For those of you waiting for something meaty with details from Time’s cover story on “What War with Iran Would Look Like,” put the steak knives down. The 3,182-word answer: we’re not sure exactly, but it would be really, really hard. Here are some of the choice cuts:
No one is talking about a ground invasion of Iran. Too many U.S. troops are tied down elsewhere to make it possible, and besides, it isn’t necessary. If the U.S. goal is simply to stunt Iran’s nuclear program, it can be done better and more safely by air. An attack limited to Iran’s nuclear facilities would nonetheless require a massive campaign. Experts say that Iran has between 18 and 30 nuclear-related facilities… some in the open, some cloaked in the guise of conventional factories, some buried deep underground.
A Pentagon official says that among the known sites there are 1,500 different “aim points,” which means the campaign could well require the involvement of almost every type of aircraft in the U.S. arsenal: Stealth bombers and fighters, B-1s and B-2s, as well as F-15s and F-16s operating from land and F-18s from aircraft carriers… An operation of that size would hardly be surgical. Many sites are in highly populated areas, so civilian casualties would be a certainty…
U.S. officials believe that a campaign of several days, involving hundreds or even thousands of sorties, could set back Iran’s nuclear program by two to three years… But it is also likely that the U.S. could carry out a massive attack and still leave Iran with some part of its nuclear program intact. It’s possible that U.S. warplanes could destroy every known nuclear site while Tehran’s nuclear wizards, operating at other, undiscovered sites even deeper underground, continued their work. “We don’t know where it all is,” said a White House official, “so we can’t get it all.…“
No one who has spent any time thinking about an attack on Iran doubts that a U.S. operation would reap a whirlwind… Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner… has been conducting a mock U.S.-Iran war game for American policymakers for the past five years. Virtually every time he runs the game, Gardiner says, a similar nightmare scenario unfolds: the U.S. attack, no matter how successful, spawns a variety of asymmetrical retaliations by Tehran. First comes terrorism: Iran’s initial reaction to air strikes might be to authorize a Hizballah attack on Israel, in order to draw Israel into the war and rally public support at home.
Next, Iran might try to foment as much mayhem as possible inside the two nations on its flanks, Afghanistan and Iraq, where more than 160,000 U.S. troops hold a tenuous grip on local populations…
Next, there is oil. The Persian Gulf, a traffic jam on good days, would become a parking lot. Iran could plant mines and launch dozens of armed boats into the bottleneck, choking off the shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz and causing a massive disruption of oil-tanker traffic…
That kind of retaliation could quickly transform a relatively limited U.S. mission in Iran into a much more complicated one involving regime change. An Iran determined to use all its available weapons to counterattack the U.S. and its allies would present a challenge to American prestige that no Commander in Chief would be likely to tolerate for long.…
UPDATE 6:59 PM: Is the Bush administration really gearing up for war? Or does the administration want “to make the Iranians think an attack is brewing in order to pressure them into a diplomatic solution?” Fred Kaplan asks.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
People keep talking about a “limited” attack on nuclear sites, but I would suspect that to protect American forces of all types in the region, the USN and USAF would basically have to first obliterate communications, the Iranian Navy, air force, SAM’s, SS missiles and a lot of armor. They’d probably destroy refineries as well. While they’re at it they might want to destroy various manufacturing sites. Then they could destroy the nuke sites as will. No way troops would be put on the ground unless the US wanted to take control of the oil fields which would be extremely foolish. Bottom line – the US can probably rapidly obliterate all of the above – but will simply have to leave Iran in chaos and anarchy on the ground after the attacks…
One of the reasons we have been forced into the quagmire of Afganistan/Iraq is becuase we have no legal means of eliminating target leaders….
If legislation were passed that DID allow such, a simple majority vote might mean “regime change” could be accomplished with a single sniper team, rather than the billions of dollars and untold thousands of lives our current practice eats up…….
Attacking Iran involves far more than bombs and missiles and the potential global increase in violent reactions from a billion muslims….it also involves our friend nations…..”WHAT? the U.S. is attacking Iran….and shutting down OUR oil???!!!”
We close down the Gulf traffic, and we’d better be able to offer a decent alternative.
There is no win. And too, doesn’t anyone recall that Iran is chummy with North Korea????
Shut down the oil from Iran then Venezuelan oil and Chavez move up a place towards the top of the world oil poroducers list but hold on in not Chavez a bad guy as well?
@Campbell:
A regime is not synonymous with a head of state. A regime cannot be taken out by a sniper.
