'Three-day blitz' plan for Iran

To believe that 1200 sortees will resolve the situation, several (but not all) of the following assumptions are necessary:

Either:
1. That the Iranians are cowards and will defect from the military en masse or even coup after just a few units have suffered 10-30% casualties.

or:

2. That some of the strikes will be nuclear, and will completely obliterate major hubs of transportation and communication, as well as the Iranian government.

And in addition to one of those:

3. That the Chinese and Russians have tacitly agreed because they want to spike the price of oil and natural gas, or that it has been agreed that there will be an invasion to secure Iran's energy resources and keep them flowing to China.

and:

4. That the US will either prepare for a ground engagement in advance of the strikes, be prepared to use nuclear weapons to prevent one, or for some nefarious purpose desires to prompt an Iranian attack on Iraq which will likely result in over 1,000 US casualties.


Remember, at the beginning of Desert Storm we flew over 1,000 sortees daily, and that did not utterly destroy Iraq's military. Yes, the Iraqis began retreating or surrendering, but not to airpower alone. The airpower was only a foreshadowing of what would happen if they stayed put to duke it out with a force of half a million.


1,200 conventional sortees that do not fit into a massive combined arms operation will not crush Iran.

My guess is that with Bush at the helm it would just be a Texas-sized version of what Israel did to Osirak. The problem of course is that the problem addressed by Osirak was a lot simpler: Israel and Iraq don't share a border and Israel wasn't trying to stop an insurgency.

There'd be a day or so spent on taking out air defenses and missiles that Iran could respond with, then they'd target the nuclear facilities, a few clerics, intelligence facilities, and the Revolutionary Guard.

Bush would then declare victory, claiming that he'd finally done something right and had halted the Iranian nuclear program without an invasion and that he'd even brought France on board for it. He would completely ignore the fact that he'd failed to put a dent in the insurgency.

Bush may be under the illusion that he will be remembered somewhat like LBJ- who in some circles gets a pass on Vietnam because he inherited the problem at a much lower level from a predecessor, and because he had other things going.
Perhaps he believes that Republicans will remember him fondly for the War on Terror, changing the balance of the SCOTUS, and strengthening the executive branch, and that Bill Clinton will become the Kennedy who bequeathed Iraq to him and Hillary Clinton will become the Nixon who, if poisoned by a few scandals, will make him look good in some ways and share an equal portion of the blame for Iraq.

Of course that will never happen- the breakdowns in the analogy are damning- if Bush is anyone he's Nixon, without the trip to China- but the man does not have a sound grip on reality and he may not see it that way.

Two years ago, we were all talking about the impending attack on Iran. six months ago, we were all talking about the impending attack on Iran. In three months, you will all still be talking about the impending attack on Iran. In six months you will all be talking about the impending attack on Iran, and in two years you will all be talking about the impending attack on Iran.


Are we starting to get a picture now? No we're not? Oh ok, then we never will.

There will be no invasion of Iran. The US doesnt need to invade Iran...it can achieve all of its military goals via air and naval power. We manufacture bombs and missles around the clock and we have no shortage of them...all we have to do is unload them.

As far as Russia and China doing nothing, they wont do a thing just like they didnt when we into Iraq in '91, Afghanistan and Iraq again. Plus, Russia is just starting to get its act together economically-they dont want to ruin that by trying to start a war with the US that it really doesnt want. Will they like it? NO. Will they do anything about it? NO again.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Remember, at the beginning of Desert Storm we flew over 1,000 sortees daily, and that did not utterly destroy Iraq's military. Yes, the Iraqis began retreating or surrendering, but not to airpower alone. The airpower was only a foreshadowing of what would happen if they stayed put to duke it out with a force of half a million.

I disagree. One of the common things the Iraqi pow's were saying in regards to GW1 was "what took you guys so long?". They gave up and were ready to concede defeat after all the airstrikes. Iran can and would be crippled if this air attack goes down. They would be totally defenseless and looking at an onslaught of 1000's of more air sorties if they did not give up. THere military would be in complete shambles, as would there economy as well.

