From our friends at Newsmax.
“The Iranians are calling this a ‘pilot plant,'” one Israeli analyst noted. “But this isn’t a pilot plant; 3,000 centrifuges give them the capability of producing one significant quantity of nuclear fuel per year.”
Invade NOW! I’m sure we can scrape together 15-20K troops, eh?
Yeah, it’s not like Iran has a million active military or anything. But we’ll be fine. The Spartans did ok, right?
Is there a way to short Israel?
I would be worried about Iran’s military if we set a goal to take out nuclear facilities, however. Large quantities of men using 1970s equipment definitely win over fuel air explosives and M1 Abrams in a head to head fight.
I wouldn’t be worried about anything Iran could do to us other than a nuclear strike through a third party. Maybe the Israelis, other middle eastern countries, people who have a lot of vested intrest in the price of oil should be worried. Iran’s conventional military, no matter its size, poses no threat to us. They are very far away, have no naval power at all compared to us, and have no ability to attack any country further away than Israel.
EDIT: A strike against their nuclear facilities, if it was from the air, might be faster than the mobilization of their army, and their navy could be destroyed before they knew what the fuck was going on.
I think you have a more realistic assessment of our military capabilities than most. The ability to strike, militarily, would not be the problem. We probably have not had a country in the last 40 years (other than the Soviets) where we could not maul their army and destroy particular targets if we really wanted to. People need to stop confusing our military ability to do something with our desire to do it.
The problems would be: (i) the ongoing terrorist acts and guerilla war that would result, which our military clearly does not deal with as well; and (ii) whether we would actually be willing to use the required force in the first place (e.g. killing a shitload of Iranians, and not playing the “don’t hurt the civilians/smartbombs” game).
Likely whichever president makes the decision to go ahead will lob some cruise missiles at it, and forget it was ever a problem until some jihadist obliterates Los Angeles.
Yup, because that’s totally working out for us in Iraq. Now, imagine that, only intensified by about 10,000%.
Glad you agree. It did work perfectly.
For them.
How so? Please remember to read what I wrote, rather than what you assume I wrote.
Sure, and it’s still working perfectly right this minute. But I’m worried, because this kind of perfection smells an awful lot like failure.
Wars are not just about the first strike. But hey, Mission Accomplished, right?
Yeah, we won the war easily. It’s the peace afterwards…
I did not write anything about that. I’m not sure why you are suggesting I did. But you are presupposing everytime you write. That I suggested that everything is dependent on a first strike, which I never wrote. That it would involve a war, which I do not think is proven or certain by any means. That we would attempt to occupy Iran, in the same way we have in Iraq.
All of these things are assumptions that are made not because they have been thought through, but because it is so much fun, and so easy, to reach into the bag of existing arguments we have and slap them on the next thing to come down the road. Hey, I’ll just say “Vietnam” with respect to the Grenada invasion, I win! Look, I can push my “I win, Iraq” button for this here Iranian thingie that we are loosely discussing.
There is no point to going further. You are discussing Iraq, and I am discussing Iran. Some of Iraq’s lessons may be applicable there. Some may not. Apparently, you have drawn a lesson from Iraq that the U.S. military is incapable of killing large numbers of people and destroying facilities, which is admittedly entirely new to me. I think we have shown a great ability, while trying to minimize damage, to kill large numbers of people and destroy facilities in Iraq. I guess our opinions differ.
Aww, calm down there, Sly. You’re just making it sound as if a military strike on Iran would be easy, that there would be relatively few consequences. There’s plenty to suggest that a strike against Iran would be a disaster for us – you can’t just go in, drop bombs on their nuclear facilities, and expect that they won’t counter-attack. I know it’s the American way to underestimate your enemy, but come on. Iran is far better prepared for this than Iraq, even if they don’t have the tech to match. Our military is stretched too thin to even think about this right now.
An attempt to remove Iran’s nuclear threat militarily, by either the US or Israel, would fail and would result in a wider war.
This is bad, if you’re taking notes.
If I’m making it sound that way, that wasn’t the intent. I understand and agree with most of what you are saying here, which is different than what you said in beginning. And all I said is that our military would have no problem dealing with Iran’s. I still remember discussing Iraq’s scary “Fourth largest army in the world” back in the days of the first gulf war, and how it would be a complete quagmire. I did not say the after effects would be easy, just that Iran’s army is using 1970s technology and tactics against a military capable of slaughtering large numbers of people on a scale never before seen in history.
In other words, my statement was purely in regard to your “million active military” comment, nothing more.
Sorry to be a pain, I just had the feeling of people criticising things I didn’t say.
I think where I make the mistake is discussing things that can not happen. Iraq is supposedly such an incredible boondoggle, but for the average American, it has not made one bit of difference in their daily life, beyond maybe paying a little extra at the pump. We are not “stretched” in an historic sense; I’d say it is exactly the opposite. We are “stretched” under the American definition of the word, meaning we don’t want to do anything more than throw away some lives and splash billions in cash on the project. So long as it doesn’t get in the way of the Christmas shopping season.
I look at that and think too literally, at the resources we could project, and it is a joke to me that the Iranian military could resist the U.S. if it was serious. But that is stupid of me, because we are not going to be “total war” serious about something like this, and it is somewhat stupid for me to pretend it could be the case. Believe it or not, I’m pretty happy that is not the case.
So you have a society of mostly under 30 open minded individuals who want the freedoms and luxuries of the west. Only problem is their leaders are crazy and are about to obtain WMD.
sounds like california in the 60’s when Raygun was gov.
They’ll greet us as liberators, that’s what you’re saying? Throw flowers at our feet? Man, that sounds good. How long do you think it will take, six days? Six weeks? I doubt six months, don’t you?
I suggest we bomb Tehran, and the areas somewhat East, West, North, and South. That should catch all the WMDs.
H.
The main problem I’ve read is that we don’t have good intelligence on where all the Iranian research sites are and the ones we know about are bombproofed to the extent we might have to use tactical nukes to break into the underground bunkers. And, frankly, is the Israel analyst the guy to listen to when you want impartial intel about anything in the Middle East?
Clearly we link up with the “Movies” folder and send Rambo. He’s found Vietnam prisoners before, he can find and destroy hardened nuclear facilities.