http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=13061
One gets the impression that there are some people in Washington who believe that Israel or the U.S. can bomb Iran's nuclear reactors, fly home, and it will be mission complete.
It makes you wonder if perhaps there is a virus going around that is gradually making people stupid. If we or Israel attack Iran, we will have a new war on our hands. The Iranians are not going to shrug off an attack and say, "You naughty boys, you."
Consider how much trouble Iraq has given us. Some 4,000 dead and 29,000 wounded, a half a trillion dollars in cost and still climbing, and five years later, we cannot say that the country is pacified.
Iraq is a small country compared with Iran. Iran has about 70 million people. Its western mountains border the Persian Gulf. In other words, its missiles and guns look down on the U.S. ships below it. And it has lots of missiles, from short-range to intermediate-range (around 2,200 kilometers).
More to the point, it has been equipped by Russia with the fastest anti-ship missile on the planet. The SS-N-22 Sunburn can travel at Mach 3 at high altitude and at Mach 2.2 at low altitude. That is faster than anything in our arsenal.
Iran's conventional forces include an army of 540,000 men and 300,000 reserves, including 120,000 Iranian Guards especially trained in unconventional warfare. It has more than 1,600 main battle tanks and 21,000 other armored combat vehicles. It has 3,200 artillery pieces, three submarines, 59 surface warships and 10 amphibious ships.
It's been receiving help in arming itself from China, North Korea and Russia. Unlike Iraq, Iran's forces have not been worn down with bombing, wars and sanctions. It also has a new anti-aircraft defense system from Russia that I've heard is pretty snazzy.
So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect retaliation, I'd have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I'd have to promote you to idiot.
Attacking Iran would be folly, but we seem to be living in the Age of Folly. Morons and idiots took us into an unjustified war against Iraq before we had finished the job in Afghanistan. Now we have troops tied down in both countries.
For some years now, I've worried that we seem to be more and more like Colonial England – arrogant, racist, overestimating our own capacity and underestimating that of our enemies. As the fate of the British Empire demonstrates, that is a fatal flaw.
The British never dreamed that the "little yellow people" could come ashore by land and take Singapore from the rear or that they would sink the pride of the British fleet, but they did both.
I suppose no one in Washington can imagine the Iranians sinking one of our carriers in the Persian Gulf. How'd you like to be the president who has to tell the American people that we've lost a carrier for the first time since World War II?
Exactly how the Iranians will respond to an attack, I don't know, but they will respond. In keeping with our present policy, our attack on Iran would be illegal, since under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
Who would have thought that we would become the rogue nation committing acts of aggression around the globe?
There is no way Iran could be victorious against our forces. They are no better than the Iraqi forces that were suppressed quickly by our forces.
ReplyDeleteThis does not say that there has to be a war in Iran but if they persist in helping Iraqui insurgents in killing US servicemen it's a possibility,
Hi Dad (guessing from the tone). Our "forces" (not mine, actually, you can claim them if you desire) are stretched to the breaking point while fighting the illegal resource wars already being waged in the region. be advised that Iraq's forces were practically non-existent after 12 years of inspections, surveillance and dismantlement and didn't actually put up any real resistance until the guerrilla warfare started, but you believe whatever makes you feel powerful and victorious. Suppressed? More like oppressed - violently!There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that the government of Iran has anything to do with the resistance movement all over the Arab world helping their brothers in Iran fight an aggressive invader. Try to find someone who'll put their name to the "intelligence". Just more of the same horse shit that got us into this hell in Afghanistan and Iraq. Far more Iraqis are killed by U.S. servicemen than vice versa, but that doesn't seem to concern you (Your military is an occupying force, and the nationals enjoy the internationally recognized "right of resistance). Have a nice day.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your anonymous father, we would prevail. At a great cost, which the American public is not really willing to bear. We should be headed for another cold war however we are not. The Russians and Chinese arming nations like Iran and Iraq is akin to the big brother egging on the retarded little brother into a bar fight. The little brother in this instance happens to be a religous fundamentalist, which you cannot reason with. At some point in the very near future don't you want all this shit to be over with? And deep down inside, where you keep those things you don't really like to think about, don't you know what it's going to take to end this once and for all? I think you do.
ReplyDeleteI agree that religious fundamentalists can't be reasoned with. Bombing the shit our of them isn't an option, though, since it merely produces many more (for good reason), and then we are still stuck with the wacko Christian fundie fascists here at home who decided that waging this war of retribution would be their New Crusade. To repeat, you can't prosecute a war on a tactic. Terrorism (freedom fighting, guerrilla warfare, etc) is a tactic of the weak used against the powerful.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I meant to say hello, Mark.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. You cannot reason with cancer. You wish you could as that would be so much easier but you simply cannot. If they would stay in their yard and we stayed in ours my feelings would be completely different. But we cannot just let them be. Given that option it seriously limits ours.
ReplyDeleteReligious fundamentalism is a relatively new phenomenon, practiced by those disillusioned with modernity and pining for an idealized religious past that never actually existed, since they all, to a number, confuse Logos with Mythos. But tell me, how would you propose to reason with them, since you've come to the conclusion that you can't? What grounds for reason could you possibly have anyway? Would you start by asserting that the U.S. has every right to exploit their lands for its "national interest"? That their religion simply won't be tolerated by our own Christian fundies, and by church/state extension, American hegemony? That given the history of U.S. military/industrial imperialism over the last century, they are naturally expected to bend over and take it? That they aren't quite as worthy of their sovereign rights as the right of the U.S. to pummel their country to rubble? That they should simply stop being so goddammed violent toward other races? Spare me, please! Weak grounds for reasoning, all, coming from the most violent nation on the planet!
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that you are equating the decimation of an entire culture with the stated intent of the illegitimate Chief Executive of the United States - "fightin' tourists"! What point are you trying to make?
ReplyDelete