I’m not saying I want us to fight them, or that it’ll be the first Gulf War over again, but that Iran’s not too much of a force-on-force threat. Yes, we’ll certainly suffer casualties, but in terms of actually winning vs. their military straight-up, that’s not too much in debate.
They’d be smart to use asymmetrical tactics, if they engage at all. I still haven’t figured out what it would buy them to engage militarily.
And the nonsense about not winning a war in 70 years is just that, nonsense. Every time our military has fought other militaries, we’ve won. Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I and 2. The problem is that in most cases, there haven’t been clear victory conditions, or we’ve been fighting insurgencies with political constraints that hinder the ability to actually fight the insurgencies.
Case in point- Iraq. What would have counted as a win? The military decisively stomped their actual military into pulp in 2003, but then were cast into a quagmire where there weren’t any conclusive goals for the military to work toward.
That’s been the general problem- politicians look at the military as a general-purpose tool, when in fact, it’s a tool with very specific applications- i.e. fighting other militaries. But since it’s quickly deployable, accountable and mobile, they tend to like to send it to do stuff that it’s not really trained or intended to do.
When you have to use that many words to describe how we won, we really didn’t win. Thanks.
Half of Korea went Communist. Not a victory.
Vietnam. Not a victory.
Cold War. Victory, but not by US military action.
Gulf War 1. Victory, but merely restored status quo and we ended up fighting the same guys again 11 years later.
Iraq War. Not a victory.
We can ground and pound, but when it comes to racking up actual W’s, the US military has a reputation which vastly exceeds its battlefield accomplishments.
Praise?? I’m talking about acts of war. So you’re saying Iran has been one step removed from committing acts of war. Not good, but at least they had that much restraint.
So you’re saying, first, that Iraqis committed an act of war against the U.S. by storming its embassy; and second, that Iran was OK with this attack.
Suleiman added insult to injury, but that’s not an act of war on Iran’s part. And since Iraqis committed this act of war, are we going to go to war against Iraq? Thought we already tried that. :rolleyes:
No I didn’t actually. Our President declared victory, remember? And irrespective of what Cheetolini has said, ISIS no longer holds any territory within Iraq. There is internal civil strife in Iraq, but that’s not the same as a war.
Based on what I have seen before, Israel has some people pretty deep into Iran.
Possibly - if we didn’t give them anything like forewarning - we just burned one of their sources and that person is going to be in a concrete hole within the next few weeks.
Usually, we would know based on Israel either getting angry or releasing some information about Trump’s stupidity to Vanity Fair that we have screwed them over in some way. (I don’t know why they choose VF, but it seems to be their organ of choice.) This happens to be a good moment to screw over Israel though, since Netty needs all the friends he can get at the moment.
Wonder if the Trump kids have thought through the personal implications of their Dad officially recognizing assassination as a legitimate activity of the State?
The U.S. military’s job is to break the enemy’s military. It’s the job of the politicians who come after to ‘win’ the occupation.
The U.S. military can stomp any other military on the planet into dust. There is absolutely no question about that. If Iran were foolish enough to start a full-scale war with the U.S., its military would cease to exist as a fighting force within days.
That doesn’t mean the U.S. could successfully invade Iran and occupy it, or that the outcome of crushing its military would be what the U.S. wants. and I don’t believe anyone in the U.S. government thinks a full-scale invasion of Iran would be a smart thing to do.
The key to Iran is its people, who are pro-western and sick of the Mullahs. Invasion and mass casualties would make things infinitely worse by hardening the Iranian people against the U.S. So the U.S. is attempting to put maximum pressure on the Mullahs in an attempt to loosen their grip on the people.
I don’t know if killing Suleimani helps or hurts. Reports are that he was very popular in Iran, although with a dictatorship you never know whether someone is truly popular or whether people just say so to avoid punishment.
But one thing is certain: The general was a major loss to the Iranian military and Quds force. Like Yamamoto, he was apparently a brilliant tactician and leader, and the Iranians will be less effective without him. There may also be a significant amount of leadership confusion in the short term, especially since fhe Quds force was semi-autonomous and had its own leadership structure that reported to Suleimani and not to the Mullahs.
I dunno what kind of reaction this furball will get in Saudi Arabia, if this escalates, but if you don’t have any kind of protection through your job I’d bug out. Or at least stay the hell away from American embassies, consulates or institutions, many of which are now plausible targets for Iranian retaliation, wherever they can get to them.
Your criteria seem a bit absurd- are we to believe that a “win” is only accomplished if we conquer and subjugate the enemy nation such that there’s no insurgency or resistance, a-la post WW2 Germany? Would you call WWI a loss because we were fighting the same guys 20 years later?
In just about every case there, the military themselves fought well and either won by any reasonable metric (Korea, Gulf War 1, first part of Iraq War), or were put in positions that did not have clear or even present victory conditions. I mean, WHAT would have been a win in Vietnam? Or the second part of Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Is it the military’s fault that the politicians put them in that situation? It’s not like they can say no, when the President gives them orders.
It’s like if you had a board game without a victory condition- how do you win, and how do you lose in a situation like that?
This may just be a poor choice of words, but it’s still unfair; the reputation of the US military is wholly earned. The questionable results are all *political *matters.