Posted on 05/02/2012 7:50:41 AM PDT by Strategy
As the US beefs up its military presence in the Persian Gulf region, Pentagon strategists estimate that they would need less than a month to defeat Iranian forces should a military conflict take place.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) believes it can destroy or significantly degrade Iran's conventional armed forces in about three weeks using air and sea strikes, a defense source told The Washington Post.
"We plan for any eventuality we can and provide options to the president," Army Lt. Col. T.G. Taylor, a spokesman at CENTCOM told the newspaper. "We take our guidance from the secretary of defense and from our civilian bosses in [Washington] DC. So any kind of guidance they give us, that's what we go off of [sic]."
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
And about 100 years to “nation build”.
Does that count the time it would take to get O’bama off the golf course, into a jacket and in front of the TV?
Victory would take 3 weeks.
Peace would take a decade or more.
Our government is still of the Vietnam War mentality. It took days to take down Saddam Hussein — twice. Iraq, a decade later, is still not at peace.
With this President?....DREAM ON!
How long to wipe out the Islamic infrastructure and imam leadership?
If total victory is not our goal, then stay the hell out of the Middle East. Those people do not want peace, they want conflict. I don’t want to see any troops on the ground over there unless they are given the orders to win without this administrations Rules of Engagement.
Nation building is a pipe dream. People talk about the Marshal plan as being nation building, but the nations already existed. It was just fixing broken buildings. Creating a civilized nation state where one has not existed in centuries isn't nearly so straight forward. It is difficult to comprehend what needs to be done and nearly impossible to do it.
Nation wrecking on the other hand is quite simple in theory and easy in execution.
I really hate nation building. Our military should be used to break things and to kill people. Make the other nation weaker, and very reluctant to tussle with us ever again. Then leave.
That's victory. That's how wars are won.
Watching a real war with people getting killed and maimed, how sick is that?
Anyway, I think we could beat Iran quickly, but what if we can't? What if more countries get dragged into the war? War often isn't predictable.
Nation building, by contrast in the Middle East, has to deal with tribalism, an uneducated and superstitious population and most detrimental, a religious base rooted in the seventh century.
The flaw in this three weeks plan is that it leaves the Ayotollahs in charge (unless Iranians rise up from within). This is not a nation building plan, it’s a plan to reduce Iran’s military so they stop making trouble.
We did not win in Germany and Japan by defeating them and leaving. We wrote the Japanese constitution. I believe political subjugation has been the more common historical model.
This sounds familiar for some reason.
Did abandoning Iraq make any sense?
Like every where, 3 weeks and 10 years for the American people to buy and build all the water, power, schools etc, etc etc.
We should have been out of the ME three weeks after the first bomb landed but nope.
If they have other valuable mineral deposits, then we should mine it and extract it. Leave them with nothing that can help them to fight and kill us later.
If they have nothing, then just bomb and kill their leaders, then leave. Repeat as necessary.
This sounds familiar for some reason.
Did abandoning Iraq make any sense?
We're certainly not physically invading the Iranian mainland on the ground and overthrowing the government. That's not what the article discusses, and we're not actually capable of doing so, anyway.
Hey, you stole my idea for Iraq!
Bingo. Iraq proved we could take down any regime in about 3 weeks. It’s what comes next that’s the sticky wicket.
Wasn’t the same said about Vietnam, North Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan (all with some variation, but with similar meaning)?
Our victory would be to get away from needing to deal with any of these camel jockeys.
We can become energy independent through our own vast gas and oil reserves. That is not what nobama wants, but FUBO.
Let the rest of the world deal with muslims, if they threaten us, give em a mighty sting to warn of worst to come of they persist. These 8th Cemtury idiots are not nearly as gungho as were the Japanese and even they took the hint in 45.
Your post was excellent, from start to finish.
It is one thing to simply knock out Iran's nuclear facilities from the air. Bit if the US wants to "defeat" Iran, that means more widespread destruction, and troops on the ground.
And from that, I guarantee will come "nation-building". Of course, the current administration will call it something different, but we'll be back to building roads, bridges, schools, etc.
And then our troops will be sniped at, and bombs will start exploding in market squares and along convoy routes. We've seen all that before. It will end badly.
As General MacArthur said, never get involved in an Asian land war.
We did destroy and conquer Iraq and Afghanistan in three weeks or less.
Then we got into nation-building...
Which means we would not accomplish what the article supposes. Without getting on the ground and schwacking them directly, "victory" will not occur.
Besides, the unwieldy ROE slapped on our side would prevent it.
——and most detrimental, a religious base rooted in the seventh century.——
Islam is horrible, but not because it was founded in the 7th century. After all, Christianity was founded in the first.
Chronology and truth/goodness are unrelated.
True. I can think of several examples:
Ancient Rome
British Empire
Spanish Empire
Nazi Germany
Imperial Japan
But, you see, we're not really an Imperial power. We don't really take a "colonial" approach to the world.
Here, we value freedom, not subjugation. I don't want to subjugate anyone -- I just want to be free from the thought that they want to pick a fight with us.
Iran has heard this noise for years and has equipped itself with underground bunkers.
Their backers in China and Russia would never stand for our attacking them anyway, and would be pouring aid in there.
Military dominance by itself is useless against a radicalized population, in fact it would likely increase future conflict.
Total war means society against society to see which collective government will prevail.
The only useful goal of any conflict is to get the enemy to stop fighting. Iran, stop fighting?
