Does the U.S. have the capability to invade Iran?

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Roman DISCLAIMER 3/2/2004 7:13:26 PM

I am not advocating a war with Iran - in fact I think such a war would be a bad idea to say the least. This is a hypothetical situation - were the situation suddenly changed in such a way that the U.S. would feel the need to invade.

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Roman Scenario 3/2/2004 7:25:25 PM

Consider this scenario, for example. The hardline conservatives won the election in Iran by a landslide. Confident that the tide has turned against reformers and eager to spread fundamentalist Shia Islam, Iran would in this scenario begin funnelling money to Shias in Iraq to cause trouble for the U.S. by attacking the U.S. forces, bribing Shia clerics to make them refuse to participate in the U.S. led political process, etc so as to destabilize Iraq. U.S. attempts to stop this diplomatically would be ignored. Parallel with the above desire to spread Shia Islam, Iran would also renew its support for Islamic terrorist groups, particularly those fighting Israel - especially Hizbollah, but also Hamas. At some point while tensions are rising, IAEA inspectors would find out very strong evidence that Iran is working on nuclear weapons and long range missiles to deliver them. Iran would promtly react by expelling all IAEA inspectors and withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty with the intention to pursue a 'Shia bomb'. With this in mind, the U.S. decides to invade Iran. It has to do so alone, because Western European governments refuse to participate. This applies to Britain too, where Blair is already under incredible pressure over the Iraq War. It is clear that the world opinion will be enraged and Islamic world in particular will be furious. No nearby country is willing to host the troops for the invasion and later occupation of Iran. Even Turkey refuses and the only exceptions Afghanistan and Iraq, which acqueisce to host the invasion troops only very reluctantly and only because they are so dependent on the U.S., but the popular opposition to the U.S. will rise in both as a result, especially in the Shia areas of Iraq. Still the U.S. feels it has no other choice. Take it from there.

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Final Historian RE:Scenario 3/2/2004 7:37:20 PM

There are several possible ways to deal with the Iranian problem. One way I see as most effective would be a variant of the Afghan model. Have Special Ops trools infiltrate the country and help set up a resistance movement. After several months, during major demonstrations, have resistance push for a revolution. Using Special Ops to target key troops and installations, knock out the ability of the Mullahs to defend themselves. Bomb and isolate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Bribe and/or convince the army to back way, remain neutral, or even help, it at all possible. The goal is to avoid sending large numbers of American troops, and to avoid an occupation by leaving much of the military and government in place. Only the mullahs will be subject to removal. Combine this with elections a few months later, and the country should be on the way to recovery. Of course that is the optimistic and likely naive approach. P.S. Iran's nuclear program is really only worrisome with the Mullahs in charge. Once they are removed, more responsible people will look over the program, and likely dismantle it.

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Roman RE:Scenario 3/2/2004 8:05:50 PM

Hmm, I am not sure that kind of approach would be sufficient. I do not think so, though it could perhaps be used to augument US invasion forces. BTW: Nuclear Weapons program is actually very popular in Iran, so it would continue even in the absence of the Mullahs unless the US embedded a "no nukes clause" into the Iranian constitution after the invasion, while US was still occupying the country and helping to form a new government.

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Roman Some useful info on Iran 3/2/2004 8:17:00 PM

This may be helpful information - comparisons with Iraq for added usefulness: Population: Iran - about 70 million; Iraq - about 24 million Land Area: Iran - 1.636 million square kilometers Iraq - 432 thousand square kilometers Total PPP GDP: Iran - $530 billion, Iraq - $60 billion Manpower fit for military service: Iran - 12 million; Iraq - 4 million Military budget (nominal in year 2000): Iran - $9.7 billion; Iraq - $1.3 billion The above shows that the invasion and occupation of Iran would be substantially more difficult than that of Iraq. It would also be useful to add that the terrain in Iran is more rugged and mountainous on average than in Iraq. Iran has also not been subject to the same international isolation (and hence could continue to build them up) and has not had its military forces destroyed in a previous conflict with the USA like Iraq had in 1991 nor has there been an opportunity to use no fly zones to map Iran for 10 years.

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Final Historian RE:Some useful info on Iran 3/2/2004 9:21:44 PM

Yes, but the people of Iran, or Persia, are most decidely agains their current leaders. If the US waged an intense psy ops effort to convince them that we wanted a free Iran(which we do, as it would almost certainly be pro-US, or at least friendly neutral), then there should be little outright resistance. In fact, I really think that a supported revolution could do it. But should that fail or bog down, US troops might be needed in large numbers. It would be tougher logistically than Iraq, but I do think that the sheer amount of popular support would make it easier. The important thing is to have a short lived occupation, if one at all.

