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2004-06-16 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

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Posted by Anonymoose 2004-06-16 11:59:03 AM|| || Front Page|| [12 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 i have pondered this, the notion that the mad mulla's would use what few nukes they may have...i am afraid this is a very real possiblity...and we could very well lose 20k troops or more..and our only option would be a massive retalitory strike on the iranian military (including the revolutionary gurards). it really makes no sense for iran to do this given our long history in regards to use of nukes...this would be just the type of scenario that would cause us to use nukes...
as for the oil fields also a very real possiblity - our govt should give a clear warning any strike on the saudi oil fields will cause immedaite destruction of Tehran. we really must drop all diplomatic pretenses in this area.

Posted by Dan 2004-06-16 1:27:24 PM|| 2004-06-16 1:27:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Debka is now posting that iranian troops on border - same data as yesterday's post

Posted by Dan 2004-06-16 2:15:38 PM|| 2004-06-16 2:15:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Under that scenario, they have to think we'd let them kill thousands of our soldiers with nuclear weapons and then we'd go away?

That's some serious crazy there.

Posted by Laurence of the Rats 2004-06-16 2:30:44 PM|| [http://www.punictreachery.com/] 2004-06-16 2:30:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 it really makes no sense for iran to do this given our long history in regards to use of nukes...this would be just the type of scenario that would cause us to use nukes...

You're assuming they believe we would respond in kind. I won't bet on them believing it.

Hell, I'm not so sure about it myself.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2004-06-16 2:42:32 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com] 2004-06-16 2:42:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 #4 I have to assume this because this a very real possiblity..and if we do not have the stomach for this level we have lost and should pack up now...

Posted by Dan 2004-06-16 3:15:20 PM|| 2004-06-16 3:15:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 not concerned about it - its saber rattling to the UN nuke hunters

Posted by Yosemite Sam 2004-06-16 3:16:21 PM|| 2004-06-16 3:16:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 However, the "Hail Mary" alternative would be that they are waiting for the departure of one or two US divisions, then plan a NUCLEAR attack on the remaining one, followed by an immediate grab for the entire country, or at least the southern Shiite regions--probably under threat of using a second nuke against the Saudi oilfields.

Iranians, even crazy Iranians have to know that attacking any element of any US military installation is suicide and will yield little in the form of positive benefits.

I think that if they are trying to infiltrate suicide units into Iran to attack US units, this has to be diversionary operations, to mask other movement within the Iraq.

It makes far more sense that if Iran wants to do damage to the US in Iraq, getting US field commanders to change their operations to trying to play whack-a-mole against suicide units, forcing the US to redeploy to the east to stop Iranian infiltrations, when in fact re-infiltratioin of Iraqi WMDs from the west may be the real plan.

It is also possible that Sadr's play was to enable infiltration of units into Iraq, and this move is to mask further movement west to Israel.

I just don't know: this is all, after all, speculation. But that would be my best guess. They can't defeat us militarily, not even assimetrically, but they can expend resources to move WMDs to where they want them to be.

Posted by badanov 2004-06-16 3:23:32 PM|| [http://www.rkka.org] 2004-06-16 3:23:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Still think the regular army battalions are being deployed to protect terrorist training camps(or as Iranians are/will be calling them-Iraqi Liberation Army)from US attack.Thinking being Bush could not stand political fallout from attacking another country,while attacking a purely terrorist run camp might be acceptable.As to doubt raised yesterday that US would attack to show Iran is secretely supporting terrorists,what secret?Leading member of Iranian regime boasted to press about training terrorists.

Heard an interesting opinion on Iran nuke program while flipping last night(don't remember show).Iran was setting up a program not to build a few bombs now,but to be able to rapidly assemble a bunch in near future.Would be very smart,which is why I think the Mad Mullahs wouldn't do it.If they did have capability to rapidly make/assemble a number of nukes,but didn't have any on hand,it would give Iran several benefits.1)Wouldn't have to guard bombs,especially against coup,rebels.2)Diplomatic brilliance-you nice Euros can go right on trading w/us,we don't have any nasty nukes,not us...but if you're not nice we know where to get some real quick.

Posted by Stephen 2004-06-16 3:49:15 PM|| 2004-06-16 3:49:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 i have pondered this, the notion that the mad mulla's would use what few nukes they may have...i am afraid this is a very real possiblity....

Probably accurate but, while the mullahs may be mad, I doubt they're suicidal. Remember the game (in the eyes of the Muslim faithful): the moment of Islam's triumph is at hand, the hated west and its evil freedoms are about to be defeated once and for all and the restoration of the Caliphate is imminent. Given those "facts", someone has to be left to rule, no? And who should that be? The heathens in Saudi Arabia? Hardly. The nominally pro-western heathens in Afghanistan and/or Iraq? Even worse! The lax apostates that dominate east Asian Muslim nations? Blasphemy! No, clearly (to an Iranian mullah), the only choice to lead the coming Islamic superstate is themselves. Thus I'd expect self-preservation to be among their highest instincts. Worry when they start disappearing and we don't find the bodies, as long as they're in Tehran yapping to the press they're not going to do anything utterly stupid.

