How far should we go to stop Iran from getting Nukes

Not to be glib, but if we don't know where they are, how do we know they are in urban areas?

 

re-read the sentence...

the key word in there is if... also read my posts earlier in this thread, and the other iran threads.

i don't support an invasion. nor did i say anything about the united states being involved.

but you just ignore reality and my other posts either due to ignorance or idiocy.

 

I voted for nothing. Like others, I don't want this administration in charge of any of the posted alternatives or anything else. They can only screw it up or use it to further their unAmerican quest of turning the Executive Branch into a Kingdom... or, as has been shown, both.

Ask again after the next President is sworn in.

 

All of those things would make occupation more difficult, but not impossible. Outside of the worse intel bit, they would not have a huge effect on invasion for the purposes of regime change and destroying nuclear facilities. Look at the march on Bahgdad as an example. What would Iran do that Iraq failed to do in the US military rolling into the capital while sweeping aside all resistance? Are they going to be able to send out a superior tank force to bottle us up somewhere? Are they going to be able to control the skies to deny the US air superiority? No. With limited objectives like those, there are few if any countries in the world that could stop the US.
Occupation is tougher but not impossible. In that circumstance, you have the same problems that you have in Iraq, only with possibly fewer civilian casualties because you don't have the ethnic civil war going on, but just any Irani insurgents fighting the US (of course, you have ignored the large Kurdish population, which could be helpful to the US, especially if we talked about combining them with the Kurds in Iraq to for a Kurdish nation). Even in the case of occupation, money and population are not incredibly important. More money isn't going to by them technology that can rival that of the US. More people may increase the number of enemy fighters, which could increase the number of incidents, but would not likely make each incident more deadly. Nationwide, the population density is the same as Iraq. The big cities are roughly the same size. Basically, the problems with occupying Iran would be the same as the problems with occupying Iraq. The only difference would be that with triple the land area and triple the population, you would need three times as many troops. Thus, occupation is possible, but the outcome may not be desirable (as I said in my first post).

Oh, and by the way, I have no trouble admitting that I am wrong, in the rare cases when I actually am.

 

let us know when you sign up. until then can you not send our kids into fishing expeditions?

 

Wait, don't tell me... your real name is Kagan and you work at the AEI, right?

 

Please refrain from commenting on any activity in which you are not an active participant in the future, since that is the standard you have choosen to apply to me. TIA.

 

You could've just grouped "Air Strikes", "Naval Blockade", and "Invasion" into one category, with one word: War.

 

Your posts just confirm to me what I always suspected: you have a very limited/misguided knowledge of the region's history, nature and its people.

Anyways, I don't foresee an all-out invasion/occupation ever being an option. The most likely scenario if a war was to break out is a combination of air strikes, a naval blockade and a limited invasion/occupation of the strategic Persian Gulf coast area near the southern Iraqi border.

 

No, it is not. Not even close.

 

Actually each of them makes it impossible - which is why you didn't address them all (such as the fact taht the Military can't scrougne up 20,000 troops to spare in Iraq, much less the 500,000 - to 1 million that would be needed to occupy Iran).

Why, because you said so? No.

Well, first off, the "march on Baghdad" was conducted from a secure base with months of build up and clear supply lines, et etc, etc....NONE of this exists in IRan.

Second the topography is way different. Look at a map. Iran is not flat desert. It is loaded with mountains - and again, it is TWICE the size of Iraq - which means your supply lines (currently coming from a hellhole in Iraq) are twice as long. NOt to mention that the US will have to fight over every single inch on the way there unlike in Iraq where largely sympathetic shiites in the south offered no resistance.

They don't have to. PS we don't have a tank force to spare.

 

One thing that jumps out at me, from any scenario involving a significant number of troops, and it holds true for Iraq, is just how far we let our troop strength deteriorate. During Vietnam we had 550,000 boots on the ground at one point. Several hundred thousand for a very long time. That was while having over 300,000 in Europe alone. Today, we are strained to the breaking point by less than 150,000 in Iraq, and yet people talk of invading Iran. That has nothing to do with the lethal abilities of our armed forces, which man for man are as skilled and highly trained as they have ever been. If anything, more so. It's a question of numbers. We simply don't have them. Iraq has exposed it, and that is one of the many dire consequences of that mistake. One too often ignored by it's supporters.

