Iran: Good luck pulling this off ....

[docmercer--banned]

With our troops tied down in Iraq for a long time to come, I can see NO WAY the USA can pull this off at this time ...

Gameface, just bombing will not work ... history has proven that and most of the nuke facilities are build underground and some underneath apt complexes ... throw in Russia's 40 billion invested in these reactors and we have the makings of a shootout in Iran that will make Iraq look like the Cakewalk Cheney has predicted:
According to DEBKAfile’s Washington sources, the Pentagon’s most recent game model on military measures to dispose of Iran’s nuclear threat concludes it will be necessary to topple the Islamic republic’s regime at the same time.

The first stage would be a bombing mission against the regime’s primary prop, the Revolutionary Guards.

The second stage would be the destruction of known and probable nuclear sites – a much harder mission given the hundreds of sites known and unknown number and carefully camouflaged underground behind cunning window-dressing. US intelligence estimates as many as 350 sites. It does not have precise knowledge of which are the most important or even which are active.

Regime change in stage three would entail ground action.

At present, there are no air bases within range for carrying out stages two and three. Sufficient US troops for overthrowing the regime would pose a problem given Iran’s land area of four times that of Iraq.

Furthermore, there is no assurance that Iran would wait for stages 2 or even 3. Iranian agents may well pre-empt US action or retaliate by sabotage strikes or terrorist action inside America.

Co-opting Israel’s air might to the operation poses problems too. The Israelis are found to know as little about the locations of installations as the Americans. To reach Iran, Israeli warplanes would have to fly east over Saudi Arabia and Jordan, or north over Turkey. The distance of some targets, such as Iran’s nuclear sites in the Caspian Sea region, is too great for Israeli planes to make the round trip.

Notwithstanding these impediments, America cannot afford to give up its military option and must keep it afloat as a deterrent, say the authors of the Pentagon game model.

 

[Jointpleasure]

At dawn 60 years ago

By Paul Greenberg
On Dec. 16, 1944, General Bradley came to my headquarters to discuss ways and means of overcoming our acute shortages in infantry replacements. Just as he entered my office, a staff officer came in to report slight penetrations of our lines in the front of General Middleton's VIII Corps and the right of General Gerow's V Corps in the Ardennes region.
Dwight Eisenhower, "Crusade in Europe"

It had started with the dawn: an unexpectedly heavy artillery barrage. How had the retreating Germans managed to mass so many guns? Was this just a local attack, or a feint to distract the attention from a major blow elsewhere?

Soon it became clear that the enemy had massed more than artillery. The 6th Panzer Army, a mobile reserve that had disappeared from the view of Allied intelligence, reappeared. When the barrage lifted, German armor came pouring out of the woods, headed for the seam between the British and U.S. armies.
Instead of sheltering behind the Siegfried Line, the "retreating" Germans were advancing through an only lightly defended 50-mile stretch of the Ardennes.
Allied intelligence had collected reports of a transfer of German troops from the Eastern to the Western front in the fall of 1944, and there was ample evidence that they were being reassembled in the Ardennes, but word never filtered up to headquarters. No one had connected the dots. (Sound familiar?)
The weather wasn't on our side, either. The coldest, snowiest winter in European memory made Allied air superiority irrelevant. The panzers sped on, opening a growing wedge. Allied headquarters was compelled to sacrifice unity of command as the German advance split the British and U.S. armies; Eisenhower had to designate separate commanders for each sector of a crumbling front.
In the heat of battle, confusion reigned. Disguised as American MPs, English-speaking, American-accented Germans were sending relief convoys down the wrong roads, or into murderous ambushes. Just liberated French cities were exposed again, and Paris was jittery. The British press demanded that Eisenhower turn command of the land forces over to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery — or anyone else competent.
German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt and his staff had taken everything into account except the sheer cussedness of the American resistance. The 7th Armored Division held onto the crossroads at St. Vith longer than anyone would have imagined possible. And at Bastogne, the key to the battle, the 101st Airborne Division refused to yield at all, and entered legend.
According to the German battle plan, Bastogne was to be overrun on the second day of the operation; it never was. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe's one-word response to the German commander's surrender terms would become a classic summation of American defiance: "Nuts."
Forced to split up and go around isolated pockets of American resistance, the German advance slowed. Unlike 1940, there was no breakout. Methodically, the Allied command drew up new defensive lines, then held. And to the south, Gen. George Patton was turning the whole 3rd Army on a dime and hurtling to the rescue.
Before it was over, the Battle of the Bulge would involve three German armies, the equivalent of 29 divisions; three American armies, or 31 divisions; and three British divisions augmented by Belgian, Canadian and French troops.
More than a million men would be drawn into the battle. The Germans would lose an estimated 100,000 irreplaceable troops, counting their killed, wounded and captured; the Americans would suffer some 80,000 casualties, including 19,000 killed — that's a rate of 500 a day — and 23,554 captured.
But the Allied forces held. And the war went on, moving across the Rhine and then into the heartland of the enemy. Against all bitter expectations, the conflict in the European theater would be over in four months.
There's a different kind of war on now, but war itself remains the same brutal experience. And it invokes the same admixture of fear and desperation, bloody miscalculation and incredible heroism, overconfidence and unchanging defeatism.
Much was gained by that decisive victory in the Ardennes 60 years ago, but victory obscures as much as it reveals. How the Battle of the Bulge turned out may seem inevitable now that history has unfolded but, as Wellington was supposed to have said of Waterloo, "It was a damned close-run thing."
The passage of time erodes memory, and we tend to forget the pain, the sacrifices, the mercurial swings of public opinion, the alternating hopes and fears, the daily uncertainty of war — and the necessity of endurance.

