What a war with Iran would be ...

Mr. President, I believe that the Iranians will fight us with everything they have if we go to war with them.

• You have several thousand soldiers in Iraq and Syria.  These countries have large proxy forces of Iran's allies in the form of Shia militias in Iraq and actual Iranian Quds Force troops in Syria.  These forces will be used to attack and kill our soldiers.
• The Iranians have significant numbers of ballistic missiles which they have already said will be used against our forces
• The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea.  The Iranian Navy and the IRGC Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed.  In that process the US Navy will loose men and ships.
• In direct air attacks on Iran we are bound to lose aircraft and air crew.
• The IRGC and its Quds Force will carry out terrorist attacks across the world.

Do you really want to be a one term president?

Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. 

Where will you be able to take refuge? 

Don't let the neocons like Pompeo sell you on war.

Make the intelligence people show you the evidence in detail.  Make your own judgments.  pl

Comments

[b]

Points missing in the above are the roles Russia and China would play in such a conflict.

The cost for the U.S. of a war on Iran would be tremendous.

Russia would deliver whatever Iran needs for the war over a secure Caspian Sea. China would pay for whatever Iran needs. (It just granted Iran a large line of credit). Turkey would probably also help Iran.

The world economy would slump due to high oil prices after the mining of the Strait of Hormuz.

European 'allies' would have no interest in taking part in the the war (the Brits may have to).

Geopolitical such a war would end after many years with a large loss of U.S. standing in the world.

[Fred]

Lars,

If Obama had lived up to his campaign rhetoric we would have. I'm sure the next Democrat will do better.

[The Beaver]

If it is a fake missile ( like the "Qiam" ballistic missile provided by Pentagon and which Nimrata dressed "in her boots are made for walking" at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington on Dec. 14, 2017) it will say "product of Iran". However anything made in Iran will have "Product of the Islamic Republic of Iran "

[Mark Logan]

It appears to me this attack has raised the question of if the Saudi oil fields and refineries can be effectively defended. Hopefully that will give MBS pause before crying for US vengeance. Aside from sanctions, of course.

MBS should consider what exactly he expects to accomplish in Yemen, but that would be wishing for much.

[FkDahl]

Don't you mean littoral?

(sorry could not help it)

For the record it's about a 1000km or 12 h drive per Google Maps from the Iranian border to Riyadh. Can a light motorized force infiltrate fast enough not to be hit by US air power ? I doubt the Saudi's have order-control loop agile enough to deal with such raiders. Does the US have enough air assets that are close enough, yet not in areas where bases are under missile attack to put a meaningful number of fighter bombers in the air ?

[Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12)]

Are you sure? I am not

Some glimpses of hope and, surprisingly, maturity, even if forced, from DJT.

WASHINGTON – As President Donald Trump ponders retaliation on Iran, he and a close Republican ally had a spat over the supposed "weakness" of the last U.S. confrontation with Tehran.Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on Twitter that Trump's decision to call off a military strike on Iran for taking out a U.S. drone in June may have emboldened the Iranians to attack an oil facility in Saudi Arabia on Saturday. "The measured response by President @realDonaldTrump regarding theshooting down of an American drone was clearly seen by the Iranianregime as a sign of weakness," Graham said in a series of tweets. Trump, while on a fundraising trip to California, quickly snapped back: "No Lindsey, it was a sign of strength that some people just don’t understand!"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sign-weakness-trump-clashes-lindsey-114453208.html

[turcopolier]

Martyanov

Graham is a strange man.

[turcopolier]

FKDahl

Four lane highway all the way once you get to Kuwait. the Iranians can try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. US forces are configured for expeditionary work and can be re-positioned with a fairly short time (days or weeks). we can cope with difficult conditions.

[turcopolier]

jonst

Who said anything about surviving themselves? The Israelis would kill most of the Hizbullah soldiers involved but Israel itself would be dead or dying with its cities and civilian population so mangled that the Jews would leave the country en masse.

[ISL]

The decision to go or not to war with Iran has nothing to do with facts. Saudi Arabia needs to calculate if they will hold on to power after the retaliation. or abscond with enough wealth to Switzerland. Trump needs to decide if he wants to be a one-term president for Bibi. BIbi couldnt give a damn what happens to Israel or the US or jews.

The US will be behind Trump's war until is causes economic pain or kills an unacceptable number of Americans. Would really position Tulsi ahead of the others, though.

The real question is whether the president will make an informed decision or based on his guts and the mis-information being fed to him by the sycophants he was responsible for surrounding himself with.

Perhaps he will pick up the hotline to Moscow at this point Russian interests seem better aligned with US (the country's) interests than the interests of the Borg.

[prawnik]

For what? Are the Saudis not committing crimes in Yemen, to name but one?

[Yeah, Right]

Babak, I'm not talking about an Iranian conquest of Afghanistan.

But there are US troops there. Not a huge number, but sizeable.

Iran could send an invasion force of, say, ten times that number to root out those US soldiers. They either stand and fight, in which case Iran kills them all, or they cut and run, in which case the US looks like a bunch of cowards.

Either way, mission accomplished, at which point the Iranians say to the Afghans "No, we're not staying" and leave

[different clue]

Perhaps they are within the borders of Iran itself in order to deter any kind of ground attack against Iran itself, or to fight back against any such on-the-ground attack if it is made.

