Posted on 09/18/2019 9:12:59 AM PDT by gandalftb
Indeed - Nothing is holding you back, dear Saudis
You’ve got the weapons, feel free to go after Iran. No doubt you can have your Imam’s whip up some frenzy against the infidel Shiites.
But do it without us this time.
Pompeo flew to Saudi Arabia and the UAE early this morning.
We are now on a Level 2 travel alert (of 4) For areas near Yemen:
Before any retaliation, we and our allies have to be ready for a full scale war with Iran.
That means the Gulf shipping, all the Arabian peninsula, all our forces in Iraq and Syria, Israel, very complicated to “lock and load”.
“WTF? The Saudis have AWACS! We sold it to them. Put 2 of them up, along with 100 fighters, for a week straight to keep anything else from getting through.”
Because they also suck at CAP (combat air patrol) and C4 (command, control, communication, coordination). If they were even minimally competent, they’d have caught slow-moving drones and relatively slow cruise missiles well away from any strategically important sites, like maybe oil refineries making up HALF their refining capacity.
Even if those drones and cruise missiles were flying nap of the earth they could have been detected. But the Saudis suck at both the offense and the defense, so there’s always that to consider... ;-)
Henry Kissinger
Yep. The whole way this was reported was about justifying a price increase. BTW, that is about a 20% price increase - overnight.
Iran wants to be blamed. They want a non response to demonstrate that neither the US or SA can afford a war in the Persian Gulf. And they are right. A war with air attacks and missiles flying back and forth across the Gulf is a war Iran can endure while the the US and SA could not. Not to mention stopping all oil tanker shipments.
We have no choice but to continue sanctions and work with SA to significantly improve their defenses.
Screw Pompeo and the other warmongers. I trust Trump that he won't send a single U.S. asset into play against Iran over this nonsense.
Saudis want to mess with Tehran? Go right ahead. You bought our best toys. Do your worst. Israel wants a piece? Do a joint strike with them.
Or better yet? How about not attacking Iran, making peace with Yemen and ending that pointless mayhem, and keeping oil prices steady? Pay the rebels $10 billion to go away. That's your prince's lunch money for a year.
I wonder what Saudi Arabia is going to do about this, other than asking us to bomb Iran.
The Iranians are really working overtime trying to get someone... anyone to just kick their ass all over the gulf! Everyone with skin in the game is waiting for the U.S. to do something... well, the Iranians aren’t worth one precious drop of piss from one single solitary U.S. serviceman.
If I were an advisor, I’d advise President Trump short of a situation where immediate retribution is warranted, to wait for a declaration of war from Congress. Let Congress put our money where their mouths are; then Trump can be the Commander in Chief and proceed to kick the snot out of the Iranians.
It really doesn't seem too much to ask that exporting nation and its customers to protect the agents of their transactions and not ask a rival exporter to do so. Nobody appears to be asking the Russian navy to guard the tankers or protect the refineries and port facilities because they know the answer they'd get.
It is a little dismaying to hear the liberal media and the Democrats beating the war drums like it's going out of style but then they've done it before: recall that Hillary, Kerry, Biden, and a host of others were all about attacking Iraq until they weren't, and their media allies have done their best to sell the "corrected" amnestic narrative now that it is politically expedient. The cost for that flip-flop is that it has become obvious that they can't be trusted and shouldn't be listened to.
Time to open a manual perhaps? Boeing tech support?
Or maybe they could just hire the French.
Well said and dittos.
Having dealt with the UAE’s poor excuse for an army, I have no doubt you are correct! But this IMO is a prime opportunity to get our navy back in shape by having them take out the Iranian Navy!
Update:
Pompeo arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia about 20 minutes ago.
Several reports that Pompeo told reporters on the plane that this attack was an “act of war”. Sen. Graham said the same thing.
It’s very hard to “see” anything below about 1,000 feet unless you have been tipped off and specifically looking.
Ground observers in Kuwait reported sightings below 750 feet. Given the flat terrain, lack of ground radar, attacking in a swarm, they could be missed.
We have a number of IR sats that would show the hot exhaust tracking after the fact, when the data is uploaded and analyzed, which takes time.
There are a number of crippling options.
90% of Iran’s oil goes through Kharg Island.....mine it.
The Iranians love their ATM machines......we can make them go dark, hello civil war.
“Having dealt with the UAE’s poor excuse for an army, I have no doubt you are correct! But this IMO is a prime opportunity to get our navy back in shape by having them take out the Iranian Navy!”
They like to play up the so-called effectiveness of their “swarm” attacks, in which they send many small boats (not ships, because I’m not even really sure they have any true man ‘o war type vessels) at a larger ship to overwhelm the big ship’s defensive and offensive capabilities, but I think that would be a fool’s errand against any U.S. Navy man ‘o war. Just the point defense armaments alone would sort them about in a few seconds.
Now imagine a naval air component (let alone a land-based air support tasking) linked into those Navy ships, which is practiced by our forces all the time. That’s a fight the Iranians can’t win and they know it, so they’re playing a different sort of game here, I think. Perhaps with land-based anti-ship batteries and the like.
BREAKING: US Secretary of State says Saudi oil attacks are an act of war - @AFP
12:34 PM · Sep 18, 2019
“Several reports that Pompeo told reporters on the plane that this attack was an “act of war”. Sen. Graham said the same thing.”
There are many ways to fight a war without actually engaging in military combat. Bankrupting the Iranians and cutting them off from everything and anything is one such way. Their citizenry is going to suffer, of course, but they’re already suffering and the sooner it were done the sooner it would be over.
Also of course: we wouldn’t be able to count on the cheese-eating-surrender-monkey French and the schnapps-swilling Germans — or much of the EU — to back our play, so there’s always that to consider as well... ;-)
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