We all should be nervous when a President and/or member’s of their Administration begin Sabre Rattling…and President Trump is currently doing just that has he heads a UN Security Council Meeting.
Iran is squarely in his cross-hairs.
May God help us all should we be drawn into War with Iran.
The only real concern I have is the reaction of Russia and China. Otherwise, we would mop the floor with them militarily and no one seems to care about the loss of American blood and a few trillion dollars anyway.
Iranians are not Arabs. Whenever you meet a Persian, they’ll will slowly emphasize this, usually enunciating it slowly. The message is twofold - we’re Shiites and not Sunnite unbelievers and second we know how to fight, unlike Arabs. Considering that there are ten times more Iranians than Iraqis and how effective was the Shiite resistance in Iraq against Coalition Forces, that’s something to ponder.
They considered themselves heirs to one of the world’s great powers - Cyrus and Xerxes almost destroyed the cradle of the Western civilization, they killed the richest man in the world (Crassus), they used a living Roman Emperor as a footstool (seriously), defeated the Portuguese Empire in it’s heyday, conquered Afghanistan (which nobody else hasn’t managed) and took Saddam Hussein on, with all the hardware USSR and the USA provided him with.
Although the country is bitterly divided between hardliners, secular nationalists and urban elites, all of them see their confrontation with Saudi Arabia and their ISIS footsoldiers (that’s the real enemy, forget the Israel and US posturing) as a life-or-death struggle.
Seriously, guys…I’m concerned that Trump (and Bolton) are headed in a direction where they want to “prove” how much tougher they are on Iran than any other Administration ever…and especially the Administration of President Obama.
I just don’t want to see daily flights of C-5’s full of flag-draped coffins again…
For all Trump’s flaws, and I may be totally off here, he seems just as reluctant to risk American lives or more than a good chunk of presidents.
If we ‘went to war’ with Iran it would probably be via proxy or economically. We’re still a fuckin powerhouse with more defense spending than Iran’s entire GDP. And their leaders aren’t jihadists, so they know war is a last resort for them, but not for us.
This. Iran is nothing by itself, but when there are two world superpowers backing it (one of which supplies uranium to Iran, and the other of which we are currently $19 trillion in debt to), things aren’t going to turn out pretty for either side.
Don’t get me wrong, a military confrontation between the US and Iran is a foregone conclusion, it’s the costs and casualties that will (probably) be much higher.
To understand the difference between Sunni Arab and Shiite military perfomance, compare IDF casualty rates vs. Hezbollah in the 2006 Lebanon War and in successive operations against Hamas in the Gaza strip and the West Bank.
Can we just let the Iranians and Arabs war already? Let them coat the middle east with their own blood and then the west/China buys whatever oil we need from the winner.
No, you can’t because of all that Saudi lobbying money. If there’s a Sunni-Shiite war Iran wins hands down, not because of their supposed martial prowess but because Gulf Arab armies are spectacularly incompetent. Despite billions in US hardware the Saudi/UAE coalition cannot defeat Houthis in Yemen, which are basically barefoot rednecks (a house in Yemen costs ten dollars. Ten dollars).
That’s why the Saudis need the US - to do the actual fighting for them.
So Netanyahu just showed a bunch of pictures of a facility he claims is an Iranian nuclear weapons warehouse in Tehran. He did this during his speech to the UN.
I can vouch for that. After watching hours of Houthi rebels absolutely DESTROYING Saudi troops, its pretty clear which force is trained, and which force has shiny new toys and money (but that’s about it)