(06-17-2019, 08:08 PM)Dill Wrote: LOL Trump is Russia's ally. It doesn't work the other way. China is also a military supplier.

You still seem to think we are dealing with 1980s Iran and Iraq.

The Iraq which the US invaded in 2003 did not have intermediate range missiles and effective air defenses, and no anti-ship missiles.  It's total armed forces were about half a mil with low morale--defeated in flat, open desert. Many deserted without fighting. Iraq could not even disrupt shipping through the Gulf in 2003, or the years of US occupation thereafter.

Present day Iran has more, and more effective, intermediate range missiles than any country in the ME except perhaps Israel, with launchers buried deep in mountain rock. And triple the manpower available to Saddam. It's not clear why they would have lower morale than the Iraqi military. Especially if their state of the art anti-ship missiles and SAMs are able to take out large US naval ships and shoot down US aircraft, inflicting the kind of losses the US has not seen since Vietnam. It won't just be a few random 107 mm rockets and mortars dropping on US bases.

Also, as I mentioned above, Iran is a regional power with proxies, something neither Iraq nor Afghanistan were. It has great power to destabilize Iraq and Afghanistan all over again. Send a few more units in there too?  Japan, Germany and other allies would be squealling as the oil flow constricted.

No one doubts the US could eventually defeat Iran in a conventional war. The question is about the price paid for doing so.  You are "balking" at the idea that the US would pay a much higher price defeating the Iranian than the Iraqi military.  Defeat them in 100 hours?  

As the principals sitting around the NSC council discuss the potential costs of military confrontation, and the consequently necessary occupation, imagine how they would stare at some under-secretary who insisted that "we could take out their army as easily as we took out Iraq's; once we take their capital, they'll have no incentive to fight"--giving a big thumbs up with a smile?  I could imagine Bolton saying "He gets it," but seriously why would anyone else even go there?

Most wouldn't. Which brings us to the other danger here, that Trump reaches for some nuclear option to avoid the mess that almost everyone can see would follow an invasion.

(06-18-2019, 02:31 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote:

I'm pretty sure Bill Murray and Harold Ramis could take care of a 1980s Iran during a four day weekend with a EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle before SFC Hulka even knew they were gone.

Really, using the Rhode Island National Guard to invade Iran would be like using a hand grenade to kill a mosquito.

(06-18-2019, 02:35 AM)Dill Wrote: LOL I remember that. The "urban warfare" vehicle tested on the Czechs. 

Would take four or five of those to subdue Iran.

(06-17-2019, 10:07 PM)bfine32 Wrote: All Armies have changed a bit in the last 30 years. The Iraqi Army we defeated during Desert Storm was the same Iraqi Army that beat Iran. I remember how much of a foe the Republican Guard was supposed to be. Their Armies are nothing compared to ours. And don't even start to compare the Air Forces and Navies. 

(06-18-2019, 01:12 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: And what's different between post WWII Germany and Afghanistan, Iraq/Syria, and a potential insurgency in Iran?

(06-17-2019, 11:49 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: You sound like you're hittin' the same blunt Cheney and Rumsfeld were smoking.

What reason do they have in the mountains of Afghanistan and the deserts of Syria and Iraq to keep fighting almost two decades later and counting?

(06-18-2019, 12:27 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: We invaded a country over a pack of lies and you think we were trying to appease the PC crowd?  You really are hitting that Cheney/Rumsfeld blunt. The post invasion mistakes had shit to do with pleasing the PC crowd. It was piss poor planning. Plain and simple.

If they were interested in pleasing the PC crowd they wouldn't have invaded over shit they made up.

I guess we've been dabbling in Afghanistan for 18 years and counting?

(06-18-2019, 01:28 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Just explaining why I was late to the party. Show me where I mentioned your smoking and work habits specifically by name in this thread? I didn't. You assumed I was talking about you. Guilty conscience? I don't know. You tell me.

It's 'Merica, dude. If you don't like me exercising my freedom to write what I want then you can join Rush Limbaugh overseas in Costa Rica. Oh, wait. He didn't leave.

(06-18-2019, 03:19 AM)Dill Wrote: I know that one!

There was no "insurgency" in Germany after WWII, though some die hards did choose death over surrender, a few snipers cleaned up by June of '45. The Allies weren't suffering from IEDs and mortars and rockets for 8 years after the surrender.