[different clue]

The ObamaAdmin did help in negotiating the JCPOA with Iran. That wasn't going to get us out of the Middle East, but it would have kept us from getting even more deeper inner. It was a real achievement and a first step on a trail of steps toward a state of persistent non-hostility with Iran.

And it was President Trump who destroyed that particular achievement, driven by racial animus against America's first "black" President and even more driven by his seething rage over being humiliated in public by Obama's roasting of him at that White House Correspondent's Dinner. I did not expect, and therefor did not predict, that Trump would destroy that particular JCPOA achievement.

Would the next Democrat do better? First of all, we don't know that there will be a "next Democrat". If the DemParty nominates a Catfood Democrat, bitter berners like me will not vote for it. If the DemParty can actually be tortured and beaten into nominating Sanders on the first ballot, the Bitter Clinters will not vote for Sanders. Would Warren be tolerable enough to just enough bitter berners and pink kitty cap Jonestown Clinties so as to be able to win the election? I can't even guess.

Second, even if a Democrat won, if the TrumpAdmin can get a war going with Iran so deep and hot and with so many embittering and enraging casualties on the American side that American pride becomes involved; then even Next President Democrat would be stuck having to "see the war through" long enough to hand it off to the next President after that.

Since even that would not be as bad as having had a Total Thermonuclear Exchange with Russia . . . I am not yet sorry that I voted for Trump to stop the evil Clinton. But my margin of "not yet sorry" is wearing very thin.

[different clue]

This would be a fine time for Dissident Democrats to begin praising the JCPOA, criticising Trump's removal of America from the JCPOA, and promising that "if nominated" they would run on bringing America back into JCPOA, lifting the Trump sanctions and then waiting to see where things go from there.

The only Democrats who would overtly criticize Trump for not retaliating against Iranian "provocations" would be thoroughly cynical Catfood Democrats of silly cleverness and deeply shallow mind. Those are the Democrats which the DNC has engineered the whole nomination process to try favoring, of course.

[blue peacock]

Why should the US care even if Iran knocked out a Saudi processing facility?

We are self-sufficient in oil and can always get more. If the Iranians want to piss off the Chinese who are planning to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in their economy by cutting of Saudi oil supplies that they depend on why not?

[turcopolier]

yeah Right is an Israeli.

[J]

So how is Retd. Gen.(Israeli) Benny Gantz going to play in all of this? It looks like Gantz's dead heat with Bibi will force Bibi from power. How will Gantz's personality play with the Godfather behavior of POTUS Trump?

J

[jonst]

These, David Solomon's, are the kind of people that come out of the walls Col. If Israeli "cities and civilian populations are so mangled that Jews would leave the country en masse" there will not be two trees left standing in Lebanon. This is madness to talk this way. EVERYONE needs to calm down. Or the submarines operating in the Med Sea will sprout fire. Then what will will the David Solomon's of ooze start saying?

[JamesT]

I don't think the Iranians consider the US to be anything close to "agreement capable". The JCPOA was entered into with the Borg fully intending to renege as soon as the Iranians fulfilled their part of the bargain. (I think the Iranians planned for this and believed that it would be worth it to get rid of the UN security council resolutions on conventional weapons sales (and also ballistic missile tech if I remember correctly) - with these gone they can legally buy very advanced weapons from China and Russia).

But after living up to their part of the deal while having the US and the Europeans renege - you really think Iran is interested in doing another deal? I don't think so.

[LA Sox Fan]

it seems that the US has only succeeded in making itself weaker with each succeeding military intervention over the last 19-years. I suspect bombing Iran (we will never send in ground troops) won’t be any different. Only, this time, the Iranians will most likely destroy any US ally within range of its missiles. Of course, Iran too will be flattened by US bombs and missiles.

Unless Iran is freely allowed to sell oil, this will eventually be the end result. Iran isn’t so neutered that it will allow US sanctions to kill hundreds of thousands of its people like Iraq did after the first Gulf War. Like most countries, people, and living creatures, if backed into a corner, Iran will have no alternative but to fight, even if it believes the odds are hopeless.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Iranians are not stupid

[Terence Gore]

Yes it is dated, but for me more informative than anything else I have read. I don't think the US mainland is under any direct threat from Iran unless we initiate hostilities. I think there are legitimate concerns that Israel may take matters into their own hands which I would hate to see. My uninformed opinion is the more we try to enforce our rule sets for the world the more problems we create.

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

The UAV attack against Saudi oil production is similar to the MH-17 shoot down in Ukraine. Saudis said the attacks unquestionably were “sponsored” by Iran. But no radar tracks, satellite pictures of launch sites, or evidence who are the perpetrators were have been produced. Just, “Take our word for it, they did it”. Like Russia the risks are too great for the government of Iran launched the missiles. Instead, my gut feeling that this is the direct blowback from the Empire’s regime change campaigns to destroy nation states by building up radical proxy forces; i.e. the Sunni Jihadists supplied by Saudi Arabia in Syria. To survive, Shiites in Syria and Iraq countered with their own militias supplied by Iran. They and the Houthis have every reason to strike back at Saudi Arabia, starting with revenge. Even if Iran is not directly attacked, the renewal of ground fighting against Shiite militias would be bloody and would eventually force an end of America’s occupation of Iraq and Eastern Syria. A renewed aerial bombing of Syria and Iraq by itself is futile. Peace is the only way out.

[turcopolier]

jonst

I cannot be silent old friend. I cannot.