No Way US Can Invade Iran Soon

It takes 46 out of 52 US Army Brigade Combat Teams to hold Iraq, each on a 1-year on, 1-year off rotation. There's simply no more troops to push into Iran without a draft. Iran isn't Iraq: it hasn't been weakened by sanctions and its chemical stockpiles are intact. The Iranians saw how we cut through the Iraqis and will throw everything they have at us, including chemical attacks. We can expect the Iranian population, including those hostile to the clerical government, to rally in defense of their country. Unlike Iraq, Iranian topography includes some excellent defensive terrain. We would have to reactivate entire divisions to invade Iran; that would take 1-2 years to outfit, train and deploy.

A bombing campaign can't be ruled out but it would be ineffective anyway; Iran has most certainly dispersed its sensitive facilities throughout the country to avoid another Dimona. Nor would a sustained bombing campaign lead to a protracted war. We shelled several oil platforms and sank several Iranian patrol boats accused of laying mines in the Gulf in 1987. In 1988 the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner. In each case there was remarkably minor backlash and no serious talk of war.

I'm disturbed by most of the comments prophesizing a "false flag" US attack on Europe or America. Most people think we're just bloodthirsty killers hellbent on seizing every last drop of oil on the planet. For these people, every line of every newspaper they read is translated through a complex yankee-gringo conspiracy formula. If something good is said about America, they consider it a Pentagon-sponsored Black Bag Psy Ops Covert Disinformation Campaign coordinated by the Military-Illuminati Complex. If something bad is said about America it's the biased corporate American media hiding a far darker and sinster secret.

Sorry, but odds are there won't be war in March. Or April. Or May. Don't get your hopes up!

Good post, but what about Israel? Don´t they consider Iran a serious threat? What if the new to be elected head of state for Israel (Sharon is history) turns out to be someone who takes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad too seriously?

Ahmadinejad doesn´t have a problem with the American nation according to his site BTW.

The US does not want, nor need to invade Iran, if we do anything at all it will be air strikes. All those who say we will invade Iran don't know what they're talking about.

MEF, it's not the US that will attack Iran unilaterally as in 2003, but NATO. Of course, USA's the biggest NATO contributor, but this means that considering USA's slight weakening of its forces, it'll be NATO's opportunity of being beefed up. Remember that NATO benefits from the founds of international bankers rather than just US domestic funding as it was for the Iraq invasion.

USA ready or not, the UN Security Council is on the verge of making a meeting on Iran since UN nuclear inspectors have been refused access to Iran and the latter has officially resumed producing enriched uranium. It' true that the US ground troops are quite overwhelmed with the insurgence in Iraq, but they only need to send the Air Force for a massive and quick attack. THe US started a war in the past with a lot less justification and backing than that...

[edit on 19/2/06 by Echtelion]

An invasion of Iran would be fruitless. Strategic strikes against suspected nuclear facilities and military sites are the likely path, if taken.

Iran needs to think clearly about the outcome at ‘the end of the day’, especially if she is thinking is along the lines of an invasion, because it will not come.


mg

I think the world needs to grow some balls and quick or we are going to

see very soon what it would have been like if Hitler ever developed the

bomb.

Sounds like someones propaganda is scaring the %#@& out of you!

Yeah, lets kick their butts!

Originally posted by Toadmund
Yeah, lets kick their butts!

No, of course not. Lets let them continue enriching uranium and hope for the best.

Hey thanks for responding everyone.

You know the old saying, "Keeping nuclear weapons out of a country is like getting piss out of a pool." Once Iran has the technology, it can never be destroyed.

I think back to the days prior to November 2002 and how the UN ramped up weapons inspections in Iraq. All Iraq had to do was bury their stores in sand dunes hundreds of miles from nowhere and the UN could never find them. Same with Iran. Blueprints, prototypes and paper files could easily be dispersed around their country within days. So what Israel blows up Bushehr and the others? We still can't keep Iran from resurrecting the hidden knowledge. We can't exactly outlaw nuclear physics classes at their universities. We can't arrest their scientists. We can't shut off the internet.

I don't know if we can count on significant European support for a military invasion. Look at Bosnia: 250K Bosnians dead, 1M homeless, Zepa-Gorazhde-Szebrenica overrun and the Europeans did nothing. It took the WEU two entire years to organize an 800-man observer mission for Macedonia in 1996. Belgium was tasked with protecting Burundi's Prime Minister in 1994; what a disaster that was.

