Trump reportedly tells Pompeo that he can do anything he wants in Iran bar ‘World War III’

[aryobarzan]

-RQ-170 was in Iranian territory

-Global Hawk again was in Iranian territory and refused calls to move away

-Al-Assad attack happened after the most important general in Iranian history was assassinated. If US had done that to China or Russia it would be war or at the minimum a dead US general

-The sailor capture was done under a US Democrat president. Iran has a habit of ratcheting tensions against democrats whom they don’t respect (like Rouhani) because they know Democrats fear conflict.

Also once again the sailors were in Iranian territory.


So let’s review: 3 cases of violation of territory and 1 case of assassination of a government figure

So in fact everything Iran did was the BARE MINIMUM in all cases. Not something to be congratulated for. Unless Iran doesn’t want to defend its territory.

The point was that Iran is not afraid to retaliate even when the enemy has the world's largest military in human history.

 

[TheImmortal]

The point was that Iran is not afraid to retaliate even when the enemy has the world's largest military in human history.

Yeah and Turkey shot down and killed a Russian fighter jet that breached its territory. So what’s your point? That iran doesn’t just roll over?

I would expect any self respecting country to do something in the cases you provided.

But let’s not act like Iran is doing above and beyond what other major military country’s would do.

For every 10 attacks on Iran, they might respond to 2 or 3.

There are many documented cases where Iran has yet to respond (nuclear scientist assassination, STUXNET, Natanaz, mysterious deaths of officials inside and outside Iran, attacks on bases and convoys).

 

[Dariush the Great]

For every 10 attacks on Iran, they might respond to 2 or 3.

For every 10 attacks there will be 1 retaliation... if we are lucky.

 

[Dariush the Great]

The notion that the Trump regime could launch an overt attack on Iran's nuclear facilities without provoking a severe military response is grossly far-fetched.

If Iran's deterrence was lost then no, the US would not sit idle but would in effect resort to conducting direct raids on Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure. The fact that it doesn't, implies precisely that Washington is being deterred from taking such steps due to Iran's defense architecture, consisting foremost of its massive, highly survivable and largely precision-guided missile arsenal, its vast network of allied, ideologically committed armed formations spread all over the region, as well as its ability to interdict global energy supplies to a significant extent.

It is precisely these Iranian capabilities that the US and its European vassals are desperate to neutralize through negotiations, something they have miserably failed to achieve despite Trump's pressure campaign, which targets not only Iranian state institutions but also ordinary Iranian civilians on a massive scale. Trump could be in charge for another 40 years, he would fail just as pitifully. How utterly humiliating it is for the global superpower with its virtually infinite resources not to be able to bring to its knees a medium power such as Iran in over 40 years of all out confrontation.

The amount of biased extrapolations from the assassination of a retired scientist and other such peripheral operations, all of which are deprived of a significant geostrategic impact is staggering. These acts of terror offer no proof whatsover that Iran's deterrence against overt military aggression is compromised. On the contrary, it is precisely because the enemy lacks a viable and affordable military option that it has to fall back on such desperate measures.

These provocations are done in large part to support the enemy's psy-ops campaign against Iran and Iranians. And some here will join the propagandistic chorus by rehashing typical flawed talking points aimed at suggesting that Iran has been defeated, stands no chance, is going to be attacked soon etc.

I wonder if those who strike this tone would have made use of similar language to describe the US regime when the latter failed to retaliate in kind to the bombing by pro-Iranian forces of the Marines barracks in Beirut in the 1980's, or when Iran assisted Iraqi resistance groups to eliminate 600+ US occupation troops in the 2000's...

The zionist regime for its part, cannot even eradicate relatively small resistance groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad right next door in Gaza. Its "kicks and punches" are akin to those of a hysterical, fragile female gesticulating erratically out of frustration while the real man in the room, Iran, is patiently taking these feeble little outburst with a big confident smile, knowing that beneath the hazy fog of propaganda and outward appearance, it will keep making the strategically sound moves and advancing unshakably on its principled path of anti-imperial Resistance.

Salar jan, the reason the USA has not launched a military attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure is because it simply has no public support. Even among the warmongers in the congress it does not have the support especially after 2 exhausting wars that was waged in the name of American democracy. So it has nothing to do with the fierce ''Iranian retaliation'' that will follow (which will be contained by the Americans any way) but because of internal politics in the USA. They have the strongest military force in the world and when they launch an attack, Iranian infrastructure, result of hundreds of years of hard labour by Iranians, will be lost in just 48-72 hours (incase of a massive brutal shock and awe campaign). Sure, Iran will lay waste to some American bases in Iraq,Afghanistan etc but that is far, far from delivering a fatal blow to uncle Sam. The bottom line is... USA can badly damage Iran in Iran... Iran never can reach mainland USA. That is why people are yelling for Iran to get nukes + ICBM.

