[Prodigal Son]

so our ability to intimidate the Iranians into good behavior has bled into the sands of Iraq along with the Bush Doctrine."

I disagree. You mass troops on the Iranian border and I guarantee you can make them blink or blunder into the mistake of doing something overtly hostile. This would allow us to attack them in a very convincing manner. And I think we could do quite a bit of damage to Iran with air power alone. Flattening Tehran would be a good start.

[nathanbedford]

Mass what troops on the Iranian border? General Abazaid said that we could not sustain an accretion to the force in Baghdad of only 20,000 troops. The weight of the authority that I have heard is that we simply do not have the horses. I heard retired General on Meet the Press state that the idea of interdicting Iran's nuclear program with air power alone was, "insane."

I do not set myself up as a military expert and I would be delighted to be shown to be wrong here if you could only tell me where we can get the forces and the machines and equipment to mount a credible threat of invasion.

[Steel Wolf]

You mass troops on the Iranian border and I guarantee you can make them blink or blunder into the mistake of doing something overtly hostile.

Are we talking about intimidating Iran, or annexing Texas?

This tactic simply won't work. For one thing, we occasionally might skirmish now and then with the Iranians. It barely makes the news, much less as an act of war. Second, we don't have a credible force to project into Iran, due to our drained national will, so they have no reason to fear an invasion. Especially on the flimsy grounds your proposing.

[Steel Wolf]

You mass troops on the Iranian border and I guarantee you can make them blink or blunder into the mistake of doing something overtly hostile.

Are we talking about intimidating Iran, or annexing Texas?

This tactic simply won't work. For one thing, we occasionally might skirmish now and then with the Iranians. It barely makes the news, much less as an act of war. Second, we don't have a credible force to project into Iran, due to our drained national will, so they have no reason to fear an invasion. Especially on the flimsy grounds your proposing.