Iran threatens to block straights of Hormuz - Again

Very true. Blocking the staits would isolate them even further and put them in direct conflict with GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) which will in no way, shape or form, sit by idly as their vessels are blocked by Iran.

The main threat from Iran in years past was the silkworm missiles they bought from China and had in the region to attack shipping. Mainly, the tanker war with Iraq. I can remember a single instance of one being fired at a Liberian tanker back in the late 80's. Sank it near Kuwait. They have a range of about 50 miles so they could easily fire at ships traversing the Strait. Whether or not they can defeat our defenses is a whole other matter. Besides, once they fire at a US warship, all bets are off. TLAM's would erase them off the map pretty quickly.

 

Promise what? We won't put up with Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

 

China was a backwards third world nation at the time ... not exactly a challenge.
3000 Russian troops is not that much and the Russian stuff was no good. This is nit picking.

Major point being - we have no recent examples of any significance of conflict between major powers. A few things have changed since the Korean war in 1950 and the start of Vietnam in 1955.

 

I still maintain that Iran could cause havoc on the basis of threats perhaps targeted only at Saudi Arabian traffic. Escalating from there they could board a few ships that tried to defy the threat.

Iran- if they were to do something - would likely do something that fell short of directly provoking a war - at least at first.

 

I think if Iran was to do any form of blocking they would likely target just one nation.. Saudi Arabia.

I agree that Iran has threatened this many times. We also have yet to see the west go this far - oil embargo .. and as of yet Iran is still selling alot of oil. If it was a full embargo - the probability of retaliation increases.

 

One of the "bets" is that we'd take out their nuclear facilities.

 

In your own opinion. They held their own in Korea and brought about a stalemate that still exists today without a formal end to the war.

However, I was responding to the fact that you didn't know we fought the Soviets in both Korea and Vietnam. We, in fact, did.

PoohBear: We fought Soviet Union and Communist China in Korea and Vietnam.
Giftedone: No we didn't. How many Russian Soldiers were killed in Vietnam and Korean conflicts.

3000 Soviet troops killed is not really a small amount, considering the role they played. China admitted to sending as many as 320K troops to Vietnam in direct conflict with American forces.

HONG KONG, MAY 16 -- China admitted today that it sent 320,000 combat troops to Vietnam to fight against U.S. forces and their South Vietnamese allies. In a report monitored in Hong Kong, the semi-official China News Service said China sent the soldiers to Vietnam during the 1960s and spent over $20 billion to support Hanoi's regular North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong guerrilla units. The disclosure was made a month after military officials in the Soviet Union admitted that a contingent of Soviet advisers in Vietnam took part in combat against U.S. forces and helped shoot down American planes. Moscow had previously denied its troops played a combat role in the war. The agency report cited "The History of the People's Republic of China," published by the official State Archives Publishing House, as saying more than 4,000 Chinese soldiers were killed during the war. Fighting finally ended when victorious North Vietnamese tanks battered their way into the grounds of Doc Lap Palace in Saigon on April 30, 1975. During the war, U.S. intelligence reports said U.S. combat units had found soldiers dressed in Chinese combat gear and wearing Chinese insignia, but Beijing at the time repeatedly denied U.S. allegations that its soldiers were operating in Vietnam. During the 10 years of direct U.S. involvement, American troop levels reached over 500,000. Estimates of North Vietnamese Army units varied, but Hanoi maintained throughout the war that its soldiers went only as volunteers to help the southern Viet Cong guerrilla movement.

What makes you think China or the Soviets were inferior forces to the United States and that the United States would win a war "easily" in a conventional sense back in the 50's, 60's or even in the 70's? I am really curious as to what makes you think it would have been so easy.

 

If we can. Reports I am hearing is that they are buried heavily under rock and almost impossible to get to, at least, via TLAM's or other "lighter" missiles.

But I was just discussing the weapons in the immediate area of the Straits and not all of the military/nuclear infrastructure of Iran. If we, or Israel have a shot at the nuke facilities, I would imagine we go after them if things get hot.

 

The Iraq/Iran was was over prior to desert storm. When we showed up the army did put up much of a fight and the Republican guard that did fight did not do so for long. We walked into Baghdad - walking down the city streets - no one was even shooting at our troops - never mind bombs going off and so on.

Who is setting foot on our shores - what are you talking about ? This is about the cost of projecting power - Not defending the homeland.

 

I'd rather we always take the fight to our enemies than they bring it here. Terrorists invariably target civilian populations intentionally where as we work diligently to ensure our strikes remain limited to military/infrastructure targets. Sometimes, we are unsuccessful.

 

We did not have any "significant" engagement directly with Russia or China.

This has no significant bearing on comparing the modern nations military capacity.

 

How does this relate to the cost of projecting power increasing with time ?

Our record in relation to limiting our strikes to military/infrastructure targets is poor at best. Regardless - not sure how this in any way relates to what is being discussed ?

 

It reads:
Iranian state TV quoted Rohani as saying on December 4 that "if someday, the United States decides to block Iran's oil [exports], no oil will be exported from the Persian Gulf."

 

They can blow up any ship that might want to be there with missiles.

