IRAN

[mburbank]

Oh, nice Boo-Hoo pic by the way, you great big A-hole. I thought my computer had turned into a mirror.

[Abcdxxxx]

My take is that any manuevers against Iran would be precise and contained attacks. The exact details as to what was hit and how it was done would be left for the conspiracists. My guess is the fly over will involve Turkey, and/or India. Iran's recourse would be through their various guerilla armies, rather then an outright breakout of war - unless the administration involves Saudi Arabia. I don't think our own administration has a firm policy, they're just mapping out every crazy option available, so they can change their mind every 10 minutes.

[GAsux]

Combine Iran's continued defiance with regards to their nulear ambitions and couple it with what is at least tacit support of the insurgency in Iraq and you've got some serious issues to deal with. If the Iraq situation wasn't already on the table, I think a lot of people would be changing their tune and saying, this is a serious problem we need to deal with. The Iraq situation has damaged credibility not only operationaly in terms of sapping manpower and funding, but also in terms of prestige. Having seen what's gone on in Iraq for the last few years, public support for ANY military intervention ANYWHERE at this point will be a tough road.

And that's unfortunate because I think the Iranian situation, posturing or otherwise, is 194 times more sinister and has broader international implications than anything that happened in Iraq pre-war.

That said, I'm significantly less convinced that anyone in the D.C. area thinks that military intervention is a desirable course of action at this point. It would be niave to think that there is no planning for such eventualitis, but I think it's a long way from folks in decision making seats saying you know, we need to drop some bombs on those people.

As for the draft, this conversation comes up at every sign of conflict, small or large. This administration does not have the political juice in Congress or in public support to pull off draft legislation, even if they wanted to. Conflict in Iran would involve a heavy does of Air Force and Navy assets with minimal involvement from ground troops anyway.

Unlike the Iraq war, there's no reason to try to take and hold ground in Iran. There's no desire to change their government, other than an attempt at regime change which is all nicely handled via airpower. IF a military action became warranted, even if via some kind of Gulf of Tonkin scenario, you can bank on seeing a heavy dose of cruise missiles aimed at every conceivable significant target in Iran.

My thoughts, anyway.


P.S., no need to overfly Turkey, as the Turks might be reluctant to approve anyway. There's a reason we moved all our assets including C2 stuff into Bahrian, Qatar, Oman, etc and only half of it was because of an effort to reduce the footprint in Saudi Arabia. It's a quick hop across the Gulf with nothing in between. Not to mention easy Naval access.

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by Abcdxxxx

I don't think our own administration has a firm policy, they're just mapping out every crazy option available, so they can change their mind every 10 minutes.

Max and Abcdxxx finally agree on something!

There is a plan for Iran, and it's not a war plan. Think about it: If our plan from the get go was to eventually invade Iran, would we have done up to this point what we actually did do? When we invaded Iraq, we sure as hell didn't give them four years to dig in and build defenses. Sure, Saddam had quite a while between Desert Storms 1 and 2 to think about it, but it's pretty obvious that he never really considered we'd jump.

Iran, on the other hand, is feeling very intimidated by now. It knows whatever defense to an American attack it might mount won't matter in the end, which threatens its already tenuous totalitarian hold on it's citizens. Iranian citizens know for a fact how quickly Iraq's regime fell, and their experience with the Iran/Iraq stalemate proves logically that their own government would surely meet the same fate within a few days of our Bradleys crossing the border. No matter how their government might try to lie about this possible future, the people of Iran aren't going to buy it. They know.

They also know what happened to the people of Iraq once America's military forces muffed the process of waging peace. They probably know better than us just how badly our nation-building skills aren't up to the task of fixing what we broke. Iranians have family and friends in Iraq. They get their newspapers and news reports. They read the Iraqi blogs and whatnot. As much as many, maybe the majority, of the citizens of Iran would rather have a freer style of government, they sure as hell don't want to go through the meat-grinder of American occupation to get it.

All that being said, and in keeping with my previous analogy to China, don't look for a grass-roots revolution as the solution to our issues with Iran...

Let's discuss the government of Iran. As I previously stated, Ahminajihad is decidedly NOT the leader of that country's government. He's much more like their giant foam #1 finger. Iran is run by a massive, theocratic bureaucracy, mob-like in many respects, but with no real single leader. Personally, I find it useful to compare it to the Democrat Party here in the US, but I don't expect you guys to follow me there... It's an elusive pseudo-structure of factions and loose understandings, and it's all about attaining and retaining political power.

As such, it's actually very close to being a modern Democratic society... Throw in real elections, and run them through the WTO's program for sad little nation-states that need a little guidance, and most of our problems with them are solved. I've heard as much as I need to from right-wing ideologues screaming about the outrage of some lily-livered appeasement approach being on the table when Ahminajihad keeps spouting off about the elimination of Israel... Back to my comparison to China: just as the mainland
grows into it's new Capitalist shoes and has less impulsive need to resent America's two China policy regarding Taiwan, so will Iran and the rest of the middle east slowly forget about the specter of the Zionist Entity as the concepts of political and social freedom begin to establish themselves in their respective regressive societies.

Make no mistake; our current diplomatic battles with Iran serves as a proxy-war with the governments of Syria, Saudi and Egypt, too. Saddam was the main bad-actor in the play, and we graciously removed him with no cost whatsoever to his neighbors. By doing so, we did them all a huge favor. They all now have the opportunity for graceful transitions, and they will all take them to save the long-held balance of power in the neighborhood.

Now, enough about what they think. You guys seem more worried about what our side is thinking, anyways, right? Alright, let's get to that...

I read as much as I can of what the decision makers in our government are reading, which is why I feel about the issue as I've stated above. I think I've painted an accurate picture of the situation "on the ground" as I can in a nut-shell format here, and I believe that most of the bureaucrats in our own regime share this perspective. Assuming that's the case, what possible good would war do in this situation? Let's see if we can bolster this a bit, Ok?

Recently, we've announced that Iran has been linked to high-tech new IED material that's responsible for some actual deaths of some actual Americans... surely that's cause for military response, right? Have we attacked yet? Why not? We've also captured many actual Iranians fighting among the insurgency in Iraq... Again, a perfect opportunity to open up a can of Whup-Ass... yet, still no attack... Hmm.... Whomever is holding the reigns on this imminent invasion is obviously waiting on something, and it's obviously not a valid excuse. That we obviously have, and really have had for quite some time now.

Maybe the fact of the matter is that we don't want to do that. Ever. We just aren't going to, pretty much no matter what. This is a fact not because we are scared or that we are pussies or that we have doubts we could pull it off... It's just that we see an obviously better alternative, and we are pursuing that rather than pulling the pin on what would most likely be the biggest grenade the world's ever seen.

Honestly, Max, I'm pretty sure this is just another one of your OMG! threads you've made a habit of throwing out there whenever a ridiculous meme suits your compulsive need to suspect Bush and Cheney to not-so-secretly be really working for the Devil in hopes of transforming the planet we all know and love into a Robo-Cop-slash-Blade-Runner-like version of Hell on Earth, much like Sspad does with crap like his "fear" of an impending draft...

The actual fear you guys have is not that Bush is going to do the absolutely WRONG thing, but that he'll continue to do the right thing. Isn't it? Come ON! You can do it! Admit it... Hell, if you're shy about it, send me a PM and I promise not to tell anybody.