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appleciderus How, when, and why? 3/2/2004 9:32:52 PM

Rather than a ?Could the US invade Iran? discussion, perhaps it would be more meaningful to debate at what point the US would determine military action against Iran was necessary. Based upon Iran?s pursuit of NBC-WMD, Iran?s fundamental islamic theocracy, and Iran?s funding, training, directing and political support of terrorist organizations, at what point does the US acknowledge the situation to be militarily critical. Will the US allow Iran to continue to support terrorists in spite of the ?War on Terror?? Will the US allow Iran to acquire nuclear technology to the point Iran is able to dictate fundamental islamic ultimatums to other islamic nations? Will the US allow Iran to use nuclear weapon capacity to disrupt world energy supplies or cost? Will the US allow Iran to threaten Israel?s existence, to the degree that Israel is obligated to take military action before the US? Would the US, believing that imminent unilateral Israeli military action would precipitate a regional or international conflict, take the same military action itself, believing the US could contain such a conflict. Will the US standby when the next generation of university students are tossed out dormitory windows? Would the US believe that a reformist Iranian government could be trusted with a nuclear program acquired by the previous islamic regime? Would a successor government be tempted to use nuclear weapon technology to its political benefit? Plotting these, and other events, on a time line, might assist a discussion on what action the US will take, when it will take action, and how it will take action. I believe that the US will be forced to take action. I believe that an invasion of Iran by the US would be militarily impossible. If I am correct, how will the US deal with these not-so-hypothetical issues?

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Roman RE:Some useful info on Iran 3/2/2004 9:47:03 PM

I still do not think that it would be possible. Remember that the Mullahs just won an election by a landslide. Sure, the election was not entirely fair and large number of reformists were disqualified, but it still does show that support for the Mullahs does exist and is significant. Also bear in mind that only a small minority of the population supported Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party in Iraq, yet an invasion was necessary to topple him. Kurds (about 20% of the population) were totally against Saddam and the Iraqi Shias certainly were not enamoured with him either. The Sunnis, most of whom supported Saddam, made up only 20% of the population. Despite this fact, as I have already mentioned, a direct invasion was needed to get rid of the dictator. In Iran, it is likely more than 20% of the population that supports the current regime - in fact it may even be a majority of the population (we won't know for certain, as we do not have access to any polls of Mullah popularity). Moreover, the situation is fundamentally different from that in Afghanistan, where there already was an experienced, battle hardened and comparatively numerous armed resistance to the Taliban in the form of the Northern Alliance, which even controlled some of Afghan territory. In such a set-up, the Special Forces and USAF assisted indigenous resistance was possible, but in Iran none of those prerequisits exist, so there would likely have to be a full scale invasion and a period of occupation (and we have not agreed yet whether US even has the capacity to do either of them on its own). (Luckily, Iran has not been anywhere as devastated as Iraq.)

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Final Historian RE:Some useful info on Iran 3/2/2004 9:54:50 PM

Roman, those elections were a joke. Hardly anyone voted, all of the candidates they wanted were off the ballot, and the votes are meaningless anyways. So don't count on that having any influence. And I have seen numbers of support for Mullahs no higher than 25%, they are a minority, and are not popular at all with the largely young population.

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Roman RE:How, when, and why? 3/2/2004 9:55:04 PM

Appleciderus - I did describe the scenario under which I think the US would judge military action essential in my "Scenario" post. Any of the possible occurances you describe could persuade the US that an invasion of Iran was necessary - especially the support for terrorists, acquiring nuclear weapons and disrupting energy supplies, the prospect of destruction of Israel and a threat of action by Israel. I am not sure that any kind of scenario where US would be forced to take military action will necessarily occur. If it does, though, I am not convinced either way whether an invasion and occupation (for perhaps a 6 months to a year - until a new government is set up) is possible or not.

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Roman RE:Some useful info on Iran 3/2/2004 9:56:38 PM

Final Historian, even if Mullahs have only 25% support - bear in mind that Saddam only had less than 20% support. He still could not be toppled without an invasion.

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appleciderus Why? 3/2/2004 10:13:26 PM

I may have expressed myself inadequately. I understood your scenario as presented, but thought that each of the circumstances I presented might initiate a response other than invasion from the US. Indeed, in my mind, each circumstance would result in a different reaction from the US. For instance: should the US ?react?, or ?pre-empt?? IMO, invasion of Iran would be the last resort. If I?m correct, what are the alternatives?