But 17 years after our victory in A-stan US soldiers are still being shot. 4 yesterday, I heard.

Someone tell the Taliban that Kabul has fallen! No reason to continue fighting.

(06-18-2019, 11:04 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Bottom line when we fought Iraq they had the 4th largest Army in the world and every Keyboard General stated how the vaulted Republican Guard would be a real challenge; they were not.

(06-18-2019, 11:13 AM)hollodero Wrote: Nah, this is fair, but there are key differences. Maybe the US can totally demoralize Iranian forces with a few days of air attacks too; but I doubt that. Reasons were named. The Iranians do not fight with internal struggles, they are idelogically (and religiously) united. They prepared decades for a possible US invasion, so they sure will have some tricks up their sleeve. The country is larger, they have more military and quite certainly more partisan units. They will find US adversaries to equip them. There are mountains instead of desert, so there's way more possibility for ambushes and troop advances will be considerably slower.

...and maybe it still is a piece of cake, but to claim that as a certainty and mock everyone who disagrees with that takes it a bit far, imho. No one thinks the US will lose, but there's a real possibility for way more American lifes lost. I find it unreasonable to totally dismiss that.

(06-18-2019, 11:13 AM)hollodero Wrote: Nah, this is fair, but there are key differences. Maybe the US can totally demoralize Iranian forces with a few days of air attacks too; but I doubt that. Reasons were named. The Iranians do not fight with internal struggles, they are idelogically (and religiously) united. They prepared decades for a possible US invasion, so they sure will have some tricks up their sleeve. The country is larger, they have more military and quite certainly more partisan units. They will find US adversaries to equip them. There are mountains instead of desert, so there's way more possibility for ambushes and troop advances will be considerably slower.

...and maybe it still is a piece of cake, but to claim that as a certainty and mock everyone who disagrees with that takes it a bit far, imho. No one thinks the US will lose, but there's a real possibility for way more American lifes lost. I find it unreasonable to totally dismiss that.

(06-18-2019, 11:25 AM)bfine32 Wrote: There's quite a bit of mocking in this thread but you may be getting your sources confused.

(06-18-2019, 11:44 AM)hollodero Wrote: That, for example, has a mocking overtone. As does "keyboard generals", as if every opinion but yours is ridiculous from the get-go. And many other phrases I do not want to quote one by one, for that's laughable. I know full well you're not the only one doing so, and probably not even the worst culprit; but you're not as holy and innocent in that regard as you obviously perceive to be. There's often a spiral and you all (well, not all) are spinning it further.

But be that as it may, that's just one opinion of an irrelevant guy, I do not wish to get further into it.

(06-18-2019, 11:55 AM)bfine32 Wrote: As my man Kid Rock said:

People poke fun and that's alright
But when i start poking back they get all uptight.

(06-18-2019, 12:11 PM)hollodero Wrote: I give and I recieve

(06-18-2019, 12:11 PM)hollodero Wrote: :) Ah, personally I don't care. I give and I recieve, and I can go through great lenghts in both these things.

But sure, that pattern exists and imho you're just as part of it as those you slam for it. Just don't pretend it ain't so that's all.

(06-18-2019, 10:56 AM)bfine32 Wrote: These things work better when we are intellectually honest. Everyone reading this knows of your obsession and to whom you were referring.

(06-18-2019, 11:04 AM)bfine32 Wrote: We made a concerted commitment to be ingrained in the Community by establishing Military bases and deploying a permanent substantial force instead of dabbling. Like I've constantly said: If it does happen I've hope we learn from previous mistakes and successes. But from the tone of this thread the Iranian Army is the only one capable of evolving.

Bottom line when we fought Iraq they had the 4th largest Army in the world and every Keyboard General stated how the vaulted Republican Guard would be a real challenge; they were not.

(06-18-2019, 11:21 AM)GMDino Wrote: And forgive my faulty memory on this, but wasn't the talk of the Iraq army completely overblown?  Saddam was puffing out his chest to make it seem like he had more/better than he really had to keep the rest of the countries at bay.  

And then it was the insurgents that have caused all the trouble and most of the deaths.

But, as you say, the differences between Iran and Iraq have been explained.