Posted on 01/12/2006 9:35:50 AM PST by Dark Skies
So what if Israel and/or the United States did actually venture into unchartered waters and decided to carry out military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities? What are the likely consequences?
First, given the complexity of such an undertaking -- given that, according to Iranian dissident sources, there are anywhere between 200 and 300 possible sites -- the scope of the military operation would have to be formidable. It would require top-notch intelligence to identify and strike only at relevant sites. Assuming that 200 sites are targeted, such a military operation would require at least 600 airplanes, again assuming that only three planes were assigned to hit each facility.
The attack planes would have to include bombers, escort fighters, refueling planes and command-and-control aircrafts.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
"Let's hope you're right. I still don't think a president will risk it, not after the merciless pounding Bush has taken."
Actually he wont ... yet. Stabilizing Iraq first, then this.
We're not supposed to talk about oil, but I hope one of the reasons Bush invaded Iraq was to secure that oil before it became necessary to deal with Syria, Iran, and the big imponderable, Saudi Arabia.
Securing the oil supply is vital. But I agree with you that it's safer to act, in the present situation, than to sit by and do nothing.
And the fact on the ground is that iran's greatest capability militarily is that they have the resources, in place and mobile (fixed launchers, mobile launchers, low-tech subs, high-tech mines, high-tech missile launching patrol boats), to shut down the straits. Even the 'hours' you predict it would take us to neutralize all these (which is not so) would give them time to strike.
Yes, I agree. But very bad is preferable to even worse. A few years of chaos from which recovery is possible are better than a series of nuclear strikes and total worldwide chaos from which it may be impossible to recover without even worse consequences, such as a war with China over the remaining oil.
Yes, but the writer pretends that is the worst outcome. It's not. The worst outcome is if we wait a little longer, dithering and whining--probably less than a year at this point. Then it won't just be radioactivity scattered around Iran, it will be radioactivity all over the place, and tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of deaths, depending on whether the conflict can be localized.
History suggests that once things spiral that far out of control, conflicts cannot be localized.
I don't think the focus should be on the nuclear facilities anyway. The focus should be on regime change, by force if necessary. The rest will follow, and it's long overdue.
Probably true, but it generated some top-notch freeper analyses.
Time to strike *what*?!?
Iran has no interest - at all - in cutting off oil.
In fact, one of the sanctions options open is to sanction Iran and get THEM to not export oil (like we did with IRaq 1990-2003). Iran has deliberately courted Russia and China to avoid such a threat.
Either 1 of 2 things will happen between now and 2010:
- US militarily strikes and ends Iran's nuclear program
- US/world does not, and Iran eventually gets nukes (in about 4 years)
Iran will *not* strike first. Their interest is solely to have the nukes to threaten Israel and the hated west.
BTW, info on 'global strike', may be of interest:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400071_pf.html
Not doubting but what source are you using for you numbers
Well...this is the best thread yet on Iran options. It appears that, the closer Regime Change Iran gets, the more interesting discussions crop up.
But let's look at the real reasons why Bush is hesitating on this: the CIA's Porter Goss knows Osama is in Iran but won't yet admit this because the very admission would be a Causus belli that would not only give us a "right" to attack in the eyes of many on the left...but it would REQUIRE us to attack or prove to the world that we are somehow being blackmailed worse than any of you are suggesting.
My assumption has been that Iran hosts Al Qaeda even though the Shiite/Sunni Wahabists are supposed to be enemies.
My assumption has also been that we have been leaving the HQ of Al Qaeda in Iran alone and fighting a "proxy war" in Iraq/Aghanistan for the same reason why we fought in Vietnam and not in China...nuclear blackmail, perceived or directly threatened.
My assumption is that NY and DC and/or Baghdad, Moscow, Paris are "wired" to produce a radiological nightmare of some sort if we attack the castle of this war's enemy.
I can guarantee that any 1990 style attack on Iran would quickly leave the headlines on CNN as they cover another 9-11 somewhere in the west.
This is what we have to expect and we have to be ready to take the hit. Iran's madman WANTS to hit us bigtime but he will not be able to politically until it is seen that the USA is being imperialistic again.
So our plan? Well Angela Merkel is an ace-in-the-hole for us now. She can play up the "close Gitmo" game on Monday, but she will want to lead Putin and Chirac into a security council resolution that will be strongly worded enough to isolate Iran in the eyes of enough dumb leftists everywhere (that is all the UN is good for).
We need to get the government of Saudi Arabia and Egypt on board to participate in an attack. They are clearly playing chicken with us now. They might think they would really benefit by our taking out Iran's regime AND our also losing even more support among Sunni arabs...but Bush and his father will have really failed if we don't get the Sunni governments on board now.
There is no way that, when and not IF the Iranians retaliate via Hezbollah against American civilians for an airstrike, that we will not go full steam into regime change on the ground. How will we do this?
Well, Rummy will have been INCOMPETENT if he has not already built an Iranian exile army of at least 10,000 men that could or could not include Iraqis or "people who were trained as if they were Iraqis in the Iraqi Army training program." These people would take the oil fields in the south by the gulf. They will take those and wait. Russia, France, China...nobody could ask the USA to stop occupying the Iranian oil fields if an Iranian exile army has those oil fields.
If what I am suggesting is secret, please delete this post.
But, in any event, we have huge numbers of American ground forces along the borders with Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody, especially not the press, will be allowed to comment on how we are really deploying our forces along any border regions.
The more critical nuke facilities are located under civilian population centers. Airstrikes will not get these places. Ground forces will have to do the job.
Interesting concepts: The USA has not lost a battalion of soldiers in any battle since WW2. We lost 18 men in the Battle of Mogodishu vs 1000 dead enemy? And we could have easily gone back, and should have, to eliminate another 2000 of the bad guys who were responsible for starving millions of Somalis.
