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No need to start another war to stop nuclear Iran

Policy On Iran


  • Total voters
    13
Kandahar said:
That's ridiculous. We overthrew the Taliban regime in a few days time, and we toppled Saddam's regime in about five weeks. Even if Iran's military strength is a LITTLE bit more than those, it's not THAT much more.



You're comparing apples to oranges. Insurgencies are harder to deal with by their very nature, because you can be attacked at any time. Fighting against the military of another government is much easier, and is what American troops are generally trained to do.

That's not to say that the Iraq insurgency wouldn't spread to Iran, because it almost certainly would. But claiming that an irrational third-world government with no international backing can defeat the American military is absolutely crazy.



Why would they be more likely to pursue WMDs if they saw what happened when Iran pursued WMDs?



That proves my point. North Korea had WMDs and it was not attacked. Iraq did not have WMDs and it was attacked. Iran therefore concluded that they wouldn't be attacked if they obtained WMDs. We need to show them, and other would-be rogue states, that pursuing WMDs will have consequences.



What is with your obsession with the draft? NO ONE wants a draft, not the American people, not the politicians, not the soldiers, not the military leaders. It's not even DESIRABLE from a military perspective.



More nonsense. Israel and the US are liberal democracies that are routinely held accountable for their actions, not fundamentalist theocracies led by people who believe it is their duty to bring about the apocalypse. Who says we don't have any right to tell them they can't have nukes, just because we do? Do you really think that Iran would abandon its nuclear program if the US and Israel abandoned theirs? You're an ideologue.

Kandahar, you live in a fantasy land man. You are applying double standards and you talk about the US and Israel as the perfect saint countries. That's not true and accountability doesn't always happen in the US or Israel. You remind me of these people that say they hate us because we are so great and perfect. I hate to break the news to you, but the US is not perfect nor saintly and I also hate to break reality to you, that the all volunteer US military can only do so much and that US power does have it's limits. You want something for nothing and that just isn't going to happen. You want to be able to eat your cake and ice cream both, but that isn't going to happen either. You can't win a war simply because you have better technology or a professional army, sometimes the enemy has the advantage of having the moral high ground and that goes a long way, because they will be fighting from their hearts and the heart is a very tough thing to beat even for a well built up professional army. Your views and approach to dealing with Iran will only bring more problems, stability and likely a US defeat. The US would likely get bogged down in a guerrilla war like it is currently in Iraq and eventually, the US military will get grinded down and will have to leave Iran while on the same token creating an environment which strengthens terrorism and the possibility of nuclear war.
 
By going into Iraq, the US has strengthened the very terrorists that attacked the US on September 11. Countless CIA and intelligence reports state this time and again. Not to mention, going into Iraq has also made the world a less safer place as other nations scramble to spend more money on their militaries and to develop nuclear weapons to defend themselves from a possible US first strike.
 
TimmyBoy said:
Kandahar, you live in a fantasy land man. You are applying double standards and you talk about the US and Israel as the perfect saint countries.

No, I'm talking about the US and Israel as they are: More responsible with nuclear weapons than Iran. Where did I say the US and Israel were saintly?

TimmyBoy said:
That's not true and accountability doesn't always happen in the US or Israel. You remind me of these people that say they hate us because we are so great and perfect. I hate to break the news to you, but the US is not perfect nor saintly

Why don't you just admit that you don't give two shits about how to best protect our country? The above paragraph proves that you're only interested in anti-American slurring, rather than examining the geopolitical situation with Iran and sicussing how best to deal with it. You give liberals a bad name, because neoconservatives can point to people like you and truthfully label you as a knee-jerk anti-American leftist.

TimmyBoy said:
and I also hate to break reality to you, that the all volunteer US military can only do so much and that US power does have it's limits.

The all volunteer US military is a lot stronger than a drafted military ever could be. Of course US power has its limits. We wouldn't even come close to reaching those limits by overthrowing the Iranian government. US military policy has been to prepare for a world war on at least three fronts, although we could probably fight such a war on four or five fronts if necessary.

TimmyBoy said:
You can't win a war simply because you have better technology or a professional army,

Actually yes you can.

TimmyBoy said:
sometimes the enemy has the advantage of having the moral high ground and that goes a long way, because they will be fighting from their hearts and the heart is a very tough thing to beat even for a well built up professional army.

Yes, the Iranian government, which executes the families of political dissidents, has the moral high ground. The Iranian government, which beheads homosexuals and promiscuous women, has the moral high ground. The Iranian government, which placed a bounty on Salman Rushdie's head, has the moral high ground. The Iranian government, which has threatened to wipe Israel off the map, has the moral high ground.

