Posted on 05/17/2019 3:29:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
Speaking on state TV of the prospect of a war in the Gulf, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei seemed to dismiss the idea.
"There won't be any war. ... We don't seek a war, and (the Americans) don't either. They know it's not in their interests."
The ayatollah's analysis -- a war is in neither nation's interest -- is correct. Consider the consequences of a war with the United States for his own country.
Iran's hundreds of swift boats and handful of submarines would be sunk. Its ports would be mined or blockaded. Oil exports and oil revenue would halt. Air fields and missile bases would be bombed. The Iranian economy would crash. Iran would need years to recover.
And though Iran's nuclear sites are under constant observation and regular inspection, they would be destroyed.
Tehran knows this, which is why, despite 40 years of hostility, Iran has never sought war with the "Great Satan" and does not want this war to which we seem to be edging closer every day.
What would such a war mean for the United States?
It would not bring about "regime change" or bring down Iran's government that survived eight years of ground war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
If we wish to impose a regime more to our liking in Tehran, we will have to do it the way we did it with Germany and Japan after 1945, or with Iraq in 2003. We would have to invade and occupy Iran.
But in World War II, we had 12 million men under arms. And unlike Iraq in 2003, which is one-third the size and population of Iran, we do not have the hundreds of thousands of troops to call up and send to the Gulf.
Nor would Americans support such an invasion, as President Donald Trump knows from his 2016 campaign. Outside a few precincts, America has no enthusiasm for a new Mideast war, no stomach for any occupation of Iran.
Moreover, war with Iran would involve firefights in the Gulf that would cause at least a temporary shutdown in oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz -- and a worldwide recession.
How would that help the world? Or Trump in 2020?
How many allies would we have in such a war?
Spain has pulled its lone frigate out of John Bolton's flotilla headed for the Gulf. Britain, France and Germany are staying with the nuclear pact, continuing to trade with Iran, throwing ice water on our intelligence reports that Iran is preparing to attack us.
Turkey regards Iran as a cultural and economic partner. Russia was a de facto ally in Syria's civil war. China continues to buy Iranian oil. India just hosted Iran's foreign minister.
So, again, Cicero's question: "Cui bono?"
Who really wants this war? How did we reach this precipice?
A year ago, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a MacArthurian ultimatum, making 12 demands on the Tehran regime.
Iran must abandon all its allies in the Middle East -- Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza -- pull all forces under Iranian command out of Syria, and then disarm all its Shiite militia in Iraq.
Iran must halt all enrichment of uranium, swear never to produce plutonium, shut down its heavy water reactor, open up its military bases to inspection to prove it never had a secret nuclear program and stop testing missiles. And unless she submits, Iran will be strangled with sanctions.
Pompeo's speech at the Heritage Foundation read like the terms of some conquering Caesar dictating to some defeated tribe in Gaul, though we had yet to fight and win the war, usually a precondition for dictating terms.
Iran's response was to disregard Pompeo's demands.
And crushing U.S. sanctions were imposed, to brutal effect.
Yet, as one looks again at the places where Pompeo ordered Iran out -- Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza, Syria, Iraq -- no vital interest of ours was imperiled by any Iranian presence.
The people who have a problem with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are the Israelis whose occupations spawned those movements.
As for Yemen, the Houthis overthrew a Saudi puppet.
Syria's Bashar Assad never threatened us, though we armed rebels to overthrow him. In Iraq, Iranian-backed Shiite militia helped us to defend Baghdad from the southerly advance of ISIS, which had taken Mosul.
Who wants us to plunge back into the Middle East, to fight a new and wider war than the ones we fought already this century in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen?
Answer: Pompeo and Bolton, Bibi Netanyahu, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Sunni kings, princes, emirs, sultans and the other assorted Jeffersonian democrats on the south shore of the Persian Gulf.
And lest we forget, the never-Trumpers and neocons in exile nursing their bruised egos, whose idea of sweet revenge is a U.S. return to the Mideast in a war with Iran, which then brings an end to the Trump presidency.
The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot, poorly sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn’t know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good thing!
9:44 AM · May 17, 2019
“The modern Russian T-14 Armata is impressive.”
On paper maybe.
To date they have taken delivery of less than two dozen tanks for evaluation, and may take delivery of only 100 out of the previously planned 2,300 Armata’s due to cost.
The Russians have decided to spend their money upgrading existing T-72, T-80, and T-90 (itself a modernized T-72) tanks.
Let the Iranian people achieve it, then. The US can help, but not with boots on the ground.
As usual, Pat’s reflexive antipathy for Israel clouds his judgment. He is right that a war is not in America’s interests, but it’s also not in Israel or Saudi Arabia’s interests, either.
Fortunately, there are plenty of Iranians who also want regime change, especially the oppressed ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, and forward-thinking Iranians. Let them handle whatever fighting there might be. America is well out of it, and well able to supply arms, logistics and intelligence, without getting embroiled.
And then there are sanctions. Keep them in effect. War? As Isaac Asimov said, violence is the first resort of the incompetent.
“The M1 was excellent in Desert Storm, completely unmatched. The world has changed. We need to revamp our forces first.”
Sure agree with that. Just out of curiosity I did a little reading on the Russian T-14. It’s an interesting concept; on the path toward an autonomous battlefield. But, the Russians are not even close to putting this tank into operation. First of all Russia doesn’t have the money and won’t have for the foreseeable future if we continue to be self sustaining with petroleum. But, agree we need to develop new platforms for the battlefield of the future. A good forward thinking post. Thanks.
