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thatfatkid posted:But why would Iran sink a US carrier? 🤔 Gulf of Tonkin just won't cut it anymore.
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Jan 14, 2019 17:58
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Starting a conflict with Iran especially after stating a goal to get out of ME/central asian quagmires would be so profoundly stupid and ironically timed. That and the scale of Iran and their military strength and experience is far beyond what Iraq had in 2001. Plus they're two decades deep into fighting insurgency based conflicts in half of their neighbors.
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Jan 14, 2019 18:35
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FlamingLiberal posted:John Bolton has had a hardon for attacking Iran for decades. I don’t believe that Trump wants a war with them, but Bolton has been paid by Iranian outside groups to lobby for regime change in Iran for a long time. Aside from diehard neocons, does anybody really want a war with Iran except for old boomers still pissed about the embassy hostage incident? Although I can see the mainstream dem presidential candidates in 2020 hyping up the war lol
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Jan 14, 2019 18:44
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thatfatkid posted:But why would Iran sink a US carrier? 🤔 Feldegast42 posted:Although I can see the mainstream dem presidential candidates in 2020 hyping up the war lol
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Jan 14, 2019 18:53
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Feldegast42 posted:Aside from diehard neocons, does anybody really want a war with Iran except for old boomers still pissed about the embassy hostage incident? Although I can see the mainstream dem presidential candidates in 2020 hyping up the war lol
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Jan 14, 2019 18:58
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Feldegast42 posted:Aside from diehard neocons, does anybody really want a war with Iran except for old boomers still pissed about the embassy hostage incident? Although I can see the mainstream dem presidential candidates in 2020 hyping up the war lol volkerball can give you more details on why the perfidious shia must be opposed wherever he draws breath, but the core of it is that Iran's got a pretty sweet geographical setup, a more or less stable government, its own interests in the region, and its goals do not align with ours re: the fileting of whoever the House of Saud is pissed at this week. that they've given us a bloody nose in the past is honestly nothing compared to the great, jagged wound in US hegemony that is "we don't have any leverage on these guys"
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Jan 14, 2019 19:06
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:its goals do not align with ours re: the fileting of whoever the House of Saud is pissed at this week. Israel has as much or more to do with why the American foreign policy establishment hates Iran as Saudi Arabia does. I mean there were numerous Republican politicians openly saying there should be no daylight between the positions of the US and Israel when they were complaining about Obama's Iran policy, which is an insane standard to have for relations with any country. It's kind of a positive feedback loop though, since part of the reason they like Israel is because Israel keeps pointing them at bad guys they want to kill.
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Jan 14, 2019 19:30
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FlamingLiberal posted:John Bolton has had a hardon for attacking Iran for decades. I don’t believe that Trump wants a war with them, but Bolton has been paid by Iranian outside groups to lobby for regime change in Iran for a long time. The MEK are nobodies and don't really have any influence. Bolton would be saying the same poo poo with or without them.
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Jan 14, 2019 19:33
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:that they've given us a bloody nose in the past is honestly nothing compared to the great, jagged wound in US hegemony that is "we don't have any leverage on these guys" My understanding is that an American invasion of Iran would be wildly unsuccessful on our part due to geography and the Iranian military largely having its poo poo together. Is that correct?
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Jan 14, 2019 19:35
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Lightning Knight posted:My understanding is that an American invasion of Iran would be wildly unsuccessful on our part due to geography and the Iranian military largely having its poo poo together. Is that correct? Yeah, there was a good efforpost somewhere earlier in this thread about Iran's geography making it a perfect fortress. Hell, just look at a topographical map of the place and pay attention to where Tehran is.
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Jan 14, 2019 19:41
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If we attack Iran (and I don't think we will), it'll probably be a lot closer to the Clinton era airstrikes against Iraq (which in retrospect were way more effective than we knew at the time) than the invasion in 2003. Trump doesn't have anything close to the public support necessary for a massive ground invasion.
