The drums of war begin anew

[Hauldren Collider]

Iran would not be rife with sectarian violence the way Iraq was, and it wouldn't be a game of Jungle Whack A Mole the way Vietnam was. It wouldn't be a game of half-maneuver half-trench warfare the way Korea was. And it wouldn't be the same kind of quagmire Afghanistan is. It would be an entirely unique quagmire. But it would absolutely be a quagmire.

[Alexander's Horse]

Plato, the Iranians know all the specs on the bunker buster, they have built their key facilities to resist such attacks, buried them in mountains as has North Korea, which brings us back to the boots on the problem.

AFAIK the allies don't even know exactly where NK's uranium enrichment facility is. Iran could be one planeload away from enough fissile material to build a testable device. We just don't know. North Korea helped Pakistan with missiles in return for nuclear know-how through the A.Q.Khan network.

[Lancer]

From OP quote:

"I'm afraid there is going to be something drastic that could happen," said Barbara Rogan, a retired librarian from Westport, Conn. "Iran feels, I think, that they have nothing to lose while forging ahead. The sanctions aren't enough to frighten them."

Hello? Can we possibly get a second opinion on this? Are there any more retired librarians out there who would like to speak up? Okay, here's the opinion of a retired contractor from Oregon who goes be the name, Lancer.:

"Take off and nuke the site from space, its the only way to be sure."

Really, the whole place should be downrange until they agree that they are *******s and promise they will try to do better.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Some interesting stuff in such a conflict would be that Pakistan gets scared and decides with some unstable government to go all in that noone expected them to do, and at least partial nuclear holocaust ensues. Pakistan, India, Iran, maybe even North Korea with few hits in Europe, maybe even one or two in US. World economy in meltdown.

That could be the begining of war to end all wars for real this time around. Next war : rocks.

[Lancer]

Subcontinent would be a messy smoking wasteland, NK would have lost its military on the border, their missiles would not have gotten through. Who nuked Europe again? Pakistan? They would be too busy nuking and getting nuked by India. Really I doubt they would lift a finger for Iran. No, I think Iran would stand alone. Their only hope would be Russia, but the Russians aren't stupid. They would take it to the UN...

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Russians are not that stupid, they would stand and watch, but Pakistan is pretty unstable and has capacity to do all of the above, NK could get drown in as some sort of off-shoot from whole destabilization...

My idea of the hits would be that they would be Pakistani sponsored deliveries in some other form and not via ballistic missiles. NK ones could be ballistic if they really have the capability.

Iran is economic, and potentially even military suicide for the US, plus the rest of us who will sink along... but it is not like the world did not do this same thing over and over in the past. Suicide is just what people like to do from time to time, one could argue that it has even been overdue.

[N35t0r]

Germany?

Mosaddegh?

[DinoDoc]

Mosaddegh?

You said 1st time. Germany happened 1st.

[PLATO]

Plato, the Iranians know all the specs on the bunker buster, they have built their key facilities to resist such attacks, buried them in mountains as has North Korea, which brings us back to the boots on the problem.

AFAIK the allies don't even know exactly where NK's uranium enrichment facility is. Iran could be one planeload away from enough fissile material to build a testable device. We just don't know. North Korea helped Pakistan with missiles in return for nuclear know-how through the A.Q.Khan network.

You might be right, but repeated hits from bunker busters is something I don't think anybody knows the true result of. This weapon is designed to penetrate 200 feet of reinforced concrete...five or six of these in a row could cause a hell of a hole.

As far as their location, my bet is we know pretty well where they are. I would say any likely area is under a constant eye in the sky.

[PLATO]

Iran would not be rife with sectarian violence the way Iraq was, and it wouldn't be a game of Jungle Whack A Mole the way Vietnam was. It wouldn't be a game of half-maneuver half-trench warfare the way Korea was. And it wouldn't be the same kind of quagmire Afghanistan is. It would be an entirely unique quagmire. But it would absolutely be a quagmire.

I think Iran has been preparing for U.S. invasion since 1980. While I agree on sectarian violence, I think gureilla warfare would be much more intense and common. Let's not forget who showed the sects in Iraq how to build better IEDs.

[Alexander's Horse]

The current options being taken on Iran, can't say by whom, seem to be black ops and cyber attack.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

a wise option.

[Alexander's Horse]

Risk of proliferation is another factor. If Iran gets the bomb some experts predict Saudi Arabia would be quick to follow. If the House of Saud was to fall, and it could down the road a ways, the bomb in the hands of a Salafist regime doesn't bear thinking about. The stakes are very high here people.

[Dr Strangelove]

Does Iran have any missles curently capable of hitting Germany?
Does Saudi Arabia have the means to develop a nuclear weapon? It would be much harder for them to hide it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't some American expert declare that Iran was supposedly just a year or two away from producing a nuclear bomb somewhere around 1997 to 1999? Here we are nearly 15 years later. Where's their bomb? Could this be a red herring just like those demands by the wepaons inspectors back in the 1990's to inspect Saddam Hussein's palaces as possible WMD storage sites?

[N35t0r]

You said 1st time. Germany happened 1st.

The first time you changed the regime in Iran?