 

[WudangMaster]

For every 10 attacks there will be 1 retaliation... if we are lucky.

Be optimistic folks. In the early days of the Safavids, there were colossal defeats like Chaldiran then things were completely different by the time of Tahmasp/Abbas. Even with the brief fall at the end of the Safavids, there was a quick bounce back with Afshars and Karim Khan Zand. Point being that Iran is doing what it can and as time progresses, so to will its abilities increase. It's been hundreds of years that the country has been sleeping in ashes and the phoenix slowly rises again. There will be setbacks along the way, as they were in the past.
Adding a further note, the navy was barely a coastal force at best during the Safavid/Afshar/Zand and it dissolved afterwards plus the regional influences (Iraq,Syria,Lebanon, Yemen, etc) the country has today did not exist when that area was part of the larger and more dangerous Ottomans.

That is why people are yelling for Iran to get nukes + ICBM

So long as it has the ability to lay waste to the owner of the goyim is in place, the goyim is under some restraint and control. Ultimately, every weapon and capability is the right of Iran to possess and I too hope it acquires all of them.

 

[Titanium100]

@925boy
Replying to your post before it got locked..

It is free to day-dream.. Iran's entire collapse is away from a miscalculation in the gulf. If you really think you can some how run thru a Saudi led coalition made off 9 countries better equipped and armed and numbering around 500-million strong. You are fuking day-dreaming. But yet again you are prone to that and everything you were saying turned out to be otherwise. Saying Armenia stood a chance, Turkey will not invade Syria, Turkey will not invade Libya. Watch this one! Everyone is apparently tough until first bullet goes off for real and when there is no point of return thats when everyone realizes holy-shit I was mistaken

 

[Dariush the Great]

@925boy
Replying to your post before it got locked..

It is free to day-dream.. Iran's entire collapse is away from a miscalculation in the gulf. If you really think you can some how run thru a Saudi led coalition made off 9 countries better equipped and armed and numbering around 500-million strong. You are fuking day-dreaming

We all saw what happened to granddaddy of all Arabs aka the Saudis when their oil facilities got attacked by Iran. Iran vs USA you might have a point but Iran vs useless Sheikh arabs is a joke. Just one missile needs to crash in the mall of Dubai and whole economy of UAE will collapse. What a joke.

 

[TheImmortal]

@925boy
Replying to your post before it got locked..

It is free to day-dream.. Iran's entire collapse is away from a miscalculation in the gulf. If you really think you can some how run thru a Saudi led coalition made off 9 countries better equipped and armed and numbering around 500-million strong. You are fuking day-dreaming

Lol no coalition in the world has 500M soldiers. AnArab countries historically cannot fight see Israel a country the size of a tiny island that defeated all the Arabs attacking it.

But somehow in 2020 things would be different? Arabs are weak and sold their security to US. Egypt relies on aid from Saudi Arabia and US to stay afloat, hardly a dominant power.

 

[Titanium100]

We all saw what happened to granddaddy of all Arabs aka the Saudis when their oil facilities got attacked by Iran. Iran vs USA you might have a point but Iran vs useless Sheikh arabs is a joke. Just one missile needs to crash in the mall of Dubai and whole economy of UAE will collapse. What a joke.

Your welcome to doing that. With open arms I welcome it and I actully support it. You have my blessing in carrying it out

 

[Dariush the Great]

Your welcome to doing that. With open arms I welcome it and I actully support it. You have my blessing in carrying it out

There is no direct agression from UAE against Iranian mainland so Iran does not need to do that. You go fight your wars with Turkey

 

[Titanium100]

Lol no coalition in the world has 500M soldiers. AnArab countries historically cannot fight see Israel a country the size of a tiny island that defeated all the Arabs attacking it.

But somehow in 2020 things would be different? Arabs are weak and sold their security to US. Egypt relies on aid from Saudi Arabia and US to stay afloat, hardly a dominant power.

I never said 500-million soldiers but population. The coalition is 500-million strong heavily equipped, strong economy and easy accessble to recruit surplas if necessary.

