War with Iran?

[Benton]

(06-17-2019, 04:57 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: That was back when Ahab was in God's good graces, before Jezebel. Funny, I was just thinking about old Ahab earlier today.

Ahab was actually a very capable leader. He defeated the Syrians (a.k.a. Aram) led by Ben Haddad in the battle just after this section. But Israel and the Syrians had bigger problems. The Assyrians in Turkey were rising again and on the warpath. And they had a much bigger army. Ahab then did something you don't hear very much about: he went to the Syrians and other small kingdoms in the area and put together an 11-nation (including Phoenicians, Arabs, etc.) coalition to oppose the Assyrians. It was probably the first multi-national coalition. The army was jointly led by Ahab and Ben Haddad and they met the Assyrians at the Battle of Qarqar. This is all documented on the Kurkh Monolith at Tell Qarqar built by the Assyrians later. The battle was the largest battle up to that time. Israel alone produced a massive corp of 2,000 chariots.

The results are debatable. The Assyrians under Shalmaneser III claimed victory. But they ALWAYS claimed victory. What appears to have happened is that the Assyrians held the field, but also lost so many troops that their campaign into Syria and Israel was delayed for years. When they came back, however, the former coalition had fallen apart.

Just think about beer and boobs like the rest of us.

(06-17-2019, 05:35 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: The Saudis have told this administration to put pressure on Iran. And because money, this administration feels compelled to comply.

Where does this all end up? Who knows.

Personally, I do not see the U.S. committing troops to a ground war in Iran. The population is divided and has not forgotten the Iraq morass. Also, it is altogether likely that Iran would seek help from the Russians.

Air strikes are likely and probable, judging from the admin's history. Maybe we won't warn them in advance where we are bombing this time.

A U.S. nuclear strike is also possible with this President. After all, the Saudis do have a lot of money. But it is more likely that the admin would just try to slip the Saudis a nuke and let them do the dirty deed.

The one thing I know won't happen is diplomacy. The Saudis don't want to see any of that nonsense.

I don't either. The 'Oh, now they're in Afghanistan. Er, we meant Syria.' worked ok because there were bad guys in those countries, and those countries were unstable because of the constant string of bad guys. Iran is a little different as it's more of a stable country (compared with Afghanistan and Syria, anyway) suffering from a small man complex (partly because we continue to pump billions into countries it doesn't get along with and sell billions in weapons to other countries it doesn't get along with.

But I can't see us getting into a land war. Maybe fire a few rockets at a wayward military exercise or impose new sanctions.