War With Iran -- Is America Ready?

Self and Others | 09-23-07 | cww

[penowa]

And your inside info comes from what source?

I have no idea what you're doing posting on FR. You really sound like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and most of the Democrats as well as Osama and the nut from Iran. All of you are using the same talking points.

[penowa]

You don't think we'd be paying $ 10/gal. for GASOLINE in short order if Iran's oil were missing from the overall oil market?

You didn't answer what you think the reaction of the American people would be if they got up tomorrow morning to learn we had bombed Iran. If you have a different opinion than mine, please tell me what you think it would be.

[RightWhale]

Generally they wouldn’t care. They care what the price of heating oil is and don’t have a clue what to do about it.

[penowa]

"I made the remark to a friend recently that if Islamics succeeded in smuggling a nuclear weapon into Manhattan and detonating it, that the liberals who crawled out of the rubble would scream not for retaliation, but rather blame George Bush and the Republicans for bringing such destruction upon us. And the NEXT thing the survivors would do is to cry out for dialog and to sue for peace with Islam."

John, I posted # 199 to Right Whale before I saw your post to me. Unfortunately, I really believe the survivors would be lining up to convert and to try to negotiate keeping their favorite diversions. It isn't just us. I followed the Chavez takeover in VZ for years. It was only when he took away their favorite TV station, that the people reacted, but, of course, it was much too late then.

[P.O.E.]

So our only choice is to tip-toe through this war hoping not to make anyone else mad at us, or not to make those who are already mad at us any madder.

By no means am I recommending that. Question was, is America ready? I'm just dismayed it would take the loss of so many innocents for half of America (i.e., libs) to face reality and step up to this war as it needs to be fought.

[RochesterFan]

I, for one, would like to know why jude24 was banned. Which one or more of FR’s guidelines did he break? Why can’t posters here disagree? It seems to me that a truly free society thrives on the free exchange of ideas.

[jwparkerjr]

Oops! Now I see what you were saying. That’s the problem with the written word, if the recipient is dense it makes it very difficult make one’s self understood!

I agree 100%. But you know, like so many other things of great importance to our nation it might just be that we will have to ignore the liberals and do what’s best for America, despite them. Of course afterwords they will see the light and then take credit for having gotten the job done. That’s certainly what happened with the Cold War. Remember all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when Reagan walked out of talks, or demanded that the wall come down, or ‘kidded’ about the bombing starting in five minues, or announced Star Wars, or put Pershing missiles in Europe? Every one of those was greeted with resounding opposition by the very same people who are now doing everything in their power to thwart our attempts to win the SOT.

Sometime you just gotta ignore the worshipers of weakness in your midst and do what has to be done.

I say “git ‘er done!”

[granite]

One can guess that if American planes are grounded suddenly, then the game is on.

[sbMKE]

Borders peppered with Stinger missles - but none have been discovered and/or reported? Not to dismiss the gravity of the Iranian risk, but this is hyperbole.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Apparently, Iran has been flooding Hezbollah spies into Mexico and other U.S. border areas, and they are armed with stinger missles prepared to shoot down U.S. planes if we attack Iran. This, they say, would be just the first course of a long-planned battle of asymetrical warfare.

Then it may be time for letters of Marque and Reprisal against such agents: authorize private assassins and bombers to sneak into these areas and take them out.

Meanwhile, blockade Iran: they import a lot of their gasoline, IIRC, so that should blow a hole in their diseased, socialist economy.

[Don Joe]

That would alienate most of the rest of the world against us.

You say it like it's a bad thing.

[P.O.E.]

The worshipers of weakness

That's right up there with Agnew's "nattering nabobs" I like it!

[Nowhere Man]

It depends, if we use conventional methods, then no, we are not ready, we are stretched thin although what is a help is we have troops next door to them in Iraq and Afghanistan. I always thought the main reason for us going into Iraq (and I feel we were right in doing so, just don’t misread me) is we needed a jumping board and a monitoring base into Iran in case if things got hot with them. As for using unconventional methods say saturation bombing or nukes, then we are ready although world opinion might not support that, with the exception of France maybe and Israel.

