How Long Will Gulf War II Last?

[Ned]

Catullus, aggressors do not liberate people from oppression, disarm a tryant, Hitlerite, dictator from his WoMD, and ask nothing at all in return.

Get your act together.

[Alexander's Horse]

I think they'd be better off abandoning most of their heavy equipment and going for small team ambushes in the cities and towns. They'd still lose.

The trouble is they are Soviet trained and take great pride in their big guns and tanks, even though most of which are useless.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
I think they'd be better off abandoning most of their heavy equipment and going for small team ambushes in the cities and towns. They'd still lose.

The trouble is they are Soviet trained and take great pride in their big guns and tanks, even though most of which are useless.

As I think back, the Germans, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese did very well against us. What they all had in common were very good infrantry. Saddam seem to like to rely on armor to much to be effective when his opponent has air supremacy.

[Lancer]

AH, I'm still waiting on the French signing on in the UN...like you assured me they definately would do. Care to reconsider your opinion?

MtG, good force structure for your new divisions. I wish the repubs would get off their butts and do something about the mess.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


What wrath? The US doesn't have the forces to be everywhere at once, and if NATO member Turkey decides to "act in it's own security interests to protect itself against attacks by Kurd rebels", the US is going to have a hard time.

Iran is mountainous as hell, and a lot tougher nut to crack than Iraq will ever be.

It just has to be defensive actions, protecting the borders of Iraq with air-patrols and such. Who said anything about invading Iran? We only need to keep them from entering and holding ground in Iraq. Air power alone would probably be enough to stop that, cause any sizable invasion would just be a big fat target. We wouldnt need our ground forces to do much against an invasion, because we wont have to hold ground, we would be merely keeping others from taking land. And if Turkey takes ground into northern Iraq, we should only warn them to remove themselves, and if they dont... well that will be a delima.

Do you honestly think the Iranian military could successfully take parts of Iraq and hold them under the pressure of American air attacks?

EDIT: and once the Ground forces are done with the major work, some can be recruited up to attack the invaders if Iran somehow manages to hold on under the air attacks. This is a rediculous scenario. Iran would never accomplish anyhting and they know it, so this would never come to pass, unless Iran has a really, really stupid leadership.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kramerman


It just has to be defensive actions, protecting the borders of Iraq with air-patrols and such. Who said anything about invading Iran? We only need to keep them from entering and holding ground in Iraq. Air power alone would probably be enough to stop that, cause any sizable invasion would just be a big fat target. We wouldnt need our ground forces to do much against an invasion, because we wont have to hold ground, we would be merely keeping others from taking land. And if Turkey takes ground into northern Iraq, we should only warn them to remove themselves, and if they dont... well that will be a delima.

Do you honestly think the Iranian military could successfully take parts of Iraq and hold them under the pressure of American air attacks?

EDIT: and once the Ground forces are done with the major work, some can be recruited up to attack the invaders if Iran somehow manages to hold on under the air attacks. This is a rediculous scenario. Iran would never accomplish anyhting and they know it, so this would never come to pass, unless Iran has a really, really stupid leadership.

Of course, they're not going to immediately invade, in the presense of US troops. No need to do that, and remember, they didn't "invade" in 1980. They operated with agents among the Shiite population.

The problem with US military and strategic thinking is that it's too focused on firepower vs firepower confrontations.

First thing, the Turks and Iranians would have vastly different methods and goals. The Turks are pretty universally hated, and their goal is to exert influence over northern Iraq in the name of "security." They have Kurd rebels as excuses, and as long as they play the "we're just trying to secure our borders against these terrorists" game, the US is going to have a tough time through NATO - or is going to have to threaten to use force, against another Islamic country, and all the added love and propaganda that will entail.

On the flip side, the Iranians don't need troops to acquire influence, they have a majority population in Iraq with a common religious background, (the Iraqis are secular more because of systematic oppression of Shia by the Hussein regime, not because they're magically more inclined to be secular), and a basis for commercial and other ties with Basra and with respect to port facilities and the Shatt al Arab waterway.

The prefered Iranian method will be subversion and political, and the US is going to be hard pressed to prevent a majority population from exerting it's newfound political clout without either squashing "democracy" and making Bush's recent speeches out to be total hypocrisy, or without some form of confrontation, that again, can play into the propaganda needs of those who want to rile up the Arab on the street masses with rallying cries of oil, imperialism and war against Allah.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Lancer
AH, I'm still waiting on the French signing on in the UN...like you assured me they definately would do. Care to reconsider your opinion?

No I think they would have got what they wanted if they had gone about things in the normal way. But they didn't. The rest is history.

[Sava]

The military action will be short... the US occupation will be decades and in the trillions of dollars.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sava
The military action will be short... the US occupation will be decades and in the trillions of dollars.

They could always abandon the place, leaving the poor sods to their own devices. Or rather, their neighbours' devices.

[Agathon]

All I can say is, here's hoping as few people die as possible.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Agathon
All I can say is, here's hoping as few people die as possible.

[Evil_Eric_4]

S!

I voted 4 to 6 days.
It will be extremely quick and relatively bloodless.
Most Iraqi conscripts wil surrender to U.S. forces(or reporters) on sight.
When we besiege Baghdad(day 3) we will be served Saddams head on a platter by his most trusted leutenants.
Just my opinion--We will see in about a week.

[Gatekeeper]

It would be interesting if some form of democracy and representative government came to Iraq, only to see it become a radical fundamentalist regime via the ballot box. Heh. Algeria had that problem, no?

Gatekeeper

[catullus]

Originally posted by Ned
Catullus, aggressors do not liberate people from oppression, disarm a tryant, Hitlerite, dictator from his WoMD, and ask nothing at all in return.

I really hope to see you right on this, and not find Iraq raped of its resources by axis-owned oil companies in a year's time.

C.

[The Vagabond]

2 weeks until the fall of Bagdad.