[Splinter]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
Let the Israelis handle it. They've dealt with the atomic-bomb programs of their neighbors before.

Unfortunatly the Iranians realise this as well and have dispersed thier nuclear sites across the country instead of one active plant...

[Bobboau]

I was refering to the "we'll have to find something worht bombing first"

I'd take anything Bush says seriosly, realy I didn't think he'd be stupid enough to bomb a country (Iraq) for something they didn't actualy do (makeing weapons of mass distraction, er distruction) and look were that ended up. he went from a 90% aproval rateing to like 50.001%, only our opposition party's sheer and awsome incompetence allowed him to retain power.

[Clave]

Yes, let's bomb Iran before they do something dramatic like engrave another vase!

[vyper]

My God that's hideous! BEGIN THE ASSAULT!

[Clave]

I found some Iranian art while looking for something else - the paintings can go straight in the bin, but the stuff they do engraving metal is just awesome....

[Gank]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
Let the Israelis handle it. They've dealt with the atomic-bomb programs of their neighbors before.

Actually the raid on Iraq didnt do anything to stop the Iraqi nuclear weapons program, in fact according to Israeli, US and IEIA (sp) reports it accelerated. Apparently the Iraqis were cunning enough to keep the weapons part of the program seperate from the reactor everybody knew they had. Who'd have thought.

Originally posted by Zarax
With a small difference: He had (barely) the manpower to back ot up.

How many times does it have to be said, they're planning airstrikes not an invasion.

[Zarax]

Airstrikes alone doesn't mean jack, doing anything without ground support means the iranian army going to make an unfriendly visit to the american troops stationed in iraq or afghanistan.

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by Zarax
Airstrikes alone doesn't mean jack, doing anything without ground support means the iranian army going to make an unfriendly visit to the american troops stationed in iraq or afghanistan.

And get themselves slaughtered. If they want to throw away their troops, bring it on.

[Zarax]

You are overoptimistic my friend, overstretched as they are US troops right now are much easier pickings than usual.
Plus they don't have to mount a full scale offensive, just send a few platoons here and there so that air superiority won't  make too much trouble...

[Clave]

I think they proved in the Iran/Iraq war that they are prepared to spend troops recklessly.  Many countries in that region have fanatical and unpredictable forces - whatever action is taken will result in more mess and chaos....

[Rictor]

But even airstrikes would clearly be considred by Iran, and probably most of the world, as a declaration of war. The US can't handle a ground-war with Iran, regardless of whether the US invades Iran or if Iran decides to protect itself and goes after the US forces conveniently stations across the border. You don't believe that Iran is just going to sit there and take it, do you? In the case of bombing, they would have world opinion squarely on their side (or rather not on their side, but opposed to their enemy which is pretty much the same thing), not to mention Russia and China having a significant stake in contidued stability in Iran, as well as their own AA defences which are probably significant (dunno about that, pulling stuff out of my ass, but its not unlikely.)

[Bobboau]

were overextended to the point that we can't open a new front, I think the biggest impedement to us bombing Iran is not military.

[.::Tin Can::.]

Global Security.org, for all your In-Depth news coverage...

[Flipside]

And we'll have fun fun fun till Daddy takes the H-Bomb away.....

[Gank]

Iran wont attack the US overtly, they'll just send revolutionary guards into Iraq disguised as insurgents. US would slaughter an Iranian ground attack.

[Rictor]

If you think that the US doesn't have sufficient manpower to stage a ground invasion of Iran, why do you think they would have sufficient manpower to destroy an Iranian invasion? In both cases, the players and armies are more or less the same.

Though I think the prospect of Iran attacking is even more far-fetched than the US invading Iran.

[Gank]

Because machine gunning down people running at you and running into someone elses machineguns are two entirely different things. Over simplified but thats the basic difference between attacking and defending.

[vyper]

https://freeinternetpress.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2841

[Zarax]

404

[Janos]

Originally posted by Rictor
If you think that the US doesn't have sufficient manpower to stage a ground invasion of Iran, why do you think they would have sufficient manpower to destroy an Iranian invasion? In both cases, the players and armies are more or less the same.

Though I think the prospect of Iran attacking is even more far-fetched than the US invading Iran.

Iran is much bigger and mountaineus than Iraq. It has an army which, though outdated when compared to 1st world armies, is still much stronger than Iraq's ruined wanna-be army before GW2 - though it wouldn't stand a chance against USA without some miracles, it's a fact worth considering. It is also very tribal area, and invasion of Iran would propably have some longterm political effects in Iraq - namely the Shiites becoming more hostile towards USA, and more destabilization of Afghanistan-Iran-Iraq axis would flame up the "Arab street" (Iranians are not arabs, btw) even more.

The manpower issue is also worth considering. Without some pretty big-scale redeployments the US doesn't have sufficient infantry forces for full-scale war and more importantly the propable insurgency problem afterwards. Air strikes are an option, but would propably just enforce the negative image of US round the world and could actually make the Iranians pursue nuclear weapons even more vigorously.

Draft? Not a chance - no one wants it. Military doesn't want it, those who want to continue their political career oppose it, population would quickly become more against the wars.

Of course neo-cons are complete ****heads and the truth has never stopped them from chasing their ideals.