[Centurion2000]

Recently I have had conversations with several intelligence/counter-insurgent military experts regarding potential war with Iran. The response is always the same -- You have no idea how bad Iran wants the U.S. to throw them into that briar patch.

Spies and assymetrical warfare guys lose heart when your country is radioactive slag and a 100,000 dollar bounty is on their heads payable for dead terrorists with missiles.

[Centurion2000]

That would alienate most of the rest of the world against us.

Let them hate so long as they fear.

[Fledermaus]

No. Americans have turned into mindless morons. Only if Iran threatened to destroy their TV shows would they get upset.

[tet68]

Remember, Iran is not an Arabic country. It is Prussian.

My god , damned Prussians, so that explains it.
Square headed bastages, didn’t they learn anything
from WW I.?

[section9]

Pro War freepers need to read the white paper call “Asymmetric Warfare” to see what bag of tricks the US will face. The white paper is great because it lists the strength and weaknesses of the US (some have come to surface during the current Iraqi war) and how the weaker attacker will exploit them. The question is will the PC minded (I consider this our biggest weakness) US government structure be ready to deal with the attacks in US interior???? or will the local governments ignore the Washington edicts and let the people deal with it???? We live in interesting times and time will tell.

Here's the problem with the Revolutionary Guards and Hezboallah "bringing the war" to the American homeland.

Yes, we will face casualties at home. Perhaps thousands. But the Iranians and Hezboallah will face a war of annihilation in return. Understand that the American people will be beside themselves in anger and want revenge. We simply will not stop until Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo have been visited upon the Iranians. They have no conception of this, in large part because World War II bypassed the Persian homelands.

The best of all possible worlds in this conflict is for a settlement between the powers. Failing that, given the unrelenting fascism of the regime, would be for the Iranians to make the first overt hostile act against us. That is the entire assumption behind our diplomacy, I suspect.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[jwparkerjr]

We keep hearing that air power along can’t do the job. I think it depends on what ‘the job’ is. If we want to overthrow the mullahs and establish a democratically elected government in their place, then air power alone won’t do it. But not all wars have the objective of regime change and establishing a new form of government. If ‘the job’ is to render them unable to use nuclear weapons on us, or Israel, or provide them to terrorists around the world then conventional weapons and air power is quite capable of doing that. They need electricity, and lots of it, to run those centrifuges, thousands of them, and for that they need some sort of fuel. We can certainly see to it that they get no more gasoline and are in no position to refine their oil into a usable fuel for producing the juice they need. We can also see to it that they have no oil to sell and without that they are one of the poorest nations on Earth. And while we’re about it, we can make certain they have a tough time just living their day to day lives. We need no ground forces for any of this. Granted several of these would be considered acts of war, but so what. They have been at war with us for over 30 years and we’ve yet to be at war with them.

If it comes down to American lives or Iranian lives I can assure you (the Papal ‘you’, not you Nowhere Man) that I could make that decision in the blink of an eye.

The mullahs have terrorized the Iranians into thinking that they are the be all and end all when it comes to governing. They do whatever it takes to retain control over the masses. We could make life in Iran a living hell and if we let it be known that it’s the mullahs’ rule that we are unhappy with it would certainly change the way most Iranians viewed them. Right now the mullahs are the source of anything and everything. Take away their power and you would see a different situation.

I am not saying we should do this, although I would certainly feel better if we did, but rather simply pointing out that if you define the job correctly then we have the unquestioned ability to get the job done.

Somehow we have gotten ourselves into a position where countries around the world think we are weak and indecisive. We can, and should, change that impression. The rest of the world needs to learn that we will think of ourselves first, and that any mercy we show by not kicking the ass of those who mess with us is borne of our being a nice people, not a weak people.