Rouhani warns: ‘War with Iran is the mother of all wars’

I specifically said we could destroy the Iranian military with a bombing campaign which is far different than invading and defeating a foreign government. Those are two entirely different war scenarios. All we need do is destroy Irans military and nuclear research capabilities and put these savages back in their tents and on their camels. There is no need or desire for nation building here. Kill the right people break the right things and call it a day.

 

And I specifically have told you that is not possible through an air campaign. Not possible. Besides, the minute Iran is attacked, Iran can retaliate with fury, attacking US bases in the region (in the Persian Gulf, in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere), oil facilities, American naval assets, close the Strait of Hormuz, launch cyber-attacks, have Hezbollah fire off its 120,000+ rockets and missiles at Israel, and a lot more.

The US would not be able to stop any of this through an "air war". That is the point you don't understand. The US couldn't even take out the much smaller, far more limited, far less sophisticated, arsenal of Scud missiles Saddam fired at Israel during Desert Storm despite running more sorties in that war than basically in WWII! And Saddam's missiles needed to be fired from a very small and confined area to reach Israel, which would make them easier targets to find and kill. And they all used liquid fuel, which meant they needed to be fueled up for up to a day in advance before they could be launched, making detection of their launch quite easy. Iran has many many more missiles, including solid fuel, with all sorts of ranges, in a country that is 3 times the size of Iraq and 10-15 times the size of the area which Saddam could use to launch his Scuds.

You think Israel took out Hezbollah's missiles and rockets in the 2006 war? Israel had air superiority and ran more sorties than its previous wars combined. What did Israel accomplish, except punishing Lebanon's civilian population and infrastructure? You think the Saudis have been able to defeat the Houthis through any "air war" -- the Saudis, backed by the US and 9 other states, have the kind of air superiority over the "Houthis" that the US would never enjoy over Iran. And the Houthis have next to nothing compared to what Iran has in terms of missiles and rockets and the like. 4 years of bombing the Houthis has caused a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and has resulted in something like genocide, but I don't see the Saudis winning against the Houthis either.

 

Yes Iran would launch missle attacks and flail like a wounded bear as we systematically destroyed their military and entire infrastructure. When the smoke cleared iran would be devastated and Israel would clean up and absorb the pin prick Iranian attacks. In the end Iran would be toast while they and israeI went on like nothing happened.

 

You believe what you wish, but if attacking Iran was as simple as you imagine, it would have been done already. The US has been waging a low-level war with Iran for 40 years now. During this time, both sides have given the other plenty of reasons to get upset. But cooler heads have prevailed at the end simply because the prospects of war have never looked good for either side.

In the meantime, take this from me: air power isn't what it is build up to be in the propaganda you hear. It really doesn't accomplish nearly as much as you imagine. Even the simplest tasks that in theory should be accomplished by air power are often failures when you look at the actual facts. For instance, 3 days into the US war against Saddam, after hundreds of sorties using tens of hundreds of planes, where among the first targets for American bombers and fighters was Saddam's air force, Saddam could still engineer an operation to basically have 150+ of his best planes fly out of Iraq and into Iran, from airbases that were supposedly destroyed and with planes and pilots that shouldn't have been operating in the first place!

 

"Rouhani warns: ‘War with Iran is the mother of all wars’"

it would just be anouther 10+ year Iraq war, but even that is not something we want

 

The real war against Iraq was the one waged in 1991, not the propaganda show that started in 2003. Saddam's military was basically disarmed and the few forces that he had remaining were defanged by a combination of factors, including a decade of sanctions and generals who were already in the CIA pay by the time the 2003 war started.

The 1991 war, on the other hand, was won decisively by the US but not for the reasons many have been told or imagine.

 

we know this now, but not what the Bush admin was telling us then

 

While few pay any attention to the genocidal war being waged by the Saudis (with direct US assistance) in Yemen, even if you don't care about the poor people of Yemen who are being massacred, I would suggest you look at that conflict to reexamine some of your assumptions about the efficacy of an "air war". In this regard, how many basically uncontested sorties have the Saudi air force and their "coalition partners" flown over Yemen and how many Houthi targets have they hit? How come, after 4 years, the Houthis are still able to regularly launch missiles and drone strikes at Saudi Arabia and its facilities?