Paul Greenberg is a nationally syndicated columnist.

 

[GAMEFACE]

Doc,

90 days and 90 nights of bombing from such close range with much improved bomb technology would do alot to change the hearts and minds of the Iranian leadership. It's damn sure worth a try. I could give a rats azz what the liberals think at this point. What's your solution? RETREAT and let them be?

 

[docmercer--banned]

Gameface:

We need troops on the ground if we are going to implement a Regime Change ... and our hands are full in Iraq so cant see how this is a reality at this stage

 

[docmercer--banned]

Right now, Gameface ...

Interesting scenario indeed .. no way Regime change is gonna occur without a large committment of American troops on the ground ... bombing alone will not do the job and going after these nuke reactors is gonna be trick indeed with their locations hidden underground and many under living quarters of civilians

A true challenge .. hopefully better thought 0ut than Iraq for our kids sake that are fighting for this country right now

 

[WildBill]

Imagine what the oil prices per barrel is after 90 days and nights of Iranian bombing. That would be a good over/under bet.

In the meantime lets not forget Iraq has about a third of the population of Iran and is about one-fourth the size. In Iraq the population lives in about half the land, you don't just storm across the border and drive for days before running into someone in Iran. I don't think you will find a military man in the country that would suggest we could do this job without lots of foreign help.

 

[GAMEFACE]

90 days and nights of bombing is a great start, end of story. playing paddy cake is not going to work. Drop the PC bull **** and get the job done.

 

[WildBill]

There is nothing PC about being realistic Mr. Game. I know the world is a game to you sometimes, but it is not. Just because you don't run everyone over and only look out for your own interests doesn't make you PC or a pacifist. You don't seem to know how to pick spots sir, you need to get back into touch with reality. We have military experts stating we need more troops in Iraq and here you are demanding a campaign that requires resources, attention, and yes some troops. Get real and finish up what you started first, and no only someone who lives in a box like you would think that bombing is the solution to anything and everything. It doesn't work, it doesn't kill off all the "evil-doers" and it doesn't magically clear up any negative situation. If it were that easy do you really think we would be in this mess in Iraq? It isn't a PC or not decision, it is one based on a reality you don't seem to understand.

 

[lander]

gADOLFace,
How do you plan on financing your assualt on the world?

 

[eek.]

Its worth bearing in mind that the Ayatolla came to power via regime change in Iran.

It was the yankee backed Shah who got ousted by the population.

So if you guys go charging back in there...again...I can't see too many welcome mats being laid out.
The cultural differences are just too great.

With Iran going nuclear I can see a major stand-off situation emerging in the Gulf with, as usual, the US doing most of the heavy lifting.

If you concentrated more on rebuilding Iraq than bombing the crap out of the place it would ease the tensions there, especially the North and South regions. Stabilise the bits you can, contain those bits you can't.

I really can't see 'elections' making too much real difference. :>Grin>

 

[docmercer--banned]

eek:

the words "elections" only matter to Bush ... that way he can brag about what he accomplished in Iraq ... pull our troops and let the Civil War kill thousand upon thousands of Iraqi
civilians

Bush's sincerity for the Iraqi folks is about as sincere as the concern I have when my my offshore book has to cut me a check

 

[GAMEFACE]

Like I said 90 days and 90 nights of precision bombing will do wonders to change the hearts and minds of the mullahs, that's where I'd start. I don't see us allowing Iran the opportunity to produce NUKES. If nothing else we level all sites that resemble military installations.

 

[Jointpleasure]

Like I said 90 days and 90 nights of precision bombing will do wonders to change the hearts and minds of the mullahs, that's where I'd start. I don't see us allowing Iran the opportunity to produce NUKES. If nothing else we level all sites that resemble military installations.

Those sites must include shrines, hospitals and schools. Forewarn the Iranians that we will bomb those buildings so they won't allow women and children to enter those sites.

Surely, the Iranians tyrants will not use women and children as shields.