 

We didn't go into Baghdad in Desert Storm. Desert Storm was in 1991. We went into Baghdad in 2003. Big difference. The Republican Guard did put up a fight, it was just one sided against an able and technologically advanced opponent determined to destroy them. American military planning and execution with superior equipment and soldiers won the day.

Yes we did. We fought China directly in the Korean war and they had significant support from the Soviet Union, who we fought air battles with. We also fought them both in Vietnam. Both on the ground and in the skies.

Just because it wasn't a full scale war with nations invading each other does not mean their were not significant forces engaging in combat. There were definite periods of the Cold War getting very hot.

 

I did not say we went into Baghdad during desert storm - and stated that we fought against China Russia but that it was not significant. It was mostly via proxy.

Once again you focus on this nonsense we have trotted over already and avoid addressing the central issue - These conflicts have no bearing on the issue of a military confrontation today. What part of this do you not understand ?

 

The Korean war wasn't significant? Vietnam was not significant? Air combat directly with the Soviet Union was not significant? Military ground campaigns against China were not significant?

You change your stance and story so often you honestly have no idea what you are even talking about. Do some actual research and you will see how significant it actually was and what lengths they went to to hide these actions from the public.

 

Would you prefer this mode?



We may have to take out the facilities supporting their effort to block the Strait.

 

If we can't take out their nuclear facilities, we may have to invade their country or take other measures to deal with them, possibly intending to counter their actions, deter them, or both. Either that or accept what they've done.

 

A bigger problem would be Iran's anti-ship missiles.

Crispy US seamen floating dead in oil isn't something Americans are going to want to see on TV.

Um, the US had military advisors in Iran. I could have gone in 1984, but I chose instead to go to Egypt for 6 weeks and train their army.

As Iran's army drove Iraqi forces out of Khuzestan Province and was ready to cross into Iraq, the US sank all three of Iran's destroyers that were screening along the coast.

That put a damper on things.

Your crimes are many.

Article 41 Paragraph 1 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations prohibits any State which operates a diplomatic mission in a foreign State from interfering in the internal affairs of that State.

Article 41 Paragraph 3 of the same prohibits the use of a diplomatic mission in any manner that is incompatible with the Convention and International Law.

The US forfeited any protections, when it attempted three times to murder Prime Minister Mossedeq, and then had Mossadeq arrested and tried in a kangaroo court, and then used the embassy as spy base to spy on Iranian dissidents for the SAVAK, and especially its espionage operations against the MEK, who would later be classified as a "terror group."

President Carter violated it again, when he sent General Huyser to the embassy to meet with Iranian military commanders in an attempt to instigate a military coup against the Shah, before Khomeini arrived.

Had Carter actually listened to Ambassador Bill Sullivan and General Al Haig the Army Chief of Staff who actually lived in Iran and spoke Farsi, then the US would have rolled out the red carpet for Khomeini and Iran would be an ally.

The CIA didn't have time to destroy its files, so the students, who were incensed after hearing Khomeini's speech about how the US tried to stab him in the back, got hold of the files and made them public, and that's when we first learned about the illegal overthrow of Mossadeq and other illegal things.

The US denied it of course, claiming it was Iranian propaganda, but finally the US admitted to most everything.

Note that sending General Huyser to Iran to instigate a coup was not only a violation of International Law, it was a violation of US Public Laws as well.

As many as 25 F-14s have been observed flying at once. That's more than a handful.

It was one-sided because the entire US VII Corps and the Tiger Brigade had been conducting desert warfare training in Turkey in the desert on the border with Iraq from 1989 through June 1990, in spite of the fact that Bush had previously announced the withdraw and deactivate of the entire US VII Corps and Tiger Brigade under the IFR,

I'd be grateful if someone could show me where the deserts in East Germany, Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics and Belarus are, because I haven't been able to find any desert using Google Earth.

Perhaps Google Earth is masking the deserts?

Also, the REFORGER exercised planned for September 1990 were moved up to January 1990 to accommodate the training schedule in Turkey, and for the first time in history, the Tiger Brigade, which was the only American combat unit in northern Germany and only unit under British command in NORTHAG trained with SOUTHAG's US VII Corps.

You might want to ask yourself why a NORTHAG unit would train with SOUTHAG when CENTAG's US V Corps sits in-between the two.

 

That should be easy since they have none. Could be Trump's greatest victory yet.

 

What makes you think they have no nuclear facilities?

 

The fact that nobody has ever found any evidence that they do. That includes the Trump administration that has twice certified their compliance with the treaty.

 

Of course they have Nuclear facilities. That is without question.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?t=h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&ie=UTF8&mid=14U2kJDvX45ckX4VIc240d8D4cnE&ll=33.724598,51.72396500000002&z=8

http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/IAEA_Report_Analysis.pdf

They have had them for quite awhile. I think you are misreading what the Nuclear Deal between the US-Iran was all about.

Ever heard of Stuxnet? Where was it deployed?

 

Correct. I was assuming that he was talking about nuclear weapons facilities since most of the anti Iran fanatics seem to assume that Iran has or has been developing nuclear weapons despite having absolutly no evidence to support that conclusion.