Originally posted by jpm1602
Do you REALLY think that Russia and China are going to sit back on their haunches while our air force is cutting down 1200 Iran military targets?
While your playing your xbox with ribs on the grill don't be surprised by thunderous roars of ICBMs at a movie theatre near you, except it will be a war theatre of WW3. Your ribs will be done a lot quicker than you thought.
Senate and Congress has railed against another military involvement without its consent. Unfortunately they are too busy playing happy feet in men's bathrooms and freezing bundles of money. Oh yes, we are screwed in a major fashion. Every week when your friends and family are flown home in a box just slap another ribbon on your SUV and everything will be all better. God help us all. We need it. You think this is going to make you safer? With Mexicans getting premiums to smuggle 'non' hispanic jihadists across our border. Candian border guards will now be armed with 'shoot to kill' authority. Bring our military home. Set them up at the borders, and likely terrorist targets. Then I will begin to feel safer. Let the shiite and sunnis blow the hell out of each other.

China and Russia are not going to start or risk WW3 over Iran. That is silly. They may try to prevent it by using political and economic measure but in the end they will try to profit from it. Iran is not Taiwan.

Originally posted by Xtrozero
But why would Israel care about Iran unless they felt threaten that Iran would likely attack them if the opportunity came about? I really feel that Iran is motivated to instigate a fight to facilitate extremism.

Your reply is a prime example of the success of the Israel lobby inside the US.
They've spun your whole world upside down!

reply to post by West Coast



totally amazing - you have NO CLUE at all about Iran and thus compare it to Iraq in 1991.

please watch FOX NEWS when the bombs start to fall and believe the retoric they spout.

Originally posted by Shroomery

Your reply is a prime example of the success of the Israel lobby inside the US.
They've spun your whole world upside down!

Ya I guess you are right. The US and Israel are the evil empires out to destroy the muslin countries of the middle east who just want to get along with everyone and live in a world of tolerance where life is valued.

[edit on 2-9-2007 by Xtrozero]

Freedom of Voice

“Support our troops”
“We are the greatest!”
“4 More years!”
“America love it or leave it.”
We have the freedom in America to say
Anything we want as long as
it is what they want us to say
They those in power – those who
write the laws on the barnyard walls

We are the intellectually starved
gluttons in a jungle of sound bites
hungry malnourished stomachs
bloated extended

‘it's not about truth’
‘it's not about justice’
‘it sure as hell not about democracy’

It is all about the American way
because we don’t live in a democracy
We forget about that don’t we?
We forget we are a union
of governed states
Federalists Capitalists
but not a free Democracy
Really, what’s democracy
got to do with it?

Democracy means
we all have an equal voice.
Our voices are only as equal
as the size of our stick
We succumb to the biggest bad ass
bat swinging bully on the block

Democracy?

Uzbekistan is a Democracy
at least we call it one
or rather we set it up as one
In 2002 America gave 200 million dollars in aid
to the Uzbek military, the Uzbek police,
for Uzbek security

We’re outsourcing our torture
our interrogation techniques
We’ve outsourced American jobs now
this way our hands do not carry the stain

The Uzbeks are known for their
unique interrogation techniques like
beating restrained suspects with
metal pipes or raping them
with broken bottles, brooms,
anything else they can force to fit

They carve flesh inject fluids
and are renown for their effective
use of water
not as the French invented
question de l'eau
but as in boiling parts of the body
But why stop there?
They’ve boiled people alive
The Uzbeks make the good
Dr. Mangele look like a humanitarian
he at least devised
his acts for research
for a science that we still use today

The Uzbeks don’t even do it for money
Being Capitalists ourselves
we understand and accept
the whorish nature of our existence but
The Uzbeks do it for fun
and we the compassionate caring
democracy fervored
supply them with their toys

But we are protecting our way of life
from those terrorists who would
attack us
who hate us who
despise the freedom of America
our freedom we value so inherently
our Democracy

There’s nothing democratic about it
We are a bunch of Nietzschien utilitarianistic mother******
instead of what is good for all
We query “What can it profit me?”

