Posted on 01/12/2006 9:35:50 AM PST by Dark Skies
Very clever thesis...but sounds to good to be true.
[Then he brings about the destruction of "his" regime and the liberation of Iran.
Very clever thesis...but sounds to good to be true.]
If my posts get deleted that should tell you something. ;-)
I think I see WOSG's error: he is ascribing rational actor status to the Iranian leadership. As in (paraphrased) "An oil boycott would hurt them more than us."
I don't think WOSG has been paying attention to what Ahmaedinejob's actual writings and statements. His goal is NOT to improve the Iranian economy or anything else "rational" like that. His goal is to deliberately instigate a global financial collapse, leading (he thinks) to an eventual caliphate rising form the ashes of chaos and war.
A couple dozen mobile land-based Silkworms hitting tankers and USN vessels immediately blows his rosy "12 hour air war victory" scenario right out of the water. After USN warships are sunk, and more Silkworms and SCUDs are flying all over the ME, it's going to be tough to call the war a 12 hour victory and go home.
Bad is preferable to worse, but after the beating Bush has taken over "WMD lies" I seriously doubt he will act preemptively against Iran.
You and a few other guys did a great job of fleshing this issue out on this thread . As the poster of the thread...thx and congrats! Your comments were much better than the UPI article itself.
Guns, Gold and Groceries BTTT....
I know what an agent provocateur is, you don't need to pull a Wikepedia definition for me, thank you very much.
So, are you saying that Ahmadinejob is a U.S. sponsored agent provocateur?
Do you believe that Osama Bin Ladin are also U.S. sponsored agent provocateurs?
That's how I see it.
Imagine if they get lucky and blow up a USN ship with all hands. Will any president simply declare the air war a victory and that's it?
I remember also that Iraq was able to fire mobile SCUDs on every day of Desert Storm, we were never able to find and destroy his mobile SCUDs. I think Iran learned a lot from that, and is heavily invested in mobile SCUDs and Silkworms.
Let's see how rusty my French is....'Quel horreur!'
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Then imagine it as a first strike after months of brinkmanship.
Or a scud hit on FOB Danger (or any US FOB in Iraq). Or a bio/chem warhead on a scud that finds Riyadh or Tel Aviv...All at the same time Silkworms (land based and fired from those lovely French made boats) are hitting super tankers at the choke point.
You can do a lot of damage with hundreds of missiles launched from dozens of mobile launchers before even the best forces in the world could find them and take them all out.
After all was said and done, guess how many Iraqi mobile SCUDs we actually found and destroyed during Desert Storm?
And this was a super high priority, given that they were being launched at Israel, and we were trying to keep them from retaliating on their own.
I actually read this stupid article, filled as it is with "what-if" scenarios. How about this scenario - Iran gets nukes and does exactly what they have always said they would do. It only proves that the problem, indeed, is the United States and Israel </sarcasm>
[We can send two armored divisions to Teheran, or we can bomb them continuously for several months.]
I agree. Regime change on the ground is the quicker and less messy option. Especially when it is "spearheaded" by indigenous forces.
Ahem, I do not ascribe rational status to Iran. If Iran were rational, they would have been bought off by the EU already.
I merely point out that Iran is far from the formidable foe you make it out to be, with far less leverage than you assume they have.
Saddam had silkworms too in OIF. They did minor damage, but he lost his country in 3 weeks. There is some assumption here that the US military will just sit there like bumps on a log. We dont sit there when they try to hit us, as you seem to suggest. Your dire fears remind me of the dire fears expressed before the 1st gulf war, which turned out to be false.
"An oil boycott would hurt them more than us."
having followed the Iranian budget, this is an obvious statement of fact. There is now a global market for oil and over 100 different countries produce oil. For Iran to cut itself off to the world would be a disaster for them and an inconvenience to us. In fact, the sanctions being floated include sanctioning their oil. The only thing that makes that threat a tad hollow is the low amount of spare global oil capacity ... well, by 2007 that situation will change, as about 3 mbd of non-OPEC oil comes on line in next 18 months, and saudis add more light crude capacity. And if Iraq heals, more to the good. Within 18 months we could well be able to tell Iran to go pound sand.
The main thing in this whole effort is to get Russia on our side. They dont want Iran to have nukes but otoh they are enjoying the benefits of helping a 'rogue nation', both politically and economically.
Good analysis ... Russia is indeed the key, IMHO.
The fact that Russia is now giving us 'green light' on UNSC referral is a sign that they have 'flipped' on this, seeing greater risk from Iran nukes than benefits from helping the rogue regime.
Let's not forget Chechnya and Russia's Islamic underbelly!
Geography means that Iraq has only a sliver of sea exposure at the top of the PG, so there Silkworms were never going to be a factor. Remember, we had been overflying the place in a virtual air dominance role for a decade before OIF.
The geography of Iran is totally different in terms of coastline and our USN vulnerability to Silkworms.
Question: how many armed mobile SCUDs did we verifiably destroy during Desert Storm?
Question: on what day of the Desert Storm air campaign did we shut down Iraq's ability to launch their mobile SCUDs?
Question: if we could not find or shut down Iraq's mobile SCUDs then, what makes you think we would be able to find and shut down Iran's much greater number of mobile SCUDs and Silkworms, hidden over a much larger territory?
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