Its not just bombing Irans nuke facilities its the problem that after all that is said and done with there is always other countries willing to sell arms, Russia is in a real fit nowadays, Iraq was a major arms buyer of T72s, AK47s and such, not anymore and so they are hurting to find a country wanting their weapons. Bombing Iran IMHO is a bad idea.
I’d rather take out Mecca or any other Islamic holy sight, don’t kill the man, kill his belief to make war and Islams belief is war so its a waste of time killing millions when instead we need to attack Islam globally.
I think people really need to look hard at the consequences of attacking Iran. First is oil, we don’t get any from Iran but other countries do and they’ll be forced to buy from the same sources we do. We’ll be lucky if oil doesn’t go much over $5.00 a gallon. Second involves the Strait of Hormez (the entrance to the Persian Gulf). Iran WILL be able to cut it off, probably for several weeks. They have sophisticated mines and they can attack the Strait from land. Oil from Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, the EAE and most of Saudi Arabia will be cut off. Another problem is Syria, we all know they’re itching to attack Israel again but if we’re involved in Iran our ability to assist will be limited. True we have bases in Iraq a hop, skip, and a jump away but if we attack Syria while they are attacking Israel, we will lose the support of the Gulf nations, many of whom I believe would assist us in attacking Iran.
So what should we do? Despite all the problems I believe we have no choice but to eventually attack Iran. The alternative is an Iran with nukes and that is simply intolerable. In the meantime however we need to, as one author put it, “let futility run it’s course.” The Europeans are already beginning to see the impossibility of negotiating with Iran and so is Russia. Sanctions will probably follow this summer or fall but of course that will accomplish little. To determine our course of action we need to look at our goal: to prevent Iran from aquiring nuclear weapons. It isn’t regime change and it doesn’t involve changing any hearts and minds. Although we have a good deal of our military force basically surrounding Iran, they’re kind of busy and I believe an infantry push would not be as effective as what we could do.
This is how I believe an attack should be played out. We need to form defensive lines in Western Afghanistan and Eastern Iraq. From bases there and our carrier assets in the Gulf, we first decimate Iran’s air defenses. We keep on the look out for any signs that they’re moving nuclear material and take it out in transit. After we won the air we bring in the B-52’s and carpet bomb targets near major cities. It doesn’t really matter if we’re hitting dirt or not, we need to defeat the people of Iran and going through an Arclight type strike and KNOWING your government can’t do a damn thing to stop it is an effective way to do that. If Iran fails to back down after that, I suggest we nuke suspected nuclear development sites. Yes this is a drastic measure and the world will probably hate us for it but the risks are too great otherwise. I don’t won’t any of our soldiers in Iran but the fact is there has only been one time in history that a nation has surrendered from air attacks on its own soil. Lets just hope Iran leans from it the way Japan did.