Here’s a semi-open post for comments related to the US
strikes on Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq.
Note: US Central
Command reports that it struck 85 targets with 125+ precision munitions. However, note the following from a Redstate
website report:
I’ll update if/when I can provide any worthwhile analysis.
______________________________
The number of targets appears to be "aimpoints" rather than bases. Sky News Arabia reports only three military bases were hit.[1]Thus, if true, the strikes were nowhere near as massive as Central Command reporting would suggest.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/02/02/watch-first-video-from-us-airstrikes-in-iraq-and-syria-released-n2169572
Hi CNO. I post this with a little trepidation as it may be interpreted as a political post so apologies in advance if you think it is.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about these attacks earlier (before I saw this post here) and your previous posts about the US Navy allowing Iran to seize its boats and how the US should confront China fully. Is striking at proxies the right approach or should they strike at Iran itself?
Striking at the proxies seems symbolic and think I saw a comment on X that this shows how weak the US has become (because it hit proxies instead of Iran).
If you throw the question back at me ("what do you think"), I think that the US should strike at the root of the problem, i.e., Iran.
However, and this is where we get into politics, striking Iran would be a major escalation and unless the US is prepared to prosecute it to a conclusion, perhaps withdraw all forces from places that they are not required (again a tricky concept).
There is also the elections (again politics) and entering a war in election year probably weighs on their minds.
Not an easy question to answer?
" Is striking at proxies the right approach or should they strike at Iran itself?"
DeleteWithout getting into the politics of the situation, the military answer is to either strike the SOURCE of the problem (Iran) or leave the area. What we're doing embodies the worst characteristics of both options.
" striking Iran would be a major escalation"
This kind of thinking is at the root of so many of our problems. You don't care about escalating against a bully, you punch them in the nose to put a permanent end to the problem. Similarly, when did we get so timid that we've become afraid of possible war with Iran, a 4th rate military, at best? Our fear and timidity has prevented us from ridding the world of a true evil. Doesn't Iran have many times more to fear from escalation than we do? And yet, they aren't hesitating to escalate every chance they get because they recognize that we've become paralyzed by our own fear and timidity.
"Not an easy question to answer?"
On the contrary, it's a very easy question to answer.
Winning the war against Iran would be easy. But by destroying the current leadership, the aftermath becomes our problem. The US is not keen on another 20-year nation building project in the Middle East, and the alternative is another failed state overrun with insurgents. The latter option is especially repugnant right now because no one wants to duplicate the Houthi situation at the Hormuz.
DeleteI would argue Iran is being fairly shrewd with their escalations - just enough to make the US presence in the Middle East politically costly but not enough to get the US voting public excited about the idea of a full-scale conflict.
"But by destroying the current leadership, the aftermath becomes our problem."
DeleteYou're obviously a newcomer to the blog, so welcome. Regular readers know I've already addressed this. If we want to engage Iran, what's required is to decapitate the Iranian leadership and eliminate the military. Should be a weekend's undertaking. Then, WE LEAVE. No nation building. We let the Iranian people do whatever they want. They can form a new government, revert to tribal warfare, seek outside help, whatever.
We eliminate the threat and then leave. Now you know how to handle the situation.
"I would argue Iran is being fairly shrewd with their escalations"
I would argue they're being absolutely brilliant. They're getting us to release huge amounts of money to them while they harass shipping, seize ships, mine ships, export terror, support proxy attacks on us, seize drones and UAVs, make us look weak, and continue developing nuclear weapons. They're getting everything they want with no repercussions.
Where is your evidence that the option is either failed state or occupation and nation-building? This whole idea that you must occupy when there is new leadership appears to be a new one when we look at things from a historical perspective. This binary choice is consistently posed by those who would prefer no action at all.
DeleteBased on what I've observed, occupation is necessitated when you completely dismantle the country's civilian and military structures. This was likely necessary in Germany and Japan due to heavy military, civilian, and industrial losses, in addition to the nazification of Germany and the Japanese military's control of that country. I'm not sure the same need would exist in Iran.
Could you not disband the IRGC and leave the Iranian military otherwise intact? Surely there are some reasonably flag officers in the Iranian military who would rather have their children and grandchildren survive and thrive rather than be in constant conflict with the rest of the world.
Furthermore, it's not like we lack bases nearby to come in to provide some air and naval support to a friendly regime when needed.