If we do decide to put a battalion of Special Forces into a vicious battle for an urban-based nuke facility...would we lose our first entire battalion since WW2? I doubt it.
At worst, we'd be looking at a few more Medal of Honor winners.
We didnt invade Iraq for oil, and alas, oil production in Iraq is no better than prior to 2003.
IMHO, there should be no rush to act, but there must be the patience to build the international case that striking Iran is necessary and/or that Iran must stop.
NO, no. I didn't mean that we invaded Iraq for oil as our first priority. There were numerous other reasons of more immediate importance. But there are a number of countries that needed to be dealt with, sooner or later, and we probably put Iraq at the head of the list for that reason, among others. After all, Syria has caused at least as much trouble as Saddam did, but Syria can wait.
We have not taken the oil, which we could have done. But if chaos breaks out in Saudi Arabia through no fault of our own, which it could do at any time, at least we will have secured an alternative supply.
We haven't taken advantage of the Iraqi oil as fully as we might have done because we don't really need it now and we don't want to give propaganda ammunition to our fifth columnists in the media and the DNC. But we may need it in the future, and if we do at least Saddam isn't sitting on it, ready to blow the wells.
[IMHO, there should be no rush to act, but there must be the patience to build the international case]
The biggest factor is Russia. They have benefitted from the high oil prices coming from Mideast "instability." The WOT is a boon to them.
The biggest losers are the Europeans. They are just paying the high oil prices while they cower in fear of terrorists thinking that they might even be secretly cheering for the Americans to win the WOT.
China is paying the high oil prices. It would be in their interest for this stupid WOT to finally end (via Iranian democracy).
Venezuela? In Chavez's interest that the WOT continue with high oil prices. With an Iran War...watch majorly stupid action from Chavez...a very key distraction for us.
The Saudis? Regime change in Iran would make democracy all over the Middle East finally "inevitable." Bush would be vindicated for Iraq if he gets a twofer fairly easily.
There would be noone to fund an "insurgency" in Iran if we give them their freedom. Hezbollah around the world will dry out of funds if we take the Iranian oil fields and switch the revenue stream.
But it keeps coming back to Russia. And they are playing chicken as well. They couldn't afford Iran actually getting nukes (Russia only has 2 culture centers and no real suburban population for the middle class). But they would be deflated if there was a sudden outbreak of democracy and peace in the Middle East.
If the Saudis and Egyptians and Turks joined forces in a surprise attack on Iran with the USA...enough of the Sunni Arab population would cheer for their national forces...and they would like the USA better for being "on their side" this time around. Remember that the attack on Iraq was, to arab Sunnis, an attack on Iraqi Sunnis.
And, indeed, the #1 reason for the Iraq War was to reduce Sunni Muslim political power in the Middle East relative to Shiites.
The #2 reason for the Iraq War was to take $20B per year in Iraqi oil revenues out of the hands of our enemies and secure a strategic reserve of oil for the possibility of Saudi oil getting temporarily plugged up.
The #3 reason for the Iraq War was the Flypaper Strategy or "Draining the Swamp" of bad guys by luring them to their deaths.
The #4 reason for the Iraq War was to spread democracy like the seeds of a dandelion.
US Government weekly petroleum report is my source.
and the #5 reason for the Iraq War was to surround Iran for the final showdown there.
But this is an official MSM publication. With editors, and fact checkers, and standards, and peer review, and Journalism school graduates. Not a mere blog.
So, never mind that Freeper who posted such nonsense would be hooted out of here in a nanosecond. It is Journalism dammit, and deserves your respect.
From Wikipedia...another possible explanation for the new "hardliner" regime in Iran that isn't part of the Mullah crowd:
Agent provocateur
An agent provocateur (plural: agents provocateurs) is a person assigned to provoke unrest, violence, debate, or argument by or within a group while acting as a member of the group but covertly representing the interests of another. In general, agents provocateurs seek to secretly disrupt a group's activities from within the group.
An agent provocateur is often a police officer whose duty is to make sure suspected individual(s) carry out a crime to guarantee their punishment; or who suggests the commission of a crime to another, in hopes they will go along with the suggestion, so they may be convicted of the crime the provocateur suggested. The phrase comes from the French language, where it means, roughly, "inciting agent".
The activities of agents provocateurs are typically called sting operations. Agents provocateurs are typically used to investigate consensual or "victimless" crimes; since each participant in such a crime is a willing participant, only a police spy posing as a fellow participant in criminal activity is likely to be able to uncover such a crime.
Agents provocateurs are also used against political opponents. Here, it has been documented that provocateurs deliberately carry out or seek to incite counter-productive and/or ineffective acts, in order to foster public disdain for the group and provide a pretext for aggression; and to worsen the punishments its members are liable for. Within the United States the COINTELPRO program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had FBI agents posing as political radicals in order to disrupt the activities of political groups the U.S. government found unacceptably radical, such as the Black Panthers.
The leadership of Iran is a mess. But of all the countries in the region, it's my understanding that its people are the most pro-Western. Iran will be a wonderful ally once its leadership is removed.
So Ahminwhackjob replaces the Mullahs and then openly prepares for war with the west...using the verbiage of the Mullah regime that they cannot openly refute back to him. He prepares for everyone to "meet the 12th imam" using their language not his...forcing them more into the arms of the west while exposing the true whack jobs who really would loyally carry out his orders.
He gets a planeload of generals who apparently really believe he wants to go to war with the west and are actually OK with that!...and realizes that they, of course, have to die in a plane crash.
Then he brings about the destruction of "his" regime and the liberation of Iran.
Sounds like a plan to me. ;-)
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