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Jan 14, 2019 19:50
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Lightning Knight posted:My understanding is that an American invasion of Iran would be wildly unsuccessful on our part due to geography and the Iranian military largely having its poo poo together. Is that correct? It's not going to happen, nor should it, but US forces would be in Tehran in a month. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 14, 2019 20:05
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Volkerball posted:It's not going to happen, nor should it, but US forces would be in Tehran in a month. I agree that people are overestimating Iran's defensive abilities, but it took us almost a month to capture Baghdad, and Iran's definitely in better shape than Iraq was in 2003. Honestly I'm not really sure where we'd be invading from in the first place though, which is another good reason we won't be (as you said). None of Iran's neighbors would have any interest in hosting an invasion force, and an amphibious invasion would be loving insane.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:12
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Volkerball posted:It's not going to happen, nor should it, but US forces would be in Tehran in a month. Bullshit. I see a lot of problems with that assumption.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:37
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Volkerball posted:It's not going to happen, nor should it, but US forces would be in Tehran in a month. and will be greeted as liberators
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Jan 14, 2019 20:43
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Obligatory: https://twitter.com/3liza/status/891485034254802944
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Jan 14, 2019 20:45
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Volkerball posted:It's not going to happen, nor should it, but US forces would be in Tehran in a month. That's only step one though, surely? The whole thing about Tehran is that it backs right onto perfect guerrilla terrain.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:49
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Lightning Knight posted:My understanding is that an American invasion of Iran would be wildly unsuccessful on our part due to geography and the Iranian military largely having its poo poo together. Is that correct? Iran's borders are what they are today because they are ludicrously defensible. like, comically so. Iran's military has its poo poo together, which means that for the first time since Vietnam americans would have to get reacquainted with the concept of what a "US Casualty" is. if they had to put up their fists and stand in front of our missiles, sure, we'd wreck them, but most critically, unlike Iraq there's no separatist movement to coopt for use as a base of operations. the country's politically cohesive enough that any territory we took would immediately start being wracked by rebellion and guerilla operatives, and as Volkerball can attest, his buddies were lovely enough at occupying territory that they created ISIS through the sheer power of their incompetence. and that was in a flat, politically divided, military joke of a country where the people spent the first couple of years busily killing each other instead of their occupiers.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:53
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:Iran's borders are what they are today because they are ludicrously defensible. like, comically so. Iran's military has its poo poo together, which means that for the first time since Vietnam americans would have to get reacquainted with the concept of what a "US Casualty" is. if they had to put up their fists and stand in front of our missiles, sure, we'd wreck them, but most critically, unlike Iraq there's no separatist movement to coopt for use as a base of operations. the country's politically cohesive enough that any territory we took would immediately start being wracked by rebellion and guerilla operatives, and as Volkerball can attest, his buddies were lovely enough at occupying territory that they created ISIS through the sheer power of their incompetence. So... what you’re telling me is that people who want to invade Iran are terminally stupid?
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Jan 14, 2019 21:01
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Lightning Knight posted:So... what you’re telling me is that people who want to invade Iran are terminally stupid? Or chickenhawk to the max.
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Jan 14, 2019 21:02
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Lightning Knight posted:So... what you’re telling me is that people who want to invade Iran are terminally stupid? I don't think anyone actually wants to occupy Iran, and not many people even want to invade. I think people who want war with Iran are idiots, but the idea that they're all ready for Iraq War 2: Die Harder is overblown. Just to expand on this, we probably can't force the regime to surrender without turning the country into rubble, but an air campaign could considerably impact Iran's ability to project power in the region by destroying military infrastructure. Of course Iran would then be in a 'use it or lose it' situation, and they might get a shot in (lucky or not) in a way Iraq wasn't able to, their proxies might decide to cause problems in other hotspots, and the rest of the world would be furious at us for a(nother) unprovoked war, but it's still not quite as stupid as the idea that we're going to invade and occupy the country for years. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jan 14, 2019 |
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Jan 14, 2019 21:04
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What did Iran do within the last week that merits escalation?