America is akin to a whore house and Bush is your PIMP

Originally posted by Harlequin
totally amazing - you have NO CLUE at all about Iran and thus compare it to Iraq in 1991.

please watch FOX NEWS when the bombs start to fall and believe the retoric they spout.

Perhaps a misinterpretation on your part in regards to the context of my post?


Airpower alone can and will cripple Irans conventional military. That is what I was getting at. Iraq in the first gulf war had the 4th largest army in the world, which was heavily armed thanks to the soviets just before the collapse of the CCCP. Many considered Iraq to be 'little russia' just before the war. It was not a foe to be taken lightly. This war showed just how dominant the US conventional military is/was. The US military is second to none when it comes to conventional warfar Mr. Harl

Originally posted by West Coast
Perhaps a misinterpretation on your part in regards to the context of my post?

Unlikely.

Airpower alone can and will cripple Irans conventional military.

For one reason or another it did not work in the Second world war, Korea, Vietnam, the first gulf war, or Serbia/Kosovo so i am not so sure it will 'work' against Iran.

In the end, as noted above, enemy SAM fire brought down only two aircraft (both American), thanks to allied reliance on electronic jamming, towed decoys, and countertactics to negate enemy surface-to-air defenses.37 However, NATO never fully succeeded in neutralizing the Serb IADS, and NATO aircraft operating over Serbia and Kosovo were always within the engagement envelopes of enemy SA-3 and SA-6 missiles—envelopes that extended as high as 50,000 feet. Because of that persistent threat, mission planners had to place such high-value surveillance-and-reconnaissance platforms as the U-2 and JSTARS in less-than-ideal orbits to keep them outside the lethal reach of enemy SAMs. Even during the operation’s final week, NATO spokesmen conceded that they could confirm the destruction of only three of Serbia’s approximately 25 known mobile SA-6 batteries.38

In all events, by remaining dispersed and mobile, and by activating their radars only selectively, the Serb IADS operators yielded the short-term tactical initiative in order to pre-sent a longer-term operational and strategic challenge to allied combat sorties. The downside of that inactivity for NATO was that opportunities to employ the classic Wild Weasel tactic of attacking enemy SAM radars with HARMs while SAMs guided on airborne targets were “few and far between.”39 Lt Gen Michael Short, the Allied Force air commander, later indicated that his aircrews were ready for a wall-to-wall SAM threat like the one encountered over Iraq during Desert Storm but that “it just never materialized. And then it began to dawn on us that . . . they were going to try to survive as opposed to being willing to die to shoot down an airplane.”40

www.airpower.au.af.mil...

Despite the heavy bombardment, NATO was surprised to find afterwards that the Serbian armed forces had survived in such good order. Around 50 Serbian aircraft were lost but only 14 tanks, 18 APCs and 20 artillery pieces.[12] Most of the targets hit in Kosovo were decoys, such as tanks made out of plastic sheets with telegraph poles for gun barrels. Anti-aircraft defences were preserved by the simple expedient of not turning them on, preventing NATO aircraft from detecting them but forcing them to keep above a ceiling of 15,000ft (5,000m), making accurate bombing much more difficult. Towards the end of the war, it was claimed that carpet bombing by B-52 aircraft had caused huge casualties among Serbian troops stationed along the Kosovo–Albania border. Careful searching by NATO investigators found no evidence of any such large-scale casualties.

www.answers.com...

An antiseptic war, fought by pilots flying safely three miles high. It seems almost too good to be true-and it was. In fact-as some critics suspected at the time-the air campaign against the Serb military in Kosovo was largely ineffective. NATO bombs plowed up some fields, blew up hundreds of cars, trucks and decoys, and barely dented Serb artillery and armor. According to a suppressed Air Force report obtained by NEWSWEEK, the number of targets verifiably destroyed was a tiny fraction of those claimed: 14 tanks, not 120; 18 armored personnel carriers, not 220; 20 artillery pieces, not 450. Out of the 744 "confirmed" strikes by NATO pilots during the war, the Air Force investigators, who spent weeks combing Kosovo by helicopter and by foot, found evidence of just 58.

www.geocities.com...

And the following shows that not only mobile targets escaped destruction...