-Husker1995
I don’t think it would be easy or quick to take out Iran’s military and I doubt it could be done using only air strikes. I’ve never heard of anyone saying that could be done.
DeleteIf we tried we’d probably lose a lot of aircraft and maybe some ships too along with their crews and all we’d achieve is most likely to make a bad situation even worse.
Iran is full of crazy people and is supposed to be only a few months away from completing its nuclear weapons program - what a disaster that would be!
I don't think anyone has posed taking out Iran's entire military with only airstrikes. What has been suggested is decapitating Iran's leadership. That is a suggestion which could be achieved using airstrikes and is one I wholeheartedly support.
Delete-Huskers1995
"occupation is necessitated when you completely dismantle the country's civilian and military structures. This was likely necessary in Germany and Japan"
DeleteThere is/was a major difference between Iran and Germany/Japan. Germany and Japan were modern countries with a history of unification and governance. In other words, they were civilized and just needed purging of evil leadership and support to regain a peaceful existence in the world. Iran has no such history and has historically resisted unification with various factions constantly engaging in warfare. There is no reason to believe that, given a chance, they would/could become a peaceful, contributing member of the world. In fact, extensive history of the region demonstrates that attempting to impose any government inevitably leads to failure. Thus, one either has to occupy the country permanently or leave it. The latter is eminently more logical, safer, and more cost effective.
" leave the Iranian military otherwise intact?"
Would you have left Nazis in place in the German military?
"Where is your evidence that the option is either failed state or occupation and nation-building?"
DeleteIf you'd like to discuss and learn, you're welcome here. If you want to be a lawyer and argue, go elsewhere.
"I don’t think it would be easy or quick to take out Iran’s military"
DeleteSeriously? By any measure, Iran is a 4th rate power and that's being generous. You're familiar with Desert Storm, I assume?
" only airstrikes."
You're the only one who's suggested that military action be limited to only air strikes.
"Iran is full of crazy people"
You just cited a perfect reason why we should strike AND THEN LEAVE. Thank you.
"nuclear weapons program - what a disaster that would be!"
Another reason to attack and to do so thoroughly and completely.
Sorry misunderstood you. I didn’t realize you were recommending the use of US ground forces. Could we wear the casualties? Where did the idea come from that Iran has only 4th rate military forces? I haven’t seen that before and if it was going to be as easy as you say wouldn’t the Israelis have done this long ago?
DeleteIn Desert Storm I think the CIA and Special Forces guys got in early and bribed the Iraqi generals to tell their troops to surrender so there wasn’t a lot of actual combat. Not sure if that would work in Iran. Thanks for your blog btw.
"I didn’t realize you were recommending the use of US ground forces."
DeleteYou're still not reading carefully. I did NOT recommend the use of ground forces. In fact, I didn't make any specific force recommendations. I leave that to operational planners. Read what's actually written or not written. That's something I insist on from readers.
That said, it's not hard to predict the broad outlines of likely operations. Any war would start with simultaneous missile strikes on every possible leadership location and HQ (command and control). Along with that, every military target would be hit with cruise missiles and, perhaps, aircraft. Ground forces would certainly be needed to secure/destroy nuclear-related facilities.
I would assume operational planners would make use of air, land, and sea forces for a maximum effort. The details, I leave to the planners.
"In Desert Storm I think the CIA and Special Forces guys got in early and bribed the Iraqi generals to tell their troops to surrender"
Unless you have access to inside information that has never even been hinted at, you're just making this up. As far as I know, there's not a shred of evidence that this occurred.
The reason the Iraqis often surrendered, was lack of inherent motivation. The average soldier simply wasn't motivated to die for Sadaam. One assumes that the same situation applies to Iran. There are, certainly, a small core of fanatics in their military but the average soldier likely has no great motivation to die for hard line, religious fanatic, dictators.
DeletePretty widely reported including in the NYT and confirmed by Tommy Franks in 2003.
‘After our special forces guys went in (to bribe Iraqi generals not to defend their cities) ‘I was getting letters from Iraqi generals saying I now work for you’.
I'd be very interested to learn more about this as I've never heard this. A quick Internet search turns up no references to it. Do you have a link or reference?
DeleteTommy Franks gave the interview to Vago Muradaianin in Defensenews.com on 10 May 2003 - very shortly after the war. Since then he hasn’t had much to say about it funnily enough.