 

[SalarHaqq]

Salar jan, the reason the USA has not launched a military attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure is because it simply has no public support. Even among the warmongers in the congress it does not have the support especially after 2 exhausting wars that was waged in the name of American democracy. So it has nothing to do with the fierce ''Iranian retaliation'' that will follow (which will be contained by the Americans any way) but because of internal politics in the USA. They have the strongest military force in the world and when they launch an attack, Iranian infrastructure, result of hundreds of years of hard labour by Iranians, will be lost in just 48-72 hours (incase of a massive brutal shock and awe campaign). Sure, Iran will lay waste to some American bases in Iraq,Afghanistan etc but that is far, far from delivering a fatal blow to uncle Sam. The bottom line is... USA can badly damage Iran in Iran... Iran never can reach mainland USA. That is why people are yelling for Iran to get nukes + ICBM.

My friend, please let me explain why in my view this largely amounts to a semantic misconception.

Indeed, the purely military dimension of a conflict never exists in a vacuum and can never be appreciated in such an isolated manner. The military reality of war is always inextricably and inherently linked with its political-social dimension.

These two dimensions, in the real world, are totally inseparable from one another. Any analysis contemplating war from the sole technical-military prism and discussing potential scenarios from that exclusive perspective, is flawed because it is disconnected from the actual reality of human interactions.

In other words, the US "can" destroy Iran using its military power, yes. In such a fictitious, seemingly theoretical but actually erroneous understanding of things, the US "can" in fact succesfully wage war on all non-nuclear powers of the world and subjugate and annex them, merely because its on-paper military might is superior to those other countries by a considerable margin. Except that reality this is simply not how things work, and in fact never did.

The potential outcome of wars can never be correctly apprehended on the mere basis of technical side-by-side comparisons of the respective belligerents' military equipments. Even taking into account human warfighting criteria - troop training, tactics, morale etc, in other words how well a military can use the technologies at its disposal, will not be enough.

Because for any sort of simulation to make sense, one must always take into account the political dimension of war, as well as the way in which it interacts with military-technical parameters.

But there's more: the fact of the matter is that political realities trump military ones. It is in the nature of things that the political framework will supplant and overdetermine the sheer destructive power of weapons technologies as much as the prowess of their employment. In other terms, military affairs ensue from politics - not the other way around.

If you are interested in the subject and in case you haven't done so already, I would strongly recommend reading the seminal classic On War, authored by early 19th century military theorist and high-ranking Prussian officer Carl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz sets out to highlight the aforementioned aspects, and does so in contrast to earlier publications from authors such as Antoine-Henri Jomini, whose way of looking at war was still too restrictedly technical, material and detached from the academic discipline of humanities.

In his book, Clausewitz offers a dialectical definition of war around two propositions that have become canonical:

1) "War is ... an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."

It can be noted that this is almost identical to the widespread generic definition of the concept of power in political studies, except that the exercice of power will not restrict itself to acts of force but will include other means (such as persuasion, transaction and so on).

2) "War is merely the continuation of politics with other means."

This is truly critical to understand.

Applied to our present topic of discussion, it means that a theoretical aggression launched by the US regime against Iran, like any other war effort, will inevitably:

* Aim to satisfy a predetermined set of defined political objectives.

* Keep being subjected at all times to factors stemming from the domestic and international political contexts in which such a military aggression would play out. Including the political cost / benefit analysis. Because by definition, it is politics that determines whether or not and in which way to wage war.

Which is to say that the political, financial and human-psychological cost Iranian retaliation is expected to impose on the aggressor, constitutes deterrence in and by itself, because said aggressor's military calculations are completely inseparable from its political calculations. Indeed, that is what war is all about, as demonstrated by von Clausewitz.

So yes, the fact that the US regime is being deterred from striking Iran, is a direct consequence of the Iranian retaliation which would follow, because it is precisely this Iranian retaliation that is going to generate the sort of political (and economical) cost that Washington deems unbearable.

Neither Saddam's Iraq, nor Gaddafi's Libya, nor president Assad's Syria were capable of making aggression as costly for the west, because their military doctrine, as well as the type and amount of weaponry they developed or equipped themselves with, were simply either insufficient or inadequate to cause as much damage on the aggressor and to compromise its military operations to the same extent. Praise must go not to luck, but to correct planning by Iranian authorities, whose asymmetric doctrine is best suited to inflict the greatest possible political cost on attacking US forces using the comparatively limited resources at Iran's disposal.