If you truly believe this ****, you are a despicable human being. :2mad:

TimmyBoy said:
Your views and approach to dealing with Iran will only bring more problems, stability and likely a US defeat.

I don't know why I'm even wasting my time arguing with you. The Iranian theocracy would have no chance of defeating the American military, as should be obvious to anyone. They would most likely crumble about as quickly as Saddam Hussein's regime did.

TimmyBoy said:
The US would likely get bogged down in a guerrilla war like it is currently in Iraq

Well that would mean that the theocracy had been overthrown and the nuclear program was stopped, now wouldn't it?

TimmyBoy said:
and eventually, the US military will get grinded down and will have to leave Iran while on the same token creating an environment which strengthens terrorism and the possibility of nuclear war.

You still haven't explained how eliminating Iran's nuclear weapons program would strengthen the possibility of nuclear war.
 
Iran sits on a huge portion of the world's oil...and they need nuclear energy? Give me a break.

Like their president has repeatedly indicated, they want to wipe Israel off the map. THAT is why they want nukes. That and the fact that the world will have to take their radical regime more seriously once they have nukes.

All we need to do is take our leash off of Israel and keep our oblivious European "allies" in check. Israel will resolve this quickly, lethally, and with minimal loss of life to uninvolved Iranians-much like they did with Saddam's nuclear program. ;)
 
TimmyBoy said:
By going into Iraq, the US has strengthened the very terrorists that attacked the US on September 11. Countless CIA and intelligence reports state this time and again. Not to mention, going into Iraq has also made the world a less safer place as other nations scramble to spend more money on their militaries and to develop nuclear weapons to defend themselves from a possible US first strike.

:rofl

What a joke! :lol:

1) By going to Iraq, we have stopped a genocidal terror-sponsor and drawn the terrorists to a Middle-Eastern country to attack our VOLUNTEER military rather than our CIVILIANS in New York City.

Your doomsaying is so absurd, it's hardly worth addressing. :roll:

2) We tried things the way YOU people want them done for eight years under Clinton. We disregarded history's repeated lessons about appeasement and let liberals cater to the demands of North Korea while they went nuclear right under our noses.

Your way sucks. Your people (Democrats) have proved this over and over again under Carter and Clinton. Our way ends the threat.

3) If you were alive in the old days, you would've been one of those people history ends up laughing at who said the telephone would never be anything but a kid's toy. You have no vision, and your enormously shortsighted doomspeak is not going to convince anyone here to see the bloodthirsty Muslim degenerates trying to kill us as misunderstood victims or freedom fighters. It is unwise to let these people go on the way they are.
 
TimmyBoy said:
going into Iraq has also made the world a less safer place as other nations scramble to spend more money on their militaries and to develop nuclear weapons to defend themselves from a possible US first strike.

You've made this assertion a couple of times now, IIRC. What makes you think that other countries are pursuing nukes just to defend themselves from a US first strike? Other than those that are already recognized as rogue states?

I'll sit back and watch US forces get kicked out of Iran and defeated, because that is exactly what will happen

You appear to be extrapolating the total US military capability based on what is in reality, a small sample - Iraq. You need to revise your estimates of US military capability to take into account that the forces that you see deployed in Iraq today are actually a quite small element of our total capability. Moreover, the lessons learned in both Afghanistan and Iraq would be incredibly valuable should we have to go into Iran. Furthermore, the Iranian army hasn't been engaged in a war since the '80s conflict with Iraq, and due to generational change, is no longer battle experienced. We now have a highly trained and expeirenced military.

One risk in taking on Iran is a risk that we thought we faced in Iraq: wmd. Specifically, chemical and biological weapons. The Iranians might actually possess them and use them, if for no other reason than they are the religous fanatics that Saddam was not, and UN sanctions have not been present to at least hinder their development and weaponizing.

In perhaps a perverse (or maybe not so perverse, depending on one's pov), it is unfortunate that the theory of 'mutually assured destruction' or MAD, probably won't work in the ME. MAD was at least partly responsible for our eventual success in the Cold War: convictions of mutual destruction kept both east and west from launching the first strike. In the ME, though, the cold, calculating, rational thought processes necessary for MAD to work are too widely displaced by religous fanaticism. Otherwise, the development of nukes by the Iranians would be a lesser problem (a huge problem nonetheless, but lesser in a relative sense). Mullahs with fingers on the nuclear trigger? A much riskier proposition. Simply cannot be allowed to happen.

