Iran Lashing Out Randomly At World - A Dark Scenario
Has anyone noticed yet that Iran recently seems to have launched a series of terrorist attacks against a widely disparate group of countries? Iran has attacked (Asian) Georgia, India
( Read more... )
The cold fact is that the US can take Iran, militarily, on our own. We wouldn't need a lot of foreign support, aside from that of places like Kuwait and Bahrain to serve as staging areas and lines of supply. Both of whom I think would be just as happy to be rid of Iran as well. So that's pretty cut and dry. Iran would probably hold up little better than Iraq did in '91, and for much the same reasons.
On the other hand, the long term is much bleaker. Our manpower is stretched well beyond the breaking point as it is. The US simply wouldn't be able to properly occupy Iran when they capitulated. Not while we are holding onto Iraq and Afghanistan as well. Even the forces we had during the peak of the "Coalition of the Willing" contributions wouldn't suffice. Not when toppling Iran would undoubtedly make countries like Pakistan and others tenser, and perhaps push them, if not to war, at least to hostility.
If we want to not only beat Iran, but truly defeat them for the long haul, we would need the aid of allies willing to commit numerous soldiers. Say, India or China. Both of whom would be hard to persuade to get involved unless Iran threatens them openly. Without the support of allied troops, there's just not much chance of us being able to properly hold Iran, and we'd be forced to leave too soon. Probably wouldn't turn out any better than when we left Iraq in '91.
So, while we could handle Iran easily enough at the moment in a "war", unless we want to make it into a series of conflicts spanning decades, we'll need to enlist a lot of help before we start taking any overt action.
Reply
Reply
A protracted occupation of Iran is not necessary to achieve our ends. Preferable, but hardly necessary. We need to let go of this notion that we must reconstruct a country to win the war. Leaving it in smoking ruins, a constant reminder to other would-be aggressor states of the fate they may suffer should they challenge America, is acceptable.
Not while we are holding onto Iraq and Afghanistan as well.
The only real threat to Iraq is Iran: defeat Iran, and Iraq requires little or no occupation. The real threat to Afghanistan is the Pakistani-backed Al Qaeda and Taliban, and we would be in a much stronger postion to deter Pakistan with the Iranian regime out of the equation.
Not when toppling Iran would undoubtedly make countries like Pakistan and others tenser, and perhaps push them, if not to war, at least to hostility.
I seriously disagree with the curious notion that the spectacle of one country being defeated by America, its regime toppled and its high officials executed or imprisoned is likely to make other countries go "Oooh! We want the same thing to happen to ourselves!" This would be a curious departure from the norm of human psychology and sociology, if it happened. The more normal response is "Crap! We don't want this to happen to us, so we'd better not provoke the guy who did it!"
Without the support of allied troops, there's just not much chance of us being able to properly hold Iran, and we'd be forced to leave too soon. Probably wouldn't turn out any better than when we left Iraq in '91.
If by that you mean "A stern lesson to other aggressor States, a rise in the American reputation, and then 12 years later a protracted but low-casualty war that sees our homeland untouched and the enemy homeland made a live-fire training zone, with light American and horrendous enemy casualties," then I'm not sure why you consider this such an unfavorable outcome for us.
We were so spoiled by the absurdly one-sided victorious nature of Desert Storm that we imagined the more mildy one-sided victorious nature of Iraqi Freedom to be "failure" -- aided by a near-treasonous US Democratic Party in 2004 and 2008, which tried to paint this victory as defeat. By the standards of normal military history, we've done quite well in Iraq.
So, while we could handle Iran easily enough at the moment in a "war", unless we want to make it into a series of conflicts spanning decades, we'll need to enlist a lot of help before we start taking any overt action.
The more help the merrier -- but, if we use "multi-lateralism" as an excuse to avoid taking action, or at least sufficiently decisive action, we may find our caution getting us into an avoidable atomic war. If we could pick either attacking soon or attacking with many allies, I'd pick "attacking soon." Most of our allies aren't worth all that much on the battlefield anyway, and the UN is a mirage.
Reply
We must not forget history. Germany after WWI and Iraq after Desert Storm have proven that merely going in and leveling a hostile nation, and then leaving, doesn't "solve" the problem. It just postpones it.
"I seriously disagree with the curious notion that the spectacle of one country being defeated by America, its regime toppled and its high officials executed or imprisoned is likely to make other countries go "Oooh! We want the same thing to happen to ourselves!""