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Jan 14, 2019 21:27
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Nothing, this is a reaction to the Pentagon leaking that Bolton ordered them to draw up attack plans after a militia Iran supports fired mortars into our diplomatic compound in Baghdad last September.
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Jan 14, 2019 21:31
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Volkerball posted:It's not going to happen, nor should it, but US forces would be in Tehran in a month. And Napoleon captured Moscow and that turned out swell for him When was the last time the US invaded a country that wasn't either in the middle of a civil war or was a country with heavy amounts of dissent to piggyback off of? Germany? Feldegast42 fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Jan 14, 2019 |
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Jan 14, 2019 21:55
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Volkerball posted:It's not going to happen, nor should it, but US forces would be in Tehran in a month. Getting in is the easy part.
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Jan 14, 2019 22:25
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Feldegast42 posted:When was the last time the US invaded a country that wasn't either in the middle of a civil war or was a country with heavy amounts of dissent to piggyback off of? Germany? Pompeo has already started upping the rhetoric in: re civil dissidence in Iran (specifically, the Green Movement). https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/us/politics/the-inaccuracies-in-pompeos-cairo-speech.html
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Jan 14, 2019 22:29
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Sinteres posted:without turning the country into rubble But that's the actual goal. Iran's greatest crime is that it's a stable, functional nation-state in an area of the world that the US want to see chaotic and disorganized so that US corporations can get to make the law by hiring mercenaries.
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Jan 14, 2019 23:07
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Iran's crime is that they tried to seize control of their oil once upon a time.
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Jan 14, 2019 23:12
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thatfatkid posted:But why would Iran sink a US carrier? 🤔 Its the only monument of the US that would justify a war against Iran in close ebough proximity to make sense. And the american public would be blinded by rage for what would be a long war. Even if an israeli cruise missile hit it Irans an easy target to blame
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Jan 14, 2019 23:48
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You miss my point, why would Iran want to provoke the US into a war in the first place?
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Jan 14, 2019 23:50
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Volkerball posted:It's not going to happen, nor should it, but US forces would be in Tehran in a month. hi grover
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Jan 14, 2019 23:51
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Feldegast42 posted:And Napoleon captured Moscow and that turned out swell for him Well neither of those apply to Grenada, and we invaded Grenada in the 80s.
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Jan 15, 2019 00:00
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FlamingLiberal posted:John Bolton has had a hardon for attacking Iran for decades. I don’t believe that Trump wants a war with them, but Bolton has been paid by Iranian outside groups to lobby for regime change in Iran for a long time. I think Trump can be persuaded into airstrikes. There just needs to be some justifying incident. https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sneak-peek-026f0b5a-1e31-4071-bc29-a5fe9140ecd5.html?chunk=1&utm_term=twsocialshare#story1 quote:Of all the disagreements that drove President Trump and then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis apart, one of the most perilous had to do with blowing up Iranian boats.
