Originally posted by Retikx
Iran has been expecting an assault for years now and seeing how they are not a third world country and have signifigant funds im willing to be they are not showing all their cards.. If Israel engages them in a full frontal assault they WILL play dead, they will throw up there arms and say OK OK OK dont bomb us back to the stone age.

Then you will see the cards they have been keeping close to there chests.. Think sleeper cells in Bethlehem armed with sarin, think shabab missiles with dirty bomb warheads.. All the ugly horrible # that we dont want to be released..WILL be released...Then you will see Egypt's true colors and the Saudis true colors and Pakistan's true colors.

Deep down they all hate the jews... and would love to take a poke at them.. publicly or not.

OK, so let me see. The entire Arab and Persian world is going to commit mass suicide? Does your response even make sense to you? If Iran is attacked, which is not guarantee. It would be with the CONSENT of the Gulf Arabs. Look at the flight paths Israel would have to follow. And dirty bombs are a really bad way to try to fight an actual nuclear power.

Originally posted by Interestinggg
I think some people are missing the point.
Just sending more ships to the gulf doesn't indicate any imminent attack on Iran.
If you think how much these ships and staff on them cost, what else are they gonna do with them?
They have to send them somewhere.
They cant just have them sitting in port clocking up millions a day.
They have to go on patrols and exercises.

Or how about to support the two ongoing wars in progress? Again, JP is speculating. Even if they were, the USA uses carriers to show force. Just because they go someplace doesn't mean that a war is imminent. Sometimes they go out just to let everybody know who controls the oceans and oh BTW, If we get mad enough at you, these ships and planes can bomb about 1000-2000 aim points a day.

The arab states will stay out of this israeli war , and as long as israel (or the USA) doesn`t do anything stupid - like use atomics , then they will be neutral - use nukes and you`ll be paying $30 a gallon when the strait of hormuz has a flotilla of sunk ships - its 21 miles acorss so its a turkey shoot for artilery ; ASM`s? they would take 20 seconds from launch to impact - and thats the slow subsonic ones - CSSM-3 Seersucker for example.

In a time of war the biggest advantage is slight of hand under the direction of misdirection. And lets not discuss the willingness of many arab groups willingness to die, they love there martyrs.

Im not saying they will for sure use DB's but they sure as hell wont strictly rely on conventional warfare.

Look for China to try and take Taiwan once Israel attacks Iran. With US warships tied up guarding the strait of Hormuz, China will see the opportunity as ripe for going after Taiwan and avoiding a US naval blockade in the Taiwan strait.

The only real threat is to the US fleet in the strait by Russian Sunburn II anti-ship missles that Iran has. Iran can fire these with mobile launchers from the coast and hit the ships.

You never know about Russia right now. They are flexing their muscles lately with moving Nuclear bombers to Cuba etc. I doubt they'll intervene if the US doesn't.

I think the US will have to eventually as there will be attacks on the 5th fleet in the strait.

If Iran knows when Israel is coming (and they will), they have a good chance to get their planes in the air for intercept. It will be F-16s and Migs over the skys and will really come down to the better trained pilots.

The steps go as follows:

1) Establish air dominance
-- take out enemy runways, planes and bases

2) Strike designated targets (Nuclear and military sites)



[edit on 7-8-2008 by jetxnet]

I think many are missing another point entirely. This entire matter hinges on TRADE. Regardless of ideological notions and the vanities of human politics, TRADE defines the very spinal column of this beast.

Most conflicts of nation states engaging in military confrontation are are the result of very heavily influence to enjoy (or enforce) trade on favorable terms to the winner. What ideological benefit can derive from exhausting your resources on something that is no more than a deep hole into which you pour the national wealth (and the good will of the citizens)?

In the end the card holders are the one's in possession of the resource du jour - oil. It's all silliness really, materialistic, deadly silliness.

I hate to think of the economic implications of another war in the region. China doesn't have to buy or hold so many US govt. bonds. They don't have to hold so many US dollars.
In an assault DU weapons would be used. This stuff goes all around the world. Gasp.
If nukes are used, some of the fallout can go all the way to India. Double gasp.
The Russians may resupply the Iranians with weapons, especially anti-aircraft.
A fatwa could be issued by the big Mulla in Iran that fixes blame on the US and Israel. Suicide bombers would be everywhere. Heck, think about it, they don't even need a bomb. Just a truck to plow into some crowd.
The US doesn't have the manpower to occupy Iran at this time. That would leave their present government intact.
The whole thing would have to be done in two stages like Iraq. First, a massive bombing campaign, then a few years later an actual occupation force.
In the meantime what happens here in the US. Martial law, economic collapse. Possibly.

If one really wanted to know if such a war was really being planned, instead of reading the Jerusalem Post, I might try to find people in the defense industries to see if production on attack missiles and JDAM's was being ramped up and factories were working overtime. Because if there is an attack on iran, it will be with "20,000" attack missiles and JDAM's raining down on iran, and not the other way around. Those kinds of weapons stocks can't built overnight, so that's where I'd look.

Yeah like we can know that. It could be covered under false pretenses like ``a big Iraqi operations`` or selling of equipment to Germany or another NATO country.... it would be hard. We would have to talk to positions near the top of those factories to know that.

Originally posted by princeofpeace
Unfortunately i think you are 100% correct. This thing can go wrong on so many different levels...and WW3 is where it will go.

I think it will only come to that if a nuclear exchange takes place.. The good thing is that World War 3 will be the fastest war ever if nukes are involved. It will be over in a matter of days, not years. And even if Iran tries to nuke Israel it would be the dumbest thing they could ever do. It would only be successful anyway if the nukes aren't taken out in mid-flight (which Israel does have the technology to do). This isn't a simple matter of Iran launching a nuke and destroying Israel. The world is going to protect itself and band together against that kind of first-strike aggression because it is wreckless ignorance of what nuclear war even is. Not all countries may have the kind of technology to take out these weapons in mid-flight, but the countries Iran is hate-mongering over have the most advanced militaries on the entire planet. The tables are already against them and the war hasn't even started.

-ChriS

[edit on 7-8-2008 by BlasteR]

Oh and for this Sunburn missile stuff, the4 US already has the defense. The Rolling Airframe Missile. Plus the sunburn needs to be launched within 100 miles of its target, why would a US carrier group bother coming anywhere near close enough to even risk attack when we have air bases in Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, Afghanistan, etc. that can easily range Iran.

[edit on 7-8-2008 by princeofpeace]

i have a cousin in the British Navy, all i can say.

now, if WW3 was round the corner, surely he would be away on duty (cos trust me, in his job he would be) wouldnt he be away ?

he isnt.
hes on leave.

if ww3 was days away, i think everyone with a son/brother/husband/wife/friend, etc, in the forces would know something was up.

surely ?

As I've said in previous threads-- All the capabilities you think the US has you can multiply by 100. Everything we've seen in Iraq has been nothing more than a G rated version of the R rated devastation we can unleash(not talking about our nuclear arsenal). When you have a loud liberal movement and a loud liberal media crying about every little thing that happens militarily in a war it makes it hard to fight the war. However, if Iran is stupid enough to start a war against the United States we would see what we're really capable of. The capabilities of the United States Military are so vast it would be like an infant trying to take on Chuck Liddel or any other UFC fighter.. and Iran knows this.. so does China and Russia.