Petraeus says strike on Iran could spark nationalism

reutuers ^ | 2/2/10 | reuteur

[crusadersoldier]

Lee Harvey, you are a madman. When you stole that cow, and your friend tried to make it with the cow. I want to party with you, cowboy. If the two of us together, forget it.

[JHBowden]

Petraeus is correct — increased Iranian nationalism is a reason not to attack Iran. Plus it will make a mess of our gains in Iraq. These are real, legitimate costs. Nothing in life is free— everything has pros and cons.

However, we cannot forget the reasons to attack Iran. They are led by suicidal religious nutcases who may use nukes once they get them, or hand them off to third parties like the Party of God (the Hezb’Allah) would definitely like to use them.

If we do attack Iran, we need to make sure we eradicate their capacity to develop nukes. That’s the main worry. If we’re just doing airstrikes, this will entail a lot of ugly but necessary follow through over the next decade.

[blues_guitarist]

"You want to go fight Israel’s war? You want your kids to die there? Why don’t you visualize your little 18 year old daughter with a bullet in her brain and then write me back and tell me Israel would be worth it. What a joke."

GO HOME TROLL!!!!

[BlueDragon]

Who said anything about limited?

Petreaus was addressing what has been discussed as "limited" strikes. That is part of the wider conversation. You said;

Give warning and then blow the crap out of the IRNA and IRIB...See how well they can keep the Iranian people under their boot *then*.

Pure fantasy.
Without going in, on the ground, in a very big way, limited actions (such as you propose is limited!) are doomed to not only failure, but would make more trouble for us in the long run.

Which leads us to what the on-going stress really is.
Israel is facing a serious threat. We are facing an even more severe threat...in that the forces that wish to destroy the Jews, need to get us out of the way first...and these same forces would like nothing more than to punish the U.S., and would think it would be doing god himself a favor if they were to smuggle in multiple nukes and detonate them in the U.S.

ICBM's, and even shorter range missiles come with a return address. If "they" were to launch against Israel, whoever it was, they would face serious retaliation from the U.S., so "they" won't do that...they'll attempt to move against the U.S., first.

Limited strikes against Iranian assets will only guarantee the worst will come. It will galvanize them. Nationalist fervor, which the Iranian Mullahs have ALREADY successfully, firmly instilled in approx. 1/3 of the population, would broaden & deepen.

You could bet your sweet bippy on that. Don't bet mine.

If we're going to talk military "fantasy";
Give me fifty, full (old-style count) divisions, and the full commitment of Navy & Air Force, and I could beat them into submission. But it wouldn't be pretty...