America Vs Iran

InFront wrote:

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A convenient typo?

I'd expect that would be their first tactic, bravely bomb them whilst your out of range then when they outrageously retaliate, bomb their children. Classic tactics used by American forces for years.

The BBC wrote:

US 'Iran attack plans' revealed

USS John C Stennis is being deployed to the Persian Gulf
US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.
The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.
The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions.
But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.
That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say.

Two triggers

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.
The Natanz plant is buried under concrete, metal and earth
Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.
Long range B2 stealth bombers would drop so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which is buried some 25m (27 yards) underground.
The BBC's Tehran correspondent France Harrison says the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians.
Authorities insist there is no cause for alarm but ordinary people are now becoming a little worried, she says.

Deadline

Earlier this month US officials said they had evidence Iran was providing weapons to Iraqi Shia militias. At the time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the accusations were "excuses to prolong the stay" of US forces in Iraq.
Middle East analysts have recently voiced their fears of catastrophic consequences for any such US attack on Iran.
Britain's previous ambassador to Tehran, Sir Richard Dalton, told the BBC it would backfire badly by probably encouraging the Iranian government to develop a nuclear weapon in the long term.
Last year Iran resumed uranium enrichment - a process that can make fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb.
Tehran insists its programme is for civil use only, but Western countries suspect Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons.
The UN Security Council has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February.
If it does not, and if the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms this, the resolution says that further economic sanctions will be considered.

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So Glad wrote:

I'd expect that would be their first tactic, bravely bomb them whilst your out of range then when they outrageously retaliate, bomb their children. Classic tactics used by American forces for years.

The US (different to America folks!) can't bomb Iran, can't raid Iran, can't invade Iran, and won't be able to for the forseeable future, and neither can Israel. Yes the Iranians have been feeding weapons across that extremely porous border, have been for years, and most people involved knew that. The "shocking" press release about them providing weapons to Iraqi Shia militias is old news, just more sabre rattling.

This isn't Iraq we're talking about here, whipped after years of embargoes and inspections, half ruined already, and the terrain is completely different, rugged hills and canyon country.

Iranian troops number about a half a million in the regular armed forces, and upwards of 6 million irregulars in the Basij volunteer force (some reports put it at 11 million), as well as the Qods (Jerusalem) special forces, who report directly to the Ayatollah.

During the Iran-Iraq war the Basij force hadn't enough weapons, so men, women and children literally hurled themselves bodily at (the vastly superior) Iraqi forces, carrying sticks and rocks, in their hundreds of thousands. The Iranians specialise these days in taking foreign manufactured weapons of war and building their own domestic versions, often improved. They now have domestic military industrial manufacturing for just about everything except the air force.

The Iranian armed forces have been trained in using asymmetrical warfare to all kinds of harmful effect. This is more or less deciding you aren't going to fight head on and using guerilla tactics, at least in this case.

As to why the US can't raid or bomb Iran, as I said its been well known for a while that Iran is trickling troops and supplies across the extremely porous border with Iraq, but thats nothing compared with what they could send if the US takes overt action against Iran. If the US thought they had it hard in Iraq at the moment, they should see what it looks like when Iranian special forces are training Iraqi insurgents in the use of the very latest tactics and weapons supplied courtesy of the Islamic Republic. Bombing Iran is simply guaranteeing the unification of Iran and Iraq, and probably Afghanistan too. And lets not forget the oil channels through there.

And the US knows it. All this posturing is just brinkmanship.

An embargo isn't going to work either, since the Chinese will trade Iran whatever it needs in whatever quantities are required in exchange for that tasty black gold they have in such abundance, which the Chinese need for their newly burgeoning middle class.

With all that said, it will never turn into a third world war, its far too localised a situation for that. The funniest thing about all this is that the moderates in Iran were well on their way to removing the religious extremists from power prior to the hostilities in Iraq; continued US aggression is only entrenching the hardliners in power. I actually know a few Iranians currently in Iran, including a few women and they are more angry at the US for making the Ayatollah stronger than for any threat to their country's sovereignty.

Just leave them alone!