Oil will skyrocket anyway and just like during the "tanker wars" of the 80's, America's ability to defend against ASM attack FAR outweighs Iran's ability to launch said attacks. In addition to which the US's ability to target such assets obviously exceeds Iran's ability to defend itself...
I agree US has formidable ASM defences but do you think US would enter persian gulf with its ships and tried to secure oil shipin .... less likely .. no matter the skillfull defences sea mines and mobile ASM lounchers poses great threat. And to even close Hormuz straight for a month would be Iran success because of skyrocketing oil price that would make cost of the war hudge.
think you'll find the American's ARE facing such threats already, but certainly MUCH tighter border security would have to be a factor in this war...
I think you can find all sorts of Iranian made weapons in Iraq today so little or none has being done to secure the border. Iran has hudge border with Iraq and thats something you can not control so easily .. and best evidence of that is Iranian weapons killing US troops in Iraq. Because of that I have no reason to belive US would in event of war menaged somehow to close boreder for good. Metis-E/Kornet/igla-S would at least find itself path to Iraq in great numbers ... and that would mean massacre.
I don't think anyone is contemplating such an operation, however what precisely makes you think the Iranian's would last any longer than the Iraqi Army? Fact is America couldn't find ENOUGH targets during GW2 to actually strike...
I did not say Iranian army would last long. of course it wouldnt. But Iranians are not preparing itself for conventional but asymetric warfare. Witch means ne methods of dealing with threats should be implemented as destroying conventional forces just wont do. And how can you prepare for something you dont know what you are up to? Thats why I think posible war (althrow I dont belive it will heppen) can have its ups and downs and last longer than most people expect.Either way I think we can agree that land operations are out of the question witch was my point.
Indigenous missile systems in the Middle East don't have a particularly great record from what I've seen. They generally prove to be weapons of terror, rather than usable tactical systems.
Who exactly they are going to fire at I find interesting though. Do you think US troops and major installations in Iraq wouldn't be protected? Israel perhaps? Possibly, but you can be assured that Iran's offensive missile capabilities will be a prime target for the US attack. Personally I think the Iranians would be too busy trying to hide them, to fire too many.
As with Iraq's SCUDS, these missiles require TEL's to fire from and such are easily detected prior to launch. These missiles are also liquid fuelled, which has to be done on the TEL as I understand such things and again this takes time and is rather obvious to those who look for such things (ie: J-STARS etc).
Like Iraq, it will be a matter of how many missiles Iran can fire, before said are destroyed by American air power undertaking time sensitive targetting missions above them...
I agree with you up to a certain point, but you aree missing one point here. Irans missiles are (at least from what I have read) old Iraq SCUDs. Iran has being extensevly coorperating with N.Korea on BM programs and they have more updated missiles with mutch improved CEP (200m CEP) according to western sources based on last meassurment from last Iraq rocket excercises witch means they can strike their targets more accurately and besides they have mutch mutch more of them than Iraq.
For the search part half of US airforce and special forces did no menaged to find mobile SCUD lounchers in desert, tell me what are their chances in rouged terrain of Iran? And if they can not find it what does it matter that refuling the rocket last 1 hour?
Besided Iran has thousend of missiles (some of witch are solid fuled - later Sahab-3 and some others) and no Patriots stand chance against it. So with thousends of missiles with enought accuracy what chanches do US solders have in Iraq or Afganistan?
And what protection else that patriot US posseses that can protect US bases in Iraq you are talking about?
Again, US anti-missile capability isn't just PAC-3 Patriot and AEGIS class cruisers. It'll destroy far more missiles on the ground than will ever launch in my opinion. Hitting an oil refinery with a ballistic missile for Iran seems a bit ambitious to me. Certainly hitting many of them...
Again with iniabillity to destroy those missiles and enought accuracy (SCUD-D according to western officials have 50m CEP) Iran has means to destroy oil facilities if choses to.
Just like they rose up against the West when America attacked Iraq?
Perhaps but in either cases it is something you can not underestimate.
Al Qaeda is nothing more than a terrorist organisation. They have to conduct assymetric attacks because they cannot stand up to a conventional military force. They have to run and hide when faced with modern warfare capabilities. Thinking they'll be anything else, is a bit much for me...
And jet asymetric warfare is the basis of Iran defences and has coused in Iraq death of nearly 4000 US troops and 30 000 wounded. I think you are under-estimating situation.. like its all black and white.
As opposed to the "Paradise" it is now? You've got 165,000 US ground forces in Iraq. I think they'd love a conventional fight right about now actually...
And would they love conventional fight with revoulutionary guards after massive balistic missile bombardment on every one of US bases in Iraq?
-> I want to explain myself on the 6 point I made since I noticed many people understend wrongly what I meant to say. I did not mean to say Iran will atack Pakistan in order to destabilisate it as it is futile and counterproductive but mearly to further radicalise situation and create critical masses of Iran suporters in the event of war mearly to avert US attention to another serious problem ... what would happen if radical muslim take over Pakistan. Thats serious issue and in event of war would further complicate situation as it is not to rosy right now either ... **** solders being found dead/kidnapped/throats cut etc etc
