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Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald
Is that at all likely though? The minute they take to bombing Iran the whole Middle East explodes. Plus, the Iranians are not the Iraqis. They have much better equipment than the Iraqis did and likely could fight back against the Americans. Based on how thin they are spread out, that could be disasterous. The Americans take their eye off the ball in Iraq for a minute and they could find themselves with an uprising and rebellion that could force their departure. The people have had it with the American occupation. I don't think it won't take much to turn enemy into ally against the occupying forces in Iraq. The Americans need to be very careful where they tread IMO.
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Oh I was just playing an as if scenario. I think the likelyhood of any kind of action is slim and none unless Iran gives a blatent outright reason such as detonating a test warhead.
America is in the ultimate tar baby now with Iran. The initial idea was to end up with a massive aircraft and troop carrier right in the middle of the Middle East that could threaten nations into quieting down by direct actions in minutes instead of days.
The insurgancy and its ferocity took the American's by complete surprise (Bad intelligence, worse planning) and they've spent most of their time swinging at shadows with too few successes along the way.
Now the American Military is pretty much inward facing in Iraq trying to wrap up an enemy that they thought would be much weaker and wrapped up by now, instead of having the ability to stabilize the region by acting as a threatening prescence.
The U.S.S.R. Afghanistan conflict that the American's were so proud of avoiding after the second gulf War has now become a solid reality. To be honest in my mind, the type of warfare that the Jihadists are fighting can't be won unless your willing to be far more ruthless then they are. You can't beat them through educating the masses, because they'll scare the piss out of anyone who wants to get educated. You can't beat them through airstrikes unless your willing to flame whole cities, and you can't beat them through standardized infantry tactics unless again your willing to shoot anyone that looks at you sideways.
Why is it a tarbaby? Because the U.S. is sunk in up to their elbows and its holding them there while Iran basically exports terrorists and supplies unstopped.
In a military standpoint (because its all I know), the Yanks won a tremendous victory in toppling Saddam's regime and destroying Iraq's capabilities, but they followed it up by losing the peace through bad intel, bad execution and bad planning.