Quote:
Originally Posted by TLAM Strike
Still nothing preventing a major air offensive. Any Iranian counter attack by land would be in to deserts (both on the east and west of Iran) where US forces could do "Mother of all battles part II". increased guerilla warfare in Iraq or Afghanistan simply becomes a situation of "the same $h!t, just more of it".
|
That may be like you say - or not, but one thing I am certain of, and have said so since years: you canot destroy the Iranian bomb program from the air alone as long as you do not will the sue of socalled mini-nukes. Precise target coordinates simply are not avialable to the needed ammount for precisely bombing key installations and subterranean hardened constructions that are jhidden inside a prhibited area of lets say 20x50 km.
You can delay it a bit by doing some damage - but you canot stop it from the air, even more so since the psychlogical facts of wetsern soceities you must pay attemtion to sooner or later. and the truth is that no western country would accept to have a major air strike on Iran every couple of years.
Iranian retaliation would not be limited to Iraq and Afghanistan, btw. We also talk about civil unrest9nside Israel sponsored by Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian activity in Gaza, terror sponsoring worldwide, and to be expected Iranian-sponsored terror strikes throughout the world. So, a conventional air war not only would not acchieve the military objective of destroying the bomb program (and I accept no other objective than destruction of it - delaying it is soemthing I am not willing to call to war for), but it possibly also would cause extremely costly fallout.
Either go for the destruction of the program - no matter the cost, no matter the means needed - or put the whoole idea of ,military punishement of iran away and prepare to accept a nuclear armed iran plus all the negative consequences this would be followed by. I can't say I am a fan of any of these two options, but as I said: I do not accept another Pakistan become reality, so air-strike Iran for the sake of the global interest and mini-nuke the critical installations of their research and construction facilities, additonally contaminating the places in any way so that they cannot be accessed and put back to use again.
With this opinion I will not become popular in Western politics, I'm sure. I'm violating a taboo.