It will be a long time before we will be looked at again in the same way we were prior to Iraq. Sure, we could defeat any nation's military in a stand up, conventional conflict, where our technolgical superiority could come into play. In Iran, as in Iraq, that would not be enough. The only way we could come out "ahead" there would be with very limited goals, which involved little in the way of occupation.



D&D. Sleet. Brrrr.

 

Meanwhile, if we DID invade Iran, we would be fighting some of our own weapons...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16648850/

Iran gets military gear in Pentagon surplus sale


WASHINGTON - The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries — including Iran and China — who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department’s surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.

In one case, federal investigators said, the contraband made it to Iran, a country President Bush branded part of an “axis of evil.”

In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, speaking on condition of anonymity, say those parts made it to Iran.

...

 

It is actually incredibly easy to buy this stuff. The most amazing thing I saw on the government auctions was a whole destroyer which was being sold as 'scrap metal'. I've seen nearly complete F-4 Phantoms as well as significant portions of F-111 (stealth) body panels. To buy it you just have to fill out a form which states that you are going to dispose of it in accordance with guidelines.

You can check out the auctions at:

http://www.govliquidation.com/

There is definitely a whole lot of crap that you have to sift through and sometimes stuff comes through as bits and pieces but nevertheless if you keep checking back there is some amazing stuff that you can pick up sometimes.

It wouldn't really be that hard to buy in bits and pieces using different front identities and export to an unapproved country. I know there is stuff on there like aircraft fire control systems that basically have no use other than military uses but there is no particular licensing that you have to go through to be able to get this stuff.

 

If any nation were trying to get parts that way, it would be Iran.



D&D. Damn, it's Cold!

 

You say it does, I say it doesn't. Blah, blah, blahbity blah.

We could use the Kurdish area of Iraq as our base, the area where we have been in a good situation for a long time. We could even sweeten the deal for the Kurds with talks about creating an independent Kurdish state (as previously mentioned). So, secure base, clear supply lines, and months of build up (since we have not established a timeline, I don't know how you could possibly say this doesn't exist) check. Oh yeah, there is also Afghanistan on the other side of Iran, where we could also fairly easily establish a secure base of operations.

Luckily, Tehran is well into the west of Iran. The march from Kurdish Iraq to Tehran is actually SHORTER than the distance the military went to assault Baghdad. As for fighting in the mountains, if only there were some way we could determine the ability of American troops to fight in mountainous terrain, perhaps a recent war fought in a mountainous country.

Yeah, I'm sure the Irani military will offer much stiffer resistance than the "elite Iraqi Republican guard" that we got to hear so much about in the run up to both wars in Iraq. Oh wait, this is just more doomsaying from the anti-war folks. I would suspect that the military of Iran will flee or surrender in droves just like the Iraqis did. Even if they did stand and fight, that would actually be the best case scenario for the Americans. A stand up fight is the ideal scenario for the American military. The more Irani military personnel that oppose the military juggernaut that would be rolling against them, the fewer that you have to deal with later attacking you as insurgents if you take the occupation route. That should be one of the lessons learned in Iraq.

If they want to stop an invasion fighting every inch of the way to Tehran like you suggested, then they certainly would. PS we can divert our tanks to Iran where they would be more neccessary and useful. Tanks are needed when you are destroying the other country's tank force, they are useful in fighting infantry, but not ideal, as their main weapon is wasted.[/quote]

Yeah, ask the Iraqis if it is not important to deny the US air superiority during an invasion.

They provided an area that we could use in relative safety, just as they probably would in Iran. Remember your concern about vulnerable supply lines.

Which the Iraqis had. So, basically you are saing that the advantage of more money and triple the population is that they could have more of exactly what we are facing in Iraq. Where could I have seen that before, oh yeah, I posted it. You increase the nubmer of American troops in proportion to the increase in resistance and the number of troops per person is the same.

As you pointed out, they would be fighting us with AK-47s and IEDs in the hands of insurgents. In other words, exactly the same thing as Iraq. As we have occupied Iraq, it would therefor be possible to occupy Iran. It would just require more troops. I guess your entire argument boils down to the inabilty of the US to come up with 450,000 troops. I say that they can, and have shown an ability to do so in the past. I think you are the one that has shown zero proof that it is IMpossible.

The F-111 Aardvark is not a stealth aircraft. It is a "medium-range strategic bomber, reconnaissance, and tactical strike aircraft designed in the 1960s." They were retired from service in 1996.
link You probably have it confused with the F-117 Nighthawk.

