Should the U.S. Attack Iran?

My opinion: In this case, only if the attacks are supported by the international community.

See:

Jerusalem Post

The United States government reportedly began coordinating with NATO its plans for a possible military attack against Iran.

The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel collected various reports from the German media indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are examining the prospects of such a strike.

According to the report, CIA chief Porter Gus, in his last visit to Turkey on December 12, requested Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide military bases to the United States in 2006 from where they would be able to launch an assault.

The German news agency DDP also noted that countries neighboring Iran, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, and Pakistan were also updated regarding the supposed plan. American sources sent to those countries apparently mentioned an aerial attack as a possibility, but did not provide a time frame for the operation.

Although Der Spiegel could not say that these plans were concrete, they did note that according to a January 2005 New Yorker report American forces had entered Iran in 2005 in order to mark possible targets for an aerial assault.

Tow- I agree with you hopefully NATO.If we don't the Media will start it for us.I would not be surprised if it is in the works. I was surprised to see where the News came from and how anti- Bush that particular paper is.

Tow-- I noticed the bottom part these New York Newspapers sure are getting awful free with our Security on this Country.

This kind of crap gets "discovered" all the time. I remember we were working on a military EXERCISE- to give it some realism, we based the exercise in Yemen (all artificial geography, etc). The next day the press reported we were preparing to invade Yemen. Would not put much stock in it. The press also discovers OPLANS on the shelf for decades and jumps to the conclusion we're planning to invade.

gunny- you are right about Newspapers reporting a lot of Operation Movements as preps for envasions don't matter to some as long as it makes a good story.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SULLY1,

The possibility of invading Iran is not a viable option for more than one reason. We do not have the resources available nor do we want to offend the Iranian people who, for the most part, are not overly supportive of their government.

Getting the Europeans involved is the wisest course because they are close enough to feel the wrath of the religious war being proposed by the Iranian government. Diplomacy has to be the only realistic method to use before we engage in another war.

Having strike plans against Iran are necessary in the light that those strikes may become necessary. Those plans exist and are ungraded frequently as new info comes in.

Either we take out that Nuke capacity, or we have another country do it. If not, that nuke program will bite us in the ass.

As you can see, we have troops/bases in Afghanistan and we have troops and bases in Iraq. What sits inbetween? Think about it.

Yes, but what would be at our backs? We are years away from that capability unless we start building a larger force now.

We have access to the sea for landing troops/supplies. We have the capacity to drop in troops via paratroops, Special Forces and Rangers. We have the capacity to move in troops via helo in large numbers along with equipment and supplies.

We have air superiority and we have logistical capacity to handle all the above.

And you can believe that these SF, Rangers, Delta, SEALS, RECON assets have been in and around many of the areas we would strike along with SAT observation and intel.

Taking the country would be easy but what do we do with it then? Granted the people would probably not be as bad as Iraq but occupation would have to exist for a time.

Then do you suggest that you let Iran gain the nuke bomb they want?

If not, how would you go about stopping them?

There comes a time when you just have to do what is right and worry about the aftermath, afterwards.

You would only bomb there nuke plant, bombing a nuke plant does not mean you need to invade or occupy. If another war is to be fought we would need a draft, and with the public support for the president now, it would not be good, it would probably lead to another civil movement like during vietnam. In fact the war in iraq is already turning into vietnam and invading iran would make it exponentially worse.

If you bomb a nuke plant, the secondary effect is a cataclysmic secondary explosion, killing thousands upon thousands of non-combatants. Its not quite the simple solution you propose, a little bit of geo-politics might be involved.

As for OIF turning into Vietnam, I see no visible comparison. Asian country, jungle and mountain, a conventional army supported by insurgent VC....or....desert country, defeated army, localized insurgency based on tribal/religious sectarian conflict...one Asian communist enemy invading a southern neighbor...a Sunni military dictatorship already toppled??? Those are just obvious differences.
Everyone else,
I'm in agreement that plans are present, wargamed, and what not, provided we need them. The nuke threat seems to be another factor in the equation, calling for more wargaming, and analysis. I think the political pressure hasn't built up enough. If more countries support the opposition of nuke development, the outcome would seem to be in the economic interest of Iran to comply, if not the military implications.