As you ponder this question, here is the latest news from that war front. The fact that 10 Houthi drones are able to penetrate Saudi air defenses to strike a major Saudi installation is quite telling.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-aligned-houthis-strike-major-saudi-oilfield-11566043672
Iran-Aligned Houthis Strike Major Saudi Oil Field

 

I think you would find there would be a lot more come back than you got from the Iraq war. Here is one article suggesting what might happen

Full thesis at https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/irans-response-to-a-us-attack

This one America will feel. The US will be bringing home plane loads of American's in body bags. That is why Trump does not want it till After 2020.

 

Of course but first - which chants do you hear more - Death to America, or Death to Iran?

Answering this question may give you a clue as to there’s more going on there than meets the eye

 

Why did not America won the war with Vietnam? Wanna have a crack answering this simple question?

 

You can't take ground with air power but you can destroy a military with it and that would be the objective in Iran

 

Same rhetoric we heard before invading Iraq which was pretty much a cakewalk

 

You would have heard that rhetoric regarding the 1991 war against Iraq, but not in 2003. In 2003, it was a given that the US would quickly take out Saddam's forces. And in 1991, the US defeated Iraq because Iraq blinked right before the US ground offensive and was taking out its troops, who were basically massacred in the so-called "highway of death", instead of positioning them to fight in urban settings and places which they could have negated the US advantage. And there are a billion and one differences between the two situations which would fly over your head anyway.

 

I don't know how to explain simple facts to you. Air power cannot take out Iran's military installations in any effective manner. Not the "installations" that would be hitting at the US and its forces. That is the actual lesson from the Iraq war that is relevant, not the nonsense you have been left to believe. That is the lesson of all the other wars waged and being waged in this region. Saddam was firing Scuds into Israel and Saudi Arabia without much interruption until the last day of the air war and beyond. Hezbollah was firing 100+ rockets and missiles into Israel until the ceasefire. The Houthis are shooting away at the Saudis with their rockets and missiles.

Air power is quite effective in other ways. It is most effective as a weapon to terrorize civilians and to destroy a nation's unprotected civilian infrastructure. That is something that is also evident from the wars that have been waged, whether against Iraq by the US, against Lebanon by the Israelis, or against Yemen by the Saudis and their partners in crime.

 

Why have Americans lost the war in Vietnam?

 

I don't know what you are trying to get at, but please answer your own question. And lets see what you are trying to prove by it.

 

Why would US spend costly tax payer money on the likes of Ruhani?
The pig can swim in his own mud, no need for the US to get dirty.
If he trys to harm American interest, he will get nailed and he knows it.
So all he does is idiotic threats like the one quoted at the beginning of this tread.

 

Blah blah blah. Heard all this before pre Iraq which turned out to be a cakewalk after they were bombed into impotence.

 

You didn't hear the things I told you, because they hadn't happened at that time! But ultimately it doesn't what you think anyway. What matters is what those who chose to invade Iraq (twice), and invade a lot of other countries, but not Iran, think.

 

Really? The rhetoric I was asking before the Iraq war, apart from knowing there were no wmd's as we had been told was, what is the end game? There wasn't one.

If you cared about your fellow country people as much as you want to destroy the people of Iran you would do just a little bit or research. Not the same. If it was, Trump would have agreed with the attack after Iran downed the drone. They never intended harming Iran. They just wanted to save face. Iran however would not agree to name a part of the country which you could bomb and they would not respond, so Trump said no, or the army said no and Trump said he would say it was him because he is so humanitarian he wanted to save lives. You should read the article I left instead of trying to pretend Iran is like Iraq. It will be in that the US will totally mess the situation but that is all. Iran has had a very long time to prepare for you, you haver been threatening it for so long. Read the article I left. It gives a rough idea of how people have been talking.

 

and the US who was apparently involved in a 'war on terror' deliberately set about creating the most destructive terror group we have seen. Intelligence prior to the Iraq war said there were no Al Qaeda types in Iraq but the one thing that would get them there would be an occupation...that you call what some people say are 4 million people who have died after your assault on Iraq for oil a cakewalk, disgusts.

 

And now you throw "war for oil"into the rest of your anti American rhetoric. You guys said Saddam would kick our ass too but he ended up hiding in a hole and then was hung by his own people. Same would happen in Iran except now we have even better weapons and Iran would be nothing more than an exercise for our military to practice and test with its new weapons.

 

Invasion in Iran is not necessary to end their behavior. It would be the quickest destruction of a military in history

 

Tsk... tsk...

Vietnamese did not directly attacked America and so America did not have a political will or national support to win that war.

Japanese directly attacked America, so the political will and huge people’s support were there; and of course Japan have felt full fire and fury of the American might.

Do pray Iran does not do something foolish and attack America first which might lead to American deaths.

Oh, and by the way,

Iran is no Japan