War with Iran?

[Dill]

(06-17-2019, 07:18 PM)bfine32 Wrote: The Iragi Army had everything you allude to. 

Russia wouldn't get involved As you know; they and Trump are allies. 

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.