WAR - US vs Iran from Iraq

[nemoforone]

What about the possibility of pulling out of Iraq, letting Iran invade and lose resources fighting their own kind,
and then come in and mop up the dregs?

 

[empip]

View from a different place...

...Iraqi insurgents and Hezbollah fighters have shown that brute force is not the answer and no amount of fire-power can secure an occupied territory without the cooperation of the local population. Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq are good example of this...

2nd World War 6yrs ... Iraq 4 years and counting...

 

[tim west]

View from a different place...

...Iraqi insurgents and Hezbollah fighters have shown that brute force is not the answer and no amount of fire-power can secure an occupied territory without the cooperation of the local population. Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq are good example of this...

2nd World War 6yrs ... Iraq 4 years and counting...

And that's the crux of the matter, No one likes being invaded and bombed, especially if the invaders have their own ideas on how a country should be run.

 

[DennisLS]

Ireland is going to seem like a cakewalk compared to whats happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and how long did that last?

 

[Balenza]

View from a different place...

...Iraqi insurgents and Hezbollah fighters have shown that brute force is not the answer and no amount of fire-power can secure an occupied territory without the cooperation of the local population. Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq are good example of this...

2nd World War 6yrs ... Iraq 4 years and counting...

You cant compare the second world war with the botch up in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The truth is UK forces should never have been sent there.
Bliar and co had plenty of warnings but in true dictatorship style refused to listen.

 

[Balenza]

Ireland is going to seem like a cakewalk compared to whats happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and how long did that last?

I once sat in a little pub in Ireland where upon the locals piped up with one of their little rebel songs.

It went something like " OOOOOhhhhhhh and I would spill the blood of all Ireland just to rid our green land of those English pigs "

Dont know the rest as I did'nt hang around long enough to find out.
I can tell you it gives you a very strong sense of their conviction to the cause of a unified Ireland with no British interference.

 

[wanabechippie]

I once heard 'Occupation' being described as:

'Your house may be a **** hole, but it's your ****-hole. How would you like it if your loud-mouthed neighbours suddenly invited themselves round to stay and started telling you what you can and can't do? In your own house?! You're going to do the best you can to kick them out, that's what!'

 

[Stulz]

The situation in Afghanistan is simpler than many think, and the situation in Iraq is a lot more complicated than most accept.

The simple reality is that Afghanistan is a just conflict, it is generally supported by the Afghan population, although many have justifiable concerns that must be addressed about the Allied forces in their country and the wider picture of the governance of that nation.

Iraq is a different ball game. It was incorrect for the Allied tropps to be sent there. Other options should have been looked at, but arrogance and assumption became a dictate that clouded good sense and judgement. The rest, as they say, is history. We need to pull out, but without a credible and workable exit strategy, such a move would simply cause a collapse into true chaos.

 

[Richardp]

just watching the protesters attacking the British embassy in Tehran, a truck drives by very slowly with handy sized bricks and ruble in the back, all the protesters are smiling as they arm themselves with stones and patting the riot police, this is so obviously a rent a mob.

 

[Stulz]

just watching the protesters attacking the British embassy in Tehran, a truck drives by very slowly with handy sized bricks and ruble in the back, all the protesters are smiling as they arm themselves with stones and patting the riot police, this is so obviously a rent a mob.

That's how the Iranian's do things. Parading the captives on TV makes them feel superior and stiring up tensions on the street so it looks like our people could be in harms' way is designed to force the "weak" westerners into capitulating and admitting a wrong to free their people so that Tehran ca increase it's standing in the Arab world. It is also designed to deflect attention from the fact that iran supplies a lot of the munitions that the "insurgents" in Iraq currently use.

It's basically an episode of Eastenders on the International Stage, however the Iranians, like so many before them, have totally misjudged the British and our resolve. They may learn the hard way.

 

[Balenza]

Stulz wrote

We need to pull out, but without a credible and workable exit strategy, such a move would simply cause a collapse into true chaos.

