We should nuke them but I am sure we will not until they nuke someone else, and then we will unload on them.
Apparently, you have drawn a lesson from Iraq that the U.S. military is incapable of killing large numbers of people and destroying facilities
I think Iraq and that 10 years leading up to it demonstrated amply that the US military is perfectly capable of levelling a country and killing enormous numbers of people. And that was while apparently trying not to.
This is just surreal.
I have to agree, the crowd here seems completely determined to ignore the subject you are trying to talk about in favor of bitching about Iraq.
Why are people talking about Iraq?
a) It’s relevant. We’ve got what, 135k troops there? What’s more, there have been literally dozens of reports issues about how badly Iraq has damaged our military. It is absolutely true to state that the military is stretched thin because of Iraq; recall that Bush/Rumsfeld abandoned the “two major land wars” doctrine that guided US strategy for the previous several decades.
b) The rhetoric we’re hearing about Iran is very similar to what we’ve heard about Iraq. The whole “twenty months to a bomb” thing is almost a word-for-word replay of what was said about Iraq back in 2002-2003. Likewise, SlyFrog’s absurd “…until some jihadist obliterates Los Angeles.” crack.
c) Iran can make a lot of trouble for us in Iraq.
I got confused especially if what I think is an edit was actually there before, I thought the point was that if you take a “fuck the consequences/Collateral damage” approach with Iran that the US military could steamroller their way from one border to next, levelling everything without having to turn the place into glass. With Iraq being held up as an example as to how the US military was now incapable of doing just that, despite demontrating more than amply that even while they’re trying not to totally flatten the country and kill thousands of people that this is exactly what they’ve done and that everything after “mission accomplished” is just highlighting a total inability to come up with and successfully execute a plan for what to do afterwards.
What did I miss? Are we not pondering whether if US put it’s mind to it, and thought “bugger the consequences” that it’s military could flatten in Iran from border to border in a matter of weeks, if not days? If we are, I say they could and again, cite Iraq as a prime example of doing just that. If not then erm, I’m just lost.
[edit] But Iraq is also relevant in so far as the bulk of the US military machine is currently tied up there wearing out kit quicker than it is being replaced. So could the US military steamroller it’s way across Iran tomorrow without abandoning Iraq and then just go home afterwards and hope the middle east sorts itself out? That I’m not sure about.
Something to keep in mind is that the Iranian population may not like their government, but they like our government even less. All this talk to Bush blowing up the place just reinforces Jacket Man’s control.
Living in Israel, articles like this make me wonder if I should start making plans for, a year from now, moving back to the US where it’s nice and safely far away from insane WMD-developing fanatics.
Oh well, I’m just waiting for the day Iran nukes this country into the dust and sends me into final oblivion. :)
While I am sure Iran really is after nukes, why should I beleive in any kind of time table presented by any western powers, espeically from the US government? They were so sure Iraq had WMD, and even had secret proof they couldn’t reveal to the world for security reasons. Look how that turned out.
The USA doesn’t need another war, and certainly doesn’t need to damage its image any further.
Nobody is denying or would even doubt that the US could deliver some very damaging initial airstrikes to Iran, or pretty much any other opponent. The problem is what happens afterward, which renders those first strikes mostly inconsequential. Even if Paul Wolfowitz or whoever could wave his fairy godmother wand and turn the entire Iranian army into pumpkins at midnight, it is – particularly considering Iraq in retrospect – tremendously obvious to everyone but SlyFrog that this is not “winning the war.” It’s merely the prelude to an unwinnable occupation, and probably further widening of the conflict. (And now SlyFrog is trying to pretend that this is what he was talking about. He picked a funny way to do it, no?)
How long until it’s America against everyone else? BUT NO, KEWL PLANEZ… WAIT I MEAN YEAH. Way to prefigure the initial public response to an invasion of Iran.
So, they don’t like their leaders…neither do most of us.
So we either try and make nice and hope the next generations are friendly (gee aren’t we doing business with nam, and China, Russia and other former mortal threats)
or we piss off the entire populace and hope they don’t send in waves of suicide bombers.
face it, soon everyone is going to have nukes.
We could send heavy cav and artillery into Iran, utterly demolish anything that might possibly be related to nuclear research, and leave again. This would slow them down significantly. We could probably even topple the government and not be trapped in an occupation, as long as we don’t mind creating a failed state.
Is an anarchic, angry Iran better than a nuclear Iran? My instinct is that it’s not, but others may disagree.
Here’s a better idea.
prop up an iraqi leader and arm him with chemical weapons to keep iran in check.
oh wait…we already did that in the 80’s.
Iran’s not the only nation that’s going to be pissed. You have to take into account that the diplomatic fallout is going to be felt all around the world. No one likes naked displays of aggression.
And now Unicorn stalks me into another thread, with another flimsy pretext to attack me.
We don’t have to occupy Iran if we don’t go in looking to overthrow the government. I say we send in Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen to take out the nuclear facilities and then narrowly escape by floating at sea until a US submarine surfaces to ferry them home.
Yeah, I think would be very unwise, but for reasons unrelated to the Iraq situation. Militarily it is achievable.
You know I’m as big a neocon hater these days as anyone else - but posts like this are pure foolishness. The US did not arm Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons (or any other weapons for that matter).
Hussein’s chem weapons program came mostly from Germany.
But waiting it out, letting them get nukes is a better alternative? I dont think so.
I think so.
Trying to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle is futile in the long term. It’s the reality of this century that the pace of nuclear proliferation is going to increase as technology moves on. Trying to pre-emptively strike anyone we don’t like who might get a nuke is just going to earn a shit ton of ill will and accelerate the pace of everyone else’s nuclear research.
We simply need to make the very reasonable statement that a nuclear capable nation is responsible for what happens with their nukes. If their nukes get used (even in an “oops, the terrorists stole it” situation) they face retaliation. MAD worked on the Soviets and it’s going to have to keep working in the future.