"WASHINGTON--Data released piecemeal by U.S. and European military authorities are finally painting a well-rounded portrait of NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia--and showing how limited its effects have been.
The figures indicate that while more than five weeks of pounding have badly damaged important parts of the nation's military infrastructure, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic retains many of his field forces and air defenses, and much of his fuel and ammunition. His forces generally can communicate with each other, maneuver and arrange for resupply.
The Yugoslav army still has 80% to 90% of its tanks, 75% of its most sophisticated surface-to-air missiles and 60% of its MIG fighter planes, according to official estimates released during the past week. And although NATO warplanes have blown up the major rail links into Kosovo, five of the province's eight major roads remain at least partially passable, according to British officials.

Despite the damage to many of its best planes, the MIG fighters, the Yugoslav air force still has 380 of its 450 aircraft. Eight of the country's 17 airfields have not been struck, and six more have sustained only moderate or light damage.
Although Clark declared that the Serbs' integrated air defense system is now "ineffective" overall, it remains a powerful defensive weapon: It has kept NATO planes generally at altitudes above 15,000 feet, too high to most effectively hit Milosevic's field forces.

www.aeronautics.ru...

The full article is quite more damning and shows that even with five weeks at their disposal they could not scratch the Serbian armed forces; how it will go against the Iranians then becomes a interesting question.

So the Serbs got away suffering very light casualties after a sustained bombardment. I think the following is the reason why but i don't expect anyone to believe it.

www.warinfo.org.yu...

Nato is suffering significant losses. Reliable alternative sources in
Washington have counted up to 38 aircraft crashed or shot down, and an
undisclosed number of American and British special forces killed. This is
suppressed, of course.

www.aeronautics.ru...

It is clear from the amount and quality of intelligence received by this journal from a variety of highly-reputable sources that NATO forces have already suffered significant losses of men, women and materiel. Neither NATO, nor the US, UK or other member governments, have admitted to these losses, other than the single USAF F-117A Stealth fighter which was shown, crashed and burning inside Serbia.

The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff had denied, about a month into the bombing, that the US had suffered the additional losses reported to Defense & Foreign Affairs.

By April 20, 1999, NATO losses stood at approximately the following:

* 38 fixed-wing combat aircraft;
* Six helicopters;
* Seven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs);
* “Many” Cruise Missiles (lost to AAA or SAM fire).

www.aeronautics.ru...

That is what I was getting at. Iraq in the first gulf war had the 4th largest army in the world,

Only if one employs a very suspect type of math.

which was heavily armed thanks to the soviets just before the collapse of the CCCP.

Heheh.... Heavily armed compared to who?

Many considered Iraq to be 'little russia' just before the war.

Only those who were bent on fooling the world's people into a false sense of security. To compare the armed forces of Iraq with those of the USSR is all but a complete joke.

It was not a foe to be taken lightly.

But even the Iranians ( a country in turmoil at the time) managed to generally hold them off even thought they had to capitulate in the end due to the US support of Iraq.

This war showed just how dominant the US conventional military is/was.

How dominant it could be in certain circumstances against a enemy that was in full retreat at the time it attacked. The Iraqi's had little interest in fighting and the Serbs proved just what is still possible when people want to fight and operate their weapons systems efficiently.

The US military is second to none when it comes to conventional warfar Mr. Harl

EDITED :It's somewhere between two and four ( India, China ) after Russia; i don't pretend to know where for sure but my money would be on 'two' .

And YES , i am deliberately leaving out France, German and Britain.

I am still putting the finishing touches on that other response so hang on to your seat....

Stellar


[edit on 2-9-2007 by StellarX]

I dont know what our current military power is, but it was a widely held belief that in the early 90's the US military was the strongest it ever was. Many think-tanks (yes even those outside of the US) regarded the US military might at the time as theoretically being able to take on the rest of the worlds armies combined and even then it would be a so-called "good fight".