Yeah, Iran should be attacked, but not unilaterally.

I have no love for the Europeans nor do I care for their approval in protecting our own interests or those of our allies (Israel in this case). But they are the ones in the most immediate danger, and they know it. Iran getting "the bomb" and being able to hit NYC are not the same thing.

Paris on the other hand would be just a softball lob away, and they know it. "Hey Pierre, about those burkas you wouldn't let our little Muslim girls wear in school. . "

So yeah, we wouldn't be waiting for international opinion to "approve" of our national security concerns, but this would definitely be a time for the Euro-trash to step up to the plate and take care of themselves. And even if the French stood their ground in such a fashion as they have become so famous for (surrender monkey style) London is still close enough to elicit some sort of action.

Cav, ignore the little puke.

The US has a plan for invading Canada doesn't mean they're going to use it anytime soon [ especially now that we've got a nice ' warhawkish ' PM in charge ]..

The problem is not in having a plan for invading/liberating Iran its in what to do afterward.. As the armchair quarterbacks and the 20/20 hindsighters have shown.. the disaster that is Iraq resulted not from the lack of a superior fighting force but in having a plan to fill the void, systematically encapsulate and contain dissidents and disarm the population while closing borders ..[ let's chalk it up to lack of manpower rather than piss poor thinking ]..
Add the failure to have an indoctrination - sorry - re-education programme in place to counter the tribal/ethnic resentments that erupted.. the same divergent thinking that was seen when the Soviet Bloc collapsed, when African ' nationalists' asserted themselves. etc. etc...
If you can't break the cycle of the ' have's ' wanting to keep what they had and the have-nots wanting to punish the others for screwing them over for generations you're going to have grumbling all the time.. it didn't take a PhD to see that the Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites weren't about to bury the hatchet after the ousting of Saddam [ unless it was in each other's head ] since it was Saddam beating the crap out of all of them that kept the whole thing together in the first place...

Since the US is about a trillion bucks overdrawn at the bank and China is flush and tossing money at countries the west has labelled the ' axis of evil/rogue states' .. the whole shebang is complicated and stepping into Iran when Afghanistan ain't nearly over and Iraq 's sewers are still making the sh*t float to the surface shouldn't be on the ' to do ' list...Leave it to Israel to go in one night and snuff the Nuke reactors.. they did it before...the Islamic/Arab nations won't retaliate.. they haven't got the stuff for it...

that's why its all insurgents and intafada and stuff.. small groups wearing down public opinion works better for them than another 6 day war they can't win...

I still say its a mistake to fight a 3 front war plus all of our little skirmishes in other parts of the world

quote:

Originally posted by Goldenwings:
Then do you suggest that you let Iran gain the nuke bomb they want?

If not, how would you go about stopping them?

There comes a time when you just have to do what is right and worry about the aftermath, afterwards.

Gary you know as well as I do, there will always be those that sit back and say, what should we do? and those that simply do what needs to be done. This is what we are findly doing, and now we see many do not have the stomach, or commitment to follow through.

Wow, bombing a nuke plant, now that made a whole lot of sense!!!

why doesnt that make sense, isreal did it some years ago. Uranium enrichment is just a 1000 stage zinc membrane that seperates florinated UF7 uranium (the radioactive from non radioactive) then it is deflorinated, the "good stuff is made into bombs or power and the rest is bullets. Even if you hit a power plant it would not go criticle mass it would just melt down, would there be casulties sure, but not ours, maybe the iranians should do something about there government then they wouldent have to deal with it.

quote:

Originally posted by rppearso:
why doesnt that make sense, isreal did it some years ago. Uranium enrichment is just a 1000 stage zinc membrane that seperates florinated UF7 uranium (the radioactive from non radioactive) then it is deflorinated, the "good stuff is made into bombs or power and the rest is bullets. Even if you hit a power plant it would not go criticle mass it would just melt down, would there be casulties sure, but not ours, maybe the iranians should do something about there government then they wouldent have to deal with it.

Does a Place called Chernobyl, Ring a bell? And that was only a partial meltdown. This was the worst accident in U.S. nuclear-reactor history.