The Economist on Iran war: "Be afraid"

slesh · Tar Sands Joined: Jul 20, 2008 Posts: 43

And that my friend, is the right thing to do.
Someone very special to me pointed something out that may interest psychology majors. My grandfathers, both of them were apart of the greatest generation and they sacrificed through the great depression then served to save the world from tyranny. They both would often go to town meetings, county gov't meetings and express their displeasure at corruption and waste and harm.

The masses of the baby boomers and younger have been completely sold a bill of goods on what the world is supposed to be. A vast majority of them don't even research what the world could be like.
I find it so hard to get through to them, they say things like "were america, we can take what we want when we want" and I just shake my head. Profoundly, I have thought and pondered what my life has meant and how peakoil will affect what I have attempted to touch in this world.

As I was saying, sorry I go off into thought sometimes,
One of my grandfathers as I was saying told me something and I wish to share that with all who read this.

"There is right and there is wrong. These people who hold public office, for the most part, do it for their own purposes. Do not be fooled by them, they create the grey area between the black (wrong) and white (right). They do this to serve their own ends and nothing else. Know what is right and wrong and follow common sense, it doesn't take much to see the truth if you look for it."
I'll never forget those words.

oiru · Coal Joined: Jul 30, 2008 Posts: 1

Iranian military is simply an joke and not even an threat. The only serious risk and cause for fear is the general instability that military action would generate in the region.

- Most of the Iranian military equipment is 70s generation hardware and hopelessly useless in major war against US. The Iranian propaganda is trying hard to make everyone believe they have the capacity to cause serious problems but in reality they have about same capacity as Iraqis did in the Gulf War I. Iran has nothing, with or without any new Russian equipment, to stop US airpower from bombing all kind of targets at will and they have nothing to cause any truly significant naval damage. The only problem is that Iranians can do the same as Iraqis and Serbs did and hide as much as they can and ride out the storm.

- Only military retalitiation that is even worth a worry is a Iranian guerrilla/special forces/terrorism type operations in Iraq and Lebanon and repeat of Saddam's trick of firing missiles at Israel. They are probably most capable in those areas than anything else.

- The barrier to air bombing campaign is political and economical cost and its a pretty tall one.

- Land campaign is not even an option. There are no forces for it and would just open another insurgency front.

bshirt · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 23, 2006 Posts: 446

dohboi · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Dec 05, 2005 Posts: 1476

Welcome, oiru. Very impressive first post.

"The only problem is that Iranians can do the same as Iraqis and Serbs did and hide as much as they can and ride out the storm.

- Only military retalitiation that is even worth a worry is a Iranian guerrilla/special forces/terrorism type operations in Iraq and Lebanon and repeat of Saddam's trick of firing missiles at Israel. They are probably most capable in those areas than anything else.

- The barrier to air bombing campaign is political and economical cost and its a pretty tall one.

- Land campaign is not even an option. There are no forces for it and would just open another insurgency front."

Very well put.

Somehow this all reminds me of the old story of Bre'r Rabbit and the Tar Baby. No question, Rabbit had more "power" (military superiority...) than Tar Baby, but this did not help him as he got more and more enmeshed in the tar with each punch he dealt to the gooey mass.

Somehow we didn't learn from Vietnam (or from USSR's experience in Afghanistan) that even a small, relatively weak country can tie a superpower in endless knots (especially if the civilian leaders calling the shots in the super power are total knuckleheads!). And of course there is the old regularly-ignored warning against starting land wars in Asia.

Buggy · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 23, 2008 Posts: 149

Snik · Tar Sands Joined: Jun 19, 2008 Posts: 81

Ardalla

Yes, it's true, Iran cannot control the skies over its own territory, and its navy would have a short, glorious, campaign of maybe a couple of hours before it was on the bottom of the sea. And an army that has no air cover cannot function for long except as a guerrilla force.

However, we cannot stop Iran from launching a good percentage of the missiles it has -- and it has thousands. Also, the North Vietnamese had no control over their air space and no navy -- and they did passably well against the US military.

Iraq is not Iran. The terrain is very different, and the populace will react very differently to a US invasion. The US cannot fight an extended guerrilla war in Iran. It would be expensive, futile and ultimately achieve nothing except American bankruptcy.

hermit · Heavy Crude Joined: May 13, 2008 Posts: 184

mos6507

Micki

Snik · Tar Sands Joined: Jun 19, 2008 Posts: 81

A ground war against Iran would make Iraq look like a cake walk. I don't think that will happen. If anything happens at all, Israel will take out the nuke facility like they did in the 80's. I'm not even sure that will happen this time though since they've let the Palistinians settle on their doorstep with Hamas of all people running the show there.

The only realistic military option we have with Iran is for a significant number of countries in the world to band together for some kind of joint operation....that is if diplomacy doesn't work (little faith there). I don't think that will happen either unfortunately. I think the reality of the situation is that Iran will soon have nuclear weapons with all that that implies, which is nothing good.

BigTex

One of the many things that troubles me about any action against Iran is what, precisely, the objective of such an operation would be.

With no clear mission, how do you know when you're done?

The 1991 war was clear in its objectives, and was successful in that it achieved those objectives. The 2003-present Iraq war has been a failure because the mission has changed several times, and I really don't know what "victory" would even look like today.

What would the mission in Iran be? To degrade their nuclear capabilities? By how much? For how long?

It's not a good situation, because I understand the arguments for wanting Iran not to join the nuclear club. What I don't understand is how to effectively prevent that from happening without the cure being worse than the disease.

The question that you have to be able to answer before the shooting starts is "how will we know when we are done?" If you can't answer that question in a couple of sentences, it's a good idea to re-think what you're doing.

This topic reminds me of a quote from Harry Browne about how wars are really just one more example of how government is fundamentally (and structurally) incompetent:

hermit · Heavy Crude Joined: May 13, 2008 Posts: 184

goldsbar · Coal Joined: Aug 07, 2008 Posts: 2

SoylentGreen · Heavy Crude Joined: May 25, 2008 Posts: 168

Well,the Oil market is starting to say the strike isnt going to happen? Theyre certainly wont be any more Sabre rattling till the end of the Games.