In sum, if necessary, the US military could prevail in Iran. It is not something that we would want to do, and it would be considerably more difficult in many ways than Iraq. But make no mistake, it is still eminently do-able. Would there be a follow-on guerilla war? No doubt. Would the Iranian population be against us from the outset in a significantly greater degree than were the Iraqis? Highly likely. Would it be enough to keep us from doing what needs to be done? Absolutely not.
 
aquapub said:
Like their president has repeatedly indicated, they want to wipe Israel off the map. THAT is why they want nukes. That and the fact that the world will have to take their radical regime more seriously once they have nukes.

You assume as soon as Iran has nukes they will use them.

Nuclear Golden Rule - When you nuke a nuclear country, you expect 5 coming at you.

Look at Pakistan, a radical Islamic country. No-one is demanding nukes from them. The dictator of Pakistan may be our ally, but what happens when he dies?? :shock:
 
oldreliable67 said:
In sum, if necessary, the US military could prevail in Iran. It is not something that we would want to do, and it would be considerably more difficult in many ways than Iraq. But make no mistake, it is still eminently do-able. Would there be a follow-on guerilla war? No doubt. Would the Iranian population be against us from the outset in a significantly greater degree than were the Iraqis? Highly likely. Would it be enough to keep us from doing what needs to be done? Absolutely not.

The US will need a draft, make no bones about it. Iran has the sort of terrian where technology doesn't matter much.

Those 80's veterans will be out if their is an invasion. Iran has the 8th largest army in the world, one of the world's finest may I add. This is no Iraq, it might even be worse than Vietnam.
 
Garza said:
Iran has the 8th largest army in the world, one of the world's finest may I add. This is no Iraq, it might even be worse than Vietnam.

Certainly grant you that Iran today is no comparison with Iraq today. But in '91, Saddam had the which largest army, and it was thought to be battle-hardened after years of conflict with Iran?

In what ways do you think Iran would be 'worse than Vietnam'?
 
Garza said:
Look at Pakistan, a radical Islamic country. No-one is demanding nukes from them.

We're were pretty close to it, before 9/11.

Pakistan and India are the closest thing in the ME to having a 'mutually assured destruction' understanding. We don't worry so much about India (recently, at any rate), but you are quite right, it is quite worrisome to have Pakistan as a party to this, given their high level of support for radical Islamists, along with the question of political (in)stability.
 
oldreliable67 said:
Certainly grant you that Iran today is no comparison with Iraq today. But in '91, Saddam had the which largest army, and it was thought to be battle-hardened after years of conflict with Iran?

In what ways do you think Iran would be 'worse than Vietnam'?

I said "maybe" worse.

Iraq was easy as we know where to hit and how to hit it. Flat desert is easy to combat against, even to combat against guerilla warfare. The US has been in Iraq since March 2003, (I mean this in the deepest respects) only just over 2000 have lost their lives.

This is Iran's terrian from CIA factbook: rugged, mountainous rim; high, central basin with deserts, mountains; small, discontinuous plains along both coasts. Tehran itself is thousands of feet above sea level.

Spain has the same terrain and even though Napoleans France conquered them, they managed to "bleed the French white" through a series of guerrila skirmishes.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Army
Iran's army includes 350,000 active-duty soldiers and 220,000 conscripts.

Iran can also call on substatial numbers of reservists as most males must carry out a full two year millitary service at some point in their lives. It is generally acknowledged that the conscript element of the army is not trained nearly as well as the professional active duty army.

Those substatial numbers of reservists would be a million strong - maybe more. All they need is battle expereince and my dad says its comes quickly.

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html#Military
Manpower available for military service:
males age 18-49: 18,319,545 (2005 est.)

It might be worse than Vietnam, as unlike the Vietcong who dealt with dense jungle the Iranians would be easily be able to spot an army approaching on a windy hilltop road.
 
GarzaUK said:
I said "maybe" worse.

Iraq was easy as we know where to hit and how to hit it. Flat desert is easy to combat against, even to combat against guerilla warfare. The US has been in Iraq since March 2003, (I mean this in the deepest respects) only just over 2000 have lost their lives.

This is Iran's terrian from CIA factbook: rugged, mountainous rim; high, central basin with deserts, mountains; small, discontinuous plains along both coasts. Tehran itself is thousands of feet above sea level.

Spain has the same terrain and even though Napoleans France conquered them, they managed to "bleed the French white" through a series of guerrila skirmishes.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Army
Iran's army includes 350,000 active-duty soldiers and 220,000 conscripts.

Iran can also call on substatial numbers of reservists as most males must carry out a full two year millitary service at some point in their lives. It is generally acknowledged that the conscript element of the army is not trained nearly as well as the professional active duty army.

Those substatial numbers of reservists would be a million strong - maybe more. All they need is battle expereince and my dad says its comes quickly.