The recent bellicosity of the Iranian government is probably nothing more than their slavish adherence to what they see as a hugely successful political strategy. Namely the Kim Jong Mentally Ill strategy which calls for insane rants, continuous threats, and just enough overt acts to keep the west off one's back and outside one's borders. Remember, these are mullahs in a closed Islamic society we're talking about, they're not trained to think strategically and they're not likely to do much more than ape those strategies they recognize as having been successful elsewhere. The presumpion is probably that we don't know if they have a nuclear weapon but we know they're close. Thus they likely believe they can forestall action against their regime via their bellicosity until such a time as they have nuclear weapons ala the NorKs. Small fly in the ointment: they don't have launch vehicles capable of hitting the US so they're a classic paper tiger.

If irrefutable evidence turns up that Iran has nuclear weapons I look for a large immediate conventional strike by the US. After all, what're they going to do, nuke Paris? Heh. Hand a nuke to terrorists? They'll do that anyway. Can anybody think of a real reason we wouldn't go after them? (Elections & politics aside).

Posted by AzCat 2004-06-16 4:17:48 PM|| 2004-06-16 4:17:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Iran's been doing a lot of saber-rattling lately. The nuke program, the recent boasts and claims, the assembly of that suicide brigade . . . my gut tells me they're up to something. Given the left's howls over the preemptive strike on Iraq, I don't know that Bush could actually afford to go into Iran . . . but should we let them make the first move, given that that *may* involve nukes? On the other hand, once they make a move, we can take them out, no problem. It's only what they do first that scares me.

All this makes me wonder just how thin the mullahs' ice is. Historically, war has been a great means of getting a population behind a leader, and no doubt the religious rhetoric of the mullahs would double that effect. Just a thought. Technically, anyway.

Posted by The Doctor 2004-06-16 4:18:05 PM|| 2004-06-16 4:18:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Interesting points, AzCat; you posted while I was working out my own thoughts. You may very well be right that they see Kimmie's strategy as a "success," but then again, there's Saddam's counterexample . . .

Posted by The Doctor 2004-06-16 4:20:10 PM|| 2004-06-16 4:20:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 True enough Doc. I suggest that they may be engaging in the NorK gambit partly based on the fact that they're playing Saddam's stonewalling tactics to the hilt with the IAEA (to the point of disassembling and moving entire facilities and claiming they were never there when inspectors return to find only lawns and gardens). Both are directly applicable to their goal of obtaining WMD and both are proven, at least after a fashion.

On a political level, one can differentiate Iran and Iraq by the lack of a trail of sanctions / resolutions imposed against Iran and the fact that there's no open state of war to pick up and resume as there was with Iraq. Iraq was far more an international pariah than is Iran and I'd imagine that the mullahs are (correctly) betting that they can keep the international community at large long enough to develop an acknowledged nuclear weapons capability.

Assume the prior paragraph is indeed what it happening in Iran today. The NorK gambit is the next obvious step in the ploy because the NorKs have seemingly guaranteed their territorial integrity via the acquisition of a small number of nuclear weapons.

So far, so good, if I were an Iranian mullah with indigenous uranium mines, an operable enrichment program, and a significant enough technical base (low threshold) to assemble the weapons, that's exactly the path I'd be on today. Though the counter-argument can be made, the massive political difficulty in acting militarily against Iraq despite years of sanctions/resolutions/open warfare tends (in my mind anyway) to reinforce the idea that there's a window in which Iran can more-or-less do as they please. It's a risk to be sure, but a calculated one and one that appears likely to pay off in the near term.

History as it were, is careening towards an inflection point and the singularity upon which history's course will turn and speed off in a new direction is Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. One can almost see the mullahs trudging along in the best traditions of Islam slavishly adhering to what they believe are the established rules. Unfortunately for them said rules have likely been obviated by their very entry into the game and that's the wildcard I doubt they've accounted for completely. IMHO the US will likely act to prevent a nuclear Iran even if we must do so over the loud objections of every other nation on the planet. And if we don't, the Israelis will.

Posted by AzCat 2004-06-16 7:50:13 PM|| 2004-06-16 7:50:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Iran and Iraq fought to a draw after 8 years of WWI attrition style warfare. Iran at the end was reduced to throwing 12 year old boys and religious fanatics into the fray in human wave attacks. Iran claimed they lost 200,000. Iraq claimed they killed 800,000. The real answer is somewhere in the middle. That war ended in 1988 but the Iranian military never really recovered from the double blow of this war and the purges of the revolution. The point is that Iran might be able to conquer Iraq in its present reduced circumstances if the war were fought in a vacuum. Any attack on US military forces would provoke a response that would result in the annihilation of the attacking Iranian forces and the dissolution of the Iranian theocracy. Not a result that the Iranians would seek out.

Posted by RWV 2004-06-16 9:50:40 PM|| 2004-06-16 9:50:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 RWV, no rational man would seek that kind of thing. But I think we can safely say that the mullahs aren't exactly rational. They believe they have Allah on their side, and they think that the nuclear capability may give them some sort of "trump card." "If you attack our forces, we'll drown you in a sea of Allah's Wrath!" or some such nonsense. They don't care what they do, they don't care about human lives. And I think AzCat's right; the Israelis will be on this (and if they aren't, they should!). It will be interesting, to say the least . . . though I'd kinda prefer that the fate of the free world didn't hang in the balance, know what I mean?

Posted by The Doctor 2004-06-16 10:58:25 PM|| 2004-06-16 10:58:25 PM|| Front Page Top

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