There are plans for modernizing the force with new systems and/or complete redesigns of legacy systems.
A lot of the technology that was under development for the Future Combat System is being integrated into the legacy systems to not only recapitalize mobility lost due to weight increases, but also to provide better situational awareness and lethality.
The Bradley is going through ECP1 and ECP2 (Engineering Change Proposal) to create the M2A4/M3A4.
The next generation of the Abrams will be lighter, faster, and more lethal than the current M1A2SEPv3. A proposal for the next Abrams is to give it the ability to receive targeting data from drones to be able to hit targets beyond line of sight.
+10.
Good info, thanks.
I noticed that both Russia and US are designing their tanks of the future to be much lighter. To me, this means both believe future Desert Storm size tank battles to be a thing of the past. Also, not as yet noted, the US is light years ahead of Russia, China, anyone, when it comes to the ability to project power and the science and technology of Logistics. We absolutely own this arena. Frankly, I doubt that China or Russia will ever achieve parity with us in this regard. Our superiority goes back to our American Civil War. Russia and China would do well to deliver offensive power to their own borders. Never happen to any meaningful extent to some distant hotspot. My two bits.
Dumbest and costliest reason to go to war. An Archduke - really?
One thing that we completely beat the Russians at, and also likely the Chinese at, is logistics though. Defense procurement can be a clunky, bureaucratic process, but when we get it right, we get it right. Case in point, the proposal to put 30mm on Strykers to beef up their firepower instead of having just a .50 cal went from a whiteboard idea to actually installing 30mm turrets on 2nd Cavalry Regiment in like 18-24 months and having them conduct gunnery in them. JLTV, the HMMWV replacement, I think will be another success story in due time; it’s built on tried and true MRAP technology, taking the existing MATV and making a few tweaks to make it lighter for air transport and for mass production.
As far as logistics when it comes to supply, it may not seem like it sometimes, but we’re light years ahead of the competition. We have prepositioned stock all over the world that deploying troops can fall in on in case of a crisis. We don’t even touch it on Iraq/Afghanistan rotations. It’s purely in case of emergency.
Curious how much of the Bradley modernization will borrow from the AMPV project, and also who will get the modernized Bradleys. Example, our line troops and scouts go out in Bradleys, but their combat engineers go clunking around in ancient M113s which weren’t even IED-resistant in Vietnam and military equipment doesn’t exactly get better with age. We got to make sure our enablers, like engineers, mortar carriers, mobile command posts, armored MEDEVAC, etc., can keep up. I’ve heard some Armored Brigade Combat Teams even used the medical Stryker variant (!!!) even though Strykers are obviously not organic to their unit, just since it’s at least some kind of armored MEDEVAC that’s more capable than a M113 and also more protected than those medical HMMWVs.
All these royal people were related to each other, and they were all trying to avoid a war, and then they all went to war. The world has never really recovered since. It’s been one long chain reaction, 101 years and still going.
AMEN BROTHER!The demographics prove that Iran is dying - the replacement birth rate is something like 1.1 and the necessary birth rate for a country to survive is 2.1 - So if we do nothing Iran will disappear as a nation before 2200. However, long before that Iran will have major problems supporting an increasingly elderly population. In an advanced country like America this is a problem, but for a third world country like Iran it’s a disaster. Iran has been so aggressive the last few years because the Iranian leadership understands the demographics problem, so they must move now secure the empire. Like the man said, “Never attack your enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.”
Who Wants This War With Iran?
___________________________________________________
Neo-cons, Never-trumpers, Dems who want to see both Trump and the Republican Party lose heavily in the future, and morons.
My understanding is that the AMPV and the Bradley ECP’s are using a lot of the technologies that were researched under the now defunct FCS (Future Combat Systems) program.
The AMPV is 78% bigger than the old M113 that it’s replacing, it’s better armored than the M113, and faster too which means the engineers, medics, mortars,and the command section can finally keep up with the Abrams and Bradley’s.
The new M109A7 is pretty much mechanically the same as the Bradley. They have the same power packs, final drives, tracks, suspension, etc. With the greater mobility, these can now keep up with the Abrams and Bradley’s too. The M109A7 is also using technology from the N-LOS and Crusader.
The Stryker is a joke, and has always been a joke. It’s general shinseki’s parting FU gift to the Army. They never met the basic requirements of being rapidly deployable roll on/roll off a C130 with little or no preparation. They have limited off road capability (tracked vehicles are better off road than wheeled vehicles)
Stryker brigades don’t even deploy them. They fall in on MRAPs downrange and this has been the case since like 2011. MATV, RG-31, or the Cougar (Marines) are all MRAPs in our inventory now and used downrange, and they do a good job at light-medium wheeled armor. Instead of throwing more money to revamp Strykers, I say just use the proven MRAP series of vehicles. But, I don’t make that call :(
The Stryker has been downrange to Iraq and Afghanistan from ‘03 to ‘11.
But yeah once everything started to wind down they pulled all the remaining strykers out and let the troops fall in on the RG-31’s, MaxxPRO’s, etc that we’re still in country. And I agree that nothing should be spent on them.
The Stryker was nothing more than a niche vehicle suited more for peace keeping in Bosnia or Kosovo because that’s what shinseki and his cronies in the infantry mafia envisioned the future was going to be.
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