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Roman RE:Why? 3/2/2004 10:33:16 PM

The alternatives are other forms of pressure - economic and diplomatic. Economic pressure directly from the US will not work against Iran, because Iran is already under U.S. sanctions. The U.S. might attempt to persuade other countries to follow suit and impose sanctions, but the success of that undertaking is likely to be limited at best - just look at how many countries responded even to UN sponsored sanctions on Iraq... Diplomatic pressure coupled with threats of military action and carrots (perhaps the lifting of US sanctions, etc) might work, but I would be sceptical - Iran knows a U.S. invasion is highly unlikely especially after the Iraq War which damaged U.S. credibility with respect to WMD and seems to be determined to pursue nuclear weapons to achieve long-term security (and perhaps for other reasons too). The third option would be to simply ignore what Iran is doing. Make some noise about it, but not really take any strong action to persuade or force Iran to cease with the offending policy (likely to be the acquisition of nuclear weapons). The fourth option is some type of covert operation, such as killing the Mullahs, or inciting an uprising/revolution or a coup. This already borders on a military type of action. The fourth is, of course, military action, which can take three basic forms: 1) Try to arm indigenous resistance groups to fight the Iranian armed forces and support them with Special Operations forces and the Airforce. I described in one of my previous posts why this is very unlikely to work. 2) Initiate a strategic bombing campaign. This would be similar to the bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999 and 2000, but would also target nuclear facilities. After Iran is bombed back into the stone age, it would no longer in theory have the capability to carry out any of the negative policies you described. Iran has some modern air defences (including the russian S-300), so such a campaign would be much more difficult than in Serbia or Iraq. Another problem is that you might not know where all the facilities are (and they may be underground), so you have no guarantee of success unless you get on the ground. 3) Invasion followed by occupation... and we do not know whether the U.S. has the capability to do this. Does it? If so, how and what forces would it need?

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displacedjim RE:Why? 3/3/2004 3:58:03 PM

Roman, one correction and my opinion regarding Iranian air defenses. Iran does not have any S-300s. Also, Iran's air defenses are significantly weaker than Iraq's were in 1991. They have about the same size air force, but fewer SAMs and early warning radars. We could easily gain instant air superiority over any desired section of Iran, and air supremacy over the country within a few days in a concerted air campaign. I agree with Final Historian (and others), the best approach will be a long Information Warfare campaign to create/support/follow-up an indiginous pro-"democracy" movement, first with special operations forces, then finally after many months resort to a conventional force air campaign/invasion as necessary. To just blunder in there next week, even if we could move our entire military into iran and support it there, would undoubtedly lead to a costly occupation that would just be politically untenable. Displacedjim

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appleciderus RE:Does the U.S. have the capability to invade Iran? 3/3/2004 8:53:37 PM

An invasion of Iran is an almost certainty, in my opinion. Whoa! Did I say that? Yes I did, and this is why I say it. The Iranian theocracy is committed to acquiring nuclear technology. They are succeeding. Based on the surprisingly advanced state of Libyan capability uncovered recently, it is not unrealistic to assume that Iran is even further along the ?yellow brick road? than Libya. How close is Iran to offensive nuclear capability? Closer than any of us realize. IMO, the US is diametrically opposed to Iranian nuclear capability, and will do whatever is necessary to prevent it, or destroy it. If contemporary US policy fails in preventing Iran acquiring this technology, then US policy will change. How will the US prevent or destroy Iranian nuclear capability? Military action to prevent Iranian acquisition of nuclear capability would require air supremacy, which is achievable. A naval blockade of oil exports would diminish Iranian revenue, and is also achievable. Diplomatic pressure on nations sympathetic (for whatever reason) to Iran to restrict or refrain from aiding Iran is achievable. The reasons, IMO, to invade Iran would be: 1) To be absolutely sure that all facilities contributing to nuclear capability were destroyed beyond repair, achievable by a combined force military operation only the US is capable of. This would emasculate Iran?s ability to ?project power?. 2) To seize and/or destroy the major Iranian oil shipping ports, thus disrupting and/or eliminating a major source of Iranian revenue. The loss of oil revenue would diminish Iran?s funding of terrorists, unless Iran was willing to do to its people what Saddam did to his people. So, yes, I believe the US will invade Iran: a quick ?In & Out? to destroy nuclear capability facilities, and a prolonged presence in revenue producing ports. The Iranian theocracy has suppressed (murdered) effective political opposition for another generation. Change will not come from within. Nuclear capability would make Iran the most dangerous nation on earth, and IMO, no US Administration will let that happen. However, a major military attack and occupation of Iran is unnecessary. US objectives can be achieved without it.

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