Conquest always either dies from indigestion or survives from assimilation. I’m not seeing any Planet Hollywoods in downtown Tehran.
Did we hire Baghdad Bob?
Tactics should never lead strategy. (pardon my pun, Strategy)
Our “nation building” in Iraq was more to prevent Iran from easily overrunning Iraq after we trashed their military quite effeciently.
We should offer Iraq some aid in rebuilding, sign a mutual defense treaty with them, leave and dare Iran to do anything.
The one thing I admire about Teddy Roosevelt was his “talk softly and carry a big stick” foreign policy.
This has all the signs of nothing more than a Diplomatic bluff but if say a Romney was POTUS and he started talking like he was serious about it we would have to critically ask what the end-game would be because that certainly was never talked about seriously in the 2002/2003 run-up to Iraq.
Brushing the Iraq defenses a-side was childs play. It was the nightmare that followed that was not thought out seriously.
Yup, and this time the ‘rats wouldn’t question the president if at that point he claimed major combat operations were over.
We should NOT invade Iran unless our strategy is something along the lines of “invade, blow $#!+ up, leave, lather, rinse, repeat.”
“As General MacArthur said, never get involved in an Asian land war.”
I thought it was Vizzini that said that...
It’s silly to discuss invading Iran, because it can’t, and won’t, happen.
Iran’s population is more than either Japan or Germany’s population in 1945, and over twice that of Afghanistan.
The land area is over twice that of Afghanistan.
I guess I should have chosen a different word for it. I was thinking more along the lines of destroying infrastructure without much in the way of feet on the ground.
The theory of “strategic bombing” has been discredited over time, but even if such a strategy doesn’t result in the overthrow of an unfriendly regime from within it would eventually weaken the regime to the point where it is no longer a threat.
Never bet against a Kenyan Marxist when death is on the line! Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha *thud*
“The flaw in this three weeks plan is that it leaves the Ayotollahs in charge (unless Iranians rise up from within). This is not a nation building plan, it’s a plan to reduce Iran’s military so they stop making trouble.
We did not win in Germany and Japan by defeating them and leaving. We wrote the Japanese constitution. I believe political subjugation has been the more common historical model.”
A very clear and cogent analysis of past events.
The only way to “rebuild” Islamic nations — after first defeating them militarily — is to make the -removal- of Islam from those nations priority one.
Just as we “de-Nazified” Germany after World War II, if the West has any hope for survival in the current worldwide struggle, we must de-Islamicize Moslem nations, once and for all.
Otherwise, the West will lose.
That is the real lesson behind Operation Iraqi Freedom. The run to Baghdad and its capture lasted how many days? And how long did we fight the irregular stay behinds?
For many years I read and professionally commented on various war scenarios and conferences designed to establish logistic requirements. The DOD stopped when the last conventional (building, bridge, airfield, sea port) was theoretically destroyed, for the first time. Addressing enemy combat repair and irregular warfare NEVER entered into those discussions. Even when I publicly rubbed their individual and collective noses in their own sh***y falsehoods I was told they couldn't do anything else because of the procedures and policies they had to use.
Until Islam voluntarily under goes a reformation and Renascence level social and religious experience there can be no peace between us. Proof of statement - how many contemporary Islamic politicians are still complaining out the Crusades - events that happened between 1095 and 1291 AD as if they happened within our lifetimes?
In other words we have the capacity to destroy but lack the expertise to win!
We're entering the last years of our Empire.
There is however another war aim which we ought to consider: the re-election of Barack Hussein Obama.
If you want to know our intentions in the Persian Gulf we need not look to our Armed Forces there, our pair of carriers cruising there, or our newly deployed Raptors there as described in the companion news story, we should look instead to today's private sector job numbers, a pathetic 119,000, and know that Friday's job numbers will be toxic for Obama's reelection chances.
Consider Obama's recent ploys: he spikes the football on the anniversary of Obama's assassination; he accuses Romney of cowardice and an inability to pull that trigger; he takes a ride to Afghanistan and appears before the troops and has a speech broadcast back to the nation.
The ground is being prepared, the public conditioned to hail a strike against Iran in time for an October surprise.
As for this president shrinking from violence, nothing could be further from the truth. He is a traditional leftist, the most bloodthirsty ideologues human kind has ever known. On March 4 I wrote the following vanity:
Nevermind the Ides of March Beware the Surprises of October
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2854282/posts 
Anyone want to buy a bridge?
Geez, I just watched Was the Dog last night and now I see this thread. Let’s see Barry start a war just before the election. That’s the ticket.
“But, you see, we’re not really an Imperial power. We don’t really take a “colonial” approach to the world.
Here, we value freedom, not subjugation. I don’t want to subjugate anyone — I just want to be free from the thought that they want to pick a fight with us.”
Your point is VERY well-taken.
It would be great if we could continue to live by your precepts. Unfortunately, there is at loose a power in the world which will not and will never agree to such a philosophy.
There is a famous quote, though I’m not sure to whom it can be attributed:
“You may not be interested in war, but war may be interested in you.”
Here is a revised version, directly attributable to ME:
“You may not be interested in Islam, but Islam is interested in you.”
There is only one way to terminate such interest.
And, right now, the West doesn’t seem to understand....
Unfortunately, if we in fact wish to stop Islam, we had better become more like that list of nations you posted above...
oops Was the Dog = Wag the Dog
"Nation building" is code for long term contracts for private contractors.
Screw the 401K, invest in war!
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