Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh, the Head of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holy Defense (which is mullahs' equivalent of Graves Registration in the US Army), assures the worried families of future American KIA's in Iran that the remains will be handled respectfully and rapidly. He stated, "The burial of slain soldiers will be carried out decently and in little time."
Makes me feel heaps better. Bet it does the same for you.
Apparently expecting to slaughter US and allied forces in truly awesome numbers, the laddybucks of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holy Defense are digging no fewer than 320,000 graves--between fifteen and twenty thousand in each of the Islamic Republic's border provinces.
Guacamole! What a fine gesture! To say nothing of an excellent example of military delusions of adequacy.
Considering that even the most bloody battles fought by US forces during World War II saw KIA and died-of-wounds percentages of less than ten percent, the Iranians must be expecting the US ground operation to embody more than three million troops. That would be troops in contact with or near the line of contact with hostile forces.
Fat chance!
It took the US nearly three years, a massive draft and the impetus of total war to put anywhere near that number of combat and combat support troops into the European Theater of Operations.
Do the Iranians really think they are worth that sort of attention?
Do the blustering folks of the Tehran regime and military believe that they are going to face a ground invasion?
If they do, it is time for them to get a grip.
Any effort against Iran will be limited to the air and sea. Ground forces, for whom the ever-so-solicitous brigadier has his people digging holes in the sand, will, perforce, be major non-participants.
An air campaign directed against as limited a target constellation as that comprising the Iranian nuclear effort will not be a pleasant flight with a tailwind both ways and air defenses shooting only chocolate bars. The assured reduction of the target will require exquisite planning and better execution with trans-strike damage assessment based on real-time intelligence and mid-flight retargetting.
The US can do that. If the decision is made. If the National Command Authority becomes convinced a nuisance abatement measure must be undertaken.
So, in high probability, can Israel. If the US provides the IFF for IAF aircraft overflying Iraq. If Turkey does the same. If the US provides intelligence particularly regarding Iranian air defenses. If the US provides electronic counter-measures and counter-counter measure support before, during and after the strike(s). If US combat air patrols provide cover during the insertion and exit portions of any Israeli strike.
A lot of ifs. Some of them are difficult. None are impossible.
Then there will be the Iranian reaction. It will come. No one should plan on the notion that the Iranian government or military will be so shocked and awed by airstrikes as to forgo the need for retaliation.
The direct Iranian capacity for retaliation by open military means hovers somewhere between nill and minimal. Consider the following exercise in pure bunkum from the Iranian Defense Minister. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=61953§ionid=351020101.
PRESS TV quotes this brigadier, Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, as starting from the historical refuge of the militarily deficient power--celebrating the will and courage of the nation, the people of Iran and its military forces. Let's listen in--
Modern weapons are not the only defense criteria… The willpower and support of Iranians is very importantRight. And the Ghost Dance stops the white man's bullets. The "fury of the Francs" will overcome German machine guns.
And similar appeals to human willpower that ended dead on battlefields around the globe.
Now, take a good, hard look at this statement--
The Geek infers a uniquely Iranian calculus. The more nuclear weapons a country has, the weaker and more desperate it is.Israel will not be able to match Iran's defensive capabilities and has therefore launched psyops against Tehran.
He was referring to recent reports indicating that Israel has launched a military maneuver over the Mediterranean to rehearse for an aerial strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Najjar added that Tel Aviv is a 'mass producer of weapons of mass destruction' and such reports only signal its 'weakness and desperation'
Sure. Right.
Then, brigadier Najjar, why does Iran want them? To become as "weak and desperate" as Israel? Russia? The Peoples Republic of China? The US?
The Geek is willing to grant that these latest examples of the Terrible Tehranian Temper Tantrum like all of their predecessors is directed at the domestic public. Even that they are directed at members of the Iranian armed forces.
The bragging and blustering may even be like the boast ritual of the Viking berserkers--an effort to develop and maintain courage on the eve of battle. To the Vikings, he who boasted most had to perform the best--even if he died in the process.
But, the Geek feels obliged to remind the guys at Braggadocio Central that one should never believe his own propaganda.
The daily warnings from Tehran have no inherent deterrent effect. The capacity to turn words to reality is not sufficient for that.
Iran can retaliate--and will. The retaliation will be indirect. It will come in the form of there hundred dollar a barrel oil. It will come as terrorist acts committed by proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah and other, far more shadowy groups.
The retaliation will be unpleasant. Discommoding to all of us. It will forces changes on We the People far beyond those imposed by 9/11. It won't be pretty.
However, the Geek is of the view that, pretty or not, the changes imposed will not be all bad. Some will be good. Even very good for us a society, a polity, an economy.
Bet you don't believe the Geek. Do you?
2 comments:
Actually, a quite believable scenario.
Extensive land warfare within Iran is just too unlikely, for any number of reasons. One, simply put, is that it will be too costly in terms of resources, even if those resources could be easily assembled.
One goal in such a military intervention is to make Iran implement a wholesale mobilization and resource allocation into areas where you never intended to move on in the first place.
The Iranian "Trumpet Playing" is perfectly logical when you realize that they have to create an active defense for their border with Iraq, Afghanistan, and much of the Persian Gulf coast. That's a huge chunk of turf to cover (for anybody), and if you take the alternative route and create centralized "bastions" of military resources to cover areas, all you've really accomplished is to create larger targets with limited mobility. So, the "Trumpet Playing" fits perfectly within their resource availability.
Do I expect, if push comes to shove, to have fairly large (and to be blunt, fairly effective) "irregular warfare" inflicted back on the West, and the US in particular? Yes, little, if any doubt on that. Will we get hurt as a result? - Yes, and it's not going to be bandaid type cuts. There's going to be some serious injury here.
But the Iranians would do well to remember one little thing about "We The People..." - We Don't Do "Lose" Well. Not at all.
In fact, the Iranian people have a long and storied history. We know - we've studied it extensively, and have learned much. We haven't always applied it very well (that's putting it mildly), but we have indeed learned much. The Iranian leadership might want to do the same and extensively study American history, with their ideological blinders set to "off".
Such "irregular warfare" instigated by Iran could easily create a unified national will within the US, and have the result of developing what might be referred to as a "Gathering of the Sheepdogs", and the Islamic Republic of Iran could easily come to rue the day they overreached.
The Geek enjoyed your fine assessment with which he is essential agreement. Your most telling point--and one which the Geek will expand upon in the future--is that regarding American domestic political will.
Looking back over history the Geek notes that during the worst periods of American military defeat the nation's political will escalated. This was true during the blackest early days of WW II. It was true during the periods of defeat during the Korean War. It was even true during the immediate post-Tet Offensive period of the Vietnam War.
In assessing political will historically it is central to differentiate between "public" opinion and "elite" reflection of presumed public opinion. All too many historians mine the easy lode of "elite" opinion and overlook the far harder to dig out and refine ore of general public views.
Political will--"a gathering of sheepdogs"--would be a necessary consequence of an attack upon us. More it is the absolutely essential prerequisite for successfully undertaking other, systemic changes in our technologies, economy, society, and polity.
More of that in some future post
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