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html#Military
Manpower available for military service:
males age 18-49: 18,319,545 (2005 est.)

It might be worse than Vietnam, as unlike the Vietcong who dealt with dense jungle the Iranians would be easily be able to spot an army approaching on a windy hilltop road.

Iran is one place I wouldn't want to fight. Like I said before, the best thing the West can do is pursue nuclear deturrence, and I do believe Iran can be deturred and negotiations to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons and if they do get them to try and get them to keep their numbers down or maybe get rid of them.
 
Garza,

You're response shows that you have done some homework, which is excellent. But your response also suggests that you think we have learned little from our experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

My guess would be that any US attack on Iran would not take the form of an Iraq-style multiple armored column approach. In fact, I doubt very much that we would engage in any kind of frontal, all-out invasion of Iran.

Should we decide to take military action against Iran, I would expect it to be more limited, targetting nuclear sites and nuclear weapon delivery capability installations. The force employed would be overwhelming, but would be more in the style of 'get in, blow it up, get out' rather than as an occupying force.

Before such action took place, I would expect UN sanctions to be in place, hopefully sufficiently effective so as to make it extremely difficult for the Iranians to reconstitute their nuclear effort, once we did take it out.

There are a couple of Iranian dissident groups with whom we might be coordinating or working with, though they seem to take a much lower profile than did the Iraqi groups. Which is understandable, in that Iran doesn't have an oppressive dictator with which to contend. In the longer run scheme of things, we would like very much to promote democracy in the ME and see more representative governments. But the right approach to encouraging such in Iran seems to be working from within, while constraining or eliminating the mullahs nuclear capabilities.

I think the last strategy that we would embrace would be an all-out assault with the intent of occupying Iran for any length of time. The only way such an assault becomes even remotely possible, IMO, is if we are but one of a number of nations that contribute heavily to such an effort, in numbers sufficient that we assault with overwhelming force. Certainly, unless things take a dramatic turn, thats not likely to happen.

Granted, we're both engaging in a bit of speculation here, but you've done some homework and I've been in the military, so why not?
 
TimmyBoy said:
Iran is one place I wouldn't want to fight. Like I said before, the best thing the West can do is pursue nuclear deturrence, and I do believe Iran can be deturred and negotiations to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons and if they do get them to try and get them to keep their numbers down or maybe get rid of them.

Nobody wants to fight in Iran, or anywhere else for that mattter - except the Islamic radicals, that is.

What is it that makes you think that any kind of deterrence will work with religous fanatics? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
 
I think military attack on Iran would be different from Iraq in two respects;
1- Iraq was under 12 years of sanction and very weakened while Iran has been taking advantage of the war, while west busy with Iraq giving incentives to Iran, they have been going full force to develop nuclear capability

2- Iranian regime is so illegitimate that if they ease up public hangings and torture of the political prisoners for one week the whole country would rise up. Iran has an organized opposition but Iraq did not.

So I still think trusting the people of Iran and their resistance is the best way, please read today's Washington Times article,

Ignoring Tehran's threats

The Washington Times. Jan 13, 2006

...West fears oil embargo. Iran is the world's fourth-biggest crude oil producer and it thinks the West can't afford to cut off its supply. But it can and it must. More than hurting Europe, an oil embargo will deny Tehran the resources to suppress Iranians at home, pursue nuclear weapons and export its brand of fundamentalist Islam.

There also is a ready-and-willing dissident group waiting in the wings. The National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, without whose eyes and ears in Iran the world might still be unaware of Tehran's nuclear ambitions, is eager to act.

But one of its components, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), has unjustly been on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations as part of a misguided and futile initiative to appease the mullahs 1997. That terrorist listing must be undone.

The West could ill afford to ignore Tehran's nuclear and terrorist threats. Taking the mullahs to the Security Council and de-listing the dissidents seem to be the most practical and least costly means to stand up to them...
more
 
I personally think that the US does not get involved where it needs to be involved and gets involved when it doesn't need to be involved. I think the US been getting a little bit too cocky for it's own good going around messing with all these countries, when you get too cocky and try to be Billy Bad Ass you get your ass whooped. People get tired of it and so some of them decided to come over here to the US and try to whoop our ass, because they are getting tired of the US messing with them. That's not to say, I don't think the US shouldn't be involved in the world. Like I would support the US stopping some of the genocides in the world like in Bosnia or Rwanda, but the US doesn't get involved to try and do any good. The US only gets involved to protect it's interests and that is why we never tried to stop the genocide in Bosnia or Rwanda, no interests in those countries. And that's why we are in Iraq and the Middle East, because their is interests their. It's not about doing good or the right thing, it's about interests.
 
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