DeleteThe big prize was apparently a guy (Saddam’s cousin) called General Maher Sufyan who headed up the 6 ‘elite’ divisions of the Republican Guard which defended Baghdad. He got a payoff of several million $ and a ride out of Al Rasheed airbase on a USAF Apache plus no playing card with his name on it. In return he told his men not to fight but instead to give up or go home - which they did.
All this was reported quite extensively in the British and European press but not so much in the U.S. although there was a further report in the NYT fairly recently I think.
Haven’t seen anything at all in the way of official comment - I guess a complete Iraqi collapse following a terrifying Thunder Run by the 3 Infantry Division makes a better story than the whole thing being just a piece of theater.
A guy called Sam Faddis apparently gave some of the detail in a book he wrote (I haven’t read it) called Operation Hotel California.
From what I have read there’s some disagreement between the Army guys who say all this stuff happened but it was just the icing on the cake, and the intelligence guys who say no - this was the actual cake. But nobody’s denying it.
I've said this before but...its absurd to not strike Iran and make it hurt. We can plink proxies all day long... But until we turn of the tap of training, funding, and weaponry, most of these groups won't stop.
ReplyDeleteWe expended 125+ munitions. How much did that truly accomplish?? If we'd have used those 125 to open a path to eliminate the top echelons of the Iranian govt and military tomorrow...THAT would be worthwhile.
By not hitting Iran, we've shown basically cowardice, and itll just embolden Iran. We basically gave the supplier of Hamas and the Houthis aming others a free pass. The CinC made a dumb choice, and Im being excessively polite.
If you really want to hurt Iran, simply destroy as much of their nuclear program as you can with bombing and flatten Kharg Island to destroy their oil exporting (and subsequently their entire economy).
DeleteThere is no reason to invade. Even if we slogged through that mountainous country and successfully occupied it...what on earth would we do with it?
Just hammer them and then leave the region to fend for itself.
If we continue to support Israel, that gives us the intelligence network and access if/when we need it.
The rest of it can sort itself out.
Lutefisk
First one must understand why we have bases in Syria, as explained in this short video:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4CbsSR2VvA
And then must understand why we still have bases in Iraq, as explained in this short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoxJZqKPciU
To see the solution is difficult.
Politics: does the government want a war with Iran in this particular moment? No.
ReplyDeleteWould the US military be able to behave less embarrassingly than the Russian one, in their own Ukraine? Perhaps.
This, no Persian war for now
Since fall of Saddam, who did fight the Persians. The Persians have been taking advantage of the situation,
Deletedividing it's enemies with proxy wars.
The Persians used Hamas to mess up the Abraham Accords, the anti Persian Alliance.
The Arabs and Israelis can take of the Persians.
Once they get done being played for suckers by the Persians in the Gaza War.
The US should stick to China.
That's enough of the politics. Thanks.
Delete"Similarly, when did we get so timid that we've become afraid of possible war with Iran, a 4th rate military, at best?"
ReplyDeleteBe careful what you ask for. The Iraq War lasted over 8 years. In 2014, Obama was forced to send combat troops back to Iraq to defeat ISIS. Today, there are some 2,500 troops in Iraq.
I don't want a repeat in Iran.
You could not be more wrong. The actual war was over in short order. From Wiki,
Delete"The Iraq War officially began on 20 March 2003, when the US, joined by the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, launched a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Shortly following the bombing campaign, US-led forces launched a ground invasion of Iraq. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as coalition forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam Hussein was captured during Operation Red Dawn in December of that same year ..."
At that point, the war was over. However, our attempt at nation building caused us to remain for many years after. Again, from Wiki,
"The power vacuum following Saddam's demise, and mismanagement by the Coalition Provisional Authority, led to widespread civil war between Shias and Sunnis, as well as a lengthy insurgency against coalition forces."
Had we done as I've repeatedly described and eliminated the leadership and military AND THEN LEFT, there would have been no lengthy involvement.
As far as ISIS, it was our own timidity that prolonged that. We refused to destroy ISIS out of fear of collateral damage and civilian casualties although it's highly debatable the so-called civilians were actually that.
You need to study your history a bit closer.
"As far as ISIS, it was our own timidity that prolonged that."
DeleteId suggest that has been the problem since and including Vietnam. If we'd set clear military objectives and do whatever is necessasary- WWII-style, we wouldn't have all these sad entanglements to debate. Politics, fear of collateral damage, and fear of public/world opinion have hamstrung the military from doing their job, and put them in a nearly untenable, compromised position....