Didn't Iran just watch us do this to TWO neighboring countries during the last decade? And yet THEY are still asking for it? Similarly, Syria watched us level Lybia's military because they were gunning down civilians, and yet...
It's not a matter of the future fighting being "easy" or "low cost", it's the fact that we shouldn't be satisfied with establishing a policy of going into a country once each decade a leveling it. It becomes a money pit. Even more so than rebuilding a nation does. We spent decades rebuilding our enemies after WWII, and now we have productive nations that CONTRIBUTE to our economic growth.
Even our quick victories are costly in monetary terms, to say nothing about the loss of life. Yes, a few hundred deaths are trivial in the face of wars of the past, but they are still a few hundred DEATHS that were the result of fighting the same war that was fought a decade ago. Then there are the few hundred billion dollars we'd be spending to erase their infrastructure...AGAIN. We should be satisfied with this? Our children should be content to fight the exact same enemies their fathers fought? For the exact same reasons?
Is it not the duty of us, as parents, to do our best to NOT pass on our fights to our children? Maybe they will have to deal with new enemies, sure, but at least they won't have to deal with OUR enemies simultaneously.
Reply
We did not "level" Germany after WWI, nor did we do anything even slightly like that. The most we did was impose reparations payments on the Germans, and we loaned them the money to make the payments (which Churchill described as a "sad bit of complicated idiocy," btw).
Nor did we "level" Iraq after Desert Storm. We smashed some strategic and military targets. Which in fact did prevent Saddam from rebuilding his WMD facilities and much of his military after 1991, making our conquest much easier in 2003.
... doesn't "solve" the problem. It just postpones it.
Often "postponing" the problem is all that one can afford to do at the moment, and sometimes it's enough. "Postponing" the problem of Saddam's wars of aggression and construction of WMD's in 1990-91 weakened him to the point that the next war he launched he launched purely passively, by violating the truce terms, and he had no WMD's to use during that war. Absent Desert Storm, Saddam would have invaded other countries, and he probably would have used nuclear, biological or chemical weapons in the process.
We do not need to utterly defeat Iran, crush its Shi'ite militancy and reconstruct it as a liberal democracy in one fell swoop. Though it would be nice to do all those things, of course.
For now, we merely need to smash the Iranian nuclear program and cripple the Iranian military. If we refuse to de-fang Iran now, because we can't do everything now, we will be facing a bigger and more dangerous Iran in the future, and we will still have to ultimately do everything on the list before we can claim final victory.
"I seriously disagree with the curious notion that the spectacle of one country being defeated by America, its regime toppled and its high officials executed or imprisoned is likely to make other countries go "Oooh! We want the same thing to happen to ourselves!""
Didn't Iran just watch us do this to TWO neighboring countries during the last decade? And yet THEY are still asking for it? Similarly, Syria watched us level Libya's military because they were gunning down civilians, and yet...
How much bolder would they -- and other Terrorist States -- be if we had not taken down Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya? Do you really think our strategic and deterrence position would be better with more Terrorist States carrying out covert wars against us? It's not as if anything but our existence and our un-Muslim freedoms are required to "provoke" their attacks.
It's not a matter of the future fighting being "easy" or "low cost", it's the fact that we shouldn't be satisfied with establishing a policy of going into a country once each decade a leveling it. It becomes a money pit.
Sitting supinely and watching Terrorist States become nuclear-armed Great Powers costs even more than acting to disarm them but failing to complete the conquest. Look, this is the heirachy of values: best action, conquer and recostruct. Worst action, just let them build up until they launch direct large-scale overt wars aginst us. Launching mid-sized disarming wars against them is somewhere in between.
And yes, by the standards of most wars, our wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have been easy and low-cost, relative to our resources, in both blood and treasure. No scare-quotes required. Compare any of the three wars and multiple campaigns referenced to the Korean or Vietnam Wars, let alone the World Wars. We lost more men and materiel in single battles of World War II than we've lost in the whole cycle of fighting that started in 1991, let alone 2003.
Reply
Actually, why does it have to BE America that does that? There's a teeny little nation that America simply has to throw it's support behind, let off the leash and let their agents handle the job. Israel has every reason on the list to want to ensure that Iran will NEVER be a danger to them. That Iran also becomes less of a threat to everyone else is pure gravy as far as they're concerned - and should be.
We lost more men and materiel in single battles of World War II than we've lost in the whole cycle of fighting that started in 1991, let alone 2003.