Their is no "credible and workable exit strategy" and even if their was one , their would still be a colapse into true chaos.
How long is it going to take to realise this ??.
Another 100 lives lost or perhaps 2000.

however the Iranians, like so many before them, have totally misjudged the British and our resolve. They may learn the hard way.

Dont make me laugh. Their is no resolve to face up to Iran.

 

[wanabechippie]

Dont make me laugh. Their is no resolve to face up to Iran.

Sadly I have to agree.

There is no way our govt, the US or the UN would ever risk a shooting war with Iran. They are not Iraq or Afghanistan. They have a very capable army, Airforce and Navy. They also have pretty much every extremist nutjob behind 'our lines' at their command.

In a conventional war, we may defeat Iran (by reducing it to rubble) but I doubt we would be able to survive the sneeky-beeky attacks from Iranian sponsored terrorist guerrillas.

I think the way to go is to keep making the Iranians appear to be the bad guys on the world stage. Keep up economic pressure on their nuclear programmes. Force them to make the first move towards conflict (if that's not been done already). Hopefully they will to be isolated in their stand against us and will back down over fears of being seen as an international pariah instead of the hard-done-by Islamic state!

 

[rommy]

Bush and Blair have sure opened a hornets nest in Iraq.Blair was just after getting brownie points from Bush.The trouble is that our boys are paying for Bush and Blairs f*** ups with their lives. Bring the troops out
and let the Iraqes sort this muddle out themselves.

 

[Stulz]

Stulz wrote
Dont make me laugh. Their is no resolve to face up to Iran.

That may be true of the Politicians and a handful of kiss arse liberals, but I suspect not the real feelings of the public at large.

Regarding the idea of simply pulling out and letting the Iraqi's sort this out, Get real, it won't happen and cannot be allowed to happen. Of course I want to see former colleagues home and safe, I do not wish to see anymore funerals of those I knew, know or have worked with in the past, but we also have to be realistic here. This is one almightly foulup, Afghanistan was right, lets make that perfectly clear, unfortunately Iraq has deflected attention, and more importantly, resources, away from this theatre of operations. The military have been fighting with their hands tied behind their backs with outdated or flawed weapons and tactics from London and Washington. There was a naiave belief that once the war was won that it would be like the films, however none of the Allied commanders made such statements nor did they believe this, they all were accutely aware of the dangers of a protracted guerilla conflict and how difficult such a conflict is to win without all out war.

I have no hatred of the Afghan or Iraqi people, since this all started following 9/11, I have completed 4 tours of Afghanistan and 6 in Iraq, totally some 4.5 years in the theatre of Operations, and one thing I have learnt in that time is that the over-riding and vast majority of Iraqi and Afghan people are simply normal people caught up in a situation over which they have no control or little desire to be part of, they are hard working, proud people who simply do not understand why their world has collapsed into the chaos you lot see on your TV screens.

The majority of "Insurgents" in Iraq are not Iraqi, they are Egyptian, Sudanese, Iranian, Saudi, Jordanian, Syrian and Palestinian, there are even some Yemenese, Sommali and oddly I know of three Kuwaiti. In Afghanistan the majority are Afghans, but even here a lot of those in charge are not Afghan, but Saudi, Jordanian, Palestinian and other Arab origins.

Please do not make the mistake of thinking that the conflicts are simply mistakes made by the Allies, both are a lot more complex that you see on the News, Afghanistan is a simpler one to consider, but Iraq is simply being used as a fighting ground by the sick, depraved, the senseless, unfeeling and the downright criminal. I would doubt very few of the so called "insurgents" give a stuff about the fate of Iraq, certainly none of those I had dealings with did.

It is easy to sit by and be armchair soldiers or armchair politicians, but is is not so easy to watch people die and then develope a strategy that will allow you to bring the troops home and see the nation stabilise and not collapse into the chaos of outright civil war.

 

[tim west]

I suppose that the Americans could drop one of their awfully nice A bombs on Iran? After all they've been itching to drop another one ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki and now they have got the excuse they need to do it again for the good old U S of A!
Oh hang on a mo that would contaminate the oil they'd want to nick afterwards, oh well back to the drawing board.