I am dubious about the notion that Iran can use its oil as a weapon for one reason: it is incredibly dependent on the sale of its oil for the revolutionary government’s daily operational revenue.
In a simple economic match-up, who do you think would last longer, wealthy Americans who have to put up with $100 dollar oil or a financially paralyzed Iranian government?
If the Iranians go the other way and try to close the Straits of Hormuz, it wouldn’t take long for the U.S. fleets supporting OIF and OEF to sink the Iranian Navy in response.
I think honestly buying into hyperventilating over Iran probably does us more harm then good. We know we have Iran in a box militarily. Any threat they make could legitimately be met by an American “Try me” response.
Their only real options are to hold on to nuclear and terrorist trump cards to keep the U.S. and the Israelis at bay. Fortunately both trump cards are really only effective as reactionary or defensive tools.
Reality check. A war with iran does not serve u.s. national interests. Retarding the iranian nuclear program for a couple of years, detering a rival to israeli hegemony in the levant and slowing down the momentum of iran’s influence in the region are not worth the blowback. Any attack on iran would rally the uber-nationalist populace with their history of xenophobia and their generations long persecution complex to the government. The iranian nuclear program would transform from a dual use endeavor to single bloody minded exercise in basic engineering( they don’t seem to lack the brainpower for this effort). The region would see see the death of westphalian system as shia groups and shia-friendly groups ( large chunks of sunnis who consider the shia to be crucial to islamic eschatology)begin to undermine u.s. allies like jordan, saudi, egypt etc..
And always keep in mind, the iranian revolutionary guard was designed from it’s onset as a force to project and expand the iranian revolution globally. It may not be able to spread the revolution to regions that are unwilling to embrace a theological-republic but it still retains the vestigal structures to act on a planetary scale to disrupt the global trade network; Highly disciplined light infantry, guided man-portable weapons, a well developed linguistic program and a willingness to to plan and execute one way missions. This coupled with a world where anti-american is rife providing a large ocean to swim in is a perfect receipe for a global insurgency able to strike strategic targets resulting in system disruptions that at this time are unimaginable beyond the realm of a few websites such as these.
The revolutionary guards may be the prototype of future armies, an armed force that is part of state and yet a distinct entity, an armed force that draws it’s rank and file predominately from one nation yet is able to recruit trans-nationally in brigade size, an armed force that is able to ride the air/sea/land/cyber highways of the global economy to implement national/transnational policies.
The u.s. air force will win the battle over the skies of iran, but no one will win the war that ensues. Maybe the israelis and their neo-con fifth column can convince someone else to fight this one? I hear the french want to be considered a world power again :)
It seems like everyone today is kind on the same page with Iran. That
I am not going to debate the consequences of letting Iran get nukes. Everyone short the most delusional LLL
hey hey! right on, BT!
when will ALL learn that you can make friends and influence people a lot easier with butter instead of bullets?
(and I’m hawk as the rest here)
but pragmatic more than most, perhaps
The price of oil is getting dangerously low – better ratchet up the rehtoric. If that doesn’t work, there is always a fleet of B-52s, B1s, B2s, cruise missiles, etc. to fall back on. That should get the oil prices back up where they belong.
Wondering why Iran wants the bomb? Look at history: we deposed their democratically elected government in 1953 and supported a bloody 8 year war against them with our stooge Hussein. Also look at a map: Iran is surrounded, with US troops in to the west in Iraq, east in Afghanistan, south in Qatar, etc.
War with Iran would look like one thing – a bloody *MESS*.
Going into war with Iranian will be disastrous for US. Unless the US is willing to take heavy casualty, US better not go into war with Iranians. US must be able to sustain loss of 10% of its aircrafts, 40% or more of its ground troops, long war, high oil prices, and the war could draw intervention of other superpowers like France, Russia, Turkey and China to seize the opportunity and capitalize on US weakness.
I am sure the Iranians do not under estimate the power of the only World Superpower. But what they will do is take the US down with them. This war will be disastrous to the US if they make any simple mistake.
First, mistake US is under estimating the Iranians Power and arm reach to make damage to World oil supply.
Second mistake US is not prepared to fight a dogged in enemy on its ground.
Third mistake Iran is a large country compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Fourth, US better be prepared for an all open war from Afghanistan to Egypt.
Assuming US takes care of all above and overwhelms its enemies with its firepower that will be first step toward a victory. The hard part will be next step how can the US control this vast region and stabilize it when it is not able to stabilize two small nations, Iraq and Afghanistan.
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