Posted on 04/29/2008 5:11:34 PM PDT by Perdogg
A second American aircraft carrier steamed into the Persian Gulf Tuesday as the Pentagon ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the "increasingly hostile role" Iran is playing in Iraq - smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
“They should park that aircraft carrier right where Brit sailors were captured. Let’s see what they are made of.”
That would be an extraordinarily dumb place to park a carrier.
Isn’t that the way it is now?
They been Dancing Dirty.
“oil will be in bad shape with 40% transportation
and Iran possibly other nations going off line”
The hyenas in the Oil Pits might drive up the price to 200+ a barrel but once the shooting stops the oil market will stabilize and the price will come down to where it should be.
......because it is now seen as a bluff......
When it is really a tactic whereby the enemy becomes comfortable with the threat. Thus, there can be suprise.
Truman’s rotation ends on the 5th, if it stays on any longer than that then maybe we’ve got something cooking here.
And with Bush coming to the region in a week or so, it may not be a bad idea to keep Truman around with the Lincoln just in case . . .
Are you always this optimistic? :)
That’s a pretty bleak picture you paint. I suppose it is all possible, but what to do?
Do you think the international economy/picture will be better if Iran is allowed to get a nuclear weapon and drive the US out of Iraq?
The thing I worry most about are our soldiers in Iraq. Iran will try to strike them with chem/bio weapons if we attack.
BTW, I don’t really see the sunni muslim countries getting that mad because conventional wisdom says they are more than a little concerned about Iran getting a nuke and taking over Iraq.
Who’s knows though right? We indeed live in scary times and if a demwitt gets the WH, it will be even scarier!! That is all I know for certain!
$10 a gallon gas is on its way!
Our imbecilic leaders give away the Panama Canal, ignore the fact that the ChiComs are pumping our oil off the shore of Cuba, kowtow to North Korea, strongly hint at sending troops to Kosovo and continue to act like candidates for lobotomies.
Our dollar is in the pits, our economy is tanking, our tank is only half full, the inflation that is rampant is due to their endorsing the manufacture of an important food crop in order to mix the result with gasoline. Where does it all end?
Revolution?
Let's face it: the Democrats and their Republicrat allies appear to be hell-bent on the destruction of our country. Now we have three pitiful candidates that want to occupy the oval office who aren't worth a thin dime. They would finish the job!
Will never happen. The lower tier of the economy would shut down before it got that high,
I like your optimism. But, once Iran's oil goes offline the price is going to shoot through the roof.
> We will attack Iran after the Iraqi elections on October 1st and before the presidential election on November 4th.
Interesting.
A “Parthian Shot” from President Bush, eh?
Somehow I don’t see that as part of his style but I could be wrong.
I wish more people here would take this approach to this very delicate situation instead of being all gung ho to make Iran glow, or take them out, or whatever other term is used. Unfortunately, many people think that this would be easy when Iraq should show anyone with a brain that it most definitely will not be.
In fact, military action against Iran would be far more problematic than what we have faced in Iraq, and Iraq certainly hasn’t been easy. For one thing, we are already spread thin in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is a much bigger country with a population that is probably much more likely to rally around their leaders in the event of an attack. The economic ramifications would be disastrous for obvious reasons. We could never expect anywhere near the kind of support, militarily or logistically, we had going into Iraq. And finally, the mismanagement of the first few years of the Iraq campaign has turned off the vast majority of Americans to any further pre-emptive campaigns.
> A “Parthian Shot” from President Bush, eh?
>
> Somehow I don’t see that as part of his style but I could be wrong.
What I found interesting about the idea was the timing. I am generally in favor of toppling Iran, sooner rather than later.
Observing this timing (Post Oct 1 — Pre US Election) does two interesting things. First, the Shiites will be re-confirmed in Iraq: they hold a 60% Majority. So they should be happy, and perhaps less likely to interfere in Iran when it gets invaded. So just possibly they would be a reasonably-stable reasonably-happy Shiite government.
And second, it would have a very interesting effect on the US Elections. It would be a poison chalice for any Democrat government, to try to conduct/wind down a war in its early stages. I’d bet they couldn’t and wouldn’t do it: they’d just have to pursue the war as best they could AND continue in IRAQ. And in the event of a Republican victory, it would kind of force McCain into being a wartime President, which would have a dampening effect on his tendency to want to do Liberal things.
It may even have an interesting effect, his ability to reach across the house. He may actually be able to unify the US Government in its conduct of the war, if he is plunked in the early stages of an Iran invasion and thus forced to act.
Dunno. It would be nice to think all of this COULD happen.
I don’t know if the Joint Chiefs would go for it knowing that Hillary Clinton will likely assume command in a couple months.
I am just angry and do not understand after so long we we are putting up with this.
My belief has been and remains that we will need a strong and capable Iraqi Army to help in a war with Iran. It won’t be just America or the usual piddling “contributions” from other countries.
We have spent years...I repeat...years preparing for this moment in time. Our military planners know that you don’t take down a nation of 70 million overnight. Some people have put up maps showing all the different bases surrounding Iran..and Iran is surrounded.
Also, we would be fools to shoot before WE are ready. We would also be fools to underestimate their capabilities even if their resources are limited. Theirs is a culture of “fight to the last man”. Even if an overwhelming 2/3rds of the population welcomes us, the other 1/3 will be far more difficult to “pacify” than those in Iraq.
The long term commitments to regime change in Iran are on a whole other scale. I hate, really hate, to say it, but the UN might have to get involved in a big way too. Just look at the friggin’ map. That Iran might become subdivided along ethnic lines is something to consider as well.
Look back at what Eisenhower did. Fact #1. Did you know that at West Point that Eisenhower won ALL his war games? Behind that performance was the quintessential planner. Even though plans don’t survive the first bullet, plans are still needed and must provide some benefit. I can’t help but think that the full scope of the planning for the D-Day invasion helped keep casualties down. After all was said and done, it was something like 5% or so of the fighting force that was killed or wounded. That’s incredibly low.
Think of all the invasions that were disasters with massive losses of life.
Similarly, our planners, I bet, feel very comfortable with working out scenarios where we will see a combination of high precision destruction of high value targets, with a minimum of collateral damage and a minimum of loss of life of our troops. And, again, in retrospect, history will marvel at the skill with which we put Iran out of business.
I don't know. As much as he likes to play the maverick and stick it to the GOP whenever he can he's the only candiste of three that I believe really has the best interest of America at heart. McCain saw the problems in Iraq before anyone in the administration or the Pentagon did so maybe he could handle the situation. The trick would be to hit Iran hard enough to stop nuclear developement and prevent their navy from creating havoc in the Gulf. We'll see...
This is a long time coming.
I don’t know if Reagan did anything under the radar, but this is a long time coming.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.