Posted on 05/02/2012 7:50:41 AM PDT by Strategy
As the US beefs up its military presence in the Persian Gulf region, Pentagon strategists estimate that they would need less than a month to defeat Iranian forces should a military conflict take place.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) believes it can destroy or significantly degrade Iran's conventional armed forces in about three weeks using air and sea strikes, a defense source told The Washington Post.
"We plan for any eventuality we can and provide options to the president," Army Lt. Col. T.G. Taylor, a spokesman at CENTCOM told the newspaper. "We take our guidance from the secretary of defense and from our civilian bosses in [Washington] DC. So any kind of guidance they give us, that's what we go off of [sic]."
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
Wasn’t the same said about Vietnam, North Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan (all with some variation, but with similar meaning)?
Our victory would be to get away from needing to deal with any of these camel jockeys.
We can become energy independent through our own vast gas and oil reserves. That is not what nobama wants, but FUBO.
Let the rest of the world deal with muslims, if they threaten us, give em a mighty sting to warn of worst to come of they persist. These 8th Cemtury idiots are not nearly as gungho as were the Japanese and even they took the hint in 45.
Your post was excellent, from start to finish.
It is one thing to simply knock out Iran's nuclear facilities from the air. Bit if the US wants to "defeat" Iran, that means more widespread destruction, and troops on the ground.
And from that, I guarantee will come "nation-building". Of course, the current administration will call it something different, but we'll be back to building roads, bridges, schools, etc.
And then our troops will be sniped at, and bombs will start exploding in market squares and along convoy routes. We've seen all that before. It will end badly.
As General MacArthur said, never get involved in an Asian land war.
We did destroy and conquer Iraq and Afghanistan in three weeks or less.
Then we got into nation-building...
Which means we would not accomplish what the article supposes. Without getting on the ground and schwacking them directly, "victory" will not occur.
Besides, the unwieldy ROE slapped on our side would prevent it.
——and most detrimental, a religious base rooted in the seventh century.——
Islam is horrible, but not because it was founded in the 7th century. After all, Christianity was founded in the first.
Chronology and truth/goodness are unrelated.
True. I can think of several examples:
Ancient Rome
British Empire
Spanish Empire
Nazi Germany
Imperial Japan
But, you see, we're not really an Imperial power. We don't really take a "colonial" approach to the world.
Here, we value freedom, not subjugation. I don't want to subjugate anyone -- I just want to be free from the thought that they want to pick a fight with us.
Iran has heard this noise for years and has equipped itself with underground bunkers.
Their backers in China and Russia would never stand for our attacking them anyway, and would be pouring aid in there.
Military dominance by itself is useless against a radicalized population, in fact it would likely increase future conflict.
Total war means society against society to see which collective government will prevail.
The only useful goal of any conflict is to get the enemy to stop fighting. Iran, stop fighting?
Conquest always either dies from indigestion or survives from assimilation. I’m not seeing any Planet Hollywoods in downtown Tehran.
Did we hire Baghdad Bob?
Tactics should never lead strategy. (pardon my pun, Strategy)
Our “nation building” in Iraq was more to prevent Iran from easily overrunning Iraq after we trashed their military quite effeciently.
We should offer Iraq some aid in rebuilding, sign a mutual defense treaty with them, leave and dare Iran to do anything.
The one thing I admire about Teddy Roosevelt was his “talk softly and carry a big stick” foreign policy.
This has all the signs of nothing more than a Diplomatic bluff but if say a Romney was POTUS and he started talking like he was serious about it we would have to critically ask what the end-game would be because that certainly was never talked about seriously in the 2002/2003 run-up to Iraq.
Brushing the Iraq defenses a-side was childs play. It was the nightmare that followed that was not thought out seriously.
Yup, and this time the ‘rats wouldn’t question the president if at that point he claimed major combat operations were over.
We should NOT invade Iran unless our strategy is something along the lines of “invade, blow $#!+ up, leave, lather, rinse, repeat.”
“As General MacArthur said, never get involved in an Asian land war.”
I thought it was Vizzini that said that...
It’s silly to discuss invading Iran, because it can’t, and won’t, happen.
Iran’s population is more than either Japan or Germany’s population in 1945, and over twice that of Afghanistan.
The land area is over twice that of Afghanistan.
I guess I should have chosen a different word for it. I was thinking more along the lines of destroying infrastructure without much in the way of feet on the ground.
The theory of “strategic bombing” has been discredited over time, but even if such a strategy doesn’t result in the overthrow of an unfriendly regime from within it would eventually weaken the regime to the point where it is no longer a threat.
Never bet against a Kenyan Marxist when death is on the line! Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha *thud*
“The flaw in this three weeks plan is that it leaves the Ayotollahs in charge (unless Iranians rise up from within). This is not a nation building plan, it’s a plan to reduce Iran’s military so they stop making trouble.
We did not win in Germany and Japan by defeating them and leaving. We wrote the Japanese constitution. I believe political subjugation has been the more common historical model.”
A very clear and cogent analysis of past events.
The only way to “rebuild” Islamic nations — after first defeating them militarily — is to make the -removal- of Islam from those nations priority one.
Just as we “de-Nazified” Germany after World War II, if the West has any hope for survival in the current worldwide struggle, we must de-Islamicize Moslem nations, once and for all.
Otherwise, the West will lose.
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