And with the advancement of technology, Western armies stand to lose even less in the cost of human lives on their side. I keep boggling all the more still with the rather idiotic idea that war has to be 'fair', as if it were a game of soccer. Human history alone shows the increasing escalation of weapons superiority and tactics results in the winner in the long run. Suits of armor deflect arrows? Crossbows rendered that obsolete. Then guns went in, and have stayed ever since, with bigger guns till we mounted the cannons on tanks and put the guns and cannons on airplanes, and then ... yeah you see where I'm going with this.
Reply
I'm in favor of whoever doing it who wants to step up to the plate. If no one stops Iran, the cost will be terrible -- and yes, Israel is one of the countries, capable of stopping Iran, which has the most to lose if Iran is not stopped.
And with the advancement of technology, Western armies stand to lose even less in the cost of human lives on their side.
Yes, exactly. In the fighting between 1991 and the present day, Western and particularly American losses have been very light, for very heavy loss inflicted on the foe. The notion that we have taken "heavy" losses in the War on Terror requires a near-complete ignorance of military history to seem credible.
Reply
Yes, it would be better to go in and finish the job. But if we decide we can't afford that, the next best thing is to go in and kill enemies and break their toys. Every enemy we kill, and every toy we break, is one enemy that can't play with that toy against us in the next war.
You are being deeply unrealistic because you are not seeing that the alternative to a Desert Storm may be not an Iraqi Freedom, but instead a Pearl Harbor. Or worse, a Singapore.
Remember this: the British Empire never recovered from 1939-45. This historical fact gets obscured by the stirring speeches of Winston Churchill and the heroism of the British during the war, but the reality is that Britain lost her empire and had her cultural morale broken: she's still falling apart in consequence of her unpreparedness in 1939. Anyone who deeply studies British history realizes that it would have been far, far better for the British to have smashed Hitler's regime when it was young and weak in the mid-1930's, even if it had been an unpopular and only partially-successful war, than it was for the British to wait until they had close to unified popular support and allies on their side, as was the case in 1939.
It could happen to us, too.
And even short of that, do we want to see American, European or Israeli cities dying under atomic attack? Or all the Iranian cities dying under the inevitable retaliation? I don't even really want us to have to kill most of the Iranians, and still less do I want us to suffer megadeaths.
The extent to which our obvious power is failing to deter Iran is not a good reason for inaction, it is a good reason for action. It is a warning bell that should be making it obvious to us that the Iranian leadership is functionally insane, and cannot be contained by Mutually Assured Destruction.
We're trying to play chess, but the Persians have given up on the game they popularized, and are instead trying to throw the pieces at us preparatory to screaming and leaping over the board.
We must acknowledge reality.
Reply
Is it not the duty of us, as parents, to do our best to NOT pass on our fights to our children? Maybe they will have to deal with new enemies, sure, but at least they won't have to deal with OUR enemies simultaneously.
That is an argument for pre-emptive nuclear warfare against Iran (and probably Pakistan as well), not inaction. Was that the argument you meant to make?
Reply
At what point did I say what should be done is to allow Iran to become stronger?
At what point did I say what should be done is to pussy-foot around?
Never did I say, or even suggest, those things. I stated the likely outcome of sole military action against Iran. I stated that if this problem is to be solved for future generations, we must bring others along with us. That was all.
Tell me where history has shown me to be wrong? Tell me how "dissuaded" Iran has become as a direct result of our toppling two other regimes in the area for similar affronts? Tell me how regimes in that area, once beaten by our forces have been cowed enough to never posture against us again? Israel has regularly smacked down her enemies, and yet they still swat at her. It should be different for us why?
I didn't say "wait and see". I didn't say "let's not be hasty". I didn't even say "we should consider other options".
If that was what you took away, then that was a result of your own internal thought process, not my words.
I stated very clearly that, on our own, we would handily defeat Iran, much the same way we did Iraq and Afghanistan. We could start the conflict as soon as next week, and be done before Thanksgiving. What I also said was that without a significant contribution of manpower, we would be forced to withdraw shortly afterwards, leaving behind a devastated Iran that would fester with anger and resentment until we found ourselves right back here in ten or twenty years. That is not an argument against action.
That is an argument for not acting alone.
Reply
Reply
In which case, we really need to support Israel all the more. As I've stated above, it's THE country that has the big target on it, and has every reason to want to destroy military targets and eliminate threats.
Reply
Leave a comment