 

Well - then you're operating on a completely different baseline than I am - one divorced from reality.

The reason why I say it does is because that's my understanding of conventional military theory, which is backed by a lot of scholarship and history. The reason why you say it doesn't is because you're just making stuff up by looking at a Risk board. Like this complete garbage:

And how are we going to supply the Kurdish area of Iraq? Star trek teleporter? The rest of this is too stupid to bother with.

You mean the one fought by proxy by northern alliance troops agaisnt the Taliban? That is your plan? Please tell me exactly how many tank divisions we used in that.

The fact that you can write "lessons learned in Iraq" with a straight face in this post is hilarious.

LIke I said it doesn't matter. You're an idiot for thinking this.

I'd ask them but they're too busy killing marines with IED's to bother.

No. Read your history. No part of the invasion force came from the North because Turkey denied its use as a staging area (i'm sure they'd be up for an invasion of Iran though, ha ha ha.)

No, I'm talking about troops/populaiton. That is what military doctrine of occupation is based on. Simple.

I see, here's the problem, you're living in stupid town where you belive Iraq is being successfully occupied. I don't live there. I live in reality - which is why the generals wanted a larger intial invasion force, because they live there too.

 

In other words, not winnable indeed.

 

I'm going to go ahead and skip over the namecalling (which was not unexpected from you, and why I didn't want to get into this in the first place), and skip right to the very limited amount of meat.

The same way we are supplying Iraq right now.

No, I am referring to the thousands of American troops that are serving/have served in Afghanistan. As for tank divisions, like I said, they are not needed against infantry, and I don't think we were too concerned with the Taliban's mighty tank corps. Did American troops successfully prosecute a war in a mountainous country? Yes. Was that the point I was making? Yes. Does your comment have anything to do with refuting this? No. You are sniping at US policy in sending the Afghans after Bin Laden when he was holed up in the mountains, which was the wrong thing to do, but totally irrelevent to this discussion.

You saying it doesn't matter that they couldn't stop our tank forces doesn't disprove that the American military overran Baghdad in a matter of days, and could do the same thing in Iran (which would accomplish one of those goals that you said was impossible). In fact, for future reference, you dismissing something out of hand is not evidence for or against anything, save that you don't have a point.

Yes, there are Iraqis that are using IEDs against marines in Iraq during the occupation. That has nothing to do with the importance of air superiority during an invasion. In fact, you might as well just repeat this over and over as it is the only point you have, and would be just as (ir)relevent to everything else I am saying as it is when discussing the importance of air superiority during an invasion.

I never said that part of the invasion force came from the north. It is much easier to argue against Mr. Straw Man though.

Already covered this. In fact you quoted it. I said triple the number of troops (in case you were unaware, Iran is triple the population of Iraq). Hell, quadruple the number of troops, that way the ratio is even better.

Actually, I see tons of problems with the occupation of Iraq. I never even said that those problems wouldn't be seen in the occupation of Iran (in fact, I said the opposite and used Iraq as an example, but you are not one to stand on such formalities as arguing the points other people actually make). I only said that it would be possible to occupy Iran. Do you deny that we have occupied Iraq?

Your two arguments are, "Iraqis use IEDs," and "occupation requires a lot of troops." Guess what, IEDs does not mean that an invasion to destroy nuclear facilities and remove the government from power would be successful, nor do they preclude occupation. A need for more troops is only necessary in the case of occupation, thus half of the "impossible" goals I put forth are untouched by your second argument, and getting more troops is not impossible, rendering your point moot.

 

SM, I have no doubt that we could capture Tehran. How we would get the troops? It would require a mobilization. We simply don't have them anymore in the regular Army and Marine Corp. We would have to call up the bulk of the reserves and National Guard. Considering the fact that the National Guard, after deployments in Iraq, only has 30% of it's heavy equipment (the bulk of their equipment has been left in Iraq for the troops rotating into the theatre), that presents a large problem. I'm not going to say we couldn't get it done, but we would have the stripmine, in my opinion, most of our remaining forces overseas for their equipment, if not for their boots on the ground. As that would mean being exposed in other dangerous potential trouble spots, it would be a terrific gamble.

And if we did all that, it doesn't answer the biggest question... how do we hold what we've got?



D&D. Watch Out for Yellow Ice.