Anyone else disturbed..

Without going into a rant... yes.

 

What is in the news?

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50979463

 

It definitely has me thinking.

 

Ah, sounds like they pushed the wrong buttons with a military that now has someone who isn't afraid to push back.

It won't be a war, Iran doesn't have the resources or allies to fight one. It will be chest thumping and whining though.

 

After the threats he made and the attacks he just coordinated, I'm not sure this was surprising to anyone.

 

Play with fire...... ya get burned.

No one and I mean NO ONE knows what any of those people are thinking let alone whose side they're on..... any given week.
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The only reason any American would be upset is because he is soft-spoken and doesn't appear to be violent. BullSh!t.

 

Disturbed? If that guy had anything to do with killing Americans then he deserves to get blasted by a drone missile paid for by my tax dollars. Rest easy Tex, you will be OK.

 

Not a fan of such blatant attempts like this. its too open. it invites conflict and pushes the world further into dislike of our actions. unilaterally killing someone is never a good idea if youve already got an image problem.

 

It's sh!t like this that p!sses people off and we end up paying for it. Or our kids will pay for it. Or grandkids. We paid for the actions of our military getting involved where it didn't belong on September 11, 2001. It'll happen again.

I'm not anti-American. Quite the opposite. But we do this and it's PLASTERED all over the news. Was he responsible for American deaths? I don't know. Are we responsible for his death and 6 or seven other people? Yes. Do they have family that are going to be p!ssed off? Of course. Are they known to be a stable country that allows their administration and military leaders to handle things? NO!

This is bad juju.

 

If you are in the military these types of things happen, now if it was just a high ranking citizen or non-military person different story. When you go into the military you sign up for these types of things to possibly happen, no country just drops bombs! Also if you follow the news they have been attacking our embassy, like said mess with fire and someone is bound to get hurt!

 

It is Iran that should be disturbed. I will enjoy my weekend knowing the following information from the link below...and knowing that the only other militaries that could possibly take us out would be if Russia and China ganged up on us. That would be a death wish for all 3 of us and a very unlikely scenario. No need to get your survival gear packed with the iodine tablets quite yet.

https://armedforces.eu/compare/country_USA_vs_Iran

 

He is known to have the blood of hundreds upon hundreds of Americans on his hands, plus many others. Mostly over there, but Americans nonetheless. He was a killer and not well liked over there, by his own people. It's all a political thing and as long as it's kept political, it's fine by me. We're just helping drain their swamp of useless garbage, too.

 

I agree 100%

 

I just pray that no more brave Americans are sent to risk their lives in anymore endless wars. Someone born when the war in Iraq started is almost old enough to be drafted for a conflict with Iran...

 

General Qassem Soleimani had it coming for a long time. His fingerprints have been on the plans of many terrorist attacks and targeted killings of American military personnel, civilian contractors and diplomats. He didn't operate according to laws of military conduct or the Geneva Convention. A drone gave Soleimani a dose of his own medicine.

Right now the rhetoric coming from Iran's clerics and military leaders is publicly defiant and angry in tone, but I'll bet they were very surprised by this move and are now deeply worried about it. Soleimani seemed "untouchable" since the previous 2 US administrations didn't target him. It's a whole new game now.

Still the ultimate goal for the US is encouraging Iran's people to rise up and bring about regime change by getting rid of the Mullahs running Iran. In the worst case scenarios of a full-blown war breaking out there has to be some plan of winning the peace on the back end. That puts limits on destroying all sorts of critical infrastructure, which could bring about a humanitarian disaster. Targeting Iran's military leadership structure could be very disruptive and helpful to Western-friendly opposition within Iran.

The 9-11-01 attacks were primarily acts of revenge for the US capturing the people who bombed the World Trade Center the first time in 1993. Outside of that the US, western democracies and any life style that doesn't adhere to militant standards of Islam are always going to be targets of hatred and violence from Muslim-affiliated terrorist groups. There is no way to gain any peace with those groups, even if the US turned into a Muslim-run theocratic police state. Shite and Sunni Muslims are murdering each other right and left in the Middle East.

The draft isn't coming back any time soon.

 

There is no doubt that sh**stain deserved to get blowed the F up. His actions did cause american deaths, and he was reviled by other countries as well as his own people. Currently, 1500 Iranians are dying per week as a result of his crackdowns, etc - per multiple Iranian twitter accounts at least.

However - and there is a pretty big however - facts are facts.

The US assassinated a foreign military leader in a 3rd party country.
He was in the car with the Iraqi architect of the embassy attacks - likely because he's the one who instructed him to do so.
Iran's power lies in it's capability to deny/interdict oil transport.
Iran, in order to save face, MUST act out revenge, with the likely targets being American bases and lives - and depending on circumstances - oil production and refining.

Iran has a lot of options, unfortunately - their active service military is around 600,000, with an additional 300k in active reserves, and up to 11 million able to be called on for the volunteer force.

Limited/No escalation - may be enough to save face while not actively escalating.
1. Limited cruise missile strikes against American/Oil targets
2. Strait of Hormuz increased patrols/saber rattling/seizure of oil
3. Strait of Hormuz sea mines/mini subs/attacks on Oil vessels
4. "Activation" of pre-established Quds terror cells in Arab world, "death to america" type stuff, embassy attacks by the local populace
5. Area denial to entire Persian Gulf

Escalation
1. Full scale missile attacks on surrounding countries Oil production
2. Full scale missile attack on american bases anywhere from Afghanistan to Israel
3. Land based missile attacks on US Navy bases/vessels
4. Mobilization of massed forces on Iraqi or Syrian separatist borders and/or invasion as "liberators".

Of the above, I think 4. and 4. are most likely, at least initially.

If it goes to full scale war, the US wins, period. Russia won't defend Iran with it's own forces, it can't afford to. The other Arab states might, but most likely would be limited to insurgent actions.
BUT - I don't think Trump thought enough about this. I think this was a kneejerk reaction to the embassy, i.e. "what can we do to hurt them bigly" and some hawk obliged. It's becoming a scenario that is becoming impossible to back down.

If this goes to full-scale war, the order of battle is stealth attacks on command and control and air defense sites, followed by land-land missile sites, followed by power generation, followed by SF insertions to take out any underground biological/nuclear capability. Somewhere along the way, the land-sea missile sites would be taken out. As always, once air superiority is gained, the US would own the skies.

Invasion is not a possibility, we won't be able to topple the government and install another one (again), and likely Iran remains a pissed off radical islam country.

But there will be loses, and those losses are going to be magnified due to presence of S-300 launchers and relatively advanced weaponry (compared to Gulf War I and II).

 

Iran has no credible way to directly engage US military forces in the Persian Gulf. Our Navy would own the waters. The Air Force and Marines would own the sky. Escalation in any conventional sense by Iran would be countered by very punishing responses.

Iran has a lot of people in its military, but they're absolutely out-classed by our forces and the weapons and technology they wield. Additionally it takes a lot of money and resources to place an army into the field of battle. Iran is struggling badly from the sanctions that were re-established. It would not take more than a few surgical strikes to completely cripple Iran's oil delivery mechanisms. Iran's economy is dependent mostly on oil.

The area where the US has to be most concerned is state-sponsored terrorist attacks. I think chances are slim for anything big to happen on American soil. But sites that are popular with Western tourists are obvious targets. There is also a very credible threat of an increase in cyber-warfare. Look for all kinds of hacking attacks to increase.