For all Americans who want to man-up and kick ass, well, let's think this through. If we fail to invade with adequate forces we're looking at a disaster.

The only hope then is regime change. Cut a deal with an opposition group, place them in power and offer substantial financial incentives in return for guarantees that they will forego nuclear weaponry. Unfortunately, the clerical regime won't give up power easily. We have scant human intelligence sources in-country.

Maybe long-term sanctions that weaken their economy and the regime's hold on the population are the best route. It could buy us time for a solution.

I don't think for one minute a full-scale invasion is on the cards. Even with a draft and a coalition of forces similar to Gulf War I Iran would be hugely difficult to invade and conquer - yet alone occupy and hold for any length of time. Just can't see it happening. The country is huge with difficult terrain which favors the defending army, and Iran's armed forces, while not anything like as advanced as the US, are numerous and have some pretty solid equipment at their disposal. Is it impossible? No.....but it would be very messy.

However, the US doesn't need to get into a ground war (maybe some special forces) because what it does have is insanely good airpower and guided missiles. They can cripple Iran's military command and control infrastructure no problem. Then set their WMD program back decades. That's the goal - not invasion.

Unless of course the aim isn't to win or to topple the regime alone, but to provoke a 'clash of civilizations' between the West and Middle East.

Hamas is the predominant Palestinian legislative power now. Iran's president is either very showy for the cameras or genuinely is willing to confront the West, at least politically and economically, to a degree most would think twice about. The smoldering rage regarding the cartoon is still fresh in people's minds. The perception is predominant that U.S. and other Western powers are occupying Iraq (even though technically it isn't an occupation anymore, they see it as one, as for all intents and purposes that's all that matters in the context of this issue).

That's all a powder keg ready to explode, at least potentially. Imagine Israel bombs the hell out of Iran's suspected nuclear weapons research and development facilities. Then imagine forces hoping for a broader regional conflict to erupt play their cards right, and ensure that a major terrorist attack on or similar to the scale of 9-11 either in the U.S. or, in particular, in Europe somewhere (I'm not saying this would have to be anyone connected to Iran or any other Middle East or affiliated nation, either. In my opinion at this point it could be either side that would cause it or allow it to occur, or even a third party no one is aware of at this juncture, or at least not fully aware of) takes place. Imagine the Palestinian reaction to this in regard to Israel. Imagine the U.S. and/or E.U. reaction to the terrorist attack.

This is all hypothetical, of course. It's just that I haven't seen anyone on either side of any of the fences - war support, anti-war, militant, or moderate - suggest or consider the possibility that if there are forces of which the general public is largely unaware manipulating some aspects of these events, they might not care if the U.S. is destabilized militarily because their goal could be to drag the whole region into turmoil. I also haven't seen anyone suggest that if there is a secret agenda behind these conflicts, that it might not be purely an oil or industrial and financial agenda. The results of a broad regional conflict involving multiple states in the Middle East would have repercussions far beyond oil and the economy, and the governance structures of the Middle East states involved in such a conflict would not likely be allowed to survive or persist following it...


[edit on 19-2-2006 by AceWombat04]

Originally posted by missed_gear
An invasion of Iran would be fruitless.

Depends on who we're talking about. For business it would be very fruitful.

Defense contractors could sell their services and products to the U.S. and other countries involved, and profit like they've been doing during the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hikes in the oil prices would lead to oil companies profiting like never before, it would also drive various stocks up.
For war you need money, and lots of it. International bankers (mostly from foreign central banks) get to loan the U.S. and other countries involved the money for their deficits, with intrest, and thus get the U.S. and other countries in a even deeper debt than they already are in. This is good for them.
The Iranian president and his radical friends get to lead the battle against the evil infidels, like they've always dreamt of.

So as you can see, war can be very fruitful, depending on who you are.

Oh, and btw, regarding the oil in Iran, the U.S. would only need to invade and hold a small piece of Southern Iran, the oil-rich Khuzestan Province, which has 90% of Iranian oil. Not the whole country.

[edit on 21/2/2006 by SwearBear]

Originally posted by HardToGet
Good post, but what about Israel? Don´t they consider Iran a serious threat? What if the new to be elected head of state for Israel (Sharon is history) turns out to be someone who takes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad too seriously?

Ahmadinejad doesn´t have a problem with the American nation according to his site BTW.

I can't believe that out of all the posts in this thread, only HardToGet's pointed out the obvious, that if any country's gonna take it to Iran (before anyone else) over the nuke issue, it'll be Israel.