Remember, all this talk about Iran has NOTHING to do with an INVASION. Why do so many people get lost on that point? We are talking about massive military strikes designed to take out chosen targets and NO ONE in the world is a good as the US or even close when it comes to that. Iran would be obliterated without us putting one boot on the ground over there.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Absolutely brilliant my friend. Star for you! I couldn't agree more with what you are saying. I personally believe that we got lucky in Iraq. It could be much much worse than it is now, it is pretty flippin bad don't get me wrong, but launching a strike against Iran is the worst possible thing to do right now. With so many military powers tedering on the edge of fighting one another, or to just see if they have the gusto to go the distance, nothing good can come of this. The Neo-Cons must be stopped. "Regime Change" should be a phrase that if uttered is punishable by death, it is abosolutely ludacris!

The Persian culture is one of the oldest and most amazing societies on the earth. There are always going to be bad apples at the highest parts of the Governments/Societies, but it is our job (regular people) to make sure this does not accumulate to the destruction of an entire culture.

Enough is enough.



-Droops

Originally posted by West Coast
I disagree. One of the common things the Iraqi pow's were saying in regards to GW1 was "what took you guys so long?".

While we're exchanging Iraqi quotes, I'd like to bring up one of my perenial favorites, from an Iraqi officer:
"At the beginning of the war, I had 61 tanks. After 60 days of bombardment, I still had 54 tanks. After 30 minutes with the M1A1, I had no tanks."

We're talking apples and oranges here. You are suggesting that 3 days of airstrikes, compared to weeks on end in Desert Storm, at 1/3 the intensity of Desert Storm, this time in the absence of an overwhelming ground force that makes it impossible for the enemy to take the offensive, nor to threaten them with the prospect of things getting even worse, is going to have the same results as Desert Storm.

It won't. Not all bombing campaigns are eqaul.

In Desert Storm, the Iraqis were not merely facing the prospect of being killed by bombs, but they were also facing a loss of support in the face of an impending attack by a massive force.

It's one thing when you lose 10-30% of your unit. Historically, that's not insurmountable. Life goes on. You stay in your hole and you take comfort in the fact that the odds say that you won't be the one who gets it.

On the other hand, when you know that it's only a matter of time before a huge force from 30 someodd nations comes to kill you, and you know that when they come you won't have communications or artillery- of course you surrender when they show up, because you know to a certainty that nobody who doesn't surrender is going to survive that battle.


America places far too much faith in air power, and I fear that one day we will pay for this dearly. The failure to correctly interpret new developments in military technology has always been responsible for the most horrific losses.

Tanks were supposed to break the stalemate in the trenches of WWI, but they hadn't been fully developed to the battlefield conditions of the time, they were not used wisely, and countermeasures were developed which enabled the Germans to maintain the stalemate despite fielding very few tanks of their own.
They redeemed themselves in WWII, only to prove almost useless in Korea and Vietnam.

More spectacular proof of the failure of technology to keep up with and be applied correctly to new tactical realities came at the battle of Fada, in which the Libyans lost almost 800 men, 105 T-55s and 51 BMP-1s (destroyed or captured) while the Chadians lost 3 Toyota pickup trucks and 18 men, owing to innovative employment on anti-tank weapons and superior tactics and knowledge of the terrain.

Or helicopters if you prefer.
Helicopters were supposed to render the old realities obsolete and enable us to make short work of the Vietnamese, but the Vietnamese inflicted heavy losses on our helicopters and the troops who relied on them despite a technological disadvantage.


If we keep thinking like this, one of these days we're going to gamble too much on the ability of airpower to do something it just can't do, and as a consequence we will allow ourselves to be outgunned or outmanuevered on the ground by a froce that airpower was supposed to destroy. When that happens, we can only hope that the battle it happens in does not prove to be a decisive one in the course of a war.

The thing is it really doesn't matter if Iran has nuclear weapons (it doesn't, and by the best estimates INC, they are at the very least 5 years off and probably more like 10) or not. The hard right has had a war-on over Iran ever since the hostage crisis in 1979. The so called nuclear threat is just a front. If they proved the didn't have an atom, another excuse would be found.

What is really frightening is this administration doesn't give a rats ass it has no credibility on this or any other subject. It is going to pursue its agenda, international or American public opinion be damned.