And since the goal pursued by the initiator of conflict is always ultimately a political one, if the political cost associated with such a military operation becomes prohibitive due to the ability of the targeted nation to defend itself, the the potential aggressor will forego any such assault, since at the end of the day, the side that starts a conflict, in order to go ahead must always consider the political cost / benefit analysis of such an undertaking as favorable. If it doesn't, then no aggression will be launched.

Now America's current threshold for political, economic and human costs deriving from very large scale overseas military operations is not simply circumstantial nor does it result solely from fatigue consecutive to other such conflicts started recently (in fact, most of the newer ones, launched in the past decade, have not necessitated massive amounts of boots on the ground - any war on Iran however would, since Iran can escalate in such a manner as to force them to either give up, or be coerced into dispatching important numbers of ground troops). Much rather, this relatively low tolerance for casualties and costs in the wet has far deeper social-cultural roots, and is not going to be reversed anytime soon - not in two years, not in ten years, and probably not in the next fifty years either. So from that point of view as well, Iran is safe.

That said, on the purely technical-military level, I would tend to take issue with certain particular points mentioned in the above quote. For example, I do not believe in the ability of the US to contain massive Iranian counter-strikes using ballistic and cruise missiles. Their missile defences and preemptive strike capabilities simply do not suffice to overwhelm Iran's huge and super-survivable arsenal. I also don't believe the US will have the means to destroy Iran's incredibly vast infrasructure in a matter of 48-72 hours, given that Iran is going to deny them the use of close-by air bases and of the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman, forcing them to base their aircraft further away, which in turn will decrease their payloads, their useful range for operations over Iran etc.

You speak of delivering a fatal blow to the US... however, in order to deter the US from engaging in a military aggression against Iran, Iran does not need to be able to deliver a fatal blow to the regime in Washington. While this would constitute an added ability and give Iran other options, it is not an absolute necessity if the objective is to avert military aggression by the US. The mere capability to impose a high enough political cost on the aggressor, is enough to deter the latter from launching overt strikes on Iran.

As for Iran not being able to reach American mainland: not only does the IR have the know how to manufacture ICBM's, but the fact that the zionist regime is fully within reach of Iranian and regionwide allied missile forces, coupled with the systemic and deep subservience of the US regime to Tel Aviv, this is practically as good as being able to deliver massive hits to US territory proper.

Let's not forget that successive US administrations on both sides of the political divide have systematically consisted of Isra"el"-firsters. Here are some statements made by Biden in relevant contexts:

"The truth is that Jewish heritage, Jewish culture, Jewish values are such an essential part of who we are that it’s fair to say that Jewish heritage is American heritage."

Biden: ‘Jewish heritage is American heritage’

Vice President Joe Biden said at a Jewish American Heritage Month reception that American and Jewish cultures are intertwined.

jewishjournal.com

"If there were not an Israel, we would have to invent one to make sure our interests were preserved ... America’s support for Israel’s security is unshakable, period."

The US would thus never put the security and viability of the zionist project at risk. Project that is inherently fragile, given its extremely reduced geographical dimensions, that make it so much easier for Iran to strike at directly.

 

[SalarHaqq]

The point was that Iran is not afraid to retaliate even when the enemy has the world's largest military in human history.

Not to mention that evaluating the arm wrestling match between Iran and the US only by examinig whether or not each and every action by either side was responded to in a tit-for-manner, would confine to a simplistic (not to say juvenile) and out-of-touch approach to geostrategic reality, seeing how it would make one lose sight of the big picture and of what actually matters at the end of the day, i.e. the overall configuration of parameters and factors at stake.

Also, even by that simplistic logic, America's record would have to be considered as extraordinarily unimpressive. For every hundred attacks on US occupation troops by Iranian allies in Iraq during the 2000's, Washington did not even retaliate to one, nevermind in a proportional manner, against Iran directly.

Truth is that the US cannot do a damn thing against a determined, principled adversary with ideological and/or religious beliefs dedicating itself fully to Resistance, as Imam Khomeini rightly declared in the 1980's.

 

[Cherub786]

Ironically, war is the only option to bring Iran under control. Regime change is necessary. Taking out the terrorist Solemani and the mad scientist Fakhrizadeh (what a stupid name) may have put badly needed water on the fire, but in the long run it isn't sufficient. Something drastic has to be done, and other than war I can't think of any other idea

 

[WudangMaster]

It's remarkable how these threads tend bring the hideous trolls out from their trash heaps...