own” his opponents without actually going to war with them, he would. I don’t think Trump really likes the idea of having to deal with hundreds or even thousands of deaths and dead servicemen/women on his watch.
It’s Bolton we should worry about. Remember, George W Bush himself wasn’t even the biggest proponent of going to war with Saddam Hussein; he had to be pushed into it by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and others. I believe he was leaning in that direction, but actually viewing Iraq as a post 9/11 opportunity remake the Middle East in America’s image was something that had been conceived even before Bush took office. Bolton was absolutely cut from that same cloth, and like Dick Cheney, he has absolutely no problem lying his ass off and manipulating what the president perceives in order to create a crisis.
My sense is that Bolton views Iran as an opportunity not only to eliminate Iran, but also as an opportunity to re-do Iraq, particularly since it would remove the foreign influence there. What’s disturbing, however, is that the American media simply isn’t doing its job. It’s like the media has become completely impotent and irrelevant in terms of acting as a check on governmental abuses of power. We could stumble into wars with Iran and North Korea, and I don’t think anyone has seriously forced the administration to explain why that would even be necessary. We just accept that they’re dangerous ‘furrin countries n stuff’
This is probably his preferred strategy in normal circumstances. We would be looking at abnormal circumstances if he thinks he’s facing an insuperable threat to his own prospects.
Another abnormal circumstance would be an unhinged warmonger whispering in his ear that an Iran war would be an undisputed cakewalk that would make Trump look like an untouchable hero, which leads to…
Yep. Unconstrained Bolton combined with a threatened Trump is a very worrying combination.
“In order to get reelected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.”
-Trump on Twitter, 29 Nov 2011
Missed the edit window, but reflecting on the upthread observations about B52s, Trump would probably find great appeal in just bombing the shit out of Iran and wiping out their navy. Forget regime change, forget nation building, forget human collateral damage, forget the consequences, forget what America will have to deal with in the future, just fuck those guys and see what happens.
Added bonus… the chaos gives Israel a green light to go into the WMD sites, seize evidence, and thoroughly demolish them. Retroactive justification for everyone!
It fits Trump’s recklessness, it more or less fits the appetite of an American public that has enjoyed kicking the shit out of Iraq, but not so much the post-ass-kicking stabilization tasks.
Yeah, I think that’s my final answer. Gulf of Tonkin fake naval conflict followed by North-Korea style carpet-bombing followed by Osirak-style raids on nuclear sites.
(stipulating that the fake naval conflict could be kind of a “no duh” thing given the suspicious tanker bombing events that already happened in the past few days).
War with Iran would go much, much worse than against Iraq. Iran is a mostly functioning and coherent society and culture, not an amalgamation of dozens of tribes and such. Iran’s military is also probably a lot more advanced than Iraq’s was.
In a serious fight the US would win, of course, but I think it’s likely there would be hundreds if not thousands of US casualties, and they might even be able to do significant damage to a warship or two. That’s just for an air/sea war. An invasion would be catastrophic, and much worse than the Iraq occupation.
What a colossally stupid war this would be. I really, really hope this doesn’t happen.
B-52s are used all the time in the Middle East. They fly daily over Afghanistan and drop bombs all the time. They’re not flying around with the same technology and avionics they rolled off the plant with in the 1950s. Hell, they were updated as recently as 4-5 years ago. They are modern.
State Department orders non-emergency employees to leave Iraq. Lovely.
Take it to the bank.
I admit I must have missed the war with Russia. Was it on the news?
Something to remember is that wars are often a pretext for authoritarianism. American presidents almost always get stronger in war, and they will inevitably attempt to assert power. Iran could quickly turn into a legitimate national security crisis. It’s not that I think Trump is playing multi-dimensional chess, but that once the opportunities for a power grab are there, he will take it. It’s bad enough that he has politicized the DoJ - that’s his first major authoritarian move. But at the end of the day, it’s his control of the military that makes the defines the presidency and is easily the most awesome power he possesses.
In his handling of the Russia and Mueller probe aftermath, we have already seen an extremely disturbing trend and we’ve seen how this president is different from his predecessors. Trump doesn’t listen to congress. He doesn’t respect subpoenas. He politicizes the highest levels of government and uses these officers to attack officials who try to restrain him. Let there be no question: Trump will use the military in the same way. He will make his moves, including some that are patently unconstitutional and illegal. And he will dare his enemies to stop him. It’s not a hypothesis; it’s what we’ve already seen him do.
This is pretty close to the nub, IMHO. Folks talking here about ‘war’ as in ‘moving in and invading a country a la Iraq’ really need to study logistics. When we conducted Gulf Wars I and II, we had bases adjacent to Iraq (Saudi and Kuwait respectively) where we could build up our troops, material, and logistics in relative safety. Who’s going to offer us that space this time? Saudi/UAE don’t share borders with Iran, Kuwait is close–maybe to close, and Iraq, as others noted, could be a hornet’s nest if we tried it there.
So stage it from the USA? An invasion might be possible, but the logistical supply line would be a nightmare.
If you’re going to commit troops, you need a secure base close by for a massive commitment–where is it?
More next, I inadvertently posted this.
To continue, Iran has a population of 80 Million; how many troops do you need to pacify that big a country, one that will (despite the economy and unpopularity of the clergy) unite to throw out the ‘oppressor’ (that’ll be us). It would take a sizable percentage of the entire US Army to take and hold Iran, and it would make the bleeding in Iraq look like a kiddie party.
So no, I don’t thing we (or the Israelies) are likely to put ‘boots on the ground’ in Iran. But bombings and sinkings of Iranian warships…oh yeah, I can see that happening anytime now. The bet in Washington is that Iran would fold rather than raise the stakes…but that’s a bet I think we would be foolish to make.
IMHO as always…YMMV.
There are several stages to a War:
[ul][li] Foreplay - This can be dragged out for months with false starts. Perhaps the best part of the whole experience.[/li][li] Penetration - Fox & Friends will be interviewing the soldiers deployed, all the while emphasizing how firm Trump is.[/li][li] Climax - The period of sudden explosive force will only last a week or two. A refractory period will then be needed to get munitions in position for any repeat.[/li][li] Afterglow - If the climax is on-target, there will be widespread delight about the President’s manliness and virility.[/li][li] Letdown - This is where we wake up and say “What have we done?!” The aftermath of a major bombing campaign could be dire.[/li][/ul]
The Afterglow period might last for quite a while, but may be spoiled if the “manly” man opens his mouth and spoils the mood. Or if enemies start staging reprisals against U.S. forces.
Trump knows that if his first date fails, he won’t be invited for a second. Expect him to prolong the Foreplay phase repeatedly since he won’t want the Afterglow phase to finish before November 2020.