[edit on 2-9-2007 by grover]

www.nytimes.c om

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today that Iran had finally reached its stated goal of developing 3,000 centrifuges, but his message seemed more of a challenge to the United States and Europe than it did a statement of a technological breakthrough.

“The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week,” state television quoted the president as saying.

(Please visit the source link for the full article)

If true, then all bets are off, war imminent.

It is time to remove this threat once an for all, before the world witnesses the spectre of a "terrorist nuke", it could be to late to prevent radiological bombs.

Iran will not be "easy" for the U.S. military, but they will fall, and it seems as if they are begging for it.

Maybe the world should give Ahmadinejad the war he desires and a quick path to the eternal life, virgins included?

Actually I think 3 days (72 hours) is much to long.

If I had this technology/capabilities I would set it that so many craft hit all sites exactly at the same time and have it done with.

The US has the equipment to do this at any given moment and those sites could be gone """"instantly"""" if need be.

If Iran's leadership isnt lying (which is doubtful in its own right considering the source) and they really do have 3,000 centrifuges in operation, then they arent 5-10 years off from a weapon. With 3K centrifuges in operation they can have enough uranium in one year for a bomb.

Iran is weak. They will be obliterated and the US wont break a sweat doing it. They are SO paranoid over there right now its hilarious. Thats why their leadership is always spouting off at the mouth. They are scared and they have no clue when and where we are going to strike and its driving them nuts! We had 4 carriers in the gulf a few months ago, now we are down to one. This time last year we had 3. We are constantly moving groups in and out of the gulf and its got them so antsy its ridiculous!! They have no idea when its going to come, but it will and Mr. Ahdmajad's mouth will finally be shut.

Unlikely.

Im curious as to how you think that that was directed to you Mr.X?

For one reason or another it did not work in the Second world war, Korea, Vietnam, the first gulf war, or Serbia/Kosovo so i am not so sure it will 'work' against Iran.

And that has been the prototypical wars of our time, hasnt it Mr.X. But, could it work? Could an aerial attack alone be enough for the set task at hand in disarming the Iranian military?

The emphasis in aerial combat, has always been noted as the 'backbone' of every military. With the USAF of today, that emphasis is even greater. I think if anything, that goes to show how superior the USAF really is.

One only needs to see pictures from the "high way of death" bombardment to really see the benefits of air superiority. Take the "highway of death" in Iraq GW1 and then multiply that by 1000x. That could be an accurate portrayal of what would become of irans conventional forces If a fight were to break out. No tanks needed, no US personnel put in harms way etc.

But even the Iranians ( a country in turmoil at the time) managed to generally hold them off even thought they had to capitulate in the end due to the US support of Iraq.

As if the US was the only ones to support the Iraqis mr.x? The US provided sat intel on Iranian military positions. that was the most significant contribution the US made during the whole 8 year war with Iran. I think you will find more russian made equipment than american equipment that was in the Iraqis hands at the time.

How dominant it could be in certain circumstances against a enemy that was in full retreat at the time it attacked. The Iraqi's had little interest in fighting and the Serbs proved just what is still possible when people want to fight and operate their weapons systems efficiently.

And why were the Iraqis in full retreat Mr.X? Air superiority. Do not underestimate the United States ability to wage war. And what was it exactly, that the serbs proved Mr.x. Perhaps there is a battle where the Serbs 'won'? Dont be bashful, do feel free elaborate a bit more.

EDITED :It's somewhere between two and four ( India, China ) after Russia; i don't pretend to know where for sure but my money would be on 'two' .

touché

quote]And YES , i am deliberately leaving out France, German and Britain.
I am still putting the finishing touches on that other response so hang on to your seat....
Stellar

I look forward to it!


[edit on 2-9-2007 by West Coast]

reply to post by observe50


If Iran is weak why bother? If we attack unprovoked we will be the aggressor, no matter the excuse and as such in the wrong and Iran will be in its rights to retilatate.

It is damned foolish to gloat over a possible attack and its results. We may attack but we will never be able to occupy muchless hold it. War is pointless.



Mod Edit: Converted entire post quote to a Reply To link. If you wish to address an entire post, please click Reply To: on that particular post.

[edit on 2-9-2007 by UM_Gazz]