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Jan 15, 2019 00:02
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:and will be greeted as liberators One sentence and you couldn't even read that honestly. Thank God we have cspam so people can take breaks from such rigorous standards for discussion. Also I like how you're simultaneously arguing that I'm Grover and mocking me for having been in the infantry lol. Darth Walrus posted:That's only step one though, surely? The whole thing about Tehran is that it backs right onto perfect guerrilla terrain. Not necessarily. People get so wrapped up in the Iraq war that they can't see the lines between what is inherent to warfare in general, and what was just a component of the Iraq strategy. Rumsfeld was arguing for a strategy that I think was the most Trumpian, and that had been the plan going in, but Bush and Bremer kinda got their own thing going on the side with debaathification and the CPA and all that proxy creation jazz and undermined it totally. But essentially, he just wanted to go in, gently caress the place up, and leave. And had the US done that, Iraq would be even more hosed than it is now, but the US would've clearly and unequivocally completed all of its objectives and "won" the war. In the leadup to Iraq, such a result might have been seen as politically unsavory, but certainly not politically impossible. In the aftermath, with the combined momentum of Trump's brand of politics and the case study of the Iraq war fresh in everyone's minds, such a strategy would likely be a big winner politically, and probably the only way advocates for a war with Iran could win their case. And all the people mocking Trump for his mission accomplished speech are gonna end up looking like jackasses when the US pulls out of Iran, the most prominent abrasive speakers within the regime are imprisoned, dead, or in hiding, and when you point to Iran burning itself to the ground on CNN to argue against it, the president says "Good." If you're going to oppose the remnants of the neocon ideology, you have to do it with facts and logic. You can't leave gaping holes in your argument for them to drive tanks through. And the facts are that Iran has lost thousands of men, including high ranking officers while holding defensive positions in Syria, defending against ragtag militias that rely on shoving square pegs into round holes militarily due to their lack of proper equipment. In the face of a US bombing campaign in which it has total air superiority and the technology to utilize it, they'd be shattered except for in pockets outside of the major population centers, which isn't going to stop US soldiers from taking selfies inside Khomeini's mausoleum. Their airpower is a joke. Their backbone militarily is their ballistic capabilities, but that would be a priority target, and without it, Iran's military would be dead in the water. Also facts though, are that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Iranians, many of whom are opposed to the regime, would die, and whatever benefits there are to the US would be offset by orders of magnitude by the tremendous cost to the US's standing in the middle east and in the world. Trump and his buddies don't have an actual rebuttal for that, because it's the truth. It doesn't require faith and wishful thinking to oppose a war with Iran. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Jan 15, 2019 |
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Jan 15, 2019 00:15
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thatfatkid posted:You miss my point, why would Iran want to provoke the US into a war in the first place? They wouldnt, that didnt stop iraq from being on the receiving end of 9/11.
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Jan 15, 2019 01:16
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An invasion of Iran would be hellaciously costly and messy, and the occupation would be a disaster for the ages, but you're high as gently caress if you think the conventional fighting would last more than a couple weeks. I'll give you a hint as to why: this is NOT controversial.
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Jan 15, 2019 01:16
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Willie Tomg posted:An invasion of Iran would be hellaciously costly and messy, and the occupation would be a disaster for the ages, but you're high as gently caress if you think the conventional fighting would last more than a couple weeks. I'll give you a hint as to why: We dont need ME oil anymore dude. Any iran conflivt would be a hawk strike or a re election jump point
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Jan 15, 2019 01:19
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LeoMarr posted:We dont need ME oil anymore dude. Any iran conflivt would be a hawk strike or a re election jump point You have completely missed the point.
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Jan 15, 2019 01:20
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Willie Tomg posted:An invasion of Iran would be hellaciously costly and messy, and the occupation would be a disaster for the ages, but you're high as gently caress if you think the conventional fighting would last more than a couple weeks. I'll give you a hint as to why: Most of those countries would be vehemently opposed to the US staging anything offensive from their territory, particularly those sharing land borders with Iran. Turkey didn't even let us invade Iraq from their territory back when Erdogan was friendlier, so they sure as poo poo wouldn't now. Iraq is majority Shia, so good loving luck, and Afghanistan is enough of a mess as it is without getting involved in this poo poo. Invasion isn't plausible. FWIW I think the US very much wanted to surround Iran with the intent to topple the regime down the line, but the 00's didn't work out the way the US hoped, and our leaders didn't understand the ties between the people of Iraq and Iran at all when they invaded. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Jan 15, 2019 |
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Jan 15, 2019 01:24
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Willie Tomg posted:An invasion of Iran would be hellaciously costly and messy, and the occupation would be a disaster for the ages, but you're high as gently caress if you think the conventional fighting would last more than a couple weeks. I'll give you a hint as to why: Name a war in the last 50 years where most of the fighting was conventional. I guess maybe the Falklands if you count that as a war. Sectarian differences aside, imagine being the leader of a Muslim country that helps the US and Israel start an un-provoked war next door against a Muslim country. Your name could be the Quisling of the 21st century. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Jan 15, 2019 |
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Jan 15, 2019 01:29
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